Honour Bound (2 page)

Ten
minutes and several gulps of fresh air later, Norton slowly worked his way from
beneath the tangle of branches and back onto the verge. He broke off a long
thin branch and snapped it so one end hung towards the ground, and then moved
toward the cottage. As he reached the area where the box had changed hands, the
hanging part of the branch moved backwards as it caught on the tripwire.
Stepping carefully over it, he walked a few paces to the wall and knelt down,
resting the rifle barrel snugly in a ‘V’ formed by two sections of stone. The
safety catch moved silently under his thumb as it slipped into the fire
position. Taking a deep breath, he whipped the broken branch down onto the
tripwire.

He
recalled the days of his military service when stumbling into a tripwire would
have meant a lingering death from an antipersonnel mine. The explosive device
would have exploded under foot, or been ejected from its concealed position to
detonate at groin height. The shrapnel, hundreds of metal shards or ball
bearings, would have been blasted in all directions shredding stomachs, groins
and thighs of all those within its range. The unfortunate soldiers would then
die slowly through loss of blood, if the shock and pain did not take them
first.

Not
so today, the only noticeable reaction was the extinguishing of a light over
the cottage door. He waited, perfectly still as his night vision returned.
Whoever looked out of the window, as someone surely would, would not see him
behind the wall, his backdrop being the darkness of the
hedge.

He
waited, silent, unmoving

Only
a few seconds passed before a ghostly face appeared at a circular window at the
side of the door, its features diffused by a thin layer of condensation on the
inside of the glass. He couldn’t tell if it was the man or the woman looking
out. As he watched, a hand cleared the glass, working in a circular motion like
someone waving goodbye from the porthole of a ship. He kept the window covered
with the rifle until the inquisitive face finally disappeared.

A
few minutes later, the murmur of voices became audible above the wind. The
woman appeared first from the rear of the cottage, pausing briefly at a small
lych
gate with a brightly coloured post box attached,
before stepping through on to the drive. She was carrying a compact sub machine
gun in her right hand, its black shape standing out clearly against the light
colour of her raincoat. She looked along the drive and into the BMW before
standing behind it, using it as cover.

The
man came next, similarly dressed and armed. He walked past the woman and along
the drive towards the wire. Norton followed his progress with the muzzle of the
rifle. The man was ten yards away when he took the first pressure on the
trigger, waiting as the figure drew closer.

The
wind began to pick up strength forcing the rain to beat a hard tattoo on the
roof of the BMW. Icy cold water trickled down Norton’s face and scalp as the
rain penetrated his ski mask. He shivered involuntarily as the wind lashed the
soaking material next to his skin. The rustling of the hedge grew steadily
louder as a gust rolled along the branches like a living thing, shaking water
from the leaves as if trying to add to the downpour. Another roll of thunder
sounded in the distance followed by a brief flash that split the darkness as
though in a parting gesture. Heavy, rain filled clouds lumbered across the
night sky, emptying themselves of their contents, unaware of the violence
waiting to burst into life below.

The
man had closed the distance to a little over five yards when Norton fired a
five round burst. The sounds of the wind and rain were ruptured by the
deafening, extended crack of the assault rifle. A foot long sword of fire
cleaved the darkness as the muzzle flash attempted to follow the issue of its
creation. At such short range, all five bullets smashed into their target,
lifting the man off his feet as though by an unseen hand, and smashing him into
the whitewashed wall. Norton instantly readjusted his aim and sent two five
round bursts at the woman. She was still using the car as cover but possibly,
because animals had tripped the alarm in the past, or simply because she had
become complacent, she did not attempt to take cover until the first bullets
struck. By then it was far too late. Ten rounds punched through the bodywork of
the car shattering glass and shredding upholstery. Three bullets, deformed by
their passage through metal, ripped into her stomach, doubling her up and
spinning her round like a doll discarded by a screaming child. A fourth smashed
into her elbow, pulverising flesh and bone into a useless bloody pulp, forcing
her to drop the sub machine gun as she fell to the ground.

