Next In Line

Chapter 32

Two rigid inflatable boats drifted into the bay. They were only doing two knots, so their engines wouldn’t be heard on a still, windless night as they headed towards the stationary yacht silhouetted in the moonlight. Nasreen Hassan, sitting in the bow of the lead boat, raised her binoculars and focused on the only light coming from Lowlander.

A man sitting on the bridge of the yacht was playing a game of chess against himself to while away the long hours on anchor watch. So powerful were her binoculars that she could see him make his next move: queen to knight four.

Her next move had been planned some weeks ago. Once they knew the dates the target would be going on holiday with her boyfriend, they had begun preparations for their unheralded arrival.

They already knew the yacht Chalabi had hired was anchored in Palma, Mallorca. A small bribe to the assistant harbourmaster was all it took to find out when it would be leaving port. They were even in possession of an architect’s plan of the yacht. They had spent the past two days secreted in a small inlet further up the coast, putting the finishing touches to their plans.

Hassan checked her watch — 03.17 — confident that the only person on board still awake would be the young man on the bridge. Rook to bishop’s four. He removed a knight from the board.

She looked back to check on the tiny flotilla and her nine-man team, each one chosen for their particular area of expertise. Sitting around her in the lead boat were five hired killers, none of whom was on his first mission. They all wore black from head to foot, and their faces were smeared with burnt cork so they wouldn’t be spotted in the moonlight. Each one of them could go thirty-six hours without sleep — not that this part of the operation should take them more than a few minutes. It was disappearing without trace that would take time — and time, or the lack of it, was their only enemy.

Slung loosely over Hassan’s shoulder was a Dragunov sniper rifle that she kept at her side even in bed. She had made her name killing a British soldier in Libya with a single bullet, from six hundred yards away. The other five carried Kalashnikovs, purchased on the open market. One of them had his cocked, the first round in the chamber. He only expected to fire one bullet.

The second boat was piloted by a ‘for hire’ captain with twenty years’ experience of serving various cartels as a drug runner, and his number two, who’d spent more time in jail than on the high seas. Behind them sat the engineer, whose pale, lined complexion suggested years of heaving and sweating deep in the bowels of ships. The final member of the team was a doctor who’d been struck off, although for what Hassan had in mind, they would have been better off with an undertaker.

Every pair of eyes on the two inflatables was fixed on the yacht. The man who’d been chosen to eliminate the chess player would be the first on board, while Hassan and the other four men from the lead boat went below to where the Princess and Chalabi’s other guests would be dreaming; dreams that were about to turn into a nightmare.

Hassan felt her mouth go dry, as it always did before an attack. Their beloved leader had selected her to lead this audacious coup, promising her that if she succeeded, not only would the British be humiliated in the eyes of the world, but her name would become part of the nation’s folklore and inspire many other young women to join their cause. The irony was that she’d been born in Wakefield and recruited while she was at university. Like many converts, Hassan had become more passionate about and dedicated to the cause than any of the hired mercenaries seated around her, who were interested only in how much they would be paid.

When they were within a couple of hundred yards of the target, they slowed down to make sure the low murmur of their engines didn’t alert the chess player on the bridge. Hassan smiled at the thought that one of the attractions of this particular vessel, as the charter agent had helpfully pointed out, was that even a child returning from a swim could clamber aboard without needing assistance.

With a hundred yards to go, they cut the engines altogether and allowed the two inflatables to drift up to the stern of the yacht, so that nine gatecrashers could join the party.

When the lead dinghy touched the edge of the landing deck, the chosen assassin was the first on board. He moved swiftly across the lower deck and up the short flight of steps to the bridge. The chess player looked up after playing his last move and a single bullet entered his forehead. Before he could make a sound, he collapsed onto the ground in a heap beside the wheel. Without a word passing between them, the new captain and his first mate took over.

Hassan was half-way down the spiral staircase that led to the guest quarters when Ross was woken by the shot. He was immediately alert, although for a moment he couldn’t be sure if it had just been part of his dream. He leapt out of bed, rushed across to the cabin door, and opened it, to be met by the barrel of a Kalashnikov rifle aimed between his eyes.

As two of the gunmen dragged Ross out into the corridor, he instinctively looked in the direction of the Princess’s cabin. The door opened, and out stepped Jamil Chalabi wearing a khaki uniform and carrying a gun. He leant forward and kissed Hassan on both cheeks before saying, ‘You couldn’t have done a more professional job, my sister. The cause will be forever in your debt.’

