Assassin (John Stratton) (30 page)

Chandos came over to have a look. ‘Good god,’ he muttered. ‘It’s a live one, isn’t it?’

‘Very much so.’ Stratton shut the lid and wheeled the
trolley in the direction of the corridor, pausing at the model and map Wheeland had used for the briefing.

‘How well do you know New York?’ Stratton asked.

‘Not very well,’ Chandos said.

There were several folded maps on the table by the radio. Stratton opened one up and compared it to the various markers on the model. He tore away the relevant section, folded it and stuffed it in his pocket.

‘Let’s go,’ he said as he wheeled the trolley to the elevator.

Chandos made a quick diversion and rejoined Stratton holding a couple of coats. ‘It’s a bit chilly outside,’ he said.

Stratton saw a shoulder holster hanging over a chair and quickly pulled it on, and then the jacket Chandos handed him over the top.

Chandos put his pistol into a pocket and Stratton hit the elevator call button.

They pushed the trolley out of the elevator and into the building’s confined lobby. The marble floor was the only touch of opulence about the place. An empty reception desk lined one wall.

A television monitor on a wall was silently playing a local news station displaying breaking news. Real-time subtitles streamed across the bottom of the screen:

‘
. . . despite the panic it could cause, the people of New York City had a right to know, the governor’s spokesman said. Everything was being done to locate the device, but meanwhile the authorities had to do everything conceivably possible to facilitate the rapid exit from the city of all those who wanted to leave . . .’

It felt surreal in the quiet lobby. They heaved the trolley to a set of glass doors.

‘The panic’s started,’ Chandos said as he pushed the button to open the door. They pushed the trolley through and out onto the pavement, looking down the four-lane boulevard at people moving in all directions, some running, others ambling along, a mixture of awareness of the threat.

The street was tree-lined, high-sided by apartment blocks and offices, and busy. They heard the whine of a distant emergency siren. Stratton took a quick check of the map to get his bearings. ‘Avenue of the Americas,’ he said, reading a sign. ‘We need to head south.’

‘How far?’ Chandos asked.

‘Two, maybe three miles. If we keep up a good pace, we could be in the area in half an hour.’

‘What if the detectors ping us before we get there?’

‘That’s only one of the what-ifs I’m worried about.’

Several police vehicles escorting a couple of large vans between them were preceded by sirens as they turned a corner into the street. The convoy muscled its way through the traffic and disappeared down a side street.

‘This entire island is going to become a car park in a short space of time,’ Stratton said, quickening the pace.

The trolley was easy to push considering the weight it was carrying, the pneumatic wheels helping to absorb the dips and bumps, particularly when they crossed roads.

‘Stand aside!’ Chandos called out to a group of people ahead with their backs to them. ‘Please stand aside. Emergency.’

The process worked well and where there were hardly any pedestrians, they managed to break into a light jog. All the time, Stratton kept a wary eye on the passing cars, in particular any Suburbans like those at the airfield. Several people suddenly came running towards them, rudely pushing their way through people. One, a woman, stopped quickly to talk to a man. After a brief exchange the woman
ran on, followed by the man. There was clearly a distinction between those who’d heard the news and those who hadn’t. That also applied to vehicles, with some drivers trying to get going while others weren’t.

‘Make way! Coming through!’ Chandos called out again to several people ahead.

The pair kept looking skywards as they hurried along the street, searching between the towering buildings for any sign of RDA aircraft.

‘Shouldn’t we find a vehicle of some sort?’ Chandos said. ‘We might get to the ambush RV before the traffic builds.’

‘I’m working on it,’ Stratton said.

‘If they find us they’ll shoot first, considering the circumstances. You know that, don’t you?’

Wheeland sat in the front passenger seat of a black Suburban, its windows darkly tinted, as it left the underground car park of the building. Two large, windowless black vans followed it and behind those came two more Suburbans. Each of the vans contained twenty men, all dressed as their team commander in black one-piece suits, body armour, webbing, ballistic helmets and goggles. They were loaded for bear.

