Invasion (26 page)

For the past hour, Alex and Kirsty had huddled together on the towpath, hidden deep inside a thick clump of bushes two hundred yards short of Kew Bridge. They sat with their rucksacks on, leaning against the tidal wall, while they waited for the soldiers above them to move off.

Progress along the riverbank had been short-lived. They’d
barely walked half a mile before Alex had spotted movement on the bridge ahead of them. They’d ducked into bushes alongside the path, watching with mounting alarm as one silhouette became two, then three. Shortly afterwards, a truck growled over the bridge and stopped dead centre, disgorging several more figures. By the headlights of the truck, Alex could see that the new arrivals were soldiers and momentarily his hopes soared. But his elation was short-lived. As he studied the figures on the bridge, one thing became certain: they weren’t British troops.

He held Kirsty close as a powerful beam of light washed over the shrubbery that concealed them, lingering for a second before it swept away over the river and the opposite bank. After a few minutes the light was extinguished, replaced with the pinprick glow of cigarettes. Two of the soldiers leaned over the parapet, chatting and smoking, while the others paced up and down the bridge. If they moved now they would surely be spotted.

Alex checked his watch; gone two already. It’d be light in a couple of hours. He felt Kirsty squeeze his hand. She hadn’t said a single word, not since she’d followed Alex’s pointed finger, saw the soldiers on the bridge, the trucks and armoured vehicles that swept
past their hiding place into West London. She shivered in the damp air, her fingers trembling
beneath his own. He had to get her out of this God-awful mess.

He dropped her hand, his head cocked to one side. He pushed himself into a squatting position, his eyes peering through the foliage and out onto the river. There it was again – the faint chug of a motor that briefly registered above the ambient sound of the river’s passage. Was that a boat? He gripped Kirsty’s hand again and pulled her quietly to her feet. He leaned in very close, whispering in her ear.

‘We’re going to head back along the towpath. When I move, you move. Okay?’ Kirsty nodded, her eyes wide with fear. Alex eased himself closer to the path.

Up on the bridge, another convoy approached and the smoking soldiers moved out of sight. This was their chance. Alex pulled Kirsty out onto the path and headed back towards the apartment block. After a couple of hundred yards they paused, crouching against the embankment wall.
Alex peered into the darkness. There
was that sound again, more distinctive now and accompanied by the slap of water against a boat hull. Moments later, he heard the low growl of an engine and an object drifted into his peripheral vision. It glided out from behind the dark bulk of Oliver’s Island in the centre of the river, chugging cautiously upstream. Alex had the feeling that whoever was behind the wheel was also trying to avoid contact.

Acting on instinct, he pulled a torch from his pocket. He flicked it on and off, on and off, aiming the thin beam at the pilothouse. Come on, willed Alex. Look over here. He kept flicking the switch until his thumb hurt and the boat was almost level with them. Suddenly, the boat’s engine died and Alex watched as the bow turned towards them. Slowly the boat drifted into the riverbank. A dark form emerged from the cabin onto the open deck. It was a man.

‘Stay low,’ Alex whispered to Kirsty. He glanced towards Kew Bridge, where another military convoy rumbled northwards, then stepped carefully towards the water’s edge. Alex watched as the man threw a line towards him. Alex grabbed it and began pulling the boat towards the muddy bank. The moon drifted out from behind high cloud and Alex was suddenly alarmed to see that the pilot had a rifle slung across his back. Alex kept his hand close to his pistol just in case.

The boat bumped against the bank as Alex tied the rope off around a bench on the
towpath
. The men looked at each other in the darkness and Alex suddenly felt the ridiculous urge to shout friend or foe? The pilot smiled and held out his hand.

‘Coming
aboard?’ he whispered.

‘Too bloody right. Got room for two?’ replied Alex.

‘Sure. ‘They helped a worried-looking
Kirsty over the rail, then Alex hopped aboard. The pilot beckoned them into the wheelhouse.

‘Thanks for stopping,’ Alex whispered. ‘Thought you’d miss us.’

‘Had to give you the once-over with these.’ The man held up a pair of binoculars.
‘
You’re the first friendlies I’ve seen since all this started. My name is Danesh Khan.
Friends call me
Dan.’

‘Alex Taylor. This is my neighbour, Kirsty. We live in an apartment block back along the river. We’re trying to get out of the city.’

‘My idea exactly.’ Khan indicated
Alex’s black clothing and weapons. ‘Are you military?’ he asked.

‘No, I’m a police officer. Firearms team.’

Khan dug into his trouser pocket and produced his Security Services ID.

‘A spook?’ asked Alex.

‘Yep. What’s your take on all this?’

‘I was off duty when it all kicked off. Seems like everything’s fallen to pieces.’ Khan nodded in the dark. ‘That’s about right. What happened to you?’

‘Passenger jet got shot down with surface-to-air
missiles. It crashed over there.’ Alex pointed across the river, where the sky still glowed
a deep red. ‘The shooters were behind our apartment block. I tried to stop them but I ended up dropping
all three. Then things went from bad to worse.’

For the next few minutes, Alex and Khan recounted their experiences of the previous evening. Alex mentioned his plan to hide out at his brother’s place in Wiltshire.

‘Nice idea.’ Khan pointed through the window of the pilothouse. ‘Looks like the Arabians are consolidating their positions, and it’s a fair bet that London isn’t their only target. If this is taking place nationwide,
then no major city will be safe. Have you seen any military response?’

Alex shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

‘In that case we’re in deep trouble, my friend.’

‘So what do we do now?’

Khan sized up the new arrivals. The girl seemed pretty spaced out, but the guy was a cop, one who had weapons, supplies and a plan. In this situation, three heads were better than one.

