Nine Lives (2 page)

On the right side of the screen, he saw Rogers bow his head.

‘That was my intention,’ Simmons continued. 'Everything was in place. We knew their day-to-day routines, habits, locations. I’d been in contact with Chief Superintendent Kessler, and he had his C019 task force on call, ready and waiting. We were all set to move in and detain the whole cell this morning’.

A
but
hung in the hair. Cobb glanced across the screen to Rogers and the PM. They were both silent, looking grave. Cobb sighed.

‘Let me guess. They’ve disappeared.’

Simmons rubbed his blotchy face and nodded, looking tired and beleaguered.

‘I lost contact with my man in the group forty-eight hours ago. I thought he’d have resurfaced by now, but he hasn’t. And twenty four hours ago, the entire cell just vanished. They dumped all of our surveillance. They’ve gone silent; completely off radar. None of them are using phones or computers, so relocating them is proving to be a bitch.’

Cobb didn’t reply. He was thinking about the situation.

New Year’s Eve.

Nine terrorists on the loose across the city.

And no idea where any of them were.

He pinched his brow. ‘Jesus Christ. You’ve really dropped us in it this time, John. Seriously.’

Simmons didn’t respond. Inside Cobb’s office, a second television was mounted beside the first monitor and its blank, dark screen suddenly switched to a slide.

Nine faces appeared, each one either a mug-shot or a front-on surveillance capture. They were all dishevelled, untidy men, save for the man on the far right. Each photograph had a number above it in capitals too, from
One
to
Nine
.

‘My team’s doing everything humanly possible to try to find them,’ continued Simmons, as Cobb scanned the photographs. ‘But I need your help, Director. We’re up against the clock. This lot could strike at any moment. Together, we need to find them and either take them in, or take them out.’

'Could they have travelled abroad, John?' the Prime Minister asked, speaking for the first time. Dressed in an immaculate suit and softly-spoken, he was the epitome of calm, especially compared to Simmons on the screen beside him.

Simmons shook his head. ‘Border authorities have been thoroughly briefed, sir. If any of them tried to use their passport or a fake, they’d get flagged in the system instantly. That is, if they even made it inside the airport in the first place. Security teams are in place at the three majors, and at the ports. But so far, nothing. Which means they’re all still here’

‘Of course they’re still here,’ Cobb snapped, irritated. ‘It’s New Year’s Eve for Christ’s sake. There're going to be thousands of people all over the city today and tonight. They’ve got a laundry list of potential targets. Why the hell would they leave?'

He suddenly stopped, realising he hadn’t asked a crucial question.

‘What kind of attack were they planning, John?’

Simmons paused.

Cobb saw him lick his lips.

‘Suicide bombing.’

‘Jesus Christ. This just gets better and better.’

'Home-made explosives, packed into a vest with nails and ball-bearings,’ Simmons continued. ‘Each charge could potentially kill a hundred people depending on the surroundings.'

The Prime Minister leaned forward, his face becoming larger on the screen.

'Before you lost touch with your man, did he mention any specific or intended targets, John?'

'Even if he had, they'll probably have changed them, sir,’ Cobb interjected. ‘Clearly they know that we're onto them.'

'I'm afraid not, sir,' Simmons said, answering the PM.
'
My agent said that information was being kept until the last minute by one of the men.’

‘Which one?’ asked Rogers.

‘Number Nine on the slide.’

Cobb flicked his gaze to the man’s photo. He was the only guy who wasn’t unkempt and definitely stood out as the leader. The man was handsome, especially compared to the shabby appearances of the men in the other photos beside him. He had dark-features, Middle Eastern maybe, but cold, dark eyes.

Cobb stared at his photo as Simmons spoke.

‘His name is Dominick Farha. We don’t have much on his background. Our files suggest that he’s related to the leader of some drug cartel in the Middle East, but that’s irrelevant right now. What’s important is that he’s the one who commands the cell. He’ll be deciding the targets. We need to find this guy first; he takes full priority.’

There was a pause. Simmons stared straight into the camera.

‘Director Cobb, I spoke with the Prime Minister before we began this call. We want you and your team to track down Number Nine, the leader; Dominick Farha. And we need you to do it as soon as possible.’

Cobb glanced at the Prime Minister for his approval, who saw the movement and nodded.

‘You have my complete backing, Director. Use whatever force you deem necessary. That’s authorised. But for God’s sake, do it before it’s too late.’

Cobb nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

The next moment, the screen went black. The call had been ended.

Which meant it was time to go to work.

At that moment four thousand miles away, another man was having the worst day of his life.

Or, more accurately, the last day.