Norton
left the rifle on top of the wall and drew the
sig
from its holster. He fired a single shot into the man’s head as he walked
passed, then stood over the woman, looking down. The blood from her wounds had
spread quickly across the front of her coat and was forming a thick but quickly
diluting puddle on the tarmac. Her movements were
weak,
she was trying to stem the flow with her good hand. “Help me,” she murmured,
“help me, please.”

Norton
looked at her impassively, not seeing a woman in agony but a killer begging for
the mercy that she herself had never shown. He recalled the photographs he had
seen of the many bodies, mostly unrecognisable, broken and burned in the
carnage of the bomb attacks. “Only the seriously injured qualify for an
ambulance,” he said, “and you’re not in that category.”

“Please,”
she pleaded, her breath rasping, barely audible.

Norton
fired once. The bullet penetrated her heart. The impact forced her body to
convulse in one final agony before becoming still.

“Like
I said, you’re not in that category.”

-2-

Graham
Harker
was a little nervous about flying, it was not
so much the actual flight, but the take off and landing that gave him cause for
concern. He told himself that this time it was necessary. If this sale went as
planned, this could be his last flight, and God only knew he needed the
commission on this one. The company he worked for had been hit hard by the
recession, as had many
others,
a lot of them had gone
to the wall putting most of their staff on benefits. Christ, he thought,
forty-seven is not the age to be drawing dole and trying to find a new job.

Falling
sales had hit him hard in the pocket. Farmers, just like everyone else had had
to tighten their belts, and buying new machinery had been the least of their
concerns. Because of the downturn in his income, the bank had found it
necessary to send him two stiff letters about two missing and four late
mortgage
payments,
they’d also begun querying his need
for such a large overdraft. At least he’d managed to collect the long brown
envelopes from the carpet and get them into his briefcase before his wife had
seen them and become inevitably upset. No point in us both worrying, was how he
explained his actions to his conscience.

Just
a few months back things had really started to look grim, really desperate, but
now that sales had slowly started to pick up he could see a light at the end of
the tunnel. There was also a promotion in the offing and he was not out of the
running, a good contract over the next few days might just clinch it. With the
increase in salary that would bring, he could start refilling the savings
account. It would be nice to have a balance again that was higher than the cost
of the passbook.

Although
he was nervous about flying, in a small way he was looking forward to this
flight because of the promise it held. He shifted in his seat opposite the
check in desk on the departures concourse, wiping the dampness from his palms
on the course material covering the seat arms as he did so. He looked at the
information screen hanging from the ceiling. Shouldn’t be too long now, he
thought, as he opened his newspaper and set about the crossword to help pass
the time.

Christos
Christoforou
was very glad he was going home. England, he'd
decided, was nowhere near warm enough, even in what passed for the summer. In a
few hours, he would be landing in
Larnaca
, back in
his beloved Cyprus where the sun shone for most of the year and where tourists,
bronzed and beautiful, paid not only in cash, for the services he could offer.
He had been working in his brother’s restaurant in north London. It had been
good of his brother to invite him over for a working holiday and he had been
helping out for the last six months by waiting on tables, washing, cleaning and
scrubbing, the usual jobs that a younger brother was good at. It had been most
rewarding, not only financially, but also with the
girls
who had taken readily to his swarthy good looks and fallen for his smooth, well
practised charm. One thing his brother’s restaurant lacked though, and would
never be able to supply, was the uncluttered view of a cloudless Mediterranean
sky with billions of bright, twinkling stars looking down on the diners, all of
whom would be simply dressed in deference to the warmth of the evening. The
Greek music, which played endlessly through the restaurant, was no match for
the soothing sound of waves gently caressing a golden beach, a whispered
harmony to the subdued hum of relaxed conversation.