‘Can I kill him?’ she asked, looking at Ross.

‘No,’ said Chalabi firmly. ‘I have other plans for him.’ Hassan looked disappointed. ‘For now, we stick to our original plan. Start by searching all the cabins. Look for weapons of any kind — guns, knives and, equally important, phones. After that, lock them all up. Put those two in the same cabin,’ he said, nodding towards Ross and Victoria. ‘I’m going to need my own room and I have a feeling the Princess won’t be welcoming me back into her arms.’

‘What should we do with these four?’ Hassan asked, waving her weapon at the captain, the engineer, the steward and the chef, who’d been dragged out of their beds.

‘You can kill them,’ said Chalabi as if it were a compensation. ‘That way we won’t be outnumbered, and it will also make the Inspector think twice should he have any ideas about playing the hero.’

One of the thugs thrust a knee into Ross’s groin, who bent double before toppling backwards into Victoria’s cabin. The door slammed and he heard a key turn in the lock. Moments later, four shots rang out. Victoria instinctively clung onto Ross. She was trembling, but when she spoke, her voice was defiant.

‘I never trusted that man. Given half a chance, I’ll happily kill him.’ Ross hadn’t thought it possible he could still be surprised.

Chalabi left two of his men on guard in the corridor while he went back up on deck, where he found blood splattered everywhere. His favourite colour.

He was about to give the order to raise the anchor when he saw a flash coming from the beach. He grabbed a set of binoculars, and in the moonlight could just make out a lone figure holding a long-lens camera resting on a tripod.

‘Damn, I’d forgotten about him,’ said Chalabi. ‘But as he no longer serves any purpose...’ He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Hassan, who was standing by his side, raised her rifle, rested it on the ship’s railing and lined up her target through the nightscope. He was four hundred and fifty-eight yards away. She nestled the butt of the rifle firmly into her shoulder, and took a deep breath before gently squeezing the trigger. She was prepared to fire a second shot if there was any further sign of movement on the beach. There wasn’t.

‘Let’s get going,’ Chalabi shouted up to the bridge. He knew the Lowlander could only manage twenty knots flat out, so there wasn’t a moment to waste if they were going to make it to the safety of their homeland, where the world would learn about the daring coup, and be left with no choice but to agree to their demands.

The phone was ringing on William’s side of the bed. He grabbed it in the hope it wouldn’t wake Beth. She groaned and turned over.

‘Good morning, Warwick,’ said a voice he thought he’d heard the last of.

‘Good morning, Assistant Commissioner,’ he replied, hoping he sounded wide awake.

‘The body of a paparazzi photographer has been found by a local fisherman on an isolated beach off the coast of Mallorca.’

William’s mind raced, as he tried to work out why this could possibly be of any importance to him, at five o’clock in the morning.

‘The local police,’ continued Holbrooke, ‘found a camera by his side and have sent us the images he’d taken. That’s all you need to know for now, except that a COBRA meeting will be taking place in Whitehall in an hour’s time, and your presence is required.’

Why me, William wondered.

‘We think it’s possible Mansour Khalifah may be involved,’ came back the answer to his unspoken question.

Involved in what, William would have asked, if he hadn’t been cut off. He leapt out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

‘Who was that?’ asked a half-awake Beth, but he’d already closed the door.

Everyone stood as Mrs Thatcher entered the Cabinet Office Briefing Room just a corridor away from Number 10, with none of the usual prying eyes wondering why such a powerful group had been assembled at six o’clock in the morning.

She took her place at the centre of the long table and looked around at a score of the nation’s top decision-makers, who’d all emerged from their warm beds at a moment’s notice. Behind them sat a plethora of civil servants, who would ensure their masters’ orders were carried out when they returned to their Whitehall warrens once the meeting was over.

‘Assistant Commissioner,’ the Prime Minister began, looking across to the other side of the table, ‘perhaps you can bring us all up to date.’

‘The situation is frankly fluid, Prime Minister,’ replied Holbrooke, ‘while our intelligence agencies are continuing to gather the latest information, as I speak. All we know for certain is that an armed group of terrorists, possibly funded by Colonel Gaddafi, boarded and captured a yacht off the coast of Mallorca, on which the Princess of Wales is a guest. Its current whereabouts are unknown.’

