When he'd finished explaining the situation, she asked if she could call her head office, but Harris shook his head. 'No outgoing calls,' he said firmly. 'Not to your head office, friends or relatives. Everyone must leave without saying a word to anyone outside the building.'
'For how long?' she asked.
'We don't know.'
'But this is a dealing room,' she said. 'We trade in millions every minute. You can't shut us down.'
'I'm afraid we can, Miss Daley,' said Lisa.
'But at least you can allow us to move to our emergency dealing room, can't you?'
'Where is that?' asked Harris.
'On the Isle of Dogs.'
'I don't see that that's a problem,' said Harris.
'But I'll have to get permission from head office,' said Miss Daley.
Harris shook his head.
'This is outrageous,' said Miss Daley.
Harris moved his face so that it was only inches from her face. She stared back at him unflinchingly. 'What's outrageous, Miss Daley, is that we are having this conversation, when we could all end up dying here. We have only minutes to evacuate the entire building. It's not a drill, it's not a game, we're not doing this because we've nothing better to do. Now, you either do as you're told or I'll have you arrested and thrown into a vomit-stained cell somewhere while we get someone else to clear your floor. Are we clear?'
'Crystal,' said Miss Daley quietly. 'But, Mr Harris, I'd like you to be aware that I'll be making an official complaint as soon as possible detailing your behaviour and attitude. Now, what do you need?'
'I need groups of ten to be brought into reception. How many staff do you have on this floor?'
'One hundred and twenty. Do we bring the women first?'
'No. A mix of men and women. But it mustn't look as if they're carrying all their belongings. Briefcases are okay, but this mustn't look like an evacuation. I don't want you to make a general announcement – you're to quietly approach individuals. Send them into reception in batches often. And make it clear, no phone calls to the outside.'
Miss Daley nodded. She turned and walked back into the dealing room. Harris turned to Lisa. 'Why don't people just do as they're told?' he asked.
'You could try saying please,' said Lisa.
'Please? You heard her – she was more concerned about money than about what might happen to the building. It's like those sad bitches who insist on going back into a burning building to rescue their handbags.'
Lisa smiled thinly at him. 'If I didn't know better, Gordon, I'd suggest it was your wrong time of the month.'
Before Harris could reply the electronic doors hissed open and the first group of ten office workers began filing through into the reception area. A male MI5 agent already had one of the lift doors open and Harris shepherded them towards it, explaining that they were to go down to the carpark in the basement of the tower block and exit from there.
– «»-«»-«»Patsy took her phone away from her mouth. 'Six floors clear so far,' she said to Hetherington.
Hetherington nodded his approval. He was watching the bank of monitors. There were now eight screens showing the thermal images. There were still only four figures, glowing green in the shadowy background. One of the figures was bent at the waist, obviously sitting, while the three other figures stood around it. Captain Payne stood behind Hetherington, his eyes flicking from screen to screen. Hetherington tapped the image of the seated figure on one of the screens. 'If I was a gambling man, I'd say that was Tango Four.'
Payne nodded. 'She's working on the timer.'
'Tango Four?' said Martin.
Hetherington turned, surprised at the interruption. He hadn't realised that Martin was there.
'Your wife,' said Hetherington.
'My wife has a name, Mr Hetherington,' said Martin. 'I'd be happier if you used it.'
'The tango designation makes identification easier,' said Captain Payne. 'We don't have time to memorise names.'
'My understanding is that tango means target,' said Martin. 'My wife is not a target. She's a victim. I don't want anyone referring to her as a target. She has a name. Andrea. Andrea Hayes.'
'You're quite right, Mr Hayes,' said Hetherington. 'I apologise.'
Before he could say anything else, one of the technicians shouted over at them. 'We have sound.'
The technician tapped the keys on his laptop and then started flicking switches on a console. There were small loudspeakers on either side of the bank of monitors. There was a hissing sound, then voices. The technician's Fingers played across the keyboard again. The voices became clearer.
'How are you getting this?' asked Martin.
Patsy leaned across and put her mouth close to Martin's ear. 'Lasers,' she whispered. 'We bounce lasers off the windows to pick up the vibrations caused by sounds inside the building.'
