Siege (7 page)

The prospect of suddenly being flung into a major operation had Arley in two minds. On the one hand she relished getting her teeth into challenges, especially fast-moving ones, and it would be an excellent opportunity to prove her worth, having only been in the job less than a month. But on the other, she badly wanted to go home. She’d been away Monday and Tuesday on a residential course, had put in thirteen hours the previous day, and quite frankly, she was exhausted.

Surreptitiously, she looked at her watch as Genson Smith, a veteran Lambeth councillor with a longstanding grievance against the police, and a man who never tired of hearing his own voice, launched into another of his polemics. 4.35. If she could wrap this meeting up quickly she could be out of here by five and relaxing in a hot bath with a much-needed glass of Sauvignon Blanc by six.

The knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.

It was Ann, her secretary, again, and her expression was concerned. ‘Ma’am, you’re needed urgently.’

‘I’m afraid I have to go,’ Arley announced to the attendees, pleased at least to be leaving the room. ‘I’ll leave you in the capable hands of DCS Russell.’

Genson Smith looked extremely irritated, but Arley was out of the door before he could actually say anything.

‘The explosion at the Westfield has been confirmed as a bomb,’ said Ann when they were out in the corridor.

‘What do we know about casualties?’

‘So far we’ve got reports of six people injured, but no fatalities.’

‘Thank God for that.’

‘That’s not all,’ Ann continued.

Arley felt her heart sink.

‘There have been two more explosions at Paddington Station. Initial reports say they’re both bombs. The commissioner wants you in the control room right away.’

Arley had been with the Met for over twenty years. She was used to crises, and knew how to handle them. It was one of the reasons she’d risen so high. ‘I’m on my way,’ she said, knowing that the bath and the Sauvignon Blanc were going to have to wait, but already feeling the adrenalin as it pumped through her system, shaking her out of the torpor of the meeting.

HE WASN’T GOING
to come.

In her hotel room, Cat was about to light another cigarette and break the cardinal rule they’d set of never calling Michael on his mobile when there was a loud knock on the door.

She put down her glass of Evian and bounded over to open it.

It was Michael, his presence immediately filling the doorway. He was a big man with big, rugged features who’d worked hard to keep himself in shape, and even though he was in his early fifties, he wore the years easily.

He grinned and produced a bunch of flowers from behind his back, handing them to her.

‘Darling, you shouldn’t have done.’ Smiling, she stepped aside to let him inside, taking in the scent of his Dior aftershave and a tang of single malt on his breath. ‘But I’m glad you did.’

Michael took her in his arms and kissed her. ‘I need you, Cat,’ he whispered. ‘God, I need you so, so badly.’

‘You’ve got me,’ she whispered back, feeling his hardness against her. ‘And we’ve got all night.’

She twisted round and threw the flowers on the bed, and a second later they were kissing again. Outside, she could hear the blare of police sirens coming past the window.

They walked crab-like together towards the bed, his hand running up her leg to the stocking top, his breathing getting faster now as he became more and more aroused.

She felt his phone vibrate in his trouser pocket. He ignored it. So did she.

By the time it had stopped vibrating they were standing against the bottom of the bed, and his fingers were stroking the bare flesh of her inner thigh. Instinctively she opened her legs a little, and he gave a pleasing grunt of pleasure.

Almost immediately, his phone started up again.

‘Damn,’ he cursed, removing his hand from the folds of her dress. ‘I’d better see what they want.’ He gave Cat an apologetic look and turned away, putting the phone to his ear. ‘What is it?’ he demanded brusquely.

As he listened to what was being said, his shoulders slumped visibly.

Cat stepped away and reached under the pillow on her side of the bed as outside more sirens shrieked past.

‘All right,’ said Michael at last, ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ He ended the call and turned round with a frustrated sigh, his eyes dark with disappointment. ‘I’m truly sorry about this, Cat, but there’s been some kind of terrorist incident—’

‘I know,’ answered Cat, her voice perfectly calm as she brought the gun round from behind her back and pointed it right between his eyes.

MICHAEL STARED AT
her in utter disbelief. His phone fell to the floor. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he asked.

