by Albert Able
“And so, just like you, my brother, I’m going to have my revenge one day and I look forward knowing that we have done our duty, and especially to meeting you in Heaven beside the great God Allah.”
As the suicide bomber listened he seemed to be gradually drifting in to a near hypnotic trance; Hassan’s obviously genuine experience was melding sympathetically with his own.
“Perhaps we should go together now, my brother.”
Although Hassan’s lightening pounce was calculated to take the suicide bomber by surprise and to knock the transmitter out of his hand, amazingly the bomber’s reflexes proved to be even quicker.
“You treacherous infidel,” screamed the bomber, raising his hand holding the detonator. “Now we all die!”
Enclosed in the confined area the deafening sound of the thirty-eight-calibre pistol’s double discharge hammered painfully into all their ears.
The suicide bomber’s head crashed back against the wall, blood and hair splattered Hassan and the children, his body sagged and rolled slowly to the floor the detonator still held in his hand.
Igor was only inches away and somehow he managed to reach forward, grab the dead wrist and carefully extract the detonator.
The whole action had taken less than five seconds, the exact amount of time it took for the woman to react with an ear-piercing scream.
In the same moment Alex Scott moved forward with the pistol still firmly held in both hands and pointing at the fallen suicide bomber. A quick examination and the sight of one dark hole in the forehead and another in the chest was enough to tell him that the man was no longer a threat.
Alex, his own heart pounding in his chest, relaxed his grip on the pistol and lowered it to his side. “You all alright?” he asked, taking a deep breath.
Igor held up the detonator. “I’ve been close a few times in Afghanistan but this time I really thought ‘Old Nick’ had got me!”
“I couldn’t have allowed that. What would Sophie have done to me?” Alex grinned artificially as he helped Hassan up from the floor.
Still sobbing with emotion, the woman was already untying the children when another voice called out in Russian from the square.
Igor raised his hand. “Everything under control, Captain,” he responded in English as Captain Ustinoffe appeared, accompanied by several other uniformed men.
Alex Scott turned. “I think you better get that specialist disposal guy in here before you let the troops back in, Captain.”
As he closed the few paces towards the approaching Captain, Alex released the magazine on the pistol and then ejected the live cartridge from the chamber before handing the weapon back. “Thank you, a fine weapon.”
Captain Ustinoffe reloaded the pistol and slipped it back into the leather holster.
“And it has now been used in anger” he smiled, patting it approvingly.
It took the specialist bomb disposal man over an hour to delicately open and defuse the bomb; which to everyone’s surprise but obvious relief, proved to be no more than a small explosive device. Nonetheless, it would have been capable of killing the suicide bomber and the children.
Tests showed that there was a small trace of radioactivity, which suggested that the device had been mildly contaminated in some unknown way in the past, but happily that was all.
***
The fact that the suicide bomber had somehow hijacked the bomb and used it for his own purposes at the GUM shopping mall - even though he had failed to fulfil his mission - was bad enough; it was the news that the bomber had been killed and the weapon neutralised by a team led by SONIC’s agent Alex Scott that had sent Carl Peterson into a cataleptic daze. He spent several minutes slumped in his high back leather chair, his steel blue eyes staring into space.
Carl Peterson always displayed enormous self-control over his emotions and so as the violent pressure that had temporally clouded his mind gradually subsided; he began methodically to re-assess his plan.
With agent Alex Scott involved he realised that he was going to have to call on more support to execute his plan. The first thing he did as his vision cleared and his thoughts became crystal clear again was to reach for the telephone. There was one person who still had some of his former Syndicate enforcer contacts: his son Rudi.
Peterson not only saw this as a way of redeeming himself from his last careless remark but he also knew that Rudi would revel in putting some of them to work.
***
Alex Scott arranged to travel back to London that evening, skilfully avoiding any of the official questions by the Moscow police. It allowed him and Hassan to be discreetly hustled away and secretly boarded on to the evening British Airways flight to London.
At Heathrow airport several po-faced officials hovered furtively near the cargo hold of the Moscow flight as the two men disembarked on the tarmac and hurried to a room marked ‘Security Reception’.
Almost immediately the inner door flew open and the Boss appeared. “Welcome to London,” he said as he shook the bemused Hassan Uddime’s hand.
“Customs and Immigration” - he gestured to the two other men accompanying him, “a couple of formalities, that’s all,” the Boss reassured them.
“Sign here please, Sir.” One of the men produced a pad with a printed form and offered it to Hassan.
“What is it?” Hassan asked suspiciously.
“The Official Secrets Act and your contract to serve SONIC,” the Boss explained. “I believe Alex briefed you?”
Hassan nodded and signed the form. The Boss countersigned it. “Thank you for your help.” The Boss returned the pen to the man and turned to Hassan. “I think that means you belong to me now.” The Boss gave one of his rare smiles and placed a friendly hand on Hassan’s shoulder. “I’ve arranged a small apartment in town for you; I suggest we go there first.” He glanced at Alex. “I will brief you on the current situation on the way.” The Boss didn’t wait for approval and led them through the corridor to a waiting car.
