Nine Lives

  Nine Lives

  By

  Tom Barber

  *****

  Nine Lives

  Copyright: Tom Barber

  Published: 9 May 2012

  The right of Tom Barber to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by he in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  For my father, Anthony. We miss you every day Dad.

  ONE

  The hotel room was as dark as a cave.

  Curtains drawn, the lights turned off, everything was still and silent. Like a tomb. In the darkness, three red numbers and two red letters glowed like the end of a lit cigarette.

  7:00 am.

  The man in the bed hadn’t set an alarm. He didn’t need to. He’d already been awake for hours. Today was the biggest day of his life, the culmination of a year of planning and preparation. It had been close. The whole thing had almost fallen apart at the last minute. But he’d recovered. Dealt with the problem. Figured out a Plan B. And if everything proceeded as planned, over a thousand people waking up that morning would be dead by the end of the day. Probably more.

  Hopefully more.

  But if it didn’t work? The man felt his stomach tighten, like an anaconda squeezing the life out of its prey. He didn’t want to consider that outcome for a moment. Lying motionless under the sheets, staring at the ceiling, he reassured that concerned voice whispering at the back of his mind. There’s nothing to worry about. Everything is in place. He’ll be happy. Proud. You’ll get a hero’s welcome when you return.

  And the past will be forgotten.

  Rolling from the bed, the man moved to the curtains and opened them a fraction, peering outside. It was a dark and cold 31 December morning in London. Three hundred yards away, the giant airfield of Heathrow Airport lay protected by a tall mesh fence, topped with swirling cylinders of razor-wire. On the airfield itself, planes were scattered intermittently around the tarmac, as small as toys from this distance, coloured amber from the lamp-posts that stood over them. The man watched a plane glide along a runway and move smoothly into the sky. The wheels under the Boeing 757 retracted, pulled back inside and closed off in a compartment as the wings took over and did their job. The airplane moved with a grace that belied its immense weight and passenger load as it soared into the London sky.

  Sitting back on the bed, the man picked up a holdall from the floor beside him and lifted it, resting the bag on his bare thighs. Opening the zip, he checked inside. Everything was still there. He knew it would be, but he couldn’t help double-checking. It felt reassuring, which had been an elusive commodity these past few days. Reaching inside, he pulled something out of the bag and turning the object, examined it.

  It was a faded yellow brick, about the length of a television remote, but as thick as a good book. A letter and a number were printed on the side, in bold black lettering. Beside it was typed a further description, in smaller font.

  C4. Composition C. Plastic Explosive.

  In his hand, the weapon was harmless enough. But if used properly, this one brick of plastic explosive could easily kill over twenty people. With the fourteen others in the bag, the resulting charge could demolish a building. And wipe out every person inside.

  Holding the brick in his hand, the man watched through the gap in the curtains as another plane swept off the runway and drifted into the sky. Beside him, the red figures on the electronic clock ticked forward.

  7:01 am.

  It had only just passed eight o’clock in the morning, but Director Tim Cobb, head of the Armed Response Unit, already knew it was going to be the worst day of his life.

  At thirty-nine years old, Cobb had pretty well seen it all. He’d joined the government fresh out of Cambridge seventeen years ago. A family friend knew he was about to graduate, and had set up him up with a desk job at MI5. Since then, it had been more or less a linear path up the ranks and towards the top as he’d gained more and more responsibility. Cobb had discovered that he possessed a knack for orchestration and leadership that set him apart from his peers. He was never the guy on the ground, he was the figure in the ivory tower. If it was World War Two all over again, he’d be a General, marshalling troops and directing operations, not the Private in the fox-hole firing his weapon. Some men had a gift and Cobb’s was to lead. Two months shy of his fortieth birthday, he had to admit that his life was pretty damn good. He had a lovely wife and two fast-growing boys. He was healthy, experienced and at the peak of his career. He had everything a man could ask for.

  Not to mention his own counter-terrorist unit.

  In the last few years, the London Metropolitan Police Service had been under considerable pressure. With stabbings and shootings becoming an almost daily occurrence in the city, the police had found themselves at a severe disadvantage when trying to maintain law and order on the streets. After the tragedy in Dunblane, Scotland in 1996 when a lone gunman had killed sixteen children and a teacher at a primary school, the government had passed The Firearms Amendment Act. Basically, it meant civilians in the UK were no longer permitted to own automatic or semi-automatic weapons. And that included the street police. The law had been created to try and reduce the potential for further gun crime across the country, but it had given the gangs and criminals an immediate advantage. They had guns. And they knew the other side didn’t.

  The riots in the summer of 2011 had been the final straw. The whole world had watched for days as criminals and thugs ran amok, vandalising, stealing and burning cities all over the United Kingdom, causing chaos and widespread panic. After the mobs had finally been quelled, the Prime Minister decided he’d had enough. He was aware that there were specialist response teams already in place serving as armed back-up for the Met Police, namely Armed Response Vehicles and the C019 task force. But the PM had decided on a different approach - he’d looked at the American SWAT-team model and ordered the immediate formation of a new detail.

