Ultimatum (28 page)

‘Mr Butt’s inside,’ said Tina, coming forward to meet him. ‘He’s calling out saying he’s trapped, and he sounds scared.’

‘Just get back from there, and keep going with the evacuation. Bomb disposal are on the way. It’s best just to leave it to them now.’

She nodded and turned away, while Bolt looked up at the house. If Butt was involved in the attack, the only reason he’d still be inside would be to ambush them, presumably in some kind of suicide attack when they broke into his house. Yet, how was he connected to Cain and Cecil Boorman? The whole thing didn’t make sense.

The explosion that ripped through the first floor of the house in a single blinding roar sent Bolt flying backwards and tumbling over the low wall separating the front of the property from the pavement. He remembered feeling a wave of hot air rush over him, followed by the sound of pieces of masonry falling around him with strangely dull thuds – all in the space of half a second. And then he felt a sharp, sudden pain, and the world seemed to fade out.

Fifty-nine

20.12

VOORHESS HEARD THE
faint sound of the bomb blast, but took no notice as he ran through the darkness of the park, keeping to the single line of trees that ran alongside the main path, using them for camouflage. In his youth, he’d been a good middle- to long-distance runner, having always been too big to be a sprinter, and he still jogged four times a week round the rugged coastal paths of the Cape close to where he lived. As a result, he was able to keep his tiredness in check. He’d always found that running calmed him, and allowed him to think. But now, for the first time in a long time, he felt the pressure of what was going on around him.

A police helicopter had already passed close to the edge of the park. If it came directly over, which it would do soon enough, its heat-sensing equipment would locate him, and once he was in its sights it would be locked on to him until he was caught. He had to get back among other people where he’d be just one of many heat sources. It was his only option, because he was terrified of small spaces. Of being trapped. Prison represented a worse fate for him than death itself. At least death was quick. Years held in a cell seemed to him to be the most barbaric form of torture.

He decided then that he wouldn’t be taken alive.

He heard the helicopter turning somewhere behind him, and then the sound of its rotors drawing closer. The southern boundary of the park was barely thirty yards away, and he could see the lights of a car driving past on the other side. He redoubled his pace, sprinting with every last scrap of energy he had.

The gate was locked but he vaulted straight over it. The helicopter was getting closer now. Soon it would pick up his heat source and that would be it. The end.

Twenty yards to his right, a small hatchback car was stopped at a red light, the heavy beat of mindless music booming out from inside. Two other cars were stopped at the lights on the other side, all waiting for a young couple to cross the road. The hatchback was revving its engine impatiently as Voorhess slowed down and jogged over to the passenger door, trying to look as casual as possible, banking that on an old car like this the door would be unlocked. The lights started flashing orange, just as the helicopter came hurtling over the park, and Voorhess yanked open the door and jumped unceremoniously inside, before the driver had a chance to pull away.

The driver – young, white and pimply – stared at Voorhess with his mouth hanging open.

‘Drive,’ growled Voorhess, producing the .22 and shoving it in the kid’s ribs.

The kid stared at the gun, made a pathetic mewing noise, then did exactly what he was told as the helicopter passed overhead, loud and close.

Sixty

20.13

THE WHOLE WORLD
sounded muffled to Tina, as if someone had stuffed her ears full of cotton wool. She got to her feet unsteadily and looked around. Everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion, their voices sounding distant and alien as they hurried towards her.

It took her a few seconds to de-scramble her senses and work out what had happened. The bomb blast had come as she’d been crossing the road, its force, and her own instincts, sending her sprawling across the concrete. She looked back to see the first floor of Azim Butt’s house completely ablaze, with gouts of flame and thick plumes of smoke pouring out of the blackened window frames. Chunks of masonry of varying sizes, from half bricks to foot-square lumps, some on fire, dotted the road in front of the building, and Tina was immediately relieved she hadn’t been hit by one of them.

And then, as her eyes focused on the scene, she saw a body in front of the garden wall.

Shit. Mike
.

