Gray Vengeance (7 page)

By the time he got to Thames House, MI5 would have had time to watch the video and know what they were facing.

The driver hit his hazard lights as he pulled onto the hard shoulder of the M27. The NATS centre—formerly the National Air Traffic Services—sat three hundred feet off to his left, and having staked out the area in the previous weeks, he knew this was as close as he was going to get. It would have been nice to have driven up to the building, but the only entrance was manned by security personnel, as would be expected of the company that provided air traffic control for the UK.

He checked his watch and saw that he was three minutes early, and he knew it was going to be the longest three minutes of his life. If a police patrol happened by, he had a cover story prepared: his wife was due to give birth and had called his mobile, which was why he’d pulled over. As had been drilled into him again and again during his training, he’d paid cash for the van and insured it immediately, so there was no need for the police to pull him over for any traffic violations. Even if they came across him now, all they’d find in the back was a washing machine that he’d claim was being delivered to a repair shop in Southampton.

The more immediate danger was that one of the big rigs
heading
along the south coast would plough into the back of him, a common enough scenario that would have him on edge for the
remaining
two and a bit minutes.

He considered firing his weapon early, but instructions had been explicit: it must be twelve minutes past ten in the morning, not a minute earlier or later. Why, he didn’t know, but it had long been drilled into him to stick to the agenda.

The seconds ticked agonisingly by, until his watch
indicated
that it was time. He already had the trigger ready, and he pressed the red button, keeping it depressed for ten seconds, as instructed.

In the back of the van, the device sat in its makeshift
housing
, which made it look like any other washing machine. This o
ne, howev
er, was fitted with an electro-magnetic pulse weapon, which could send cone-shaped high-energy microwave bursts out to a range of five hundred feet.

Despite the shielding that had been installed within his cab, the driver felt a strange tingling sensation as he held the button down, and briefly wondered if he’d ever father children after this was all over.

When the time had elapsed, he put the van in gear and pulled back onto the motorway.

One task completed and seven more to go before the morning was out.

At the same time, another van managed to get a lot closer to the NATS centre in Prestwick, Ayrshire. It parked in a bay near t
he sec
urity barrier as the driver pretended to make a phone call, all the time keeping his finger on the button that sent the powerful waves towards the control centre.

The security guard manning the booth was more concerned with his radio suddenly packing up than the van, and he was checking the plug when the Transit reversed and pulled away, its driver heading for his next destination.

Ben Hopper sipped his instant decaf as he scanned the circular image on his screen. Morning was a busy time for Heathrow, and the planes were already beginning to stack up over the four navigation beacons at Bovingdon, Lambourne, Ockham and Biggin. He knew he would have to bring them in around thirty seconds apart, which made for a tense couple of hours ahead.

He was just directing an American Airways flight to start final approach when the Mayday call came through, and he looked out of the window just in time to see the British Airways jumbo clip the ground with its wing before the nose buried itself in the dirt. It somersaulted into the grass, a fireball erupting as aviation fuel met
screaming
hot engine. Debris was scattered all over the taxiways, slamming into parked planes and rendering half of the airport out of action.

Hopper sat frozen as the scene unfolded, but a switched-on supervisor began barking orders.

‘Ben, divert everything low on fuel to Gatwick and send the rest to Birmingham and Manchester.’

Hopper immediately began issuing emergency instructions to the planes hovering above. Sirens howled and telephones rang incessantly, making it difficult for him to concentrate as he tried to explain to dozens of pilots that the airport was closed for an emergency.

The supervisor tapped Hopper on the shoulder.

‘Cancel that. I just called Gatwick, and they’ve got a plane down, too. Birmingham are also asking us to take their arrivals. A few regional airports are still open, so send anything small th
eir way.’

‘Christ!’ Hopper exclaimed. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I don’t know, but we’ve got to get these planes on the ground.’

Hopper looked at his screen and saw the aircraft transponder markers converging on his screen, and began rescinding his earlier instructions.

‘Flight 237, take your—’

The screen flashed, then turned black, and Hopper gave it a bang with the palm of his hand.

‘Shit! My screen’s down!’

He looked round and saw that the other controllers were facing exactly the same problem. One of the busiest airports in the world was blind, and would have to rely on visuals and radio communications. Thankfully, the latter system was separate from the one that powered the visual displays.

‘We’re going to have to land them on two-seven right,’ the supervisor told his team. ‘I need every available person to clear the FOD and open the runway up.’

Any foreign object debris on the ground had the potential to burst tyres, or, more seriously, puncture a fuel tank, which was why the supervisor wanted the other runway swept before any planes attempted a landing. There was no telling how far the debris from the crash had spread, and the last thing he wanted was the whole airport out of commission.

‘The CAA will go ballistic,’ Hopper pointed out.

‘We’ve got no other choice.’

Chapter 13

15 December 2014

Andrew Harvey was going through the list of rental companies on Martinique when his email signalled an incoming message. Glad of the interruption from the tedium, he checked the content of the message and sat back in his seat, confused.

