Hellfire (50 page)

Bailey smiled. ‘Better than last year, anyway. Pissed it down all day. Pilot had to land the helicopter halfway through the race. Poor visibility.’

‘You won’t have that trouble today, mate,’ said the guard, handing back the press accreditation. ‘You’ll get a close-up of Mo Farah’s lunchbox in weather like this.’ The guard chortled at his joke. Bailey smiled politely. ‘Straight ahead and to the right, Mr Bailey. My colleagues will direct you on to the helipad.’

The barrier opened. Bailey drove slowly forward. To his right was a long hangar, with several cars and vans parked outside. Bailey drove the length of it – a distance of maybe thirty metres. The helipad itself came into view. There were three landing pads: two of them set back from the riverbank, one on a T-shaped pier that reached out into the Thames. There was a helicopter on each of the pads, two white Agustas and a yellow and black Twin Squirrel light utility chopper out on the pier. Bailey found his eyes zoning in on the Twin Squirrel. There was a figure standing right by it. Bailey could just make out the features of his colleague, McIntyre.

Up ahead were two guys in yellow hi-vis jackets. They both carried a handheld beacon but neither of them waved Bailey on, so he braked and waited for one of them to approach.

‘BBC?’ the ground steward asked. Shaved head, thick neck, broad Cockney accent and a smell of tobacco.

Bailey nodded and handed his press card over again, but the ground steward waved it away. ‘Your pilot’s here already, guv. He says you got some camera equipment to load up?’

Bailey nodded.

‘Okay, you can take the vehicle directly up to the heli. We’ve got ten minutes before we need to clear the pad of non-aerial vehicles. You have the all-clear from air-traffic control.’

Bailey wound up his window and slowly drove towards the Twin Squirrel. McIntyre stood calmly by the aircraft, but Bailey found himself examining the chopper carefully at a distance. His heart rate rose slightly when he saw a thin length of metal tucked along the side of the chopper’s landing skids. He couldn’t make out the individual spraying nozzles at this distance, but he knew they were there, and that a second aerial spraying attachment would be attached to the opposite side of the chopper. Nobody would notice these understated attachments if they weren’t looking for them. Once they were airborne, and the blades of this industrial spraying system had hinged outwards at ninety degrees, the helicopter would look a lot more suspicious. But by then, it would be too late.

When he was ten metres out, Bailey did a full turn and reversed up to the helicopter. He killed the engine and climbed out onto the tarmac.

There was a chill in the air. The river, just metres away, seemed very still, and clearly reflected the dark purples of the early morning sky. As Bailey walked up to McIntyre, he was aware of the glowing yellow lights of the modern apartment blocks on the opposite side of the river, and of a flock of birds flying in a V formation over the water. Two commercial airliners were visible, following the flight path down into Heathrow. That, along with the ground steward’s comment about the all-clear from air-traffic control, gave him confidence: there was no sign of any nervousness in the coordination of UK airspace. Which meant they weren’t suspected.

Neither man spoke. They just nodded silently at each other.

Bailey opened the back of the Transit van. Daniel dealt with the side doors of the Twin Squirrel. Together, they hauled the flight cases of camera equipment from the back of the van and into the helicopter. Bailey clocked the motor and tubes of the industrial spraying system’s machinery at the back of the chopper. They piled the flight cases in front of it, so it was hidden from anyone who happened to peer inside. And once that was done, they turned their attention to the two canisters that they had so carefully loaded up the previous morning, still strapped to the sides of the Transit.

‘Don’t let them tip this time,’ Bailey said.

Protected by the Transit van from the view of the ground stewards, they manoeuvred the first canister out of the vehicle, across the three metres of tarmac that separated it from the chopper, and with difficulty hauled it up into the body of the chopper.

They turned back to get the second canister. Bailey’s muscles burned as they left the chopper to retrieve it.

The ground steward suddenly appeared. He looked into the almost-empty Transit van, his handheld beacon illuminating the contents: a solitary canister, with Chinese lettering.

