Nine Lives (27 page)

FORTY FIVE

At Stamford Bridge, the minute’s silence had ended with the cheep of a whistle and a long round of applause from the crowd that built in volume until it seemed the earth shook. Down below, Mia was finishing arming the VX gas. Above, the crowd had started chanting.

It was making the lower level rumble as the noise swelled.

Suddenly, a guard rushed around the corner to her left. He was searching around, hastily, looking for something or someone
. Me,
she thought.

He paused as he saw her, then the contents of the vending machine and the dead body of the guard with the broken neck.

He froze for just a split second as his brain registered the situation.

‘Hey!’

Mia already had the silenced pistol in her right hand and she shot him in the face. His head rocked back as he took the round and he collapsed to the floor in a heap. She moved forward, grabbing his ankles and pulled him out of the main corridor.

Blood and brains from the gunshot had been spattered all over the white corridor behind him, but it didn’t matter.

She was ready to leave.

For a split-second, a million questions ran through Archer’s mind, like access codes on a high-tech computer.

It can’t be him?

It’s him!

Why is he here?

What’s that in his hand?

Special Agent Crawford was now just thirty feet away and Dominick Farha was closing down on him from behind. He was gaining fast on the DEA agent, who had no idea he was being approached.

Archer saw what the terrorist leader was holding.

It was a knife.

Chalky and Rivers were searching for Shapira together. They’d given up looking around the stadium floor and had gone down to the first sub-level. Chalky had his MP5 up tight in the aim, Rivers his pistol.

They pulled open a door and moved down the corridor, silently and swiftly. Chalky ducked his head into a changing room as Rivers pressed on. He saw something against the wall, and on the floor ahead of him.

He moved forward, looking closer.

It was blood.

And suddenly, someone rounded the corner, colliding with him.

Shapira.

She had a pistol in her hand. Rivers reacted instantly. He tried to wrestle the gun from her hand as he pulled his own weapon from its holster on his hip. She snapped her head forward, head-butting him hard, breaking his nose with the crown of her head. His eyes filled with water and he was momentarily stunned and blinded from the blow.

She shot him in the stomach, and he fell to the ground, hunched over and out of the game.

However, Chalky had gained some ground on her. He’d raised his MP5 to get a shot, but Rivers had been in the way so he’d moved closer. Too close. She knocked the gun out of the way. It wasn’t strapped to his shoulder, and it clattered to the floor, out of reach.

She raised her own pistol, but he threw himself at her with a cry, knocking her own gun from her hand. They wrestled on the floor; Shapira was thrashing and fighting like a hellcat, trying to bite his face and gouge his eyes.

Beside them, Rivers writhed in agony as he bled out on the floor down the corridor.

He watched helplessly as the two of them fought on the ground, blood pumping from the wound to his gut.

Archer reacted fast.

Remembering that he didn’t have his MP5, his hand flashed to his right thigh and he pulled his Glock 17.

‘HEY!’
he screamed at Farha, raising the weapon.

In front of him, Crawford’s eyes widened with confusion, but Farha reacted in a flash.

He lunged forward, behind Crawford, blocking Archer’s line of sight and grabbed the DEA Special Agent by the collar, wrapping his arm around his neck like a vice. He pushed the knife to the helpless man’s throat, nestling the blade beside his jugular.

The movement knocked off his sunglasses, and Archer saw his eyes for the first time.

They were red-rimmed, dark and filled with hate and fury.

‘BACK UP!’
  he screamed at Archer, from behind Crawford’s head.
‘BACK UP!’

The officer didn’t move, but he didn’t have a shot, as Farha was hidden behind Crawford.

Adrenaline pumped through Archer’s veins, and he stood on his injured foot to steady his aim.

He didn’t even remember it was broken.

In the lower level of the stadium, Chalky had the upper hand. Shapira was fighting like a wild-cat, biting and scratching, but he was physically stronger than she was and had wrestled his way on top.

But suddenly, she grabbed his arm and threw her legs up and around his neck, pulling them tight into a jiu-jitsu triangle choke.

Chalky tried to fight it, but she had the hold locked in tight.

He gasped, feeling the pressure around his neck tighten.

