Hunter Killer (9 page)

It took 40 minutes for the outskirts of London to come into view. The chopper followed the line of the Thames, winding into the city past the sights that looked familiar even from the air: Battersea power station, Parliament Square, the MI6 building. Between the Millennium and Southwark bridges, the chopper veered to the left, heading north-east over St Paul’s and the Barbican. Moments later, the wide green open space of the Artillery Garden behind the Honourable Artillery Company came into view. Even from a height, Danny could tell how neatly manicured it was, laid out with the perfect lines of a cricket pitch, even though nobody would be playing cricket in this constant autumnal rain. The pitch had been turned into a landing zone surrounded by the high buildings of the city. It had clearly been given over to the security services: Danny’s eyes picked out five police cars and a number of other unmarked vehicles, as well as police officers and military guys in camouflage gear. A small, open-air operations base in the beating heart of London.

The chopper had barely touched down before Danny and Spud disembarked with their gear and ran from the downdraft towards a soldier with a red beret standing by a black Land Rover Discovery.

‘Hereford?’ he asked as they approached.

Danny and Spud nodded.

‘Heads down,’ he said. ‘We’ve got some cunt from the press sniffing around. MoD gave him access, fuck knows why . . .’

Instantly, Danny and Spud turned their backs on the northern end of the LZ where everyone else was milling around. The soldier handed each of them a set of keys, and they climbed behind the camouflage of the Discovery’s tinted windows. Spud took the wheel, and followed the gesture of the soldier who pointed them across the LZ towards the exit, which was manned by two more soldiers. Moments later they were heading down City Road towards the river.

Danny punched a postcode into the vehicle’s satnav that would take them to their safe house, then quickly checked through the glove box of the Discovery. Here he found the vehicle’s radio, hardwired in, and a magnetic siren that could be thrown on to the top of the vehicle if Danny and Spud needed to cut though the traffic. These were the only modifications that distinguished the vehicle from an ordinary civilian Land Rover. With those exceptions it was anonymous from the inside and out.

At 09.55 they arrived at what was to be their digs for however long this operation lasted. The house itself was on the south side of Battersea Park, a two-storey, redbrick, Victorian end-of-terrace that to the untrained eye looked no different from any others along this street. As they stepped out of the car, however, black rucksacks slung over their shoulders, Danny immediately saw the security cameras pointing down towards the front door. He wondered who was monitoring them. Five? The Firm? GCHQ? Hereford? Could be any of them. Or all of them. He made a point of looking up into the camera and winking.

He opened up the envelope Cartwright had given him the night before. Among the contents were two house keys – one for each of them – and a six-digit alarm code. Danny gave Spud his key and unlocked the door. A high-pitched beeping sound came from the alarm just inside. Danny punched in the code and it stopped. They quietly closed the door behind them.

Danny and Spud checked over the flat wordlessly. Spud examined the windows on the ground floor – all locked from inside – while Danny moved through to the kitchen and checked the back door. It led out on to a decked area about six metres by five, on the far side of which was a locked gate. The kitchen itself was unmodernised, with plain white units and an old oven. There was a brew kit on the side but no milk, and the fridge wasn’t even on. Danny opened up a tall broom cupboard. Inside was a steel strongbox bolted to the floor. He fished inside the envelope for a third key, which opened up the safe. Inside, he found two Glock 9mm pistols – standard issue for the security services, even though the MoD had spent millions on the Regiment’s preferred Sig P266 in recent years. But the composite, hammerless Glock was light, easy to conceal, and reliable enough. There was a silencer for each handgun, two covert holsters and several boxes of ammunition, which he unloaded on to the kitchen table before returning to the strongbox. There was more stuff in here: two radios, which looked like chunky mobile phones, a couple of spare batteries, and a well-thumbed spiral-bound notebook containing lists of numbers, call signs, frequencies and codes. Tucked at the back was a snap gun, almost exactly the same as the one Spud had used the night before, along with a collection of bits and a small handbook of lock makes and sizes. Also, a small method-of-entry kit, comprising a two-ounce strip of military-grade explosive, about the same size as a packet of chewing gum, a two-inch-long, pencil-thin detonator, a battery pack and a roll of coated wire. A couple of vacuum-packed SOCO kits, no bigger than a paperback book. And, weirdly, some foil-wrapped ration packs, as if they were going to need
those
in the middle of London.