‘Anyone heard of a recent attack anywhere in the country?’

His fellow operatives all shook their heads, and one or two left their desks to see what he was referring to. The email on his screen contained a terse message:

These attacks on Britain are just the start. T

‘T?’ one asked.

‘No idea,’ Harvey said. ‘Probably another lunatic.’

He forwarded the message and attachment to Gerald Small, adding a note asking the technician to try to trace the sender through the message headers. He’d just hit the Send button when Veronica Ellis exploded out of her office.

‘Everyone in the meeting room, now!’

The whole floor sensed the urgency, and they grabbed notepads and tablets before piling into the room. Ellis already had the television tuned to the BBC news channel, and the image on the screen showed an aerial shot of chaos and carnage at Heathrow. The remains of a plane could be seen scattered over a wide area, and the reporter was telling how the plane had been seen to come down on one wing and tumble end over end in a h
uge fireball.

Sarah Thompson held a hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, my God.’

‘That’s not all,’ Ellis said, glancing at her notes. ‘There have been multiple crashes on the M25 in the last hour, and the entire motorway is at a standstill. The National Grid is reporting several outages in the area, and TV and phone communications have also been disrupted.’

‘Someone’s hitting London in a big way,’ Harvey said.

‘Not just London,’ Ellis responded. ‘The same thing is
happening
in every major city in the UK. Manchester and
Birmingham
have reported crash landings, all air traffic control is down and we’re getting news of explosions in over a dozen city centres.’

Harvey took out his phone and called Small’s office.

‘Gerald, I sent you an email a couple of minutes ago. I need you to scan the attachment and feed it through to the monitor in the meeting room.’

He turned to speak to Ellis, who held up a finger as she
prepared
to answer her chirping phone.

‘Ellis,’ she said, before listening with a solemn expression. She saw everyone in the room waiting for her instructions, and covered the mouthpiece as she set things in motion.

‘Someone call NHS England and tell them we have major incidents throughout the country. They’ll need to get more staff in to cope. I also want all police and fire services informed. They’ll probably want to cancel all leave.’ She returned to her call. ‘No, ma’am. At this point, we have no idea who’s behind this. We’re just getting up to speed ourselves.’

Ellis listened for another minute before promising to keep the home secretary informed and ending the call. She turned to address the room.

‘What do we know, people? What’s the chatter been over the last few months?’

‘Nothing unusual,’ Harvey said, ‘but a few minutes ago I received an email with a video attachment. Gerald’s cleaning it up and will send it through in a moment.’

‘What did the email say?’

Harvey shared the brief message with everyone.

‘Any idea who T could be?’

‘ Takasa?’ Farsi offered.

‘How many times have we been through this?’ Thompson fired at Farsi. ‘They’re no threat to us.’

Gerald Small entered the room and told Harvey the video was ready to stream, and Harvey grabbed the remote control, setting the monitor to the internal channel.

A hooded figure appeared on the screen, its facial features obscured by shadow.

‘We are Da Sunan Annabi,’ a deep voice said. The orator was obviously an African national, his English heavily accented. ‘By now you will have noticed that something bad is happening to your country. I suggest you get used to it, because this is going to continue for a long time. What you have seen so far is just the beginning, and we will continue to attack your country until every British soldier is removed from foreign soil. You invade our lands, infecting them with your evil Western ways, corrupting our youth. Well, we say enough!’

With that, the video ended.

Harvey couldn’t resist the opportunity to bring Thompson down a couple of pegs. ‘DSA are toothless, are they?
A waste of r
esources?’

Thompson was still staring at the screen, and Harvey knew she was trying to fashion a way out of the mess she’d created.

He wasn’t about to make it easy for her.

‘Veronica, we’ve been trying to work up their new leader for months now, but every time we do, Sarah tells us to let it go. I told you our single-minded focus on Farrar was a mistake.’

‘You did,’ Ellis said, flicking the monitor back to the news channel, ‘but it was ultimately my call. Sarah is still your section lead, don’t forget that. Now quit the point-scoring and let’s get digging. How did DSA get people over here? How many are there, and who are they? Where did they get their explosives?’

Thompson turned to Harvey. ‘Check all entries into the UK from Nigeria in the last month and compare the names and photos with known militants over there. Hamad, bring up CCTV in the areas surrounding Heathrow and see if we can identify what caused the plane crash and the motorway accidents.’

The two men scurried off, and back at his desk Harvey unlocked his PC. He began typing in the search parameters when his monitor went black.

‘What the hell?’

‘My computer’s crashed,’ Farsi said, checking the network and power leads to see if they had come loose.

‘Mine, too.’

Harvey looked around the office, and saw that everyone was sitting with confused looks as they faced blank screens. He tried his mobile phone, but was unable to wake it up. He rose and addressed everyone in the office around him.

‘We’ve been hit.’

