Zero Option gs-2

by Chris Ryan

  'Geordie,' he called. 'The cops are saying a rogue vehicle's bust through the cordon. There's a fourth car coming down the road.'

  Jesus! I thought. Somehow the PIPA have rumbled us. They've overheard one of our planning conversations. They're coming to loin the party.

  I had about five seconds in which to make a decision.

  Abort or carry on? Pointless to abort. If this was the PIP-A, we were fairly well equipped to take them on here and now. If it was someone else pissing about we could stuff them with the greatest of ease. I said, 'Carry on as planned. Whinger, watch for a fourth fucking vehicle.'

  In the distance, beyond the convoy lights, another faint glow was already visible. But I had no more time to worry about it. loss, driving the lead police car, had seen our obstruction and began to brake. The middle vehicle closed on him a bit, then slowed, increasing its distance again. The little group cruised on towards us at a diminishing pace. I kept mentally calculating the distance they had to run.

  'Stand by to roll,' I told Joe. 'Five, four, three, two, one… GO!'

  We stripped off our covert radios and dumped them in the boot of the Granada. Tony and I pulled on pairs of lightweight goggles. My eyes were glued to the approaching convoy, but my ears were listening for the engine o pounds ur van. There it was, running at high revs in second gear.

  I flailed my right hand at the oncoming lights, urgently waving them down. The lead car had barely coasted to a halt when the van, its engine screaming, hurtled down on to the carriageway at right-angles and caught the meat wagon broadside. With a huge, crunching crash of metal and a screech of tyres the wagon was hurled sideways. As the wheels caught on the tarmac, the impetus toppled the van on to its right side and sent it powering on, sparks flying from the side that scraped over the road. From close quarters the violence of the impact was shocking. With a sudden stab of alarm I thought that the van was going to catch fire. If Farrell got roasted alive, that would be the end of everything.

  It came to rest with the roo pounds ertical, on the edge of the shallow ditch. Then things happened very fast. I dived for the power saw, grabbed it, ran to the ditch, started up and applied the carbon blade to the metal.

  Tony stood beside me, directing a torch on to the roof.

  Above the scream of my saw I heard rounds going down in bursts, then the boom of flash-bangs.

  The saw bit through the thin metal sheeting of the roof as if it were cardboard, and in a few seconds I'd made two big cuts running downwards and outwards from a central point at the top. A hail of fiery red sparks flew in all directions, and I thanked my stars that the fuel I could smell spilling out over the verge was diesel, not petrol. Out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody struggling out through the left-hand door of the cab, which was uppermost. Knowing it was one of our own guys I didn't worry; he'd keep out of the way, or.maybe just lie down.

  One more cut across the bottom of my triangle and the job was done. As the piece came away, Tony stuck his head in through the hole, swept his torch beam and fired offwith a canister of pepper spray in the direction of the tail. Then he scrambled in through the opening and I followed.

  The vehicle's lights had gone down in the crash, so the torches were our only illumination. In the beams I saw two gures piled into one back corner, struggling on top of each other, gasping and cursing and rubbing at their eyes. Tony reached them first and lifted the upper man bodily into the air, only to find he was attached to the second by a handcuff and a short chain.

  Which was which? The top man had fair hair, the bottom one was dark; the minder was uppermost, Farrell on the deck.

  Bolt shears out. Snap through the links. Blood shining on the floor of the van — or rather on the wall.

  Grab Farrell.

  He yelled a string of obscenities as t slammed him face-down, wrenched his arms behind him and got a pair ofplasticuffs pulled up tight on his wrists. 'Take it easy, Seamus!' he managed between coughs and splutters. 'That fucking gas! It's you, Seamus, is it not?

  Jaysus, man, get offme! Get me out of this!'

  That was all he could manage. He couldn't open his eyes. Blood was frothing out of his mouth, and as the pepper got to him properly he relapsed into incoherent roars. The spray was getting to me as well. My eyes were OK inside the goggles, but my nose, mouth and throat were burning, and I tried not to inhale.

