Ultimatum

by Simon Kernick

  ‘I heard Brozi’s claiming you assaulted him.’

  Tina shrugged. ‘Well, he would do, wouldn’t he? But you know better, right?’

  Bolt sighed. ‘Don’t worry, Tina, I’ve got your back.’ Then he remembered something. ‘Did you speak to Mr Ridic about the email message on Brozi’s PC?’

  She nodded. ‘He translated it for me but I don’t know how much use it is.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘Hold on a second.’ She pulled a scuffed notebook from the back of her jeans. ‘The exact wording was “Collection confirmed. Place and time as agreed.” But I’ve no idea what it means. Maybe Brozi will enlighten us.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Bolt, and moved to go past her, wanting to get his statement over and done with.

  And then it hit him. Jones had told him earlier that he was needed as security for a meeting during which something was going to be handed over. Could this be something to do with the collection in Brozi’s email? He needed to talk to Jones as soon as possible.

  Bolt was always extremely careful about calling his informant unless it was an emergency, in order to minimize the risk of compromising him, but he decided that this was one. Excusing himself, he called Jones’s number, but only got an automatic message saying the phone was switched off.

  He immediately called Nikki Donohoe in the Special Operations office.

  She answered on the first ring. ‘Glad to hear you’re still alive, boss. Sounds like you’re getting all the action out there.’

  Bolt chuckled. He liked Nikki. She didn’t let things faze her. ‘Luckily Brozi was a crap shot.’

  ‘I heard your Miss Boyd gave him a bit of a kicking.’

  ‘He resisted arrest. Listen, Nikki. Those two GPS units I signed out for our informant this morning – I need you to switch them on right now, and tell me where they are.’

  Bolt paced the corridor while he waited for her to input the data. There was still no absolute proof that today’s bombs were linked to the Stanhope attacks, but the fact that Fox had fingered Brozi, and that Brozi himself was linked to the café bomber, meant that it was extremely likely. Again, that didn’t necessarily mean that Cecil Boorman and his mysterious boss, Cain, were also involved. But with barely two hours to go until the terrorists’ ultimatum expired, it was something they needed to find out fast.

  After a few seconds, Nikki came back on the line. ‘Both units are together in Bermondsey about three quarters of a mile south of the river.’

  Bolt thought about this. He’d told Jones to call him if Cain or Cecil had made contact with him, and he hadn’t. ‘OK, keep me posted of their movements.’

  ‘Does this mean I’m going to be needed late tonight, Mike? If I am, I need to let the old man know so he can get back from work and sort out the kids.’

  ‘Yeah, you are. Sorry about that.’

  He felt for Nikki. Unlike him, she had a family life to juggle. But right now that wasn’t his top priority.

  Suddenly Jones was. What the hell was he doing?

  Thirty-eight

  17.50

  THE STINGER IS an extremely accurate shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile. It has one major battlefield purpose: to bring down enemy aircraft. They’re sought after by terrorist groups because of their ability to take down passenger jets if they’re fired by a trained operative.

  I swallowed. This was big.

  ‘What the hell are you going to use it for?’ I asked Cain.

  ‘It’s going to be used for a targeted attack. There may be civilian casualties, but they’re not the primary purpose of the attack. That’s all I can tell you.’

  That was when I knew that Cain was responsible for the bomb attacks earlier that day. All over the news they’d been talking about the third attack that the terrorists had scheduled for later that night. This was no coincidence.

  I stared at both Cecil and Cain in turn. ‘Are you telling me you two were behind the attacks this morning?’

  They exchanged glances, and I wondered if I’d gone too far.

  ‘Am I a part of this organization or not? Because if I am, I need to know what’s going on.’

  ‘Yeah, of course you are,’ Cain said eventually. ‘And everything will become clear soon enough. But right now, we need to get out of here. Grab your stuff.’

