Red Notice

112

Ashton clambered to his feet and admired his handiwork for a moment. He retrieved Tom’s phone from where it had fallen and tossed it down beside the warrant officer’s body. Then he headed down the ramp and out into the rain.

He tapped the dialling pad on his mobile as he made his way back towards the mouth of the tunnel, where the Red and Blue teams were busy sorting their gear.

He ran through the story in his head. Planting the device on board the Chinook had been Gavin’s idea. If the sniper option failed, they’d have to stop Laszlo some other way.

But there had been a terrible accident. Gavin must have tried to disarm the thing, and it had detonated.

It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do.

Ashton highlighted Tom’s number.

And then he pressed Send.

A blinding flash filled the sky as two kilograms of PE4 kicked off the fuel bladder. Within the tight confines of the aircraft, the combustion pressure turned it into an instant fireball, which, in turn, ignited the main tanks.

The Chinook’s rotors broke off and spun drunkenly into the cloud of fire and smoke.

Ashton was knocked to the ground by the blast. He landed only metres from the tunnel entrance. As he picked himself up, chunks of fuselage and fragments of unidentifiable metal rained down on the surrounding area.

Jockey powered towards him, distress vibrating from every fibre of his taut Glaswegian frame. ‘Gav!’