The Hostage (50 page)

He had boiled his options down to essentially two. If Bill came out with the briefcase, Stratton would move in and take care of that situation by himself. If Bill wasn’t carrying the case then Stratton needed some fresh faces to carry on with the task. Sumners should have called him by now with news of his back-up and also the answers to some of his ‘what if’ scenarios. If Bill didn’t have the bio it could mean several things: he’d left it in his apartment for some reason; someone else now had it or was going to collect it; he was going to pick it up from somewhere; or he was baiting any would-be followers away from RIRA’s real intentions. This is where it could be made to look more complicated than it was if cool minds didn’t prevail. It was Stratton’s MO to keep scenarios simple, even when there was a plethora of possible options. Most operations fell apart at this phase, trying to figure out what the opposition might do and prepare for every possible eventuality. That’s why so many ended in a gun battle, and why so many were ultimately designed to end in an ambush, which was just a gun battle on the ambusher’s terms.

When all else failed Stratton’s overriding consideration was governed by ‘the price plan’, the value of the operation, or in more plain language, who or what could be sacrificed to succeed. This one wasn’t difficult to value since the cost could be the population of London and a lot more. Basically, every bastard involved, on both sides, was expendable.

The door to the apartment building opened and Stratton watched Bill, Aggy and, to his surprise, another man walk out; the man with the limp who had appeared behind Aggy and Bill when they went for their walk. They passed him on the other side of the street. Aggy was in the middle and it looked like she was carrying the briefcase. The light was too poor to make out any other details.

And that, Stratton said to himself, was what they called Murphy’s Law. Had he come up with a scenario such as this it would’ve been way down on the list. It highlighted another important philosophy, which was ‘be flexible’.This was going to require a combination of both options.The bio was there, almost certainly, but Stratton couldn’t risk taking it alone. Not yet anyhow. He didn’t know who this third person was and there was still the possibility it was all a piece of bait. He felt the electronic initiator in his pocket. All he needed to do was remove the safety lock, push the arming switch, hit the red button, and boom. But two things were very wrong with that choice. One was that the explosion would kill Aggy. He was capable of sacrificing an operative if that was within the price plan but only if there was absolutely no choice. And this was, after all, Aggy. To date, he had never lost an operative on one of his own planned ops, except Hank of course, but hopefully that wasn’t over yet. The second and far greater consideration was that it still had not been confirmed if exploding the briefcase would kill the virus. If Sumners gave him the all-clear it would then just be a matter of getting Aggy away from it. He would happily extinguish Lawton, which would suit everyone perfectly, and this character with the limp, whoever he was.

Stratton put the initiator away, got to his feet, climbed over the squat wall and headed along the street, keeping a good distance from the three figures but not letting them out of his sight. They were heading for Wandsworth Road only a couple hundred yards away. He would have to close up as they approached it or risk losing them in the busy street. He wondered if they had a car.This could all get very desperate very quickly. Where the hell was Sumners?

Stratton took out his phone and hit a memory dial as he walked. It rang.

‘Ops here,’ said the operations officer.

‘Stratton. Give me Sumners.’

‘He’s not here, Stratton.’

‘Where the hell is he?’ Stratton asked, unable to control his annoyance, which was unusual for him. It was a warning that the pressure was building. Secure phone lines were probably ringing all over the country by now. The PM was no doubt already pacing his office or on his way to a safe location out of the city. And Stratton was holding this whole thing together.Where were his operatives? They should have been arriving in their droves. Stratton wondered if Sumners hadn’t screwed up. The fine line between need to know and telling everyone was sometimes a difficult one to call. Stratton was glad he didn’t have to make those decisions. On an op like this Stratton should have just about every force available at his disposal, including stealth helicopters, a link into London’s video surveillance camera system, which literally covered the entire city and all the highways and motorways leading in and out of it, and cohorts of operatives tripping over each other. Instead he was alone. It was ridiculous.

‘I think he’s gone to the loo,’ the ops officer said.

‘Tell him the bio is foxtrot, that I have no idea where the fuck it’s headed, and if I don’t some get backup in the next two minutes I’m going to blow it to hell because I’ll have no fucking choice.’

‘I understand,’ the ops officer said calmly. ‘I’ll go and find him.’

