Siege: A Thriller

by Simon Kernick

  Liam was pleased he’d been given such responsibility by Fox, who was a bloke he seriously admired. Fox was the kind of soldier Liam wanted to be, and he was jealous of him in that hotel with the others, holding the whole world at bay. He’d been watching what was happening on the telly for most of the day, proud that he was a part of it all, although he still couldn’t quite understand why they had to work with Arabs and Muslims, the very people he most hated, even though Fox had explained it to him several times.

  His mobile bleeped and he checked the screen. It was a text from the handler. All it said was “We’re ready.”

  Liam smiled, leaning over and picking up the gun from the table next to him.

  It was time to do the kids.

  75

  Tina was halfway up the staircase when she heard what she was sure was the bleep of a phone coming from beyond the half-open door that led into the living room—the only room downstairs she hadn’t yet checked for signs of the children. A couple of seconds later, it was followed by the sound of someone—a man, from the noise he was making—clearing his throat loudly and moving around.

  It was too late to go back downstairs now. She was trapped in no-man’s land, and the weapons she was carrying—a piece of lead piping in one hand, a can of pepper spray in the other—were no use from a distance.

  Making a snap decision, she continued up the last few stairs as quickly as she could, gritting her teeth when one of them creaked loudly, and darted behind the wall at the top just as the living room door opened with a loud squeak, and the man cleared his throat again.

  There were three doors up here, two on her side of the landing, one on the other. Tiptoeing across the carpet, she opened the nearest one and stepped inside, and was immediately assailed by the smell of urine.

  They were both on the floor in the middle of the empty room, lying on their fronts, trussed up from head to foot with duct tape like caterpillar larvae. As she gently closed the door behind her, they both started wriggling and making moaning noises beneath their gags.

  “It’s OK,” Tina whispered, coming closer and feeling a huge sense of relief. “I’m here to help. Your mum sent me. You’ve just got to stay quiet for a second.”

  They both fell silent and stopped moving. Tina crouched down beside the girl, whose name she’d forgotten, and, after putting down the weapons, removed the duct tape covering her mouth as gently as she could, before doing the same with the tape covering her eyes. This way the girl could see who she was dealing with. She blinked up at Tina with wide, frightened eyes, and Tina smiled back at her reassuringly, putting a finger to her lips.

  “Do you know how many men are holding you here?” she whispered.

  “Two came to our house this morning,” the girl whispered back. “They both had guns. I haven’t heard any talking down there, so I don’t know if they’re both still here, but one definitely is. He was up here a little while ago.”

  “OK. Now, I’m going to untie you both and then we’re going to go out of the window as quietly as possible. Understand?”

  The girl nodded. She looked incredibly relieved that Tina was there. Next to her, the boy, who Tina remembered was called Oliver, rolled onto his side to face her and made a noise behind his gag.

  She immediately leaned over and began to remove the tape around his eyes, at the same time pulling out her phone so she could text Arley the news.

  And then she heard it. The stair that had creaked earlier when she’d been coming up had creaked again. Even louder this time. Another stair creaked, and she stopped.

  The man was on his way up.

  76

  22:05

  Arley watched as Riz Mohammed picked up the phone and put it to his ear. A second later he was connected to Wolf’s phone in the satellite kitchen on the mezzanine floor, the sound of it ringing over the loudspeaker, filling the tense silence in the room.

  This was it. The decoy call. The police’s only part in the operation to free the hostages.

  No one spoke as they waited. They all knew what none of the pundits on the news channels on the screens in front of them knew. That an unseen assault was about to take place.

  And yet what no one in this room knew, aside from Arley, was that the terrorists were ready and waiting for it. She stood in her customary position in the middle of the room, wearing a mike and earpiece connecting her to the mobile in her pocket. The moment it rang with news from Tina she’d call Major Standard in the SAS control room and tell him what she’d done. It would mean the immediate loss of her job, and the possibility of a whole raft of criminal charges, but in truth she didn’t give a hoot about any of that. All she wanted was her children back with her safe and sound, and to stop the assault on the hotel. Everything else was irrelevant.

  “We’ve got some movement in Worth Street at the back of the hotel,” said Will Verran. A few minutes earlier he’d connected the incident room to a police camera that had been set up on Worth Street, just inside the inner cordon, and he was watching the screen that showed it.

  Arley peered over his shoulder at the screen. Sure enough, she could see a line of dark figures moving through the shadows on the pavement toward the Stanhope’s delivery entrance, before stopping behind a parked truck, where they were hidden from view. She tensed. This was the assault force. She’d run out of time.

  Instinctively she took out her mobile and stared at the blank screen.

  Call me, Tina. Please, just call.

  It was all over. For the first time in this whole crisis, she was simply unable to speak. DAC Arley Dale, a high-flying career cop and only a few hours earlier a potential future chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was now knowingly sending a group of men to their certain deaths, and she knew it was something that would haunt her dreams forever.

