Ultimatum (21 page)

‘Neither was I,’ I grunted, not wanting to let him off the hook easily. I’d come far too close to dying, and it had scared me.

There was a pool of blood forming round Dav’s head and I tried to ignore it. I inspected the cut on my leg where Dav had caught me with the cleaver, but it was only a minor flesh wound and would stop bleeding soon enough.

Cain turned to Cecil. ‘Let’s grab the box and get out of here. Jones, make sure you’ve got everything. At some point, this place is going to be a major crime scene, and if any of us have left any trace we were ever here, we’re in real trouble.’

I nodded, but I was suddenly filled with an intense curiosity. Five men had just died, all for a single weapon. I was also damn sure that whatever the weapon was, it was going to be used against the people of this city. Cain clearly didn’t give a shit about taking innocent lives, so I needed to make sure that it wasn’t something that was going to affect my family.

I was following them into the back room when Cain turned round.

‘Where are you going?’ he snapped.

‘I want to see what I almost got killed for.’

Cain seemed to think about this for a moment, then exchanged glances with Cecil who was standing inside the sparsely furnished back room where an open six-foot-by-three-foot wooden crate rested on a metal table. From the angle I was standing at, I couldn’t see what was inside.

‘Jones is one of us now, sir,’ said Cecil. ‘We need to trust him.’

Cain paused, clearly not convinced, before finally he nodded.

We approached the crate and looked down.

And straight away I realized why they’d wanted to keep its contents a secret so badly.

Thirty-seven

17.48

AFTER A TWENTY-MINUTE
argument with Islington nick’s chief superintendent, Mike Bolt finally managed to get out of his office with his job and his position still intact. The chief super was furious at the way an op on his patch had degenerated into a hail of gunfire in broad daylight, and that the captured suspect was now claiming he’d been violently assaulted by one of his arresting officers, and had injuries that appeared to back up his claim. The fact that the arresting officer was Tina Boyd had only added to his fury. It seemed the chief super didn’t have particularly fond memories of Tina’s tenure at the station.

On one hand, Bolt could see his point of view: the whole thing had almost ended in disaster thanks to Tina staying in Brozi’s house after she’d been told to leave. Yet the fact remained that the photos she’d found on his phone represented a hugely important lead. They linked that day’s bombings with Fox, and with the Stanhope attacks that Bolt had spent the previous fifteen months investigating. Fox might not be cooperating, but if Brozi talked, they might be able to break the case wide open before the terrorists’ eight p.m. deadline.

It frustrated Bolt that he couldn’t question Brozi himself, but at least now the CTC team had arrived at Islington and were fully aware of how urgent their task was. He took a deep breath. He needed a coffee. In fact, he needed a couple of cold pints and a whisky chaser to settle his nerves after what he’d been through that day. But a coffee was going to have to suffice because it was going to be a while yet before he’d be getting off duty.

That didn’t matter, though. He might have come within a few feet of getting shot, but for the first time in a long time, he actually felt good. Months of tedious detective work and repeated dead ends had been swept aside, and suddenly he was seeing action again, just like in those long-ago days when he’d been part of the Flying Squad, chasing down armed robbers in adrenalin-fuelled ambushes. And, whichever way he cared to look at it, most of what had happened today was down to Tina Boyd. An hour ago he’d been furious with her for taking the kind of extreme risks she always did, but now that fury was subsiding.

He was en route to the canteen when Tina appeared in the corridor up ahead talking to a very tall, gangly young man in an ill-fitting suit.

She smiled when she saw him. ‘Mike, this is Mr Ridic, the Albanian translator. He’s going to be assisting CTC with the Brozi interview.’

‘Good to meet you,’ said Bolt, shaking hands. He turned to Tina as Ridic excused himself. ‘I thought you were meant to be giving a statement.’

‘I’ve made it. It didn’t take long. I mean, the shooting was all over in a few seconds, wasn’t it?’ She gave him a look that suggested there hadn’t been any problems. ‘They want to see you now.’

‘Anything I should know?’

‘Only that I told them that Brozi was resisting arrest, and I only struck him once to make sure he released the gun.’

‘I heard Brozi’s claiming you assaulted him.’

