SOFT TARGET III Jerusalem (SOFT TARGET SERIES)

by Conrad Jones

  “Bullshit, if you think I’m swallowing that then I’m afraid you don’t know me very well Agent Japey. Now you have five seconds to explain this fucked up situation before I fire your ass,” assertive became aggressive.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “You’d better, I’m waiting.”

  Ahmed was held for interrogation in Chechnya for a couple of months. At first, we were getting some good information from him, but it soon became evident that he was feeding us with the names and locations of his rival militias. “We were doing his dirty work for him,” Japey opened up, realising that Director Jones was not a woman to mess about with.

  “What do you mean, doing his dirty work for him?”

  “We sent special operations to a number of target addresses given to us by Yasser Ahmed.”

  “And what?”

  “Well, we neutralised the insurgents at those sites,” the agent was losing his grip. Lying was second nature to him, but telling the cold hard truth stuck in his throat.

  “How many?” the director asked.

  “How many what?”

  “How many insurgents did you neutralise, on behalf of Yasser Ahmed?” she had him on the ropes now.

  “Err; I don’t have the details in front of me.”

  “Bullshit, how many.”

  “Sixty five, I think,” he didn’t sound convincing.

  “Thank you. At last, we have a smidgen of truth Agent Japey. What happened?” she pushed further.

  “The information was becoming increasingly more untrustworthy, and he was in a weakened state, so we felt that another approach was useless. We were about to hand him over to the British,” he explained sheepishly.

  “Do they know that he is missing?” she asked.

  “We aren’t really sure that he is missing ourselves director. All we know is that the helicopter didn’t leave on schedule, and that communications are down,” he tried to recover a modicum of control.

  “Have you looked at the airfield on satellite pictures?” the director knew that all avenues would already have been explored before the news reached her level. He was stalling.

  “Yes they are inconclusive.”

  “Bullshit, you’re suspended with immediate effect, bring your gun and your badge into my office on your way out,” Ruth Jones hung up, sat back and watched the telephone. It rang almost immediately.

  Apologies director, but this is difficult. The satellites show the helicopter has been torched, along with some light aircraft and a hangar. The airfield appears to be deserted, we’ve lost him,” the agent sighed, almost relieved that the truth was out.

  “What have you done about it?” Ruth Jones needed a solid response to this situation.

  “We are preparing a Delta Force unit to attend the airbase on a recon mission to find out what happened.”

  “I don’t want American troops setting a foot anywhere in the Middle East, especially on a wild goose chase. He’s gone and we can be sure of that. Where’s our nearest carrier?” the director had to clean up the mess before it became public knowledge that the most wanted terrorist on the planet had escaped from the clutches of the American forces.

  “There’s a fleet in the gulf.”

  “Wait until nightfall and destroy that airfield, make sure there isn’t a single brick left standing. I’ll prepare a press release explaining that we have discovered a terror training camp, and have taken the relevant action to destroy it,” as Ruth Jones put the phone down her secretary handed her a fax from civilian air traffic control. It appeared that there was an unauthorised aircraft heading toward American airspace from the African continent. It was going to be one of those days.

  Chapter Fifty

  The Task Force/ Holyhead

  Ryan Griffin and his unit of Task Force men were positioned on a stake out. Information received from one of the Palestinians, who was still in hospital suffering from burns, had led them to their preordained rendezvous point. The Palestinian terrorists had agreed to meet up when their individual missions were completed. The agreed rendezvous was the rear car park of a bar called the Bay Leaf, in Treaddur Bay. The Task Force had coerced their doctors to withhold pain relief from the terrorist, until he surrendered information about his associates. Bearing in mind that he had fifty percent burns on his body, he soon starting talking.

  They were sure that two insurgents hadn’t been accounted for, and they were sure from the way events had panned out that they would be heading for the hills anytime now. The attacks on Britain’s security chiefs had been swift and brutal, but the wave seemed to have subsided, which indicated that the terrorists were about to leave. If the Syrian vessel hadn’t been impounded then it would be due to leave port, and it made sense that the Palestinians planned to leave the same way that they had arrived.

  Ryan Griffin was sitting at a table, at the rear of the white building. The Bay Leaf was a tall rectangular building, painted brilliant white and topped by a black slate tiled roof. The windows were square frames, dissected into smaller symmetrical squares. Every third small square was fitted with a thick bubbled glass pain, giving the bar an ancient maritime look. At the rear of the pub was a raised wooden deck. Long wooden tables were laid out, with brightly coloured parasols drilled through the centres of them.

  Ryan was sitting at one of the tables in a sleeveless tee shirt, which showed off his well-toned arms. He was blond and had chiselled features. He could pass as a beach bum, which made him blend into the surfing crowd that filled up the tables around him easily. He was drinking a bottle of cider, which had turned warm hours ago, studying every vehicle, which entered the car park. Four of his men were in similar positions in the beer garden, and two more were sitting in their car pretending to read a map. The Bay Leaf was so close to the shore that they could hear the waves breaking over the chattering and laughter of the tourists.