  I walked over to where Dav had chucked my mobile, trying hard to ignore the dead bodies strewn round the room. I had a real dilemma now. If I let on to Bolt about the Stinger, then eventually I was going to have to give up the details of what had happened here, and the fact that I’d killed someone. Bolt had promised to do all he could to protect me, and I knew he’d do his best. But in the end he didn’t have the power to grant me immunity from prosecution for murder. At the same time, though, I couldn’t just stand back and allow a Stinger missile to go into circulation. The point was, you didn’t buy one of those things unless you were planning some sort of terrorist spectacular, and if I let matters take their course, I’d be responsible for hundreds of deaths, and there was no way I’d be able to live with that.

  As I bent down to pick up my mobile, I glanced over my shoulder and, seeing that the other two were still in the back room, I pulled the two GPS units from my wallet and slipped them into my back pocket. I had no idea if Bolt had switched them on remotely or not. If he had, I was already in trouble, because he could use them to trace me here. But I’d worry about that later. Right now, I had to make sure that I didn’t lose the missile.

  I looked down at the mobile and cursed. The screen was cracked and it wouldn’t turn on. So I couldn’t even warn Bolt about what was happening.

  ‘What are you doing?’ snapped Cain as he came back into the room carrying one end of the crate.

  ‘He broke my mobile.’ I held it up for him to see.

  ‘Never mind that. Get moving, and get the boot open.’

  I walked out of the double doors and into the crisp evening air. There was no sound of approaching sirens. It was as if the bloody events here had never even happened. I could hear the distant sounds of traffic and commuter trains and, as I looked up to the sky, I saw the red lights of aircraft coming in from the Channel towards London and the final approach into Heathrow. The earlier clouds had blown away and it was a clear night. You could even make out a few stars amid the light pollution. Perfect for a missile operator to target a plane and shoot it out of the sky above the city so that, as it broke up, it could rain down debris on the streets and houses below. And the thought that kept rattling through my head was that it could be my street. It could be my wife and child torn apart by jagged, smoking lumps of steel.

  I slipped one of the GPS units out of my back pocket and pulled open the hatchback boot as the other two manoeuvred the crate round so that it could slide inside. Stepping out of the way, I put a hand on the crate to help steer it on its way, affixing the unit to its underside as I did so, keeping my expression as neutral as possible even though my heart was hammering away in my chest, knowing that if it fell off, I’d be dead.

  But it didn’t. The other two finished pushing the crate inside, and a minute later we were driving through the scrapyard entrance.

  I’d survived. But I had a terrible feeling that this could change at any time.

  Thirty-nine

  18.05

  ‘ARE YOU SURE you should be going out tonight?’

  Gina Burnham-Jones’s babysitter and neighbour, Sue, was a big maternal woman in her late sixties who’d decided to take Gina under her wing after Jones had left, and who worried about her constantly.

  Gina smiled. ‘Of course I’m sure. You can’t let people like that dictate your life.’ She avoided using the word ‘terrorist’ so as not to worry Maddie, who was currently playing with her Sylvanians on the lounge floor.

  ‘What are you sure about, Mummy?’ she asked, looking up from her game.

  ‘Nothing that concerns you, young lady,’ said Gina with a wink.

  ‘Ears like a hawk, that one,’
whispered Sue.

  The doorbell rang. That would be Matt. Gina got up from the sofa, conscious of the fact that there was no frisson of excitement like there had been with Jones in the early days.

  ‘Who’s at the door, Mummy?’

  ‘A friend of mine. We’re going out.’

  Maddie jumped up from her game and wrapped her arms round Gina’s waist. ‘You’re coming back, aren’t you?’

  Gina felt a surge of guilt. Maddie missed her dad badly, and the experience of him leaving had made her insecure. ‘Of course I’m coming back, darling,’ she said, kissing her daughter on the forehead and exchanging glances with Sue, who was pulling an irritatingly sympathetic face.

  She wondered how Maddie was going to react when she met Matt, and knew it wasn’t going to be instant happy families. Jesus, why did life have to be so complicated?