Sharon
Latham had checked in her suitcase and at the time wished she could have
checked in little Scott. He had cried most of the way from Brighton, but
thankfully, because of the early hour the coach had been almost empty. The
stewardess had been very sympathetic, even taking him for a little while,
rocking and shushing in a bid to quieten him down. He was a little better now,
sitting in his familiar pushchair keeping a tight grip with his small hands on
Loppy
, his one eared rabbit. She leaned forward and kissed
his cheek, rewarded for her efforts with a bubble of spittle and a limply waved
hand.

They
had at least another half hour before the flight would be called. She was
surprised by the amount of people who were already here. She knew it would be
busy of course, but had not expected so many. It was like a small high street
shopping centre on a busy day. Masses of people milled in and out of the
brightly lit shops that sold everything the modern flyer could wish for, and
plenty more besides. Queues of people waited patiently to be processed into the
system at check in desks and ticket counters, while scores of others waited in
shuffling lines before disappearing from sight through the passport control.

She
wished Peter were here. After all, it was his Grandmother that would be
celebrating her ninetieth birthday tomorrow. She understood though. He had a
good job and a short notice contract with an even shorter deadline had taken
him away for the next three weeks. He had phoned his grandmother to explain and
she absolutely forbade him to attend if it meant losing any money, but she had
ordered, in her grandmotherly way, of course, that Sharon and Scott should be
there. Sharon was looking forward to the visit, as Grandma had never seen
Scott, the distance being too great and too costly to travel very often. It was
going to be a pleasant week with nothing to spoil it. She smiled to herself.
The only thing that would be spoiled was Scott, that was for sure, but that was
a grandmothers’ speciality. She leaned back in her seat and waited for their
flight announcement.

The
switchboard operator took the call at 7.27 in the morning. A male voice, calm
and precise, spoke for exactly eight seconds before the connection was broken.
The early shift switchboard supervisor, who prided herself with her knowledge
of the emergency procedures, went to work immediately. Essential telephone
calls were made and electronic messages quickly despatched. A flurry of
activity quickly followed the fifth coded bomb threat in as many days.

By
7.30, David Armstrong, the shift duty manager of Terminal 1 at Heathrow
Airport, had put into operation a tried and tested contingency plan for the
evacuation of the building. Although this was the fifth day in succession for
the Terminal staff, it was only his first. Recently promoted, he had returned
to Heathrow this very morning and this was his first shift as the man in
charge. He had hoped for a period relatively free of problems in order to settle
himself in and get to know his team. Preferably, he would have liked to sort
out, in his own mind, the people who could be trusted and those who flapped and
made mountains out of proverbial molehills. He would find out today, but this
was not quite the way he’d had in mind.

He
watched the beginning of the evacuation from an office level balcony
overlooking the international departures concourse. As soon as the alarm went
out over the personal radio system, the black jacketed security guards and the
airport police had begun herding the multitude of early flyers,
meeters
and greeters, shop assistants and airline staff
towards the emergency assembly points. Only four weeks ago, he would have been
down there carrying out the orders of the man whose position he now held. How
times change.

A
taped voice, broadcast over the public address system, informed the heaving
mass of people on the concourse to the security alert, the usual human
announcer was being evacuated like everyone else. The calm electronic voice
clearly audible above the constant babble from the concourse, advised the
crowds to walk, don’t run, to the doors at the front of the terminal. Large
arrow shaped lights flashed lazily above the nominated doors to attract the
crowds and to emphasise the electronic voices’ instructions.

The
odd ‘organic clot’, as Armstrong liked to think of them, occurred in the
flowing veins of humanity as passengers decided to complain to the nearest
official looking person about the prospect of missing their flights. It was
always the same, no matter what the reason for an evacuation, whether a fire
alarm, or like this one, a bomb threat, people always believed that nothing
could possibly happen to them, it was always other people who were unlucky. One
group of complainers he noticed, were being herded unceremoniously towards the
doors by two policemen with there sub machine guns held at high port, and looks
of grim determination on their faces. The passenger’s protests would bounce off
their body armour like spent verbal bullets. Armstrong smiled to himself at the
thought of the complaints he would have to conciliate.

