Siege (32 page)

The gun came free and flew across the room, clattering into the corner without discharging, and Tina pressed her advantage, kicking, punching and butting her adversary in a bid to beat him into submission. But he was a big man, probably twice her weight, and though she’d hurt him, he wasn’t finished yet. With an angry roar, he literally lifted her up and threw her off him, and as she tried to right her footing, he backhanded her across the side of the head and sent her crashing to the floor. He aimed a kick at her head but she’d already brought her arms up to protect her face and they deflected much of the force of the blow.

She wrapped herself into a ball as he kicked her a second time, shrieking out an angry curse, his breathing coming in ruined gasps. Now she was hurt too, but as long as she kept her position and he kept aimlessly kicking her, she’d be all right.

Except he didn’t keep kicking her. Instead, he stamped hard on her arms as they protected her head, and then she heard him loping and stumbling across the room in the direction of the gun.

She had to get up. To keep fighting. If she gave up now, he’d put a bullet in her while she lay there. Then do the same to the kids.

Rolling over, she jumped to her feet and was immediately assailed by an intense dizziness. Her vision darkened and blurred, and she almost fell back down again, but she held herself together, and as it cleared she saw him bending over to pick up the gun, his back to her. His movements were slow and clumsy, but he could afford that, now that he almost had hold of it.

Tina saw the lead piping on the floor. Operating entirely on instinct and adrenalin, she grabbed it and ran at her adversary, lifting the weapon above her head.

He could hear her coming, and he straightened with the gun in his hand, already turning towards her.

But it was too late. She brought the lead piping down with a roar of her own, driving it into his temple with all the force she could muster.

He went down heavily, making no sound at all, and Tina fell over him, putting a hand out to stop herself colliding with the wall, before landing on her side on the carpet, noticing with a bloody exhaustion that the room had suddenly fallen utterly silent.

For a good ten seconds she didn’t move as she fought to get her breath back. Then slowly, in great pain, she got to her feet, feeling in her pocket for her phone.

22.09

ARLEY FELT HER
personal mobile vibrate as she watched the black-clad men on the TV screen disappearing one by one into the archway leading to the back of the Stanhope. She pulled it out of her pocket and her heart immediately skipped a beat. It was Tina.

‘What’s happening?’ she demanded, concerned only for news.

Tina’s voice was full of exhaustion, and there was a distant quality to it. ‘I’ve got your kids. They’re safe.’

Arley wanted to faint with the sudden burst of euphoria she experienced at that moment, but there was no time for that. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘I’ll call you back in five minutes.’ She pocketed her mobile and grabbed one of the secure phones, speed-dialling through to the SAS control room.

An unfamiliar voice picked up, introducing himself as Captain Hunter, and Arley spoke rapidly. ‘This is DAC Arley Dale, Bronze Commander. Stop the attack now. I have reliable information that your men are walking into an ambush.’

‘It’s too late,’ said the other man. ‘They’re going in.’

‘They can’t. Get them back.’

‘I’m not going to do that. This is a military operation. You have no jurisdiction.’

‘Then let me speak to Major Standard. Please. This will only take seconds.’

‘He can’t speak to you. He’s controlling the assault.’

‘If he’s controlling the assault, then he has to speak to me. It’s a matter of life and death.’

The captain told her to hold on, and Arley was conscious of the expressions on the faces of her colleagues as they stood or sat watching her in shocked silence, but she was beyond caring now.

She could only pray that she wasn’t too late.

FROM HIS POSITION
in the Meadow Room on the mezzanine floor, Fox saw them as they emerged one by one from the darkness under the arch, fanning out into the courtyard, their guns trained on the rear of the building as they checked the windows for any sign of ambush.

The enemy.

He slipped back out of sight, his AK-47 down by his side as he counted to twenty in his head, waiting for Bear to detonate the bomb. Willing him not to weaken.

Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen
…

Even though he’d braced himself for the impact, Fox jumped when the bomb exploded, the force of the blast shaking the windows. But his reactions were still lightning fast. Taking advantage of the seconds of chaos and disorientation that always follow an explosion, he looked out of the window and opened fire on fully automatic into the thick cloud of rapidly rising smoke.

