Red Notice

4

Tom ‘Posh Lad’ Buckingham adjusted his earpiece and stepped out from behind the tree he’d been using as cover. He saw the blonde’s face register surprise as he began walking across the garden towards her. He reckoned she was in her early thirties, roughly his age, though the clothes he was wearing — tweed jacket, Viyella shirt and cavalry-twill trousers — made him look much older.

He’d chosen the sort of outfit some upper-crust Englishmen wear when they’re trying — unsuccessfully — for a casual look, topped off on this occasion with an expensive leather satchel slung over the shoulder. Gavin had given it the serious thumbs-up as Tom had changed for the op that morning. ‘To the manor born, mate. You look like Prince Charles getting ready to head down to Highgrove for a chat with his plants.’

‘It’s just a matter of having the right gear for the occasion, Gav, you know that. Like when you slip into the velvet hot pants, nipple clamps and Spandex thong combo for a big night out.’

As he approached the blonde now, he brushed an imaginary speck of fluff from the sleeve of his tweed jacket and called, ‘Hello there!’ in his best Etonian drawl. He gave her a disarming smile. ‘You have such a lovely garden.’

The blonde smiled back. ‘Thank you, but—’

‘Did you design this yourself?’ He half turned away from her to admire one of the flowerbeds.

She gave a hesitant nod.

‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘And aren’t these daffodils magnificent?’ He gestured towards the display of red roses tumbling over the pergola beside her, still flowering in early autumn. ‘Absolutely stunning.’ He pulled out his iPhone and took a picture of them.

‘Excuse… please…’ The blonde looked nervous now. Her Eastern European accent was evident, and her hand pressed more tightly against her bump, as if shielding her unborn child from this stranger.

He continued talking, blithely failing to register her unease: ‘I’m a volunteer for the Garden History Society. We list one new garden every year in our official register… and I’d say yours would be a really strong candidate. Would you mind if I put it forward for selection?’

‘Is just hobby. Not for public…’ She searched for the right word. ‘Not for other people…’

Without a pause, he began speaking in Russian. ‘Would it be easier if we spoke in your mother tongue? I wrote my thesis on the Aptekarsky Ogorod Botanical Garden in Moscow. Have you ever been there?’

‘No.’ She showed real concern now, her eyes darting from side to side, scanning the garden behind him.

‘Where are you from?’ he said, once more affecting not to notice her discomfort.

She gestured towards her bump. ‘I’m sorry, you must… Excuse, please, I… I very tired. Perhaps one other day…’

He treated her to an even more disarming smile. ‘How wonderful! Many congratulations! You know what? My wife’s just given birth to our first — a little girl. Small world, eh? How many months pregnant are you?’

‘Seven…’

‘A boy or a girl?’

She hesitated. ‘I… I do not know. They can’t tell yet.’

The smile still lighting up his face, Tom shot out a hand, seized her wrist and twisted it back viciously, forcing her to the ground. She cursed and struggled as he whipped an autojet syringe from his satchel with his free hand and plunged the needle deep into her thigh. Screened from the house by the pergola, he kept his grip on her wrist as the sedative took effect.

‘You fucked up, I’m afraid.’ His tone was still calm and matter-of-fact. ‘They can tell the sex of a baby at three months. Oh, and daffodils are spring flowers, and yellow, not red.’

She slumped, unconscious. He zip-tied her hands, then pulled up her maternity dress, exposing her stomach. The pregnancy bump was an ‘empathy bulge’ that a certain sort of man might wear in a pathetic attempt to share his wife’s experience of pregnancy. Except that this one wasn’t warm and fuzzy. A light green substance the consistency of Play-Doh was jammed into the pouch.

Tom could smell the distinctive linseed aroma of the eastern-manufactured, low-quality plastic explosive. The precise make didn’t matter to him. He was more concerned about the thin steel detonator wires coming out of the PE and twisted around a red and blue two-flex. They disappeared into her clothing, en route to a battery pack. All she had to do was complete the circuit by pressing a button in her coat pocket. The killing area would extend about twenty metres. And Tom was smack in the middle of it.

Swiftly but carefully, he pulled the aluminium tube from the explosive and separated it from the two-flex, then twisted the two steel wires together to prevent an accidental detonation. Radio transmissions could arc across the two wires and complete the circuit. He pushed the tube down into the soft soil of the rose bed. He rolled the blonde on to her front, turning her head to keep her airway open.

Still crouching beside the pergola, he spoke into his lapel. ‘That’s the female contained.’

Gavin’s response was instantaneous. ‘And the baby?’

‘No baby. Just a belly-rig full of PE. Looks like the gas is back on.’

As Gavin called it to the others — ‘All stations, this is Alpha, the gas is back on. Out’ — Tom took a respirator from his satchel, fitted it to his face, then pulled out a fat-barrelled ARWEN 37 launcher. ‘Alpha. Come on.’ His words echoed across the net. ‘We’re compromised. We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go now.’

From a distance, the ARWEN's bulbous 37mm barrel and revolving five-round cylinder had the look of a kid’s Super Soaker — but delivered a whole lot more than a water jet. Its kinetic energy baton rounds were powerful enough to drop a small horse. Its ‘value’ impact rounds could not only drop the horse but envelop it in its own gas cloud. And its pure gas rounds — CN (chloroacetophenone) was the irritant of choice — could fuck up anyone’s day. Finally, if required, the weapon could fire pure smoke to cover the movement of assault teams.

Tom had pre-loaded five Barricade Penetrating Irritant Rounds intended for use against car windscreens, interior doors and plywood up to 13mm thick.

A disc of CN within the round ruptured as it penetrated the barricade, whereupon its combination of rapid deceleration and rotational spin dispersed a cloud of fine powder inside the target area. The spec described it as ‘non-lethal’ or — as Tom preferred — ‘compliance’. There was no CN ‘gas’ being used on this job, but everyone found it easier to call it that.