Stratton killed the call and pocketed the phone. You do that, he said to himself. This was bullshit. The operation was at the most crucial stage and the wheels were about to fall off it.

Aggy, Bill and Brennan reached Wandsworth Road and turned left on to it. Stratton speeded up then slowed as he reached the junction. He was hoping there would be a shop or something he could use to get a reflection off, but there was nothing. He peeked around the corner and darted back like an amateur. They had been right there, all three, yards away, climbing aboard a crowded double-decker bus, and Aggy still had the briefcase. Stratton’s mind raced. He couldn’t get on board, Bill would see him. He was going to lose them. He felt the initiator in his pocket. Blowing them up along with a bus full of people was well within the price plan, but there was still another option he could play. There was always another option. It was all about figuring it out in time.

He watched them move along the bus and Bill lead upstairs. The stranger with the limp paused to look behind him and out of the window. It was a warning to Stratton that the man was experienced and aware. By the stark lights of the bus Stratton got a look at his face. He knew him. A photograph perhaps? The man headed upstairs. Then the limp brought it all together.

‘Brennan,’ Stratton muttered to himself. A few weeks after the failed operation to snatch Spinks, Special Branch had come up with the identities of the players in the crashed van. Three had died; one shot through the chest and the other two killed by the impact of the crash. The one that got away, even though he had been shot through the thigh, was Brennan.

Stratton watched as they headed towards the front of the upper deck and the bus started to pull out into traffic.

He stepped out from his corner and watched it crawl away into traffic. Number 77A. He touched his jacket under his left arm, feeling his gun beneath, and moved to the street, scanning cars, looking for a candidate. A single occupant was wisest. The hard part about hijacking a car was finding a driver who didn’t look like they would put up a heroic fight or crash the car at the first opportunity. Women were not always an obvious choice. Stratton preferred to go for someone who actually looked hard. Chances were they weren’t. And if they were, then they might appreciate the consequences more graphically if the person doing the threatening looked serious enough. He saw a gum-chewing, tattooed skinhead in an old RS2000 that looked in good condition. This was his man.

The car had slowed in the traffic as a direct result of the bus pulling out. Stratton opened the passenger door, pulled his gun out of his shoulder holster under his coat, and climbed in beside the skinhead, who was about to say something until he saw the weapon. Before he closed the door Stratton thought he heard his name being called. ‘Stop the car a sec,’ Stratton asked the skinhead calmly, who obeyed instantly.

‘Stratton?’ came the voice again. Stratton looked back along the pavement to see a chubby man in his early thirties in grubby clothes walking briskly towards him. There was something familiar about him.

‘Wilks,’ the man said as he approached the car.‘We worked togever couple years ago in Birmin’am.’ Wilks saw the gun in Stratton’s hand, ignored it and looked in at the skinhead. ‘Awright?’ he asked the skinhead, assuming he was an acquaintance of Stratton’s. The skinhead nodded quickly, wide-eyed.

Stratton remembered Wilks. ‘A4?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. We got a message to ’ang aroun’ Wandsworth and Queenstown Road. Said you’d be abart.’

‘You got a car?’ Stratton asked quickly.

‘Yeah. Over ‘ere.’

Stratton put his gun away. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said to the skinhead and climbed out and shut the door.

‘That bus,’ Stratton said to Wilks, indicating the only one in the street. ‘Our target’s upstairs.’

Wilks was a pro and instantly switched up gears.‘This way,’ he said and they hurried towards his car. ‘I was on me way ’a Brighton wiv me missus and two nippers when they called me. Did she kick up a stink or what? Gave me merry ’ell.’

At the wheel of Wilks’s car was a young black guy wearing a grin that turned out to be a permanent feature. Stratton climbed in the front and Wilks the back. ‘Chaz, Stratton,’ Wilks said by way of quick introduction. ‘’At bus, me old mate,’ he pointed.

Chaz also picked up on the urgency, started the car and bullied his way into traffic with practised ease.

‘Seventy-seven A?’ Chaz said in a Scouse accent. ‘Goes to Vauxhall, across the bridge,Tate Gallery, Parliament Square. Can’t remember where it goes then. Victoria or Trafalgar. One of them.’

