The Kill Zone (53 page)
Authors: Chris Ryan
How pleased, he thought to himself, Grandfather would have been.
The sky opened up above him. A vast, clear expanse. Here, on the perimeter of RAF Northolt, one would not usually have to wait long to see an aircraft. But today, the British and the Americans had cleared the skies. It was predictable of them. Foolish. But Haq wasn’t going to complain about that. Especially now that he saw, in the distance, three dots approaching in the sky.
‘It is time!’ he shouted.
Two other men appeared from inside the pavilion. They were young, but had the serious expressions of older men. And they carried their weapons with them.
The Stinger systems were bulky, but light. A thick tube, a little over a metre and a half long, with a sight mounted on the top and the firing mechanics underneath. They were already loaded. One of the men handed his weapon to Farzad Haq, before returning indoors and appearing with the third.
All three of them now looked into the sky.
The three dots were coming gradually closer, swapping positions as they approached like dancing birds.
Farzad felt an unfamiliar pang of regret. He wished Adel could be here to witness the fruition of their carefully laid plan. But that couldn’t be. For him, there would have been only two possible outcomes. Either he had managed to detonate his chemical weapon and was even now enjoying the embrace of God while the radiation spread around the centre of London, infecting its infidel citizens and causing the President’s helicopters to use their well-documented operating procedures and evacuate their way into Farzad’s trap. Or, he had been discovered and the Americans, in their cowardice, had evacuated the President anyway. Whichever of the two outcomes had materialised, the Americans would have had only one option: to airlift the President to where Air Force One was waiting. And Adel had known, from his meeting with the foolish American ambassador, that it was waiting at Northolt.
The plan had been simple in its conception but complicated in its execution. The three birds dotting their way towards him, however, meant they had succeeded.
Haq raised the viewfinder to his eye and the others did the same. Three minutes, he estimated. Three minutes and it would all be over.
A voice. ‘What in the blazes do you think you’re doing?’
Haq lowered the Stinger system. A man had approached. He was old, maybe seventy, with a small dog on a lead and a sturdy walking stick in the other hand. His wrinkled face was angry. Haq put the weapon on the ground, then plunged his hand inside his jacket and withdrew a handgun. The old man’s eyes widened and he took a step backwards. Haq didn’t hesitate for a moment. A single shot, aimed precisely at the man’s forehead. The top half of his head blew away, rendering him unrecognisable, and the force of the round flung him to the floor. The little dog started to whimper and paw at his dead master; almost as an afterthought, Haq dispatched the animal too.
The youths at the bandstand ran away as Haq raised the Stinger system once more. He wasn’t worried about the police – they wouldn’t be here in time. Marine One and its two decoys came into view on the high-powered scope. Which was which, Farzad couldn’t tell. But it didn’t matter. Three helicopters. Three Stingers.
The President was coming.
The world was about to change.
‘On my instruction, lock on to the aircraft as we arranged,’ he said.
The helicopters continued to approach.
The noise in Jack’s earpiece was a riot of confusion. ‘
Turn the President round!
’ he yelled. ‘
Turn him round!
’
Turn the President round!
’ he yelled. ‘
Turn him round!
’
‘Negative,’ a voice crackled in his ear. ‘Secret Service are evacuating him.’
Jack cursed. ‘Then turn us round! Get us into Marine One’s airspace!’
A pause. Then . . .
‘No can do, Jack. It’s a no-fly zone for anyone except—’
Jack had stopped listening. He bustled to the front of the chopper. ‘
Northolt!
’ he yelled. ‘
Fly to Northolt!
’
Northolt!
’ he yelled. ‘
Fly to Northolt!
’
The chopper swerved, following Jack’s instruction. As it did so, the pilot’s voice came over the comms. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
Jack was crazed. Confused. Without even thinking, he pressed his MP5 against the pilot’s helmet. ‘
Northolt!
’ he screamed.
Northolt!
’ he screamed.
‘Jesus, Jack!’ Fly shouted. ‘He’s doing what you wanted!’
