Nine Lives (9 page)

But there was one man who wasn’t paying attention to the game.

He was staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed and unmoving, as if he was in a trance.

He was in the middle of the Clock End, the South Stand, behind the Tottenham goal, and stood out as the only fan in sight not wearing an Arsenal shirt or scarf.

Despite the winter air, beads of sweat trickled down his brow as if he was in a sauna, like raindrops sliding down a window pane.

His hands jammed in his pockets, the guy stood so still he didn’t even blink.

It was as if he was made of stone.

On the field, Arsenal began to build an attack from the back. They were a team renowned for the intricacy and technical mastery of their passing and attacking play, and this sequence was no different. With great skill, the players cut and weaved, tapping passes then dashing forward to elude the Tottenham defence. Slowly, they were making their way down the pitch.

Towards the man in the coat.

The Arsenal fans around him had started raising the volume of their cheering and chanting, as the attack started to show promise.

60,360 sets of eyes watching one ball.

At that moment, the man in the coat started to mutter something.

Something memorised.

A creed.

A prayer.

He pulled one of his hands free from his pocket.

He was holding a switch.

It was connected to a black wire that ran into his coat.

On the pitch, one of the midfield players hit a perfect through-ball. Arsenal’s striker ran onto the pass. All alone, he bore down on the Tottenham goal-mouth with only the keeper to beat. Feinting a shot, he dodged past him. The open goal was to his left. All he needed to do was tuck it into the net.

He kicked the ball, as the crowd gasped, holding their breath like the split-second before a crescendo.

The man in the coat did the same.

He closed his eyes.

He pressed the button.

ELEVEN

Inside his office at 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister was also standing still, staring straight ahead. He was in front of his desk, leaning back against the polished wood, deep in thought.

This whole thing with the suicide bombing cell was a nightmare situation and the circumstances leading up to the current police operation were consuming his every thought. Although three of the suspects had been located during the day, there were still six of them out there, and now the sun had gone down.

One thing was for sure; it was going to be one hell of a long night.

He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall to his right, an expensive Swiss model, Roman numerals mounted on an ivory white backing all surrounded by highly-polished gold plated metal.

The slender black dials were pointing at
5:47pm
.

Just over six hours till midnight and the New Year.

The Prime Minister shook his head.
What a way to close this one
out
.

It had been a rough twelve months for him and his cabinet. Elections were due to start in April, with opposition leaders already campaigning around the country for the right to take over the helm. The proud man leaning against the desk sighed. He was desperate to continue, to make a difference. In his head, he thought he might have a chance of being re-elected for another four years, but in his heart he knew it was unlikely to happen. And if anything went wrong tonight, it would be the final nail in the coffin of his tenure.

He closed his eyes, trying to think. The room was silent, save for one constant, quiet relentless noise, the Swiss clock on the wall.

It ticked away mercilessly like a metronome.

Or a bomb.

The PM had seen the breaking news reporting a raid in North London earlier in the day, just around lunchtime. He’d spoken to Director Cobb, who’d confirmed that two of the nine suspects had been arrested and one of them killed. Thankfully however, none of the police officers were hurt; that was the most important thing, and the good news. The bad news was that the house hadn’t been on any list, or even on anyone’s radar. If it hadn’t been for sheer blind luck and an inquisitive, public-spirited old lady, they never would have known the three suspects were there.

Every other raid conducted across the city by the other counter-terrorist and police teams had been unsuccessful. Every single one. Which meant six other members of the cell were still out there. And no one seemed to have any idea where any of them were.

There was a knock at the door. He opened his eyes.

‘Come in.’

The door opened, and a woman in her mid-thirties stepped inside. She was cradling a stack of folders in the crook of her arm, a warm smile on her face as she saw her husband. For a brief moment, the Prime Minister felt his mood lift. It was his wife, Jennifer
.
She closed the door behind her and moved towards him.

‘Pete gave me these to pass on to you,’ she said, placing the stack of folders on the desk beside the PM. ‘Reports from today.’

He didn’t respond; she noticed him looking over at the clock.

‘Everything alright?’ she asked.

He nodded and forced a smile, but it was half-hearted and unconvincing. She moved across in front of him, up close, reaching up to adjust his tie.

