(1995) By Any Name (21 page)

‘Clear, sir.’

He visualized the plan of the apartment as he walked up the stairs and down the corridor. Keeping his sights wide and his Heckler and Koch at the ready, he found everything just as his men had reported. The apartment was empty, a lethally sharp ice pick abandoned behind a hole in the end wall, evidence as to where their prey had bolted.

Chaloner hesitated. They had studied the plans of the apartment, no others. He hadn’t been aware that the wall between the apartment and the house that fronted it was a partition. He marshalled his thoughts, remembering the army maxim, “Any decision is better than no decision at all.”

‘Team one, follow CS gas grenades in. Sweep the first room. No further until you receive orders.’

Elizabeth cowered beside John scarcely daring to breathe lest the sound alert someone to their presence.

His face, sallow-skinned and hollow-eyed in the glow of the street lights that shone through the office window, resembled a death’s head. Outside she could hear shouts, footsteps running, and from somewhere behind them, crashes as the men who had entered the flat tore down what remained of the panelling that separated the two houses.

She was terrified, yet somewhere deep within, a calm and ordered oasis remained providing a retreat that enabled her to divorce herself from both situation, and surroundings. Death was too big, too enormous a concept for her to consider while she remained hunched beneath a desk. Her mind turned to other problems.

John had to be more than just a casual visitor to the flat. No holidaymaker would have known about the flimsiness of the partition between the adjoining houses. He must have lived there at some time, possibly even during the conversion. She wished she’d asked the old men in the pub more questions.

Perhaps she should have called John “Davies” when he’d been under hypnosis. He could be related to the old woman who had once owned the place or perhaps he’d bought it from her heirs and they’d told him about the plaster boarded doorway.

John was listening intently but he didn’t hear the footstep on the stairs. Rubber soled boots don’t make much noise. But he did hear the creak of wood when the advance party descended to the ground floor. He looked to the door knowing he’d see their shadows first, one covering, one entering. That was the drill, work in pairs, each watching out for the other – but first the stun and CS gas grenades.

As he and Elizabeth didn’t have respirators, he had to prevent the grenades from being fired into the room. He slid out from beneath the desk and crawled to the open door. Taking the Browning in both hands he lay low, peering through a crack in the hinges. He could see the men’s shadows in the hall. Two open doors posed a difficult choice for them; the wrong one might mean getting caught in an ambush.

The shadows moved and so did he. His plan gave him and Elizabeth no more than a slim chance, but a slim chance had to be better than no chance at all. He had time to register the Heckler and Koch sub-machine guns before thought failed and instinct prevailed.

Both men did what he’d expected them to. Stand back to back, each facing an office doorway.

Thrusting their weight forward on their right legs, they were poised to fire in the stun and CS grenades, but he fired first. Not at the impenetrable body armour but their arms. There was a short lived scream as their guns fell to the floor but not before a grenade had been fired. Holding his breath, he lunged forward.

Rolling over, he tore the respirator from the man nearest to him. Gas poured out of the grenade. Lungs bursting, John clamped his hand over the head of the soldier before dragging him back into the office.

Slamming the door he pushed a desk against it.

Pausing only to slip on the respirator he grabbed the man’s radio and shouted.

‘Critical hostage situation. Keep back until secured.’ Stuffing his fist into the man’s mouth he pressed on his neck until he slumped unconscious.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs. Taking the Heckler and Koch he laid it on the desk and stripped off the soldier’s body armour, flame retardant suit and shoes. He dressed quickly. Elizabeth was already coughing from the gas seeping under the door.

He caught hold of her. ‘Scream!’

She barely managed a whimper.

‘Louder!’ he urged. ‘Keep back,’ he shouted into the radio receiver. ‘Going after female hostage.’

Elizabeth screamed again, more convincingly this time. John checked the Heckler and Koch and the spare ammunition in the leg pockets of the flame retardant suit. Adjusting the respirator, gloves and boots, he thrust the soldier’s Browning into the holster on the suit, and fired the other at the wall, following the shot with a quick burst of gunfire from the sub machine gun.

