Hellfire (54 page)

A voice in his ear. ‘
Can you take the shot without downing the chopper?
’

From one moving, vibrating platform to another? It would be the most difficult shot he’d ever taken. If a round went loose and hit the body of the Twin Squirrel, there was a very real possibility it would plummet to the ground, where it would take out hundreds, maybe thousands of people.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘
Wait for the order.
’

The crosshairs juddered to the left. Spud realigned. He could see the target screaming at his pilot.

And he could see him stretching out his hand to grab something.

Spud knew he couldn’t wait even for a fraction of a second. The target’s head was in his sights. He might not get another chance. He couldn’t wait for the order.

He fired.

He knew, the very second that his round left the barrel, that he’d missed his target.

Bailey’s fingertips were just brushing against the lever that would switch on the spraying system, when the round shot through the open side door of the Twin Squirrel. He felt the rush of air as it whizzed inches from his head. The proximity of the bullet made his whole body lurch. He threw himself back, and shouted in pain as his shoulder banged hard against the floor of the chopper. The round slammed into the far window of the helicopter, shattering it.

Bailey’s face creased with frustration. He knew he couldn’t rely on McIntyre any more. His pilot had lost his nerve. He
had
to get to that lever now.

He lurched forward again, towards the mechanism, his arm stretched out.

The Agusta juddered. It meant Spud didn’t see the moment the round smashed into the far window of the Twin Squirrel.

Commotion behind him. Guys shouting. Urgent, panicked questions and reprimands in his earpiece.

And a voice in his head.
There’s a limit to how much dead weight we can carry . . .

Spud zoned it all out.

Spud knew that his target had been surprised by the loose round. That wouldn’t happen a second time.

He realigned his sights.

The target was thrusting himself to his feet again. Reaching out once more for the mechanism at the back of the chopper.

Spud’s crosshairs centred on the target’s head.

He fired.

This time, there was no mistake.

Spud clearly saw the moment of impact. A flash of red as the round slammed straight into the target’s skull, and his body slumped heavily to the floor.

‘Target down,’ Spud said tersely into his boom mike. He realised he was soaked with nervous sweat. His abdomen suddenly ripped with pain, but he ignored it and kept his eye to the sight. He panned round so that he had the pilot hazily in his sights through the cockpit glass. The guy was looking over his shoulder, shouting something, his face etched with panic. He was losing control of the Twin Squirrel, which shook and wobbled alarmingly.

The pilot looked forward again. Spud lowered his weapon. For the past thirty seconds he had zoned out the thunder and the wind. Now it hit him again with full force. He looked down. Two hundred and seventy-five feet below them he saw the swarm of marathon runners. He could see that they were trying to vacate that patch of park directly below the four low-flying choppers, but they were too many and too crushed. There was a small, open patch of green, like an impact crater. Spud couldn’t hear the screams of the crowd above the thunder of the choppers, but he knew they were there.

‘I have the pilot in my sights,’ Spud shouted. ‘He’s panicking.’

‘
Hold your fire!
’ instructed the voice in his ear. ‘
HOLD YOUR FIRE!
’

Major Ray Hammond’s voice rang across the MI6 ops room. ‘
We have one target down. The pilot’s still in control of the aircraft. We think we can force him over the river.
’

‘What then?’ Bixby said.

‘
Evacuate Battersea helipad. We’ll force him along the river and try to ground him down there.
’

‘What if he doesn’t play ball?’

‘
Then we’ll take him out of the sky. He’ll hit the river.
’

Bixby wheeled his chair round to face his Porton Down adviser. ‘Implications.’

‘Unpredictable. But if the bioweapon leaks into the Thames, it will probably become sufficiently dilute . . .’

‘Clear Battersea helipad,’ Bixby instructed. ‘Let’s get this bastard to land.’

Spud watched as the two choppers behind the Twin Squirrel edged forward, closing the gap between them and the enemy chopper to fifteen metres.

It was a high-risk strategy. An unexpected surge of wind would mean disaster. Not to mention that there was a good chance, in a moment of panic or martyrdom, that the pilot would just let the chopper fall. The Agusta edged a further ten metres away from it, but the Twin Squirrel, bullied into motion by the two choppers following, headed north, towards the river.

Spud didn’t move from his kneeling-down firing position. Thunder in his ears and wind in his face. From the corner of his eye he could see Canary Wharf in the distance, but he kept his attention on the chopper. The Agusta stayed alongside the Twin Squirrel as it edged north, metre by metre.

‘
We’re getting him over the river
,’ the voice in Spud’s earpiece stated. ‘
They’re clearing the water now.
’

A smart move. Bully the fucker to a safer location, and if he fails to comply . . .

It took a good ninety seconds to move clear of the marathon crowds below. They hovered over a road, and then a grid of residential housing.

Distance to the river, fifty metres.

Spud raised his weapon again. He panned his sights towards the pilot. The guy was clearly a mess. He kept looking over his shoulder, then forward again. Back, then forward. His eyes were pictures of fear and alarm.

A voice crackled in Spud’s earpiece. ‘
On my order, down the aircraft. Rounds to the engine and transmission. If necessary, hit the rotor mast. Do not hit the tail rotor or boom, and do not take out the pilot. If he loses control, the chopper could hit land.
’

‘Roger that,’ Spud stated.

‘
Do not lay down fire until you have the order. Repeat, do not lay down fire until you have the order. There’s still a chance we can land him safely.
’

They continued to move over the water. Spud flicked the safety catch of his weapon to fully automatic, and kept his sights on the area to the left of the tail boom where the engine and transmission was kept. They were ten metres from the southern shore.

