Hellfire (53 page)

Danny didn’t hesitate. He looked over his shoulder at Tony. ‘Get over here!’ he shouted.

Tony ran towards them.

‘Don’t let the fucker move,’ Danny told him.

‘What did he give you?’

‘Enough,’ Danny said. ‘Maybe.’

While Tony kept guard over the prisoner, Danny sprinted to the chopper. Its rotors were still now, its interior deadly silent. He climbed in and clambered over the bleeding bodies of the two flight crew. He scanned the flight deck controls – collective, throttle, cyclic – until he found the VHF radio. He turned it on and tuned the radio to transmit at 121.5 MHz – the international civil aviation distress frequency. He grabbed the mouthpiece of the radio and immediately started transmitting. ‘This is Bravo Nine Zero. Hellfire suspect is James Bailey. Repeat, this it Bravo Nine Zero. Hellfire suspect is James Bailey.’

He knew that GCHQ would be monitoring the distress frequency. All he could do now was continue to broadcast the information, and hope that they could do something with it.

07.50 GMT

‘We’ve got something!’

The strained, stressed voice of one of Bixby’s men rang out across the ops room in the basement of the MI6 building. Bixby manoeuvred his wheelchair across the room, past the Chief, who seemed to have lost all semblance of control, and past a couple of Porton Down reps there to advise them should the unthinkable happen, to where his guy was sitting in front of a laptop, his right hand pressed hard against his earpiece.

‘What is it?’ Bixby demanded.

‘GCHQ have picked up a radio communication from between the Qatari and Iranian coast. They’re patching it through.’

‘Everyone quiet!’ Bixby shouted. ‘Let me hear.’

The hubbub in the room immediately died. Bixby’s guy tapped a few buttons on his laptop. A hissing sound from speakers set around the ops centre filled the room.

It was nothing: just feedback and white noise.

‘Wait out,’ Bixby’s guy said. ‘There’s someth—’

A male voice, very faint, almost drowned out by the radio crackle: ‘
Bravo Nine . . . suspect . . . repeat . . . Nine Zero . . .
’

The loudspeaker reverted to white noise.

Bixby felt a dead, dread weight in his limbs. ‘Patch it through to Hereford,’ he said quietly.

More tapping at the laptop, while the white noise filled the air.

Then, suddenly: ‘
This is Bravo Nine Zero . . . Hellfire suspect . . .
’

White noise.

Bixby cursed. He felt the eyes of everyone in the ops room boring into him. He glanced up at a screen on the wall. It showed aerial footage – a crowd of thousands congregating at the marathon’s starting area.

For a full minute there was nothing.

‘I think we’ve lost it,’ Bixby’s guy said weakly.

If Bixby could have shaken his head, he would have done. ‘Keep the channel open,’ he said.

And as soon as he had finished speaking, the loudspeaker burst into life again. The voice was suddenly very loud. Very clear. Bixby recognised it. Danny Black.

‘
This is Bravo Nine Zero. Hellfire suspect is James Bailey. Repeat, this is Bravo Nine Zero. Hellfire suspect is James Bailey.
’

‘
FIND OUT WHO HE IS!
’ Bixby shouted. ‘
NOW!
’

07.55 GMT

The Regiment’s Agusta Westland flew low over north-west London. Aside from the flight crew there were five men in the chopper: a four-man unit plucked from the standby squadron, plus Spud. They’d seemed surprised when Spud had presented himself to them – it was no secret that he had been out of the game for a while – but respectful. Spud was the senior guy, and the younger Regiment soldiers had automatically deferred to him.

He sat a little bit apart from them, his body armour pressing painfully against his scarred abdomen, his Kevlar helmet and earpiece strangely uncomfortable as he hadn’t worn them for so long. Even the assault rifle slung across his chest felt weird. They were each plugged into the helicopter’s comms system, but neither the pilot nor Hereford had spoken for twenty minutes. There was nothing to say. They were on high alert, but they didn’t know what for. They simply needed to be ready to respond when the time came.

Spud looked through the window. In the distance, shimmering in the early morning sunlight, he could make out the London Eye and Big Ben. In his mind, he pictured the massive crowds that would soon be snaking through London. He thought of Frances. He didn’t know what he’d be able to do in the event of an attack. But he’d rather be here, in the thick of things, than sitting behind a desk at a safe distance while his mates were putting their arses on the line . . .

07.56 GMT

A voice rang out across the MI6 ops room. ‘We have a James Bailey, a freelance cameraman, working for the BBC.’

‘What do we know about him?’ Bixby demanded. ‘Is he a person of interest?’

‘Negative, sir. British Caucasian, no criminal record, not previously known to any of the security agencies.’

‘
Shit!
’ Bixby hissed. A single name, barely heard over a crackly radio line from thousands of miles away, was hardly proof of terrorist intent. ‘Where is he now?’

‘We’re on the line to the BBC control room. Give me thirty seconds . . .’

‘We haven’t
got
thirty seconds. WHERE IS HE?’

There was short pause. And then, a slightly sick-sounding voice. ‘Shooter’s Hill, sir. He’s in the air. He’s over the start line.’

‘Who’s his pilot?’

‘An Alan McIntyre. We’ve got nothing on him either.’

‘Instruct the control centre to ground them. Monitor their response.’

The hubbub in the room grew louder. On one of the large screens on the far wall, a flashing red dot appeared on a map of London, south of the river, over a patch of green where Bixby knew the marathon crowds were congregating.

Twenty seconds passed.

‘Sir,’ came a voice. ‘The BBC ops room are failing to make contact.’

Bixby blinked.

‘They can’t get hold of them sir. They can’t establish comms with the chopper. What the hell do we do?’

‘Is Hereford online?’ Bixby demanded.