Jack moved his weapon round to point at Fly, who had already started to raise his own MP5. ‘
Don’t fucking move, Fly
,’ he shouted. ‘
I mean it. Don’t fucking move.
’
Don’t fucking move, Fly
,’ he shouted. ‘
I mean it. Don’t fucking move.
’
Fly lowered his gun. He licked his dry lips slightly, obviously about to say something. To talk the sense into Jack that he so obviously needed.
He never got the chance.
Habib Khan didn’t care that Jack had a submachine gun in his fist. He had already pushed himself up and was even now preparing to launch himself at his captor. Jack opened his mouth to warn him off, but Khan’s body slammed against his. What the man was trying to achieve, Jack didn’t know. His puny, Plasticuffed frame was never going to be up to the task of fighting him. Jack swatted him away and Khan fell by the open doorway before pushing himself up on his feet again and, with a wild, insane look on his bloodied face, taking another step inwards.
It was almost a reflex action that caused Jack to shoot him; and although it all happened with sudden, brutal speed, every millisecond seemed long and drawn out. The burst of fire from his gun slammed directly into Khan’s body. A sudden explosion of red burst from the cavity of his chest, and the force of the ammunition knocked him backwards.
Khan staggered, buffeted by the wind and the movement of the chopper. He teetered on the brink of the doorway.
And then he fell into the almost darkness, slipping silently from Jack’s sight and plunging to the ground below.
Jack didn’t even have time to be pleased that he was dead. Just as Khan disappeared, he felt Fly’s weapon pressed against his neck. ‘
Get on the fucking floor, Jack. Now. I mean it. You’re out of control . . .
’
Get on the fucking floor, Jack. Now. I mean it. You’re out of control . . .
’
‘
The President!
’ Jack roared. ‘
They’re targeting the Pre—
’
The President!
’ Jack roared. ‘
They’re targeting the Pre—
’
He didn’t finish, because Fly used all his strength to press him to the ground. Jack was sideways on, looking out of the chopper door, a boot on his back and an MP5 pointed at his head.
The chopper swerved, back on to its previous bearing.
‘You’ve got to believe me!’ he shouted over the thunder of the helicopter. ‘
You’ve got to believe me!
’
You’ve got to believe me!
’
And then he fell silent. Because in the distance he saw a sight that made it feel like all the blood had drained from his body.
It didn’t last long. Not long at all. A brief flash, exploding in the evening sky with a sudden orange glow.
‘
Jesus!
’ Fly shouted. ‘
What the fuck was that?
’
Jesus!
’ Fly shouted. ‘
What the fuck was that?
’
Jack didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
He just watched as the glow faded as quickly as it had come, back into nothingness.
The birds had continued to dance, but now they were settling as they started to lose height on their descent into RAF Northolt. They were close, and Farzad Haq had all his attention on the westernmost helicopter. He trusted that his two accomplices would each have locked on to the others. They had their instructions and they were scared of him. Fear was a great motivator. ‘Activate the weapons!’ he instructed in his harshly accented English.
He pushed the activation lever on his own weapon forward. A click, and then a spinning noise as the weapon warmed up.
They were close now. Maybe a kilometre away, as the crow flies. Maybe slightly further.
Which of these little birds, he wondered, carried his hated target? He privately wished it was the one
he
would shoot down, but he understood that this was something he could never know.
he
would shoot down, but he understood that this was something he could never know.
No matter. As long as all three were destroyed.
He kept the chopper in his sight.
‘Acquire the target!’
His launch system locked on, and a loud tone indicated that the missile had a good lock on the infrared being emitted by the aircraft he was tracking.
It flew closer.
For you, Grandfather
, he said silently in his head.
And for you, Adel.
, he said silently in his head.
And for you, Adel.
He could hear the choppers now.
‘Fire!’ he commanded.
It was so simple. Like flicking a switch.