‘I thought she and the Prince of Wales were on holiday at Highgrove,’ commented the Prime Minister as she looked at a map that had been placed on the centre of the table.

‘As does the rest of the outside world,’ said Holbrooke, ‘and I’d like to keep it that way.’ He touched a button on his console, and a photograph of Lowlander, with two inflatable dinghies floating from its stern, filled a large screen that dominated the wall at the far end of the room.

‘How did you get hold of that?’ asked the Cabinet Secretary, who was seated on the PM’s left.

‘A paparazzi photographer was on the beach at the time the raid took place, and the Spanish police were able to retrieve his camera.’

‘That was a lucky break,’ suggested the Cabinet Secretary.

‘Not for him,’ said Holbrooke. ‘He ended up with a bullet through his forehead.’

‘What was he doing there at that time of night?’ asked the Prime Minister.

‘He would have been working for one of the tabloids and must have been aware the Princess was on board the yacht. Luckily for us,’ continued Holbrooke, ‘he’d already taken several photographs before he was murdered. His body was found by a local fisherman. The Spanish police also dug up a.54mm bullet which was embedded in the sand near his camera. The type favoured by trained assassins.’

Several voices began speaking at once, until the Prime Minister waved a dismissive hand and nodded at Holbrooke.

‘We had no way of knowing who killed the photographer,’ continued Holbrooke, ‘until we received the pictures he’d taken last night.’

The image of the yacht on the screen was replaced by a young white woman’s face.

‘Who’s she?’ asked the Prime Minister.

‘Ruth Cairns,’ said the head of MI6. ‘She was born in Wakefield, and studied politics at Manchester University. But she dropped out, and disappeared for almost a decade, until recently, when she came to our attention following a signals intercept. She now goes by the name of Nasreen Hassan, and has become one of Gaddafi’s most trusted lieutenants.’ A short video showing a woman beheading an American serviceman in front of a cheering mob left them all in no doubt what they were up against.

‘Cairns appears to be in charge of the operation,’ said Holbrooke.

‘How many terrorists were involved in the attack?’ asked the Foreign Secretary, speaking for the first time.

‘There were only a couple of RIBs involved, so there can’t have been more than a dozen at most,’ replied Holbrooke. ‘We think we’ve identified five of them who have records with our intelligence agencies.’

A succession of mugshots appeared on the screen, as Holbrooke briefed the COBRA meeting on who the suspects were, and the roles they were likely to have played in the operation. The next photograph to appear on screen was of two men dressed in black, standing on the bridge of the yacht. ‘We think this has to be their captain and his number two, because they bear no resemblance to the five officers who sailed the yacht out of Mallorca on Friday evening.’

‘Should we assume that the crew of the yacht are all dead?’ asked the Prime Minister.

‘Probably. Hassan doesn’t believe in taking prisoners, especially when an unmarked grave is so conveniently on hand. But I’m confident the Princess is still alive, otherwise they’ve lost their bargaining power.’

‘Bargaining suggests money or an exchange for something else,’ suggested the Prime Minister. ‘In your view, Assistant Commissioner, which is it?’

‘Not something else, ma’am, someone else. Hassan wouldn’t be interested in money,’ Holbrooke assured them, ‘otherwise it would have been Jamil Chalabi, the Princess’s latest... companion, they were after, and not the Princess.’

‘What makes you so sure of that?’ asked the Cabinet Secretary.

‘Chalabi is the son of a wealthy businessman from Dubai,’ came in Commander Hawksby. ‘He’s a regular in the gossip columns, usually described as a multi-millionaire playboy or serial party-goer. According to Inspector Ross Hogan, the Princess’s personal protection officer, he’s not shy about letting anyone, including the press, know about his relationship with her.’

‘If you don’t think it’s money they’re after in exchange for the Princess,’ asked the Cabinet Secretary, ‘what else could it possibly be?’

‘We’re currently holding Gaddafi’s right-hand man, Mansour Khalifah, in Belmarsh prison,’ said Hawksby. ‘So I don’t think we need to look much further than Thamesmead.’

‘You will recall, Prime Minister,’ chipped in the Attorney General, ‘that I sanctioned Khalifah’s arrest a few months ago when he landed at Heathrow on the way to Moscow.’

