Street Soldier (27 page)

‘
Wait, wait, wait!
’ Sean froze. ‘I didn’t say you
shouldn’t take precautions. Cut one without them and there’s a chance of a spike in the other.’

And
bang
, Sean guessed. He slowly withdrew the blade.

‘I want you to strip down the two wires to bare metal and then twist the two together. That will act as a shunt, so any current from the power source just goes round the circuit and misses the detonator.
Then
you can cut the wire.’

Sean forced a laugh. ‘Sure. Shit, I never knew defusing a bomb was like twoccing a car.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about but I’ll assume it’s all good.’

‘Yeah, keep thinking that.’

It took thirty seconds to peel off two inch-long lengths of plastic from the wires. Sean looked at what was in front of him. This was nothing like James Bond. He had no clever gadgets – not even a pair of pliers – just some advice down a phone line while angry commuters yelled at him, unaware of the fact that he was actually trying to prevent them from being blown into a billion tiny pieces. Nearby he heard the sound of a motorbike choking into silence.

Sean took a deep breath. ‘Right, I’m going to do it.’

He was aware of someone coming up behind him. He hoped it was the fit woman seeing what he was doing.
Maybe she’d be impressed once she learned what he was up to.

‘Be with you in a moment . . .’ he said, and twisted the two wires together—

Something clobbered him over the head and dropped him to the ground like a sack of coal.

Chapter 31

Sean opened his eyes just in time to see a booted heel coming down on his face. He rolled out of the way and onto his feet. Dizziness threatened to take him back down and he clung onto the van for support.

His attacker he recognized immediately. He wore a leather biker’s jacket and a helmet, but there was no mistaking the eyes that glared through the visor.

‘Malcolm? What are you doing here?’

‘I never trusted you,’ Malcolm stated flatly. ‘The day of your test, you shut a door in my face twice. So I followed you.’

‘And now?’

For an answer, Malcolm pulled a Glock from inside his bike jacket. He cocked it as he walked right up to Sean and placed the muzzle against his head.

‘Whoa!’ Sean shouted. He staggered back, hands held high. ‘You can’t just slot me in broad daylight! Witnesses!’

He looked desperately at the fit woman. She was on her phone now, unaware that anything was going on.

Malcolm glanced around. ‘And what will the witnesses see? A vigilante hero whom they can’t identify stopping a bomber—’

Sean went for the gun. He knew the move. It had worked on that loan shark Ricky like a textbook exercise.

Malcolm hadn’t read the textbook. He simply tightened his grip on the pistol, and it remained glued to his hand, even though Sean strained at it. Then, slowly, he began to bend Sean’s arm back. Sean redoubled his efforts, both hands trying to keep the gun hand away.

The Doberman started to move forward, and Sean was being pushed back into the van. The nearest tub dug in below his shoulder blades, and he felt himself bending backwards, further and further. They stared into each other’s eyes over a distance of inches. Malcolm’s were emotionless, showing as much interest as Sean might when he swatted a mosquito. Then Malcolm brought his free arm up and pressed it into Sean’s throat. Sean’s head was pinned against the lid of the tub. He heard his breath start to gurgle under the intolerable pressure. Cut off the air to his lungs, cut off the blood to his brain – either would work. Dark spots started to dance in front of his eyes.

Through the roaring in his ears he could hear voices.

‘Should we call the police?’

‘Oh my God, I think he’s killing him . . .’

The witnesses who hadn’t bothered Malcolm were hanging back, not quite daring to intervene.

Sean was too weak to keep both hands on the gun now. His right hand slipped off, so he used it to try and lever Malcolm’s visor open, claw at those cold, dead eyes. Malcolm simply shifted his head slightly and kept pressing. Sean’s arm flopped down. He just had the strength to keep pushing at something, anything – whatever he could reach, which was now Malcolm’s groin.

OK, let’s really put a stop to you . . .

He clenched his fist and punched.

Malcolm trembled, and grunted, and the pressure on Sean’s throat eased slightly – just enough to let him take in a huge, wheezing breath. But he kept squeezing. Malcolm’s jaw clenched, and shudders ran through his body.