  The Armed Response Unit.

  The squad comprised an analyst and intelligence team and a task force, all of whom worked under the watchful eye of a Director of Operations. The PM wanted finesse and firepower, a professional team ready to be called into action at a moment’s notice and to act decisively, ruthlessly and without hesitation. When word had spread about the formation of the detail towards the end of last year, Cobb had put his name in the hat to lead the outfit. But he needn’t have bothered. He was already at the top of the list.

  After he’d been selected, the Prime Minister gave Cobb the pick of the litter from MI5, MI6 and the Met. He’d gladly obliged, and had made some controversial choices. He’d assembled an intelligence team that ran as smoothly and efficiently as a Formula One racing team in the pit. In their previous roles in the Met, most of these people had been spending their time pushing paper at stations around the city, becoming increasingly bored and frustrated, their talents not being fully utilised. But Cobb had an eye for potential. He’d plucked five individuals from various stations with the PM’S authorisation and given them each a new home in his detail. So far, each one had more than justified his faith in them. He had chosen well.

  He’d also ruffled more than a few feathers by picking two guys in their mid-twenties for spots on the ten-man task force. Doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been a cop if you can’t run up a fl
ight of stairs he’d said, as many older and more experienced officers were passed over. Every man on the team was lean, fit and strong as well as intelligent, and they all possessed that indefinable extra quality that made them stand out. Cobb had the highest of standards for his detail and he demanded that every person he selected met them. The ARU had been together for close to a year but post riots, it had been surprisingly smooth-sailing so far, almost as an irony. Apart from the odd weapon retrieval or tipped-off drug raid, the year had been generally uneventful.

  From the seat behind his desk in his office, Cobb cursed inwardly.

  I jinxed it, he thought.

  The previous night, five days after Christmas, the kids in bed and his wife under his arm as they watched television, Cobb had sipped on a glass of Scottish single-malt and realised, all things considered, his life was the best it had ever been. He’d felt almost complacent as he went to bed.

  Then his phone had rung at seven-thirty this morning.

  Nothing had been revealed in the call, but that wasn't necessary. The man on the phone had said only four words. Conference call. Eight o’clock. But Cobb knew from the tone of the guy’s voice that something was seriously wrong. He’d been out his front door in ten minutes, fired up the engine to his car and headed swiftly into the city, as quickly as he could. His recent increase in salary meant he’d been able to move his family to an upmarket home on the outskirts of Surrey. From his front door to the Unit’s headquarters in North London normally took him thirty two minutes, depending on traffic. This morning however, he made it in twenty nine.

  The Unit’s HQ was the envy of other departments, but then again, Cobb knew that was the way with every new government location. The building would stay high up on the pedestal until a new place cropped up, knocking it a rung down the ladder. It was a solid building. Two floors. The lower level housed the holding and interrogation cells, as well as the locker and kit rooms for the task force, where they changed their clothes and stowed their weapons. Upstairs, the floor was split into two sides. To the right was where the tech team operated, a clustered nucleus of computer screens and large monitors, all under the observant eye of Cobb from his office. The left side led to a rectangular briefing room, which the field team used as their base of operations and also as a place to wait on call.

  Despite the trepidation he was currently feeling, Cobb felt a brief moment of calm. He knew he was surrounded by professional and quality operatives, people proud of their job and determined to do it well. As a unit, the intelligence team was thorough and forensic, and the task force was efficient and dependable.

  Cobb’s smiled faded.

  He had a gut feeling that today, they were going to need to be.

  A large television screen in front of his desk suddenly came to life. One of the advantages of modern technology meant the days of conference meetings with everyone in the room were now an option, not a necessity. The monitor was attached to the wall across his office, the screen split into two sides. To the left was a man with short, buzz-cut grey hair and bloodshot eyes.

  John Simmons.

  Cobb wasn’t familiar with the guy, but he knew he was one of the bosses at GCHQ, the government’s communications headquarters. Based across the country in Cheltenham, GCHQ monitored every phone-call and email made to or from the nation, scanning for any unlawful or terrorist activity. Simmons was one of the men who commanded it. To his right, in a separate shot, were two other men. One of them was Pete Rogers, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff. He was a good guy, short and solid, who bore a strong resemblance to Michael J Fox. Cobb had known him for over ten years, and they had been friends for most of that time.

  And beside Pete was the Prime Minister himself. Cobb had only met him once when he was still at MI5, but his new position meant they now interacted on an almost weekly basis. Cobb liked him. He was a good man with good intentions. However, like most heads of government, he was paying for the mistakes of the guy who’d held the post before him. He was three and a half years into his tenure, with elections coming up. Cobb knew it was unlikely he’d be around for the next four.

  Rogers opened the exchange, which brought Cobb’s attention back to the room.

  ‘Morning, Tim,’ he said, his voice slightly tinny over the television.

  Cobb nodded.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen.’

  ‘This is Deputy Director Simmons, joining us from GCHQ,’ said Rogers.