‘We’re in no doubt,’ added the Home Secretary, ‘that Khalifah was behind the Lockerbie bombing, and more recently the failed attempt to blow up the Albert Hall during the Last Night of the Proms. Don’t be surprised if Gaddafi has put him in charge of any negotiations.’

‘We don’t negotiate with terrorists,’ said the Prime Minister, as if addressing a public meeting. But on this occasion, no one around the table believed her.

Several people began talking at once, but were silenced when the Prime Minister turned her attention to the Chief of the Defence Staff. ‘So, what do you recommend we do next, Admiral?’

‘I’ve got a Nimrod flying above the immediate area, with a second one on its way. Lowlander can’t have covered more than a hundred miles since it was taken over, so I’m confident it shouldn’t be too long before we locate it.’

‘Where do you think they’re heading?’ asked the Cabinet Secretary, looking back down at the map.

‘They won’t want to hang about in Spanish waters,’ said the First Sea Lord. ‘My bet is they’re heading for Tripoli,’ a finger moving across the map, ‘in the hope that they can reach Libyan territorial waters before we are given the chance to mount a full scale retaliation.’

‘How much time do we have?’ asked the Cabinet Secretary.

‘If they maintain a speed of around eighteen knots, it will take them about forty-eight hours to reach the safety of their own territorial waters.’

‘If they make it,’ said the Foreign Secretary, who was seated opposite the Prime Minister, ‘we have no more sanctions to threaten Libya with, so we’re not exactly in a strong bargaining position.’

‘A very weak one,’ said the Prime Minister, folding her arms. ‘So, what can we hope to achieve during the next forty-eight hours to make sure that doesn’t arise?’

‘I’ve got a crack SBS squadron trained in Maritime Counter Terrorism who are currently carrying out exercises on the Clyde near Faslane,’ chipped in the Director of Special Forces. ‘I’ve already issued an order that they should return to their base in Dorset soonest, where I’ll be joining them later today.’

‘Are any of our ships currently in the area?’ asked the Cabinet Secretary, who leant across the table and dipped a finger in the middle of the Mediterranean.

‘The aircraft carrier HMS Cornwall was anchored off the coast of Malta,’ said the First Sea Lord, ‘but is already heading towards the area at speed. They should catch up with them in about eighteen hours. We also have a submarine undertaking minor repairs in Gibraltar, which will be ready to get under way later this morning and should join up with the Cornwall some time tomorrow afternoon.’

‘I presume,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘you’ve chosen a crack commander to head up this operation?’

‘Yes,’ said the First Sea Lord. ‘He’s the best. Because for something this big we certainly don’t need a fimfop.’

‘A fimfop?’ queried the Cabinet Secretary.

‘Fun In the Mess, Fool Operationally. I can assure you that Captain Davenport is not a man Khalifah will want to meet.’

‘Under what conditions is Khalifah being held at this moment?’ asked the Prime Minister, looking around the table, not sure who would be able to answer her question.

‘He’s currently locked up in the solitary confinement wing of Belmarsh prison,’ said William. ‘He has no way of contacting anyone on the outside, but I think we can assume he’s well aware of what’s going on.’

Everyone around the table turned and looked at William.

‘Throwing away the key would seem an appropriate response given the circumstances,’ said the Home Secretary.

‘I only wish it was that easy,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘But for now, I suggest we all get to work and try to look as if it’s business as usual. I don’t have to remind you that it’s imperative the press don’t get hold of the story.’

‘And if they do?’ asked the PM’s Press Secretary.

‘I’ll slap a D-notice on every printing press in Fleet Street,’ said the Attorney General, without hesitation.

‘What if a foreign source finds out the Princess has been kidnapped?’ was the Press Secretary’s second question. ‘You can’t slap anything on them.’

‘If that were to happen, Bernard, prepare a statement for me,’ said the Prime Minister, just as the door burst open and her private secretary came rushing into the room and handed the PM a note. She opened it and read the short message out loud. ‘A Nimrod has located Lowlander, and you’re right, Admiral,’ she said, looking up at the First Sea Lord. ‘They’re heading east-south-east at around seventeen knots.’

‘So it has to be Tripoli,’ said the Foreign Secretary.

‘Which means we’ve got,’ said the Prime Minister, checking her watch, ‘about forty-seven hours before I have no choice but to accept a call from Colonel Gaddafi and negotiate from a very weak position.’ She looked around the table. ‘That’s something I want to avoid,’ she said firmly. ‘Whatever the cost.’