Sharp Shot (12 page)

With evidence from John Chance as well as Chuck and his American
colleagues, Ardman had little trouble getting authorisation for the raid
on the desert palace where Jade had been held. Its isolation—an
advantage to Crown Prince Ali when plotting against his nephew
—had now become its greatest weakness. Hidden away from view,
Ardman's team could get away with the sort of operation they'd never be
permitted to stage if there was any risk of witnesses.

Ardman had rather more trouble persuading Jade and Rich that they
were not going.

“I was there,” Jade pointed out. “I know the
layout, I can show you where their underground lab is hidden.”

“You only found an observation gallery,” said Ardman.
“There must be another way in.”

“Not that's shown on the builders' plans,” said Alan.
“I've got a schematic here, and there's no reference to a secret
underground laboratory.”

“Not that we really thought there would be,” Pete added
quickly. “I mean, that's what
secret
means,
right?”

“I'm going,” said Jade. “That's final. These guys
kept me prisoner. It's payback time and I'm going to be there paying
back.”

Ardman sighed, sensing defeat.

“And I'm going too,” said Rich. “If Jade's going,
so am I.”

“Right,” said Jade.

“She needs looking after,” Rich went on.

“Wrong!” Jade snapped.

“Really? Look what happened last time.”

“Excuse me.” Jade put her hands on her hips and stared
him down. “I was the one who
didn't
get caught by
the people we were trying to escape from. Even if they did turn out to be
the good guys. Who needs help?”

“Children,” said Chance firmly.

“Oh, come on, Dad,” insisted Rich. “Jade's right.
She needs to be there and I'm coming too.”

Chance looked from one to the other. “It's up to
Ardman,” he said. “But if he agrees you can come, and I'll
admit it will be useful to have Jade along, then you both stay in the
helicopter until and unless I tell you otherwise.”

Jade hugged him. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Check with Ardman,” said Chance again.

Jade untangled herself and turned to face her dad's superior.
“Well?”

Ardman sucked in his cheeks as he considered. Finally, he said:
“It's your show, John. And they're your children.”

Chance nodded. “Tell me about it.”

There were three helicopters in the attack. The first two carried the
assault teams—the third held back. Inside were Rich and Jade, along with
two scientists from the Ministry of Defence whose job it was to work out
what the laboratory was for.

The third helicopter was less advanced than the others, and less well
armoured. The front of the cabin was in effect a wide window, so Rich and
Jade had a
good view of what was happening.

The lead helicopters were so advanced they weren't officially in
service yet. Nicknamed ‘Future Lynx' they were updated versions of the
Westland Lynx, which had been in service with the British armed forces
since the 1970s. These new variants were not officially due to be
delivered to the MOD until 2011, and wouldn't see active service until
2014. But ‘officially' was different from reality.

For Ardman's mission, they were ideal. Since the advanced prototypes
did not officially exist, no one could trace them back to the British. And
for the development team working with the AgustaWestland company, the
chance of a real battlefield test mission was too good to miss.

Another advantage was that the Lynx was the fastest helicopter in the
world, and the new variants were even quicker than the originals. They
screamed across the desert, accelerating to over 300 kilometres an hour as
they approached their target, leaving Rich and Jade's helicopter far
behind.

The disadvantage was they only had room inside for three people. This
was why the SAS team was braced to the helicopters' specially reinforced
skids.
As the aircraft neared their target, they slowed. The dark-clad SAS
men dropped on ropes so that they were hanging beneath the Lynxes—four
from each helicopter.

Missiles ripped out from the two helicopters. Precisely targeted,
they tore into the side of the palace. Windows exploded in fragments of
glass. Two of the SAS men on each helicopter dropped further on their
ropes. As the helicopters powered over the palace, they let go and were
hurled in through the gaping holes left by the missiles.

Above the palace, the Lynxes slowed again, allowing the other four
men to drop to the roof. Then the helicopters sped up to take position
well out of range of any counter measures or gunfire. They hovered behind
the palace like deadly dark insects in the startlingly blue sky.

The windows of the palace were lit orange as the assault team checked
each room. Any resistance and a stun grenade soon stopped it.

Through their headsets, Rich and Jade could hear the terse
communication between the soldiers.

“Area three—clear.”

“Roof area—four down. Now clear.”

“Area five—clear. Three down.”

Smoke was rising from the holes in the front of the palace. A dark
cloud staining the azure sky.

“Kitchens—secure. Staff contained.”

Finally, they heard their dad's satisfied tone: “All areas
secure. Objective secured.”

The scientist sitting behind Rich looked more like a police forensics
officer in his white coverall. He leaned forward as he spoke into a
microphone.

“Have you found the lab?”

“Affirmative,” Chance's voice came back through the
headphones. “No sign of scientists or staff. Place looks abandoned,
but we haven't gone inside, we'll wait for you.”

The scientist nodded to his colleague. “On our way.” He
gave the helicopter pilot a thumbs-up, and the aircraft dipped its nose
and powered forwards.

Chance was waiting for them on the rooftop helicopter pad, a
machinegun slung over his shoulder.

“Looks like you stayed in a good hotel,” Rich told Jade
as they made their way past the pool. The scientists followed them, each
carrying a large metal briefcase of equipment.

A black-clad soldier was dragging an unconscious gunman from the
water as they passed.

“Thirsty work, sir,” he said to Chance as he heaved the
man on to the side and removed his gun from the holster. The guard hadn't
even had time to draw it as the SAS stormed in.

“This is a dry country,” Chance told him.

“You should tell this guy.”

Rich was surprised how much cooler it became as soon as they were
inside. Smoke drifted through the palace. There was dust and debris
everywhere from the SAS attack. They passed several unhappy looking men in
combat gear handcuffed to banisters or heavy furniture. Others lay face
down in rooms reduced to rubble. Rich didn't look too closely.

