Zero Option

by Chris Ryan

  It was a shock to see such a physical guy as Pat laid low, flat on his back, amid a tangle of drips and drains.

  His left leg was in plaster, with a cage of stainless steel pins coming out through the case above the knee, and drain-tubes leading out of it. The sight of all the gear took me straight back to the hospital in Baghdad, and the Iraqi surgeon who'd threatened to blind me with an anaesthetic syringe before he operated. Of course, I also thought of Bully-boy Khadduri coming to the gaol and hammering on my plaster cast with his swagger stick. At least he wouldn't torment any more patients.

  As we went in, Pat turned his head and gave a big grin. But although his brain was working fine, his responses were slow, and I could see that he was quite heavily sedated.

  'They haven't killed you yet,' I said.

  'They keep trying.'

  'Lot of pain?'

  'Nothing. It's fantastic.' He pointed at a little domed rubber pump, taped to his left arm just above the wrist.

  'Whenever I get the gyp I give myself a shot with this thing.'

  'What is it?'

  'Morphine, I reckon. Got a bag of it up there some where. Want to try it?'

  'Thanks a lot,' said Whinger. 'Time for a shot.'

  'Look.' I brought out the Scotch. 'This is for when you're on the mend.' I laid the bottle at the back of the cupboard in the cabinet beside his bed and put a box of Kleenex in front of it.

  'Brilliant!' Pat said. 'Thanks, Geordie.'

  We began to chat about his journey home and things at Hereford, then uddenly he remembered my own problem and said, 'Aye - what about the family?'

  'Bit of a breakthrough. The PIRA sent a taped message from Tracy advancing the deadline for us to hand their man over, and we're preparing a response.

  We may get some action quite soon.' I'd already decided not to pass on details about Plan Zulu, .just in case Pat started muttering in his sleep.

  As I was talking I saw him get a twinge of pain, and he primed his morphine pump a couple of times. By the time I'd told him a bit about the wash-up after Ostrich I could see him losing concentration; so I was surprised when he suddenly said, quite loud, 'I hope you told them about the priest clearing his throat up his fucking tower.'

  'The mullah! I did, Pat. Don't worry. I told them about your. diversionary explosion by the gate too, and the IPG blowing shit Out of the building - the lot.'

  He gave a faint smile, but his eyes were closed, and he drifted offinto a doze. I adjusted the position of the Kleenex box slightly, and we slipped out of the room.

  In the corridor I saw a doctor whom I recognised from my own visits. It turned out that he had helped with Pat's operation, and he welcomed the pair of us with a friendly mock-salute. I knew word had been put about that Pat's wound had been caused by an accident on the ranges, so I didn't refer to its origin; but the doctor raised one eyebrow and said, 'You fellows are getting a bit trigger-happy, aren't you?'

  'Well…' I spread my hands. 'These things happen.'

  I could see he knew more than he was letting on, so

  I changed the subject. 'What's the long-term

  prognosis?'

  'Pretty good, we reckon. He's a strong lad. The leg should knit up OK, provided we can keep infection out.'

  My mind flashed to Farrell and his septicaemia - but all I said was, 'Back to full mobility?'

  'We can't be sure, but there's every chance.'

  'He'll be all right,' said Whinger loftily. 'Hot cross bun. This one will run and run.'

  NINE

  It turned out to be a filthy night of rain and wind - but that made no difference to our plans. By 2145 we were rolling along the bypass towards Impact Pamp, and five minutes later all three vehicles were parked in the turning area. Our main getaway car was a souped-up Audi Quattro that had seen service in Northern Ireland.

  It had been brought back to the mainland because it had been co.mpromised: after a couple of successful operations the IRA knew it too well, so it had come home for a respray and the issue of new plates.

  From the outside it looked the same as any other silver Audi; but lurking beneath its skin it carried potent extra assets. One was the engine, which had been given racing specification during a visit to the workshops at the DoningtonPark circuit in Leicestershire. The tweaked unit fired the car with fearsome acceleration and a top speed of 150 m.p.h. There were also slices of Kevlar armour in the doors and down the backs of the front seats - and to cope with the extra power and weight, both brakes and suspension had been uprated.

  The result of all this was that the driver Could throw it about the road like a racing-car - which was lust what Whinger fancied.

  Our other vehicle was an old black Granada - less brutal, but solid, dependable and fast enough for most contingencies. I'd nominated Stew as driver, with Doughnut Dyson as his co-pilot. The rammer van was being driven by two other guys from the Regiment.

  Someone had pointed out that, as the police were not going to give chase after the intercept, there was no need for us to use such a high-performance beast as the Audi. I countered with the possibility that other people might get caught up in the operation - accidentally or on purpose - and we might in the end be glad of a genuine getaway car. In any case, it was important that, once we had Farrell on board, we should cover a few miles at seriously high speed, as though the law were truly on our tail.