His face turned red. He was suffocating. He knew he was seconds from passing out. And Shapira knew it too.

As he desperately tried to free himself, she snarled at him from the floor.

‘Drop the gun or he dies!’
Farha screamed.

Archer was trying to get his cross-hairs on the guy, but he was clever. He’d pulled himself around Crawford, protecting himself, leaving only two inches of his head in Archer’s sight. One of his eyes glared at the young policeman from beside the DEA agent’s neck.

Behind them, Archer saw Cobb, Nikki and Frost running over from the entrance to the building. They must have seen or heard the commotion from inside. Farha sensed them coming, and twisted to look at them, keeping his head tight behind Agent Crawford’s and out of Archer’s firing line.

‘Back off! Back off or I kill him!’
he screamed.

Cobb, Nikki and the older detective stopped in their tracks, their hands up. Archer saw them all realise who he was, shocked.

Under the guy’s arm, Crawford's eyes were wide with terror.

Farha turned his attention back to Archer, who still had his Glock aimed.

The terrorist pushed the razor-sharp blade harder, so a trickle of blood slid down Crawford’s neck.

‘Another ounce of pressure, he dies because of you,’ he screamed.
‘Drop the gun!’

Chalky was seconds from unconsciousness.

He gathered all his strength in one last attempt and scooped the woman up off the floor. Her legs were wrapped around his neck and she rose in the air as he lifted her high, her face burning with hate.

And he slammed her down, as hard as he could.

It worked. She yelled in pain as her back smashed into the floor, her legs loosened, which released the choke hold. Gasping for breath, Chalky fell back. He saw his pistol on the floor by the wall in the corridor; clutching his throat and coughing, he dived for it. Behind him, Shapira had recovered fast. Chalky heard what sounded like a phone book slamming onto a table then felt a thud and a searing pain in his back.

Suddenly, his legs wouldn’t work. He collapsed, reaching forward desperately for his weapon.

It was just out of reach from his fingertips.

‘Last chance!’
Farha screamed.

Archer hadn’t moved, but his damaged ankle was starting to send shooting pain through his entire body as he stood on it. It was affecting his aim. The sight on the Glock in his hands was moving from Farha to Crawford to the car park then back to Farha.

More people had rushed outside from the Unit HQ, stopping dead when they saw the stand-off.

Crawford was staring at Archer, his eyes wide, silently pleading for help.

Blood was trickling down his neck staining the blue collar of his shirt from the puncture wound.

Farha had the knife jammed by his artery.

An extra ounce of pressure, it would be cut and Crawford would bleed to death on the spot.

But Archer didn’t look at Crawford.

He was staring into Farha’s one furious eye, through the top-sight of his pistol.

In agony from the bullet wound, Chalky tried to crawl towards his weapon. There was another thump as another phonebook hit a desk and white plaster exploded from the wall as she fired deliberately close to his head. The white chalk mixed with the blood on the floor from the bullet wound in Chalky’s back.

She had him and he knew it.

He turned, rolling onto his wounded back.

She was holding a silenced pistol in one hand.

In the other was a switch.

He could see behind her the two large canisters of nerve gas.

And now she had the weapon aimed at his head.

As Archer and Farha stared at each other, an image suddenly came into the police officer’s mind.

Big brown eyes, the colour of hazelnut. They were beautiful. But scared.

And filled with tears.

The eyes he was staring at now were narrow, filled with hate and fury. Not a drop of compassion.

And he was the man who had left that girl to die.

‘OK, you piece of shit. The American dies!’
he screamed.

‘You never came back for her,’ Archer said quietly.

Suddenly, five gunshots thundered in the corridor.

Shapira was thrown back, five nine-millimetre bullets tearing into her torso, pieces of her chest and blood spraying in the air. Her pistol and detonator fell to floor as she skidded back down the corridor. She was dead before her body came to a halt.

Clutching the wound on his back, Chalky looked the other way.

Rivers was lying on the ground in a pool of blood, his weapon aimed where Shapira had been standing.

He lowered the gun, clutching his stomach with his other hand, grimacing and gasping in agony.

Chalky tried to call to him, but he found he couldn’t speak. The room was starting to swim. He felt sleepy. He suddenly felt warm.

With no more pain.