‘Look at the state of you,’ she chided. Pausing, she read her husband’s mind. ‘They won’t succeed, sweetheart. Our best men are out there right now, searching for them. And I hate to say it, but something like this was bound to happen at some point. It’s the way things are now. You know who we are. Our standing in the world. We’ll always have enemies.’

He sighed, shaking his head.

‘Do we even know who this enemy is?’ he asked her. ‘Pete told me earlier that six of these men were born and bred right here in the UK. How is that possible? Are we doing something wrong? What happened along the way that they would even consider doing something like this?’

‘You can’t sit here and ponder their motives. You’ll drive yourself insane.’

He nodded; he knew she was right. But he couldn’t shake his malaise. It almost felt as if all the errors and mistakes he’d made in the last three years were culminating tonight, like some gargantuan trial or test he had to pass.

He bowed his head and sighed.

‘The people who've held this office before me led this country through its darkest times,’ he said quietly. ‘Endless conflicts. Two World Wars. The Falklands. The Gulf. Afghanistan. They knew who the opposition was. The soldiers knew where to stand their ground and fight the enemy. Mostly.’

He paused.

‘But how do we fight these men? Where? Out there, on our streets? And what do I tell the country? That we're at war with ourselves?’

He shook his head.

‘And how on earth do we stop an enemy who actually wants to die?’

The last sentence stayed in the air. But rather than withdrawing, Jenny pierced his gaze, her soft demeanour hardening.

‘By granting his wish,’ she said, quietly.

Silence.

Suddenly, there was a hurried knock at the door; in almost the same instant, it was pushed open. It was Rogers. He looked pale, an expression on his normally amiable face that the PM hadn’t seen before. His wife saw it too.

‘Goodness, Pete, you look dreadful. Whatever is the matter?’ she asked.

The Prime Minister stayed silent.

He knew something terrible had just happened.

Inside Room 418 of the Heathrow Marriott Hotel, Dominick Farha was standing by the window again, pushing back the curtain an inch with his fore-finger and scanning outside.

On the bed behind him, his new companion was hard at work. The young woman had a white dress made of thick cotton laid across her lap. Beside her, the holdall containing the vast quantity of bricks of C4 explosive rested against a pillow.

She lifted a brick from the bag and slid it into a compartment sewn into the gown. It was a perfect fit, snug and secure. Beside it, five other bricks had already been tucked into the glove-like pockets. She raised the dress in front of her, testing the weight, lifting the garment up and down.

She smiled.

‘It worked. It holds.’

Farha turned. ‘Good. Keep going.’

He saw her smile up at him.

‘You look beautiful,’ he added, as an afterthought.

That had the desired effect and she returned to her work with renewed passion, desperate to please him. Dominick watched her, keeping his thoughts to himself.

He’d met her a few months ago in a book shop in the city. He’d been trying to find a manual on home-made explosives and had found one under
Science
, written by a guy named Stoffel. The girl had been standing a few feet away from him in the same aisle. He’d sensed she was checking him out and he decided on a whim to strike up a conversation with her. The conversation progressed to coffee, and soon they were meeting up repeatedly during the next few weeks.

At the time Dominick had been in the midst of identifying and persuading willing recruits play an active part in his suicide bombing plan, but was finding the long drawn-out process frustrating and tedious. Convincing them wasn’t the hard part; he’d always possessed a certain amount of charisma, able to turn on the charm whenever he needed, and could almost always get people to do what he wanted. Finding a sufficient number of the bombers was the issue.

During that scouting phase he’d been playing along with the girl and feigning interest, more as a way of alleviating the crushing boredom than anything else. She’d fallen for him hard which was irritating, making him feel like a rock with a limpet attached.

But then he’d had an idea.

He got her drunk one night, then after they slept together, he brought up the real reason why he was in the UK. He’d watched her response closely; if she reacted badly, he had a pillow ready to suffocate her. But she’d been interested. He’d adlibbed his way through the next part, and was amazed how well it worked. He outlined a plan, and she agreed to it the next day, without a query. He realised she was so infatuated, she’d do anything he wanted. All he had to do was tell her he loved her every now and then, and she was like putty in his hands.

Looking down, he saw her continuing her work.

