For a moment, Bolt didn’t say anything. He looked utterly shell-shocked. Tina had never seen him like this before.
She grabbed his arm and physically shook him, fully prepared to kick him out of the car and drive herself. ‘Mike, drive, for Christ’s sake! We can still find the shooter!’
‘All right! All right!’ he shouted back, snapping out of his trance. ‘But for once, do not do anything stupid, understand?’
‘Just fucking go!’
Giving her a glare of intense anger, he yanked the car into gear and accelerated down the street.
Fifty-four
19.47
VOORHESS KNEW HE had to move fast.
After putting his balaclava back on, he strode down into the living room and crouched down beside Azim Butt, who was literally shaking with fear in his seat. The reason for his distress was that he’d seen the heavy black explosives vest he was wearing, which Voorhess had fitted to him earlier while he’d been unconscious from the dose of diazepam. Although the actual explosives themselves weren’t visible, as they were sewn into the lining, both the vest’s weight and the exposed wires running between the pockets made it obvious to even the most naive of civilians what it was.
‘I’m going to untie you now, Mr Butt,’ Voorhess explained as he removed his gag, ‘but I must warn you: the jacket you’re wearing contains explosives, and it’s connected to a pressure pad beneath your seat. If you try to remove the jacket or leave the seat, you’ll set off the bomb and blow yourself to pieces.’ As he spoke, he untied each of Mr Butt’s ankles in turn. ‘What I want you to do is remain exactly where you are until help arrives. It won’t be long, I can promise you that.’
‘Please don’t kill me. Please.’
Voorhess started on the left wrist. ‘No one’s going to kill you if you do as you’re told. When help arrives, they’ll come through your front door. When you hear them, you call out and tell them that you’re wired to a bomb. They’ll send in the experts and deal with the device.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I just want to slow them down, Mr Butt,’ Voorhess told him, putting on his most reassuring voice as he released the final bond. ‘And remember, don’t tell them anything about me that could be of use. I don’t want to have to kill your young son in Cobham.’
Mr Butt’s eyes widened. After everything else he’d been through, this was clearly the biggest shock of all.
‘Yes,’ said Voorhess calmly, ‘I know about him. Now give a poor description and he’s safe. A good one and he dies. Understand?’
Mr Butt nodded frantically. ‘Yes, yes. I understand.’
Beneath the balaclava, Voorhess smiled. ‘Good.’
He stood up and left the room, moving quickly. He’d fitted an electronic sensor to the front door of Mr Butt’s house earlier: as soon as the door opened, the sensor would activate, automatically sending a text message to Voorhess’s phone. This would be his cue to set off the bomb.
Afterwards, the conclusion would be that Mr Butt himself had been the man who’d fired the missile, and had then lain in wait to ambush the police when they arrived, trying to take as many of them with him as possible. Given the power of the bomb, there wouldn’t be enough left of Mr Butt to uncover any evidence of his incarceration; and, anyway, Voorhess had been very careful not to leave marks on him. A background check would show no obvious links between Mr Butt and Islamic fundamentalism, but the physical proof of his involvement would be more than enough.
It was, thought Voorhess, a near-perfect plan, which was just the way he liked it.
Fifty-five
19.49
‘SLOW DOWN!’ TINA yelled as they drove on to the residential road of modern townhouses where a thinning pall of smoke still hung over the rooftops. ‘It was fired from down here somewhere.’
The road was too narrow for on-street parking, and all the houses had attached garages, and car ports, but there was no sign of a black Shogun anywhere as they drew level with the properties directly beneath the smoke. But now that it was drifting on the breeze, it was impossible to pinpoint the exact place from where the missile had been fired.
Tina opened her window, looking for some kind of reference point. The sirens were coming from everywhere now, their sound almost deafening, and the car’s radio was alive with rapid-fire chatter as officers converged on the area from all sides. No one, it seemed, could believe what had just happened. She was still in shock herself. They both were, although thankfully Bolt had calmed down.
‘It had to have been fired from one of this group of three or four houses here,’ she said, pointing out of the window, her heart still pumping hard from the tension.
Bolt gave their location to Control and stopped the car as the door to one of the suspect houses opened. A middle-aged woman in a tracksuit stepped outside, looking round with a puzzled expression on her face. Her gaze then fell on the battered Ford Focus that Bolt was driving, and she gave him a suspicious glare.
Bolt opened the window and flashed his warrant. ‘Police,’ he hissed, not wanting to alert any suspects. ‘Get back inside.’
The woman pulled a face and shook her head as if she didn’t believe him.
‘Leave her to me,’ said Tina, getting out of the car.
But she was only halfway across the road when she heard an automatic garage door opening to her left. ‘Get inside!’ she urged the woman. Bolt was gesturing at her to get back in the car but Tina was already walking towards the house next door, wanting to get a look at the car coming out of the garage.
Suddenly she was blinded by headlights as a black Shogun drove out.
Tina’s next move was utterly instinctive. She sprinted over and went for the front door handle.
There was a single shadowy figure in the driver’s seat. He gave her a brief half-second glance, and their eyes met.
