SOFT TARGET III Jerusalem (SOFT TARGET SERIES)

by Conrad Jones

  The Task Force helicopter kept pace with the speeding Honda motorcycle as it headed toward the harbour. The motorcycle raced headlong through the town, past the cenotaph memorial and down Land’s End. The Land’s End road runs past the back of the high streets shops. The buildings are built on top of what was once a cliff face, and the road is built at what would have been sea level, a thousand years ago. The buildings are an ugly mishmash of old and new, rusting fire escapes snake down the scruffy facades, adding to the unsightly effect. On the right hand side of the road is a high sandstone wall, topped with razor wire, built to protect the railway lines on the other side of it. It was only a mile from the jetty.

  The helicopter pilot flew over the speeding bike, and overtook it. The pilot manoeuvred the helicopter to a position five hundred yards in front of the Honda, placing it between the fugitive and the harbour. He slowed down the rotor blades, dropping altitude quickly and positioned the machine three feet from the road surface. The helicopter turned slowly as it hovered, completely blocking the road. There was a small crowd of men drinking outside the King’s Head, shocked into silence by the alien aircraft hovering above the main harbour road outside their local pub. It was not a sight that you see every day. A Task Force sniper opened the sliding door of the silver helicopter. He twisted his body and lowered his legs out of the machine, standing on the skid, but still strapped in by a harness. He raised a powerful 7.62 millimetre M21 sniper rifle, which is favoured by American Special Forces, and pulled it snug into the shoulder. He placed his right eye against the telescopic lens and focused on the speeding Honda. He had less than a few seconds to take the shot. The sniper mentally drowned out the noise of the helicopter and squeezed the trigger.

  Ali Rasser watched the sniper taking aim and slammed the rear brakes on. The back wheel of the motorbike snaked along the tarmac dangerously, almost unseating the rider. He leaned the bike to his left, as far over as the machine would go. The exhaust pipe scraped on the floor creating a shower of sparks as it banked to the left. The snipers bullet nicked a three-inch gash in the arm of his leather motorbike suit, but caused him no injuries. He pointed, more than steered the bike off the Land’s End road, and roared up Boston Street away from the helicopter.

  The helicopter pilot upped the revs and the machine gained height rapidly. They were too low to see where the motorcycle had gone. The machine flew up and over Boston Street, and the pilot sighted the racing bike speeding down Newry Street toward the harbour. Newry Street ran parallel to Land’s End, but was lined on both sides by narrow terraced houses. The sniper remained outside the helicopter, perched on the skid. He had the rider in his sights but he couldn’t take the shot in a built up residential area. The bike was travelling at such a high speed that if he killed the rider, it could catapult through someone’s front door. From their elevated position, they could see where the road was leading to. Four hundred yards on, the road breaks free of the houses and opens onto a sloping grassy area, which runs the length of the marina. There was a main road running parallel to the seashore, which was perpendicular to the one that the motorbike was on. The sniper would have a ten-second window when the motorbike left the houses, before he hit the blind junction, and had to turn left or right. He waved toward the beach area and the pilot flew over the speeding motorbike, lowered the revs and brought the helicopter down to within a few yards of the grass, waiting for the bike to break the cover of the buildings. The sniper took aim.

  Ali Rasser had seen the helicopter losing altitude, and realised that it would be waiting for him up ahead. He had seconds to choose which option he was going to pick. Stay on the motorbike and die, or ditch it and try to lose his pursuers. As he reached the end of the terraced housing, he noticed an alleyway to his left hand side. The bike was travelling too fast for him to steer. He made a split decision, and parted company with the Honda, at over sixty miles an hour. The brakes screamed, and rubber burned and squealed. Ali hit the grass at the side of the road and rolled across it, flipping like a rag doll. The bike slid down the road in a shower of sparks. Hard plastic faring shattered and splintered, as the Honda tumbled down the street. Ali shook himself when he finally came to a standstill. The protective armour plates in his leathers had worked well. He was still in one piece. He stood up and bolted for the alleyway.

  The bike clattered to a halt against the kerb, and bounced into the snipers line of fire. He almost squeezed the trigger, such was his state of readiness, but quickly realised that the rider was nowhere to be seen. He signalled upward to the pilot, who increased the revolutions of the rotor blades, dust and debris blew across the marina, and the helicopter climbed steeply.

  “Take us over those houses there,” the sniper shouted over the noise of the rotor blades as the helicopter gained height.

  The pilot nodded affirmative and the helicopter banked sharply to the left, leaving the sloped grassy areas behind them. Directly beneath them was a row of red-bricked Victorian terraced houses. The terrace was six houses long and each house was three storeys high. From the air, it was easy to see that the terrace was serviced at the rear by a narrow alleyway, designed for refuse collection and coal deliveries. The alleyway ran from the rear, along the side, and onto the main Newry Street, where the rider had been seen last.

  “He must have taken that alleyway there,” the pilot spoke into the coms unit, pointing to the back of the terraced houses.

  “Roger that, take us over the alleyway and onto the road beyond,” said the sniper, studying the area through his scope.

