David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good (18 page)

       
“Your weapons,
gentlemen,” the guy holding Melissa said. “On the ground. Quickly.”

       
The agents who’d been on
either side of Melissa remained still, but the two on the outside of the line
started to move forward, looking for a clearer shot. It was an obvious ploy,
though, and the guy responded by dragging Melissa backwards until his back was
safely pressed against the wall of the building.

       
“OK,” he said. “No more
second chances. You see what I’m holding? It’s a remote trigger. You see my
thumb is pressing the button? That means the system is armed. If I let go -
boom. There’ll be clouds of
caesium
over half of
South London. Is that what you want?”

       
The agents stopped
moving.

       
“Good,” the guy said.
“So, this is what I want. Put your guns on the ground, now. Then back off, and
do not interfere while this nice lady and I get into the van and drive away.
And when we’re gone, do not call anyone for thirty minutes. Remember the
button. If I see anyone following, I’ll let go.”

       
The agents stayed where
they were and showed no sign of lowering their weapons, so I stepped out from
the shadow of the van. I was holding the borrowed Colt out to my side at
shoulder height, with its grip between my finger and thumb.

       
“It’s OK, lads,” I said,
throwing the gun down in front of me. “Do as he says.”

       
It took a few seconds,
but eventually the agents’ Sigs rattled to the ground.

       
“Everyone, stay calm,” I
said,
then
turned to the guy holding Melissa. “We’ve
done what you asked. No one’s armed, and no one’s going to do anything stupid.
You’re free to take the van.
But how about this?
Take
me with you, instead of her?”

       
“No chance,” the guy
said. “I’m taking her.”

       
“That’s fine,” I said.
“There’s no problem. You can take her. We’re not going to call anyone, when you
do. And no one’s going to follow you, so there’s no need for anyone to get
hurt. OK?”

       
“OK.”

       
“Good. Now look, we’re
giving you what you want. Everything you asked for. But I just have one thing
to ask in return. Later, when you’re in the wind and we recover the vehicle,
our people will have to make it safe. So can you tell me, are all the canisters
booby-trapped? Or just some of them?”

       
He didn’t answer.

       
“We could always leave
it an hour before we call this in,” I said. “Give you twice as long to get
away. It would be worth it to know what we’re dealing with when we get our
hands back on that van. And no one would ever know you’d told us anything.”

       
“Two,” the guy said,
after a moment. “Two canisters are wired.”

       
“Definitely two?” I
said.

       
“Definitely.”

       
“Which two?”

       
“I don’t know.”

       
“So how do you know
there are two?”

       
“I saw the driver
rigging the devices at the hospital. But I didn’t load them into the van. I
don’t know which order they loaded them in.”

       
“You saw him open them?”

       
“No. The devices are
attached to the outside. Just tell your people to look for the wires.”

       
I took a moment to
reconstruct the interior of the van in my memory.
The exact
appearance of the canisters.
And to push the thought
of their contents out of my mind.

       
“OK, thanks,” I said,
when I was ready. Then I reached behind me, took hold of my Beretta, and shot a
glance at Melissa.

       
It’s OK. He’s bluffing.

       
“Agent
Wainwright,” I said. “Would you like me to shoot him?”

       
Understood,
her expression replied.

       
“No need,” she said,
smashing her the back of her head into the guy’s face, then stamping down on
his right knee and driving her elbow in his abdomen. “I think he’s changed his
mind about that drive.”

Chapter Fourteen

Hurry up and wait. That’s how my father used to sum up the routine of
life in the army. An unbroken cycle of frenzied action followed by long periods
of doing nothing. He warned me to expect the same when I joined the Navy, but
my experience has been pleasantly different. For one thing, I’ve had very
little time on my hands over the years. And for another, the Navy really does
try to keep what we call the ‘dead time’ - the meetings and the paperwork that
follow every assignment - to an absolute minimum. But as I sat with Melissa in
an office at Thames House the next morning, I began to suspect that things
weren’t quite the same at MI5.

       
The chair I picked was
still warm when I sat in it, but the man at the end of the table - the Deputy
Director General, the officer in charge of the day-to-day running of the whole
organisation
- showed no sign of having noticed the person
occupying it had changed. He was too busy cleaning his half moon reading
glasses, carefully spraying them with clear liquid from a tiny silver aerosol and
buffing them with a square of bottle-green silk.

       
Melissa took the seat
next to me and we waited in silence until two more men came into the room. The
first was the agent who’d fired the
tazer
through the
gate at the compound in Croydon, and Melissa whispered to me that the other was
her boss. They took seats with a space in between them on the opposite side of
the rectangular table, but before they’d settled themselves the door opened
again and Tim Jones appeared. Melissa beckoned him in, and he hurried to sit
down at her side.

       
The Deputy DG moved his
head for the first
time
as soon the door had swung
closed. He held his spectacles up to the light, nodded,
then
used them to gesture towards Melissa’s boss.

       
“Introductions,” he
said. “
Chaston
, get the ball rolling, will you?”

       
“Colin
Chaston
,” Melissa’s boss said. “Central Counter Terrorism
Unit.”