Each of the three Stingers flew from their launch systems at immense speed. Farzad Haq staggered backwards and lowered the device in time to see the missiles shed their launch engines and swerve towards the choppers with astonishing accuracy.
He watched as the rocket engines shot like fireworks in the evening sky. The missiles kept true to their targets. Even when the pilots of the helicopters realised what was happening and swerved sharply, veering away from their close-cluster formation like a flower spreading its petals, the Stingers kept on track – changing their bearing to follow each twist and turn the pilots made.
His grandfather’s voice echoed down the years and resounded in his head.
The time will come when all who are true to the Prophet will be called to rise up and fight against them . . . Will you be ready to answer the call?
The time will come when all who are true to the Prophet will be called to rise up and fight against them . . . Will you be ready to answer the call?
‘I will be ready,’ he muttered to himself. And with wonder etched on his face, and triumph burning through his veins, Farzad Haq’s eyes feasted on the moment of impact.
The three helicopters exploded at almost the same time. The noise was deafening – the dreadful thunder of God’s wrath. It vibrated through Haq’s body, shook the earth and numbed his ears. He relished every moment.
Three massive fireballs ripped the fabric of the sky. They hung in the air, billowing and scorching, before merging into one great rain cloud of burning debris, scattering its load of searing metal, blazing fuel and human flesh on to the earth below.
EPILOGUE
8 July
All the airports were shut, all flights grounded. The underground stations were surrounded by throngs of armed police; pubs were filled with loud-mouthed experts on international relations. Bin Laden’s name was mentioned in every other sentence, but nobody really knew what they were talking about.
There was barely a house in England – in the world – with a television set that didn’t have it switched on; no news networks had footage of Marine One going down, so they replayed scenes of the twin towers instead. In America, men and women wept for their fallen President. In Africa too. They would always remember where they were when they heard the news. Ashen-faced politicians of all nations made statements condemning the act, declaring a renewed war on terror. Nobody admitted that terror had won.
Jack Harker was aware of none of this. The minute Marine One had taken the hit, Hereford had ordered the Agusta to land. The pilot had radioed for backup to help with the crazy Regiment soldier who’d lost it and pulled a gun on him, and as soon as they’d touched down on the helipad that crowned a tall building in the city, CO19 officers were waiting for them. Fly had disarmed Jack, who in any case wasn’t inclined to put up a fight any more. CO19 cuffed him and led him into a waiting car. The air seemed to be filled with the sirens of a thousand police cars as they’d taken him through panic-ridden streets to Paddington Green, where they unceremoniously hurled him into a cell and told him to wait.
There was a bed, a mattress and a stinking bog with no seat and piss-stains round the porcelain. Jack had ignored them all, slumping instead into one corner, clutching his knees and staring, numb, into the middle distance.
Just after midnight, there was a voice outside the cell. ‘Open it.’
Jack blinked and looked through the bars. Elliott Carver was there. The CO of 22 SAS looked like he’d aged several years in the few hours since Jack had seen him last – dark rings under his eyes and a greyness about his skin. An officer opened the door and Carver stepped in.
‘Leave us alone,’ he told the cop. Only when they could talk without being heard did he continue. ‘Khan pulled a secreted weapon and was going to take out the pilot. That’s why you shot him. Got it?’
‘Did you find Lily?’ Jack asked. It was the only thing he cared about now.
Carver ignored the question. ‘You’re fucking lucky I got to Fly and the crew before anyone else did, Jack, otherwise you’d be celebrating your next birthday in jail. After what’s gone down tonight they’ll be queuing up to find scapegoats and you’ll be at the top of everyone’s list. You need to tell me every last thing and then we’ll sort out your story, chapter and fucking verse. Not now.’ He shook his head as Jack started to speak. ‘In the car back to Hereford. Get moving.’
‘Did you find Lily?’
Carver closed his eyes. ‘Yeah, Jack. We found her.’
Jack stared at him, preparing himself for the worst.
‘She was where Khan said she’d be. She’s alive, Jack, but she’s not pretty.’
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