Graham
Harker
put his newspaper into his briefcase, cursing
mildly to himself at the prospect of the delay, and walked towards the exit on
the west side of the terminal.

Christos
Christoforou
decided he could put up with a mild irritation
and joined the slowly moving crowd. He was just thankful it wasn’t raining
outside.

Sharon
Latham folded up the pushchair, and with Scott held tightly to her chest, made
her way with so many others towards the doors.

Although
different emergency and evacuation procedures had been an important part of
Armstrong’s management course, it had not occurred to him that he would have to
put his knowledge of them to the test so soon. He thought about the last few
days and the action the emergency services would have taken. The same action as
they would take today. Fire and Rescue, along with the ambulance crews, would
rendezvous at the central bus station on an area specially set aside, and
always kept clear. The police and airport security would be making sure the
building was clear, and trying to keep order among the evacuated passengers. He
could already hear the distant sounds of the first sirens as emergency vehicles
forced their way through the near endless traffic in the entrance tunnel
beneath the northern runway. The airport was a victim of its own success,
forcing it to operate daily traffic jams. He turned his attention back to the
departures concourse, watching the steady flow of the crowds for a moment
longer. He nodded with satisfaction at the speed of the evacuation before
setting off to the west doors to liaise with the senior officers from the
emergency services.

At
7.35, a Ford Transit van in Royal Mail livery, that had been parked outside the
terminal for six minutes exploded with a thunderous roar. The blast, heard over
three miles away, carved a huge crater in the road and shattered the hundreds
of square feet of glass that formed the front of the Terminal building.

Sharon
Latham, carrying Scott and pushing the folded pushchair, stepped through the
sliding doors into the sunshine as the van exploded. Mother and son died
instantly, two of many spared no time for prayer or thoughts of loved ones,
vaporised by the explosion and the following fireball.

The
immense force of the blast sent shards of glass, along with fragments of wood,
concrete and steel ripping through both levels of the building like jagged
missiles at nearly twice the speed of sound. Bodies were flung in all
directions, scattered like leaves in the path of a hurricane. Chunks of debris,
large and small, propelled by a torrent of smoke laden air scythed through
unresisting flesh and bone with barely a reduction in speed. Windows from the
shops inside the building added to the devastation as the blast wave howled
past, reducing them to razor sharp shrapnel daggers that stabbed again and
again into already mutilated flesh.

The
last thoughts of
Christos
Christoforou
were ones of his native Cyprus. The sound of flames steadily consuming the area
where his twisted and broken body lay, were translated by his dying brain into
the sounds of waves gently breaking on a sandy beach. In his minds eye he could
see a bronzed and beautiful woman beckoning to him as she lay in the surf,
white water cascading over her body. He tried to call to her but no sound
emerged. His eyes closed as he finally returned to the land of his birth.

Huge
steel roof supports, exposed to pressures far exceeding their design
capabilities, buckled under the enormous strain and collapsed in a deadly
torrent. Prefabricated sections of the roof rained down, sweeping aside
elevated walkways and balconies as though made of matchwood. The wreckage added
to the destruction below, crashing to the floor in a confused tangle of twisted
metal and shattered concrete.

Graham
Harker
could no longer feel any pain. He was only
feet from the door when the blast wave imploded the glass. He was lying in a
widening pool of blood being fed from thousands of puncture wounds from the
dozens of bodies of people who had been making for the doors. The flesh on his
face had been stripped to the bone, eyes,
nose
and
lips missing, his teeth displayed in a bloody
rictus
grin. He felt a curious sense of well being as the final breath escaped his
body, slipping him into dark oblivion.