State Of Emergency: (Tom Buckingham Thriller 3) (2 page)

‘All right, Fez?’

He wheeled round. How he hated that name. He’d been stuck with it since Helmand. Something to do with the shape of his hair. Protesting had only made it stick.

He nodded at Ballard, reached for the Glock. ‘You lost?’

Ballard swayed a little on his feet. His blazer was flapping open, his tie loose. ‘Story of my life.’ He raised his hand, too late to stifle the belch that erupted from him. ‘G’night?’

He had nothing against Ballard. They’d both done two tours in Afghanistan, both seen the same shit, had been discharged the same year and joined Invicta a year later, among the first to sign up. Both of them had been through the rehab programme, only Ballard had clearly lapsed. Perhaps Fez could talk his way past.

‘Yeah.’ He nodded, a hand reaching round the grip of his weapon. ‘Good night.’

He tried not to infuse the words with deep irony. It was good that Ballard was too shitfaced to register any surprise at seeing him, as if it was quite natural that he would be there to join in the celebrations. Maybe Ballard had forgotten Fez’s sudden exit from the organization. Maybe he could be spared.

Ballard leaned closer. ‘So where’sa Gents?’

‘You’ve taken a wrong turning. Back into the main hall and left.’

Ballard looked relieved.
Go on then, fuck off.
But he didn’t. He leaned against the passage wall, frowning at Fez’s suit. ‘So – whya you here? Thought you’d packed it in?’

He shrugged. Maybe in Ballard’s alcoholic haze he would accept that as some kind of answer.

Ballard frowned, trying to focus as he stepped away from the wall, his face just centimetres from Fez’s. ‘Here – you’re banned. Shouldn’ be here.’

Nothing for it. Fez slammed a flat left hand into Ballard’s chest so he fell back towards the wall, leaving enough space between them for him to draw down the weapon in his right. Keeping his left high and out of the way of the shot, he pivoted the weapon as soon as it was free of the holster and fired.

Immediately he stepped back to ensure there was no blood on him as Ballard slid down the passage wall. Shit, what now? He looked up and down the corridor, got his bearings and, gripping Ballard by the armpits, pulled the lifeless body towards the door to a store room.

He had to move quickly now. A loud pumping beat of the sort of music he loathed thumped above the hubbub of partying revellers behind the swing doors. He put his head in and spoke to the nearest couple. ‘The guv’nor still in there?’

‘He was ’bout half an hour ago.’

‘Thanks.’ He moved on through the crowd. He saw a pair of bouncers standing sentry in identical suits, little coils running from their ears into their collars, their ISA ID armbands ungainly over their jackets. They looked ridiculous, bloated by steroids and too much muscle to be useful. More like a pair of bouncy castles. They were preoccupied with a group of pissed hoorays, who were arguing loudly. He steered away from them, deeper into the throng, a heaving mass of mostly young bodies, the same age as the ones he had just dropped downstairs. He felt his pulse step up a level. Two banners had been hung across the room. One said, ‘Victory!’ and the other ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Us’. On the stage a youth with a ludicrously exaggerated blond quiff was crooning into a mic but his voice was inaudible. He saw one of the party officials and elbowed his way towards her. She was well pissed, gyrating drunkenly against her partner.

He nodded towards the stage. ‘Where is he?’

She frowned. ‘Who are you?’

And who the fuck are you?
he felt like saying.

‘Oh, yeah, right. Probably gone to get his head down, I should think.’ She gestured upwards. ‘Been on his feet the last two nights, poor man.’

Her partner pulled her back towards him. He thanked her with a curt nod, extricated himself from the crowd and headed in the direction of the lifts.

3

03.50

Ed lay on the bed, grinning up at the chandelier. He spread his arms and legs as if making a snow angel, feeling the luxurious sheets slide under his limbs. He’d never been in a five-star hotel before, never mind the presidential suite. It smelt of new carpets and fancy soap. He glanced at the wall of window to his left, the curtains undrawn. Across the Thames, somewhere on the north side, a column of fiery smoke funnelled up from a blazing building. The river was invisible, except for a row of lights on the opposite bank, the rest obscured by snowflakes floating down, tinged orange by the hotel lights.

He smirked. Christmas had come right in the middle of February. Jennifer was in the bathroom getting ready for what was left of the night. Although he’d had the bare minimum of sleep for the last three crazy days’ campaigning, the election-day adrenalin, plus a cocktail of Pro Plus and Red Bull, kept him buzzing. He glanced at the massive muted TV, churning out election coverage, the umpteenth replay of Vernon Rolt’s moment of glory, the new MP punching the air, then the all-too-familiar sound bite about making the streets of Britain safe again, cutting out the ‘tumour of terror’.

