The Lost Codex (25 page)

40

“W
e’ve got fifty-five minutes,” Vail said as she fastened her seatbelt. “But do we have a plan?”

Uzi tapped away at his laptop keyboard. “The plan is to prevent the attack on MI5.”

“And how are we going to do that?”

“Haven’t gotten that far.”

A moment later, DeSantos pulled up alongside their car. “Follow me.”

“And do what?”

“We’ll figure it out on the way.” He rolled up his window and headed off down the road.

Vail followed a safe distance behind. “I think we should call Buck.”

Uzi leaned closer to the screen. “Can’t. You heard what Knox said.”

She ruminated on that a bit. Buck was not a likely ally, but faced with intel of an imminent attack on the security service’s headquarters, he would have to take action, right? Maybe not. He had not listened when Knox told him he had credible information that Qadir Yaseen and Tahir Aziz were on UK soil. Or had he? Perhaps he did check it out and could not verify Knox’s claims.
What would Knox have done if the situation were reversed?

“I think we should tell him.”

Uzi shrugged a shoulder, still pecking away at his laptop. “Call Santa, make your case.”

Vail dialed DeSantos, no longer concerned about driving while holding her phone. She got through her first sentence before he cut her off.

“Too risky. If our intel is bad, we’re really in the shit. Do I have to remind you what happened last time we were here? We may not get out of the UK again without serious prison time—not to mention their new terrorism laws. Can’t take the chance.”

“There are a shitload of people working in those buildings. If it’s a legitimate threat, we can’t just let the attack go down without doing something.”

“We will do something. I just haven’t figured out what yet.”

“What about Reid and Carter?” She was referring to two MI5 agents, Clive Reid and Ethan Carter, who partnered with Vail and DeSantos when they were on an island, literally and figuratively, on the run from law enforcement.

There was silence. She figured DeSantos was working it through, weighing the potential problems—she could think of a few herself—against other options, which, likely, included doing nothing.

“Obviously, since you’re suggesting it,” he said, “you feel pretty confident they won’t try to screw us over. I mean, I got to know them, but you knew them a lot better.”

“I know Reid and yeah, I think he’s a standup guy. He knows what we were up against, that we were trying to do the right thing.”

Uzi looked up from his keyboard. “No one can guarantee the actions of another. You sure about this?”

Am I sure? If I tell them no—which would be the truth—they’ll back off. But I can’t sit by and not do something.
She glanced at the clock: forty-three minutes left.

“Yes.”

“Fine,” DeSantos said. “You still have Reid’s number?”

“I can get it.” She hung up and turned to Uzi. Can you get me a phone number?” She told him which Metropolitan Police station she needed to call—the one that Vail temporarily worked out of when she first met Reid. A moment later, he was reading her the string of digits.

She rang through and got a duty clerk who sounded as bored as he probably was. Doing her best to speak in a regional British accent—but saying as little as possible because she knew the more words she spoke the greater the risk her faux dialect would be laid bare. “I need to reach Inspector Reid. Problem with his nephew Brant. He’s in a spot of trouble. I’m the headmistress here and he said I should call his uncle, a copper by the name of Reid.” She chuckled. “He said he’s a detective chief inspector. As if I believe that.”

The clerk cleared his throat. “Well, right that, he is. Can you wait while I put the ring up on hold?”

Uh, I have no idea what you said.
“Of course.”

“He’s in the building, I think. Just started his shift.”

“That I can.”

Uzi gave her a look. Clearly, he was not as impressed with Vail’s efforts as she was.

A moment later, the muffling of a phone receiver, a muted, “What? I don’t—” He stopped, then into the handset, said: “This is DCI Reid. Who’s this?”

“Reid, it’s your old buddy, the one you can never seem to face straight on. You always see me in
profile
. Know what I mean?” She didn’t want to say any more over an open line.

“What are you—hang on a second, let me get some privacy,” he said, pronouncing it with a short “i.” After the sound of a door opening and closing, he continued. “Where are you? I thought—well, I thought I’d never hear from you again.”

“That makes two of us. But let’s just say it was necessary. And I’ve got something you should know about. Do you trust me?”

“Well that’s as stupid a question as I’ve been asked since—well, since you were here last time.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Listen, we’ve come across some intel—”

“We? You’re not alone?”