He couldn’t remember her name.

But suddenly, he remembered something else. He checked his watch.

‘Oh shit.’

Moving from the window, he grabbed the remote control from the bed and flicked on the television. Seeing as he’d been watching it earlier, the first channel that came up was the news.

However, they were no longer showing footage from the house raid.

The shot was now inside the studio, two concerned-looking newsreaders staring grimly into the camera, their mouths moving in silence on the muted TV as they talked to the nation.

A new bulletin was running across the bottom of the screen.

Breaking News: Explosion at Emirates Stadium, hundreds feared dead.

Farha froze.

He felt a shiver of excitement.

He did it
.

Holy shit, he did it.

He’d been worried that the guy would never make it inside the stadium, that he’d get stopped at the entrance. But he’d made it.

Turning to the young woman whose name he couldn’t remember, Farha grinned.

‘It’s begun.’

Across the city, another man was watching that same news report.

He was standing outside a bar in a shopping centre in Angel, North London. Ahead of him, the pub was quickly filling up, partygoers and revellers, all of them having a good time and getting an early start in to the New Year celebrations.

The man however, was all alone, with no friends around him.

Taking a sip of the soft drink he’d just ordered, he paid no attention to the festivities inside the pub. He was only interested in the series of televisions mounted behind the bar, thirty feet away.

A news report had just flashed onto the screen. The volume was off, so most of the people inside hadn’t noticed it yet, but gradually they each started to pause mid-conversation, attention turning to the television monitors.

The man glanced at his watch.

5:50pm.

Give it ten minutes, then leave
.

Glancing down, he checked something else. Two black holdalls were resting by his feet. Each one was packed full and weighing close to forty pounds, zipped up tight and seemingly innocuous.

In ten minutes, the man would finish his drink and get the hell out of there.

The bags, however, were staying behind.

TWELVE

Across town, the entrance doors to the ARU burst open as if there was a hurricane blowing through the building and officers from the task force sprinted out into the car park, racing towards the three Unit vehicles parked across the tarmac.

Archer and Porter were running side-by-side, zipping up their tactical vests while cradling two MP5 sub-machine guns. Ahead of them, Mac was already standing by one of the black Fords.

‘
Let’s go! Let’s go! Move it!’
he shouted.

Archer and Porter arrived at the car. The blond officer yanked open the rear door and climbed into the back seat as Porter jumped in behind the wheel.

‘Where the hell is Chalky?’ Mac shouted, to no one in particular.

The two men didn’t need to respond. The Unit sergeant had already spotted him.

‘
Chalky!’
he bellowed across the parking lot. ‘Pull your finger out!’

The dark-haired officer was lagging behind, just now passing out of the entrance. Mac’s words shifted him into another gear, however, and he sprinted forward, jumping into the back seat beside Archer.

The car was already moving as he pulled the door shut, and the wheels squealed as they bit down into the concrete; the vehicle shot forward, moving out of the car park and speeding off down the road towards the stadium.

The other two cars followed close behind in hot pursuit.

A single vehicle passed them by the turn to the car park, quietly pulling into the parking lot. It was a small dark-blue BMW, immaculately clean, fresh from some rental company. The car moved to an empty space with VISITOR printed on the tarmac in white letters. The driver applied the handbrake and killed the engine, then stepped out and shut the door behind him.

He was a strongly built man in his early thirties, stern dark features with a tanned face. Not wasting any time, he walked swiftly across the tarmac to the entrance, pulling open the door.

Inside, a detective was sitting behind the front desk. By the time he looked up, the newcomer had already pulled ID from his pocket which he flipped open.

‘Special Agent Rivers, DEA,’ the dark-haired newcomer said. ‘Director Cobb’s expecting me.’

Across the Channel, the private jet carrying Henry and his three men was just coming in to land, the plane gliding down towards a deserted airfield outside Paris. There was a jolt as the wheels hit the tarmac and the jet rolled forward, eventually slowing and coming to a halt.

They’d arrived.

From his seat, Henry glanced out of the window to his left. In the distance, he could see the golden lights of Paris, the unmistakeable outline of the Eiffel Tower, but flicking his dark eyes down he turned his attention to the airfield immediately outside the window. It was completely empty, save for a black Escalade waiting for them on the edge of the tarmac, parked a sufficient distance from the jet so there was no risk of a collision.

