Red Notice (36 page)

Sambor advanced to within a pace of his adversary, no hesitation, no fear, eyes glazed as he aimed for a quick kill.

Sambor angled his blade, ready for the fight. Tom glanced beyond him to see Laszlo and Delphine disappear into the airlock, then ripped off his jacket and wrapped it as fast as he could around his left hand and forearm.

He stood his ground and waited.

Tom felt the rush of the knife against his cheek as his left arm deflected the stab at his head. Then he heard a rending sound as the blade, keen as a razor’s edge, sliced through the jacket’s leather. Sambor struck again and again, shredding the fabric as Tom parried the strikes. He felt a searing pain as the blade sliced through the material bunched around his fist and pierced his knuckles. But, finally, he managed to get inside the giant’s reach.

The fight was now more even – or, at least, it felt that way to Tom. He pushed his weight into Sambor, forcing him backwards against the pipe, knowing that if he could not finish him quickly, they were all fucked. He couldn’t take much more punishment. Keeping his head hard against his opponent’s chest, he threw a flurry of punches into his body. He heard Sambor grunt, and the knife clatter to the concrete.

But it wasn’t over.

A flash of light exploded in his head as Sambor’s fist smashed into his temple like a jackhammer.

Tom forced himself to rally. Sheer willpower made his body respond. He launched another attack, unleashing the same combination of punches that he had used to knock out Ashton during Fight Night. But Sambor didn’t go down: he just seemed to soak up the punishment as Tom got weaker. Tom threw everything he had, every ounce of his being, into one last blow, a savage, twisting uppercut to Sambor’s chin.

Sambor still didn’t go down, but he stumbled. He lunged at Tom, his fingers clawing at his face, searching for his eyes.

Tom seized his chance. He piled a vicious right to the other man’s kidneys and as Sambor reeled, dived across the concrete, scrabbling wildly for the knife. He felt the air being driven out of his lungs as Sambor toppled onto his back – but
at that instant his left hand closed around the knife handle.

Stabbing backwards, he felt the blade tear into the soft flesh beneath Sambor’s ribs. He stabbed again, not caring where, and worked the blade into whatever part of the big man’s body the weapon penetrated. He twisted the blade into Sambor’s soft tissue and heard him grunt and moan. He churned his hand up and down and round, any way that he could to maximize the damage.

At last the Russian started to shift his weight, now desperate to remove himself from Tom’s immediate killing area. It was enough for Tom to extract the blade from his side, turn, and ram it into Sambor’s chest. He felt the steel jam momentarily, as it wedged itself between the man’s ribs.

Managing to get both hands on the handle, he pushed it home. Then he held Sambor close, so he couldn’t do any more damage to him as his life ebbed away.

109

GAVIN’S EYES NEVER
left his monitor. The emergency vehicles had been pulled back from the killing area. So had all personnel. The only movement near the tunnel mouth came from the ramp of the Chinook and one of the team’s Transits parked beside it.

Gavin watched as Ashton and the heli’s two pilots and load-master trans-shipped the last of the crates. He knew the same pictures were being beamed to COBRA’s screens, too. They also had access to the Sentinel display. They’d soon be listening in to the Sierra call-signs as they took up their fire positions.

The Chinook’s engines had been cut, and they were going to stay that way. Keenan didn’t want the rotor-wash deflecting his snipers’ rounds. And there was something about the roar of a helicopter’s engines and the sight of whirling blades that got people sparked up. They rushed towards the aircraft like they expected it to lift off any second. Those in command of the killing area didn’t want that happening today. They wanted the X-rays to hang around in the marksmen’s sights for as long as possible.

The three air crew looked as if they were struggling with the weight of their body armour as much as the weight of the gold. Up to their chins in Kevlar, their orders were to position
themselves in the cockpit and make sure the X-rays spotted them at the controls. As soon as things kicked off, they were to make a run for it to a carriage inspection ditch sixty metres away – and not come out again until they were told to.

Gavin’s eyes flicked to Sentinel. All the lights were green. Keenan would still be making sure he covered all angles and heights. The higher the sniper, the better the sight picture, and the better the arc of fire. The ideal was looking down at about forty-five degrees. Wherever they were, they’d be using unsuppressed weapons. Once this option kicked off, it didn’t matter who heard what.