  I saw Tony had Farrell under control, so I dived back through the hole into the open and gasped in a few breaths of fresh air. Outside it sounded as though a full- scale battle was in progress: bangs, flashes, rounds clattering down, police sirens screaming. The moment Farrell's head appeared in the opening I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him bodily out. He collapsed on to the ground, bellowing and choking. A second later Tony dived out as well. Between us we hoisted the prisoner to his feet and gave him the bum's rush in the direction of the Audi. To right and left I noticed bodies lying on the ground.

  It had originally been my intention to get Farrell in the back seat between Tony and myself. But on impulse I opened the boot, dumped him bodily inside and slammed the lid.

  'Let's go,' I yelled.

  Whinger loomed up in front of me, thrusting his MP 5 in my direction as he went for the driving seat. I grabbed the weapon, pointed it up in the air and squeezed the trigger, purely to make sure it was unloaded. To my amazement, five or six rounds hammered off into the night before the magazine was empty.

  'For fuck's sake, Whinger!' I shouted.

  'Get in! Get in!' he yelled. 'Stop pissing about.'

  He already had the engine running. I leapt into the passenger seat, Tony into the back and with a squeal of tyres and the engine howling, the Audi shot away down the bypass.

  'Those guys on the deck,' I panted. 'What happened to them?'

  'Nothing.' Whinger sounded perfectly cool. 'They just lay down when we started firing.'

  'What about the extra car?'

  'A pale blue Lexus. It went past.'

  'How?'

  'Scraped round the front of the Granada, on the verge.'

  'What was it doing?'

  'Not a clue. But it was going like shit offa shovel.'

  'Phworrh!' I was still choking and spluttering. 'Your tucking pepper, Tony.'

  'I know. But it did the trick. I don't reckon our guy saw anything at all.'

  In seconds we were nudging 120 m.p.h. Having tried an experimental ride in the boot earlier that day, I knew that Farrell couldn't possibly hear us talking: the noise inside the tin can was diabolical. 'Take it easy,' I told Whinger.:At this rate Stew'll never keep up.' On the radio I called, 'Zulu One to Zulu Two, what's the score? Over.'

  'Zulu Two,' came Stew's voice. 'Mobile towards you. We have you visual.'

  Looking back, I saw the Granada's lights in the distance. 'Zulu One to all Papa stations,' I went. 'Clear Point Charlie now. Anticipating Point Charlie figures six-zero seconds, repeat six-zero seconds.'

  'Papa Nine,' came the answer. 'Roger.'

  Whinger had throttled back to ninety and the lights of the Granada had closed a little. But then ahead of us our own lights picked up the shape of another car parked beside the road.

  'Fuckin' 'ell!' cried Whinger. 'It's that bastard Lexus.'

  He put his foot down again and the Audi surged forward.

  'Zulu One to Zulu Two,' I called. 'Watch yourselves. The intruder vehicle's parked up ahead.'

  As we hurtled down towards it I had to remind myself that this was Shropshire, England, not some godforsaken bog outside Belfast. I was so hyped up by the intercept that our best option seemed to be to spray the Lexus with a few busts from the MP 5s as we went past… Take it easy, I told myself. You can't do that here. The guys in that car may easily be PIRA. Farrell hoped I was Seamus. Was he expecting an intercept? But equally, the Lexus crew could be drunks trying to evade the breathalyser, or joy-riders baiting the police.

  By the time we reached the Lexus it was already rolling, gathering speed. I caught a glimpse of three young faces, two
in front and one behind. Just after we'd roared past, its lights came on.

  'Hey!' I yelled. 'These bastards are after us. Sort them, Whinger. Don't kill 'em, for fuck's sake, but put them out of contention.'

  Over the radio I called, 'Zulu One, the intruder's now between us.'

  We were rounding a gentle curve. A moment later our speed had carried us out of sight of our tail. From our recce I remembered that there was a picnic site coming up on our left, a pull-up with rustic chairs and tables, screened from the road by conifers.

  'There!' I exclaimed. 'Dive in there!'

  Whinger had seen the entrance too. He hit the brakes with such a thump that the Audi slewed left and right. With a juddering rush we banged down off the tarmac on to the gravel of the pull-up. Whinger doused his lights and simultaneously switched offthe ignition so that the brake-lamps wouldn't light up.