Grunting, Henry hauled himself out of his seat and moved to the exit. The pilot had pressed a mechanism to open the door and release the stairs, and they unfolded slowly to the runway. From this vantage point, he narrowed his eyes and took another look around the airfield.

It was deserted and quiet, surrounded by forestry and hedge growth. A good choice for future events planned that evening.

Once again, Faris had done well.

He gripped the rail as he lumbered down the stairs, followed by his two enforcers. Behind them, Faris was staying on the jet. Once they were gone, the plane would be re-routed to London to collect Dominick. Henry and the two meatheads moved across the tarmac, arriving at the car and climbing inside. There was a driver behind the wheel, a man who worked for a trusted associate and he’d already fired the engine.

Without a word the man took off the handbrake, and they headed through the exit gates and onto the road towards Paris.

As they gathered speed, Henry felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, his private line.

Taking it from his pocket, he pressed
Answer.

‘You’re not going to believe this,’
the voice on the other end said.
‘A bomb just went off at a football stadium in London.’

Henry paused. He felt his mood darken.

‘How many dead?’ he asked.

‘
No more than two hundred.
’

Henry’s free hand clenched with anger, the knuckles on the chubby fingers turning white.

Just when he thought his nephew couldn’t get any more stupid, he had completely outdone himself.

‘Which stadium?’ he asked quietly.

‘
The Emirates. Arsenal’s joint. Looks like it was a suicide attack
.’

Despite his rage, Henry breathed a small sigh of relief. Not everything was lost. But his idiot nephew had just complicated things tenfold.

‘
We’ve got problems
,’ said the voice, echoing the concerns in Henry’s mind. Their operation would have been relatively straightforward and simple before. Now it was going to get considerably harder, and all thanks to the inanity of his nephew.
If it even takes place
, Henry thought. The complications that had just been layered to their plans were a potential nightmare.

‘Wait and see how it plays out,’ he told the person on the other end. ‘And get back to me.’

The call cut out and Henry returned the phone to his pocket, feeling his mood blacken as dark as the night outside the car.

He sat in silence as the car moved down the road towards Paris.

Once again, Dominick had screwed up.

And that meant someone was going to die tonight.

On the lower level of the Armed Response Unit’s headquarters, Frost was sitting in the interrogation room again, trying to sweat some more information out of Number Three. He’d been next door with Cobb and the American DEA agent when news broke on the explosion at the stadium. As the task force had rushed out of the door to get over there as quickly as possible, Cobb had sent Frost straight back inside to the suspect. He wanted answers and he was going to get them.

Frost watched the suspect closely. The guy’s stance in the chair had changed since they’d last been in this position. He’d sat back, no longer looking at the ground, but his eyes were still half-open, staring at the desktop through the matted hair that hung lankly over his forehead. Frost had been shocked when the young officer from the task force had got the terrorist to open up; in truth, it had unsettled him. Cobb had brought him in specifically for the brunt of the interrogation tasks; that was his job. He was expected to deliver, and didn’t want to become surplus to requirements around here. It was time to earn his pay-check.

‘This whole situation just escalated,’ Frost said. ‘One of your friends just blew himself up at the Emirates during the game. He’s killed over a hundred people, probably more. Which means this just went from a criminal conspiracy to an actual terrorist attack. And that makes
you
the proud property of Her Majesty’s Government.’

He let his words sink in. The young man in front of him didn’t seem to react, but Frost saw him shuffle into his seat slightly.

Push him.

Don’t give him room to breathe.

‘Right now, you’re a done deal. Twenty years, minimum. That takes you past your fortieth birthday. And that’s assuming the judge is in a good mood- you could even get life if he’s not. And don’t go looking for sympathy anywhere. People in this country may have their differences, but the one thing we all hate is terrorism. It’s been that way for hundreds of years. Why do you think people burn a Guy Fawkes effigy every year?’

The suspect shifted in his seat again.

Frost could see he was sweating, and kept up the heat.

