Siege: A Thriller

by Simon Kernick

  The gunman was leading the hostage toward the window now. On the TV screen Arley could see resignation in the hostage’s demeanor. So could 500 million other people. He was about to die, and only she could stop it. She could give the order for CO19 to fire and save his life, even if the respite was only temporary. She had that power in her hands.

  “Ma’am?”

  She thought of her children, thought of everything she had to lose personally, and knew there was only one decision she could make.

  “Tell them to keep their guns trained, but not to fire,” she said. “We can’t risk the gunmen shooting other hostages as well. I’m sorry.”

  57

  Martin didn’t resist when he was hauled to his feet and felt the pressure of the gun barrel against his head. In fact, a strange calm descended upon him. The leader wasn’t gripping him roughly, rather there was an almost respectful manner in the way he led him toward the window.

  In a few seconds’ time it would all be over. One loud bang and all the stress, the sadness, and the regrets would be gone. He would leave his life, and his cancer, behind. He would finally be free. He closed his eyes, shutting out the world, as he allowed himself to be guided toward the place where he knew he would die.

  And then there was a sudden commotion, and he was pitched forward.

  Martin’s eyes flew open and he saw the young rugby player who’d looked at him a few minutes earlier struggling violently with the terrorist leader as he wrestled to get his gun.

  “Help me!” he yelled, a desperation in his voice, as he, Martin, and the terrorist stumbled around together. The rugby player was holding on to the terrorist’s wrist, forcing his gun up in the air. The gun went off with a loud pop, and someone screamed.

  “Help me!”

  Martin knew that this was it—his chance to do something, even if it meant dying a hero’s death—but everything was happening so fast that he didn’t have time to react before the woman took three quick steps forward, calmly took aim, and shot the rugby player in the upper body, the force of the bullet knocking them all backward.

  “Everyone stay down!” she screamed. “Move and you die!”

  No one moved except the rugby player, who let out a tortured gasp as if he’d been winded, and fell to his knees, clutching at his arm.

  The terrorist leader threw Martin to the floor, then swung around and kicked the rugby player hard in the chest. “You want to die, uh? You want to die? You can fucking die!” He grabbed him around his neck, dragging him to his feet. Still cursing him, he drove a path through the hostages before slamming him up against one of the restaurant tables in front of the uncovered window and forcing the gun into the base of his skull. The rugby player cried out, but Martin could see it was too late, much too late. The next second, there was another loud pop, and blood splattered against the window.

  Immediately he stopped struggling and, as the leader let go of him and stepped aside, Martin could clearly see the wound in the back of his head. Slowly and silently, the dead man slipped from the table and fell to the floor.

  “That’s what happens when you try to escape!” the leader shouted, turning on the rest of them, the barrel of his gun still smoking. “Do you understand?” He was shaking with rage and spraying spittle as he talked, his grip too tight on the trigger—a stark contrast to the woman, who stood calmly alongside him. “He stays here as a warning to the rest of you.”

  He looked down at Martin, who looked back steadily. For three seconds they stared at each other, and Martin could hear his heart beating in his chest. Then the leader turned away and he and the woman strode past the two guards and out of the room, leaving the rest of them in stunned silence.

  58

  21:00

  Cat and Wolf left the restaurant in silence, and traveled in the elevator back down to the satellite kitchen adjacent to the ballroom. Cat noticed that Wolf was shaking, although whether it was due to excitement, anger, or shock, she couldn’t tell.

  The elevator door opened and they walked back out into the kitchen. Wolf immediately went over and checked the laptop. “They still haven’t turned it back on, the bastards. I’ll phone the negotiator and let him know another will die.”

  “If they’re so desperate to speak to Prior, let them.”

  “We don’t want to give away his location.”

  “Then let me record a message from him and we’ll play it over the phone to the negotiator. That way they will realize he’s still alive but they won’t know where he is.”

  Wolf looked surprised. It was clear to Cat that he hadn’t thought of this, which concerned her. Before tonight, she’d respected him, but she was far less sure now, and wondered whether his reputation as a strong soldier and leader had been inflated. He was too much in thrall to the mercenary, Fox, for her liking—a man she wouldn’t trust an inch herself.

  “That’s a good idea,” he said. “Do it now and I’ll tell the negotiator that we’ll let them hear from him soon, as long as they put the Internet back on.”

  With a nod of acknowledgment, Cat left the room. She was looking forward to seeing Michael Prior again. She’d extract a message from him, of course, but she’d also make him suffer a little, to ease the rage that was coursing through her heart at the thought that her brother’s killer was still alive and somewhere in the hotel.

  Fox spotted her walking toward the ballroom door and beckoned her over. Although officially Cat was below him in rank for this operation, in practice they were equals. It was she whom Wolf had chosen to accompany him to the restaurant earlier, not Fox, something that she was sure rankled the other man.

  “Did you kill someone up there?” he whispered as she stopped in front of him.