They headed up the street towards a main intersection, where they turned left and joined busy traffic. Communications between the vehicles and observation posts blared from the radios Wheeland and the team leaders were wearing. He was a little nervous about the upcoming attack. It wasn’t his normal line of work. It was outside of his comfort zone.
But he was doing this one for himself, his own personal profit. And if all went well, it would be his last ever job.

Two years before his visit to Afghanistan to get the codes, he had been assigned to Henry Betregard’s office as a consultant analyst. Wheeland had never heard of Betregard prior to joining his personnel staff, but Betregard had heard of Wheeland, on paper at least. Betregard had done his homework when selecting personnel. During Wheeland’s fifteen years in the service of the CIA, he’d proved himself to be intelligent and highly resourceful in the field, but there were also several question marks about his integrity. No substantial evidence suggested he might be corruptible, yet inferences had been made by more than one previous department head who thought they’d detected signs.

As for Wheeland, when Betregard asked him if he was interested in doing something of great personal profit that wasn’t in the interest of the flag he’d served for so long, he wasn’t entirely surprised. He’d formed his own suspicions about Betregard’s out-of-office activities after only a couple of months in the man’s employ. The same degree of questionable integrity could be applied to everyone else who worked for Betregard. They were all up for a little extracurricular activity.

Wheeland’s cut of the day’s heist, for the part he’d played in the planning and execution of the operation, was going to be a cool thirty million dollars. As soon as the gold was carried by the sky crane helicopters onto the vessel in the bay, his money would be dropped into his account. He
didn’t even have to wait until the ship sailed to Russia, where the gold would be melted down. Betregard had even given him a six-figure deposit for his work so far. The plan was perfect down to every detail. The shell company that had been set up to purchase the weapons and equipment and rent the small fleet of crane and support helicopters would disappear, its owners untraceable. Even if the FBI suspected any of those involved, proving it was going to be impossible. None of the men would talk if captured. There was a fortune waiting for any who were unlucky enough to be imprisoned. They had all been specially selected. Each would happily kill friend and foe to achieve his goals.

Betregard also had the unwitting support of the CIA, which trusted him completely. Langley had fully accepted that all the work Wheeland and his team had been doing in Afghanistan and elsewhere was in the interest of national security.

And if it looked a little deeper, it still would.

Wheeland would remain in the government’s employ for another few months after the heist, for the sake of appearances. After that he would quietly slip away and begin a new life. He didn’t have a single doubt that he deserved every penny of it for the services he’d rendered to his country. It was only just and fitting.

Looking back, he actually thought it had all been too easy to put together. The execution phase was going to be little more than a formality. Sound planning was the key to success. Accurate and detailed risk assessing and
analysis, combined with the right personnel, the right procedures and the right equipment. The better the preparation, the less a plan relied on luck. Of course, there was always an element of good fortune required. A simple vehicle accident at this stage had the potential to impede the success of the operation, but even that had been planned for.

As he sat there, staring ahead, wondering if there was anything he’d overlooked, he saw two men pushing a trolley along the sidewalk. He saw a black plastic box on the trolley. And then he recognised one of the men pushing it.

It took a second to hit him.

‘Stop the goddamned vehicle!’ Wheeland shouted as he pushed a button on the console and the driver’s blackened window slid down to let the daylight flood in.

In his peripheral vision, Stratton had seen the vehicles come to a stop and he knew they were in trouble. When the window began to open, he saw someone lean across the driver holding a black-barrelled tube.

‘Down!’ he yelled, grabbing Chandos and pushing him forward to put a car between them and the Suburban.

Wheeland opened up with the high-velocity weapon on fully automatic. The powerful bullets slammed through the relatively soft skin of the vehicle, shattering its windows, trashing the interior and upholstery, and peppering it with small, jagged holes.

Chandos hugged the front wheel while Stratton lay down behind the rear, praying the wheel hubs would protect
them. The windows of a shop behind them shattered and the display was ripped apart. He saw someone stood at the counter inside struck several times.

