Red Notice

75

The last of the black Range Rovers screeched to a halt in the hangar and rocked on its springs as Jockey and Bryce, dwarfed by the hulking figure of Vatu, unloaded their kit. The other members of Blue team were already bombed-up. They checked the whiteboards to see what extra kit they were going to need.

Ashton strode over to Gavin’s table. The 3 i/c was at yet another whiteboard, filling in details of which call-sign would do what on-target. It was pretty basic stuff, so he kept writing while he briefed the boss on the ER — which didn’t take long because he still had very little to go on. All they could do was smash, bang, and try to control whatever they came up against.

Ashton glanced across at Woolf. ‘Looks like he did another fantastic job for us, then.’

Gavin shrugged. ‘Boss, to be fair to him, he was on a loser from the word go.’

Ashton looked sceptical. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’

‘Antonov has no real appetite for negotiation — or not yet, at any rate. He was obviously planning to drop another hostage right from the start. And with the shit that’s been going on down there, we might already have a lot more dead Yankees than we think.’

‘What about Buckingham? He made an appearance yet?’

Gavin shook his head. He felt-tipped another time on the whiteboard, then started writing up his orders. He’d have to keep a paper record, too. It was a legal requirement — to be kept in the operational folder along with the recorded radio traffic collated by the signallers and archived in the Hereford registry. If charged after the event by some Islington lawyer who wanted to make a name for himself, it was good to have this stuff up your sleeve to prove your innocence — but a nightmare if it showed otherwise.

Ashton leaned closer, though clearly irritated by the squeak of the pen and the chemical waft of the ink fumes. ‘You have contact with him? Any comms down there yet?’

Gavin shook his head again.

‘What about portable cell sites?’

‘We’ve tried, but still no luck. We need to move them closer, but can’t until we have some cover. I’m sending the snipers down as soon as they’re ready to CTR [close target recce] because I’ve got jack shit on the target. The sigs guys can follow behind with re-broadcasters.’

The team needed comms back to the hangar and COBRA. The re-broadcasters were suitcase-sized boxes of tricks with receivers and transmitters that picked up the team’s comms, bounced them back to the real world and, of course, brought their own secure comms into the tunnel. They also had a multi-band and network cellular capability.

‘All good. I agree. Antonov always planned to kill the Yankees. We have to assume he’s killed the French first responders too. We won’t know for sure until we’re down there — but the French have told us there’s not a squeak from them. They’re certainly not sending anyone else in until we’ve done our stuff. We know he won’t surrender. He’ll fight until he’s dead — which means more of our people getting malleted in the process.’

His expression became steelier.

‘I tell you what, Gavin, I don’t give a shit if he appears before the ICC. What I care about is keeping the team alive. I’m ordering you to make sure they’re absolutely clear in their heads that there must be no attempt to arrest this bastard. Kill him and keep safe.’ He paused, making sure they had eye-to-eye. He didn’t want any misunderstanding. ‘We must keep our people alive.’

Gavin didn’t need the point to be hammered home. ‘Boss, not a problem. I’ll brief the lads before they go on the ground. But where has this come from — you? I need to know I’m not going to be nailed to the wall if it gets out.’

‘You’ll have my backing every inch of the way.’ Ashton slowly straightened. ‘But we need control first.’

Woolf pulled off his headphones. ‘You have it. You have it from now. COBRA wants you to initiate the ER as soon as you can.’ He put aside his doodles, selected a fresh page in his A4 pad and started writing.

Gavin wasn’t impressed. ‘We need more time. There’s no CTR yet, no comms, no Red team. I need more guys on the ground.’

He could tell Woolf knew he was right, even though the MI5 man’s expression said, ‘You don’t always get what you want.’

‘It’s all yours.’ Woolf handed the sheet of A4 to Ashton. ‘Good luck.’

Ashton held it up for Gavin’s benefit: I hand over control pursuant to the provisions of the Military Aid to the Civil Power Act.J. Woolf

While Gavin drafted his ER, Ashton got busy with the team. ‘OK, Blue team, listen in! We have control. I say again, we have control. Let’s get moving!’

At almost the same moment, one of the Slime looked up from his monitor. ‘Look at the tunnel,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got runners!’

Gavin grabbed his binoculars and ran to the hangar entrance just as two children emerged from the mouth of the service tunnel. The police ran forward and pulled them to safety, out of line-of-sight of any possible pursuit. They wrapped them in blankets and tried to hustle them away but Gavin could see that the taller of the two, a little girl, kept shaking her head. She pulled away from them, seemed to be repeating something to them, over and over again.

One of the Slime called. ‘Gavin, they’re holding a couple of kids. The girl keeps saying she’s got something for you and she won’t speak to anyone else.’

‘Get them up here, then.’

Less than a minute later a policeman ushered the two children into the hangar. The little boy, tear-tracks streaking the dirt on his face, clung tightly to his sister’s hand and kept his head down, staring at the floor in front of his feet. The girl looked uncertainly from one face to another.

‘Hello, I’m Gavin.’ He smiled, thinking for a moment of his own kids. ‘What’s your name?’

‘What sort of Gavin are you?’ She stared at him warily. ‘He told me only to speak to Gavin Marks, no one else.’

Gavin squatted in front of them. ‘That’s me. I’m Gavin. Who was it who told you?’ His voice was gentle, his eyes kind.

‘The man in the tunnel.’ The girl pointed back towards its entrance as if no one here had the first idea what she was on about.

He gave an encouraging smile as the boy finally raised his head. ‘We were on a train to Disneyland.’

The girl still hesitated, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, then, reassured by Gavin’s smile, she took a slim, bright pink sleeve from her pocket. ‘My name’s Rose. My brother’s called Daniel. He told me to give you this.’

‘Thank you, Rose. You two have been really, really brave.’

Gavin took the iPod and was about to switch it on when he realized that neither of the kids had moved. Just as he looked up again, the little boy launched himself at the 3i/c, threw his arms around Gavin’s neck and burst into tears.

Rose stayed where she was. ‘They killed our mummy with a gun.’ Finally, the tears started to pour down her cheeks as well.

Gavin caught the look of pain in Ashton’s eye, and the look of helpless embarrassment in Woolf’s. He gave Daniel a hug, and opened his other arm to Rose. The story spilled out, each sentence punctuated by racking sobs.

After a couple of minutes he gently disengaged himself, explained that he had to upload the iPod, so he could try to help his friend Tom stop the bad men hurting any other mummies. He watched as the kids were led back out of the hangar towards a waiting ambulance. Poor little mites. Their lives had been completely devastated within a couple of hours. They had no mother, their father no wife, and years of coming to terms not only with their loss but also the nightmares and flashbacks of her being killed in front of their eyes.

The iPod screen filled with the first of the photographs. Gavin flicked through to the end of the album, then triggered the voice memo.

As he listened to Tom shouting above the gunfire, he broke into a grin for the first time that day. ‘Tom Buckingham…’ He gave a low whistle. ‘You are one magnificent fucking bastard.’