  She nodded, making no attempt to disguise her disdain for this mercenary.

  “And are we back online?”

  “Not yet. We’ll let you know when we are.”

  They were silent for a few seconds as they appraised each other coldly, like two dogs sizing each other up, hunting for weaknesses. Cat sensed he wanted to say something else, but she didn’t give him the opportunity and instead turned her back on him.

  When she was out in the silence of the corridor, her grip tightened on the gun. She kept it down by her side and out of sight, in case she ran into one of the guests, or, if she was really lucky, the man who’d killed her brother. Her frustration at not knowing how to find him in this maze of rooms was increasing the more time went on, and her rage meant she would take it out on whoever crossed her path. As far as she was concerned, all the people in this hotel were the enemy, and deserved whatever fate God chose to dish out to them. In two hours’ time, the Stanhope would go up in flames, and Cat would go up with it, dying a martyr’s death, taking as many of the enemy with her as possible.

  It was a prospect that excited her.

  Pausing outside the room where they were holding Prior, she imagined the terror he must be experiencing, bound up and alone inside. Slowly, she opened the door, bringing the gun up from her side so its suppressor would be the first thing he saw.

  And then she saw him, and stopped.

  Michael Prior sat dead in his chair. But it wasn’t so much that which grabbed Cat’s attention.

  It was the fact that his left eye had been gouged out.

  59

  Arley felt sick. Events were now running completely out of her control, and the control of everyone else on the scene. Watching the hostage die onscreen had given her a terrible premonition of what might be happening right now to her children. She was dealing with people more ruthless than she’d ever come across before.

  “We don’t want anyone else dying, Wolf,” Riz Mohammed was saying. “It will only hurt your cause.”

  But Wolf was shouting over the phone. “Then turn the Internet back on!”

  “I’ll do everything I can, I promise, but in the meantime, don’t hurt anyone else.”

  “You have five minutes. Five minutes, do you hear?”

  “And y
ou’ll let us speak to Michael Prior?”

  “If you put the Internet back on, yes.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Give me ten minutes. Can you do that?”

  “OK. You have ten minutes. But after that, another hostage dies in full view of the world.”

  The line went dead, and the incident room fell silent.

  On the screen, Commissioner Phillips’s seat in his office was still empty, although Arley had heard from her immediate superior, AC Jacobs. He’d told her to stall the terrorists while Phillips talked to the Prime Minister about their next course of action. Jacobs had sounded shocked by what had happened with the hostage, as if he hadn’t expected the terrorists to carry out their threat. Everyone in the incident room had expected it, but maybe that was because they were right there at the scene, rather than over at Scotland Yard. And now that it had happened, Arley knew it meant the end of any possibility of a peaceful solution to the crisis.

  Riz turned to Arley. “We’re going to have to give in and buy ourselves some time. He’s said we can speak to Prior so at least we’re making some kind of progress.”

  “I agree,” said Arley. She took a deep breath, trying to hold things together.

  “For what it’s worth, you did the right thing earlier,” said John Cheney. “With the hostage. There was nothing else you could have done.”

  The others in the room murmured their agreement.

  Arley nodded, acknowledging Cheney’s comments. Her face, she knew, said it all. She might have been doing everything she could to hide her torment, but there was no way she could disguise it completely. She was glad that he thought it was the dead hostage that was bothering her.

  Say something. Speak to Phillips. Tell him what’s happening. Get him to look for Oliver and India. You’re running out of time.

  She sat down as Phillips reappeared at his desk. He looked grim-faced and pale.

  “I’ve just been told by Silver that the lead terrorist has given permission for us to speak to Michael Prior,” he said, addressing the room in formal businesslike tones. “Because of this, the Prime Minister has given permission to reestablish the Internet connection inside the hotel with immediate effect. Like the rest of us, he doesn’t want to see any more needless loss of life.”

  Arley flinched as relief, however temporary, flooded through her.

  “However, the PM also believes there’s now no alternative to a rescue mission to free the hostages. Responsibility for this has now officially been passed to the military. Arley, you and your colleagues need to continue doing everything you can to keep the terrorists from killing any more hostages, while the SAS plans the logistics of its operation.”

  Arley nodded slowly, accepting the inevitable, conscious that the phone in her pocket was ringing. She pulled it out and saw Howard’s grinning face filling the screen, which meant only one thing.

  Her family’s kidnappers were calling.

  60

  “Are you in the control room?” asked the man on the other end of the phone, his voice calm.

  Arley walked across the grass, away from the incident room, glancing over her shoulder to check she wasn’t being followed. “Not anymore.”

  “Is the Internet coming back on?”

  “You need that, don’t you? For your plans to work.”

  “That doesn’t concern you. What should concern you are your husband and children. Have you spoken to anyone about our discussions?”

  She thought of Tina, and wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake involving someone like her. “Of course I haven’t. I need to know my family is alive, though.”

  “All in good time, DAC Dale,” he said, with a hint of a smile in his voice. “Now please answer my question.”