“We’ve come across some intel in a …” She did not want to use the term “terrorist” in case the Brits’ GCHQ, or government communications headquarters, was monitoring calls and sifting for key words. “A tango’s flat. Believe me when I tell you this is credible information. My friend hacked the subject’s computer. There’s an attack planned on MI5 headquarters in—”

“What kind of attack?”

“We’re still decrypting files we found on the hard drive—” She turned to Uzi—“You find anything else?”

“Blueprints for the building, but I’m having to decrypt each document separately. Key thing you’ve got to know is that they’re planning to use osmium tetroxide.”

Vail put the phone on speaker. “What’s osmium—osmium hydroxide?”

“Osmium
tet
roxide,” Uzi said. “An extremely poisonous chemical. Even small concentrations gets into the airways, it’ll destroy the lungs. It’s got a chlorine-like odor, but you wouldn’t think it’s deadly and wouldn’t even know you’ve been infected until hours later when you suddenly can’t breathe and start coughing up blood. And die. The stuff is so caustic it has to be stored in glass because it eats through plastic.”

“They were going to use it against us ten years ago in the tube,” Reid said. “We had a snitch, found their stash before it went anywhere. Some of our chemical weapons blokes didn’t think it would’ve worked because it’s unstable and because the blast would’ve dispersed the toxin before it could be inhaled.”

“Even if true,” Vail said, “ten years is a long time. They may’ve found a better way to deliver it. Are you willing to take the chance it won’t work?”

Reid groaned. “No.”

“Here’s the bad news.” Vail found the dashboard clock and hoped it was accurate. “Whatever they’re planning, it’s going down in thirty-five minutes.”

“Shite.”

“My thoughts exactly. We’re on our way—but honestly, we have no plan for when we get there. What about CO19?”

“If this were a preplanned infiltration, a specialist firearms officer unit would go in. But yeh, I can get CO19 there and the hazardous materials division. Maybe an SAS antiterrorist team too, but that’ll take longer because they go through COBRA, the crisis management command center. There just isn’t time.”

They heard Reid giving orders to what sounded like a nearby colleague.

“Hang on a sec,” Uzi said. “Reid—it’s not MI5, it’s Two Marsham Street. That’s the Home Office, isn’t it?”

“Home Office, yes. But there’s also a block of residential flats, shops, and restaurants there.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the target.” Uzi struck several keys and then turned to Vail. “The government, that’s what they’re after. There’s an analysis of the building, how and why the release of osmium tetroxide gas was the best method to use for the most casualties—without anyone suspecting a thing.”

Vail looked at the screen. “It’s in Arabic.”

“No shit. I can see that.”

“I mean, how good are your language skills? Are you sure of what you’re reading?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

Vail looked at him.

“
Very
sure. Look, I’m telling you. That’s what it says here.”

“Did you hear that?” Vail asked Reid.

“Got it.”

“This is obviously written by a chemist. I don’t understand most of it—I mean, I get some of it, but … they’re talking about using osmate salts and osmium trichloride hydrate to oxidize it to osmium, and tertiary amines to cause a ligand acceleration—”

“You made your point,” Vail said. “About your Arabic skills.”

Uzi looked up. “Sounds like they know what they’re doing. This attack is a legit threat.”

“So the Home Office is the target?” Reid asked.

“Best I can tell, yeah. There are several more docs here that I have to crack. But from what I’ve read, they begged off Thames House in favor of the Home Office.”

Vail followed DeSantos’s car as it turned left onto a wide road. “Remind me what’s in the Home Office?”

“Lots of
people
,” Reid said, huffing a bit. He was no doubt on the move while they were talking. “Immigration, passport office, DNA database, surveillance office, police national database, lots of research labs for biometrics, chemical profiling of illicit drugs, counterterrorism—”

“I get it,” Vail said. “It’s an important government law enforcement building and it’ll be a huge blow if they kill a lot of people in those departments.”

“I’m begging off,” Reid said. “I need my phone to make some calls. And then I’ve gotta figure out how I know about this. Because they’re going to ask.”

Vail shrugged. “Anonymous tip. It’s true, right? We never gave you our names.”

Reid chuckled. “I’ve missed you guys. Life’s been rather mundane.”

“Not anymore.”

“Right. Wish me luck. We’re gonna need a bushel of it.”

Vail disconnected the call. “Okay, so if you were doing this, how and where?”

