To Kill Or Be Killed (36 page)

Mason was
stunned. Then he became angry. They’d grassed him. It was a trap.
He pulled out the Sig and shot the glass between himself and the
driver, who hit the brakes.

“Drive on or
you’re dead.” The cab driver felt the muzzle of the gun against the
side of his face. He drove on.

“Speed up.”

“Are you
crazy?”

“No. There’s a
road block ahead and they will be armed. You think they’ll give a
damn about you when they open up with those rifles and sub machine
guns. If you don’t floor it I’ll kill you and if you do floor it
you’ll be going fast enough for them not to want to fire at you.
Now do it.”

The cab sped up
and the DIC operative slowed down, the car behind him also slowed.
Brook was about to put his foot down and drive past them, but
thought better of it, he slowed too.

At the north
entrance police were told not to open fire until the cab had
stopped and they had a good clear shot at Mason so as not to
endanger the cab driver.

Through the
windscreen Mason saw the two police Volvo 440’s blocking the road,
the heavy black cab accelerated towards them like a tank and Mason
and the driver braced for the crunch. Policemen behind the cars
moved away at the last second as the taxi crashed through, smashing
the front of each Volvo.

Metal screeched
and the impact took the speed out of the cab. Mason was thrown
forward, his torso pushed through into the front of the cab. As the
damaged cab headed towards Bessborough Gardens a sniper, tracking
the car through his scope, saw Mason full body from his side of the
road. Mason pulled himself back through the gap just as the round
was loosed and the Enforcer round punched the window shattering it,
ricocheted off the steering wheel and grazed the cab driver’s
forehead, knocking him unconscious.

With his heavy
foot on the pedal, dead weight, and his body sliding the wheel to
the left, the cabbie unconsciously drove the cab into Bessborough
Gardens, smashing into the iron railing gates, where the cab came
to rest.

The Sun
journalist was positioned opposite the park and his high powered
zoom lens honed in on the details of the scene as the rapid shot
setting on the camera captured the round stunning the driver, the
cab’s passage and the cab crashing. He took shot after shot of
police running forward.

Through the
lens, on the digital screen, the camera saved the images of Mason
rising from the cab’s floor well in the back, the flashes from the
Sig220 instantly matching two policemen knocked to the ground as
the rounds slugged their way into, but not through, their body
armour. Finally the camera caught Mason’s face as three sets of
high velocity armour piercing Enforcer rounds penetrated the cab
door at chest height, puncturing both lungs and heart. Mason
grabbed the door handle and in desperate pain struggled out the
door. He fell to the ground on all fours and was knocked onto his
back by a kick from a policeman pointing an MP5 at his prone
body.

Ambulance men
came over, paramedics bearing stretchers. News teams arrived and
though held back were able to get shots of the scene from behind
the now powerful police cordon.

The cab driver
was carefully extracted from the wrecked cab and rushed to St
Thomas’ hospital near Westminster Bridge. They checked Mason, but
he was dead. He was stretchered to the ambulance and taken
away.

The police
searching the cab found the case with the bomb in it. It took
fifteen minutes to evacuate the entire area including all the
buildings surrounding. Press, news teams, police and anyone else in
a quarter mile radius was evacuated. Bomb disposal arrived, they
used a controlled explosion to destroy it and had they not done so
a strange fact would have been revealed, which might well have
raised interesting questions at the time, but it was thought safer
to blow it up under safe conditions.

The cab, of
course, was a wreck. Bullet ridden, dented, glass shattered, ripped
apart inside and charred all over with twisted metal pointing out
at odd angles, embedded in iron railings. It sat like a gargoyle
memorial to yet one more of the hired killers and a testimony to
their desperate fatal struggles to remain un-captured.

Traffic was
backed up along the Thameside roads as the Vauxhall Bridge was
closed at both ends. Traffic on the embankment on both sides took
until night time to get flowing again and even then the taxi had
not been moved.

Back at the DIC
centre, Euston Tower, Jack Fulton and many members of the team
watched the scene in awe from live CCTV footage from the numerous
cameras in the area.