The volume was increased, and suddenly Martin realised that it was Andy's voice he was listening to.
'… going to do? You can't go through with this.'
She sounded close to tears.
'Set it, Andrea.' A man's voice. An American accent. 'Sixty minutes.'
Patsy looked across at Hetherington. 'Sixty minutes,' she mouthed.
'Do it, Andrea. Do it or I'll put a bullet in your knee.'
Hetherington walked away from the monitors, pulling his mobile phone out of his jacket.
'We're going to have to move fast,' said Payne. 'An hour's no time at all.'
'We have to talk to the PM first,' said Patsy.
'What's happening?' asked Martin, looking over at his shoulder at Hetherington, who was whispering into his phone, a look of urgency etched into his features. 'What's going on?' He was ignored. He stared at the bank of monitors as he realised for the first time what he was looking at. The man with the American accent was pointing a gun at his wife, and if she didn't do as she was told, he was going to shoot her.
– «»-«»-«»Andy sat back and closed her eyes. 'It's done,' she said. The digital display showed 01.00.
'Take it over to the bags,' said the man in the ski mask, gesturing with his handgun.
Andy stood up and lifted the briefcase. The man moved away from her as she carried it over to the pile of black garbage bags. She placed it on top of the pile and turned to face the man. The Wrestler and Green-eyes were standing by the line of ovens, watching.
'You know better than that, Andrea,' said the man. 'It has to be in the centre. Surrounded by the explosive.'
'It'll work on top.'
'I know it will. But we'll get a bigger bang if the explosive is piled around it.'
'There's four thousand pounds of explosive here. How big a bang do you want?'
'I want to bring the house down, Andrea. Stack the bags around the briefcase. And keep them tight together. We wouldn't the bags to be blown out without detonating, would we? Or was that what you were trying to do?'
'And then what? Then you kill me, right?'
The man said nothing, but Green-eyes took a step forward and pointed at Andy. 'That's right, you bitch!' she shouted. 'It goes up and you with it!'
'So I've got nothing to lose, have I?' said Andy quietly. She reached behind her with her right hand and brought out the video recorder's remote control. She slowly raised it in the air so that they could all see it, her thumb moving over the on-off button. 'If I press this, the bomb goes off.'
– «»-«»-«»Captain Payne turned to Patsy. 'What is it? What the hell's she holding?' On the monitors, the green figure that was Andy had one arm held up high as if pointing at the ceiling.
Martin gripped Denham's arm so tightly that the older man winced. 'What's she doing, Liam? What's happening?'
'I don't know, Martin,' said Denham, peering at the monitors.
'Liam,' said Patsy. 'Could she have rigged the bomb?'
'It's possible. But how? What has she got there?'
Captain Payne turned to Hetherington, pushing up the sleeves of his sweat-shirt. 'If she means what she s
ays, we have to go in now,' he said.
'Let's see what she's up to,' said Hetherington.
'We have less than an hour, whatever happens,' said Payne. 'I recommend that we go in now.'
– «»-«»-«»Captain Crosbie adjusted his body armour. 'Right, orders group,' he said, and the fifteen troopers gathered for the pre-action briefing. To an outsider the men might have appeared over-relaxed as they listened to their commanding officer. Several were sitting on desks, swinging their legs. Coop was sprawled in a chair, chewing gum noisily. The laid-back attitude was deceptive, Crosbie knew. The troopers were trained to a standard few men could ever hope to achieve and would do everything asked of them. They were used to being addressed as professionals and had earned the right to be treated as such.
'Two teams of seven,' said Crosbie. 'If we get the green light, we go in on two sides, simultaneously. Three stages. One. Lower the shaped charges. Two men on each frame. No messing – we only get one chance at it. Down and blow them. Stage two. Flash-bangs. Sandy and Coop take care of them. Throw in, minimum delay, then drop to avoid the flash. Everyone else goes in immediately afterwards. Four troopers are coming in through the front door, but they're not moving until they hear the flash-bangs.' He gestured at Chuckit, who was sitting in front of his laptop and talking on the phone. 'Hopefully we'll be getting real-time thermal images of the floor below, but we can't bank on getting them before we go in. What we do know is that we have four targets. Tango One and Tango Two are male. Tango Three and Tango Four are female. Tango Four is the bombmaker, but according to Intel she's working under duress. Having said that, all are to be regarded as hostile. We don't have time to separate the wheat from the chaff. Tangos One, Two and Three are armed. Handguns.'