  The helicopter circled the block several times, flying low over gardens, checking behind garages and wheelie bins. As they circled Ryan Griffin and his support team were arriving on the scene, having finally cleared the ferry terminal traffic and caught up with the action.

  “What is the situation there?” control asked over the coms unit.

  “This is airborne, we’ve lost him.”

  “Roger that, where was his last location?” Griffin asked. He was leaning out of the window of the BMW, craning his neck to see what the helicopter was looking at.

  “He must have taken that alleyway to the side of the tall terraces, and that leads to the housing estate behind it,” the pilot explained.

  The pursuit vehicles screeched around the corner, and pulled to a stop. The helicopter was circling above covering a much wider search area than could be viewed from the ground. To the left was a four-storey brick house, detached from its neighbours, and surrounded by plush gardens. In the side garden was a single storey building which looked like a double garage that had been converted into a granny flat. The brickwork wasn’t square, and it looked like it had been built on the cheap, probably by the ‘Chuckle brothers’. It was enclosed in thick vegetation.

  On the opposite side of the road was a long single storey building with a black slate tile roof. Once a jewel on the coastal road it was long since derelict. The building was painted beige over a rough stippled concrete render, now turning green as moss ravaged the crumbling facade. The tiles on the roof were hanging loose in some places and missing completely in others. It was built so that from the air it would have been a T-shape, one longer section perpendicular to a shorter one. There was an old wooden pub sign swinging from a rusted metal bracket, which identified the building as the Royal Naval Club. The holes in the roof and the boarded up windows gave it a neglected sad appearance.

  “You take the house and gardens, and we’ll take the old Navy Club,” Ryan shouted to the Task Force men in the other car.

  “Pilgrim six, cover us we’re splitting up and searching on foot,” he said into the coms to the airborne unit.

  “Roger that pilgrim six, we’re in a search pattern above you, heat sensors aren’t showing anything from the garden area’s we’ll check the buildings as you enter, over,” the pilot replied.

  Ryan Griffin opened the boot of the BMW and took a Remington pump action shot gun from the weapons box. He cocked the slide-loading ratchet and pushed five h
eavy gauge shells into the breach. He clicked the shotgun again and pushed one into the pipe. He was now ready to knock an elephant over at a hundred yards. The Task Force team from the second car followed suit, one man armed with a pump action, and the others with Glock nine millimetres. Their cover blown, the Task Force men took battle vests from the weapons boxes and strapped them on. They checked their own equipment and then checked their colleague next to them.

  The second team moved in formation toward the ramshackle granny flat at the rear of the big house. Ryan Griffin and the first team headed for the derelict public house. They moved down a short flight of stone steps, which dropped from the pavement onto the over grown car park. Tall thistles sprouted through the deteriorated tarmac. The front door was boarded over with a single sheet of chipboard, which was screwed to the doorframe and had been marked with the words keep out.

  They hugged the mossy walls as they moved around the low building. They reached a window, which was also boarded up. Ryan tugged at the wood but it was screwed down tight to the frame. No one had gained access through there. He nodded his head and the unit moved on. They turned the corner of the building and the sea breeze hit them. The grassy areas which sloped gently down to the beach road, and the marina beyond, stretched out from the edge of the building`s car park. Ryan looked at the dozens of white yachts that were moored symmetrically in the marina, swaying gently in the wind.

  They reached a walled area at the end of the building. The wooden gate that once prevented unauthorised entry, was hanging from a single hinge. The planks were split and warped. The paint was badly cracked and peeling off in long strips. Ryan kneeled and pointed the Remington pump action into yard. There were old aluminium beer barrels upended amongst the weeds. The contents of half a dozen refuse bags were strewn across the concrete; milk cartons, fast food wrappers and broken bottles. He signalled silently for the unit to move into the yard, and the Task Force men overtook him silently.

  Ryan entered the yard, his team were positioned either side of the rear doorway. The door had been boarded over with two pieces of chipboard, and the bottom section had been ripped away from the frame, allowing someone to gain access. He approached the chipboard and studied the screws that had fastened it to the doorframe. The heads were rusted and aged, but the threads were still shiny and new looking, having been protected from the elements by the wood.

  “Pilgrim six, entering the building, we’ve evidence of a recent break in,” Ryan whispered into the coms unit.

  “Roger that pilgrim six, scanning the building now,” the pilot moved the helicopter over the old building and looked at the thermal images on his screen. Three wobbly green blobs appeared, Griffin and his team in the rear yard, which was positioned at the end of the shorter section of the building. At the far end of the longer section of the building was another larger green image.

  “Pilgrim six, the building is positive for occupancy, one reading at the far end of the elongated sector, to the right of your position.”

  “Roger that, moving in.”

  Ryan Griffin headed under the barricade followed closely by his unit. Inside the old social club smelled rank, although it had been years since people frequented it, the smell of cigarettes and stale ale still pervaded from the walls. There was also the unmistakable smell of stale urine. The walls and ceilings had been hacked to pieces, because scavengers had ripped out the electric copper wiring and water pipes to be sold as scrap. The floors were an obstacle course of bricks and debris. The unit tiptoed through the rubbish silently. The only sounds in the building were a dripping tap, which echoed through the dank walls, and the muffled helicopter engine.