  In the background, the phone in the Stanhope’s satellite kitchen continued to ring.

  77

  Tina stood back against the bedroom wall, just behind the door, wondering what the hell the guy who kept clearing his throat was doing. He’d been up there close to two minutes now, yet he hadn’t come in. She’d got the two kids lying back on their fronts so that he wouldn’t notice anything amiss when he eventually came in, but now she was wondering whether she should have tried to get them out of the window and to safety, or at the very least texted Arley to let her know she’d found them and they were OK. But then she heard the flushing of a toilet and knew she’d made the right decision. He was coming.

  She could hear his heavy footfalls on the landing, stopping directly outside the door. The boy made a moaning noise beneath the gag as the door opened and the light was switched on.

  Tina held her breath, blinking against the light, her hand tight on the pepper spray canister. She’d replaced the lead piping in the back of her jeans because she needed a free hand in case the guy was armed. It was a great weapon if she scored a direct hit on his head, but if she didn’t, it would be next to useless. She needed to blind him, and for that, the spray was perfect.

  Her heart hammered as he moved through the open door. She knew she had to be quick. She was only going to get one chance.

  And then he was in the room, a huge hulk of a man holding a pistol with a suppressor attached. He turned to shut the door and Tina charged straight into him sideways, her free hand grabbing his gun arm by the wrist as the force of her attack knocked him back against the wall. She thrust the pepper spray into his face and pressed the button, sending clouds of chili powder straight into his eyes.

  He screamed in pain, and she tried to drive her forehead into his nose, but he was already turning his head, and she only caught his cheek. It didn’t stop her. She butted him again and again, desperately trying to press her advantage and disorient him as she reached into the back of her jeans, yanking out the lead piping.

  But then with a roar he ripped his gun hand free of hers, grabbed her by the throat in an iron grip that cut her breath like a knife, before literally throwing her across the room.


  As she careered backward, she stumbled over the legs of one of the kids and her head slammed into the wall with a dizzying thud and then she was on her back on the floor.

  “Bitch!” he howled, swinging the gun around in a jerky arc as he pawed at his eyes. A shot rang out, the bullet ricocheting off the floor and into the ceiling. He fired again and again, trying to pinpoint Tina without the aid of vision, one bullet passing so close to her head she could see the dust spray from the wall out of the corner of her eye.

  And then he was blinking and staggering away from the wall, his gun hand jerking crazily as he searched for a target. The kids were wriggling about wildly, trying to get out of the line of fire, the girl crying openly, and suddenly the weapon was pointing at a spot right between Oliver’s shoulder blades.

  Tina’s head was spinning and she felt like throwing up but she knew she had to act, because it looked like the guy was going to pull the trigger, even though it was clear he couldn’t see who he was aiming at.

  She still had hold of the lead piping, and using her free hand to propel herself off the floor, she leaped to her feet.

  Catching the movement, he swung around to face her, still blinking wildly but managing to take aim. His finger tightened on the trigger at just the moment she threw the lead piping.

  It struck him full in the face and his nose erupted, sending blood squirting all over his mouth. Crying out, he lost his footing, his shot going high and wide, and, as he tried to right himself, Tina charged, taking full advantage of his lack of defense to drive a knee into his groin, and her head into his ruined nose.

  This time he screamed. Not just in pain, but also in fear, and she sensed him weakening under the ferocity of her assault. Blood was pouring from his nose and he looked dazed, and still unable to see properly.

  But he still had a gun, and as he brought it up to aim it at her she grabbed desperately for the barrel, managed to get a grip on the suppressor, ignoring the stinging heat pulsing out of it, and yanked with all the strength she had.

  The gun came free and flew across the room, clattering into the corner without discharging, and Tina pressed her advantage, kicking, punching, and butting her adversary in a bid to beat him into submission. But he was a big man, probably twice her weight, and though she’d hurt him, he wasn’t finished yet. With an angry roar, he literally lifted her up and threw her off him, and as she tried to right her footing, he backhanded her across the side of the head and sent her crashing to the floor. He aimed a kick at her head but she’d already brought her arms up to protect her face and they deflected much of the force of the blow.

  She wrapped herself into a ball as he kicked her a second time, shrieking out an angry curse, his breathing coming in ruined gasps. Now she was hurt too, but as long as she kept her position and he kept aimlessly kicking her, she’d be all right.

  Except he didn’t keep kicking her. Instead, he stamped hard on her arms as they protected her head, and then she heard him loping and stumbling across the room in the direction of the gun.

  She had to get up. To keep fighting. If she gave up now, he’d put a bullet in her while she lay there. Then do the same to the kids.

  Rolling over, she jumped to her feet and was immediately assailed by an intense dizziness. Her vision darkened and blurred, and she almost fell back down again, but she held herself together, and as it cleared she saw him bending over to pick up the gun, his back to her. His movements were slow and clumsy, but he could afford that, now that he almost had hold of it.

  Tina saw the lead piping on the floor. Operating entirely on instinct and adrenaline, she grabbed it and ran at her adversary, lifting the weapon above her head.