Cat stared back coldly, her gun arm steady. ‘Don’t ask questions. Just do as I say.’

‘But I’ve just told you, there’s a major terrorist incident going on and—’

‘And I told you, I know. There’s been a bomb at the Westfield Shopping Centre, and two more at Paddington.’

Michael’s eyes widened. ‘God, how the hell—’

‘Because I’m involved. Now sit down in the chair by the bed, and no more talking.’

She cocked the pistol, still keeping it trained between his eyes, and deliberately tightened her finger on the trigger.

‘Now look here, Cat, I’m sure we can sort this out,’ he said, a patronizing expression on his face, as if he was confident that she could be reasoned with, which was typical of him. Michael Prior was a man used to getting his own way.

‘There’s nothing to sort out. I’m a soldier of the Pan-Arab Army of God and you are my prisoner.’

Michael sat down heavily in the tub chair next to the window, his face pale with shock.

‘If you put the gun down, we can sort this out, I promise. It’s not too late.’

Cat could hear the strain in his voice. ‘And if you keep talking, I’ll shoot you in the kneecap, and I won’t miss. I’ve had extensive training with the Glock 17, and the suppressor does a very good job of keeping the noise down, so if I do pull the trigger no one’s going to hear. My orders are to keep you alive, but no one’s going to care if you can’t walk.’ She kept her voice totally calm, as she’d been trained to do, and it seemed to do the trick. Michael was visibly nervous now and beginning to sweat.

Keeping the gun on him, she reached into a Harrods bag she’d brought with her, pulled out two pairs of ankle restraints, and lobbed them over to him. ‘Put these on – one hoop round each ankle, the other round each of the front chair legs. Make sure they’re locked, then throw the keys on the bed.’

He caught them easily, but rather than put them on he made one last effort to salvage the situation. ‘Come on, Cat,’ he said, looking at her imploringly. ‘We have something together, don’t we? Something special. Let’s not destroy it. I’m in love with you, darling. Remember that. I’m in love with you. You mean everything to me.’

Cat shook her head. What fools men could be sometimes, especially when they wanted sex. ‘You make my skin crawl, Michael. I was given orders to draw you into a relationship, and that’s exactly what I’ve done. Now put those restraints on before I lose patience.’

She watched the realization that he’d been utterly suckered finally sink in. He looked truly upset, which pleased her. She’d done her job well.

‘You’re making a big mistake, you know,’ he blustered. ‘If you go through with this, you won’t see the outside of a prison for years.’

Once again her finger tightened on the trigger, and Michael must have seen the contempt in her face, because he finally did as he’d been told.

When he’d finished she came up behind him and made him put his hands behind his back and lean forward, towards the floor. ‘The Glock’s trained on your right shoulder blade, so don’t try anything,’ she said, putting a pair of old-fashioned handcuffs on his wrists and locking them with her free hand.

Michael was now completely helpless.

‘But I’ve seen your background details,’ he said, the confusion in his voice obvious as he watched her remove the ball gag from the Harrods bag. ‘How could this have happened?’

She bent down close to his face, smiling coldly. ‘The woman you employed does not exist. Catherine Manolis died in Nice in October 1985, aged twenty-three months. Her identity was stolen and used to apply for false identity documents. We tailored her to suit the job application, and no one spotted it.’

Michael sighed. ‘So, everything you told me about your upbringing was rubbish. You’re not a widow at all.’

‘Oh yes,’ she told him, her voice hardening, ‘I’m definitely a widow. My husband was murdered last year defending his country against men like you. Except while he was fighting on the frontline you were sitting far away behind a desk giving orders.’

‘But Cat, you must understand, I had nothing to do with that. I was—’

Before he could finish the sentence, she stuffed the ball gag into his mouth. Again he tried to protest, but she pushed the gun against his cheek and ordered him to bite down hard on the gag, and he did as he was told.

When she’d finished gagging him, she pulled out his mobile phone and switched it off. It would be switched on again later and moved to different places in the hotel to confuse any rescuers trying to locate him.

She then pulled out her own phone and speed-dialled a number. ‘I have the prize,’ she said, ‘and it’s ready to be opened.’