As his eyes started closing, he saw the door down the left end of the corridor open. Mac, Deakins and Fox were running towards him, shouting something.

Upstairs, he could hear the roar of the crowd. He felt his eyes close, and a peaceful feeling swept over him. It felt good.

His back didn’t hurt anymore.

And he drifted off to sleep.

Number Nine hesitated.

Archer didn’t.

He shot him through the eye.

The policeman had maybe two inches to work with, but it was perfect. The bullet skimmed Crawford’s neck. Farha wasn’t expecting it, and the bullet thumped into his eye socket, throwing him back like the whiplash from a sudden car accident as it tore through his brain and exited the back of his head in a bloody spray.

The knife twirled from his hands like a baton from a juggler’s grip and he fell back onto the hard concrete with a thud, his legs and arms splayed.

Crawford stood motionless, like a statue, afraid if he moved the man might still be there. Archer stayed just as still, his pistol aimed where Farha’s head had been, the pair of them like two statues.

And suddenly, the adrenaline started to wear off.

The pain screamed through his body as if his ankle was on fire. He felt as if he was going to throw up. He staggered, and fell back onto the ground. Cobb, Nikki and Frost ran over to help him as he sat on the tarmac, his pistol spilling from his hands.

He looked over at the dead terrorist, who was laid out across the car park thirty feet away.

‘Found you,’ he muttered.

FORTY SIX

It took everyone concerned a good few hours to fully understand everything that had just happened and put together the whole picture, piece by piece. The Manchester United- Chelsea match was mysteriously cancelled half-way through the first half. According to ground staff, apparently a gas pipe had ruptured under the stadium and they needed to clear the area immediately. A number of fans in the South Stand said that they heard five distant bangs, but apparently that was just the sound of the pipe rupturing.

The game was postponed until a later date, but everyone made it out OK.

In reality, the other ARU officers and the stadium security had arrived to find a bloodbath in the white corridor of the lower level. There were three dead bodies, two guards and Shapira, and two critically wounded men. Before anything else, Rivers and Chalky were rushed to hospital as quickly as possible. Rivers especially was in a seriously bad way.

The EOD squad had arrived from Canada Square as soon as they could and quickly inspected the nerve gas. There was no timer, no trigger switch aside from the one dropped from the dead woman’s hand. They disarmed it without any difficulty, then loaded the canisters up securely and removed them from the site to be destroyed.

However, there was more shocking news. Mac had received a call from Director Cobb as he and his men watched Chalky and Rivers being loaded into the ambulances outside the stadium. He couldn’t believe what Cobb told him.

Apparently, Dominick Farha himself had appeared out of nowhere outside the Unit’s HQ and tried to kill Special Agent Crawford. However, he hadn’t counted on the presence of the youngest member of the task force, hobbling his way through the parking lot after Porter dropped him off.

The phone to his ear, Mac smiled. After a standoff, apparently Archer had shot the terrorist leader in the head, no negotiation, no mercy. His ankle was a mess though, broken in two places, and he was taken to hospital immediately afterwards. After hearing all this, Mac informed his men and without a moment’s hesitation, they all piled into the Unit’s cars and headed for St Mary’s Hospital. Mac was surprised to find a spare MP5 resting on the back seat of one of the vehicles. It had to be Archer’s. However, considering what had just happened and what the young police officer had just done, he’d let him off the hook. Just this once.

Once Agent Crawford was patched up and had recovered, he’d received some mixed news himself. French police had contacted the American embassy, informing them that four dead bodies had been found in an airfield outside Paris. Two of them had ID and were confirmed as Agents Adrian Flynn and Jack Brody, DEA. Both men had been murdered as they lay in a hide on the edge of the airfield, machine-gunned from behind. However, Henry had made a huge mistake. Crawford had another agent in place as back up, a man whom no-one aside from him knew was there. The man had witnessed the entire trade with the Albanians and called ahead to Riyadh. The moment Henry’s jet landed, an entire division of Saudi Police and armed agents from the DEA appeared on the runway. He was done.

