Echo of the Reich

52

27 July 2012

Weeks shook his head.

“I thought all the media coverage was being handled from inside the Media Center, or whatever it’s called,” he said, “not from outside-broadcast lorries.”

“As far as I know it is,” Bronson replied, already heading down the road. “But the building just provides the transmission facilities-studios and so on. All the broadcasters-and I’m sure I read somewhere that they were expecting about twenty thousand people all together-would have brought their own equipment, cameras, microphones, recording gear and so on. That’s what would be in the lorries.”

“And Marcus and his merry men would have wanted to delay their vehicle’s arrival until the last minute, just in case anybody spotted anything odd about it?”

“That’s about the size of it. That’ll be why it was programmed to arrive today. Even if it had been scheduled for an earlier arrival time, I’m sure they would have faked a breakdown or something on the journey to delay its arrival. So if I’m right at least we know what we’re looking for.”

The International Broadcast Center, a huge multi-story building three hundred yards long and over one hundred yards wide, was positioned in the Main Media Complex in the northwest corner of the Olympic Park. It had been designed from the outset to be a state-of-the-art media center, able to cope with the transmission requirements of journalists of every nation, beaming reports to a worldwide audience of up to four billion people.

Just like the rest of the Olympic Park, access to the building was strictly controlled, but that wasn’t a problem because they didn’t need to get inside it. The one thing Bronson was certain about was that Marcus wouldn’t have risked trying to get the Bell inside that, or indeed any other, building, because there was simply no point. Leaving it in the truck was the ideal solution, as long as the device had adequate power supplies, and that could presumably be supplied by a plug-in mains feed, maybe supplemented by onboard generators.

“Where is it?” Weeks asked, striding along beside him. “Where do we have to go?”

Bronson pointed down the street.

“We carry on down here and then take that road over there. That should take us in the right direction.”

He glanced at his watch. It was already nearly seven in the evening. The start of the opening ceremony was imminent, and the German terrorist group would be triggering the weapon at any minute. They could clearly hear the sound made by the thousands of spectators in the main stadium, a dominating and undulating buzz, like the noise of a colossal beehive. The stands there would be full of people, including the Prime Minister and most of the country’s senior politicians, the upper echelons of the military, leading businessmen and a host of other dignitaries from Britain and around the world. For almost the first time, Bronson fully appreciated the magnitude of the catastrophe facing the country if the device was triggered.

The death or incapacity of the people in the stadium would not simply be a humanitarian tragedy of epic proportions; it would cripple the country for decades to come. The government would fall, businesses would collapse, and the country could even be bankrupted by the financial cost of repairing the damage and the compensation that would have to be paid. The deaths of so many foreign dignitaries would produce international condemnation. Britain would become a pariah on the world’s stage, reviled by every nation for having permitted such an event to occur. The glory of the Olympics would in an instant be transformed into the greatest catastrophe of modern times.

And it wasn’t just the rich and powerful who would suffer, Bronson knew. Countless thousands of ordinary people, from most of the nations of the world, would also perish. All around them, the streets were choked with people on their way to the stadium or perhaps just attracted by the sense of excitement that pervaded the area. Bronson looked at the sea of faces, at their eager expressions of hope and expectation, and knew that in minutes-if he and Weeks didn’t manage to do something about it-most of them could be dead or dying.

“Down here,” he said, and led the way down another street, pushing through the crowds that clogged the pavement.

Simply getting through the press of people was difficult enough, because they were moving against the flow, away from the stadium, and the two men had to rely on their bulk to shift people out of the way. But within minutes it was clear that they weren’t going to make it in time. They had to do something else.

“Here,” Bronson instructed, and turned off the pavement into a gap between two buildings.

“What?”

Bronson didn’t reply, just opened the bag he was carrying and pulled out two black nylon vests with the word “police” printed on them, front and back. He had also brought along his utility belt, which he buckled around his waist. Both men put on black baseball caps, again bearing the word “police,” on their heads. The final touch was the sunglasses, which rendered their eyes completely invisible.

Weeks checked his MP5, then slung the weapon across his chest and stood waiting as Bronson looked him up and down. His own Walther was in a belt holster.

“It should be a ballistic vest, obviously,” Bronson said, “and you should have a utility belt, but otherwise it looks quite convincing. I think the British public’s got used to the sight of Heckler amp; Koch submachine guns on the streets, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Now let’s get going.”

Faced with the sight of two grim-faced and heavily armed police officers, who were clearly in a hurry, the crowds parted easily in front of them, and Weeks and Bronson were able to run along the pavements almost unobstructed. A couple of times they were forced to detour down less crowded streets simply because of the mass of people virtually blocking the more direct route.

“That’s it, right ahead,” Bronson panted, as a huge building came into view.