For a few
seconds the whole building sat in silence, all work stopped as the
scene was brought up on every screen in every office.

When the
shooting was done Diane Peters was standing at Jack Fulton’s
side.

“What a
mess!”

“Yes it is. Is
the taxi driver dead?”

“You want me to
find out?”

“Yes. If he’s
alive and can talk he can say where Mason was going, the address
he’d been given. It might tell us the target of these assassins.”
Fulton rubbed his chin in thought.

“I’ll find out
and let you know.” Diane replied and strode away with purpose.

Jack noticed
Tony Deany by his side.

“Four down one
to go boss.” Tony said too brightly for Jack’s liking.

“Very true,
aren’t you seeing Else today?”

“Yeah,” Tony
looked at his watch, “In about ten minutes, Ellie’s having her
session first.”

“Good Else will
be off down to Dover to see David tomorrow.” Fulton said
reflectively.

Everything had
stood still at Euston Tower. Then when the shooting had stopped,
some began watching the news footage, but most went on with their
searches, knowing that it was their work that had brought down
Spencer and Wheeler, and, as they thought at the time, their work
alone that had ended the lives of Cobb and Mason. Pride swelled in
the building as the teams of watchers knew that they had stopped
four of the most murderous assassins the country had ever seen.
They all focussed on finding the last man, Trevor Stanton.

CHAPTER
89

LONDON

10-30 a.m.

April 19th

Tarquin
Robinson looked over the assembled press. BBC news, ITN news, CNN
and various journalists from the newspapers who were all gathered
in the press briefing room. He was sat behind the table with the
head of the Met Police beside him, who was answering questions.

“We’re not sure
what the intention of the men is in detail. All the men killed are
not people we have been watching, not have they been under
surveillance from Special Branch.” The head of the met said slowly
and deliberately as if reading.

“Brian Mayhew
CNN. Is this a new tactic for Al Qaeda, employing paid assassins to
plant bombs and carry out killings?”

“We have no
information to either confirm or deny such a theory. That these men
don’t appear to have links to any terrorist group is not a reason
to preclude that being true. In the meantime we can only assume
that the device found indicates their intention to target someone
or something in London.”

“Minister, what
is your view?”

Tarquin
Robinson gathered his thoughts.

“There is no
doubt that these men have a target in mind. Who or what that is has
not so far been revealed. We have no leads and government security
agencies are doing their upmost to find this last man and get him
alive so that we can get to the bottom of this. We can’t rule out
terrorism nor the fact that the use of paid assassins might be a
new terrorist tactic.” Robinson said relishing the attention he was
getting.

“Can you reveal
how the men first came to the attention of security services?” A
BBC reporter asked.

“I’m afraid I
cannot. Needless to say our methods of observation must be kept
secret in order to make the effective.” Robinson replied
stonewalling with skill.

The questions
continued with the back and forth verbal tennis of government press
conferences. Robinson excused himself after having made a final
statement and left the room listening to the head of the met assure
the press that security measures in London had been stepped up to
maximum level.

Robinson got
into his car, surrounded by security. He put up the security glass
between himself and the driver and pulled the orange coloured cell
phone from inside his jacket.

He dialled the
only number in its memory.

“How much
longer?” He asked.

“Today. We’re
certain. It’ll either happen or the ‘product’ won’t get
through.”

“I need to ask
questions… important information… this line…”

“Be careful
what you say.”

“I want to
meet. I need answers and I can’t ask on this line. If the time is
close I’d like to decide whether we go ahead or not. We must
meet.”

“No out of the
question.”

“Can you send
B… your man again?”

“Again out of
the question, ‘you know who’ will be watching closely now.”

“What if I send
someone to meet you, someone we can both trust?”

“You’ve told
someone?”

“My wife knows.
I talked to her.”

There was
silence on the other end of the line.

“Hello.”

“Well it’s good
you’ve got such a trusting marriage." Sternway said in an
exasperated tone of voice thinking to himself, ‘why couldn’t the
man just see it through?’