  Cobb flicked his eyes to Simmons, on the left portion of the screen.

  ‘Good morning,’ Cobb said.

  Simmons didn’t return the courtesy. He jumped straight into his report instead. Probably can’t wait to share the burden, Cobb thought.

  ‘I'll get straight to the point, Director,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘For the past eight months, I have led an operation to take down a major terrorist cell, operating right here in the UK. Around twelve weeks ago, I was successful in getting one of my men into the group, undercover. Working with him, we gathered a slew of information and evidence. Enough to lock up each member of the cell for five to ten years at least.’

  He paused.

  'However, I ordered my team to hold back.'

  ‘Why?’ asked Cobb. He didn’t like where this was going already.

  'Because there was a potential case here to put each member of the cell away for twenty years,' Simmons replied, speaking quickly. ‘I don’t need to tell you that chances like that don’t come around often.’

  The ARU Director nodded, taking a sip from a mug of coffee on his desk that he’d poured earlier. It needed sugar.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘ The most recent reports from my man were pretty concerning. He told me that the cell was planning a series of attacks. Across London. This weekend.'

  'OK, so let's move in right now and take them', said Cobb, putting down his coffee. 'Why wait?'

  On the right side of the screen, he saw Rogers bow his head.

  ‘That was my intention,’ Simmons continued. 'Everything was in place. We knew their day-to-day routines, habits, locations. I’d been in contact with Chief Superintendent Kessler, and he had his C019 task force on call, ready and waiting. We were all set to move in and detain the whole cell this morning’.

  A but hung in the hair.

  Cobb glanced across the screen to Rogers and the PM. They were both silent, looking grave. Cobb sighed.

  ‘But let me guess. They’ve disappeared.’

  Simmons rubbed his blotchy face and nodded, looking tired and beleaguered. ‘I lost contact with my man in the group forty-eight hours ago. I thought he’d have resurfaced by now, but he hasn’t. And twenty four hours ago, the entire cell just vanished. They dumped all of our surveillance. They’ve gone silent. Completely off our radar. None of them are using phones or computers, so relocating them is proving to be a bitch.’

  Cobb didn’t reply. He was thinking about the situation. New Year’s Eve. Nine terrorists on the loose across the city.

  And no idea where any of them were.

  He pinched his brow. ‘Jesus Christ. You’ve really dropped us in it this time, John. Seriously.’

  Simmons didn’t respond. Inside Cobb’s office, a second television was mounted beside the first monitor. Its blank, dark screen suddenly switched to a slide. Nine faces appeared, each one either a mug-shot or a front-on surveillance capture. All dishevelled, untidy men, save for the man on the far right. Each photograph had a number above it in capitals, from One to Nine.

  ‘My team’s doing everything humanly possible to try to find them,’ continued Simmons, as Cobb scanned the photographs. ‘But I need your help, Director. We’re up against the clock. This lot could strike at any moment. Together, we need to find them, and either take them in, or take them out.’

  The Prime Minister spoke for the first time. Dressed in an immaculate suit and softly-spoken, he was the epitome of calm and grace, especially compared to Simmons on the screen beside him.

  'Coul
d they have travelled abroad, John?' he asked.

  Simmons shook his head. ‘Border authorities have been briefed, sir. If any of them tried to use their passport or a fake, they’d get flagged in the system instantly. That is, if they even made it inside the airport in the first place. Security teams are in place at the three majors, and at the ports. But so far, nothing. Which means they’re all still here’

  ‘Of course they’re still here,’ said Cobb, irritated. ‘It’s New Year’s Eve, for Christ’s sake. There're going to be thousands of people all over the city tonight. They’ve got a laundry list of potential targets. Why the hell would they leave?'

  He suddenly stopped. He realised he hadn’t asked a crucial question.

  ‘What kind of attack were they planning, John?’ he added.

  Simmons paused.

  Cobb saw him lick his lips.

  ‘Suicide bombing,’ he said quietly.

  Cobb shook his head, covering his face with his palm. ‘This just gets better and better.’

  'Home-made explosives, packed into a vest with nails and ball-bearings,’ described Simmons. ‘Each charge could potentially kill a hundred people, probably more, depending on their surroundings.'

  The Prime Minister leaned forward, his calm face becoming larger on the screen. 'Before you lost touch with your man, did he mention any specific or intended targets, John?'

  Cobb cut in.

  'Even if he had, they'll probably have changed them, sir,’ he said. ‘Clearly, they know we're onto them.'

  'I'm afraid not, sir,' Simmons said, answering the PM. 'My agent said that information was being kept until the last minute by one of the men.’

  ‘Which one?’ asked Rogers.

  ‘Number Nine on the slide.’

  Cobb flicked his gaze to the man’s photo. He was the only guy who wasn’t completely untidy and a scruff. He definitely stood out as the leader. For a terrorist, Cobb had to admit the man was surprisingly handsome, especially compared to the shabby appearances of the men in the other photos beside him. He had dark-features, Middle Eastern maybe, but cold, dark eyes. Cobb stared at him as Simmons spoke.