  'Slow down, slow down!' I called to Stew. 'Keep back. We've bombed into a lay-by. We're going to hang in here, then take them out.'

  In about five seconds the Lexus overshot. Maybe the driver had been confused by the disappearance of his target — at any rate, he seemed to be moving more slowly than before. Whinger watched the lights go past outside the screen of firs, then started the engine again and came out after him.

  Like a greyhound after a hare, the Audi surged up behind its prey, showing no lights at first, then with everything blazing. Before the other driver had time to react Whinger was up beside him, still accelerating hard.

  Then, just as our tail was about to clear the Lexus's front, he braked fiercely and.jerked the steering wheel to the left.

  The hit was perfectly timed. There was no way the other driver could have avoided us. In a split second he found his car whacked sideways and sent out of control.

  As Whinger straightened and accelerated away, I saw the Lexus spin through 360 degrees, go half round again, and finally roll over on to its side.

  'Brilliant!' I went. On the net I said, 'Zulu One.

  Problem Solved. Continue as per schedule.'

  'Roger,' Stew answered.

  'That's as far as they'll get tonight,' said Whinger.

  'Whoever they were.'

  'Dickers, for sure,' I told him.

  'You're joking. I reckon they were joy-riders, I bet the car had been nicked.'

  'Maybe.'

  'I got to see their faces quite well,' said Tony. 'I shone my torch on them as we came past. All youngish twenties, I guess.'

  'Irish?'

  'Coulda been. I don't know. How do you tell?'

  'You can't,' I said. 'SB'll show us some mugshots when we get back. See if you recognise any of them.'

  'Ah, come on!' said Whinger. 'You're getting PIRA on the brain. We shook 'em up, anyway.'

  After all that things quietened down a bit, and I had a moment to wonder how Farrell had fared during the violent maneuvering. At Charlie Three, the southern roundabout, there were no police cars in sight. I guessed that some were about, but standing well back, as arranged. We went across unopposed, and sped on southwards past Leominster to a spot where a side-road carried up through some woods. There, on the brow of a hill, we were due to switch from the Audi into a minivan — another precaution laid on to bluff Farrell, who would certainly have the wit to realise that in any real chase the police would radio details of the getaway car ahead, leaving it liable to arrest.

  Just before we reached the rendezvous I said quietly to the other two, 'Don't forget — from now on we've all got to act.'

  They knew what I meant: until then we'd been on our own, but for the next few hours or maybe days we were going to be at close quarters with our man.

  Everything we did or said in his presence must confirm our claim to be renegades, acting on our own for my personal benefit. No hint must be given that we had the full backing of the legiment and the security services.

  The white van was standing on the designated spot beside a bus-shelter on the outskirts of a village.

  Although there was nobody in sight, I knew that some guys from the legiment had the place staked out; they'd be somewhere in the background, eyes on the vehicle. They would pick up the Audi as soon as we were clear, and drive it back to base.

  As Whinger pulled in and parked alongside the van, I jumped out and went round to open the boot. My torch beam revealed Farrell lying on his right side, hands cuffed behind him, his knees drawn up to chest.

  'Out!' I snapped. 'Get out!'

  'Get out yourself, yer fucking twat!' he exploded.

  'What in God's name d'you think yer doing, giving me shite treatment like this?'

  'Out!' I repeated.

  I noticed that his voice had sounded thick and peculiar, but I grabbed him by the upper shoulder and dragged him into a sitting position. 'On your feet.'

  'Is Seamus with you?' he spluttered. 'Or is he not?'

  'He's not.'

  'Who are you, then?'

  'You'll find out. Come on.'

  His voice definitely sounded odd — thick and lisping.

  It was something I didn't remember from before.

  Slowly, painfully, his wrists still tied behind him, Farrell knelt up on the floor of the boot, then lifted one knee over the back of the car so as to lower his foot to the ground. 'Get these fucking cuffs off me,' he gasped.

  'They're after killing my hands.'

  I ignored the complaint, heaved him upright, dragged a balaclava hood down over his head with the eye-holes'at the rear, a.nd propelled him in the direction of the van. He walked unsteadily, and I remembered that the man had a chronic limp, apparently the legacy of a car accident.