Back at the ARU, Cobb and Nikki pieced together Shapira’s involvement. According to the log at Stamford Bridge, the vending machine containing the canisters of nerve gas had been delivered the day before. Henry and his daughter had planned the attack all along, but it seemed the bomber at the Emirates had complicated their plans. Security would have been tight before. After the incident at the Emirates, it would have been close to impossible to get inside Stamford Bridge and to the nerve gas without authorisation. Shapira had been forced to improvise and had infiltrated the Armed Response Unit.

Cobb was wracked with guilt at being deceived by her, but no one blamed him. She’d prevented the ambulance bomb outside the stadium and also shot the guy on the roof with the RPG, currying favour and allaying any suspicions. No one had ever considered the thought that she could be on the other team.

After talking with Crawford’s sixth agent and looking at timings, it appeared that the woman had also been providing Henry with intelligence all along. The drug lord all of a sudden knew about the DEA’s involvement and operation, hence how Brody and Flynn had been compromised. They realised he’d also ordered Dominick to put the hit on Crawford. Cobb guessed it was a way of buying the drug lord time to get back to Riyadh, while at the same time getting rid of Dominick and also exacting revenge on the DEA Special Agent.

Shaking his head at it all, Cobb took a deep breath.

He couldn’t have scripted this day.

He was now alone on the upper level of the Armed Response Unit, inside the tech area. Once it became clear the operation was over, he’d told the tech team to take a few days leave, effective immediately. The task force, who’d also been given some well-deserved leave, were all down at the hospital, checking up on Archer, Chalky and Rivers. The Prime Minister had also called once he’d been evacuated from the stadium at Stamford Bridge, saying he wanted to meet each member of the detail and thank them all personally. Cobb looked around the empty level, smiling.

They’d earned it.

Leaning over a desk, he powered down the last computer as Agent Crawford appeared from the stairs behind him. He had a plaster stuck to the right side of his neck. They were the only two people left in the building.

Cobb turned as the man approached.

‘Good news.  I just spoke to the hospital. Rivers is going to make it.’

Crawford sighed with relief. ‘That’s great.’

A broad smile appeared on his sandy Southern features.
Like a young Robert Redford,
Cobb had thought when he first met him. That seemed like a lifetime ago.

Crawford’s smile faded though.

‘And your men?’

‘They’ll be fine. They got the bullet out of Chalky- I mean Officer White’s- back. And Archer’s getting a cast on his ankle. Broken in two places. But he’ll be OK.’

Crawford smiled.

‘That’s good. I’m glad. The guy saved my life. That was some shooting.’

Cobb nodded.

There was a pause.

‘I’m sorry about your two men. Three men, I mean.’

Crawford nodded. ‘Me too. But we got what we needed. My last agent watched the whole thing first hand. Right now, he’s got Henry in custody himself. We had an entire division waiting for him in Riyadh. Working with the Saudi police, we’ve already started raiding his compound and seizing his assets. It looks like we have enough evidence to take two other cartels down with him.’

‘Congratulations. That’s great news,’ Cobb said. He meant it.

There was a brief silence.

Then Cobb pulled on his suit jacket. Crawford had travelled light; he was ready to go. The two men walked to the stairs, Cobb flicking off the light switch as he passed. Together they walked down the stairs and arrived in the reception area, pushing open the door and walked outside. It was surprisingly warm after the cold of the previous few days; a bright January afternoon. The sun was just starting to set in the distance.

Twenty five yards away, Cobb saw a black taxi waiting on the street outside the car park.

‘Yours?’ he asked.

Crawford nodded. ‘I’ve got a plane to catch.’

‘You headed home?’

Crawford shook his head, with a smile.

‘No. Not yet. I’ve got one final pit-stop to make first.’

There was a moment’s silence. Then Crawford offered his hand. Cobb shook it.

‘Thank you. For everything you’ve done,’ the American said. ‘I couldn’t have done this without your help.’

Cobb nodded. ‘Same to you. You ever need my help again, don’t hesitate to call.’

Crawford smiled. Turning, he walked across the car park towards the taxi, then stopped and turned back one last time.

‘Did you know Agent Rivers was part of the team that took out Bin Laden?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘He never made it into the house. His helicopter crashed before he got there. The first time I met him, he told me his biggest regret from that night was that he’d never have anything special to tell his grandchildren about what he did in his life.’