Stratton thought about that a moment. ‘Do you know what this is about?’ he asked them.

‘Not a clue,’ Wilks said. ‘All we know is there’s a right flap on, everyone’s at abaat ten thousand feet, an’ ’at whatever it is is real ’eavy.’

‘You armed?’ Stratton asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Wilks. Chaz nodded.

‘On the bus is a woman and two men. One’s a RIRA hitter. Extreme. Undoubtedly armed. Give him one sniff you’re not Kosher and he’ll take you out. The other’s MI5, but he’s a spy for RIRA. The woman’s one of us and she’s a hostage . . . ’

‘Fuckin’ ’ell,’ said Wilks, seriously impressed. ‘It don’t get much ’eavier ’en ’at.’

‘They’re carrying a biological weapon that could wipe out London,’ Stratton added.

Chaz gave him a quick glance. Wilks was temporarily speechless.

Stratton’s phone vibrated. He put it to his ear. ‘Yes.’ It was Sumners. ‘I’m with two but I need at least four more cars,’ Stratton said. ‘Two snipers would be useful.’

‘Three teams should be with you in twenty minutes,’ Sumners said. ‘I’ll have two police snipers RV with the team commander asap.’

Too much too late, Stratton thought. ‘Target’s on a bus that goes through Parliament Square.That’s Lawton, a RIRA hitter named Brennan and Aggy from South det. She’s a hostage. I used her to get Lawton out of the apartment for my recce and then Brennan entered the plot.’

‘I see. And the bio?’ Sumners asked. He didn’t need to know any more at this stage. The only time you lived in the past on an op was at the debriefing when it was all over. The bio was the only thing of importance, where it was and where it was headed towards. Sumners would ask about Aggy’s part in all this later.

‘They’re carrying the briefcase. I’m certain the bio’s in it,’ Stratton said.

‘We should soon know if it’s on the boat or not,’ Sumners said. ‘They’ll be hitting it any time now.’

‘What about the explosives?’ Stratton asked.

‘The boffins have been in touch with the Yanks and they’re still calculating. It’s not something anyone wants to take a guess at. For God’s sake, Stratton, don’t even think of blowing it until I let you know for sure. And one last thing. Lawton must not live through this. That’s from the top. Understand?’

‘Don’t I always?’ Stratton said and shut down the phone.

‘Twenty minutes to Parliament?’ Stratton asked Chaz.

‘Twenty, twenty-five,’ Chaz replied.

‘We need to get the advantage back,’ Stratton said, thinking out loud mostly. Right now they were just waiting for an opportunity. He had to create one.‘We have to get everyone off the bus,’ he announced.

The other two didn’t quite understand.

‘The bio’s in a briefcase,’ he explained. ‘So’s a chunk of explosive.’

‘They’ve got a bomb as well?’ asked Chaz.

‘The bomb’s mine.’

Wilks was trying to keep up with Stratton but finding it hard. ‘We gotta get everyone off the bus wivout the targets knowin’,’ he said.

‘Right.’

‘’Ow we gonna do that?’ Chaz asked.

‘We take it over,’ Stratton said.‘They’re upstairs.We should be able to clear the bottom at least.’

‘And then you’re gonna blow the fuckin’ thing up?’ Chaz asked, a bit shocked at the thought.

‘Don’t get ahead of yourself. First let’s catch us a bus.’ He looked to Chaz for a physical response. ‘That means we’ve gotta get in front of it, find a bus stop, and flag it down as normal.’

‘Right o,’ Chaz said as he dropped down a gear and simply powered out into the oncoming lane and floored it.

Wilks gripped the back of both front seats.

Cars braked, screeched and swerved to avoid them as Chaz overtook one at a time, cutting back into gaps just long enough to let an oncoming vehicle pass then pushing out again and hammering forward.

As the bus drove under a railway bridge Chaz moved out to overtake it. Its windows strobed past, the passengers bathed in orange light. The bus driver swerved towards the curb and blasted his horn in frustration as he swung back out into his lane. The road opened up ahead of the bus and was clear enough for Chaz to accelerate to over ninety.

‘Nine Elms Lane,’ he shouted. Stratton and Wilks were busy concentrating on his driving and looking out for a bus stop.

They approached the broad intersection that led into Vauxhall.