Danny chucked all the gear back in the safe, locked it up again and returned to the kitchen table. He loaded each weapon, then wandered back up the hallway to find Spud. Danny’s mate was standing at the bottom of the stairs. He accepted the weapon from Danny, and together they moved up to check out the top floor.

There were three bedrooms here. In two of them, the beds and furniture were covered in dust sheets. The third bedroom contained two single beds. ‘Hope you don’t snore,’ Spud muttered. He plonked himself down on one of the beds. The springs squeaked. ‘When I pull,’ he said ungraciously, ‘you get the couch.’ But they both knew there wouldn’t be much time for pulling.

Danny checked the time: 11.03hrs. They were expected at Paddington Green police station at midday. He stowed his Glock under his jacket and walked out of the room. ‘Let’s get moving,’ he said over his shoulder.

The traffic around Paddington was a disaster. Half the streets had been cordoned off, and the police presence was higher than Danny had ever seen it in the UK. Even though it was four days since the bomb, an unpleasant burning smell lingered in the air. The railway station itself was closed, of course – as it would be for months – but having dumped the car and continued towards the police station on foot, they were given a sharp reminder of the sheer magnitude of the device when they saw shop windows more than 200 metres from the station boarded up: the shock waves had shattered them.

‘Bet it was like a fucking butcher’s shop in there,’ Spud muttered as they caught a glimpse of the station through a side street 100 metres to the south. He sounded as sombre as Danny felt. Sure, he’d witnessed destruction like this in other parts of the world, but there was something about seeing it on your home turf.

As they passed a junction, a BMW X5 waiting at a red light caught Danny’s eye. Something about it looked different, and Danny instantly realised that it was the slightly darker-than-usual tint of the windows. Bullet resistant. He found himself checking out the occupants. Four guys, all in their twenties or thirties. Two of them in black T-shirts, one in a leather jacket, one in dark Gore-Tex. Armed police conducting covert surveillance. No question. To confirm his suspicions, Danny zoned in on the grate at the front of the car. He could just make out the police lights hiding out of view.

Spud gave Danny a look that suggested he’d clocked the unit too, but the X5 went totally unnoticed by the other members of the public who hurried past them. Amazing what you don’t see, Danny thought, when you don’t look.

There were uglier buildings in London than Paddington Green police station, but not many. It was a bleak concrete block on the north side of the Westway flyover, with a raised upper level surrounded by security bars that looked more like a World War Two observation tower than a modern police building. Danny was no stranger to this place. In one sense it was just an ordinary police station serving this area of north-west London. But the sixteen secure underground cells meant it was the first port of call for any high-profile criminal or terrorist suspect. Only a few weeks ago, Danny had been called on to escort a police unit moving a Chechen bomb-maker from here to the Old Bailey.

They didn’t enter the building. Not yet. Instead, they loitered by a post box on the other side of the road while Danny pulled his encrypted mobile phone and dialled a number that he’d already pre-programmed. A voice answered immediately. ‘Paddington police station.’

‘Do us a favour, mate,’ Danny said. ‘Tell DI Fletcher that his special package is ready for collection.’ He hung up immediately.

They didn’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes. A fresh-faced duty sergeant who looked like he was barely out of school appeared at the main entrance of the police station. He stood for a moment, looked round, and finally clocked them. Once he’d nodded in their direction, Danny and Spud crossed the road and wordlessly followed him into the station. The officer led them down into the basement, through two sets of locked doors and into a small office at the end of an antiseptic corridor. A middle-aged man with a greying moustache sat behind a desk. He had a friendly, open face, but a tired one. It occurred to Danny that there was no more thankless task than being a copper in London right now. The officer wore civvies – a slightly crumpled suit and tie, top button of his shirt undone – and had a pile of papers in front of him a good 30 centimetres high, which he was signing with a ballpoint pen. Along the side wall was a bank of 16 screens, each of them showing the inside of a cell. All but two were occupied. Without exception, the prisoners were stretched out on their single beds, staring at their TVs.