  Arley wondered what this man looked like. He sounded middle-aged. She wondered if he had children of his own. She desperately wanted to reason with him, to tell him to please release her children, but she’d been around long enough to know that pleading wasn’t going to work. “The Internet should have come back on by now.”

  “And what are the plans for an assault?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that the military has taken control of the operation.”

  “Does this mean it’s imminent?”

  She knew there was no point lying. “Not necessarily, no.”

  “The phrase ‘not necessarily’ is of no use to us. We need to know what’s being planned. So do you, if you ever want to see your family again.”

  Arley took a deep breath. Jesus, she had to hold herself together. “The military has only just taken control, and it’ll take them some time to organize a rescue operation. I’ll make sure I know their plans.” She considered adding that she’d already had a meeting with the SAS commander, but held back. There was no point giving this man anything until it became absolutely necessary.

  “I’m going to keep this phone on for the next fifteen minutes. The moment you have an update, call me. Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  “If you try to trick us in any way, your family will die. Remember that.”

  Arley slowly removed the phone from her ear and looked back toward the incident room, wondering if her absence, and the manner in which she’d taken it, was arousing suspicion among her colleagues.

  A group of uniformed officers were in conversation next to an armed response vehicle parked nearby, too far away for Arley to hear what they were saying. One of them laughed, and Arley felt an overwhelming jealousy. For him, this was just another night on the job. For her, though, it was a matter of life and death. She could lose the two people she loved most in the world in one bloody moment, and what frightened her above all was that there was no guarantee she hadn’t already done so.

  Her phone bleeped. She had a message from the people running the ANPR database at Hendon, and she felt a surge of hope mixed with dread. Had they been able to get a location for the van that was parked in the driveway of her home that morning, the one that had almost certainly been used to abduct her children?

  Taking a deep breath, she returned the call.

  61

  21:12

  Tina lit a cigarette and turned on the car’s engine to stay warm. A chill wind blew down the street making the foliage shiver, and it had started to rain.

  Sitting there in the dim light of the streetlight, with the BBC news on the radio, she wondered what the hell she was doing, risking her neck to help a woman she hadn’t spoken to in months, and who was an acquaintance at best.

  And yet somehow she was here in the cold, having been dragged into the middle of a case that had global implications. So far tonight she’d impersonated a police officer, interfered with a crime scene, and withheld vital information in what was shaping up to be one of the biggest single crimes in modern policing history.

  But that was Tina. She never did anything by halves. And so far she still believed that she was doing the right thing, although the more she thought about it, the more the doubts gnawed away at her. She understood why Arley hadn’t wanted to say anything to her bosses, but at the same time Tina herself didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of any SAS men. After all, they had families too.

  Her phone rang. It was Arley.

  “What have you got?” Tina asked her.

  “The vehicle with the license plate you gave me was last picked up on the ANPR cameras in Willesden,” stated Arley. Her voice was calm, but only just, as if she was only a wrong word away from hysteria. “That was at eight twenty-seven this morning, and it hasn’t moved within camera range since. And it’s definitely the same vehicle because it was caught on camera a few hundred yards from our house at five to eight.”

  “How big’s the area it could be in?”

  “About four hundred yards by six hundred. And it’s high-density residential. The Hendon guys are contacting the local council to see if there are any other cameras that might narrow it down, but that’s going to take time, and it’s unlikely.”

  �
��Driving there’s going to take time too, and unless I strike bloody lucky, I could still be looking around for it tomorrow morning.”

  “It doesn’t look like there’s much off-road parking or garages,” said Arley hopefully.

  Tina didn’t share her optimism. “Any news on the location of your husband’s phone?”

  “It’s been switched off most of the day, but on those occasions it has been on, it’s been nowhere near Willesden.”

  “Have any calls been made on it today?”

  “Only the ones to my mobile.”

  Tina suppressed a frustrated sigh. The man dealing with Arley was a canny operator with a thorough knowledge of police tactics, and he was being careful to give away as little information as possible. “You need to get me a map of the area where the van could be. I’ve just set up an anonymous Hotmail account. Send it to me there.” Tina gave her the address.

  “Will you be able to go over there right away?”

  “Yes, but it still might take me time when I get there. And I’m guessing that now they’ve killed a hostage, that’s something we haven’t got a lot of.”

  “You know about that?” Arley sounded surprised.

  “The whole world knows about it, Arley.” She thought for a moment. “Listen, I’ve got an idea. The next time you speak to the kidnapper, demand proof of life. Demand to speak to your family. Say that if you don’t, you won’t cooperate.”

  “What if he doesn’t go for it?”

  “Make him go for it. Put him on the back foot for once. You haven’t got anything to lose.”

  “I’ve got everything to lose, Tina. My children, for God’s sake.”

  “But you need to know they’re still alive. And you need to make him want to keep them alive so that you do what he wants. And the only way you’re going to do that is by being firm. It’s the only way.”