  'OK,' I told him. 'You're beside the other vehicle now. Get in, to your left, and sit in the middle of the back seat.'

  With Tony to his left on the bench seat, me to his right and Whinger back at the wheel, we set off again, heading south. The arrangement was that the Granada, which had stood offwhile we switched.vehicles, would proceed to the cottage independently.

  We went by a roundabout route — although, with his eyes full of pepper spray, the hammering in the boot of the Audi and now the hood, I didn't think Farrell had a clue where he was or whether he was facing east, west, north or south. It gave me an odd feeling to be shoulder-to-shoulder with this murdering, torturing pride of the Belfast Brigade. Because of his plasticuffs he had to sit forward awkwardly, and I could see he was in some pain, but I just thought, Ah, stuff the bastard.

  Occasionally he asked some question about where we were and where we were going, his voice muffled by the hood, but when none of us answered he gave up.

  The silence left me time to think. I was trying to work out what he knew and what he didn't. The fact that he thought he'd been lifted by his own guys showed surely — that he was totally in the dark: maybe the PIRA had been trying to set up a lift, but obviously he hadn't got wind of Plan Zulu, and it dawned on me that he might not even know that Tim and Tracy were being held hostage. After all, we'd captured him in Colombia before they were lifted, and, including the first two days in Bogotfi, he'd been in the nick ever since.

  Looking back over the interception, I couldn't remember anything we'd done that would give our game away. I started to wonder: did Farrell even know who I was? He'd shown no sign of recognising me.

  Then I remembered that on the only occasion he'd seen me, when we had fought in the Amazon jungle, I'd had my face blacked up for the night operation.

  Whinger drove brilliantly, never missing a turn, even when he came to the steep, winding lanes of the Forest of Dean. Admittedly he'd recced the approach to Laurel Cottage the day before, but his route-finding was impressive. Not knowing that part of the country myself, I found the roads thoroughly confusing. On the final stretch I reminded myself not to make some stupid remark like 'Is this it?' which would betray the fact that our destination was new to me. In fact, I decided I was going to say as little to Farrell as possible. My aim was to move him on as fast as we could. He surely knew by now that we weren't his own peo
ple, and I hoped he'd be in shock for a few hours after the lift, and that the prospect of a quick escape would stop him trying to analyse the situation too deeply.

  Eventually we climbed a steep gravel track through a wood, passed a battered white gate that stood open, and pulled up outside a house which was already lit up; Stew and Doughnut, in the Granada, had got there ahead of us. While Whinger went on in, Tony and I got Farrell out of the van and hustled him through the front door into a small hallway and on into the kitchen. Only then did I bring out a pair of regular steel handcuff. Having locked Farrell's right hand to Tony's left, I cut the plasticuffs away with my Leatherman pliers. And none too soon; because the prisoner had been tugging away at them, the cuf pounds had ratcheted themselves up tighter and tighter and his hands had started turning blue.

  Removal of his hood gave me a shock. He looked a right mess: face pale, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot from the pepper, dried blood crusted over one cheek, and his ulSper lip all puffed out with a split down it to the right of centre — I guessed from being thrown against the wall of the meat wagon in the crash. There was blood on his blue and white striped prison shirt as well, and on his regulation-issue brown trousers.

  'Better wash your face,' I told him. 'Use the sink there.' It wasn't that I felt sorry for him, just that I didn't fancy looking at such a wreck.

  While Tony led him across to the sink and stood beside him as he scrubbed off his face, I took a quick look round the house with Whinger: lounge, bathroom and separate bog on the ground floor, three bedrooms upstairs. Everything was painted white, with terrible, twee little pictures of animals on the walls. A woman laid on by the tkegiment had been in to make up the beds and put out towels and suchlike. The place was so small that the idea of spending days there gave me instant claustrophobia.

  'Get a brew on, Whinger, for fuck's sake,' I said quietly. 'We've got some talking to do.'

  I found Tony and Farrell side by side on the settee in the lounge.

  'He's bitten his tongue,' Tony told me. 'He's got his teeth smacked together in the crash. That's why he's speaking kinda funny.'