‘I’ve been in Holiday Inn rooms worse than that,’ Spud said as the office door closed behind them.

The police officer looked up as if he’d only just noticed the new arrivals. He stood up, walked over to them and tapped on one of the screens. ‘See this one?’ The officer had a soft West Country accent. ‘Picked up at the Port of Dover trying to cross over to France. Seems he’s the one behind that beheading video that went viral on Facebook.’

‘Trouble with blokes like that,’ Spud cut in, ‘is they’ve always got an axe to grind.’

‘They’ll have him extradited by the end of the week, shouldn’t wonder,’ the officer continued. ‘Don’t suppose he’ll find it quite so comfy in one of them American prisons. We’ve got it all wrong, if you ask me. Have a bit of fisticuffs with your mates after a couple of pints, we’ll have you cooling down in a bare cell quick as lightning. Try to blow up a plane, we have to give you a telly to watch while you’re in custody in case your lawyers accuse us of being inhumane. Lack of stimulation breaches their human rights, least that’s what they say.’

‘Just give me the word,’ Danny said with a twinkle in his eye, ‘I’ll go keep him company.’

‘Now
that
,’ said the officer, ‘I would like to see.’ He chuckled and held out his hand. ‘Frank Fletcher,’ he said. ‘I’ll be your police liaison. Anything you need – always a pleasure to work with gentlemen from the Regiment.’

They shook hands, then Fletcher returned to his desk. He shifted some papers around as if looking for something, then grimaced. ‘Paperwork,’ he said. ‘Bane of my life. Especially now. They cut our numbers after the bankers ripped us all off, now they’re complaining we don’t have enough of us to police the streets. We’ve cancelled all leave and put every single man and woman we have on the pavement. Not just the Met, of course. Every other major city’s on high alert – Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester, Glasgow . . . Bad week to be a copper. Don’t make a blind bit of difference, of course. I mean, if someone’s going to blow up a train station, they’re going to blow up a train station, right?’

‘Right,’ said Danny and Spud in unison. They were well used to police officers having a moan about the job. Best thing was to let them get it off their chest early, otherwise they’d be whingeing all day long.

‘And in the meantime,’ Fletcher continued, rummaging through his in-tray, ‘all the everyday stuff goes uninvestigated. There’s a young lady up off Praed Street, had an intruder on Saturday night, and we don’t even have the manpower to send round a fingerprint team.’ He picked up the report on his desk that he’d been signing as Danny and Spud had entered. ‘And this poor fella, a Professor Gengerov, lectures at one of them universities up Bloomsbury way, cycling to work last Friday just as he has done every day for the last twenty years, some idiot knocks him off his bike and kills him stone dead. We haven’t even collected the witness statements yet.’

Danny looked at his watch, and Fletcher took the hint. ‘Sorry, gentlemen. Listen to me banging on, no wonder this stuff is piling up.’ He did a little more rummaging. ‘Ah, here we are!’

He held up two laminated documents, each the size of a credit card. Danny and Spud stepped forward to accept them. Danny looked at his card. It had a year-old passport photo of him in civvies, a nine-digit identity number and a barcode. The card was made out in the false name of Mike Banfield. ‘SIS identification cards,’ Fletcher said. ‘Should get you past most of my lads, if the situation requires it.’ He located a couple of brown A4 envelopes and handed them over. Danny looked inside his: a wad of £20 notes. ‘A thousand each,’ Fletcher said, ‘as a float. They’re sorting out company credit cards in the right names, but it always takes a few days.’ He looked a bit embarrassed. ‘They’ll want receipts, gentlemen. Bloody ridiculous if you ask me, but you know the drill.’ He picked up a set of keys from his desk. ‘Shall I drive? Probably best, we’ll get out of the area quicker in a police car.’

Danny and Spud exchanged a glance as they tucked their brown envelopes into their jackets. ‘Drive where?’ Danny asked. ‘I thought the RV was supposed to be here.’