  He could hear her coming, and he straightened with the gun in his hand, already turning toward her.

  But it was too late. She brought the lead piping down with a roar of her own, driving it into his temple with all the force she could muster.

  He went down heavily, making no sound at all, and Tina fell over him, putting a hand out to stop herself from colliding with the wall, before landing on her side on the carpet, noticing with a bloody exhaustion that the room had suddenly fallen utterly silent.

  For a good ten seconds she didn’t move as she fought to get her breath back. Then slowly, in great pain, she got to her feet, feeling in her pocket for her phone.

  78

  22:09

  Arley felt her personal mobile vibrate as she watched the black-clad men on the TV screen disappearing one by one into the archway leading to the back of the Stanhope. She pulled it out of her pocket and her heart immediately skipped a beat. It was Tina.

  “What’s happening?” she demanded, concerned only for news.

  Tina’s voice was full of exhaustion, and there was a distant quality to it. “I’ve got your kids. They’re safe.”

  Arley wanted to faint with the sudden burst of euphoria she experienced at that moment, but there was no time for that. “Thank you,” she said simply. “I’ll call you back in five minutes.” She pocketed her mobile and grabbed one of the secure phones, speed-dialing through to the SAS control room.

  An unfamiliar voice picked up, introducing himself as Captain Hunter, and Arley spoke rapidly. “This is DAC Arley Dale, Bronze Commander. Stop the attack now. I have reliable information that your men are walking into an ambush.”

  “It’s too late,” said the other man. “They’re going in.”

  “They can’t. Get them back.”

  “I’m not going to do that. This is a military operation. You have no jurisdiction.”

  “Then let me speak to Major Standard. Please. This will only take seconds.”

  “He can’t speak to you. He’s controlling the assault.”

  “If he’s controlling the assault, then he has to speak to me. It’s a matter of life and death.”

  The captain told her to hold on, and Arley was conscious of the expressions on the faces of her colleagues as they stood or sat watching her in shocked silence, but she was beyond caring now.

  She could only pray that she wasn’t too late.

  79

  From his position in the Meadow Room on the mezzanine floor, Fox saw them as they emerged one by one from the darkness under the arch, fanning out into the courtyard, their guns trained on the rear of the building as they checked the windows for any sign of ambush.

  The enemy.

  He slipped back out of sight, his AK-47 down by his side as he counted to twenty in his head, waiting for Bear to detonate the bomb. Willing him not to weaken.

  Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen . . .

  Even though he’d braced himself for the impact, Fox jumped when the bomb exploded, the force of the blast shaking the windows. But his reactions were still lightning fast. Taking advantage of the seconds of chaos and disorientation that always follow an explosion, he looked out of the window and opened fire on fully automatic into the thick cloud of rapidly rising smoke.

  As the glass exploded, he leaned farther forward, strafing the courtyard with bullets, not sure who he was hitting through the smoke, before he was forced to leap back out of sight to avoid a burst of returning fire from somewhere near the courtyard entrance. More of the window glass shattered, spraying shards into the room, but Fox was already rolling away and pulling a grenade from his belt. He yanked out the pin, counted to three, and lobbed it out of the window, hearing it explode just as it hit the ground. At the same time, amid the wild ringing in his ears, he heard Bear’s AK-47 open up from the ground floor—a single long burst followed by the angry crackle of returning fire and the whump of a stun grenade.

  Fox didn’t know if Bear was going to get out in one piece or not, but he knew that he couldn’t hang around where he was anymore. Bullets were flying into the room. The SAS might have been badly surprised and taken casualties, but they were still professional enough to react to the attack, and they’d be concentrating at least part of their fire on him.

  It was essential for Fox to keep the momentu
m of the ambush going. If the SAS thought they’d snuffed out the initial resistance they’d keep coming, and Fox couldn’t afford to have that. They needed to be made to retreat.

  Jumping to his feet, he reloaded his AK with the spare magazine and went into the next-door function room, pulling a second grenade from his belt. He strode over to the window and, keeping out of sight, unleashed a burst of gunfire into the glass, before pulling the pin and flinging the grenade out through the hole he’d created.

  As it exploded, he let loose another burst of fire through the window, unable to resist taking a quick look at the carnage he’d caused as the smoke cleared.

  He stiffened, confused. Unable to believe what he was seeing. Because what he was seeing was nothing. Other than a few small fires and the remnants of the smoke, the courtyard was empty. There were no bodies at all.

  The ambush had failed.

  80

  22:13

  “How on earth did you know that was going to happen, Arley?” asked Major Standard.

  “I had good information,” said Arley into the phone. “The point is, did it work? Did you pull your men out in time? It sounded like there was quite a firefight over there.” From their position in the mobile incident room two hundred yards away, they were unable to see what was happening, and the Worth Street camera wasn’t showing them much, but they’d all heard the explosions interspersed with the automatic gunfire easily enough.