Several of the troopers were cradling their Heckler amp; Kochs. Crosbie held up his own weapon, a Heckler amp; Koch MP5SD, the silenced model of the MP5. 'Down below us is a four-thousand-pound fertiliser bomb, and our first priority is to secure it. We're not sure what it looks like, but keep all fire well away from it. I'm told it's relatively stable, but no one really seems to know what effect a nine-millimetre bullet travelling at four hundred metres a second is going to have on it. I'd rather not find out, so pick your targets. Who's got MP5SDS?'
Half a dozen of the troopers raised their hands. Crosbie named the two teams, dividing the men with silenced weapons so that there were three in each team.
'MP5SDS lead the way,' he said. The silenced weapons had a much lower muzzle velocity, which Crosbie hoped would minimise the chance of a premature explosion if a stray bullet should hit the explosive. 'Coop, how are you getting on with the shaped charges?'
'One done. I'll have the other ready in ten minutes.'
Crosbie nodded. The framed charges were made of light wood which Coop had nailed into rectangles the size of the windows they intended to blow out. Around the edges of the frames was PE4 plastic explosive connected up with a continuous ring of Cordtex detonation cord, and at the top was a primer and a detonator. The charges would be detonated by wire, and if Coop had done his calculations correctly they would blow in the windows and the blinds, but with minimum damage to the interior of the office. It was a delicate balance. Too little and the blinds might still be in the way when the troopers went through the window; too much and the fertiliser bomb could be accidentally detonated.
– «»-«»-«»Andy held the remote control to the side, aiming it at the briefcase, as Green-eyes and the Wrestler moved to stand behind the man in the ski mask. 'I didn't just wire up the timer,' she said, her voice cracking under the tension. 'I wired up the remote, too.'
'Could she do that?' Green-eyes asked the man in the ski mask.
'You'd better believe it!' Andy shouted.
'What do you want, Andrea?' asked the man in the ski mask.
'What do you mean, what does she want?' shouted Green-eyes. 'It doesn't matter what she wants. We've got guns. We'll fucking well shoot her!'
The man said nothing. His eyes continued to bore into Andy's as if he were trying to see into her mind. She stared back, refusing to look away, refusing even to blink.
'You can't shoot me,' said Andy. 'Because no matter how good a shot you are, no matter where you shoot me, I'm still going to be able to press the button. Even if you kill me stone dead, my hand is still going to go into spasm. The bomb'll go off. You'll all die.'
Green-eyes glared at the man. 'Is that possible?'
The man kept staring at Andy. 'If she's wired it that way, yes. The thing of it is, has she?'
Andy swallowed. 'There's only one way to find out,' she said, her voice shaking. 'I'll press the button and we'll all die.'
She raised her hand above her head.
'No!' shouted Green-eyes. 'Don't!' She lowered her gun, but the man in the ski mask kept his levelled at Andy's chest.
– «»-«»-«»Captain Payne looked over at Patsy. 'I recommend we go in now. If she presses that button, everyone dies.'
Patsy bit her lower lip as she stared at the thermal images on the bank of monitors. 'Are you sure you can take them out without the bomb going off?' she asked.
Payne looked pained. 'I can't promise. But I can tell you that in hostage rescue rehearsals we get the hostage out alive ninety-six per cent of the time. So long as the woman doesn't panic and accidentally set it off, we should be okay. We'll drop down on two sides. Shaped charges to take out the windows, flash-bangs to disorientate them, then the troopers swing in. Four of my men will take out the main door. It should be over in seconds.'
