Honour Bound (6 page)

-8-

Nigel
Winters was at his happiest when handling guns. He had spent all of his adult
life in occupations that demanded he carry some type of firearm. From his first
days of adulthood in the Royal Marines, up to the present day, lethal weaponry
had been his favoured companions. He loved them, loved everything about them,
from the smooth operation of well-machined working parts, to the smell of the
light oil used during their cleaning. He was happy now. He placed the magazine
from his jacket pocket into the bottom of the sub machine gun, checked it was
secure then worked the action with a flick of his wrist, loading the first
round. With his thumb, he slid the safety catch to the first position, leaned slightly
forward for better balance and gently squeezed the trigger. The butt thumped
into his shoulder as the breechblock slammed back under the explosive power of
released gasses. The second round loaded automatically as the breechblock
reached the limit of its travel and was pushed forward by the return spring
housed in the butt. The light tinkle of the brass cartridge case striking the
floor was like music to his ears. He slid the safety catch to the second
position, a three round burst punched out as one from a single squeeze of the
trigger. He smiled and pushed the safety catch to its third and final position.
A savage ripping sound filled the air as the remaining twenty-six rounds
flashed from the barrel in a deadly, invisible stream of lead. The expended
cartridge cases described a shiny arc in the air before bouncing and rolling on
the floor for two or three seconds after the noise of the firing had stopped.

Winters
removed the magazine and checked the weapon before pushing a button in the
booth of the underground range to return the target to his position. He held
the sub machine gun in two hands and turned to face the eleven men of what had
been designated the final assault team. They had been standing behind him, at
his instructions, in a half circle to watch the display. Like
Winters
, all were dressed in new fluorescent green jackets,
it was something that he'd insisted upon, that they practice in the jackets
they'd be wearing on the day. It was best to find out now, he'd explained to
them, which of the pockets might snag a magazine, or how easy it was, or not,
as the case may be, to extract the sub machine gun from the inside poachers
pocket.

The
men were now filtering as a group towards a huge wooden table covered with
magazines and boxes of ammunition, passing comments to each other about the
noise or the rate of fire as they went. Winters motioned for them to remove
their ear defenders and handed the weapon to the man nearest to him. The man
took it and made weighing motions with it in his hands before working the
action and sighting it down the range. A light click sounded as he pulled the
trigger. He looked it over once more then handed it to the next man, whose
actions were similar. As the weapon was handed round,
Winters
addressed the team.

"That,"
he said, "
is
a Heckler & Koch MP5 9mm sub
machine gun.
It's
German made, it's compact, accurate
and light. It would push out eight hundred rounds a minute if it had a
continuous supply of ammo. Ours don’t of course, but you'll be able to get
through four magazines a minute easily, not that we’ll need to. Its range is
about one hundred metres, though the most effective killing range is anything
up to fifty metres. Anything over fifty is basically suppressing fire, just to
keep heads down while you get closer." He turned and looked at the target,
a man sized silhouette, that had housed itself in the firing booth. Two holes,
one in the forehead of the target, and a slightly larger one in the chin, sat
neatly above the chest section that had completely disappeared, leaving nothing
more than a ragged hole that began in the centre and angled up to the left,
towards the shoulder. Winters nodded, satisfied. He pointed to the single hole
in the centre of the forehead. "That was my first shot," he said,
"Over short
distances,
believe it or not, you're
going to find it hard to miss with this piece of kit."

"Good-o,"
someone quipped, followed by good-natured laughter.

Winters
smiled and pointed to the hole in the chin. "This one was made by the second
shot. Three rounds have gone through there, the only way you can tell is by the
larger hole. I've found the three round burst is best for moving targets when
your a bit low on ammo."