Tina shrugged. ‘Well, he would do, wouldn’t he? But you know better, right?’

Bolt sighed. ‘Don’t worry, Tina, I’ve got your back.’ Then he remembered something. ‘Did you speak to Mr Ridic about the email message on Brozi’s PC?’

She nodded. ‘He translated it for me but I don’t know how much use it is.’

‘What did it say?’

‘Hold on a second.’ She pulled a scuffed notebook from the back of her jeans. ‘The exact wording was “Collection confirmed. Place and time as agreed.” But I’ve no idea what it means. Maybe Brozi will enlighten us.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Bolt, and moved to go past her, wanting to get his statement over and done with.

And then it hit him. Jones had told him earlier that he was needed as security for a meeting during which something was going to be handed over. Could this be something to do with the collection in Brozi’s email? He needed to talk to Jones as soon as possible.

Bolt was always extremely careful about calling his informant unless it was an emergency, in order to minimize the risk of compromising him, but he decided that this was one. Excusing himself, he called Jones’s number, but only got an automatic message saying the phone was switched off.

He immediately called Nikki Donohoe in the Special Operations office.

She answered on the first ring. ‘Glad to hear you’re still alive, boss. Sounds like you’re getting all the action out there.’

Bolt chuckled. He liked Nikki. She didn’t let things faze her. ‘Luckily Brozi was a crap shot.’

‘I heard your Miss Boyd gave him a bit of a kicking.’

‘He resisted arrest. Listen, Nikki. Those two GPS units I signed out for our informant this morning – I need you to switch them on right now, and tell me where they are.’

Bolt paced the corridor while he waited for her to input the data. There was still no absolute proof that today’s bombs were linked to the Stanhope attacks, but the fact that Fox had fingered Brozi, and that Brozi himself was linked to the café bomber, meant that it was extremely likely. Again, that didn’t necessarily mean that Cecil Boorman and his mysterious boss, Cain, were also involved. But with barely two hours to go until the terrorists’ ultimatum expired, it was something they needed to find out fast.

After a few seconds, Nikki came back on the line. ‘Both units are together in Bermondsey about three quarters of a mile south of the river.’

Bolt thought about this. He’d told Jones to call him if Cain or Cecil had made contact with him, and he hadn’t. ‘OK, keep me posted of their movements.’

‘Does this mean I’m going to be needed late tonight, Mike? If I am, I need to let the old man know so he can get back from work and sort out the kids.’

‘Yeah, you are. Sorry about that.’

He felt for Nikki. Unlike him, she had a family life to juggle. But right now that wasn’t his top priority.

Suddenly Jones was. What the hell was he doing?

Thirty-eight

17.50

THE STINGER IS
an extremely accurate shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile. It has one major battlefield purpose: to bring down enemy aircraft. They’re sought after by terrorist groups because of their ability to take down passenger jets if they’re fired by a trained operative.

I swallowed. This was big.

‘What the hell are you going to use it for?’ I asked Cain.

‘It’s going to be used for a targeted attack. There may be civilian casualties, but they’re not the primary purpose of the attack. That’s all I can tell you.’

That was when I knew that Cain was responsible for the bomb attacks earlier that day. All over the news they’d been talking about the third attack that the terrorists had scheduled for later that night. This was no coincidence.

I stared at both Cecil and Cain in turn. ‘Are you telling me you two were behind the attacks this morning?’

They exchanged glances, and I wondered if I’d gone too far.

‘Am I a part of this organization or not? Because if I am, I need to know what’s going on.’

‘Yeah, of course you are,’ Cain said eventually. ‘And everything will become clear soon enough. But right now, we need to get out of here. Grab your stuff.’

I walked over to where Dav had chucked my mobile, trying hard to ignore the dead bodies strewn round the room. I had a real dilemma now. If I let on to Bolt about the Stinger, then eventually I was going to have to give up the details of what had happened here, and the fact that I’d killed someone. Bolt had promised to do all he could to protect me, and I knew he’d do his best. But in the end he didn’t have the power to grant me immunity from prosecution for murder. At the same time, though, I couldn’t just stand back and allow a Stinger missile to go into circulation. The point was, you didn’t buy one of those things unless you were planning some sort of terrorist spectacular, and if I let matters take their course, I’d be responsible for hundreds of deaths, and there was no way I’d be able to live with that.