He peered at the aerial view, fed in from a camera on the hangar roof. Some of the snipers were in buildings, set back from the windows, in shadow. Others were out in the open, using whatever cover was available. They didn’t just have to conceal themselves from the X-rays and Yankees. Operation Stack was still in force. Trucks were parked up only 600 metres away. They couldn’t risk a driver inadvertently raising the alarm.

Gavin had eight snipers ticked off on the marker board so far, but it wasn’t good enough. He got on the net. ‘Sierra call-signs, this is Alpha. You need to get a move on. We haven’t got long. Out.’

The two remaining marksmen must still be trying to find a good fire position that supported their weapons. The train might stop in the tunnel. It was no good contorting yourself into some weird and wonderful position for hours: your body had to be naturally aligned into the point you were aiming at.

And you had to have muzzle clearance. The optic sight could be as much as four to six inches above the barrel, depending on where you set it for your individual eye relief. It didn’t make much sense having a really good sight picture of the killing area 300–500 metres away if your barrel was pointing directly at the mound of earth in front of it.

Gavin had had better days. ID-ing the X-rays was going to be next to impossible unless they openly carried weapons. He wasn’t even sure how many of the bastards there were.

The executive decisions had been made much higher up the food-chain. COBRA had told Gavin the way they wanted this to play out. The home secretary’s instruction had been clear and concise. The decoy with the Eurostar uniform must be treated precisely as if he were X-ray One. The grab bag was the last known location of the initiation device. It was all about the grab bag, not who was carrying it. It was a tough call but, hey, it was a tough world. The only certainty was that there were going to be more dead Yankees today. It was inevitable.

Gavin watched Ashton sling his ready-bag over one shoulder. He picked up one of the half-metre-square aluminium crates by its handles and lugged it to the ramp, then disappeared into the bowels of the Chinook.

Gavin accepted that the powers-that-be couldn’t take Tom’s information and assessment as gospel. It was a big decision, and the home secretary was the one being paid the big bucks to make it. Regret, fear, worry: they were all equally unproductive, before, during and after any job. The best they could do was work with the information they had – or thought they had – and what it might mean. There was no such thing as a perfect solution.

Ashton emerged from the heli and made his way back to the Transit. He no longer had his ready-bag. Gavin knew nothing about a bag going on board. Was this connected with Ashton going to the MOE wagon? Why had he insisted on supervising the loading when he should have been joining the Red and Blue teams in the service tunnel, ready to lead the assault? Was there another agenda Gavin hadn’t been told about? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Decisions were made. Depending on your pay grade, you were either let in on them or you weren’t. Maybe COBRA or the DSF had another little option tucked away in case the job went tits up. But if that was the case, he should definitely be in the loop. Gavin felt the first stirrings of anger. They could be putting the whole team at risk here. Ashton should be protecting them. He was supposed to be one of them – he was their gatekeeper, not some Whitehall lackey.

He took a deep breath. Now wasn’t the time. The train was going to emerge any minute and he had a job to do. If he did it right, there would be no need for any secret option. And he’d find out soon enough if Ashton had tried to call Tom and risked compromising him. Gavin would make fucking sure of that, but only after the job was completed. Then, if there was shit on, he’d be leading the charge.

A speaker burst into life: ‘Sierra Four, ready.’

‘Alpha, roger that. Test.’

Sierra Four took first pressure on his trigger and red replaced green on the tablet screen.

‘Alpha, that’s a red.’

They’d tested the comms before they left the hangar, but they had to test them again. The best fire position in the world is no bloody good if you can’t tell the commander you have your target.

Gavin felt a hand on his arm. He looked up as Woolf placed a paper cup of tea on the trestle table.

The speaker barked again: ‘Sierra Eight, in position.’

‘Roger that. Sierra Eight, test.’

His red lit up.

‘Alpha, roger that. All call-signs, the Sierras are in position. We now wait out.’

Gavin picked up his brew and nodded his thanks. His eyes flicked back to the monitor. The one-metre lengths of mine tape were fluttering on top of the Chinook. The wind must be getting up.