Tina grabbed the handle and the Shogun accelerated on to the road, taking her with it. She tried to yank the door open but the damn thing was locked. She saw Bolt drive towards the Shogun, trying to cut it off, and then she let go, hitting the tarmac with a painful thud and rolling over and over.
Looking up, she just had time to see the Shogun slam into the Ford Focus side-on, shunting it round ninety degrees in a crunch of metal, before it reversed back just as suddenly, forcing her to scrabble out of the way on her hands and knees. Tina thought he was trying to kill her, but he wasn’t. He was just getting some extra purchase so he could drive into the back of the Focus and force it off the road. Once again he slammed against it, and as Tina got to her feet, the Shogun made a hard right and sped down to the end of the road. Hopelessly, pointlessly, Tina chased after it, ignoring the pain that seemed to come from every part of her body, as the Shogun made another right at the junction and disappeared in an angry screech of tyres.
Behind her she saw two marked patrol cars drive on to the road, sirens blaring. Turning round, she ran towards them, holding up her warrant card, yelling at the cops in the lead car to continue the chase. And then, as they manoeuvred around the battered Focus and accelerated away after the Shogun, she ran over to where Bolt still sat in the driver’s seat, looking dazed.
‘Mike, are you OK?’ she asked. They may have been on the verge of a real row a few minutes earlier, but the fact was she cared about him far more than she liked to admit.
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he grunted, just managing to open the crumpled driver’s-side door and get out.
‘The other cars are on his tail but he’s got a bit of a head start.’
‘Shit,’ he said, leaning against the car and rubbing the back of his head, still unsteady on his feet. ‘We can’t let him get away. Not after what he’s done. I just heard on the radio that they’d already started the evacuation of the observation deck, but that they took a hell of a lot of casualties.’ He glared at her. ‘I thought I told you not to do anything stupid.’
‘I didn’t. And before you start giving me a load more crap, remember this: I got a look at
him.’
Bolt’s expression brightened just a little. ‘Would you recognize him if you saw him again?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Tina with a cold certainty in her voice. ‘And if I ever do, I’ll kill him.’
Fifty-six
20.00
GARTH CROSSMAN HELD his seventeen-year-old daughter and stroked her soft blonde hair as they sat together on the chaise longue. Lucy was a beautiful girl in so many different ways, and she’d taken the death of her mother earlier that morning in the first of the day’s attacks extremely hard, as was only to be expected.
On the TV, the news was showing the flames pouring out of the upper reaches of the Shard, and the male voiceover was reporting on the third of the day’s terrorist attacks in a tone that was coming close to panic.
No one yet knew the extent of the casualties, but many of the guests from the opening-night party, which not only included leading politicians, businesspeople and celebrities but even, it was rumoured, at least two minor royals, were carrying injuries as they were led from the building. There were also a number of bodies visible behind the glass on the observation deck, even though the camera was trying to avoid them, focusing instead on the first of the fire crews that were now desperately tackling the blaze. But what was obvious to everyone watching was the sheer scale of the disaster, and the ease with which the terrorists had been able to strike at the heart of London, and at one of its most iconic landmarks.
It was like the Stanhope siege all over again, and Crossman felt an elation so pure and ferocious it made him want to shake. Not only had he got rid of his wife, who’d found out far too many of his secrets for her own good, but the attacks that he’d masterminded and invested in – attacks he hoped would push the UK to the brink of social breakdown – had been carried out with near-perfect precision. The missile had hit the Shard before the ultimatum they’d given the government, but it didn’t matter. Crossman had always known that the government would never agree to the demands they’d made. In fact, he’d banked on the fact that they wouldn’t, and that the Prime Minister would refuse to negotiate. Now that the third attack had taken place, he looked weak and ineffective, a spent force.
Garth Crossman loved his country. He loved the fact that it had pioneered the industrial revolution, colonized half the world with its armies, its culture and its ideals, and had stood proud and stable for generations while the hurricanes of change battered the nations around it. That had been the land of his grandfathers. But like the other members of The Brotherhood, he hated what it had become, and it was this feeling of anger, combined with the cold ruthlessness that had served him so well in his business dealings, that had pushed him on to the path he was following now, a path that was littered with death and destruction.
There was another reason too. Garth Crossman would never forget the day when as a twelve-year-old boy he’d been mugged and beaten by a group of local youths after leaving school one day. There’d been four of them – two black, two white. They hadn’t just robbed him. They’d tormented him, cutting up his blazer and cap with a Stanley knife, putting the knife up against his face, laughing as he wept and begged for mercy. They’d threatened to scar him for life. They’d made him take off his trousers, and thrown them into the river. They’d laughed at his tears.
Bastards.
Crossman lived with that ordeal every day of his life. It simmered beneath the surface, filling him with hatred and anger and a constant desire for revenge. Not just against the four thugs who’d put him through that humiliation, but against every piece of lowlife scum that walked the streets, as well as the weak-kneed scum in authority who stood up for them.
‘Who could be doing something like this, Dad?’ Lucy whispered, her face pressed against his chest for comfort, as the sound of the news presenter’s tones reverberated around the room in surround sound.