  A Honda Blackbird turned off the main Treaddur Bay road into the lane, which led to the car park behind the pub. There were two men on board, one dressed in motorbike leathers, and the other in jeans and a waterproof jacket. The motorbike engine purred as the driver steered it toward the back of the lot. Both men were looking around the parked vehicles as they past them. Ryan couldn’t be sure if they were the terrorists, helmets and gloves covered their skin, making it difficult to identify them. The bike weaved through parked cars and then pulled up to a stop right next to Ryan’s men in their car.

  The pillion rider climbed off the motorbike and removed the chinstrap. He grabbed the helmet by the chin guard and pulled it off. Ryan and his agents tensed in readiness. He was dark skinned.

  “Check them out,” Ryan whispered into the coms unit. The two agents in the car opened the doors and climbed out, startling the pillion rider. He stepped back in between the motorbike and the two advancing men. The Task Force men pointed Glock nine millimetres at the pillion rider, and one of them flashed his identification. Before the Task Force men could speak, the pillion rider spread his arms wide to protect the driver, and then rushed at the Task Force men shouting at the top of his voice.

  Ryan Griffin and his agents sprang into action. The beach crowd had been stunned into silence by the unusual sight of men waving guns. Some of the women bolted for the back door of the Bay leaf, escaping as fast as they could. Most of the men were too intrigued to move. The pillion rider was dropped before he’d moved two yards by a thundering blow to the bridge of his nose. The heavy metal Glock smashed the fragile bones in his nose to pieces instantly. The scuffle gained the rider precious seconds, and before his passenger had hit the floor, he had spun the motorbike one hundred and eighty degrees. The Honda Blackbird has one hundred and ninety brake horsepower, and the terrorist was twisting the throttle open as far as it would go.

  The motorbike’s front wheel reared up in the air as the engine thrust the machine from zero to sixty in seconds. The Task Force men didn’t even have time to release a shot, because the bike was too quick, and there were too many inno
cent bystanders looking on. Ryan and his men sprinted to their vehicles, as the Blackbird accelerated off into the distance. The Task Force men were driving three and a half litre BMW’s sports saloons, with all the badges and trimmings removed, so that they looked like bog standard family cars. Beneath the bonnet was the best German engineering that the famous car manufacturers could muster. Gravel was flicked up in the air as the two vehicles roared off in pursuit, wheels spinning.

  “Have you got a visual?” Ryan asked his driver.

  “I think he just turned the bend at the top of the hill.”

  The motorbike had taken the main Treaddur Bay road, heading toward the town centre and the port beyond. The road climbed a long sloping hill, through a mishmash of expensive beach houses and large bungalows, before twisting left out of view. The BMW’s burned rubber as the powerful torque propelled them up the hill after the motorbike. There was no sign of the fugitive until the vehicles broke clear of the coastal residential area.

  The blur of houses on either side suddenly disappeared and was replaced by farm meadows on the right and a golf course on the left. The road between the two was long and straight, and the Task Force was granted a long-range view of their target. They could see the motorbike reaching the end of the straight. The road opened up for them allowing the drivers to floor the accelerator, pushing the speeding vehicles to their limits. The Task Force vehicles were gaining ground as the long straight stretch of road began to run out. It twisted to the left sharply and dipped simultaneously, allowing the motorbike to speed out of view again momentarily. The motorbike was entering the outskirts of the built up area, which was situated at the edge of Holyhead. He was now two miles from the port, and the Syrian vessel that he was desperate to reach.

  “He’s headed for the port, he’s riding in a panic,” Ryan said, more to himself than anyone else. There was no sense in the rider’s actions. He couldn’t outrun them, and he wasn’t about to be allowed to board a vessel back to the Middle East, but he was in fear of his life, behaving irrationally. Ryan punched a button on the dashboard and the computer screen brought up a GPS view of their location, in the form of a map. They were depicted as a red arrow moving swiftly across the image.

  “Control, this is pilgrim six,” Griffin wanted to communicate with their air support.

  “Go ahead pilgrim six.”

  “Does air support have the bandit on visual?”

  “Roger that, the bandit is eight hundred yards north of you heading directly for the Irish Sea,” the helicopter pilot answered.

  The Palestinian on the motorbike opened up the throttle and bent his chest down to touch his petrol tank, trying to reduce the wind resistance and increase his speed further. The bike screamed down Kingsland hill at over a hundred miles an hour. As it reached the bottom of the hill, the pursuing BMW’s were only just reaching the top. The cars rocketed over the crest of the hill, all four wheels leaving the tarmac for several heart pounding moments, before finally crashing back down onto the road, tyres squealing, and sparks flying as they roared down Kingsland in hot pursuit.