As the glass exploded, he leaned further forward, strafing the courtyard with bullets, not sure who he was hitting through the smoke, before he was forced to leap back out of sight to avoid a burst of returning fire from somewhere near the courtyard entrance. More of the window glass shattered, spraying shards into the room, but Fox was already rolling away and pulling a grenade from his belt. He yanked out the pin, counted to three and lobbed it out of the window, hearing it explode just as it hit the ground. At the same time, amid the wild ringing in his ears, he heard Bear’s AK-47 open up from the ground floor – a single long burst followed by the angry crackle of returning fire and the whump of a stun grenade.

Fox didn’t know if Bear was going to get out in one piece or not, but he knew that he couldn’t hang around where he was any more. Bullets were flying into the room. The SAS might have been badly surprised and taken casualties, but they were still professional enough to react to the attack, and they’d be concentrating at least part of their fire on him.

It was essential for Fox to keep the momentum of the ambush going. If the SAS thought they’d snuffed out the initial resistance they’d keep coming, and Fox couldn’t afford to have that. They needed to be made to retreat.

Jumping to his feet, he reloaded his AK with the spare magazine and went into the next-door function room, pulling a second grenade from his belt. He strode over to the window and, keeping out of sight, unleashed a burst of gunfire into the glass, before pulling the pin and flinging the grenade out through the hole he’d created.

As it exploded, he let loose another burst of fire through the window, unable to resist taking a quick look at the carnage he’d caused as the smoke cleared.

He stiffened, confused. Unable to believe what he was seeing. Because what he was seeing was nothing. Other than a few small fires and the remnants of the smoke, the courtyard was empty. There were no bodies at all.

The ambush had failed.

22.13

‘HOW ON EARTH
did you know that was going to happen, Arley?’ asked Major Standard.

‘I had good information,’ said Arley into the phone. ‘The point is, did it work? Did you pull your men out in time? It sounded like there was quite a firefight over there.’ From their position in the mobile incident room two hundred yards away, they were unable to see what was happening, and the Worth Street camera wasn’t showing them much, but they’d all heard the explosions interspersed with the automatic gunfire easily enough.

‘Yes. Every man’s been accounted for. We had to return fire to cover the retreat, but I don’t know if we hit any of the terrorists or not. I need to speak to your source urgently. I want to know how he knew about our movements, and what he can tell us about the terrorists inside the building. Do you have a name and number for him?’

‘No,’ lied Arley, improvising as she went along. ‘He called from a callbox.’

‘Then who is he? And why did he call you?’

‘He’s an informant through an MI5 source. He was put on to me because I’m the police commander on the scene. I’ll try to get through to him right now.’

‘Do that. It’s urgent I speak to him. We can’t make another move on the building until we’ve got some idea what we’re up against.’

‘I’ve still got our negotiator trying to get hold of Wolf,’ said Arley. ‘He hasn’t been answering. What do you want our man to say if he does?’

‘Get him to tell Wolf it was a mistake and there was no attack. And get me that contact now, Arley. That’s an order.’

‘Yes sir,’ she said, hanging up and repeating Standard’s instruction to Riz Mohammed.

It was just in time, because barely twenty seconds later the phone in the hotel’s satellite kitchen, which had been ringing off the hook for close to ten minutes, was finally picked up, and Wolf was on the line. ‘Stop the attack now!’ he was shouting, his voice filled with a volatile mix of fear and anger as it reverberated round the room. ‘If you don’t, we will detonate the bomb in the ballroom and kill all the hostages. You have one minute to comply. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, I do,’ answered Riz, who seemed as shocked as anybody that Wolf had actually answered his call. ‘But there’s been some mistake because there hasn’t been an attack.’

‘What are you talking about? What were the explosions and all the shooting, then?’

Riz raised his eyebrows at Arley. Whatever was happening in there, it was clear Wolf wasn’t at the cutting edge of it. ‘I don’t know, but my understanding is that two members of the SAS were watching the rear of the hotel when some of your operatives opened fire on them. They then immediately retreated.’