       
“Phil Green,” the agent
said. “Field Operations.”

       
“I’m Arthur Hardwicke,”
the Deputy DG said. “I’m taking a personal interest in this mess. Our friend on
the other side of the table is Commander
Trevellyan
,
who’s joining us temporarily from Navy Intelligence. And everyone knows agents
Wainwright and Jones, yes?”

       
Everyone nodded.

       
“Good,” Hardwicke said.
“Now, we had a very close shave last night.
A very uncomfortably
close shave.
Chaston
– how do we smell
this morning?
Of roses?
Or of the stuff they grow in?”

       
“I’m quietly optimistic,
actually,”
Chaston
said. “We already knew we’d
recovered the right number of containers, yesterday. Well, the lab boys have
been burning the midnight oil, and they’ve now confirmed the correct amount of
caesium
was inside them. None had been syphoned off,
diluted, stolen, or in any other way tampered with. So, any immediate threat
has been avoided.”

       
“That’s good. But what
worries me most about this whole bag of spanners is that we didn’t see it
coming. It landed on us completely out of the blue. So, what else do we know?
Who’s behind it? What were they planning?”

       
“Well, we’re progressing
on three fronts.
The hospital crime scene.
The
vehicle. And the criminals we apprehended with it.”

       
“That’s not what I
asked.”

       
“Well then, the simple
answer is we’re in the dark.”

       
“Start with what’s
happening at the hospital. Wainwright, that’s your bailiwick, yes?”

       
“Yes sir,” Melissa said.
“Jones and I became involved when axe marks were discovered on the door to the
caesium
vault. These did not represent a credible attempt
to gain access, so we’re working on the theory that persons unknown were
attempting to cause the
caesium
to be removed, thus
rendering it more vulnerable.”

       
“This was not
successful?” Hardwicke said.

       
“No sir. The damage was
only cosmetic, so there was no need to move the
caesium
at that time.”

       
“Who wielded the axe?”

       
“A fireman. Or someone
dressed as one. We haven’t yet been able to establish his identity. Or, if he’s
a real fireman, whether he was bribed or coerced.”

       
“Why not?”

       
“I’m sorry to report
this sir, but the Met allowed the only witness to escape.”

       
Hardwicke picked his
glasses back up from the table and carefully sprayed more fluid onto each lens.

       
“I assume you’re doing
something about getting him back?” he said, catching an excess drop of liquid
with the cloth before it could hit the table.

       
“Yes sir,” Jones said.
“I’m taking personal responsibility for that. I’ll ensure he’s found.”

       
“Very good,” Hardwicke
said. “And what about last night’s episode? A second try?”

       
“We believe so,” Melissa
said. “It seems that someone learned their lessons and tried a more refined
approach. The fire brigade believes the fire was started deliberately with some
wads of insulation from a disused generator. The stuff was soaked with oil, so
it gave off copious clouds of very dense smoke. And it was arranged around some
pieces of an old x-ray machine, to give off enough of a radiation signature to
prompt us to call the emergency
hazmat
team.”

       
“Ingenious.”

       
“Very. It was
improvised, and highly successful. And because all the components were sourced
from the hospital itself, it gives us very little to trace.”

       
“I see. And what about
the van?”

       
“Nothing constructive,
I’m afraid sir,” Green said. “The van, the tools, the hazmat suits, all
completely clean. There were no prints, other than from the four individuals we
apprehended at the scene, and nothing with any DNA.”

       
“Was it rigged in any
way?”

       
“No sir. We don’t think
it was intended as a come-on. Based on how the thieves reacted when we arrived,
we think they were just waiting to hand it off to someone else.”

       
“Who?”

       
“We don’t know. We kept
the location under observation for another four hours, but no one showed their
face.”

       
“What are the thieves
saying?”

       
“Nothing. But they may
well not know anything. Whoever planned this is clearly too sophisticated to
allow any of the pawns to know anything about their set up.”

       
“You’re probably right.
But I want them sweated, anyway. Any other observations?”

       
“Yes sir,” Melissa said.
“We’re talking about the thieves and the people they were apparently handing
the
caesium
over to as if they’re separate groups.
And yet we haven’t heard a whisper of either one. Doesn’t that strike anyone as
strange?”

       
For a moment there was
silence.

       
“Continue,” Hardwicke
said, when no one else responded.

       
“Here’s what I’m
thinking,” Melissa said. “What if we’re actually dealing with a single
organisation
?
With one team to steal the
caesium
, one to turn it into whatever kind of weapon
they’re planning on using, and maybe another to take it to their target.
Feasible?”

       
No one spoke, but Green
and Jones nodded their heads.

       
“Now, let’s stack up
what we know about this
organisation
, so far,”
Melissa said. “They’re determined. They misfired with their first attempt on
the vault, but that didn’t put them off. They adapted and tried again. And
they’re resourceful. Look at how they used the junk they found in the hospital
basement. It certainly fooled us. We played right into their hands, by sending
the emergency crew. So alongside what we’re already doing, I think we should
prioritise
the key piece of the puzzle we’re missing.”