‘People with no conscience, sweet one,’ said Crossman in soothing tones, using the pet name for his daughter. ‘I’m afraid there are a lot of bad people in the world. But I’m here to protect you. I’ll always be here.’
He fumbled for the remote control, enjoying the warmth of his daughter against him, and switched off the TV, knowing he could enjoy the coverage later. Right now, it was his duty to make Lucy feel better, and loved, again.
One of three mobile phones on the coffee table beside him rang, the ringtone immediately identifying it as the phone used only for emergencies. He tensed. Only two people in the world knew that number. He checked the screen. It was an inner London landline. Almost certainly a payphone.
‘I’m going to have to take this,’ he said apologetically, lifting her head from his chest and getting to his feet. ‘I’ll be back in a minute, I promise.’
She gave him a small tear-stained smile to show she understood, and Crossman smiled back at her, thinking what a beautiful, charming girl she was.
He took the call in the adjoining room. It was Cain, and when he spoke, his words sent a cold shiver up Crossman’s spine.
‘We may have a problem.’
Fifty-seven
20.01
VOORHESS KNEW HE had to dump the Shogun fast. There was no way he was going to drive it back to the airport now.
Somehow the police had known about the Stinger attack before he’d carried it out. It was the only thing he could think of to explain the way they’d suddenly appeared on Mr Butt’s doorstep when he’d driven out. A few seconds later and they’d have had him, and although he’d tried to run them over, that hadn’t stopped the plainclothes female police officer – an attractive, if slightly hard-faced, woman – from trying to get into the car to arrest him. More problematic, though, was the fact that she’d seen his face. With the exception of the old man earlier, no one had ever seen him on a job before and lived to tell the tale, which was why he was still working after more than a decade of being a professional killer.
What was really irritating was the fact that none of this was his fault. He’d done his job, just as he’d promised he would. He should have been warned that Mr Butt had a girlfriend with a key, because that too had almost ended in disaster. Voorhess prided himself on his skill and attention to detail, and he expected the same from those who hired him. And they’d let him down.
Now he was on the run with the police coming at him from all directions.
He saw a small hotel up ahead on the right with parking in front of it, and turned in. There were no spaces so he double-parked in front of two cars, blocking them in, then got out and started walking fast, knowing he’d left DNA traces inside the Shogun that the police would be able to recover, but unable to do anything about that now.
As he stepped out on to the pavement, he spotted a police patrol car, its blue lights flashing angrily, hurtling towards him on the other side of the road.
Where others saw problems, Voorhess always saw opportunities – it had been something drummed into him by his father, along with the importance of decisiveness – and he immediately stepped into the road and waved them down. A physical description of him had almost certainly been circulated by now, but it would be basic, and with no reference to his size since he was sitting down when he’d been spotted, and he was banking on the fact that in the heat of the moment it wouldn’t occur to the pursuing officers that their target would be trying to attract their attention.
The police car veered across the road and stopped next to him, the driver sticking his head out of the window, a sour, accusatory look on his face. Obviously he wanted to get back to chasing terrorists.
‘The hotel! I saw a man!’ stammered Voorhess, approaching the car.
When he was only a foot away, he drew the .22 that he’d used to kill Mr Butt’s girlfriend from beneath his overalls, pressed the barrel against the surprised officer’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. The man gasped and fell back in his seat, and Voorhess leaned down so he had a view of the officer in the passenger seat – a young man in his early twenties with a pallid complexion – and shot him in
the face as he went for the door handle, putting a second bullet in his chest for good measure.
Already he could hear another siren coming closer, and he knew he was going to have to move fast. Putting the gun back in his overalls he ran round to the back of the car and opened the trunk, throwing in the holdall containing his possessions. Then, taking a quick look round to check there were no witnesses, he pulled the driver from the seat, hauled him over to the boot and bundled him inside, grabbing his cap in the process.
A second cop car was approaching fast now, coming the other way, barely a hundred yards distant and closing, and it took all of Voorhess’s self-control to put on the cap, jump in the driver’s side and pull away from the kerb and back on to the left-hand side of the road.
The approaching cop car slowed as it came closer, which was when Voorhess heard groaning coming from the seat beside him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the young, pallid-faced cop lean forward in his seat, blood pouring down his face, making a keening sound, and trying to lift an arm, clearly some distance away from being dead.
Slamming his arm into the injured officer’s chest and knocking him back in the seat, Voorhess nodded towards the other cops as the two cars passed each other, blocking the view of their injured colleague as he accelerated down the road.
Only when he’d put a bit of distance between them did he let go of the young cop, who was wriggling and gasping in his seat like a zombie from a cheap horror film. Slowing the car, Voorhess pulled the .22 free, shoved it against the cop’s temple and pulled the trigger.
Which was the moment the radio crackled into life, the caller asking for the current location of the car Voorhess was driving.
‘Bravo Four, do you copy?’ asked an anxious male voice. ‘We have just heard gunshots. Bravo Four. Please respond. Over.’
With a sigh, Voorhess pulled the unit free from its stand and threw it out of the window, wondering if he was ever going to get out of this Godforsaken city in one piece.
Ultimatum Page 21