People in the street scattered, most of them dropping to the ground where they stood. And then the shooting stopped. Stratton knew well enough why. Wheeland had exhausted the magazine and was exchanging it for another. In the passenger seat of a vehicle that would be more cumbersome and time consuming than on one’s feet. They had five or six seconds to move. ‘Go!’ he shouted as he got to his feet and shunted the trolley forward.

Chandos was quickly up and the pair ran as hard as they could behind the trolley while keeping low, threading between prone pedestrians like a two-man bobsleigh team trying to get their bob up to speed.

‘Left!’ Stratton shouted and they took a sharp turn into a one-way street of traffic at a standstill trying to head towards them into the main street.

‘Follow them!’ Wheeland shouted at the driver. ‘That way! Cross the street!’

‘It’s a one-way street, boss,’ the driver said.

‘Parallel it! Go!’

The driver put his foot down and tried to muscle through the building traffic.

‘Send the other vehicles to the RV,’ Wheeland shouted to one of the men behind him. ‘You take the next turn!’ he said to the driver.

They passed the end of the one-way street and Wheeland caught a glimpse of the two men.

Stratton and Chandos ran for all they were worth, the trolley rattling along in front of them.

‘Right!’ Stratton yelled.

They turned in sync, crossed the road between a couple of parked cars and down an alley, emerging onto a street and, after a quick check to ensure the black 4×4 wasn’t coming, tore across it, through a gap in a fence and into a small car park.

Stratton heaved the trolley over the pitted lot while Chandos did everything he could to keep the box from falling off.

Wheeland’s driver turned the corner to leave the main road and accelerated hard, flying past the car park, but Wheeland caught a glimpse through his side window of Stratton and Chandos halfway across it. ‘Stop! Back up!’ he shouted.

Stratton and Chandos were already running to the car park exit when the Suburban appeared again. As the two Englishmen came into view, Wheeland took out his pistol and aimed, but he was too late. They ducked around a corner and were out of sight.

‘Go!’ Wheeland shouted. ‘Next right!’

Stratton and Chandos had crossed the street and headed back towards Avenue of the Americas, which they went south on. Several sirens blared, followed seconds later by
two police cars screaming past. Stratton glanced back as the squad cars came to a halt further down the street and officers leaped out, guns in hand, crouching behind their vehicles while they tried to figure out what had taken place.

He looked at Chandos, who was beginning to feel the strain of the physical effort. Stratton slowed a little in order for them to stick together. He realised they needed an alternative form of transport.

‘This way,’ he shouted, wanting to get off the major route. He turned down another side street, crossed the road and hurried through a piece of derelict ground between the apartment buildings.

As they reached the other end and another side street the trolley’s front wheels snagged in a deep pothole. The impact turned it violently and the black box jumped off its platform. They watched in horror as it hit the ground, the lid snapped open and the bomb rolled out of it like a big black lead buoy.

The warhead bounced onto the road and started rolling across the street, right into the path of a slow-moving car. The thud of the impact sent a shudder through Stratton, but the bomb slid down the street, apparently undamaged.

‘Dear god,’ muttered Chandos, and they ran hard in full pursuit, as vehicles swerved to avoid the barrel. Finally, it hit a pile of trash cans, slowing down enough for Stratton to grab it.

‘Is it OK?’ Chandos asked, completely out of breath.

‘If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be here.’

Up ahead they saw a man easing several boxes on a crate mover off a ramp attached to the back of a panel van. The man pushed the boxes into a building.

Stratton knew precisely what he wanted to do next.

Wheeland’s Suburban drove at reduced speed along a street, the men inside looking in every direction for signs of Stratton and the bomb.

‘There,’ one of the men shouted as he pointed at the trolley in the wasteground. They saw the black box alongside it, lying on its side.

The driver stopped the SUV and Wheeland jumped out. He hurried along the street and the Suburban followed him.

Stratton and Chandos rolled the bomb up the ramp and inside the back of the van.