Bombproof
Bombproof
Michael Robotham
LITNE - LITTLE, BROWN BOOK GROUP (2009)
Tags:
Fiction, Suspense
Fictionttt Suspensettt
Sami Macbeth is not a master criminal. He’s not even a minor one. He’s not a jewel thief. He’s not a safe-cracker. He’s not an expert in explosives. Sami plays guitar and wants to be a rock god but keeps getting side-tracked by unforeseen circumstances. Fifty-four hours ago Sami was released from prison. Thirty-six hours ago he slept with the woman of his dreams at the Savoy. An hour ago his train blew up. Now he’s carrying a rucksack through London’s West End and has turned himself into the most wanted terrorist in the country. Fast, funny, hip and violent, Bombproof is a non-stop adventure full of unforgettable characters and a heart-warming hero - Sami Macbeth - a man with the uncanny ability to turn a desperate situation into a hopeless one.
Bombproof
MICHAEL ROBOTHAM
Hachette Digital
Table of Contents
Before writing full-time, Michael Robotham was an investigative journalist in Britain, Australia and the US. He is the pseudonymous author of 10 best-selling non-fiction titles, involving prominent figures in the military, the arts, sport and science. He lives in Sydney with his wife and three daughters.
Also by Michael Robotham
The Suspect
Lost
The Night Ferry
Shatter
Bombproof
MICHAEL ROBOTHAM
Hachette Digital
Published by Hachette Digital 2009
Copyright © Michael Robotham 2008
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without
the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this condition
being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those
clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
eISBN : 978 0 7481 1400 9
This ebook produced by JOUVE, FRANCE
Hachette Digital
An imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DY
An Hachette Livre UK Company
This one is for my Dad
A Very Bad Day
Some days are diamonds. Some days are stones. John Denver used to sing that before he crashed a plane into Monterey Bay. It wasn’t a diamond day for him.
Sami Macbeth’s day has been nothing but stones. Emerging from Oxford Circus Underground, he blinks into the sunlight and coughs so hard it feels as if his sphincter is coming up through his lungs looking for clean air. His clothes are torn and bloody. His face streaked with sweat. His skin coated in dust.
Sami ducks beneath a makeshift barricade of crime-scene tape hanging from plastic bollards. People step aside and stare at him like he’s some sort of ghost.
Six and a half pounds of TATP - the Mother of Satan - just blew a gaping hole in a packed carriage on the Central Line, peeling off the roof like a giant opening a big can of peaches.
It was horrible down there. Mayhem. One moment Sami was standing near the train doors and the next he was lying on his back, flapping his arms and legs like an upturned beetle. Papers were blown through the air, glass showered down on him and the train shuddered to a halt. Things went quiet for a moment and completely dark. Then the screaming started.
People were hurt. Dying. God knows how many. Who was sitting in the other carriage next to Dessie? A guy in a Jesus T-shirt with his eyes closed, doing the nodding dog. Next to him was a suit with a briefcase. There was also a girl standing near the doors, wearing a short jacket. She had white headphones trailing from under her long hair.
Sami looks up and down Oxford Street. Traffic is at a standstill. Buses, vans, cars and cabs - nothing is moving. Someone hands him a bottle of water. He pours it over his head. Soot runs into his mouth and grit crunches between his teeth.
Crossing the road between two trucks, he forgets to lift his feet and trips over the gutter. A driver calls out. Sami doesn’t answer. He turns down Argyll Street and crosses Great Marlborough, stepping round pedestrians. Moving quickly.
People are staring at each other. Shocked. Clueless. Sami hears snippets of their conversation: ‘… terrorists …’ ‘… a bomb …’ ‘… underground …’
They’re frightened. Sami is frightened. Dessie just blew himself to Kingdom fucking Come. He’ll need a very short coffin - Y-shaped to fit his legs and his bollocks.
The rucksack slaps against Sami’s back. He should ditch it and run. Take his chances. But what would Murphy do to Nadia?
It’s like the platform announcer said: ‘Please keep your bags with you at all times and report any unattended items or suspicious behaviour to a member of staff.’
Sami should call Murphy. Explain. What would he say? ‘Hey, Mr Murphy, a funny thing happened on the way home. We accidentally blew up a train and Dessie lost his head and a little bit more …’
Sami doesn’t have a mobile. Dessie wouldn’t let him carry one. Now he notices a guy sending a text message. He’s unshaven, wearing Levi’s, slung slow, showing his arse-crack.
Sami asks if he can borrow the phone. The guy stares at him. ‘Were you down there, man? Respect.’ He hands Sami the phone. ‘Take it. I can’t get a signal.’
Sami punches in a number. Nothing happens.
‘Too many people trying to make calls,’ says the arse-crack guy. ‘The network is overloaded.’
Sami hands him back the phone and keeps walking, crossing at the next intersection. He notices a black cab. Opens the door. Slips onto the back seat. Dumps the rucksack on the floor between his knees.
‘You’re joking, aren’t you, mate?’ says the driver. He motions to the road ahead. ‘I haven’t moved in forty friggin’ minutes.’