Jennifer appeared from the bathroom gift-wrapped in a voluptuous hotel bathrobe, her blonde hair draped about her shoulders in damp snakes.

‘How d’you like me in this?’ She did a twirl so the robe fanned out around her.

He grinned. ‘I’d like you better out of it.’

She rolled her eyes, her attention caught by the TV. The image had cut to a heaving throng of protesters in Birmingham, pushing through a cordon of police riot shields, petrol bombs arcing above, a news reporter ducking as one of the flaming missiles came his way.

Britain might be on fire, but right now Ed didn’t give a shit. He snapped his fingers to get her attention. ‘Hey, it’s a compliment.’ He pushed himself up onto one elbow. ‘Jen, babe, I’ve been meaning to say …’

‘What?’

‘Could you put my shoes outside?’

She groaned, picked them up, opened the door and was about to chuck them out onto the landing when they heard the first muffled thud.

She dropped the shoes, shut the door abruptly and looked at him, alarmed.

He sank back onto the bed. ‘Fireworks, probably. They’re still celebrating downstairs.’

‘
Inside
the hotel? Like, I don’t think so.’

Jennifer wasn’t giggling. That was a slight problem with her – a bit too serious. They’d met only three weeks ago in the queue of volunteers for Rolt’s campaign. Having just lost another bar job and with fuck-all else to do, he’d thought it might be a laugh. That, plus doing his bit for the country, of course, making a stand against Muslim extremist nutters, putting them in their place – preferably back where they came from. He’d seen her in the line and couldn’t take his eyes off her – she didn’t seem to mind. When they’d got talking it turned out she was heading towards her university finals in politics and was on a mission to help right some wrongs. Her father, a cop just retired from the Met, had egged her on to support Rolt. ‘Dad says he’s our only hope,’ she’d told him earnestly. He’d nodded vigorously. Next thing he knew they were paired up on the campaign trail. Bingo.

She’d agreed they would spend election night together, and he’d pulled off something of a coup by securing the suite that had been booked for Rolt, who hadn’t even shown up at the victory party downstairs. Everything had come good, except now she was spoiling it by going all serious.

Jennifer stood close to the door, listening.

He beckoned her. ‘C’mon, get over here.’

There were two more thuds, louder this time. She shuddered, gripped the lapels of the robe and bit her bottom lip as her eyes welled. He sighed as she wiped away tears. They had had their share of scares during the campaign and he had put on a show of chivalry, which he reckoned had only half convinced her.

‘Maybe they’re chucking furniture down into the atrium. Lock the door, come to bed and let the rumpus begin.’ He raised his arms in her direction and put on a sinister James-Bond-baddie voice, which seemed to go with the surroundings. ‘Come, my child.’

The lights snapped off and the TV screen faded to black.

Shit, he thought. This really isn’t how it’s supposed to go. He levered himself up from the bed and marched towards the door. He was about eight feet from it when the lock exploded, taking a chunk of the door with it, spraying them with splinters. Jennifer leaped towards him, gripping so hard her fingernails dug into his shoulder. There was something in the air, not a smell as such but as it hit his lungs he felt as if he’d inhaled nettles. His eyes burned and filled with tears. He whirled her round and pushed her towards the bathroom, falling on top of her as he lost his footing on the wet tiles. He kicked out wildly at the door and it slammed shut. He thought of getting up to lock it, then realized it would be ridiculous after what had just happened to the other door. They huddled in a corner of the shower, behind a partition no more than three feet high, clutching each other in the total darkness. Something sticky ran down the back of his hand, too thick and cold to be blood – they must have collided with a soap dispenser.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was for real. Rolt’s people had always said, ‘Be ready. Never drop your guard.’ Any jihadi just back from Syria might be out there waiting for them. But the hotel was ringed with security: they should have been safe here. Rolt had many fans, but he wasn’t short of enemies sending death threats. For all his claims that he wanted to protect the patriotic Muslims, he’d pretty much alienated the entire lot of them. Ed and the rest of Rolt’s team had even been given some basic self-defence tips by one of the tough guys from the MP’s organization, Invicta, a jab in the eye, a boot in the balls but neither applied here. Jennifer’s grip tightened on him.

‘Hey, loosen up,’ he whispered. And then, uselessly, ‘It’s gonna be all right, okay?’