Twenty metres. A flash of reflected sunlight glinted off the water, momentarily blinding Spud. But he kept his aim true.

Fifty metres.

A hundred metres from both shores. They were bang in the centre of the river.

The two choppers following the Twin Squirrels eased back about twenty metres. They started to circle round to the far, eastern side of the chopper. The Agusta changed position too, edging round to the south so that it could fly alongside the Twin Squirrel as they bullied it west along the river. As the chopper moved, the Shard, glinting in the sun, flashed across Spud’s sights. He could see the low, broad dome of the O2, then the higher one of St Paul’s cathedral in the distance, and the BT tower off to the north. As the chopper continued to turn, he could see the river snaking away, and the familiar sight of
Tower Bridge, and London Bridge beyond.

He refocused on the engine and transmission area of the enemy aircraft.

And even as he did that, everything changed.

The Twin Squirrel suddenly gained height. Spud tracked it with his rifle, but as he did so, the enemy chopper twisted 180 degrees in the air so that it was facing back towards Greenwich Park where the marathon runners had congregated. It was fifty feet higher than the Agusta and the two Regiment choppers following it, and its nose was down.

Spud heard a voice behind him. ‘
The fucker’s going to crash land . . .
’

And in his earpiece: ‘
TAKE THE SHOT! TAKE THE SHOT!
’

He realigned his rifle once more, tracking the crosshairs directly over the Twin Squirrel’s engine and transmission.

‘
TAKE THE SHOT!
’

He fired.

A full burst from Spud’s rifle ripped into the metal body of the Twin Squirrel.

Everything seemed to slow down.

Through his sights, Spud saw scraps of shrapnel splintering away from the chopper. His rifle clicked empty, but now there was a different sound: an alarming, high-pitched clunking, grinding noise from the enemy chopper.

Spud lowered his rifle in time to see, from below, its rotors sputtering and slowing.

The Twin Squirrel twisted in the air.

A lurch from the Agusta as it surged forward thirty metres to a safer patch of airspace. But as it moved, it shuddered from a rush of displaced air as the Twin Squirrel dropped, like a stone, towards the water. It thundered past the Agusta with a terminal screaming sound.

Five seconds later, it smashed into the water below.

Spud sucked in lungfuls of much-needed air. He hurled himself forward to the cockpit of the Agusta, even as a barrage of urgent shouting filled his ears. ‘
The bird is down! Repeat, the bird is down! Seal the area! Seal the area!
’

But these were instructions for someone other than Spud. Through the windows of the Agusta, he zoned in on the impact site two hundred feet below. There was no sign of the chopper. It had either broken up, or sunk. Peeling in, from both directions along the river, were the white trails of RIBs speeding towards the impact site. Spud could just about make out their occupants in white hazmat suits.

He winced. The pain in his abdomen was worse than ever. Guys were talking to him, but he barely heard them. His mind was elsewhere as it churned over the whirlwind of the past few days.

Al-Meghrani.

The Caliph.

And Danny. What the hell was happening with Danny?

The threat to London might have been neutralised, but somewhere, thousands of miles from here, his mate was in the shit. Spud realised he didn’t even know if Danny was dead or alive.

Thirty-two

Danny Black stared at the VHF receiver. A message was coming through, distorted and indistinct, but he could just make it out.

‘
Bravo Nine Zero, this is Alpha. Your message has been received and acted upon. Wait out in current location for pick-up. Ensure the safety of your source, repeat, ensure the safety of your source.
’

Danny waited for the cascade of relief to wash over him. It didn’t.

He breathed deeply, then turned to look out of the stationary chopper, across the landing pad to where Tony had Ahmed at gunpoint. Tony, his face beaten, swollen and dirty, was standing two metres from the man who called himself the Caliph, rifle aimed directly at his head. On the far side of the LZ, Caitlin was down on one knee in the firing position, aiming towards the platform itself, her back to Danny and Tony.

A strange sensation fell over Danny’s body as he exited the chopper and walked towards their captive. It was like hatred, only deeper and more piercing. As he closed the gap between them, he tried to identify its source. Was it the moment he had witnessed Ahmed executing Hugo Buckingham in the most brutal way imaginable? Buckingham had it coming to him, but nobody deserved that, not even him. But no. It wasn’t that which filled Danny with such loathing.

Was it the images he’d seen of Ahmed’s parents? The sheer revulsion that a man could do that to anyone, let alone his own mother and father?

No. It wasn’t that.

It wasn’t even a plane full of infected innocents. Or two choppers full of SF soldiers, downed in the Persian Gulf. Or a cynical, loathsome attack on London.

It was Ripley. Bravely dying. Rotting before his very eyes. Begging Danny to avenge him. He put one hand in his pocket and felt Ripley’s dog tag and wedding ring.

Ensure the safety of your source, repeat, ensure the safety of your source.

He was standing over Ahmed now. There were pools of blood around his knees, and a face creased with pain. But he was still conscious.

‘Your missus is safe,’ Danny told Tony. His tone of voice expressed everything he felt about Tony. He glanced towards Caitlin. ‘Maybe you should go and tell your girlfriend the good news. Hereford are sending a pick-up.’

‘You should be thanking me, Black. I saved your arse back there. You should remember that, next time I want a favour.’

‘I don’t owe you any favours, Tony.’

Tony sneered. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he breathed. He lowered his gun. ‘All yours, Danny. Fuck him up good and proper. It’s all he deserves.’