As I bent down to pick up my mobile, I glanced over my shoulder and, seeing that the other two were still in the back room, I pulled the two GPS units from my wallet and slipped them into my back pocket. I had no idea if Bolt had switched them on remotely or not. If he had, I was already in trouble, because he could use them to trace me here. But I’d worry about that later. Right now, I had to make sure that I didn’t lose the missile.

I looked down at the mobile and cursed. The screen was cracked and it wouldn’t turn on. So I couldn’t even warn Bolt about what was happening.

‘What are you doing?’ snapped Cain as he came back into the room carrying one end of the crate.

‘He broke my mobile.’ I held it up for him to see.

‘Never mind that. Get moving, and get the boot open.’

I walked out of the double doors and into the crisp evening air. There was no sound of approaching sirens. It was as if the bloody events here had never even happened. I could hear the distant sounds of traffic and commuter trains and, as I looked up to the sky, I saw the red lights of aircraft coming in from the Channel towards London and the final approach into Heathrow. The earlier clouds had blown away and it was a clear night. You could even make out a few stars amid the light pollution. Perfect for a missile operator to target a plane and shoot it out of the sky above the city so that, as it broke up, it could rain down debris on the streets and houses below. And the thought that kept rattling through my head was that it could be
my
street. It could be
my
wife and child torn apart by jagged, smoking lumps of steel.

I slipped one of the GPS units out of my back pocket and pulled open the hatchback boot as the other two manoeuvred the crate round so that it could slide inside. Stepping out of the way, I put a hand on the crate to help steer it on its way, affixing the unit to its underside as I did so, keeping my expression as neutral as possible even though my heart was hammering away in my chest, knowing that if it fell off, I’d be dead.

But it didn’t. The other two finished pushing the crate inside, and a minute later we were driving through the scrapyard entrance.

I’d survived. But I had a terrible feeling that this could change at any time.

Thirty-nine

18.05

‘ARE YOU SURE
you should be going out tonight?’

Gina Burnham-Jones’s babysitter and neighbour, Sue, was a big maternal woman in her late sixties who’d decided to take Gina under her wing after Jones had left, and who worried about her constantly.

Gina smiled. ‘Of course I’m sure. You can’t let people like that dictate your life.’ She avoided using the word ‘terrorist’ so as not to worry Maddie, who was currently playing with her Sylvanians on the lounge floor.

‘What are you sure about, Mummy?’ she asked, looking up from her game.

‘Nothing that concerns you, young lady,’ said Gina with a wink.

‘Ears like a hawk, that one,’ whispered Sue.

The doorbell rang. That would be Matt. Gina got up from the sofa, conscious of the fact that there was no frisson of excitement like there had been with Jones in the early days.

‘Who’s at the door, Mummy?’

‘A friend of mine. We’re going out.’

Maddie jumped up from her game and wrapped her arms round Gina’s waist. ‘You’re coming back, aren’t you?’

Gina felt a surge of guilt. Maddie missed her dad badly, and the experience of him leaving had made her insecure. ‘Of course I’m coming back, darling,’ she said, kissing her daughter on the forehead and exchanging glances with Sue, who was pulling an irritatingly sympathetic face.

She wondered how Maddie was going to react when she met Matt, and knew it wasn’t going to be instant happy families. Jesus, why did life have to be so complicated?

Gently extricating herself from Maddie’s arms, Gina said her goodbyes and went to the door, checking herself in the mirror en route and feeling pretty satisfied with her reflection.

Matt took a step back when he saw her, a look of admiration in his eyes. ‘Wow, Gina, you look beautiful.’

‘You look pretty good yourself,’ she said, and he did. He was wearing a neatly pressed dark suit and three-quarter-length Crombie coat which, coupled with his well-groomed silver hair and strong bearing, gave him an air of comforting sophistication. His aftershave was strong but smelled good.

‘So, are you going to finally tell me where we’re going?’ she asked as he put an arm round her waist and led her to his car.