On the way to Hassan’s apartment the Boss updated Alex on the current situation.
Amazingly SONIC had received a message purporting to be from the Syndicate. This was the first time they had ever made direct contact using their name, which initially made the Boss suspect that it might be some other organisation trying to use the name as a cover. However, several cross checks had convinced him that they were genuinely dealing with the Syndicate although there was still no proven connection with SKY-SEC in California.
“The message didn’t say where exactly they would target next but as I detailed in the fax to you, we already happen to know that they are planning to explode their filthy devices in Moscow, Paris, London and New York. Thanks to you, Moscow was thwarted but we are going to need more than a little luck to nip the others in the bud. Perhaps with your help, eh?”
The Boss looked understandingly at Hassan before going on to explain the information Sir Gerald Fisher had been given by Mustafa Ben Laurie and the attempt on Sir Gerald’s life.
“We are now convinced the information Mustafa gave - or should I say sold - to Sir Gerald was genuine, especially since I received a report this morning that Mustafa was in a fatal car crash a couple of days ago.”
“So what did the Syndicate message say?” Alex gently pulled the Boss back on track.
“Ah yes, I’m afraid they are really pissed off after you foiled their Moscow show,” it was rare for the Boss to use profanities, “so they’ve challenged you personally to find the next target.”
The Boss looked directly at Alex. “I won’t try to stop you, of course, because I know you wouldn’t take any notice. Oh, and I should have told you that SONIC has been temporarily reactivated with me in command and so I am officially reinstating your position. Is that agreeable with you?”
There was a long silence as they conside
red the Boss’s revelation.
Alex finally broke the spell. “I’m very happy to be ‘official’, it makes it much easier with any overseas activities and if the Syndicate wants a personal vendetta with me, presumably they are hoping to finish me off at the scene of one of their explosions?”
Alex smiled cheekily at the Boss: “There are some strange inconsistencies here. The most glaring one is that the Moscow bomb was not nuclear, although there had been some radio active contamination at some point. Now they are trying to play games with us - or rather with me. The good news is that they will have to leak where the next bomb is to be detonated or I can’t be suckered into their trap, can I?”
***
Carl Peterson was far too wary a competitor to be drawn into any kind of vendetta or personal challenge. He knew that such foolhardy ventures simply took your attention away from the prime objective of any project.
Rudi Peterson, however, simply did not posses such will power; his deformed body and the indignities it caused him as a matter of daily routine were far too engrained to allow such a luxury.
But as he sent the message challenging Alex Scott to confront the Syndicate, some inner instinct told him the minute he tapped the send button, that it was probably wrong and that it would cause yet another confrontation with his father. But he quickly excused himself, muttering to the empty screen: “Always assuming he ever finds out.”
Rudi laughed, a dreadful rictus grin set on his face. Moscow had been his father’s fault. This time they would succeed in Paris. This time it would be Rudi who made it all work.
***
At CTB Security’s workshop in London, Alex Scott sat himself comfortably in the swivel chair close to where Hans was peering thoughtfully at an e-mail message on his computer.
“Have you come to praise or to irritate me?” Hans spat out of the corner of his mouth, not taking his eyes from the screen in front of him.
“Neither actually.” Alex folded his arms. “I was just hoping that you might know someone who could fix my mobile phone?”
“No point, you don’t know how to use it anyway.” Hans’ eyes remained fixed on the screen as he tried to analyse the message sent to the Boss by the Syndicate. “You know something, my friend, someone is either trying to tell us who they are, or they have made a massive mistake.”
Hans looked up for the first time since Alex entered the workshop. “Look here,” Hans tapped the keypad and a series of numbers appeared on the screen, “these are the telephone numbers our mystery man has used in the last twelve hours.”
As Alex looked at the blur of numbers suddenly one caught his attention. “The fifth one down - that’s SKY-SEC,” he pointed. “How on earth did you get these?”
“I tapped into that part of the satellite that analyses ‘roaming charges’ before they are zipped off to the different polling receivers and - bingo! They were all there.” Hans grinned like a satisfied cat. “I couldn’t try to do it too often because it would give the game away for us as well!”
Alex Scott went straight round to the Chelsea Arts Club. The Boss was waiting for him.
“I’ve just had a call. He didn’t identify himself, just said: ‘The Syndicate have chosen Paris for the next detonation. Tell Scott I look forward to meeting him.’” The Boss slumped into his chair.
“Paris? Did they say where?” Alex slipped into the leather chair facing the Boss, “or give any indication of whether the news was to be made public?” Alex knew what he intended to do and told the Boss: “Assuming that it will be a suicide bombing again, there is only one thing to do and that is for me and Hassan to go to Paris. Do we still have any real friends left in the Sûreté over there?”
“Paris is the ‘Prefecture of Police’ these days and they have a very efficient ‘Anti Terrorist Unit’ now, but leave that to me.” The Boss made a note on the pad in front of him. “Do you remember Maurice Bouchard? Let me see if he’s still on the payroll?”
