Deathlist (37 page)

Porter and Bald didn’t fuck about. They unbuckled their seat belts as soon as the truck had stopped, ripping off their safety goggles and Pro-Tec helmets. Porter reached down and grabbed the link chain and the petrol container. Bald seized the cordless hammer drill and a one-ounce shaped charge, identical to the one Coles had slapped on to the back of the rear Audi. Porter also grabbed a length of climbing tape from under his seat, an inch-thick nylon rope in a loop that could be used as a makeshift harness. He flung open his passenger door and dropped down to the side steps. He left a padded envelope stuffed full of Croatian receipts and currency on the dash. A parting gift for the forensics team.

The temperature was a million fucking degrees inside the tunnel. Smoke belched out from the burning rear Audi, choking the air. Porter could taste the bitter metallic tang of burnt flesh. Later on Bald and Porter would both be feeling the bruises from the collision, but right now the pair of them were running on pure adrenaline. Bald set down the drill and made straight for the wrecked Audi with the C4 charge. There was dust and glass and metal all over the place. The crumpled bonnet had lifted up. Smoke gushed out of the engine compartment. The front bumper was hanging off like a torn fingernail and the front windscreen had a spiderwebbed crack in it. There was no sign of either bodyguard but Bald wasn’t taking any chances. He placed the small charge on the windscreen, right over the crack. The bulletproof glass was made of layers of polycarbonate material inserted between ordinary glass. It was tough. Resilient. Even when it was cracked, Bald wouldn’t be able to shoot through it. But a well-placed charge would severely fuck up the two bodyguards inside.

Bald swung around to the other side of the dump truck. Dropped down to his knee beside the wheelbase alongside Porter. Took the clacker and depressed it. The charge popped. The shockwave tore through the glass, shredding the bodyguards in a savage hail of shrapnel before blasting out the back windscreen. The two guys inside were either dead or blinded. Bald didn’t know which. He wasn’t a medical professional. Either way, they were out of the picture. They wouldn’t be playing the hero today.

Porter was keeping count of the bodies. Two guys dead in the front Audi. Plus the two dead guys in the rear Audi. That left Brozovic and his two kids in the Lincoln, with the two remaining bodyguards in the front seats.

Almost there.

He took one end of the link chain and clipped it to the bumper on the front of the dump truck. Then he moved past the trashed Audi and hurried towards the Lincoln, gripping the other end of the chain. There was a distance of eight metres between the Lincoln and the front end of the dump truck. Close enough for the chain to stretch between them. Porter dropped down next to the front left side of the principal car and wrapped the chain around the wheel. The strike team had done their homework on Brozovic’s bodyguard detail prior to the op. They knew these guys were a cut above the average toughs. In a situation like this, any bodyguard worth his salt would go into emergency SOP mode and try to ram his way out of the trap by driving forward, then reversing into the burning Audi. If he picked up enough speed, the driver could barge the Audi out of the way and clear a path to reverse out of the tunnel. But with the chain securing the Lincoln to the dump truck, the target wasn’t going anywhere.

As soon as the Lincoln was secure Bald scooped up the Hilti drill from beside the dump truck and hurried over to the principal car, while Porter grabbed the petrol container and the climbing tape. As he spun around he saw a glimmer of movement coming from the burnt-out Audi five metres to the rear of the Lincoln. Through the cobwebbed smoke Porter saw one of the bodyguards staggering out of the rear Audi. The guy was seriously fucked up. His skin was peeling and blistered. His hands and face were covered in flash burns and blood leaked out of his perforated ear drums, staining his shirt collar. Then Porter saw the Glock in the bodyguard’s trembling right hand. He had the barrel trained directly at Bald. The Jock was eight metres away. Point blank. Bald was beating a rapid path towards the front of the Lincoln. He hadn’t yet spotted the imminent threat at his flank.

‘Mucker, look out!’ Porter shouted.