  The motorbike approached a three-way junction as he belted past the town’s fire station. On the left was a row of Victorian terraced buildings, three storeys high. The street levels were all shop fronts, a taxi office, a diving shop and a bakery. People stood outside chatting and pushing children in prams, saying hello to neighbours and the like. To the right hand side was a busy dual carriageway, which had been built to carry the thousands of juggernauts, which travelled, through the town, en route to the ferry terminals. Directly in front was granite built Humpback Bridge, which crossed the port’s railway lines. The roads all converged at a multiple set of traffic lights on the crest of the bridge. The lights were set to red, stopping the traffic, and a long queue had already started to form.

  The Honda Blackbird had reached one hundred and twenty miles an hour as it approached the back of the traffic jam. The rider stamped on the back brake trying to slow the speeding machine down, but to no avail. Thick black smoke billowed from the rear tyre as the rubber burned on the tarmac. He aimed the bike at a gap between the stationary cars, and it screamed through the jam, stopping just short of the bridge. The chasing BMW’s roared past the fire station and slammed on the brakes as they hit the back of the queue. There was no obvious way through for them.

  The Palestinian dropped the motorbike into first gear and edged the Honda slowly through the traffic, weaving it in and out of the cars. He reached the front of the line as the traffic lights turned to green again, and opened up the throttle, leaving the pursuing Task Force men for dust.

  “This is pilgrim six, he’s away from us and we can’t get through this traffic. It`s up to air support now,” Ryan Griffin said banging the dash board with his fist.

  “Roger that pilgrim six we’re on top of him,” the helicopter answered.

  “When he gets to the port there will be nowhere left for him to go. He might start shooting,” Ryan said looking at the GPS map. The rider was cornered.

  “Roger that, what do you want us to do?”

  “Take him out,” Griffin answered.

  “Roger that.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Terrorist Task Force

  Tank entered the control room of the subterranean bunker. Everyman and his dog were packed into the glass walled room waiting for the latest information about the impending plot. The large screen had been dedicated to live footage of operations by the bomb squad, as they dismantled the radioactive materials, and disposed of it into protected containers. Every telephone in the room was being used as intelligence networks the world over communicated with the control centre.

  “There are no explosives in the container,” said the lead member of the bomb squad on the screen.

  “What is the likelihood of the detonator and explosives being carried separately?” asked Janet Walsh, the Prime Minister’s secretary.

  “It’s very unlikely,” Tank answered.

  “I’d have to agree. The carrier was operating alone. I can’t envisage them separating the two, increasing the chances of failure or capture,” Chen added.

  “I am very concerned that this is a smoke screen. The attacks on your key personnel, and the discovery of radioactive materials have been arranged to detract from a bigger more sophisticated plan altogether.” The Israeli doctor shook his head as he spoke.

  “What are the chances of the plan being an extension of this, aimed at somewhere else in this country,” Janet Walsh asked.

  “I think that the real target is either New York or Jerusalem, possibly both. The strontium in this device was enough to register on your scanners, and to make those who came into close contact with it sick. I cannot believe that there is enough material to create a substantial long term effect,” the doctor explained.

  “Why are you so sure doctor?” asked Chen.

  “The Russian thermoelectric generators were originally built to power spacecraft and satellites. Thousands were built to power remote beacons, as you already know, with the projected lifespan of twenty years. This requires at least one hundred times the amount of strontium that you have found, for each unit, and we think that they are in possession of two,” he held up two fingers to emphasise the point.

  The room remained silent while the information was digested. The container that had been found was big enough to contain a much more devastating amount of strontium, had it been packed full of it. The space had been filled with a much less lethal radioactive sludge. It appeared that the plastic tough box device had been designed with deception, rather than devastation in mind.

  Graham Libby appeared on one of the smaller screens, patched directly through from the autopsy suite. He had just finished analysing the remains of the Palestinian Nasik.

  “What can you tell us Graham?” Tank asked.

  “Well I can tell you that our terrorist was already on the point of death when he was shot,” the scientist began.

  “How do you exp
lain the irradiation burns that he suffered to his hands?” the Israeli doctor was intrigued. There didn’t appear to be enough strontium to cause such severe burns.

  “I think that he may have carried the isotopes before they even built the device. He may not have realised what he was carrying, but if he had been in close proximity to both gamma and beta radiation then we would expect to see such extensive burning. The irradiation has penetrated the skin and burned deep into the bone marrow, as well as any tissue in between.”

  “That would explain the extent of the burns,” the Israeli agreed.

  “Yes, the rest of the body is showing typical symptoms of radiation sickness. The white blood cells are depleted, and the liver and kidneys contain massive amounts of radioactive plasma. He was only a few hours away from complete organ failure in my opinion,” Graham Libby finished.

  “Have we accounted for all the insurgents?” the Prime Minister’s secretary asked.