Echo of the Reich

51

27 July 2012

Bronson and Weeks gave up looking just after four that afternoon, having achieved absolutely nothing.

They’d driven around all the Olympic sites in Angela’s hired Ford, and seen all of the security precautions at first hand. Whole streets had been cordoned off by linked steel barriers, effectively turning the various sites into islands within the suburban environment. Police officers, many of them armed, were manning the barricades, their numbers supplemented by vast hordes of civilian staff. Troops were on the streets as well, providing an impressive extra level of security, and Bronson knew that Typhoon fighter jets had been stationed at nearby airfields, Royal Navy ships were moored in the Thames, and surface-to-air missile batteries were positioned and on alert around the city. London was protected by an impressive ring of steel, but he knew that these defenses would be completely and utterly useless if the weapon was already inside the city. And that, he thought, was the appalling reality of the situation.

Pedestrian access was rigidly controlled, and neither he nor Weeks could see any possible way that anybody without the correct ticket was going to get anywhere near the stadium. And certainly no unidentified vehicle carrying a weapon, disguised or not, would have been allowed access to the area.

They’d concentrated on the main stadium, the site of the opening ceremony, which was also where the most restrictive security precautions were in force, for obvious reasons. They’d driven around it twice, following a tortuous route through the side streets, but keeping as close to the stadium as they could. Then they’d parked the car and walked pretty much the same route. But there were no gaps in the security cordon, no places where even an agile man would be able to get through the barriers and into the stadium, and certainly no points where a vehicle could be driven through.

The only other possibility was that the Germans were planning a kind of suicide attack, driving a heavy truck through the barriers and then detonating the device once the vehicle had finally been brought to a stop. But that didn’t seem likely-suicide attacks just weren’t a part of the German national psyche.

But Georg’s words still echoed in Bronson’s memory. The German had been so certain, so sure, that Marcus’s foul plan would reach fruition. And in the circumstances of their confrontation that morning-when Georg had obviously believed that Bronson was going to be dead in seconds-there had been no reason for him to be anything other than truthful.

The streets were already packed, throngs of people streaming toward the venue, the cafes doing a brisk trade, and a tremendous buzz of excitement in the air. Even getting near the stadium was difficult because of the crowds, and it soon became clear that seeing any unusual activity would be virtually impossible. Above them, helicopters buzzed around, some police aircraft, but several emblazoned with the logos of television channels.

“I think we’ve blown it,” Weeks said, as he and Bronson stood on a street corner watching a long line of people queuing to gain entrance to the stadium. “Wherever the device is, either it’s in position already or it’s not going to make it.”

“I’m sure it’s here,” Bronson replied, finality in his voice, as he gestured at the continuous activity in front of them. “Marcus would have known it was going to be like this. He must have anticipated it, and somehow worked out a way to get around it. Or through it.”

Weeks shook his head. “I don’t see how. And you said Georg claimed the device would be arriving today, maybe even while we were here on the streets. That seems a hell of a lot more unlikely. I mean, they weren’t letting anything through, as far as I can remember, apart from what you’d expect-police cars and so on.” He paused. “They couldn’t have got it into a cop car, could they? Or a police van?”

“I doubt it. Even a police Transit might be a bit small to cope with the Bell, unless Marcus and his cronies have devised some way of really miniaturizing it. And even if they did manage to do that, it would probably still need a large power supply unit, so that might mean several generators in the vehicle as well as the device itself. It would have to be a small truck at the very least. There just has to be a loophole, something that we’re missing.”

Weeks looked at him.

“Is there any point in you surrendering yourself to the plods?” he asked. “If you were in custody you could explain what you and Angela discovered in Germany and Poland. That would at least identify the threat and they could blanket the area, looking for the device.”

Bronson shook his head.

“I’d do that in a heartbeat if I thought it would help,” he said, “but I know police procedures. I’d be arrested, charged, and then stuck in the cell somewhere while they decided who was going to interview me. By the time I could get to speak to anyone in authority who had a bit of brain, the Olympic opening ceremony would already have started, and it would be far too late to do anything. In any case,” he added, waving his arm at the police and troops who were in position further down the street, “the area is already stuffed full of armed men who’ve been briefed to watch out for trouble. What good would another five hundred coppers do?”

Weeks nodded, the cold reality of Bronson’s logic making perfect sense.

“Then we really are screwed,” he said. “The best thing we can do is get the hell out of here, before Marcus lights the blue touch paper.”

“I can’t do that. If that Nazi bastard could devise a way of breaching this security, then we have to be able to work out how he’s done it. How could he get a truck through this lot without it being stopped and searched?”

Bronson broke off as his phone rang.

“It’s Angela,” he said, recognizing the number.

“Chris, I’m watching stuff on the TV,” she said. “All the preparations for the opening ceremony. They’re switching between shots from the helicopters and the cameras on the ground, around the stadium and inside it. And I’ve been thinking about what you told me. When that man in the mine said ‘when the eyes of the world are staring at our symbol for the Games’ we got sidetracked by thinking about the Olympic Rings, but what if he accidentally let another clue slip? What if the ‘eyes of the world’ meant a TV camera?

“They’re showing an aerial view now,” Angela went on. “The stadium is enormous, and it’s already full of people, and there are huge crowds outside. I don’t know how you can hope to see anything with that mob blocking the area. There are buildings all around it as well, and I suppose that the weapon could be in any of them. And all the trucks are there, too.”

Bronson stiffened as Angela finished speaking.

“Trucks? What trucks?”

“They’re all lined up outside a massive building near the stadium. Hang on a minute. The cameras on the helicopter are just covering that area now. They’ve all got logos on their sides.”

For a second or two, Bronson just stood there, the mobile phone pressed to his ear as his brain processed what Angela had just said. And in that instant, everything fell into place. It was the only scenario that made sense, the only answer that worked for all the questions.

“Angela, you’re a genius. That has to be it. Call the police. Call Curtis, tell him who you are and tell him there’s a bomb in one of the television outside-broadcast lorries at the Media Center. If he won’t listen, dial triple nine and give them the same message. And I think I might know which van it will be in, too.”

Bronson told her his idea and gave her Curtis’s direct line and mobile numbers, then rang off.

“The TV trucks?” Weeks asked.

“It must be. They’re big enough to hold the device, and because they’re designed to operate out in the field, either they can be plugged in to external power supplies or they carry their own generators.”

“But they can’t just have mocked one up. They must have documentation that authorizes them to be here. Do you mean Marcus and his men faked all that?”

Bronson smiled grimly. “I doubt it,” he said. “More likely he identified a small television company that was sending just one lorry and stopped it on the road somewhere. He’d have pulled out the crew, killed them and dumped their bodies, and then he and his men would have loaded the device into the back of the truck and taken their places. They’d have arrived here in London with the right documentation, and been directed to a prebooked location. That has to be what Georg meant when he said they had a ‘reserved spot.’

“And,” he added, “it also adds another dimension to his remark about them not being blamed for the attack. I didn’t understand it at the time, but he said ‘when it is all over people will see that we were right all along.’ I’d bet anything that the truck we’re looking for will belong to an Israeli television company.”

Bronson glanced at his watch.

“And we’ve got less than half an hour to find it and defuse the Bell and stop the greatest carnage London has ever seen.”