Paul Roberts continued driving down Millbank, his finger on the red button as the microwaves pounded the buildings to his right. Once he passed Thames House, he released the trigger, saving what was left in the batteries for the next major target, which sat on the other side of the river.

He crossed Vauxhall Bridge and found a safe place to park, then climbed quickly into the back to turn the device around so that it was facing in the right direction. He got back into the driver’s seat and drove past the SIS building, spraying the offices of MI6 with energy waves.

With Scotland Yard, MI5 and MI6 working on reduced capacity, it was time to visit Canary Wharf. After hitting the financial centre, he would take the next step in the plan.

‘Gerald, we need comms as soon as possible!’

Harvey heard Thompson shouting into Small’s office as she rushed past, and went to see if he could help.

‘How’s it looking?’ he asked.

‘Almost everything’s fried,’ Small said, looking like he’d lost a loved one.

‘What about the old landlines?’

A year earlier, the system had been updated to replace the traditional telephones with VoIP phones, which placed and transmitted telephone calls over an IP network, such as the internet, instead of the usual public switched telephone network. VoIP phones had a number of advantages, but the downside had now become apparent.

‘I’ve got someone working on them, but they were literally ripped out during the upgrade. It could take hours to get them up and running again.’

‘What about our data?’

‘The servers are housed in another building,’ Small said. ‘They should be okay, but we have nothing to contact them with. We need new client devices, plus routers, plus—’

‘Draw up a list and let me know where to get it from,’ Harvey said. He urged Small to get some phone lines in place as soon as possible, then went to Thompson’s office.

‘Sarah, I want to get down on the street and see what’s going on. The whole of London may be blacked out, or it could just be us. If we were targeted, then we should be able to get some new mobile phones locally.’

‘Good idea,’ she conceded, reluctantly, ‘but send someone junior. I need you here.’

‘There isn’t a hell of a lot I can do here,’ Harvey said. ‘Without computers or phones, we’re back in the Stone Age. Let me go and see what I can source.’

Thompson caved, and he jogged through the building to the main entrance.

Outside, cars were passing the building and joggers bounced their way along the embankment, completely unaware of what was happening to their country.

Harvey ran around the corner and dashed into the coffee house where he bought his daily brew.

‘Marco, can I borrow your phone?’

The owner smiled and offered his mobile, happy to oblige one of his regular customers.

Harvey clicked the browser icon and typed
BBC News
into the address bar. He was rewarded seconds later with the latest headlines.

They confirmed that MI5 had been specifically targeted, so their communication problems would only be temporary. All he had to do was source new cell phones and they’d be back in the game. However, getting the servers back online would be an entirely different challenge altogether.

Harvey handed the phone back and thanked Marco before setting off in search of replacement handsets.

It took him fifteen minutes to find a shop that sold mobile phones, and he asked for a dozen pay-as-you-go units and credit for each one. Despite the fact that he was clearly in a hurry, the young salesman tried to get him to register the phones, and offered to sell him insurance and accessories for each one.

‘Just the phones,’ Harvey insisted.

The sale was rung up, and Harvey handed over his credit card.

‘I’m afraid that’s been declined,’ the store clerk said. ‘Have you got another card?’

‘No, I haven’t. Try it again, please.’

Once more, the transaction was denied, and Harvey realised that the chip in his card must have been affected by whatever had hit Thames House.

‘Look, there’s a national emergency going on, and I need th
ese phones.’

‘Sure. Just as soon as you’ve paid for them.’

Harvey considered coming clean with the youth, but letting word out that the security services were blind wasn’t an option. Trying to steal the phones wouldn’t work either: the credit would be cancelled immediately, and he would be left with a set of expensive paperweights.

With no other option, he hurried back to the office, phone-less. When he explained the situation to Thompson, she told him to ask Ellis for access to the cash reserve and get back with the phones as soon as possible.

It took him another thirty minutes to repeat the journey, and by the time he got back to his desk with a couple of bags full of equipment, he saw Ellis in her glass-walled office, talking with three others.

One was Sarah Thompson, and one he recognised as the home secretary’s assistant.

While they talked, Harvey prepared phones for Ellis and Thompson, then one for himself. When the meeting broke up, he handed them over, along with the receipt.

‘It isn’t looking good,’ he said, showing them the
BBC News
headlines on his handset.

A train had been derailed in a tunnel near Haywards Heath, blocking the line that linked the southeast coast to the capital. A couple of deaths had been reported, along with numerous injuries, and it was going to be days before anyone could manage the
Brighton
to London commute. Other rail networks had been similarly affected, and transport across the country had ground to a halt.

An aerial shot showed gridlock in many areas of London, as those who had heard about the attacks tried to flee the city, only to find the major arteries blocked.

The scene shifted to another reporter. He was standing in front of the camera while in the background, rubble covered the streets, the aftermath of an explosion at a shopping complex.

‘We need to get to our servers,’ Ellis said.