Siege

Sixty-eight

21.39

FROM HIS VANTAGE point at the top of the main staircase, Fox saw Cat race after the fugitive, her face a mask of fury.

He yelled at her to come back but she’d already disappeared from view. Knowing she’d almost certainly get herself killed, he ran down the stairs, taking them three at a time, annoyed with himself for missing the guy when he’d opened up on him with the AK-47.

He raced round the corner, reloading the rifle as he went, catching up with Cat in the main restaurant. She was standing near the bar, gun outstretched, looking round for her quarry. It was clear she’d lost him.

‘We need to get back upstairs quickly,’ he told her, conscious of the fact that all the gunfire would have spooked the hostages in the ballroom.

‘But he’s here somewhere,’ she hissed. ‘He must be. I’m going to find him.’

‘He could have made for the emergency stairs or one of the ground floor rooms.’

‘Why didn’t you hit him when you had the chance?’ she snapped.

‘For the same reason you didn’t,’ he snapped back, pulling off his balaclava and wiping his brow. ‘Because he was too fast. And if he has gone somewhere through that door, you could be walking straight into a trap.’

She turned on him, her dark eyes radiating fury. ‘He murdered my brother. I owe him. But someone like you … a mercenary’ – she spat out the word – ‘wouldn’t understand that, would you?’

‘What I understand is that all this gunfire’s going to bring the SAS down on us fast. We need to defend our positions, which means sticking together, not chasing guests round the hotel, whatever they’ve done. Was he the one who caused the explosion in the kitchen?’

‘No. That was someone else trying to escape.’

‘So what was this guy doing in reception?’

‘He was trying to find some medicine for another guest.’

‘Insulin?’

She frowned. ‘How do you know?’

‘I found some in the room where your brother and Leopard were killed. I took it with me. It means he’ll have to break cover again soon. Come on.’

Fox gestured for Cat to follow him, and reluctantly she did so, but they’d only gone a matter of yards when he heard a burst of automatic gunfire from the mezzanine floor, followed by shouts.

‘Jesus,’ he grunted. ‘This is all we need.’

Knowing it was essential he stay calm, Fox pulled on his balaclava and took off up the stairs at a run, charging into the ballroom and what appeared to be a full-scale rebellion in progress. At least a dozen of the hostages were on their feet shouting, while Bear retreated slowly in front of them. From the way brick dust was floating down from the ceiling it was clear he’d fired into it as a warning, and it hadn’t worked. Far more worrying was the sight of Wolf struggling on the floor with a male hostage in a suit who was trying to wrestle the AK-47 out of his hands, and looking like he was getting the better of him.

As Fox strode across the floor, all the hostages looked at him and the fight went out of most of them. But not all. Bear also turned his way, and the hostage closest to him – a middle-aged member of the kitchen staff – seeing that he was momentarily distracted, went for him.

It was a brave move. But stupid, too. He had a distance of twenty feet to cover and he’d covered less than half of it when Fox put the rifle to his shoulder and put a burst of gunfire into the man’s upper body, sending him sprawling backwards until he fell over one of the seated hostages.

‘Sit down now,’ Fox yelled, ‘or you die!’

Everyone hit the floor, except the man fighting Wolf, who’d now yanked the weapon from Wolf and was in the process of getting to his feet, while Wolf held on to one of his legs like an annoying dog, all the trappings of leadership gone from him now.

The hostage pulled away from his grip, turning the weapon round in his hands.

Behind him, Fox could hear Cat firing at him with her pistol and missing. He and Bear then turned their weapons on him and opened up at the same time.

The hostage’s head snapped back as he was hit, and he dropped the AK, doing a kind of manic dance as the bullets tore him apart. Then, finally, he fell heavily to the floor, and all was silent in the room, except for the sound of the ringing telephone coming from the satellite kitchen next door.

Fox stood in front of the hostages, noticing with interest that nobody had attempted to move the rucksack bomb. ‘Anyone else try anything like that again, and ten of you will die as punishment,’ he shouted above the ringing in his ears. ‘Do you understand?’

No one spoke. The hostages sat hunched and motionless, their heads down, subservient once again.

Angry, and still short of breath, Fox looked across at Bear. This was why he’d been anxious about using him for the operation. He was a good, solid soldier, but he simply didn’t have the necessary ruthless streak to kill without question, and it had almost cost him, and them all, everything. ‘You messed up,’ Fox told him, loud enough so that everyone else in the room could hear. ‘The next time someone gets to their feet, kill them. OK?’

Bear answered with a respectful ‘Yes, sir’ and settled back to watching the hostages, while Fox went over to Wolf and pulled him to his feet.

Wolf looked furious, but there was shame in his eyes too, as there should have been. He’d been made to look a fool, and Fox could see that he knew it.

‘You need to check the laptop for any messages, Fox told him, then answer the phone. You’ll need to calm the negotiator and get things back on track.’

Wolf nodded, and a silent message passed between them. Whatever the situation had been a few minutes earlier, Fox was now the leader.