  Gently extricating herself from Maddie’s arms, Gina said her goodbyes and went to the door, checking herself in the mirror en route and feeling pretty satisfied with her reflection.

  Matt took a step back when he saw her, a look of admiration in his eyes. ‘Wow, Gina, you look beautiful.’

  ‘You look pretty good yourself,’ she said, and he did. He was wearing a neatly pressed dark suit and three-quarter-length Crombie coat which, coupled with his well-groomed silver hair and strong bearing, gave him an air of comforting sophistication. His aftershave was strong but smelled good.

  ‘So, are you going to finally tell me where we’re going?’ she asked as he put an arm round her waist and led her to his car.

  ‘Well, we’re going into the centre of town, I can tell you that much. But the final destination remains a surprise.’

  Gina felt a twinge of irritation. She liked a surprise as much as the next person but the whole cloak-and-dagger aspect of this evening seemed a bit much.

  ‘I don’t mean to be a pain,’ he said with a rueful smile, reading her thoughts. ‘But when you do find out, you’ll be pleased that it was a surprise.’ He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘I promise.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, intrigued once again. ‘I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.’

  The funny thing was that Matt wasn’t the type for surprises. A police officer with twenty-nine years’ service, he was a typically logical and pragmatic detective who, by his own admission, had no imagination whatsoever. He tried to be romantic – he was clearly trying to be romantic now – but he could never quite pull it off.

  ‘I’m surprised you got the night off,’ she said as they got in the car, ‘what with all this terrorism stuff going on.’

  ‘There’s only so much we can do,’ he answered, ‘and there are plenty of people better qualified than me out there looking for them.’

  ‘Do you think the terrorists will do something when their eight p.m. deadline runs out?’ Whatever Gina might have said to Sue back in the house, she was still nervous.

  ‘If they do, it’ll be something small-scale. Whatever the media might say, these people bark a lot louder than they bite. And it’s not something you need to worry about.’ He smiled at her as he pulled the car away from the kerb, and there was a gleam in his eyes. ‘Tonight we’re going to enjoy ourselves.’

  Forty

  18.15

  THE STREET WAS quiet when Cain dropped us back where we’d parked Cecil’s car earlier, near Jamaica Road. The journey had been largely made in silence. All of us I think, even Cain, were shocked by the ferocity of what had just happened, and the fact that we’d left behind so many bodies.

  In my left hand, unseen by the others, I clutched the second GPS device Bolt had given me. I didn’t know whether the Audi we were in belonged to Cain or not – I suspected not – or how long he was going to hold on to it for, but as I sat there next to him I decided to leave the GPS unit in it. It was a high-risk move but I no longer cared. The important thing was to stop him, and any attack he was planning on carrying out. I’d worry about everything else later.

  Cain was talking again now. ‘You did well today, gentlemen,’ he said, as if he was giving us a pep talk at school. ‘Remember that. We had a challenge and we overcame it. There’ll be an extra bonus for this as well, Jones.’ He gave me a nod as he said this, as if this somehow made up for the fact that I’d been only seconds away from having my leg cut off and was now an accessory to mass murder.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. I mean, what else could I say? The important thing was to get out of there and warn Bolt about what was happening.

  As I got out of the car, I stuck the GPS unit on the underside of the passenger seat, well out of sight, and pictured a scene where Cain was spreadeagled against the Audi, surrounded by armed cops, while they took the Stinger out of the back.

  Game, set and match, you arsehole.

  A minute later, Cecil and I were standing on the pavement watching as Cain drove away into the night, taking the missile with him.

  ‘Is he going to be the one firing that thing?’ I asked Cecil as we got into his car and pulled away from the kerb going in the opposite direction.

  ‘I don’t want to think about it.’ Cecil looked at me. ‘You shouldn’t either.’

  ‘Do you have any idea of what the target is?’

  Cecil shook his head, keeping his eye on the road. ‘No, but we’re doing it for the right reasons, you and me. We’ve got to make the people angry. We’ve got to make them rise up against all this multicultural shit, and if we manage that, it’ll have been worth it. Won’t it?’