A hole was blasted in the door, a gas grenade exploded at his feet. Picking up a chair he flung it through the window. His radio crackled, and he pressed the transmission button.

‘Exiting into Wheat Street with hostage. Repeat exiting into Wheat Street with hostage. Suspect in possession of second hostage in right front office, proceed with caution.’

Snatching a metal disk box from the desk he pushed it and the spare Browning beneath Elizabeth’s sweatshirt before swinging her high into his arms and stepping through the broken window out on to the street.

‘Hold fire. Keep back. Booby trapped hostage.’ He yelled. ‘Bomb secured to hostage’s body. Suspect armed in office.’ He waited for an answering shout before walking towards an ambulance. Like an ebbing tide, troops flowed back into the side streets before him. He could scarcely believe it. The ploy was working. It was actually working.

A man ran towards him. ‘Back!’ he ordered brusquely, heading resolutely for the ambulance parked beyond the barrage of lights.

‘Bomb squad.’ A soldier shielded behind a full suit of body armour stepped forward.

‘My hand’s on the device. I move it, she blows.’

The officer shouted, ‘clear area.’

Troops and police continued to fall back as John, carrying Elizabeth, and the bomb squad officer made their way steadily towards the ambulance. John heard shots echoing from the office behind them but maintained his pace. The bomb disposal officer reached the ambulance first and opened the doors.

John climbed into the back with Elizabeth.

‘Have we time to get out of town?’ the officer asked.

‘As long as my hand stays where it is.’ The driver started the engine and the siren. John glanced down at Elizabeth who was lying in his arms with her eyes screwed shut. ‘Drive steady,’ John ordered as the officer climbed in alongside him.

John assessed the arms the officer was carrying.

He could see a handgun, nothing more, but the body armour might present a problem. The driver appeared to be unarmed but he wouldn’t take that for granted.

He waited until the officer closed the doors and the ambulance was up to speed before seizing the officer’s handgun and throwing it behind him.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ The man tried to look into John’s eyes beneath the infra red lens on the respirator. The driver turned and looked at them.

‘You want her to live, keep moving,’ John ordered the driver, digging the Browning into Elizabeth’s neck. ‘And keep that siren on.’

The driver and the officer both stared at Elizabeth who kept her eyes closed. The driver turned back, pressed his foot down on the accelerator and roared through Llanfaes on to the open road.

‘Head for Prince Charles Hospital,’ John shouted to make himself heard above the siren.

‘You’ll never get away with this,’ the officer warned when they took the Merthyr Road.

John ignored him. Special Forces personnel were renowned for being proactive, but the paramount concern in a hostage situation was the safety of the person or persons being held. Keeping the gun pressed to Elizabeth’s neck he reached out with his free hand and unhooked the radio receiver from the dashboard.

‘Tell them you’re going to the Prince Charles hospital in Merthyr.’

‘Is there a bomb strapped to her?’ the driver asked.

‘If you don’t radio out, you may find out sooner than you’d like. Tell them in addition to the bomb, she’s seriously wounded. A bullet in the aorta and she’s clinging on by a thread.’ John didn’t wait for a return message. As soon as the driver finished speaking he jerked the receiver from its socket.

He looked through the porthole in the back door at the flashing amber and blue lights of the police and army vehicles trailing them at a safe distance.

Keeping the gun trained on the driver and officer, he moved as far as could get from them taking Elizabeth with him. ‘I’m going to make a run for it’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I want you to stay here. You’ll be safe with them.’

‘As safe as the paramedic in Brighton?’ she whispered back without opening her eyes.

‘I’m going to hide out on the Beacons. It’s no picnic up there in summer. At this time of year it’s deadly without the right equipment,’ he muttered, regretting the loss of the rucksacks he’d been forced to abandon in the office.

‘I’m not leaving you. You need me. I’m your doctor… ’

‘There’s no time to argue.’ He looked through the window again. There was a bend in the road just before the Storey Arms. A long sweeping curve carved into the hillside above a deep valley, part of a beautiful but desolate landscape. The drop to the valley floor fell steeply on the left about half a mile from the Youth Hostel on the Brecon side.