He’d just woken up in a strange place. He opened his eyes, blinking, confused.

Where the hell am I?

He was lying on the floor, staring up at a white ceiling. Through a roof-light, he could see clouds in the clear blue sky above him.
I must have nodded off
, he thought. As he gathered his senses, he realised there was a bizarre feeling coming from underneath him. The ground felt as if it was moving, rocking side to side, almost like a baby’s crib, which was making him feel nauseous.

Wiping sleep from his eyes, the man went to stand up.

He couldn’t.

Looking down, the man saw that his feet had been looped through the holes of a concrete cinder block.

And the gaps in the rectangle had been filled with cement.

It was packed tight against his ankles and lower calves. He tried to wiggle his toes, but they were jammed solid, the cement pressed around his feet, locking seventy pounds of unmovable weight to the end of his legs.

Panicking, he reached over to try and loosen his feet, but suddenly realised he was being watched and turned.

A vastly overweight man in a beige suit was standing to one side of him, grinning from ear to ear. Short and obese, he had a sun-burnt bald head and small dark eyes like a shark. Behind him were two other men. They were enormous, each of them six-foot-five and easily over two hundred and fifty pounds.

The man on the floor looked over at them for a brief moment, then remembered where he’d been before he fell asleep.

And who these men were.

Fear immediately washed over him, drenching his body.

‘Having a nightmare?’ asked the fat man, grinning as he saw the moment of recognition on his captive’s face. The smile pushed the fat on his face around the collar of his shirt so it bunched and spilled over the starched fabric with nowhere else to go.

He suddenly turned to the two big men and nodded.

They moved forward, grabbing the terrified man under each armpit and hauled him to his feet, lifting him effortlessly into the air in the same motion. It was a brutal display of strength. They walked through a door, carrying the man with the concrete on his ankles outside, who suddenly realised what the rocking was.

They were on a yacht.

Around them, there was nothing but clear blue water as far as the eye could see. No other boats or ships, no sign of a coastline. High above, the Middle Eastern sun pounded the water below, giving off a blinding glare as it caught the ripples from the surface of the sea.

Either side of him, the two giants didn’t stop, carrying the captive to the edge of the yacht’s white deck.

Towards the water.

Suddenly realising what was coming, the doomed man started thrashing desperately, trying to force his way free from the vice-like grip. It was hopeless. The cement block had dried solid, plus he had over five hundred pounds of muscle gripping him tight.

As he started pleading, begging and screaming, he heard the fat man laughing behind him.

‘So long, you piece of shit,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget to hold your breath.’

The man begged, one last desperate plea for mercy, like a child.

Then the two enforcers threw him into the sea.

The moment he hit the water, the weight around his feet pulled the man down like a bungee cord in recoil. He entered with a splash and suddenly vanished under the surface, cutting him off mid-scream.

And then it was silent. Peaceful. The only sounds in the air were the water lapping against the side of the yacht and the call of a seagull somewhere in the distance.

Across the deck, the overweight man in the beige suit smiled to himself as he pictured the victim screaming silently below, plummeting toward the ocean bed and his watery grave.

As his two enforcers turned to look at him, he shot his cuff, checking the time on a golden Rolex.

‘Back to the bay,’ he ordered one of the men. ‘I’ve got a plane to catch.’

TWO

The layout of the Briefing Room at the ARU’s headquarters was simple. It was about the size of a rectangular school classroom. As you walked in, to your left was a table pushed against the wall. On its desktop an aluminium coffee machine took pride of place, surrounded on either side by a big box of tea bags, stacks of polystyrene cups and some packets of biscuits dumped on the countertop.

The other end of the room was set up as a briefing space, with two rows of chairs placed in front of a screen. However, this morning so far only three of the seats had occupants; they were the officers who’d been the first to arrive after receiving the call from Director Cobb. Behind them, the rest of the team was starting to trickle in through the door one by one, quickly joining the three already seated.

By the drinks stand, a good-looking young blond officer poured himself a cup of tea as he stifled a yawn. His name was Sam Archer and he was the youngest member of the task force. He and the other officers had been given the week off for Christmas on the condition that they stayed on call and were always contactable the entire time. Archer’s phone had rung at 8:15 am and he’d made it up here in twenty minutes. Unlike some of the older men, he didn’t mind the constant commitment and unpredictability of the hours. After all, it was what he’d signed up for.

At twenty-six years old, Archer was still pretty inexperienced in counter-terrorist police work compared to most of the other guys in the ARU. When he’d told his colleagues at his old station at Hammersmith and Fulham earlier in the year that he was applying for the ARU, most of them had laughed in his face.
Good luck with that one
, they’d said.