He
traced his hand over the hole in the centre. "As you can see, when it’s
fired on fully automatic it has a tendency to pull up and to the left. Over
longer distances that could be a problem, because no matter how good the weapon
is, if you can't hold it steady, you’re going to miss. But I can assure you,
missing won't be a problem for us, because we won't be firing over long
distances and we've got so much ammo to practice with, come the big day firing
these things will be second nature." He paused, looking round the faces.
They were all paying attention to what he was
saying,
for each man knew what they would learn here over the next couple of days might
well save their lives. Winters had been working with the group for five weeks,
yet knew none of them by name, a simple form of security he always used. If one
or more of the team should be caught by the police, they could not be
'persuaded' to part with information they did not have.

Winters
had been hired nine weeks ago to plan an operation and lead it to a successful
conclusion. The first four weeks he'd spent going over the ground and finding
out what equipment was available. He had been surprised that everything he
asked for had been delivered, and money appeared to be no object. The plan had
quickly taken shape. He had given each man a number, and each number allocated
a specific location at the final assault site. Over the last five weeks, he had
repetitively hammered the details into the heads of the people standing before
him until they knew every aspect of the assault phase from start to finish. The
men were confident and he was confident. The time had now come to hone the
teams more lethal skills, the part he would enjoy the most.

"Okay
chaps," he said, "
you
all know who and what
we're going up against. And you know that on the big day the targets won't be
made of cardboard, although they may as well be, because they're not going to
get much chance to fire at us, surprise will be total. We'll be such an
everyday feature they won't spare us a second glance, at least, not until it’s
too late."

The
last man to examine the MP5 handed it back, and
Winters
laid it on the floor. He leant against one of the firing booth supports and
folded his arms across his chest. "Right then," he continued,
"on the day, the maximum range we'll be firing over will be between five
and seven metres, which basically means that if you're firing on full auto,
most of the rounds will hit the target. The range will be too short for the
muzzle lift to make much difference, and besides, if you do have a
thrombo
and miss with half the magazine, I think you can
take it as read that the other fifteen rounds knocking on somebody's chest will
put a bloody big question mark on the rest of their day."

Another
ripple of laughter washed over the assault team.

He
waited for quiet before continuing. "I've had to make the training
something other than piss simple so the shortest range we'll fire over is
twenty five metres. We've got a maximum of seventy metres in here and we'll use
most of that to get used to controlling the weapons under full auto and doing
magazine changes on the move. During the next couple of days, I'll also show
you the back up weapons and we can practise the stoppage drills, just so we
cover all the angles. He picked up the MP5 and said, "Alright, enough of
me spouting off. Swamp the table and load all the magazines with thirty rounds.
Let's get down to business.

-9-

His
mind failed to register the flashing red light on the telephone, so deep was he
in thought, until the light was accompanied by a soft tone alarm. He'd been
relaxing in his office chair, eyes closed, legs stretched out, crossed at the
ankles, arms folded and resting on his stomach, mulling over the events of the
morning. The meeting with Rupert Shaw had gone as well as expected, and had
been followed by a call from Nigel Winters. Winters had told him everything was
still on time and running smoothly, all according to plan. He had also informed
him the final batch of weapons had arrived, and were being unloaded as they
spoke. Everything had been just fine until he had heard the lunchtime news.

Sir
Reginald Langdon sat upright in his chair before picking up the receiver. He
knew who the caller was. He'd paged his full time business partner, and part
time lover, Remy
Vousson
, after hearing of a multiple
shooting on the news broadcast. The shooting itself had not come as a surprise,
but the body count certainly had. He pressed a button on the telephone pad
activating the scrambler, and replaced the handset.

"Remy,"
he said, "what the hell happened this morning? You know I have an aversion
to things going pear shaped. Not only is it annoying but I've found that bad
luck tends to have a snowball effect."

Vousson's
voice was quiet
but clear on the speaker. "As you suggested," he said, attempting to
field any potential for blame before it came his way, "we fed the info to
the snout and the team followed him. Their instructions were explicit; they
were to get rid of him only after he'd met with his contact."

"It
was the contact that took them out.” Langdon said, “They fucked up big time and
paid for it. Was it one of our teams or outsiders?"