He checked the sky. Rain clouds had blotted out the moon and stars. It would be pitch black on the hillside. The ambulance would have to slow down to take the curve. He could open the door on the passenger side and jump. He primed the officer’s Browning and pointed it in his and the driver’s general direction, then dropped Elizabeth to the floor of the ambulance. ‘Stay,’ he ordered her abruptly.

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘You’ll slow me down.’

‘You’re not getting rid of me that easily.’

The officer looked at John. ‘You’re John West,’ he turned to Elizabeth, ‘and you’re no hostage.’

She took the gun from John and trained it on him.

West looked through the porthole again. The blue lights still hovered behind them. They were passing through Libanus; the road to Defynnog was on their right, ahead the great curve and the empty valley… a woman’s voice echoed back at him from some almost, but not quite, forgotten time.

“Our own private Brigadoon, darling.”

‘Keep the gun trained on them, shoot if you have to.’

Elizabeth didn’t remind John that she didn’t know how.

John rummaged around the back of the ambulance.

He picked up a couple of thick red blankets from the stretcher and opened a box. He took out thermal blankets, sterile dressings, plasters, plastic gloves, brandy, sheeting and bags and bundled them together in one of the blankets. Ripping off the driver’s head protection he climbed into the passenger seat and pointed his own Browning at the man’s temple.

‘Slow down on the curve, but not enough to raise suspicions. Drive as close to the edge of the road as you can get.’

Keeping the gun she was holding trained on the bomb disposal officer, Elizabeth moved towards the front when they began to round the corner.

The driver saw her as John moved closer to the door. ‘You’re with him?’

‘Yes,’ she answered defiantly.

‘A killer.’

‘I’m a psychiatrist, he’s my patient. I haven’t left his side in two days. He hasn’t killed anyone.’

‘That’s not what the news says,’ the officer in the back protested.

‘Someone is killing behind us.’ She looked the officer coolly in the eye. ‘That paramedic in Brighton was alive when we left him, so was my colleague Dave Watson. Do you think I’d stay with this man if I thought he was a killer? Please, tell the police what I said.’ Her last words were blown away by the force of the wind and rain when John unlocked the door. It swung wide.

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘Don’t.’ He was gone.

A second later she threw herself out after him.

The soldiers either side of the office door nodded to one another. The coughing inside had stopped.

Kicking the door in, they turned and fired. The body on the floor jerked convulsively.

‘Oh Christ!’ the exclamation was muffled by the respirator.

‘Is he neutralised?’

‘It’s Alex.’

‘Alex… in God’s name how… ’

‘Get help. Now!’

It took time for the ambulance driver to slow to a halt after Elizabeth jumped. Sirens decelerated to cat-like wails as the escort drew up alongside him. The officer leaped from the back and ran out.

‘The hostage?’ The question came from an army captain, who left the leading armoured car.

‘There was no bomb. The hostage wasn’t even hurt. They’ve scarpered down the bank.’

The captain ran back to his vehicle, picked up the radio and started talking.

West remained curled on the ground for a few seconds after he landed. He explored his body, stretching limbs, fingers and toes, checking for pain. His elbows and knees hurt, but they’d taken most of the impact of landing. He’d heard Elizabeth crashing down the bank about fifty yards behind him. The sirens on the road above were winding down, but the loudest sound in the darkness was the patter of rain on his flame retardant suit.

It was time to move, and move swiftly.

‘John?’ Elizabeth sounded panic-stricken.

‘I’ll come to you,’ he whispered, searching for a moving shade among the murky outlines of boulders and coarse, stunted bushes. He crawled in the direction of her voice. The ankle he had sprained two days ago hurt like hell, but he would just have to bear the discomfort. Five minutes, ten at the outside before they began hunting him in force. His hand touched her leg. ‘Why did you come?’

‘I want to be there when you remember,’ she gasped.

‘You’re hurt?’

‘Not badly.’

He took her hand. She was shivering. He pulled off his flame retardant suit and respirator, hooking the respirator on to his arm; he stuffed the 13 round magazines for the machine gun, the figure of eight descender and high power magazine into the bundle he’d made of the blankets and other things he’d taken from the ambulance. ‘Here put this on.’ He pushed the suit towards her.