‘No, it’s not. We’re going to die, Ed. They want to kill Rolt and they think we’re him,’ she said, through huge convulsive sobs.

He pressed a hand over her mouth and hugged her to him.

As he held her, he raised himself half an inch to peer over the partition. Through the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor tiles, he saw a light sweep past, then back across it.

‘You want to get yourself beaten up?
Killed?
’ That had been his mother’s response to his signing up for Rolt’s campaign. She always overreacted, always went for the negative. Now he wished he had listened, given the whole thing a wide berth. ‘They’ll come after you. You’ll be a target. Is that what you want, to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder?’

The light under the door reappeared, static this time. He thought he could hear breathing. Then the door burst open with such force it smashed into a glass splashguard, which exploded into pieces over them.

The light was coming from a torch attached to something. He couldn’t see what or who was holding it. Someone stepped into the room and Ed ducked, but his pathetic attempt to hide was rendered useless by Jennifer’s whimpering.

He could see the shape of the gunman now, his profile contorted by something – a face mask, sound coming from it like Darth Vader. He prised Jennifer off him and stood up. What drove him he didn’t know: he was beyond scared, his pulse hammering in his temples, the taste of vomit in his mouth as he opened it to speak. ‘You want Rolt? He’s not here. Just us. We’re nothing, just – we don’t even officially work for him.’

His voice was hoarse. The saliva had vanished and his tongue felt like rubber.

The torch beam was now trained directly on him. The figure didn’t move. Above Jennifer’s whimpering he could hear hissing breaths coming from the mask. He could see more of the silhouette now, completely still, legs slightly apart. The torch was attached to something – a gun: a very big one. Ed thought of all the things he would promise to do in return for his life. All the clients he had ripped off whom he’d reimburse, all the teachers he’d apologize to … His life flashed before him – the fuck-all he’d achieved so far. If he could do one thing in the time left, like save Jennifer from this …

Behind the gunman, back in the bedroom, Ed thought he detected another movement. How many were there?

A tiny red dot danced above the gunman’s left ear. Then there were two
thunk
sounds, plus the short, sharp, metallic grinding sound of a top slide moving, and the gunman dropped to the ground in a lifeless heap, the weapon clattering onto the tiles beside him. Jennifer screamed, a high-pitched distress signal shockingly amplified by the tiles, then dissolved into convulsive coughs. Ed squeezed her to him as his bowels trembled. Were they safe? Were they next?

A second figure stepped into the room, holding a dripping towel up to his face. Ed raised his hands, but the man didn’t even look at him. All his attention was on the body twisted on the floor. He reached down, picked up the weapon and lifted the mask off the dead man’s face. Despite the fear raging through him, Ed heard his own voice pipe up: ‘Who is he?’

The man didn’t answer, but shone a phone torch on the unmasked face. A pair of empty blue eyes stared straight up out of a pale pink freeze-framed face. Ed looked away. It was his first dead body, a massive crater where the man’s left ear had been. He looked back to the shooter. ‘So who are you?’

Tom Buckingham reached down and replaced the mask over the lifeless face. ‘Nobody.’

4

06.00
Piccadilly, Central London

There had been no sleep for Tom, just a swift pit-stop for a shower and change of clothes. He adjusted his tie in the bathroom mirror and took a step back.
You look like shit.

The whites of his eyes were still bloodshot from the CS gas. He knew the drill, used the hotel hair-drier to evaporate the irritant, but it would be a few hours before they calmed down. There would be a lot of cameras around today and he didn’t want to stand out, but he also needed to be on maximum alert.

From somewhere overhead came the deep pulsing thuds of a police Eurocopter, hovering nearby. He had been looking forward to a spell of much needed R&R, a break from the grind of the months under cover, but last night’s attack had nixed that. Fez Randall’s face flashed in front of him, his shocked eyes staring heavenwards, his mouth frozen open in disbelief. Not an aggrieved suicidal jihadi, but a former soldier, like him, a member of Invicta, like him, a blue-eyed Brit, like him. Yes, there might have been a choice. Tom could have given him a warning, a chance to disarm, but he’d nothing to go on: no tip-off, no intelligence, no prior ID, no knowledge of where the man in the mask had come from, or how he had got past the heavy security round the hotel. For all Tom had known at the time, he might have been wearing a vest full of explosive. That was why it had had to be a head job, to stop the attacker even thinking of detonating. And since homemade or low-grade military explosive was both unstable and volatile, a high-velocity round entering a vest could very well have detonated it. And even if there had been no vest, he was about to brass up a pair of innocent civilians who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.