Sean punched again, and again. Malcolm’s shudders grew worse, and suddenly he let go of Sean’s neck altogether. Which meant that Sean could get a proper grip. He yanked down as hard as he possibly could.

Malcolm screamed and doubled over. Sean grabbed at the Glock and successfully twisted it out of Malcolm’s hands. Before Malcolm could straighten up, he kicked as
hard as he could against the side of his helmet. Malcolm staggered backwards and Sean straightened up, holding the gun in the approved manner, both hands on the grip, arms straight, feet apart, looking straight over the sights at his attacker.

‘Stay down, Malcolm, or—’

And then there was a knife in Malcolm’s hand, and he was running at Sean with an animal howl.

Sean fired, twice, the gun jumping in his hand. Red flowers blossomed in Malcolm’s chest, and he crumpled like a puppet whose strings had been cut, dead before he even hit the ground.

People screamed, and Sean was dimly aware of a rapidly clearing area around him as the witnesses fled the killer with the gun. Well, that was one way to do it. For a moment he looked at the body of the first man he had ever killed in cold blood. Then he coughed and rubbed his throat, trying to get his breathing back to normal.

He picked up the phone. ‘Still there?’ He tried to make his voice sound normal, but he knew it was shaking. What he had just done – there was no way of making it cool or clever, like on TV. It had been a matter of survival. It could just as well have been him lying there dead.

‘Still here.’ Fitz’s voice was a little less dispassionate than before. Presumably everyone had been watching the show via the drone. ‘Did you twist the wires together?’

‘Yup.’

‘Then cut one of the wires between detonator and shunt.’

Sean put down the gun, picked up the penknife. ‘Doing it now.’

He put the blade to the wire – and paused.

Was this it? What nearly eighteen years of mostly wasted life came down to? And just when he had started to make good. Again.

He cut the wire as directed.

Adrenaline surged through his body as it realized that it was still alive. He threw back his head and yelled: ‘
OH – FUCK – YEAH!
’

Then he sagged against the tubs.

Adams was back on the line. ‘Excellent. Well done.’

‘Sheer fucking A!’ Sean shouted in agreement.

‘No, fucking Z. Our friends raided the warehouse and found evidence of five – repeat
five
– bombs having been made.’

Sean felt all the energy drain out of him, leaving him with his battered mind and body. ‘So where’s the fifth?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Oh. Shit.’ Sean sagged against the van. ‘But . . . there were only four drivers, and Malcolm’s here . . . So that just leaves . . .’

‘Maybe he actually wants to get his hands dirty for
once. Press the button on his own pet project.’ A pause while Adams spoke to someone away from the phone. ‘The other vans all seem to be heading for destinations around the City, so that’s where they’ll concentrate their search. But it’s not your problem, Harker.’ Adams was back to his normal self, a sergeant addressing a private. ‘If it blows, it blows. You’ve done your bit. You need to stay there until the cops and the Bomb Squad arrive. We can’t leave that thing unattended. And right now the police are responding to calls from the public about a lunatic with a van and a gun, so put it away and wait with your hands on your head. You’re standing over a dead body, so don’t give the Met’s finest the slightest excuse to plug you, because it’s all they’ll need. Just let them nick you, don’t say a word, and we’ll come and get you.’

Sean breathed out heavily. ‘Sure. No probs.’ He wasn’t going to argue about the injustice of getting nicked for being a hero. He stuffed the gun into his trousers, aware that he was aiming a weapon directly at his balls – really,
really
hoping that his instructors were right when they said that a Glock was knock-proof and would only ever fire if you actually pulled the trigger – hence, no safety catch. Then he plonked his arse down on the rear step of the van, linked his fingers on top of his head, and waited. The sound of sirens tickled his ears. They would take a
while to get through. Well, he had all the time in the world.

He stared at the rows of empty cars in front of him, glanced down at Malcolm’s body, and quickly looked away again. ‘Yeah, you’re welcome,’ he said to the sports car belonging to the fit woman.

Fuck
that fifth bomb . . .

Something clattered next to him and he jumped. His senses still hadn’t quite come down from their high alert. He quickly checked the bomb. Nothing had changed . . .

No – something
had
. A small plastic rectangle lay on the floor of the van beside him. He picked it up and found that he was holding the display from the black box.