‘Short term? We’ll head upriver, get away from the city. Mind if I tag along to your brother’s place, until I sort myself out?’

‘Sure.’

‘Great. Let’s go then.’

Alex stepped out
of the
wheelhouse, untied the
line and pushed the Kingfisher off the bank. The boat drifted silently out into the dark waters. In the wheelhouse, Khan pointed to the small cabin below.

‘Kirsty, why don’t you get yourself down there for a bit, just until we clear the bridge?’ Kirsty nodded and went below. Khan turned to Alex. ‘I’m going to start the engine. When we get to within five hundred feet of the bridge, I’ll cut the motor and drift underneath. The tide has turned in the last hour so, with any luck, the current will help us along. We should be able to pass unnoticed,
as long as those sentries up there don’t take too much interest in the river. If they do spot us, I’m going to make a run for it.’

Alex nodded grimly. ‘Just get us under that bloody bridge.’

Khan punched the ignition button on the console and the engine growled into life before settling into a low gurgle. He advanced the throttle and brought the boat midstream, its bow pointed towards the dark mouth under the centre arch. Slowly, they began to advance towards the bridge.

T
he mob gathered once again beneath the dark concrete towers of the sprawling housing estate. They congregated in silence, herded into position by local gang leaders, men whose reputations for violence were well known. Unlike the first time they’d assembled, this time they were armed. Their weapons were crude: petrol bombs, knives, bats and heavy clubs. The
gang leaders carried guns. Their objective was to get more.

They’d
all seen the plane crash, the pillars of smoke that rose above the city, the chaos on the streets. As darkness fell and gunfire echoed around West London, the older residents cowered in terror, locked inside their apartments.

But not the young. For them, the anarchy drew them like a magnet, adrenaline the night’s drug of choice. They left the safety of their homes, collecting in small groups beneath the concrete awnings and parapets of the housing estate. They were inquisitive, wary, but not frightened. They were accustomed to the random violence of the streets, drip-fed on images of war and bloody conflict their whole lives. Now they were witnessing it at first hand and their blood was up.

Older men arrived in a convoy of vehicles, local men with reputations for drug dealing, violence and intimidation. Some carried weapons, automatic pistols and shotguns. They rounded up the young ones and sent them away. ‘Arm up’, they said, ‘find whatever weapons you can and get back here as quickly as possible.’ Some had returned to their apartments, rummaging in bedrooms and kitchen drawers, while others looted the shops around the estate. They were nearly six hundred strong and their targets were the soldiers who guarded Kew Bridge.

They split into two groups. A smaller group, the mob leaders, made their way quietly through the back streets and scrambled up a steep railway embankment overlooking the area. From here, they had a commanding view of the northern end of the bridge and the intersection at Kew Bridge Road and Chiswick High Road. There, two military lorries had been parked side on, blocking vehicular access to the bridge from the west. The vehicles were being guarded by several Arabian troops, their demeanour relaxed, almost casual. It was a mistake.

Orders were given and the main group moved quickly, using the unlit back streets to get into position. They approached to within one hundred feet of the roadblock, bunching behind vehicles and walls. Bodied tense, hearts pounding, they waited for the signal to attack.

The Arabian guards on the bridge passed out another round of cigarettes and relaxed a little more. They had just waved another convoy across and it would be a good half-hour before the next one was due. The troops should have been
more alert but they were not frontline soldiers, mostly reservists commandeered for traffic duty.

Now that the transport ships had docked along the English coast, the convoys would start to become heavier and more frequent, which meant more work for them. Their officer, who slept soundly in his Humvee in a side street, warned them that things were going to get very busy. ‘Enjoy the quiet moments while you still can,’ he
'd
advised them before retiring for the evening. So the soldier
s had bid him g
oodnight and continued their slow pacing up and down the bridge, occasionally shining a torch beam over the dark waters below.

At the northern roadblock by Chiswick High Road, four Arabian soldiers were smoking cigarettes and chatting when the air around them was suddenly filled with flaming torches. The
petrol bombs shattered around their feet, engulfing the soldiers in a sheet of flame. The vehicles blocking the road also caught fire, adding to the conflagration.

The guards on the bridge came running towards the roadblock, watching in horror as their comrades screamed and writhed on the floor. That’s
when the mob rose as one, a blood-curdling
crescendo of yelling and screaming, the thunderous stampede of feet. The Arabians spun back towards the bridge.

Encouraged by the fleeing soldiers and eager for a taste of the action, the leaders
scrambled down
the
embankment, advancing carefully towards the fighting. They kept low, hiding in the shadows of a small row of shops, watching, waiting for the right moment. The mob was in full flow now, screaming and pounding towards the rise of the bridge.

The Arabians had managed to organise themselves quickly and spread out across the width of the road. Their weapons began to chatter, every bullet finding a target amongst the charging horde. The first wave fell to the ground, the others immediately behind tripping and stumbling over the casualties. Suddenly, several small explosions
detonated in the middle of the crowd and dreadful screams filled the air.

What had started out as a night of action and opportunity for the mob was quickly turning into a horrific tableau of death. Scores of young men and women were cut down, while the wounded desperately tried to drag themselves out of the way, only to be trampled by the suddenly panicked mob. Sensing a sudden loss of momentum, the youngsters at the rear of the mob began to turn and flee.

In all the chaos, no one noticed the dark shape cutting through the black waters below.

Khan nearly jumped out of his skin when the roar of the mob reached his ears. On the still night air it sounded like an express train thundering towards them. He watched
as the Arabians were forced back onto the bridge by a howling pack that surged towards them from the northern bank. The trucks at the end of the bridge suddenly exploded, bathing the scene in a fiery glow. A deafening volley of rifle fire rang out across the water.