Cobb smiled. ‘I guess he does now.’

Crawford stood still for a moment, smiled, then walked across the car park, climbed into the taxi and pulled the door shut.

The driver released the handbrake and the vehicle moved off and down the street until it disappeared out of sight.

Cobb turned back to the entrance to the building, set the sophisticated alarm system and locked the door with a set of keys pulled from his pocket. He climbed into the front seat of his car. Just as he went to slot the key into the ignition, his phone rang in his pocket.

He pulled it out and answered.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey Dad.’

Cobb smiled. ‘Hey buddy.’

‘Are you coming home today? We’re all worried about you.’

‘I’m just leaving now. I’ll be home soon, OK.’

‘OK.’

The called ended. Cobb pushed the key in the ignition and fired the engine. Reversing, he took one last look at the Unit.

What a day,
he thought.

He moved out of the car park, and drove down the road towards his family and his home.

What a day.

*

Four thousand miles away, a man woke up from a deep, deep sleep.

As he opened his eyes, a dazzling glare from above momentarily blinded him. Throwing his arm up to shield his small, reptilian eyes, he tried to focus. Where the hell am I? He could feel a familiar rocking and swaying from the ground beneath his obese bulk. He realised the glare was coming from the sun.

Then he smiled. He was on a yacht. His yacht. He must have dozed off.

He went to climb to his feet.

But he couldn’t.

Confused, he pushed his upper body upright, looking past his immense gut.

His socks and shoes were gone. Someone had looped his feet through a cinderblock. He looked through the gaps.

Three pairs of handcuffs had been fastened the other side.

And for the first time in over twenty five years, Henry was scared.

He started pushing himself forwards, trying to reach past his belly and frantically scrabbling at the metal.

‘That won’t do any good,’ said a familiar voice, behind him. ‘You of all people should know that.’

He twisted his head, sweating and in disbelief.

It was Faris. He was in a white shirt and khaki shorts, sipping on a drink, sunglasses over his eyes.

‘Undo these cuffs,’ the fat man ordered.

His lieutenant looked down at him and smiled.

‘Faris, undo these cuffs.’

‘My name’s not Faris,’ the man said. ‘It’s Special Agent Cruz. I work for the DEA.’

Henry blinked, his fatty torso soaking his suit with sweat. Faris’s accent had changed. He now sounded like an American.

Cruz smiled as he saw the fat man register this. He continued.

‘You never had a clue, did you? See, first of all, I knew you would try to kill me when we got back to Riyadh. I saw it in those puffy little eyes of yours. So I sedated you on the plane. You don’t remember? I got out of my seat to use the bathroom and pulled the autojet from behind you. You’re a big boy, so I gave you a double dose. You’ve been out for two days.’

Henry blinked.

He had a distant memory of sitting in his seat. A prick in his neck, like someone pinched him. The next thing he knew, he was waking up here.

‘You piece of shit,’ Henry screamed. ‘Undo the cuffs.’

Cruz smiled, sipping the cocktail.

‘See, I spoke with the British government. We realised how you’d known about our surveillance at the airfield. Your daughter had managed to infiltrate one of their counter-terrorist teams. She’d gotten talking with a guy from the DEA and you couldn’t believe your luck, could you? You knew all about our surveillance at the airfield. You sent the two meathead assholes to take them out.’

Henry didn’t reply.

‘The two agents you had your goons murder at the airfield, they were friends of mine. And you thought you were in the clear. But I was standing right behind you. I watched everything. Little did your stupid little brain realise there was an American DEA agent standing right beside you.’

Cruz sipped his drink again and checked the watch on his wrist.

‘Right about now your compound has almost been emptied. Every person who’s ever been on your payroll is going into custody. See, I worked hard and gained your trust. You had to tell me about all your hides and stash houses so I could pay people off, didn’t you? My agency is now seizing all of it. Every dime. We’ve done the math already. It looks like it’s going to be close to half a billion dollars.’

He whistled.

‘Oh, and I’ve forgotten to tell you. Seeing as I was a member of your crew for so long, our case was so complete that police are moving on the Albanians and the New Yorkers. It’s probably a good thing you’re out here on the water. There’ll be eight or nine figures on your head after this.’

Henry was sweating.