A voice came over the loudspeaker. ‘
Roger that
.’

‘Options?’ Bixby demanded.

A momentary pause.

‘
We have one chopper coming in from Hereford. We have another two taking off from the Artillery Garden. They can force the target to move over the river. That gives us options, but you need to understand that we risk forcing their hand. As soon as they see three choppers coming their way, it might force them to release the bioweapon, or even crash land.
’

Bixby’s eyes flickered towards the Chief. He was clutching his hair, unable to speak and seemingly incapable of making the call.

Bixby breathed deeply. ‘Can you neutralise this threat without civilian casualties?’

The reply, when it came, was tinged with contempt. ‘
You bring the Regiment in if you want to fight violence with violence. It’s your call.
’

Bixby closed his eyes. He breathed deeply.

‘Do it,’ he said. ‘Do it now.’

0758 GMT

From his vantage point above the start line, Bailey looked down on the crowds. It was a sea of people. Thousands of them, like herded sheep, just waiting to be infected.

He heard McIntyre’s voice. It had an edge of panic. ‘The control room want to ground us. Someone suspects something!’

Bailey turned away from his TV camera to look at the pilot. The time had come.

‘What’s our altitude?’ he shouted.

‘Five hundred feet.’

‘Engage the spraying arms.’

McIntyre nodded. He flicked a lever on the flight deck. There was a grinding sound from beneath the helicopter. Through the open side door, Bailey saw one of the arms move open so that it was pointing out ninety degrees from the side of the aircraft. He checked the spraying motor inside the chopper, and the rubber tube that led to it from the canister. All was well.

‘Put your rebreather on!’ he shouted.

McIntyre clumsily pulled the rebreathing hood over his head with one hand. Bailey did the same. He reached out and clutched the red lever that would engage the spraying system. Then he looked over to his pilot again.

‘Get down to one hundred and fifty feet. Do it!
Go!
’

Bailey’s stomach lurched as they immediately lost altitude. He clutched the side of the chopper with his free hand as he felt the helicopter bank sharply, its nose dipping. The crowd came momentarily into view through the open side door, then disappeared as the chopper straightened up again.

‘
We’ve got a problem!
’ McIntyre shouted. His voice was very muffled, but Bailey could hear a high-pitched tone to it. ‘
We’ve got two helicopters on our tail, coming from the south! They’re going to crash into us!
’

‘No they’re not!’ Bailey shouted. And when he realised his voice was too muffled, he ripped off his rebreather. ‘No they’re not! They won’t hit us, especially when we’re over these crowds. What’s our height?’

‘Two hundred and seventy-five feet.’

‘That’s too high to spray – it won’t be as effective! Get lower! A hundred and fifty feet!
Get to a hundred and fifty feet!
’

His hand left the lever. He looked through the windows. Sure enough, two hulking helicopters were on their tail. They were no more than twenty-five metres distant, and they were moving towards them: slowly, but implacably.

‘
LOWER!
’ Bailey screamed again.

But as he shouted, something else caught his eye. It was a third helicopter, speeding towards them from the direction of the river. Distance: a hundred metres, but rapidly closing. Bailey had the uncanny sensation that the helicopter’s nose was heading straight for him.

McIntyre was edging the chopper north, away from the two choppers closing in on them. He was panicking. Bailey felt his blood burn.
He was going to mess the whole thing up!

‘
THEY WON’T HIT US!
’ he screamed. ‘
THEY WON’T HIT US ABOVE THESE CROWDS. GET LOWER!
’

But even as he gave this final instruction, the third helicopter drew up alongside them. As it hovered thirty metres from their Twin Squirrel, it rotated ninety degrees so that its nose was pointing in the same direction.

Bailey’s hot blood ran cold. He saw, quite clearly, a figure leaning at the open side door of this third helicopter. He wore a helmet and boom mike. Black body armour. And he had his eyes lined up with the sights of his rifle, pointing directly towards Bailey, ready to take a shot.

Bailey had no choice. They were still higher than 150 feet, but this was his last chance.

‘
MOVE LOWER! MOVE LOWER!
’ he screamed.

Then he stretched out to grab the lever that would engage the bioweapon.

The others hadn’t been fast enough.

When the order had come in over their headset that one of them was to prepare to take a shot at the target chopper, Spud’s companions had heard just that: an instruction.

Spud had heard far more. He’d heard Tony Wiseman:
Could be worse. Could be a bleedin’ desk jockey, hey, Spud?
He’d heard Eleanor the spook:
Your army days are over, Spud. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better.
He’d heard Ray Hammond:
We’re doing our fucking best for you, but there’s a limit to how much dead weight we can carry . . .

Before any of the others could move, he’d installed himself at the open side door of the chopper, one knee down in the firing position, weapon cocked and switched to semi-automatic, butt pressed into his shoulder, one eye closed, the other looking directly down the sights.

As the Agusta rotated ninety degrees, the camera chopper came into sight. Spud immediately recognised it as a Twin Squirrel. Distance thirty metres, but through the sight of the weapon it looked right next door. The thunder of the two choppers, 275 feet above the ground, roared in his ears, and a strong backdraught blasted towards him.

Spud kept firm. His crosshairs panned across the interior. He immediately settled on the coarse, blurry image of the figure of a man. He was wearing a white all-in-one.

‘Target in sight,’ Spud spoke into his microphone, even as the vibrations of the Agusta knocked his sights off-target. The crosshairs settled on a tall canister. Spud thought he could make out Chinese lettering on the side.

He yanked the sights back to target, but the Twin Squirrel was moving too, and a second later he had to re-aim again. ‘He’s wearing a hazmat suit. No mask. I can see a TV camera and two canisters. Possibly Chinese lettering.’