Woolf patted his shoulder. ‘Everything that can be done has been done. Good luck.’

Each took a sip of his brew.

The Slime came on the net for all to hear. ‘The ETA of the train is one minute. Repeat, ETA, one minute. One minute from the tunnel mouth.’

Gavin lobbed his empty cup onto the floor to clear the decks. Woolf took a step back. They both stared at the monitors. Headphones clamped to their ears, the signallers and the Slime monitored their transmitters and receivers,
continuously reaching forward to make endless microscopic adjustments.

Gavin got to work. ‘All stations, Alpha radio check. Blue One.’

Click-click
.

‘Red One.’

Click-click
.

‘Sierra One.’

Gavin watched Keenan’s red light spark up. And then he radio-checked every single sniper one final time.

110

A SMALL FLOCK
of gulls that had been disputing possession of a stolen sandwich crust suddenly took flight, soaring skywards, then settling once more above the tunnel’s entrance.

Moments later, the long, sleek nose of a Eurostar locomotive glinted in the sunlight beneath them. At no more than walking pace, the rest of the engine slowly unsheathed itself from the tunnel. Through the tinted-glass windscreen, Gavin spotted the pale, frightened face of the driver. His head was half turned. His lips were moving. He was speaking to the man directly behind him. Gavin guessed there was a machine-gun rammed into his back. A hand gestured at the Chinook, as if the driver couldn’t see it, or had suddenly developed the magic power to steer straight off the tracks towards it.

‘Alpha has an X-ray in engine – brown bomber jacket, short dark hair and beard. He is carrying.’

The snipers would have eyes-on, but not the Blue and Red teams down the service tunnel. And they didn’t have monitors.

Carriage by carriage, the Eurostar inched out of the tunnel. The gentle rumble of its engine carried as far as the hangar.

Gavin dominated the net. ‘Coach One clear . . . Two . . . clear.
Coach Three – bodies in carriage . . . wait . . . wait . . . twenty to thirty . . .’

The snipers would be locked on Coach Three. They didn’t need to be on the net: their job was behind their weapons. Gavin was the only one who had to talk.

‘Four, clear . . . Five, clear . . .’

Gavin felt a knot of tension in his stomach, but kept his voice flat and even. ‘Slowing . . .’

The seventh coach emerged from the tunnel.

‘Slowing . . . slowing . . . Stop, stop, stop. That’s Eurostar static. Coach Three, closest to the Chinook.’

A figure appeared at the open doorway and clambered down.

Gavin scrutinized the man. He didn’t look like any of the X-rays Tom had photographed, but it was hard to be sure.

Another figure emerged, then a succession of them. They huddled next to the train. Someone was controlling them. Another couple jumped down. The driver’s legs almost gave way beneath him as he touched the ground.

Next out was the one who’d been standing behind the driver.

‘Alpha has the driver’s-cab X-ray now in the killing area. Sierra Nine and Ten confirm.’

Two reds.

‘Roger that.’

One of the Slime ticked the board beside their names. They had a target.

Another figure emerged.

‘Alpha has X-ray One now in the killing area.’

Sierras One and Three red lit.

‘Confirm, Eurostar uniform and grab bag. He is in the middle of the pack.’

Sierra One’s light suddenly went back to green as the grab bag was lost in a sea of bodies.

The Slime held up a number count for Gavin on a whiteboard.

‘Alpha has twenty-eight in the killing area, still static by the train. No more movement in Coach Three.’

The strips of mine tape were flapping. The sky had darkened. A gust of wind blew rain across the Folkestone compound. The hostage group squinted into it. Someone near the centre of it said something. All of them began to shuffle slowly towards the Chinook.

‘Stand by, stand by . . . the group is mobile.’

Gavin checked Sentinel. He wasn’t concerned about Sierra Nine and Ten’s target as their lights flickered between red and green. It was Sierras One, Two and Three he had to worry about.

One red . . . then two . . .

Gavin pushed the radio pressel, ready to send.

Back to just one light.

Then none.

He looked at the monitor. The group was halfway to the Chinook. If he got one red, then that Sierra would have to take the shot.