Uzi sat back in his seat and thought a moment. “There are a number of options. It could be something low-tech or fairly sophisticated. If they’ve got inside help, it’d be more toward the sophisticated end of the spectrum, like releasing it in the ventilation system. If not, maybe a truck bomb that can be driven through a wall and then detonated. We know they’re not afraid to die. Given their MO, that scenario is more likely than not. But there could be a dozen other approaches, just as effective if not more so.”

“But one of the docs said something about the chemical being the best to use because no one would suspect a thing.”

“Right. So you’re saying no bomb.” He stopped working the keyboard and thought a moment. “An insidious release. Ventilation ducts.”

Vail handed her phone to Uzi. “Text that to Reid. Tell him what we think and why.”

But just as he began typing, Vail’s phone rang.

“It’s Reid,” Uzi said as he pressed a button.

“Put him on speaker.”

Uzi hunted for the right key and then pressed it. “Reid? Just about to send you a text.”

“Hold that. We just got an order to evacuate Thames House.”

“I know what I read,” Uzi said. “That plan was changed. It’s the Home Office.”

“You said you hadn’t finished opening all the documents. Maybe it was changed back. Or someone senior superseded the change.”

“We can sit here and guess,” Vail said, “but that’s not going to get us anywhere.”

“Who gave the order to evacuate? Based on what?”

“Anonymous tip came in to the service.”

Uzi returned to attacking the keys, but stopped abruptly and looked up. “No. That anonymous call is a ruse. Don’t evacuate. There’s a sniper, he’s gonna pick people off as soon as they leave the building.”

“A sniper? Are you sure about this?” Reid asked.

“No, I’m not sure. I’m—I’m just trying to take what we know and put it together, try to think like them. In New York, they drew us to a crime scene where they’d stabbed a woman in the middle of Times Square. As soon as we got there, we were right in the middle of the plaza when a sniper opened fire on us.”

“But who’s the target?” Vail asked. “Anyone and everyone who works for the security service?”

“Could be Buck,” Reid said. “The director general pushed hard for the new counterterrorism legislation. He said some bloody inflammatory things during his testimony before Parliament, not exactly challenging the terrorists, but fairly close. The PM was miffed, almost cost Buck his job. But it could’ve made the bloke a target. For that matter, same goes for the Home Office. They were closely involved in that legislation.”

“Secure both buildings,” Vail said. “They could be going after one or both. We think they’re rigging the Home Office’s ventilation system.”

“And from what I can see online,” Uzi said, viewing what looked like commercial property listings, “there’s about 500,000 square feet in that building. It’s huge. That’s a lot of dead people in a very short time.”

Reid sighed audibly. “You sure about this?”

“Stop asking that,” Uzi said. “We’re sure of very little of this. You’re getting our best guess.”

“If I had time, I’d run it up the ladder, cover my arse.”

Vail slapped the steering wheel. “The Clive Reid I know does what he thinks is right and doesn’t worry about the consequences.”

“So what you’re saying is that yeh want me to stake my career on a guess. And yeh want me to take it to my guvnor and my guvnor’s guvnor and yeh want me to dae all this—and safely evacuate two massive buildings in twenty-five minutes.”

“That sums it up pretty well,” Uzi said.

“You know your accent gets more pronounced when you’re stressed?”

“Shite.”

Vail genuinely felt sorry for him. And she hoped to god they were right. “Good luck,
Mr. Phelps.
”

41

B
y the time Vail and Uzi arrived at the Home Office, the clouds had broken enough to allow the sun to stream through. That would make surveillance easier in some respects, more difficult in others.

DeSantos switched places with Uzi, who continued on with Fahad to Thames House. The buildings were close—blocks from one another—but this was MI5’s ballgame. Their role as covert operatives, DeSantos explained, was to observe from a distance for any unusual activity—and capture Yaseen or Aziz, or both.

Defined more specifically, “unusual activity” consisted of a terrorist with a sniper rifle or several glass bottles of osmium tetroxide.

“You’re not serious.”

“Stranger things have happened,” DeSantos said. “But no, these guys are smart—and skilled. I don’t think they’re as dumb as the idiot serial killers you chase, the ones who get pulled over for a busted taillight with a body in the trunk.”

“If you think my job’s so easy, why don’t you try doing it for a month?”

“I’d be too bored.”

“Another time, I’d take that personally.” She turned right and glanced around the street. “I don’t think we should even be here. We’ve done our duty. All we needed to do was the right thing—and that was to notify the British authorities. The Security Service is now doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”

“So you want to leave.”