Bailey felt his muscles tensing up. He exchanged a sidelong glance with McIntyre, whose expression had suddenly turned dangerous.

The ground steward looked back at them. He was wearing a frown.

‘Fucking Chinks,’ he said in his broad Cockney. ‘They get everywhere, don’t they?’

Bailey smiled.

‘What is it, Hoisin sauce?’ He laughed loudly at his joke. ‘Nah, seriously, camera stock?’ He said it casually, as though showing off his knowledge, and clearly not realising how out of date it was.

Bailey nodded carefully.

‘Here, I’ll lend you a hand,’ said the ground steward. ‘I need to ask you to get the vehicle off the pad.’

‘You’re okay, mate,’ Bailey said quietly. ‘We’re on top of it.’

The ground steward shrugged. ‘Suit yourself, mate,’ he said, and he strode off across the helipad while Bailey and McIntyre loaded up the second canister.

By the time they were done, Bailey was sweating. He closed up the back of the Transit and drove it over to the hangar area. He jogged back to the Twin Squirrel. McIntyre had quickly pulled a hazmat suit over his clothes and was already at the controls with the rotors spinning. Bailey opened the side door, jumped in and closed the door behind him.

The helicopter rose from the helipad almost immediately. Bailey saw that McIntyre had his headset on and was talking into the boom mike, though he couldn’t hear what he was saying. As they rose over the river, and the London skyline came into view – its buildings glistening in the early morning sun – he started to unpack one of his boxes. He withdrew his own white hazmat suit, then two rebreathing masks. He would hand McIntyre’s his when the time came.

He turned his attention to the aerial spraying machinery at the back of the chopper. It didn’t look like much, and when they had first told him what he was to do, he hadn’t believed it would have the desired effect. But then he had researched the subject. It was amazing what information you could find, if you just knew where to look. He had read about an American bioweapons simulation, where a harmless substance was sprayed into the atmosphere from a ship out at sea. The substance had reached far inland, in quantities that would have been devastating if it had been a lethal agent. The more he had read, the more he had become convinced that they were right: spraying a bioweapon from a chopper at a height of 150 feet above the crowds would have precisely the effect they required.

McIntyre looked back and shouted at him over the noise of the aircraft. ‘They want some shots of The Mall!’ he shouted. ‘Then over the Cutty Sark towards Shooter’s Hill to see everyone arriving for the race.’

Bailey nodded. He started to unpack his TV cameras, ready to begin filming the tens of thousands of people who even now were swarming towards the start line. As he put his equipment together, he ran through the morning’s schedule in his head. Wheelchair race, 08.55 start. Paralympic race, 09.00 start. Main race, 10.00 start. But by 08.00, he knew, the crowds would already be enormous, and their TV producer would not yet have requested that they travel further along the race route. That would be the best time to attack.

‘Remember to stay at five hundred feet until I give you the word. Then drop down to a hundred and fifty feet and swoop over the crowd.’

The helicopter banked. Bailey fitted his TV camera to its secure tripod, then opened the side door. Through the viewfinder, he focused in on Buckingham Palace and The Mall. The broad street had been shut off to traffic, but was already lined with spectators and guarded by a police presence that was, Bailey thought, larger than he expected. The union flag was flying over the palace itself.

Bailey allowed himself a grim smile as he wondered how long it would be before that flag was flying at half-mast.

Danny’s muscles burned with pain. The stress position – forced on to his knees and with his arms stretched behind him and cable-tied to the post – had been agonising after thirty minutes. But now, after two or three hours had passed, it was torment. The cable ties that bound his hands together behind his back were digging harshly into his wrists – he could feel wet blood where they were digging into his flesh – and the skin on the back of his neck that had been punctured by Ahmed’s knife was angry and sore.

