Outbreak, p.36
Outbreak, page 36
It took him nearly two minutes to search the length of the undercarriage and that was just one car. He moved on to the next, noticing his hands and arms were already black with grime. After searching below six carriages with no sign of Squires, Luke began to feel failure creeping up on him. He was deep inside the station now and he just didn’t think Squires would have come this far. Perhaps he had misjudged him after all. Maybe the bastard had indeed made a run for it and was already flagging down a cab and heading out of London right at this minute. He crawled out from under the carriage, scraping his knee painfully on the stones, and stood still, listening to the sound of his own breathing and trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his shoulder from the shotgun blast. It had grown worse in the last hour and if he didn’t do something about it soon then the wounds would become infected. He was running out of time.
Retracing his steps, Luke paused by the first carriage, barely daring to breathe. You bloody idiot, Carlton. You forgot to search beneath the locomotive. But if Squires was down there, he was cornered. And that made him desperate and dangerous. Unarmed, Luke would have to improvise. It took him a few seconds to find what he was looking for: a stone with a sharp point. Crude but effective. With this in his right hand and the torch in his left, he ducked down beside the engine and squatted beneath it. He had the torch switched off and now he almost held his breath, keeping deathly still, waiting, watching and listening.
And that was when he heard it.
It was just the softest clink of stone against stone, barely audible above the growing hum of pre-dawn traffic from Euston Road. But it was a noise unmistakably made by a human. Someone was down there.
Luke felt a surge of adrenalin course through him. This was what he’d come here to do: confront Hugo Squires and finish this once and for all. A voice in his head was telling him to hang back, use his phone to call for back-up, wait for reinforcements and surround the locomotive with so many people Squires would have no hope of escape. But that wasn’t his way. Fuck it, he thought, let’s do this. He slipped beneath the engine, bending himself double in the cramped space, and flicked on the torch once more. Crouching and peering, he probed the darkness. Nothing. And then he heard it again, the unmistakable sound of a boot moving against stones. Someone was shifting their weight and they were right behind him.
Every muscle in his body was tensed for action as Luke half turned to face the source of the noise. In that moment he felt a searing pain lance into his thigh. Crying out, he staggered back, twisting round to shine the torch on his assailant. There, lit up in the white beam, was the crouching figure of Hugo Squires. His eyes were wild and staring, his face and arms blackened with engine dirt, and in his right hand he brandished a penknife that glinted wetly with Luke’s blood. But it was what he was holding in his left hand that terrified Luke. It was a silver canister with a timer attached.
Luke gritted his teeth against the pain as he felt the blood seeping down his leg. But he willed himself to block it out. Focus, Carlton, you need to finish this. He called into the dark, ‘Give it up, Squires. It’s over.’
No reply, just heavy breathing. Suddenly Squires lashed out again. Luke saw the glint of the blade and recoiled just in time. He let go of the torch and shot out his left hand, grabbing a fistful of dirt and stones. In one fluid movement he flung them into his opponent’s face. Momentarily blinded, Squires howled and Luke made his move. He reached out in the dark to locate Squires’s leg with one hand and slammed the stone down hard on his kneecap with the other. There was a sickening crunch as the bone shattered and Squires let out a high-pitched scream, dropping both the knife and the canister. Luke sprang forward, his own pain forgotten, his arm poised to slam home the pointed stone once more, this time into the man’s skull. Everything Luke had been through with this mission boiled down to this supercharged moment as he held a human life in his hand.
And then, suddenly, there were lights and shouts and shadows and figures running. ‘Armed police!’ he heard someone yell.
Luke lowered his arm and dropped the stone, exhaustion washing over him. God, he felt tired. Lifting his head, he called back, ‘It’s Luke Carlton. I’ve got him, and the last canister.’ And then he put his face up close to Squires’s. The man’s eyes were squeezed tight shut in pain. Luke grasped his adversary’s chin in a vice-like grip to get his attention. ‘You useless piece of shit, Squires,’ he hissed. ‘Your insane plan is finished and so are you.’
Epilogue
Monday, 21 March, 0914hrs GMT
IN A REMOTE and secluded farmhouse some way off the A6 dual carriageway between Stockport and Derby, a transistor radio stood on the slatted wooden kitchen table. It was tuned to Radio 4 and the only sound in the room came from Start the Week. News of what had happened at King’s Cross had played big that morning, dominating the Today programme and every news bulletin on the hour. By 8 a.m. a collective decision had been taken at Abbot’s Farm: there were to be no exceptions, no exemptions. It had to be a collective action by everyone.