“I think that’s what I just said.” Vail found a spot to park the car and pulled to the curb. “We’re not welcome in this country. No, that’s not true. It’s worse than that. We’re considered
enemies
of the country. If we’re caught, we’re in deep trouble. This area, with a ton of government buildings around, blocks from MI5 headquarters no less, is filled with surveillance cameras.
Police
cameras. Not private cameras that the Met has to jump through hoops to access.”

DeSantos nodded slowly, as if seriously considering Vail’s comments.

She kept her gaze on his face but his eyes were scanning the streetscape. “So why aren’t we leaving if you agree?”

“Because I don’t agree. We’re after Qadir Yaseen and Tahir Aziz. We know from visiting their flat and hacking their computer files that they’re hitting one or both of these buildings. If our mission is to secure these two bastards—and the documents their organization’s holding—why would we leave?”

Dammit. I can’t argue with that.

Her lack of an answer apparently gave DeSantos all he needed because he nodded and said, “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“What are the probabilities that senior guys like Yaseen and Aziz are going to be executing this attack? Wouldn’t they have underlings doing it?”

DeSantos shrugged. “Don’t know enough to say. This isn’t a serial killer case where if you guess wrong, another two or three or five people die. If we guess wrong, thousands will die. In some cases, hundreds of thousands.”

“That’s the second time you dissed my unit.”

“Not disrespect. Simple mathematics. The scale is just different.”

She stepped onto the curb. “Where we headed?”

“There’s a Caffè Nero around the block, right opposite the building. One of us can hang out there and keep an eye on that entry point. The other can go around the other side and try to look inconspicuous.”

“I’ll take the coffee shop.”

“Figured you would.”

“You realize this is a needle in a haystack thing.”

“Let’s say you’re right,” he said as they headed toward the café. “That means fewer important people will be inside pulling the strings, releasing the toxin. You’re the leader of the op, wouldn’t you be nearby to make sure all goes according to plan?”

“Too risky.”

“You’re thinking like a cop chasing a killer who doesn’t want to die. These guys don’t care. Success is what matters. I think they’re going to be nearby quarterbacking the op.”

Vail parsed that as they walked. “Maybe you’re right.”

“We may get nothing. Or we may get our men.”

VAIL SPENT LONGER THAN SHE WANTED inside the café ordering. In reality it was only about twenty seconds, but she felt intense pressure to get back out, to get eyes on the target. She loosened her navy muffler, the warmth inside the store causing her to perspire.

She checked her watch: nine minutes.

Her flat white was ready and she carried the “takeaway” cup outside to the small patio out front. There was one vacant table and she sat down in a chrome and wicker seat. Two blue Caffè Nero banner signs stretched between metal stanchions, separating the sidewalk from the small inlaid glass-block piazza.

The Home Office building across the narrow street in front of her was divided into two distinct sections. On the left was a near-all glass modern structure, architecturally pleasing with a large curving corner. The right portion, connected to its adjacent cousin by a multistory glass bridge, was its design opposite: flat, rectangular, and fronted by metal framework that in itself was ugly but when taken in its totality gave off an artsy sensibility. It was topped along its roof by large rainbow colored glass panels: blue, white, and orange hues were dominant. The edifice was best considered an attractive sum of disparate parts.

Her eyes roamed the exterior as people moved about, many dressed well and moving purposefully toward the building’s entrance, about to start their workday. Time check: six minutes. Assuming the terrorists were punctual. Assuming Uzi’s Arabic was not flawed. Assuming they had the target right.

Reid had to have contacted his superiors by now. How long does it take to issue an emergency evacuation order?

Vail realized that the Met or MI5 needed to verify both anonymous tips—their legitimate evacuation warning to escape osmium tetroxide inhalation and thus save lives; and the ruse, designed to lure the workers to their deaths.

Vail became aware of a man seated two tables to her right. He had a newspaper open and he was holding it up, but he was not reading it—a ploy for staring straight ahead.

At the building.

He could have been admiring the architecture, just as Vail had done a moment ago, but his body language looked different. She glanced in his direction, noticing that he had looked at his watch repeatedly in the space of a minute.

Just then an intermittent buzzer emanated from inside the building. And then Vail’s cell vibrated. She looked over at the man. His neck stiffened and he sat forward, his eyes darting left and right, taking in the situation as he pulled out his phone.