  As they progressed, their eyes became adjusted to the gloom, and they became accustomed to the choking stench. The elongated section of the building was in fact the old barroom. The remains of the bar were still standing, but the mirrors and fixtures had been ripped from the walls a long time ago. A ceiling fan hung precariously lopsided from a thin electric flex, one of the blades snapped in half. It was swinging almost imperceptibly, as if it had been nudged gently sometime ago. The unit fanned out and headed toward a doorway at the far end of the room. There was a shuffling noise from beyond the open doorway, which made the Task Force unit freeze, weapons raised. The darkness beyond was impossible to penetrate.

  “Come out with your hands up,” Ryan shouted into the gloom.

  “Don’t shoot, or I will kill this man,” came the reply in broken English.

  “No one needs to die here today, as long as you throw your weapon out, and then come out with your hands raised,” the Task Force man replied.

  “I want to talk to your senior officer, I have a hostage,” Ali answered, his voice shaking with fear.

  “I’m the senior officer,” Ryan answered.

  “I’m coming out,” Ali spluttered. A bulky shadow appeared in the gloom beyond the doorframe. It was difficult to distinguish the form, but it appeared to be more than one person.

  “Come out and show yourself, drop the weapon.”

  Ali shuffled toward the doorway. He had the ugly silver Bulldog revolver, which he’d used to shoot Boris McGuiness and his sons with in his right hand. In his left arm was a tramp, being held tight by the throat in the crook of his elbow. The huge fat revolver was pressed against the tramps head, deep into the matted tangled hair.

  “I’ll kill him,” Ali snarled in a threatening voice.

  “This is your last chance, drop the weapon,” Ryan swiped his fingers across the side of his neck in a slashing motion. The team understood the silent signal, and move a few yards closer, trying to get a better shot.

  Ali pulled the tramp closer to him, trying to hide behind the dishevelled bundle of rags and bone, but he’d hesitated a second too long. The Task Force men opened fire in unison blasting the terrorist and his smelly hostage into oblivion. The terrorist’s body was disposed of secretly. There was nothing to be gained from parading his demise except more public unrest. As for the other fatality, no one even knew the vagrants name as he was incinerated in an undisclosed crematorium. If he had been given a headstone, it would have said, ‘collateral damage’.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Sabah / Charter flight 14-8

  Sabah took a long gulp of cold water from a stainless steel flask. He swallowed the cool refreshing liquid, and the aftertaste of plastic thermos container clung to the back of his throat. He wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, and drank some more. There was less than a mouthful of water left, so he poured it onto his handkerchief and cooled his brow with it. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to tolerate the stink coming from his dead co-pilot.

  The co-pilot’s body had rid itself of all the waste products that were stored in the bladder and lower intestine. The putrid smell of human excrement mixed with the sour smell of stale sweat, which was already pervading from the co-pilot before he died. Sabah couldn’t stand it any longer. He switched the Antonov-124 onto autopilot, and shuffled over to the co-pilot’s seat. Despite the overall size of the cargo plane, the cockpit area is relatively cramped. It wasn’t designed for dragging dead bodies around.

  He grabbed the fat man beneath the arms and tried to lift him from the chair, but he was a dead weight. Sabah heaved again and the body lifted slightly but wouldn’t budge from its seat. He couldn’t understand why he was so immovable. Sabah leaned over the body, holding his breath to avoid the smell of faeces and urine. He swore aloud when he realised that the fat co-pilot was still fastened in his seat by his safety belt. He unfastened the clasp at the front of the body, recoiling when his hands touched wet soiled patches of material. This time the body moved from the seat with one fluid movement. He dragged the corpse off the chair, through the cabin door, into the rear cargo. Sabah paused to catch his breath, tired from the excursion of moving the fat co-pilot. He reached for the damp handkerchief and wiped sweat from his forehead again. The hold was empty, bar the aluminium wrapped crate. Sabah heaved the body from the
floor and dropped it by the three-ton radioactive device.

  Sabah heard the radio cackling from the cockpit. Air traffic control hadn’t communicated with him for over an hour. They’d tried to divert him from his flight path several times, offering a series of alternative landing sites outside of American airspace, where he could have landed and refuelled while the correct authorisation codes were acquired. Sabah had bluffed most of the suggestions away and he’d pretended that his understanding of English wasn’t great. They had stalled and accepted all his excuses until he’d reached the position of no return. Sabah tried everything.

  The co-pilot had taken ill. The authorisation codes had been mislaid, or forgotten at the airport. The balloon festival organisation hadn’t forwarded the correct information in the first place. Both the pilot and co-pilot were agency staff, and were not aware that the codes had been forgotten by the other. Every time he offered another inane excuse, the airplane flew a hundred miles closer to the American continent.

  Every single weak excuse that Sabah had invented had done nothing to appease air traffic control. The more he stalled, the more concerned the aviation authorities became. Their requests that the plane divert became demands. They were now convinced that the Atropov-124 was on a bogus flight.