“My wife has
always supported all my ambitions.”

“I’ll be
watched, this is out of the question.” Sternway said tersely.

“Then you can
call a halt now. Stop the process.”

Sternway
grimaced at the other end of the line. The conversation was taking
a long time. He didn’t want to stop, they were so close.

“La Rueda,
Byward Street, three thirty. Tell her to come alone and bring your
questions in writing. I’ll write the answers over lunch.” Sternway
said rapidly.

The line went
dead.

Robinson felt
pleased. His wife had said that he should exert some control. He
didn’t really have any important questions. His wife had said he
shouldn’t let Sternway take the lead. She’d also said they should
tape Sternway as a form of evidence to help them keep control. She
would know a way to get Sternway talking too, questions on paper or
not. Melinda was a strong woman and had as many ambitions for him
as he had for himself.

Across the city
Sternway sat at his desk staring intently at the disposable mobile
in his hand. He picked up the phone, gave a harsh instruction and
two minutes later Joe came into office.

“Problem
Sir?”

“Yes. Book me a
table at Rueda, for two at three thirty?”

“Mrs Sternway
sir?”

“No Joe Lady
Macbeth by looks of it.”

Chapter
90

DOVER

10 - 30 a.m.

April 19th

David grabbed a
handful of fruit from the bowl on the dining table. He sat in a
comfortable armchair watching ‘SpongeBob’ and peeling a banana.
Conor liked ‘SpongeBob’, but didn’t understand it very much, though
David and Mary found it hilarious. Kids’ television had certainly
got better since he was a kid. He bit into the banana, enjoying the
moment and feeling justified in doing nothing for a while. He had
felt tarnished by the last few days, exhausted by the intense
travel and imminent sense of danger. He promised himself that he’d
finish the banana, the large juicy orange and the fresh looking
Gala apple and get back to work upstairs as soon as the episodes of
the cartoon were over.

Stanton crawled
from behind the shed at the top of the garden and sprinted the
short distance to a larger shed nearer the house. The garden was
twenty metres long and Stanton felt exposed until he was hidden
from view by the old fashioned post war shed. He sidled along the
exposed edge of it and made it to the shelter of the house.
Crawling along on his stomach he got below the dining room window.
He could see McKie watching television in the lounge as the dining
room and lounge were ‘knocked through’. Stanton made his way around
to the side of the house, climbed onto the roof of the kitchen
extension and from there up the drain pipe to the roof. Using
powerful arm and stomach muscles, amazingly agile for a man his
age, he flipped his legs and torso feet first onto the roof tiles
and slid his upper body and head afterwards. He spread his weight
out and inched himself slowly up to the Velux window on the back of
the house. The DIC technicians always put a roof window on both
sides to let light into the attic. The one at the front was next to
the large white satellite dish that David’s neighbour objected
to.

The neighbour,
Tom, a retired accountant went out into his garden to get the
washing in for his wife as she had seen spots of rain on the front
windows. He looked into the sky and his eye was caught by the sight
of a pair of legs disappearing into the Velux window on David’s
roof.

Tom wouldn’t
have believed his eyes, but he wasn’t the kind to doubt them. He
had been annoyed at the noise months before when the men had come
and obviously done some kind of loft conversion and then there had
been the satellite dish. He disliked changes to the locality. The
nineteen thirties semi-detached houses on Elm’s Vale were a matter
of pride for him; he lived in the house his parent’s had bought
just before the war, he’d grown up there and he had a sense of
ownership over the area. He was pleased to have a customs man
living next door, good solid civil service job, but the changes to
the house made him unhappy with his neighbour.

Tom had checked
at the time of the changes and McKie didn’t need planning
permission. Tom felt angry and thwarted by the changes to ‘his’
street. Now it seemed a man was climbing in windows that he had
objected to. Tom would have rung the bell and told David that there
was a man in his loft, but anger made him decide to make a point
about the windows and their inconvenience. He went inside and
called the police, but not nine, nine, nine. He called the Dover
number and duly waited.