‘Bullshit. That can’t be right. They were attacking us.’ But there was the first hint of doubt in his voice.

‘It wasn’t an attack, Wolf,’ said Riz, the calmness in his own voice a clear contrast to the terrorist’s. ‘I can promise you that. We genuinely want to negotiate.’

‘Your men shouldn’t have been round the back of here anyway. What were they doing there?’

‘They were simply keeping an eye on things.’

‘Tell them to stay away. Do you understand that? If we see any more of them again, we kill ten hostages.’

The line went dead, and Riz Mohammed took a deep breath. ‘Bloody hell, that was close. He’s not happy.’

‘It could have been one hell of a lot worse,’ murmured Arley.

‘So, who’s this contact of yours?’ asked John Cheney, frowning as he posed the question everyone in the room wanted an answer to.

They all looked at her.

‘I can’t talk about it right now,’ she said dismissively. ‘It’s classified.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ complained Cheney.

Arley gave him a look that cut him dead. ‘That’s the way it is. No more discussion.’

But even as she spoke the words, she knew she was on the verge of being found out.

‘WHAT’S HAPPENING?’ ASKED
Ethan, his face etched with fear, as he sat on the bed next to his mother.

‘It’s all right,’ Scope told him, putting a protective arm round his shoulder as the last of the explosions and gunfire from down below faded away. ‘We’re safe here.’

‘What about Mom?’

‘Your mum’s going to be all right too.’

But as they looked down at her, Scope wasn’t at all sure he was right. It had been five minutes since he’d roused her and injected the insulin. He’d managed to get her to take a few sips from a Lucozade bottle he’d found in the minibar, but she’d almost immediately thrown it up, and she was barely conscious. She needed proper medical treatment urgently, and as long as they were trapped in here, she wasn’t going to get it.

He looked over at the TV, wondering what on earth all the fighting had signified. If it was an assault by the SAS, there was no sign of them yet. If they were coming, they were taking their time.

The TV was showing the front of the hotel, as it had done through most of the evening, and the rolling headline at the bottom of the screen said that explosions and gunfire had been heard inside.

Tell me something I don’t know, he thought.

Another rolling headline appeared:
UNOFFICIAL SOURCE SAYS SAS STAGING A HOSTAGE RESCUE AND MEETING STIFF RESISTANCE
.

‘Are the cops coming now?’ asked Ethan, pushing up closer to Scope for protection. ‘Is that them doing all that shooting downstairs?’

‘It looks like it.’

‘So will they be here soon to help Mom?’

‘Shit,’ Scope said aloud before he could stop himself. A third headline was now rolling along the bottom of the screen:
UNOFFICIAL SOURCE SAYS NO ASSAULT TAKING PLACE, NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUING
.

This was bad. More than that, it was almost unheard of. There’d definitely been some kind of attack, but it seemed it had been abandoned, which put him, Ethan, and especially Abby in a dangerous position.

‘Why are you saying bad words?’ asked Ethan. ‘What’s going on?’

Scope did something that had always served him well in his military career. He made a big decision under adverse circumstances.

‘We’re getting out of here,’ he said. ‘Right now.’

‘WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?’
demanded Fox as he and Bear came together at the top of the central staircase, a few yards from the ballroom door. ‘We didn’t get any of them.’

‘I saw them come in,’ said Bear breathlessly. ‘There were loads of them. I kept my head down and counted to twenty, then blew the thing. Just like you said.’

‘Well, it didn’t work.’

‘They must have been pulled back. If they’d been within twenty yards of that bomb, they’d have been blown to pieces. Are you sure none of them were killed?’

‘Well, there aren’t any bodies out there,’ snapped Fox. ‘Come on, we’d better give Wolf the good news.’

As they went through the doors, Fox could see that the hostages were looking extremely agitated, the noise of the attempted ambush having clearly spooked them, while both Wolf and Cat kept watch on them, weapons at the ready.

Hearing their return, Wolf stepped back, still keeping his gun trained on the hostages, until he was level with Fox and Bear. He looked furious. ‘I called the negotiator. He says there was no attack.’

‘There was. At least one person fired at me. And they threw a stun grenade.’