And Michael Prior truly was a prize. But then, a director of MI6 was always going to be.

16.40

WOLF PUT DOWN
his mobile and turned to Fox. As he did so, some of the hardness left his face, and for a moment he had that faraway look of the daydreamer.

Every man has a weakness, thought Fox, and, like a lot of men, Wolf’s was the opposite sex. The woman on the other end of the line had him wrapped round her little finger, and that worried Fox because she was a wilful little bitch. He had the feeling that when the op began in earnest she might well cause problems.

He’d have to watch that.

‘Cat’s got him,’ Wolf said as Fox turned the van out of the traffic chaos of Park Lane and down one of the side streets. ‘The MI6 man is ours.’

‘Good. She’s done well.’

And she had too. To lure such a senior member of one of the largest intelligence agencies in the world into a honey-trap was no mean feat, and it had taken a lot of skill and planning. But then it seemed that Michael Prior’s weakness was women too.

Fox drove the van round the back of the Stanhope Hotel, parking on double yellow lines a few yards short of the delivery entrance. The journey had taken them eight minutes longer than anticipated, and Fox could almost feel the adrenalin surging round the interior as each of them prepared for the assault. Wolf had pulled back the curtain separating the front cab from the back, and Fox could see the others now. Each of them was quiet and focused. Everyone was waiting to begin.

Wolf put his mobile on loudspeaker and made a call to Panther, their inside man in the Stanhope.

Panther was Cat’s brother, Armin. Both Fox and Wolf had met him on a number of occasions as they endeavoured to find out everything they could about the hotel. He was an unpleasant little bastard with a bad attitude who resented the fact that he might have to take orders from Fox, a foreigner he neither knew nor respected, but in the three weeks he’d been working at the Stanhope as a room service waiter he’d been an invaluable source of information.

It had been no problem getting him the job. Big hotels are notorious for their lack of background checks. He possessed good-quality fake papers supplied by his embassy, entitling him to work in the UK, and the fact that he had no experience, and virtually nothing on his CV to indicate what he’d been doing for the past few years, was clearly of no consequence. What mattered to the hotel’s management was that he had a valid work permit and, more importantly, was prepared to work hard for the frankly appalling wages on offer.

Panther answered immediately. ‘What kept you?’ he hissed into the phone. ‘I’ve been waiting by the back door for the last fifteen minutes. If anyone spots me—’

‘We’re here now,’ Wolf told him. ‘What’s the situation in there?’

‘Everything’s good. The kitchens are beginning to get busy. About twenty to twenty-five staff inside.’

‘What’s the security on the gate like? Can you see?’

‘Just the usual guy, Kwame. He’s sat down reading the paper. I can see him now.’

Wolf and Fox exchanged glances, then Fox turned to the men in the back. They were all sat up straight in anticipation, cocking their weapons.

‘OK, get the back door open,’ ordered Wolf. ‘We’re coming in.’

‘Right,’ Fox said, ‘we all know what we’re doing. This is crowd control, not a shooting fest. We want them scared but not panicking. But if anyone resists or makes a bolt for it, take them down. If any of you still have mobiles on you, turn them off now and do not use them for the duration of the op. From now on, all communications are face to face. Got that?’

Every man grunted his agreement.

Fox pulled the van away from the kerb and into an archway that led through to a rear courtyard where the Stanhope received all its deliveries. As the van approached the single-bar security gate, Kwame put his paper down and got up from the chair. He was only a young guy – twenty-five, twenty-six – with the kind of round boyish face that was never going to cause anyone any trouble.

As he walked up to the driver’s-side window, Fox pulled a gun from the seat pocket beside him and pointed it at his face. ‘Open the gate.’

Kwame nodded rapidly and immediately put a code into a keypad on the gatepost that lifted the gate automatically, before shoving his hands in the air just so no one was in any doubt that he was being cooperative.

Not that it made any difference. Fox held his gun arm ramrod straight and shot him in the eye, the bullet’s retort echoing round the archway, before accelerating into the courtyard.

Panther had already opened the double doors that led through to the kitchens, and it looked like he was talking animatedly to someone behind him.