Patsy exhaled through pursed lips. She looked at Hetherington and raised an eyebrow. He nodded, pulled out his mobile phone and tapped out a number. Neither of them had the ultimate authority to approve the storming of the building. Only one man could do that. Hetherington walked to the far end of the office and began talking urgently into the phone. Patsy fingered her crucifix.
Martin turned to Denham. 'They can't go in now,' he said.
'They can, if that's what they decide is the best option,' said Denham.
'But what about Katie?'
'Katie's pretty low down their list of priorities right now,' said Denham. 'I'm sorry, Martin.'
Martin looked around the office frantically, as if searching for someone he could appeal to. No one was looking at him. Hetherington was still whispering into his mobile phone; Patsy, Barbara Carter and Tim Fanning were watching the bank of thermal image monitors; the SAS captain and two of his troopers were at the window, peering out at Cathay Tower between the slats of the blinds. Half a dozen technicians were gathered around laptop computers, their hands playing over the keyboards.
'Patsy, you have to hold off,' urged Martin. 'See what they do. If he lets her talk to Katie, we can find out where she is.'
'It's not my decision any more,' she said, avoiding his gaze.
Captain Payne had his mobile phone to his face. 'Stand by, stand by,' he said.
'What if Andy accidentally presses the button?' asked Martin. 'What if she panics? Flash-bangs are like grenades, aren't they?'
Patsy didn't reply. Martin looked at Denham. 'They're going to shoot her as well, aren't they? That's the only way to stop her pressing the button, isn't it?'
Denham averted his eyes. Martin held his arms out and waved them like a chick trying to fly for the first time. 'For God's sake, will somebody talk to me!' he shouted.
Patsy motioned with her chin at Fanning. 'Tim, take Mr Hayes outside, will you.'
Martin put his hands up in surrender. 'Okay, okay,' he said quietly. 'I'll be quiet.' He walked over to the window and stood next to the SAS captain.
Fanning looked at Patsy for guidance and she gave him a small shrug.
Hetherington clicked his mobile phone off and walked over to Patsy. 'The PM says to go in,' he said.
The SAS captain looked over his shoulder. 'That's a green light?' he asked Hetherington.
'Affirmative,' said Hetherington. 'And may God help us all.' He turned to Patsy. 'I think we should all
move out of the room. Just to be on the safe side. Flying glass and such.'
Captain Payne put his phone to his mouth. Martin moved quickly, pushing the phone away with his left hand and grabbing for the man's gun with his right. He gripped the butt of the weapon and pulled it from its nylon holster. It came out smoothly, and before he realised it he was pointing the gun at Payne's head. Martin had never fired a gun in his life, but he knew enough to realise that there was a safety catch and he fumbled it into the off position with his thumb as he took a step backwards.
'Don't be stupid,' said Payne, holding his hands up, fingers splayed.
'Martin, for God's sake, what are you doing?' shouted Denham.
Martin kept the gun pointed at the captain's head. 'Tell your men to keep their hands where they are,' he warned. 'If either of them makes a move towards their weapons, I'll shoot you.'
'You're not going to shoot anyone,' said the captain.
'Martin, come on, calm down,' said Patsy soothingly.
Martin stepped to the side so that he could see everyone in the room, though he kept the gun levelled at the captain. Hetherington watched in amazement, his mouth open wide, his phone at his side. The two troopers were looking at their officer, waiting to see how he'd react.
'Martin, I know you're under a lot of strain at the moment,' said Patsy. 'But this isn't helping anyone.' She took a step closer to him.
'Stay where you are!' Martin shouted. 'If you come any closer, I'll shoot him.'
'That wouldn't be very smart, Martin,' she said.
Martin ignored her. 'Tim, push that desk against the door. Do anything else, anything at all, and I'll shoot him.'
The two troopers were moving away from the captain, one going to the left, one to the right. Martin waved the gun at Payne. 'Tell them to stay where they are,' he hissed. 'I'll try to shoot you in the leg, but I've never fired a gun before so I might hit you somewhere fatal.'
'That'd be murder,' said the SAS captain. 'Cold-blooded murder. Are you up to that, Martin? Are you up to shooting an unarmed man?'
The Bombmaker Page 33