Vail lifted her Samsung and read:

fire alarm going off. bad feeling.
looking for snipers. you got anything


She tapped back to Uzi:

strange buzzer going off.
eyes on potential suspect


DeSantos:

look sharp. whatevers going down
it will be now


It was clear the tangos’s anonymous call did not have its desired effect—a forced evacuation of MI5’s Thames House—so Yaseen, Aziz, and company switched to a contingency plan to get the people out in the open.

Someone setting off the fire alarm meant an insider. At MI5’s headquarters? Shit, if they’ve got a mole in the British Security Service, why can’t we have one in the FBI? Or the CIA?

As that thought caused a cramp in her stomach, sirens in the distance pulled Vail’s focus back to the Home Office. People were starting to file out of the building, some running. But this buzzer was not a fire alarm. Maybe it signaled the workforce to evacuate quickly due to an imminent and dangerous incident as part of a crisis management plan. Many large buildings, corporations, and government agencies drew up such procedures in the wake of 9/11.

She texted Uzi, DeSantos, and Fahad and described the suspect—a man in his forties of possible Middle Eastern descent. Hard to tell, since she did not want to let her gaze linger too long.

Seconds later, the man rose from his seat, folded the newspaper, and left it on the table alongside the coffee he barely tasted. Either he’s MI5—one of Reid’s colleagues who was alerted to the threat and doing what she was doing—or he was a threat, an accomplice to what was going down.

Stay or follow?

Vail waited a moment, occasionally glancing to her right to keep tabs on him. She rose and went over to his table and rifled through the newspaper: nothing written on it, no coded messages on a note buried within. A Caffè Nero receipt. Paid cash. His coffee cup had the name “Ryan” on the side.

So, Ryan, what are you up to?

She started down the street. He had a thirty yard lead on her, a safe distance that protected her from being spotted.

He turned right almost immediately, into what looked like an alley. Vail passed the Romney House apartment building and hesitated, concerned about pursuing him down a narrow lane where there would likely be only the two of them. But she did not know what lay beyond. He could disappear into a building and that would be that.

No choice. Follow him.

Vail hung a right onto what was at best a pedestrian way, with entrances to the apartment buildings that lined both sides. A street sign indicated it was Bennett’s Yard. She didn’t know who Bennett was and she was not sure about calling it a yard, but it was modern, the brick new and the mortar perfectly pointed.

Ryan was making his way down the path at a good clip, but it kicked left a bit and he disappeared from view for a second. Vail texted the group:

headed down bennetts yard, away from
home office. suspect in view. name
might be ryan. doesnt look irish


She thought of pulling her Glock—or her Tanto—but remembered she was an illegal alien in England and did not want to get flagged on a surveillance camera with a weapon. It was the fastest way to get surrounded by CO19, the Met’s “gun squad,” a scaled-down version of SWAT that circulated the city looking for trouble. She also hoped to avoid the tactical Trojan trucks that deployed a team of armed officers as well as the three-person police units that patrolled in speedy BMW sedans, always at the ready and never far away from trouble.

Ryan passed the building’s parking garage on the left and emerged on Tufton, another residential road with apartments on both sides. He hung a right and then a quick left onto Dean Trench Street.

He suddenly glanced over his shoulder and saw Vail, made eye contact, and then took off on a run.

Shit, shit, shit.

Vail followed, no longer concerned about preserving her cover.

Fortunately, she was a little faster than Ryan because she was closing the gap.

They emerged on a circular street—ironically called Smith’s Square—featuring a large majestic building directly ahead, which looked like a church with a columned bell tower.

Text from Fahad:

shots fired uzi was right sniper somewhere


Followed immediately by another message, from DeSantos:

karen status re your suspect


She glanced down and read the display, but couldn’t reply. A fleeting thought flashed through her mind: had they evacuated the building in time? If it was a gas released into the ventilation system, with a delayed onset of symptoms, it would be impossible to gauge the fallout until later. The employees would be walking dead—without knowing it.

Ryan, or whatever his name was, was onsite to monitor the osmium tetroxide’s release. Instead, what he witnessed was the building’s evacuation—which might have meant the attack was ineffective … or perhaps he knew it came too late.

I should’ve taken him when I had the chance, when he was just sitting there. What’s done is done. Focus on the here and now.

But focusing was not something that would have helped her. Because as she emerged on Smith’s Square, a pipe swung out toward her face from behind the edge of the building.