Physical pain, however, he knew he could deal with. Psychological suffering was by far his greater enemy. Buckingham’s butchered body, limply slumped at a gruesome angle with its wrists still tied to the post, was a sickening warning of what was to come. He was grateful that the spook’s head, which lay between them, was facing away from Danny. A freshly dead body has a unique smell – halfway between a butcher’s shop and a public lavatory – and that horrific odour filled Danny’s nostrils now. He tried to play tricks on his brain: to remind himself how much he hated Buckingham, and how loathsome he had been during his final moments. But it was no good. He couldn’t take his mind off what was to come: he was as focused on the camera on its tripod as he was on the severed head by its body . . .

Think positive.
What would Hereford do, having lost contact with them? Scramble another rescue team? But the nearest suitable SF unit could still be hours out. He hadn’t been joking when he’d told Buckingham that . . .

The door opened. Daylight flooded in. Danny squinted towards it and realised his vision was blurred. He felt a surge of adrenaline.

Tony!

He was mistaken. The man that entered had a similar physique, but it wasn’t Tony. He had black clothes and a balaclava. Even more ominously, he had a shoulder bag. Danny didn’t want to know what was in it. But he found out soon enough.

The man walked up to the camera and switched it on. Without a word he put the shoulder bag on the ground. Then he stepped towards Danny and pulled a smartphone from his pocket. He swiped the screen, tapped it, and then held it front of Danny’s face.

He saw shaky video footage of a dark room. He couldn’t make out much detail, but he could see a figure lying on his front on the floor. Two black-clad men each had one of their feet pressed into his back, and had rifles pointed at the back of his head. The camera panned down to the prisoner’s face. It was bruised and bloodied. The nose was broken, the eyes swollen. But Danny recognised it as Tony. Ahmed hadn’t been lying.

The juddery, dark camera footage panned upwards again. It swiped round the room. More figures: three clad in black, plus Caitlin. She was unarmed and her face was largely intact apart from a swelling around the right eye. One of the guys held her at gunpoint. The other two stepped forward. One of them grabbed her between the legs. When she struggled, the other one tore at her hair and, with his free hand, smashed her again against the bruised eye. As the camera panned away, Danny just caught sight of Caitlin being bent roughly over by her two attackers.

Danny’s blood burned in his veins.
Don’t show your anger
, he told himself.
They’re just trying to fuck with your head. Stay calm . . . stay compliant . . .

The camera moved back to Tony. It zoomed in on his face. It was still pressed against the floor, and the wound on his cheek had started to weep. But despite his fucked-up features, there was a look of deadly concentration in his eyes.

Tony was down, but he wasn’t out. Danny clung to that one fact. He had nothing else. He ignored the voice in his head that told him Tony was unpredictable and crooked. That there was no love lost between them. That there was a chance, even if Tony
could
help Danny, that he
wouldn’t
 . . .

The video clip died. Danny’s new companion put it back in his pocket. Then he pulled out a sturdy piece of wood from his shoulder bag, the same heft and length as a baseball bat.

Danny clenched his jaw and prepared himself for the beating he knew was coming.

The man stood a metre in front of him, raised the cudgel over his shoulder, and struck. It connected brutally with the pit of Danny’s stomach. Danny coughed harshly as the wind rushed from his stomach, then desperately tried to force his winded lungs to inhale, while the man raised his cudgel again.

The second blow cracked against the right-hand side of his ribcage. He felt a couple of ribs go instantly. His instinct was to shout out in pain, but he couldn’t because there was still no air in his lungs.

The man leaned down so their eyes were at the same level. He examined Danny’s face carefully, almost like a doctor, holding his chin gently in his free hand. Danny wanted to spit in his face, but he forced himself to remain compliant. That was his only chance of survival.

The third blow was to the face. It came from the opposite direction and cracked against Danny’s left cheekbone. He felt the bone itself splinter as a spray of blood and mucus showered from his nose. He was breathing again now, and gulped at the air in an effort to handle the pain. He told himself that maybe – just
maybe
– that third blow had been a fraction softer than the two that preceded it. He allowed himself to believe that this was a good thing: maybe his attacker had been told to ensure that Danny survived this beating.