  In our jeans and trainers we looked like any old layabouts, but covert radios and pistols in shoulder holsters under our sweatshirts gave us the teeth we needed. In the boot of the Granada were three MP5s, a box of loaded magazines, and a case of flash-bang stun grenades.

  On our vantage point at the top of the Impact lamp we sat in the dark and waited, the raindrops pearling on the windscreens. The Audi was first in line, with the Granada behind it, and the rammer van last.

  The traffic on the bypass below us was spasmodic.

  For several seconds at a stretch the road would be empty, then a car or truck would come past, its lights glistening on the wet tarmac. The first sign of activity or rather, lack of it - should come soon after 2215, when the police were due to seal off all approaches to the ring road.

  'Does he know what's happening?' asked Tony quietly.

  'Who?'

  'Farrell.'

  'Can't tell. It's possible word's got back to him, but I doubt it. He hasn't seen any outsiders since the ban on visitors was imposed.'

  'Where does he think he's going, then?'

  'I don't suppose he's got a clue; they don't have to tell prisoners where they're taking them. That's why it's called the ghost train. He may think he's going down to the IKA nick at Evesham. Or there's another one called the Dana at Shrewsbury. That's not far off, either.'

  Time dragged. I stared out of the window at the dismal conditions, thankful that at least all the guys on the team knew what our target looked like. Mugshots of Farrell, full face and profile, taken in the nick, had gone up on the board in the incident room. Seeing them, I had realised that even after months of pursuit I had never had a really good look at him. The night I'd seen him at the barn outside Belfast he'd been thirty or more metres off, standing in poor, flickering light; it was my colleague in the C)P, a guy from the Det, who'd recoguised him. And when I had chased him into the edge of the Amazon jungle it was in half-darkness, and in any case I'd been nearly blind with rage. The pictures taken in Winson Green showed him looking pretty rough, with hollow cheeks and dark shadows under the eyes.

  Something else was niggling at my mind as we waited: a sheet of a telephone transcript which I'd glimpsed on Fraser's desk in the incident room. It was a record of a conversation with the PIPOk which had obviously taken place while we were in Libya.

  Somebody had rung in, demanding to speak to Geordie Sharp, and 'KT' - Karen Terraine - had taken the call.

  For a while she'd stalled the man with stock answers, but when he had insisted on talking to me, she'd said: 'Well, you can't. He's not in the country. He's gone abroad for a few da
ys.' Beside these words somebody had made a couple of big red crosses with a felt tip, as if to draw attention to a major breach of security. Why, for Christ's sake, had the woman said that I was overseas? Was it just carelessness, or was it spite 207 revenge for my giving her the brush-off in that bout of midnight fisticu? Either way, I got the impression that Fraser had moved her smartly out of the team working on my problem. He told me she'd gone on leave, but I reckoned she'd been fired. Whatever had happened to her, one potentially dangerous fact was now in enemy hands. To some extent Operation Ostrich had been compromised.

  I looked at my watch again and said, 'Now. It's quarter past. The road blocks should be in position.'

  For a while we saw no change; the occasional vehicle continued to come past. Then, after one last lorry from the south, the flow from that direction ceased. A couple of minutes later the same thing happened from the north - a single car came down and disappeared south wards trailing a cloud of spray - and then everything went quiet.

  'Standby,' I said over our chatter net. 'Engines running.'

  Whinger turned the ignition key, and the Audi burbled into life with a deep, throaty grumble. I switched to the police channel, and a moment later heard a voice I recognised as that oflkoss Tucker, driver of the lead vehicle in the convoy: 'Point Alpha now.'

  Back on our own net I called, 'OK. Take up position.'

  Whinger switched on his headlights, which blazed out across the bypass, and rolled the heavy car down the slope. He headed a few yards to the left, so as to leave the rammer van a clear run, and brought the Audi to rest at an angle across the carriageway, its nose pointing south. In a couple of seconds Stew had eased the Granada round ahead of us and backed it up so that its rear-bumper was touching our front mudguard. By the time he'd switched on the alarm flashers and raised the lid of the boot, the two vehicles presented the very picture of an unfortunate shunt.

  I nipped to the boot of the Granada, grabbed the power-saw, switched on and gave a couple of pulls on the starter cord to make sure it would run. At the second tug the engine burst into life, and after belching out a cloud of white smoke, rewed up smoothly. I switched off and returned the saw to its place. The rest of the team stationed themselves on the south side of the barricade, away from the impact area.

  'Standby!' called Tony. 'Lights to the north.'

  On the chatter net I called the driver of our rammer van. 'All set, Joe?'

  'Turning and burning,' he replied calmly.

  'Fine. Listen out for my countdown.'

  The lights bore down towards us, at first only one big glare through the drizzling rain, then three distinct pairs of headlam, ps, with blue police lamps flashing fore and aft. They were less than a quarter of a mile off when Tony's voice suddenly broke into the chatter net.

  '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.'