Sami catches sight of himself in the rear mirror. His face is caked in dark soot except for two streaks of white, one on the tip of his nose and the other a line of perspiration running over his cheekbone and down his neck. It could be war paint. He’s been into battle.
The driver is listening to the radio.
‘What’s happened?’ asks Sami.
‘Bomb went off,’ says the driver. ‘There could be more of them.’
‘More what?’
‘Suicide bombers.’ The driver looks at him. ‘You must have been down there. You look like Al fuckin’ Jolson.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘You never heard of Al fuckin’ Jolson?’
‘No.’
‘He was a white guy used to black up his face and sing like a nigger.’
‘Why?’
‘Fuck knows.’
The driver has his door propped open. He lights a cigarette and the roll of smoke seems to evaporate on the breeze.
‘You got a phone?’ asks Sami.
‘Yeah.’
‘Can I borrow it?’
‘Won’t do you any good. They shut down the network, or the whole thing has crashed. Every man and his dog is trying to call home.’
‘Why would they shut down the network?’
‘Stop them setting off any more bombs. That’s how the ragheads do it - use mobile phones. Call the number and boom. Makes no sense to me. Live and let live, I say. We should make a deal with the terrorists - we won’t invade their fucked-up countries if they stop blowing us up.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t terrorists,’ suggests Sami.
‘Of course it was friggin’ terrorists,’ replies the driver. ‘You’re not bleeding, are you? I don’t want friggin’ blood on the seats.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You’re covered in that black shit. Maybe you should just get out.’
‘Couldn’t I just sit here?’
‘Does this cab look like a friggin’ backpacker’s?’
Sami gets out. Swings the rucksack over one shoulder. Drops his head and keeps moving.
Turning out of Rupert Street into Shaftesbury Avenue, he almost runs into a big black rozzer standing on the corner, directing traffic. Really big, two-fifty pounds at least, made even larger by his vest, which is bristling with Old Bill gadgets.
Sami apologises. The rozzer tells him to slow down and watch where he’s going. Then he clocks Sami’s clothes and the rucksack.
‘What you carrying, lad?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Looks pretty heavy to be nothing.’
‘Dirty laundry.’
‘Show me.’
‘It’s locked.’
‘You always lock up your dirty laundry?’
‘There’s loads of perverts about,’ says Sami. ‘You can’t be too careful.’
The rozzer is already reaching for the radio on his arm. He tells Sami to put the rucksack down and slowly step back.
Sami’s insides are betraying him now. His hair is full of broken glass. His clothes are covered in shit. He doesn’t need this. Looking past the rozzer, a camera shutter blinks in his mind and suddenly he can see a dozen years in prison. The shutter blinks again and he sees his sister Nadia lying on a bed, her dress plastered to her body, a crack whore for Tony Murphy.
The black constable grabs hold of Sami’s arm. Instinct kicks in. Sami drops his head into the rozzer’s stomach, hearing the wind whistle out of his mouth and nose. He’s running now, dodging pedestrians, leaping over a dog on a lead, bursting through a queue, knocking over a man carrying a sandwich board.
The Underground is closed. The steps deserted. There are station guards at the stairs. Across the street, between ambulances, fire engines, there are more police officers keeping the crowds back. Sightseers. Rubbernecks.
Sami crashes into an outdoor table, spilling a bottle of wine and upending a woman in mid-meal. A waiter gives him a gobful. He keeps running. The bag over one shoulder. Slapping against his back. He should stop and tighten the straps, clip the belt around his waist, redistribute the weight, but he’s too scared to stop.
Run. That’s what every sense tells him to do. Just run. Get away. Find somewhere quiet. Hide the rucksack. Steal a moment to think.
He ducks into an alley, leans his back against a wall. The rucksack props him up. He listens. Sirens. Stuck in traffic. Trying to outrun them on foot is a loser’s game. They’ll corner him and wait for reinforcements.
Sami has to go off the radar. Disappear. He has money now - the stash from the safe. But first he has to get out of the West End … out of London.
There’s a church across the square. He can hide inside. Stash the rucksack in a dark corner. Say a prayer. It’s a good plan.
He comes out of the alley and finds three policemen in front of him. One of them has a gun and is crouching, holding it in two hands, like he knows how to use it.
‘Don’t move,’ he yells. ‘Put the bag down.’
Sami looks behind him … looks ahead. Holds his fist in the air; his thumb cocked. Empty, but they don’t know that.
‘I got a fucking bomb,’ he yells, not recognising his own voice. ‘Get back or I’ll flatten this place.’
The rozzers melt away. Sami runs past them. The one with the gun is lying on the ground, on his elbows, trying to get a shot. Sami keeps moving, stepping from side to side.
A bomb. He told them he had a bomb. What a prize fuck-up. What a joke! Sami isn’t just unlucky; he’s a walking jinx, a Jonah, a one-man wrecking crew. He’s trouble with a capital ‘T’ and that rhymes with ‘D’ and that stands for dead.
Three days ago he walked out of prison and swore he’d never go back. Thirty-six hours ago he was shagging Kate Tierney, the woman of his wet dreams, in a suite at the Savoy thinking life was looking up. Now he’s carrying a rucksack that could send him to prison for the rest of his life through the West End of London and he’s turned himself into the most wanted man in Britain.