“I certainly do,” Alex stood up to leave, “I’m sure if he’s still active he’ll have some inkling of who’s who in the Muslim community and then I can get Hassan to ferret around, try and get close to some of them. There’s always someone with something to tell.”
“I agree, but there is still something I don’t like about all of this. It’s not the way the Syndicate works.” The Boss stared at Alex: “Not much point in saying be careful, but you know what I mean.”
***
Alex Scott and Hassan Eddie took a cab to St Pancras and boarded the next Eurostar to France. Two and a half hours later they disembarked at Gare du Nord International, Paris, where they were met by Maurice Bouchard, a long serving officer of Paris’s Prefecture of Police.
A stocky man in his late fifties, his florid complexion betrayed the fact that an abundant supply of wonderful French food and all those delicious wines were a prime feature of his lifestyle. Maurice had started as a police cadet and had been in the service of his country for almost forty years. He was the last of the old school in his department.
Knowing how difficult it would have been to explain the complications of Alex’s ‘informal’ visit to any of the ‘new faces’ in the ‘Anti Terrorist Unit’, the Boss had contacted Maurice Bouchard direct and happily agreed to meet Alex without requiring any unnecessary up-front questions.
“Alex will fill in all the details when he meets you,” the Boss told him, “and Maurice, somehow you will have to arrange for him to be armed. Alex will explain.”
The Boss and Alex had worked with Maurice on another Syndicate chase across France several years ago and they knew him to be a man of few words but capable of defending himself against much more powerful odds.
“Monsieur Scott, bienvenu à Paris!” Maurice greeted Alex in French and nodded politely at Hassan. “So what is it this time, Alex? The Boss says you need to be, shall we say, able to defend yourself?”
Alex shook his hand in agreement. “This is Hassan, Eddie,” he said in English.
Maurice shook the young man’s hand and held it for a moment. “Do you know the sort of trouble this man can make?” He looked seriously at Hassan, indicating Alex with a subtle shift of his eyes.
Hassan replied in near perfect French: “It’s alright Monsieur, I’ve already witnessed some of it.”
“Ah, good! You speak a real language,” Maurice relaxed. “I have a car over here. We can talk on the way to the hotels. You did want separate hotels?”
“Please,” Alex confirmed without any further explanation.
No one noticed the man reading a newspaper on the other platform who moved casually away as Maurice’s car pulled out into the traffic.
On the way, Alex closed the screen separating the driver from the passengers and then explained to Maurice most of what he knew about the current Syndicate revival and its deadly plan to detonate a bomb in Paris.
But for an occasional grunting sound Maurice Bouchard listened in silence and not until Alex had finished did he produce a sheet of typewritten paper.
“Here is the list the Boss asked for: all known Muslim trouble makers in the Paris region. They’re a difficult lot to keep track of, you know.”
Maurice glanced at Hassan and shrugged his shoulders. “I think this address should give you a start.” He passed a separate slip of paper to Hassan with the address of a Mosque. “Your hotel is less than one kilometre away from it.”
He turned back to Alex: “And this is for you,” Maurice handed the holstered Beretta semi-automatic pistol to Alex, “and four spare clips of ammo - but for God’s sake don’t get caught with it.” Maurice portrayed an old-fashioned look on his face. “The young bloods running things today are so drenched in all that ‘health and safety’ stuff you’d be inside for a year before they’d finished filling in all the paperwork.”
They dropped Hassan of at a small hotel
about half a mile from the Mosque Maurice had talked about.
“Try to stay out of trouble and ring me tomorrow as arranged, OK?” Alex bid the young Russian good night and they drove on to another inconspicuous hotel just off the Place de la Concorde.
***
It was almost exactly eight-o-clock when Alex Scott left the hotel and walked casually towards the Pont de la Concorde where he had arranged to meet Maurice Bouchard for dinner aboard one of the Seine’s famous floating restaurants.
Alex did not see anything unusual as he walked but sensed that he was being watched; within seconds however a sudden heavy shower of rain left him and the rest of the evening commuters scrambling under a sea of multicoloured umbrellas or, like Alex, crowded under the awning of one of the nearby cafés.
The rain cascaded from the awnings like miniature waterfalls into the street as the traffic, seemingly oblivious of the downpour, continued without hesitation, sending regular jets of water back on to the pavements and over some of the unfortunate pedestrians.
One of the many vehicles slowed and pulled towards the café where Alex had taken shelter. The rear window of the black Citroen slowly lowered, a polite voice from the interior called out clearly ‘Monsieur Scott?”
Thinking for a moment that Maurice may have sent a car for him, Alex, in a rare unguarded moment, moved towards the vehicle. Luckily in that split second the watery light from the café’s neon sign briefly pierced the shadow inside the car reflecting on the ugly snub barrel automatic pointing straight at him.
With the speed of a Cobra Alex recoiled instinctively, the flash from the short burst of fire sparkled like lightning in the rain, while the terrifying noise hammered and deadened the eardrums of the alarmed pedestrians crowded under the canopy over the café’s doorway and pavement.