Bald stopped in his tracks. Turned towards his ten o’clock. The bodyguard went to pull the trigger. A loud
ca-rack
echoed through the tunnel. The bodyguard’s head snapped back as a bullet tore into the back of his skull, exiting through his jaw and painting blood and brain matter across the concrete tunnel wall. The guy hit the ground, hard and heavy and dead. Porter looked up and saw Coles standing ten metres further back from the slotted guard. He was gripping the Sig P226 he’d concealed under his leather motorcycle jacket. Coles gave the two operators a quick nod. Then he turned away to keep watch over the eastern entrance to the tunnel while Porter and Bald raced towards the Lincoln.

There was no time to lose. Porter set the petrol container down beside the front of the motor while Bald vaulted onto the Lincoln bonnet, gripping the Hilti hammer drill in his right hand. Porter consulted his G-Shock. 0742 hours. Sixty seconds since the first charge had detonated. By his reckoning the team had four minutes to lift the target before the cops rocked up. He looked back up at Bald, the clock ticking inside his head. Bald pressed the drill bit to the Lincoln roof at a point roughly over the driver’s seat and began drilling. The Hilti made a high-speed whining sound as the drill bit bored through the roof, throwing up sparks in every direction.

Eighty seconds gone.

0742 hours.

Up on the bridge, Devereaux manoeuvred the Landy into position. He waited for a lull in the traffic before reversing and then steered the vehicle forward so it was at a ninety-degree angle to the hard shoulder, with the front bumper facing the metal railings head-on. The hard shoulders on Swiss roads were wider than the ones in Britain and it was just about wide enough to accommodate the Landy side-on without blocking traffic. Keeping the engine running, Devereaux debussed from the Landy. He took the remote control for the winch and his Sig Sauer P226 pistol from the glove compartment.

He hooked around to the front of the Landy, pausing to glance up and down the motorway. The motorists were speeding past, oblivious to the attack going on below. The two explosions had been contained inside the tunnel, with only a few faint threads of smoke drifting up from the entrance to the bridge. If anyone looked out of their window and saw the smoke, they’d simply assume it was a small fire or a car crash. Now Devereaux picked up the coil of extended winch cable and started paying it out over the side of the parapet so that the safety hook reached down to the road fifteen metres below, ready for the guys to clip on with their carabiners.

Devereaux finished lowering the winch cable. Lifted his gaze to the road east of the tunnel. A couple of vehicles had pulled up sixty metres short of the tunnel entrance. Civvies. Devereaux figured they must have seen the smoke, heard the gunshots and explosions, and hit their brakes. The drivers of both cars were stepping out onto the blacktop and rubbernecking the scene at the tunnel. One of the civvies reached for his mobile. Getting on the blower to the cops, no doubt. The other guy got out his handheld digital camera and started filming.

Shit, thought Devereaux. He leaned over the railings and shouted down to Coles.

‘Get a fucking move on!’

His voice carried down into the tunnel, catching the South African’s attention. Coles looked up at the bridge. Devereaux pointed to the cars that had stopped further along the road. ‘Cops are on the way, fellas!’

Ninety seconds since the attack began.

Two-and-a-half minutes to go.

Down in the tunnel, Bald drilled.

He’d already cut an inch-wide hole through the Lincoln roof. Now he was drilling a second hole next to the first one. As he worked the Hilti a staccato series of dense thumps sounded from inside the blacked-out Lincoln.
Ker-thump! Ker-thump! Ker-thump!
Like someone striking at the roof with a hammer. The bodyguards are trying to blast away at Bald, Porter realised. The thought momentarily flashed through his head that the roof must be armoured too. That’s why the shots weren’t penetrating the roof. They were deflecting off the armour plating. The armour had been designed to stop anyone from shooting into the car. It would stop a bullet from shooting out of it too. But it wouldn’t stop the Hilti. And once Bald had punched a larger hole in the roof, the occupants were in for a nasty shock.

Bald kept drilling. The Hilti screeched. The bodyguards kept blasting away. Bald finished putting two more identical holes in the roof next to the first one, creating a single three-inch hole. He set down the Hilti and looked down towards Porter, gesturing frantically.

A hundred and twenty seconds. Two minutes down.

Two to go.

‘Now!’ Bald shouted.