They weren’t laughing now. Archer had crushed the fitness and marksmanship tests, adept with both pistol and sub-machine gun, and despite his age, he’d already put in over six years on the street. It had got to the point where the brass weren’t considering the reasons why the young officer couldn’t join the Unit, it was
why not.
Whenever he was asked in the interviews if he thought his age would be a problem, he gave the same response every time.
If you're good enough, you're old enough.

And he believed it. His whole life, the only thing he’d ever wanted to be was a police officer. His father was a Sergeant in the NYPD and although they hadn’t seen each other in over ten years, Archer had grown up idolising him. For anyone who knew the boy, it came as no surprise that the man had ended up with his own badge and gun twenty years later. Being selected for the ARU a few months back had been a huge step for him; Archer came to work every day ready and raring to go, the voices in his head reminding him how inexperienced he was.

He was desperate to get out there and prove himself, but he knew that would only come with time.

As he drank from his tea and was about to move forward to join the others, he paused and smiled when he saw his best friend Chalky enter the room. The squad had been given the week off, but Chalk liked to burn the candle at both ends; while Archer liked a beer, he was typically in the sack before 1am, but Chalky figured that being asleep before four equalled a pointless existence. And when he went out drinking, he didn’t exactly hold back.

‘Jesus Christ, you look dreadful,’ Archer said, as his friend approached. ‘Where the hell did you end up last night?’

Chalky grunted a response as he arrived by the drinks stand. Grabbing a polystyrene cup, he poured himself a thick coffee; black, three sugars. He paused for a moment, thinking, then added a fourth. Archer winced.

His full name was Danny White, but as long he could remember everyone had called him Chalky. He’d once said that the only people who called him by his proper name were his mum when she was pissed off with him and Sergeant McGuire, their commanding officer. Archer had met him eight years ago on the first day of basic when they both signed up to join the police. He was four years shy of thirty, like Archer, and was of similar physical stature, both of them six feet tall and solidly built at a hundred and eighty-five pounds.

However, that was where the similarities ended. Archer’s blond hair and blue eyes were a stark contrast to Chalky’s dark, almost Mediterranean complexion, an irony given his nickname. After training, they’d been processed to the same division in the Met, and had decided to apply to the ARU together. Archer didn’t have much family left, but he quietly considered Chalky to be the brother he'd never had.

‘You left too early last night, blondie,’ Chalky said, rubbing his temples. ‘For a change.’

As Archer went to answer, an officer in his mid-thirties entered the Briefing Room, following three others. His name was Deakins, a barrel-chested, outspoken veteran, and he immediately noticed Chalky’s condition.

‘What’s the matter, Chalk, too many cocktails?’ he called.

The hungover officer flipped him the finger as the other guys in the room laughed. They knew Chalky’s habit of putting the same amount of energy into his nightlife as he did into his career. Most of them had done the same thing a few years ago when they were his age. However, he got away with it due to his ability in the field. It didn’t matter if he’d had one drink or twenty the night before, if a call came in, they all knew that Chalky would be standing there right beside them, ready to go.

As two more officers entered, a short, stocky man walked in behind them and the room instantly quietened. His name was Sergeant McGuire Cobb’s second-in-command and head of the task force, though every guy on the team just knew him as Mac. Almost thirty years of frontline combat and policing experience had left Mac as a consummate professional and a man not afraid of sharing his opinions with his superiors as frankly as he did with his peers and subordinates.

He didn’t talk much about the past, but Archer knew Mac had done three tours in the Gulf, and had seen action in Bosnia and Iraq again after 9/11. He’d joined the police after he left the army in 2005, and had risen fast due to his obvious skills and leadership abilities. He had a quick temper but one thing was for sure, whatever he may have lacked in charm, he more than made up for with loyalty. Everyone who operated with the Unit knew better than to mess with his men.

'Morning lads,' he growled, a voice battered by years of onslaught from cigarettes.
Like Al Pacino would sound if he was English and Cockney,
Archer thought, as he moved forward to sit in an empty chair.

Mac stood in front of the men and went to continue, but then noticed Chalky’s condition by the coffee stand.

'Jesus Christ Chalk, what time did you get home last night?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t, Sarge,’ Chalky said, sipping his coffee and taking a seat beside Archer.