He and Weeks slowed down to a jog as they approached the structure, both men looking for the first sign of the trucks that Angela had seen on her television screen. “Over there,” Weeks said, pointing.

To one side of the building was a large open area where rows of broadcast trucks had been parked, presumably after whatever equipment needed had been removed from them. Bronson and Weeks strode across to the high wire fence that enclosed the parking lot and walked steadily along beside it, looking carefully at the parked vehicles.

Around them, crowds of people ebbed and flowed, and above everything else the noise of the thousands of spectators talking and laughing and arguing provided a constant soundtrack.

“Remember we’re looking for an Israeli TV truck,” Bronson said, peering through the fence.

“There are still a hell of a lot of them here.”

“I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”

There were dozens of trucks parked in rows, many with unfamiliar registration plates and bearing logos for TV stations neither man recognized. Large satellite dishes were mounted on the roofs of the majority of the trucks, but most were folded down because the crews would be using the on-site facilities to relay the events being filmed in the stadium direct to the studios in the country where their TV stations were based.

Bronson and Weeks walked down the side of the fence, looking closely at every single truck as they passed it, alert to anything unusual or suspicious but, as far as they could tell, all the vehicles seemed to be legitimate. Several had their doors open as technicians and other staff bustled purposefully about, getting a few last items of equipment as the media circus prepared for the imminent opening ceremony.

“This is hopeless,” Weeks muttered, as they strode past yet another group of lorries. “There are just too many of them.”

Bronson shook his head.

“I don’t believe that Marcus is planning a suicide trip, for himself or for any of his men, so what we’re looking for, I guess, is a lorry that looks more or less the same as the others, but is probably locked and with nobody working anywhere near it.”

“Okay,” Weeks conceded. “I suppose that does narrow the field slightly.”

Bronson shook his head again. “We’re not going to achieve anything wandering about out here,” he said. “We have to get inside this compound right now, find the truck and work out how to stop the device from being triggered.”

He pointed at a set of gates wide enough for a truck to pass through easily, gates that were of course closed, and beside which was a smaller pedestrian gate set into the boundary fence, with a booth containing the security checkpoint beside it.

“Just follow behind me,” Bronson said, “because I’ve got a warrant card, and that should be enough to get us inside.”

Half the skill of being an impostor is attitude. People judge others by their bearing, by the way they walk or the way they talk, and Bronson and Weeks knew this as well as anyone. So as they approached the entrance to the compound where the trucks were parked, both men adopted a slight swagger, trying to exude confidence. They weren’t the only armed police in the area. Several pairs of officers were patrolling different parts of the Olympic Park, and that should also help them reach their objective.

The civilian staff member manning the entrance in a glass-fronted booth looked up as they approached.

Bronson stepped forward and held up his warrant card, Weeks right behind him, and strode up to the barrier.

“Let us through,” he instructed.

“What’s the problem, officer?”

“I didn’t say there was a problem,” Bronson replied.

“But we already have a police patrol covering this area. An unarmed patrol,” he added.

“And now you’ve got an armed patrol as well, okay? Nobody told you to expect us?”

“No.”

“So after you’ve let us through, you’d better check with whoever your supervisor is and find out who needs a swift kick in the nuts.”

The civilian gave a resigned nod and gestured for them to enter.

The two men strode on without a backward glance, crossed over to the parking area and then started working their way down between the lines of trucks.

“There’s something else that might help us,” Bronson said. “As far as I can see, none of these trucks are connected to external power, because the crews are using the built-in facilities in the media center. Before the Bell can be activated, it’ll need some form of power supply, so if you see a lorry that’s got a generator running, that could be it.”

And almost immediately, they found one. And the truck seemed to fit the bill in other respects as well. It had a Star of David painted on the side, was somewhat battered around the edges, and had the name of a television station that neither Bronson nor Weeks had ever heard of handwritten on the side panels. And from inside there was a distinct noise of some kind of a motor running.

“God, I hope this is it,” Bronson said. “Cover me, will you?”

Weeks stepped back a few paces and leveled his MP5 to cover the side of the truck over to Bronson’s right.

“Ready.”

Bronson nodded, readied his own weapon, then stepped forward and rapped smartly on the double side doors of the vehicle.

To his surprise, one of them opened almost immediately, and a man wearing blue jeans and a white shirt peered out.

“Hello?” he asked.

As soon as the man spoke, and Bronson could see into the truck behind him, he knew that it wasn’t the vehicle they were looking for. It was very obviously full of recording and other equipment, and he could now identify the noise he’d heard as a heavy duty air-conditioning unit, maybe with worn-out bearings.

Bronson looked at the man for a few seconds, then turned away, gesturing for Weeks to follow him.

“Wrong one,” he muttered.

He walked back to the end of the parked truck and turned right to continue the search.