Porter took the petrol container and passed it up. Bald grabbed it and unscrewed the black cap, attaching the short pouring nozzle. Then he inserted the nozzle into the hole in the Lincoln roof and tipped the petrol over the heads of the two bodyguards in the front seats. Porter heard muffled screams from inside the Lincoln. Bald finished tipping the last few drops of petrol into the car. Chucked the container aside and hopped down from the Lincoln. Porter deholstered his Sig adopting a solid firing stance. He trained his semi-automatic at the passenger door. In the corner of his vision he saw Bald drawing his own weapon. He was aiming at the driver’s side.

A second passed. Then another. The occupants screamed. Bald and Porter kept pointing their Sigs at the side doors. Hearts racing. The burning Audis had turned the tunnel into a sauna and Porter could feel beads of hot sweat slicking down his spine, clinging to his overalls. His hair was soaked through with sweat. His muscles pounded. After five seconds, the two bodyguards inside the Lincoln did exactly what anyone else would do when they’d just been doused in a highly flammable liquid. They panicked. They feared that Bald was going to toss a lit match into the hole and set the pair of them on fire. Nothing motivates a human being like the fear of being burned alive. The bodyguards forgot all about their SOPs and their basic training. They popped open the doors and sprang out of the Lincoln, shouting and flapping their arms and desperately trying to throw off their petrol-soaked jackets. They walked right into the line of fire. Porter had the driver lined up as soon as he set foot on the asphalt. The driver froze. Turned dumbly towards the Sig pointed at his chest. His podgy face registered something like surprise.

Then Porter squeezed the trigger.

The Sig barked. Porter could feel the moving parts of the Sig working in tandem, the slider moving backwards and then shunting forwards, ejecting the first round out of the snout and chambering the next bullet. The bullet spurted out of the pistol and hit the driver in the sternum, punching a hole clean through his heart. The driver jolted and crumpled to the ground. In the corner of his eye Porter glimpsed the second bodyguard’s head jerking backwards as Bald emptied a round into a spot right between the eyes. The bodyguard went into a tailspin and then flopped backwards. He joined his mate on the ground, landing in a ragged heap and leaking blood all over the place.

Six bodyguards down, Porter thought.

Now we’ve just got to grab the target.

He swung around to the left side of the Lincoln and made for the open door, stepping over the slotted bodyguard. Armoured cars usually had a master-switch located on the front passenger side to control the locking mechanism on each of the individual doors. Porter ducked inside the car, eyes searching for the switch. The leather seats reeked of petrol. Porter located the master-switch and flicked it, unlocking the doors. Then he stepped out and hurried towards the rear passenger door. A hundred and forty seconds now. Bald was already beating a path towards the rear door on the opposite side of the vehicle, keeping his weapon drawn and his aim steady. Porter tugged on the handle, springing the door open and sweeping around it in a smooth motion, his Sig pointed at the figures inside and his index finger caressing the trigger.

A squat, stocky figure in a tailored suit sat in the back of the Lincoln, waving his arms at Porter. He had thick bushy eyebrows and a small mouth and a shock of balding grey hair like a bird’s nest on top of his head. His eyes were narrow and black, like someone had carved them out with the point of a knife. He looked plumper than in the photographs Porter had seen, and his features were a little more haggard and worn. But it was unmistakeably him. It was the face Porter had seen staring back at him before, on wanted posters and news reports. The Tiger.

Radoslav Brozovic.

His two kids were sitting in the back either side of the warlord. A blonde-haired girl no older than nine or ten, and a dark-haired boy of around seven. Both were wearing their school uniform with the badges sewn onto the lapels of their navy-blue jackets. Their school satchels were lying next to them. Bald cranked open the opposite door. Brozovic’s eyes darted from left to right as he tried to back away from the operators, holding his kids close.

‘No, no!’ he cried. ‘Please, no!’

The warlord kept shaking his head, shielding his kids with his thick arms. Like he thought his attackers were going to kill him on the spot. Brozovic had a distinctive red cross on his neck, Porter noticed. The same one he’d seen on Bill Deeds. The images from the Brecons came flooding back to him just then. Driving like icepicks into his skull. His veins pounded. He tightened his jaw and bunched his arm muscles and felt his index finger tensing on the Sig trigger. Christ, it was tempting.
Do it
, the voice at the back of his head niggled at Porter.
Drop him now.
Sod Lakes. Sod the fucking orders
.
Slot this bastard
.