Feeling a rush of panic, Tina ran over to where he lay and knelt down beside him. His eyes were closed and there was a cut on the back of his head that was leaking blood, but it was difficult to tell how deep it was. She called his name, hardly able to hear the sound of her own voice, still partially deafened by the blast, terrified that something had happened to him, and appreciating at the same time the depth of her feelings for him.

Then his eyes opened and he stared up at her and she had this sudden urge to lean down and kiss him.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked, trying hard to keep the air of desperation out of her voice.

‘I think so.’

He started to get up, but his legs went from under him and he stumbled into Tina, almost knocking her over.

‘It’s all right, I’ve got you,’ she said, just about managing to hold him up.

Turning round, she shouted for help, and a group of CO19 officers ran over, followed closely by two paramedics with a stretcher.

‘Christ, my head hurts,’ said Bolt as he was lifted on to the stretcher by the assembled group.

‘Don’t worry,’ said one of the paramedics, ‘we’ll have you in the hospital in no time.’

Bolt shook his head, squinting against the pain as they carried him away from the blazing building. ‘No way. Treat me here. I haven’t got time to go to hospital.’

‘I’d do as she says, Mike,’ said Tina, who was walking alongside the stretcher, wanting to hold his hand, but knowing it wouldn’t be right. He didn’t look good, though.

‘I’m OK,’ he said, trying to sit up, but not quite making it.

The paramedic started to say something else but Bolt cut her off by leaning over the side of the stretcher and throwing up, only just missing Tina’s feet.

At that moment, his mobile rang inside his jacket. He looked up at Tina, frowning as he tried hard to focus. ‘Can you answer my phone?’

She nodded, reached inside his jacket and pulled it out, as the paramedics put him into the back of the ambulance.

‘Mike Bolt’s phone. Tina Boyd speaking.’

‘This is Commander Ingrams, CTC Control. What’s happening down there?’

Tina told him about the booby-trap bomb.

‘How bad’s Mike hurt?’ asked Ingrams, sounding genuinely concerned.

‘I think he’s concussed, but he’s conscious and fairly lucid. They’ve just put him in an ambulance. Have we managed to locate the suspect in the Shogun yet?’

‘No. We’re throwing a huge security cordon round the whole area, but there’s no sign of him.’ Ingrams exhaled loudly. ‘And we’ve got another problem too. There’s a major riot at the prison where they’re holding William Garrett. One wing’s been completely taken over by the prisoners and now there’s a disturbance in a second one.’

Tina thought back to the conversation she’d had with the prison officer, Thomson. How he’d described the prison as a tinder box, a place that only functioned because the prisoners allowed it to. And now it seemed they’d decided to stop cooperating.

‘Is Fox OK?’ she asked.

‘It was his wing it started in, but they managed to get him out. Apparently there was a second attempt on his life. It failed and he’s unhurt, but it sounds like he was lucky.’

‘He told me this would happen. It’s not a coincidence.’

‘I know it’s not,’ said Ingrams. ‘I understand Garrett told you he’d name the people involved today if he was moved to a safehouse, and offered some kind of deal.’

‘That’s the gist of it, yes.’

‘We’re in the process of organizing his move to a safehouse right now, but as you can imagine, it’s a very sensitive issue, particularly in light of what’s happened today. I want you to stay by your phone tonight because if he’s moved, I want you to talk to him again. You’ve clearly developed some kind of rapport.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘There’s something else as well. We’ve just sent two detectives to the pub where they were meant to meet Mike’s informant, but he wasn’t there. We need to debrief the informant urgently, as I understand he was the person who told us about the missile. Yet no one seems to have any contact details for him.’

‘I’ll speak to Mike now.’

Tina ended the call, and looked over the growing throng of emergency services vehicles towards where the Shard stood, dominating the skyline, its austere beauty brutally violated by what had just happened.

The people responsible had won the battle, but she was as determined as she’d ever been that they weren’t going to win this particular war.

Sixty-one

20.22

ON THE TV
in the poky front room of my flat, the Shard was burning, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. I couldn’t bring myself to switch channels either. So there it was: a constant reminder of everything I’d done this afternoon.