‘Don’t be fooled. This isn’t like the movies where you serve two years of your sentence and get off for
good behaviour,
or whatever they call it in Hollywood. You’re going to serve every minute of those twenty. I’ll make sure you do. But if you start talking, I can help you. I’m one of the only people left who can. And luckily for you, I’m one of the few people left who’s actually going to bother.’

There was a pause. He observed the terrorist closely.

He had him.

Frost didn’t speak further.

Just waited for the inevitable.

‘I don’t know anything,’ Number Three finally muttered.

Frost took the opening, pressing him. ‘You need to give me something, kid. Anything. What do you know about Dominick Farha?’

The suspect flicked a glance up at Frost and started to shiver slightly, as sweat streamed down his brow.

‘Not much. We met through a friend. That guy. Number Eight,’ he said, nodding to the page on the desk.

He couldn’t point. His hands were still cuffed behind his back.

Frost looked down at Number Eight’s photograph. ‘How long ago was this?’

‘About six months.’

The guy paused. Frost saw him fighting back tears; he was starting to fold. This kid was in way too far over his head, and by the looks of things the reality of the situation was just starting to sink in. The tough guy who’d been sitting in his chair an hour ago was gone.

‘Dominick was good to me,’ he continued, his voice trembling. ‘No one cared about my dad. He listened, set me straight. Told me who the real enemy was.’

‘So the next logical step was strapping a bomb to your chest,’ Frost said. ‘Let me guess, that was his idea?’

The suspect didn’t respond.

‘So would he be joining you in this venture?’ Frost asked.

The guy nodded slowly. ‘That’s what he said.’

‘OK, so where is he?’

Silence.

‘You know officers raided his apartment earlier. He wasn’t there. It looks like he might have left the country.’

He looked across the table at the suspect, who was fighting his emotions. The hard-faced, hostile young man brought into the cell a few hours ago had vanished, replaced by a scared, confused kid. He didn’t know anything they could use.

Frost could see that clearly now.

Taking a deep breath, the grey-haired detective rose, stretching his arms over his head. He closed the folder on the desk in front of him.

‘You know, I think you're telling the truth. You don't know anything useful. From my point of view, it seems as though you were so angry and hell-bent on revenge for what happened to your dad that you never stopped and thought clearly for a moment. And Farha played you like a
piano. And now you’re in here, and he’s out there, probably on a beach sipping a cocktail somewhere. But then again, I think you’re starting to figure that out yourself.’

He paused.

‘And by the way, what do you think your dad would make of all this?’

Silence.

Frost closed his folder and picked it up. Walking to the door, he stopped by the wall and turned.

‘Happy New Year, kid. I hope it was worth it.’

Twisting the handle, he walked out.

His head bowed, the would-be terrorist clenched his jaw as tears streamed silently down his face. All the anger and blinding rage that had soaked his body for the past sixteen months had washed away in an instant, replaced instead by fear and perspective. Suddenly, he could see everything clearly. All his defences crumbled, like a sand-castle in the tide.

And he wept.

Upstairs, Rivers had been shown in by the guy on the front desk. The man had been notified by Cobb that he was expecting the American, so the desk detective had led him upstairs then left him alone. The American had been forced to leave his sidearm at the front desk though. No weapons of any kind were allowed on the first floor.

The DEA agent had taken up a spot to the side of the ops room, well out of the way. He’d caught on the car radio on the way over here that there’d been an explosion at a soccer ground across the city.

The scene in front of him confirmed it.

Analysts were rushing everywhere, talking into phones and typing away on computers as they tried to pull up surveillance from outside the venue. Crawford had mentioned that the detail had a ground team, but they didn’t seem to be around. Rivers guessed they were in the black cars that he’d passed on the way into the parking lot.

Just as the fellow DEA agent’s name entered his head, Rivers saw him appear from the stairs to his right. He was with a tall beleaguered-looking man who Rivers took to be Cobb, the leader of the Unit.

Crawford saw his man and approached swiftly. Behind him, a phone rang in Cobb’s pocket, and he took it out, answering the call and striding to his office, closing the door. Crawford extended his hand and Rivers shook it. It was only twenty four hours since they’d last seen each other, but a familiar face in strange surroundings was always welcome.

‘Bad timing, huh?’ Rivers said.

Crawford nodded. ‘You can say that again. A terrorist just blew up a soccer ground.’