  I nodded, acting like I agreed with him, even though I found it hard to believe what I was hearing. I’d known Cecil a long time. He’d been a good soldier. A bit of a loose cannon, yes, but I’d always thought his heart was in the right place. And now here he was talking about committing mass murder on an industrial scale.

  ‘You look like you need a drink,’ he said. ‘And I know I do. Let’s grab one somewhere.’

  I was horribly conscious of the terrorists’ eight p.m. deadline. ‘Just drop me home, can you?’ I said wearily.

  Cecil gave me a suspicious sideways glance. ‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’

  ‘Look, the fact is I almost got killed back there, so I just want to be alone for a while, all right? And let’s go the direct route. Because I think it’s pretty obvious now that we’re not being followed.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, apparently mollified, and fell silent.

  I counted the minutes in my head as we drove. The flat I called home was at the top end of Stoke Newington, a good twenty minutes away if the traffic wasn’t bad, which thank God it wasn’t. My head felt like it was going to explode. I needed to piss, I needed to stop this missile being fired and, more than anything, I needed to work out my next move. If either Cecil or Cain were arrested, they could testify against me in a court of law over the murder of Dav, and it was almost certain I’d be convicted and sent down for life. There was no way round that.

  It was just after 6.30 when we pulled off the A10 at Stoke Newington, opposite the Abney Park Cemetery, still a good half mile from where I lived. The traffic had suddenly snarled up, but I knew there was a pub just round the corner.

  ‘Drop me here, I’ll walk the rest of the way.’ Cecil tried to protest but I cut him off with a look. ‘Like I said, I want to be alone.’

  He seemed to accept what I’d said, and we shook hands and said our goodbyes. I heard him do a U-turn in the traffic and turn south, and I counted to ten, then sprinted for the pub, counting down in my head the minutes that the Stinger had been on the streets. Knowing that the moment I made the call I’d be setting in motion a chain of events that would either put me in the ground, or behind bars for the rest of my life.

  Forty-one

  18.41

  BOLT AND TINA watched the interview with Jetmir Brozi unfold through the one-way mirror that looked into the interview room.

  It didn’t make for riveting viewing.

  On one side of the table sat the two officers from CTC, a m
an and a woman in power suits, who’d only finished taking Bolt’s statement ten minutes earlier. They’d come across as competent and businesslike, and were treating the situation with the urgency it needed. Alongside them was Ridic, the Albanian translator. At the opposite end sat Brozi wearing a defiant, slightly bored expression. He had his own translator next to him, who was there to pass messages from his lawyer, a bald-headed Englishman with a moustache and an expensive suit who looked like he charged more by the hour than Bolt and Tina earned together in a day, and who was several feet back from the table, with his legs crossed and a notebook on his lap.

  Brozi was adopting the professional criminal’s method of dealing with police interviews and answering every question with a heavily accented ‘No comment’. Bolt often wondered why criminals persisted with this line of defence. It might save them the effort of having to think up lies, or contradicting themselves, but it invariably made them look guilty in the eyes of a jury when the transcripts of the interviews were read out in court.

  Bolt would have liked to be the one leading the interview but, to be fair, it didn’t look like it would have done much good anyway. Brozi was sticking to his routine, clearly unfazed by the scale of the charges facing him, or the prospect of spending the next ten years in prison. His arrogance was frustrating, but the interviewing officers were continuing regardless in the hope that he might weaken, or his lawyer might talk some sense into him.

  It wasn’t working.

  Bolt shook his head in frustration. ‘He’s not going to talk.’

  Tina sighed. ‘So where does that leave us? Brozi won’t talk. Fox won’t talk. And we’re running low on time.’

  ‘I’ve got an informant out in the field, who I saw this morning. He has a connection to someone who’s been of interest to us for some time. He told me that he was providing security for a meeting today.’

  Tina raised an eyebrow. ‘You never told me about this. Is that why you were so interested when I told you about the message on Brozi’s PC?’