Chance led Rich, Jade and the two scientists down a wide stone
staircase to an entrance hall. From here they went along a wide passageway
to a metal door. There was a charred hole in the door where the lock had
been blown out.

“This is as far as we got,” Chance told the scientists.
“It's up to you now.”

He pushed open the door and gestured for them to go inside. Rich saw
that both the men had pulled on
breathing masks attached to small oxygen
cylinders on
their backs.

“Not taking any chances, then,” he said to Jade.

Through the door was a small entrance lobby that ended at another
door, this one made of glass. Beyond that was a second glass door—an
airlock.

“Sterile atmosphere,” said one of the scientists, his
voice filtered and distorted by the mask.

Rich, Jade and Chance watched the scientists make their way through
the two glass doors.

“It looks abandoned,” said Jade. “When I was here
a couple of days ago, there were people working. It was very busy.”

“They couldn't have known we were coming,” said Chance.
“So we have to assume they finished whatever they were
doing.”

One of the scientists was checking a device strapped to his wrist. He
showed it to his colleague, and they both nodded. Then the first scientist
pulled off his mask. Rich could see him sniffing the air hesitantly.

“Looks OK,” said Chance. “But you two stay here
until we're absolutely sure.”

The outer airlock door opened with a slight hiss, and Chance went
through. As soon as the door was
sealed behind him, he pressed the button
to open the inner door. There was a pause while the filters checked the
air between the two doors for contamination.

Just as the inner door started to open, there was movement from
deeper inside the lab. A dark figure was silhouetted against the pale wall
as he stood up, raising a machine gun.

One of the scientists saw the gunman, and pushed the other to one
side, before diving to the floor.

The inner door was swinging slowly open. The gunman opened fire—not
at the scientists, but at Chance.

The front of the airlock door crazed over in a mass of cracks as
the bullets impacted. Before the gunman could fire again, Chance was gone
—through the half-open door, and rolling across the floor. He sprang to
his feet metres away from where the gunman was aiming. A single controlled
burst of gunfire slammed the gunman back into the wall.

Rich and Jade both ran for the airlock as fast as they could. The
inner door had jammed half open, the mechanism damaged by the gunfire.

The scientists were getting to their feet as Rich and Jade arrived.
But Rich was looking at the body of the
gunman Chance had just shot. One
of the man's eyebrows ended above the eye, a pale scar curling down his
left cheek.

“The gunman from the farm,” said Jade. “He was
with Darrow at
Boscombe Heights
too.”

“As we suspected, it was a set-up,” said Chance, joining
them. “McCain wanted it to look like he was in real trouble, so I'd
help him. Even before he found out I wasn't there, they'd agreed to stage
a pursuit. Then he carried on with it to convince you he was in trouble so
you'd get me involved and help him. It must have surprised him a bit when
Chuck White's team joined in as well.”

As they moved through the lab, examining each workbench and set of
apparatus in turn, the scientists gradually became quieter and more
serious.

Rich knew not to touch anything, but before long he was getting
bored. Jade and Chance were talking quietly at one end of the large
laboratory. She pointed up at a huge window overlooking the room, and Rich
guessed that was where she had seen it from originally.

He turned to walk back and join them. There was nothing here that
made much sense to him. OK, he recognised laptop computers and a large
shredder. He
could understand the containment chamber with its rubber
sleeves and gloves extending inside the sealed glass case. There were even
Bunsen burners and racks of test tubes like in the school science lab. But
Rich had no idea what it was all for.

As he turned, his foot caught on something sticking out from under
the workbench. It gave a metallic clang, and he held his hands up in
apology as one of the scientists turned to glare at him.

Rich looked to see what he'd kicked. It was a metal waste bin. It was
strange seeing something so ordinary in the hi-tech environment. He nudged
it back under the workbench with his foot and turned to go.

Then his brain registered what he had seen inside, and he knelt down
to grab the bin and pull it back out into the light.

“Over here!” called Rich. “I think you should see
this.”

He lifted the bin up on to the workbench, careful not to disturb the
fragments inside.

“What is it?” asked Chance, joining him. The two
scientists and Jade were close behind.

“It's just fragments, something broken,” one of the
scientists said. “Junk. Rubbish.”

Rich shook his head. “It's pottery. Ceramic. I think it's the
remains of the statue.”

Dad picked up the bin and upended it, spilling the contents across
the workbench. Most of the pieces of dull, brown ceramic were too small to
be recognisable. But a large part of a weathered lion's head stared back
up at them from the workbench.

“Why did they break it?” Jade wondered. She picked up
the piece of the head and turned it over, examining it. “Was it an
accident, do you think?” She frowned. “It's not as heavy as I
expected, after what you said.”

One of the scientists was gently teasing several pieces of the
shattered statue together like a three-dimensional jigsaw.

The other pointed to where several pieces joined. “Impact
damage. Maybe a hammer.”

“They
deliberately
broke it?” said
Rich.

“We're looking for something about this big,” said the
first scientist. He held his hands slightly apart. “Probably made of
metal. And…” he glanced at his colleague, who mirrored his grim
expression. “And probably lead-lined.”

“There's a thing looks like a small thermos flask
over
there,” said Jade, pointing to one of the other workbenches.

One of the scientists hurried over, collecting his metal case of
equipment on the way.

“What is it?” asked Chance.

“I need to know exactly where this statue came from,”
said the scientist.

“Wish we knew,” Rich told him. “We thought it was
ancient, but it turns out it was made only recently.”

The scientist held some of the broken pieces together. “See
this smooth area inside? The statue was cast round something else.”