Eh?

He peered closely at the box. There was a glistening rectangle where the display had been stuck. He looked at it again, and his heart thudded.

It was just the display off some pocket calculator, stuck onto the box. It had nothing to do with what was in the box at all.

‘
Fuck!
’ he bellowed, and grabbed the phone.

Fitz answered even before it started ringing. ‘What? What’s the matter?’

‘It’s a fucking fake, that’s what . . .’ Sean trailed off, then leaned forward and peered between the barrels.
Right at the front of the van, where he would never be able to get at it without moving everything else, just behind the bulkhead, inches from where he had been sitting as he drove . . .

‘There’s another timer. And—’

It hit him in the guts like a blow. ‘It’s set to ten minutes early! Oh-six-fifty! What’s the time now?’

Suddenly he didn’t want to look at his watch.

And now he knew that Rich had never planned for any of the drivers to survive. They were all meant to die. Didn’t matter if they hadn’t quite made their destinations. They would still be surrounded by traffic; it would still be carnage. The press would call them suicide bombers, which would just strengthen the alleged link with IS. It was brilliant. It was brutal. And it was only minutes away.

‘Get out!’ Fitz snapped. ‘Get out of there now!’

Sean was already running, weaving between the abandoned cars.

What else had Fitz said back in that lecture? It was nagging at him. Something else about the Omagh bomb . . .

Deaths were mostly caused by the supersonic shockwave of the blast, and the distribution of shrapnel . . .

Shit. He couldn’t outrun either of those. But he could shelter. There had to be a good ten cars between him and the van now.

He flung himself to the ground behind a Volvo estate, skidding on his front on the rough tarmac just as the sky seemed to split open and a deep, roaring boom shook every cell in his body. He lay there, dazed, confused, as dust and debris came raining down. Somehow he knew that his body was in tremendous pain. It told him this, but it wasn’t letting him feel it. All the noise – car alarms, screams, a torrent of horror and confusion – was parked a safe distance away too, where his brain could register it but didn’t have to listen.

He coughed, as pain and noise slowly came back to their normal levels. His fingers brushed against bits of glass, shattered into tiny diamonds. Slowly he pushed himself onto his hands and knees and looked back. The van was a dark skeleton, consumed by flame, belching thick black smoke. The vehicles on either side and in front and behind weren’t much better. Others further down the road were slight improvements. They were only write-offs.

Sean dragged himself to his feet, leaning against the Volvo. His body felt like one big bruise. The sirens were nearer. The emergency services would be here soon. Cool, they could deal with it.

But first he could report in. He felt for the spooks’ phone. It rattled. He held it up to his head and shook it. Definitely rattling. Plus the screen was starred and
cracked. It was in worse shape than he was – he wouldn’t be making any more calls on that.

‘OK,’ he said out loud. There was still the wire. ‘This is Harker, checking in. Hope you’re getting this.’ He felt for the button that was the wire’s microphone, and something gave beneath his fingers. He stared down at it in horror. The plastic was smashed. As he watched, the button fell off, and he felt the loose wire tickle against his skin inside his shirt.

‘Oh, crap . . .’

Wondering what to do, he got out his own phone, which seemed to be undamaged – but with the other phone out of action he realized he no longer had the number he needed. He put his hands up on his head again as he thought. The Met would be in an even worse mood now that one of the bombs had gone off. He leaned against the Volvo and sighed. Was it just the one bomb? he wondered. He didn’t know. Maybe they had got to bombs two, three and four in time . . .

But there was still that
fucking fifth bomb
.
Fuck
Rich. He might have known. Nothing was simple. Not in the head of someone like that. He remembered that meeting in London. The signs had been there – the way it took just a few words for Rich to morph from calm and collected to twisted crackpot.
This place stands for everything that’s wrong with this country . . .

Sean stared into the distance. That had to be it. It just had to be. Trafalgar sodding Square . . .

Unless Trafalgar Square was already one of the locations . . .

But Adams had said that it looked like everyone was heading for the City. The financial district – the Bank of England, Lloyds, rich multinationals. It meant that at some point they had all turned northwards to cross the river, probably at Tower Bridge or London Bridge.