Mac had left the door open and the last person to enter the room was a slim, attractive young woman with dark hair and glasses; she walked in briskly and closed the door behind her. Her name was Nikki; in a world where everyone knew each other by either their last name or a nickname, she was the exception and not just because she was female. She’d earned that respect. At only twenty eight, she was already the lead analyst within the intelligence team stationed next door. Cobb had plucked her from behind a desk at Hammersmith and Fulham, and he’d struck gold. Forensically attentive and consistent, she served as the eyes and ears for the task force when they were out in the field.

Along with Archer and Chalky, Nikki epitomised the new generation of police, fast-tracked and blending in well with those more experienced. It was something the Prime Minister had apparently demanded for the detail. He wanted it to be a unit that would be around for the future, long after he was gone. Archer knew Cobb had pissed off a lot of people by picking the three of them for the squad and the trio were all desperate to justify their selection.

Nikki took her place beside Mac, dark-haired, delicate and petite beside his stolid frame. Including Mac, all ten officers were now gathered in the room. Each man was dressed in off-duty clothes, jeans and sweaters thick enough to protect against the chilly air outside blowing in from the North. There were also a few yawns being stifled; if the call hadn’t come in half an hour ago, most of them would still have been in bed.

‘Morning lads,’ Mac repeated. ‘Sorry about interrupting your leave, but this one’s come straight from the top. Listen up.'

Beside him, Nikki clicked on a laptop.

An image appeared on a white screen in front of the group. Nine photographs, each one accompanied by a name and a number printed above in bold lettering.

‘Take a good look boys,’ said Mac. ‘These handsome fellas are our new best friends. All nine of them are planning to bring in the New Year with their very own firework displays, but are planning to use some very different things that go
boom
. Like home-made explosives, nails and bits of glass.’

He paused, letting each man in the room observe the mug-shots projected on the wall.

‘GCHQ had eyes on this lot, but apparently they got wise and scarpered into the city. Now they want us to clean up and bring these ugly bastards in before they go and do something stupid.’

Chalky pointed at the wall, at Number Nine. 'The bloke on the right looks different from the others, Mac. Sharper.’

Mac smiled. 'Well today's your lucky day, Officer White. Each unit has been assigned a different target and he just so happens to be ours. Maybe when he's in custody, you can interrogate him over a candlelit dinner.'

Everyone laughed.

'Who is he, Sarge?’ Archer asked, staring at the guy’s photo. ‘Chalky’s right. He doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest.'

Nikki answered him, reading from a page in her hand.

‘His name is Dominick Farha,’ she said. ‘There’s not much about him on file. It looks as if he may be linked with a drug cartel in the Middle East.'

'He's also the leader of this lot,' added Mac. ‘The most recent surveillance says he’s been staying at a flat in Knightsbridge, so that's our first stop. Our day doesn’t end until all nine of these boys are in custody. Understand?’

The men nodded. Deakins raised his hand.

'Use of deadly force?' he asked.

'Use discretion,' Mac replied, candidly.

A sandy haired officer, Fox, interjected.

'Can you elaborate on that?'

'Well, let me put it this way,’ said Mac. ‘If we kick in the door, and he's sat there in his underwear eating corn flakes, then there's no need to use your weapon. But if you walk in and he's got a bomb strapped to his chest, then you make an intelligent decision.’

He paused.

‘And make sure I'm standing behind you when you make it.’

The room laughed.

'Any more questions?’ Mac asked.

There were none.

‘Alright, lads. Get your kit. Chalky, drink some water. I want you all outside in ten.'

He turned and strode out of the room. Director Cobb was outside waiting for him, and together they walked to Cobb’s office to talk alone. Nikki moved to the door to return to her desk in the tech area; before she left, she dumped a stack of papers on a table by the doorway.

'Take one of these before you go,' she told the team from the doorway. 'Photocopies of the slide. All nine guys.'

As she departed, the remaining officers in the room rose, draining their drinks and heading towards the door, tossing the empty cups into a rubbish bin beside it. Archer remained where he was sitting, staring intently at the screen. Beside him, Chalky groaned, rubbing his temples.

'Can't believe this. It’s derby day, Arsenal-Spurs, and I'm stuck here doing this shit,' he grumbled.

Archer didn’t reply. Turning, Chalky saw his friend’s eyes were fixated on the projection.

'Arch? What are you looking at?'

Archer frowned, then turned.

'Nothing. Number Three looks familiar, that's all.’

Finishing his cup of tea, Archer rose, patting his friend on the shoulder.

‘Drink up Chalk. Its game day,’ he said with a grin.

Turning, the young blond officer walked to the door and grabbed a photocopy, moving out of sight as he headed downstairs to get changed into his gear.

Now alone in the Briefing Room, Chalky rolled his eyes.

Finishing his coffee, he climbed to his feet with a groan and followed him.