"They
were outsiders, French. I used them before on a little maintenance contract on
the continent." He paused before adding, "It should be a while before
they're identified."

"It
doesn't matter how long it takes, as long as they can't be traced back to
you."

"They'll
be traced,"
Vousson
said, "sooner or later.
But I can assure you, there is absolutely nothing to link them with me. There
are no worries on that score."

"Let's
hope so. I must admit, they were rather unfortunate. They couldn't have picked
a worse person to come up against, even if they'd had an option. It was a man
called Sam Norton. He's an employee, and I use that word very loosely, of the
Anti Terrorist Unit."

Langdon
had known that with the devastation caused at Heathrow the ATU would
automatically take over the investigation, leaving the police to deal with the
regular crime that happened every day across the city. It was a fact that had
played an important part in the setting up of the plan. Instead of the usual
army of detectives the police would normally use to investigate a major
incident, there would be a dozen at the most. The ATU would put just a handful
of their operators into the field under the command of a controller. Their
methods were very different to those of the police, they relied more on
informers than knocking on hundreds of doors to make enquiries. Their methods
certainly worked, headline results spoke for themselves.

Our
operation has one big advantage, he had explained to
Winters
as he was devising the strategy, and that is, we are not terrorists. The
informants they rely so heavily on will be looking in the wrong direction. They
will not be looking for city suited executives or fat East End gangsters
because we do not fit the terrorist profile. If a snout does get anywhere near
us we’ll use a system of disinformation, or failing that, stronger measures can
be taken.

Vousson
interrupted his
thoughts. "Do you want him taking out?"

"No,
there's no need for that just yet, we can save that for later. He'll have got
the name, of that I'm certain, and that can only lead him to Holmes and his
gang of thugs. He can take as many of them out as he likes. It saves us getting
our hands dirty."

"Sounds
OK to me,”
Vousson
said, “this Norton character, just
how good is he?"         

"He's
ex-Special Forces," Langdon said, "I'm told he spent most of his time
in the last Gulf war behind enemy lines, where he became a dab hand at
assassination and sabotage, apparently he’s had plenty of practice. Believe me,
when I say he's good, he's good, need I say more."

Vousson
said, "You
seem to know an awful lot about him."

Langdon
smiled, "Do I detect a smattering of jealousy?" 

"No,
of course not,"
Vousson
answered quickly,
"just stating a fact, you seem to know an awful lot about him, that's
all."

"Know
your enemy," Langdon said, "that's all it is."

Langdon
tapped a tooth with a fingernail. A thought had occurred to him as he spoke
about Norton. "Remy," he said, "I spoke to
Winters
about the planning. He said it was all finished. Can you confirm that, or is
there anything major that still needs to be done?"

Vousson
paused,
thinking. "There are a couple of things left to be deposited, but that's
all in hand. He is right though, the planning phase over. It's just a matter of
waiting now."

"Right,
as soon as Norton damages anything belonging to Holmes, as I feel sure he will,
we'll feed Holmes with our friend Mr. Winters as the source of the leak.
That'll be one less on the payroll, and a bigger pay day for us."

"That
is my kind of music,"
Vousson
said, amusement
sounding in his voice. Then more serious, "Is there anything else in
particular you want me to take care of?"

"Just
make sure that everything runs smoothly, and what should be in place is in
place."

"No
problem, I'll call you later." 

After
ending the call, Langdon dialled another number, drumming his fingers
impatiently on the desktop while the ringing tone sounded in his ear. After a
short while, a voice answered.

"Mr.
Eastman," he said, keeping his voice light and airy, "I am very
pleased with the way you have handled all my requirements."

"I
aim to please," Eastman replied, "perhaps we can do business again in
the future."

"That
is very possible. But as this contract is complete, perhaps you'd care to call
at the Manor for the final payment. I have it in cash, as you requested."

"Certainly.
Tonight alright?"

"Tonight
will be fine. If you can make it seven for seven thirty, then perhaps we can
settle after dinner."

"Seven
it is."

The
line purred as Eastman broke the connection.