I took a last slug of the beer and put down the bottle, feeling like a condemned man.

I’d killed a man in cold blood. Shot him while he begged for mercy. I’d killed in cold blood before, back in Afghanistan – two Taliban wounded in a firefight with our patrol whom we could easily have taken alive. I’d stood above them, like I’d stood above Dav, and emptied more than a dozen rounds into each of them in turn. Afterwards I’d felt guilty. I still do. They might have been trying to kill me but, in the end, it was we who were in their country, and what I’d done was barbaric.

The difference was, those killings had been carried out in a dusty, hot war zone thousands of miles from home, and away from the prying eyes of the media.

Today’s bloodshed had been right on my doorstep.

So, Bolt and his colleagues hadn’t stopped the terrorists’ third attack. Like most other people, I hadn’t had a clue that the Shard was having an official opening-night party tonight, and it was difficult to believe that it would still have gone ahead after the earlier bomb attacks. Clearly, it was part of the government’s strategy of carrying on as normal in the face of the terrorist threat. If so, it hadn’t worked.

Cain had got exactly what he wanted, and what he’d predicted – chaos and terror. And with this morning’s coffee shop bomber now identified as a thirty-one-year-old Muslim man, it looked like Islamic fundamentalists were going to get the blame. Cain was probably toasting his success right now.

That was unless, of course, the police had already tracked him down using the GPS unit I’d planted. If so, he might actually be under arrest, along with Cecil. I was just going to have to wait to find out.

The huge problem I had was that both men could implicate me in the slaughter at the scrapyard, and Dav’s murder, if they chose to testify against me in a court of law. I could go back down for years this time, and never see Gina or Maddie again. It was a bastard of a position to be in. My plan, as much as I had one, was to tell the detectives from CTC that Cain and Cecil had gone to the meeting without me, and had then shown me the missile at a neutral location, and hope for the best. It wasn’t exactly foolproof, but right now I didn’t have anything else.

I needed to speak to Bolt to tell him I was at home. There was no point putting off my interrogation any longer, and with a couple of beers inside me, I felt fortified enough to deal with it.

But as I got to my feet, looking round for the phone, the doorbell rang.

I thought about not answering it, but the noise from the TV made it obvious I was in. I went over to the window and pulled back the curtain a few inches.

Cecil stood on my doorstep – small and wiry, bouncing on his feet against the cold – his back to the small communal garden. He gave me a quick wave and nod, motioning for me to open the door. He’d changed from earlier, and was wearing a bomber jacket and jeans, the coat zipped up against the cold.

I didn’t like him turning up at my flat out of the blue. It made me uneasy. But he’d seen me now, so to ignore him would arouse suspicion.

‘What do you want?’ I called through the glass. ‘I thought I told you I wanted to be left alone.’

Cecil pulled a face. ‘What is this?’ he called back, his voice muffled. ‘You’re going to leave me out here in the cold? We need to talk.’

It was pitch black outside. My flat was on the ground floor, one of four in an old detached house cut off from the road by a high hedge. It was a secluded spot. Too secluded. The old lady directly above me was deaf as a post; the other neighbours were commuters who were out most of the time.

‘Come on, what the hell is this, Jones?’ Cecil called again, clearly irritated now.

Alarm bells were sounding in my head. I decided then that, old friend or not, I wasn’t going to let him in.

A shadow suddenly appeared behind the window to my right, obscured by the curtain, and before I could react Cain was standing in front of me, his pale face ghostly in the moonlight, the vein throbbing obscenely on his cheek. He was holding a pistol with a suppressor attached, the end of the barrel touching the glass.

‘Pass the front-door keys through the window, Jones,’ he said, loudly and firmly.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ I demanded, putting just the right amount of indignation in my voice, knowing that I was too late to make a move.

Cecil had also brought a pistol with suppressor attached out from beneath his bomber jacket, and I could see that his eyes were alive with anger.

‘You’ve got questions to answer,’ announced Cain. ‘About who exactly you work for.’

And I knew then that they’d found out about me. Which meant I no longer had to worry about what I said to the police.