The bodies were slumped everywhere: over chairs, on the rough-tiled floor, out in the yard, in the armoury and on top of the industrial freezers. No exceptions. Everyone at Abbot’s Farm had played their part: at the appointed time they had all swallowed the death pill.
*
It was just after midday in Vilnius when the line of armoured vehicles drew up outside the offices of Matulis ChemExport. They didn’t press the bell or wait for an invitation to come in. Instead the lead vehicle revved its engine and accelerated towards the gates, smashing them down in a screech of metal on metal. Once inside the inner courtyard, the men of Lithuania’s elite ARAS counter-terrorism police spilled out of the vehicles and filtered into the corridors and offices of the Soviet-era building. Minutes later, a heavily built, middle-aged man was escorted out in handcuffs, bewildered and protesting. Sergei Kadunov, sales director at Matulis ChemExport, had just been charged with assisting an international terrorist organization. He was facing up to thirty years in the notorious Pravieniškės House of Correction.
At the exact moment that Kadunov was being placed under arrest in Vilnius, five hundred miles to the east, Colonel Arkady Petrov was having an encounter of a very different kind. Summoned at short notice to the second-floor offices of the Kremlin, he was not entirely sure which way this meeting would go until he stepped through the door. Then came the smiles and the handshakes, the slaps on the back and the clink of multiple vodka glasses. The GRU and his unit had distinguished themselves, they told him. He was to be congratulated. There would be a promotion after this, and medals for all of his team. The intelligence gleaned from Jenny Li on the UK’s chemical and biological weapons research, during those precious few hours while they had her under artificial sedation at the Ivanovsky Institute, had been most instructive. And the best of it? They laughed at this one. She would remember nothing of what she had told them. Nothing at all.
*
Luke was back in the flat, the one he shared with Elise in Battersea. For a long time they simply held each other and said nothing. Around his shoulder and upper arm there was a neat new bandage where all the shotgun pellets had been safely removed and they had taken the precaution of pumping him full of antibiotics. His other hand rested lightly, almost protectively, on Elise’s midriff. There was still an awful lot they needed to talk about, but now was not the time. Luke had been through hell and so had she and this, in a way, had brought them back together.
He glanced out of the window at the river traffic going past and a dark thought crossed his mind. They still had not discovered who the mole was, the informant, the secret source giving tip-offs to WaffenKrieg90.
But now he was beyond tired, exhausted in fact, and he could feel an aching in his glands. It was only later that morning, just as he went to take that well-earned nap, that Luke Carlton felt the beginnings of a real killer headache coming on.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to my tireless and meticulous editor, Simon Taylor, and the team at Transworld/PenguinRandomHouse. This is the fifth book of mine that Simon has had to read through and yet miraculously we are still friends.
To my calm, clever and well-connected literary agent, Julian Alexander at TheSohoAgency. We have come a long way together since I first waved a manuscript at him from my hospital bed in 2004.
To my lovely Elizabeth, for listening so patiently while I read out numerous passages, and for offering me advice and encouragement throughout.
To my daughter Sasha for all her help, hard work and advice with the proofreading. Nothing, it seems, escapes her notice.
To the brilliant Dr Nigel Lightfoot, for all his professional advice on virology, Russia and the crisis machinery of Whitehall.
To ‘E’, for pin-sharp advice on professional jargon.
To Richard Walton, for sharing his expert knowledge of counter-terrorism policing.
To the Norwegian Arctic guides Stian Aker and Inge Solheim, for showing me the pristine beauty of Svalbard archipelago.
Don’t miss Frank Gardner’s debut thriller …
CRISIS
In the Colombian jungle, a body has been found …
A man in his forties. He’s been stabbed and his right ear removed. In his pockets are a blood-stained notebook and a British passport. That much the local police know. What they don’t know is that Jeremy Benton worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service. And his murder is going to trigger a crisis.
MI6 need someone on the scene, and fast. Luke Carlton – ex-SBS commando, now under short-term contract to SIS – steps off a plane in Bogotá and into a world of trouble. Because one of South America’s most powerful and ruthless drugs barons is bent on destroying everything – and everyone – Luke holds dear. And unless Luke gets to him first, all hell is going to break loose …
‘Fast, taut, tense, accurate. A terrific read.’ FREDERICK FORSYTH
‘Few thriller debuts possess the confidence and verve of Frank Gardner’s CRISIS … a book of exhilarating panache.’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘Authenticity seeps from every page.’ DAILY MAIL
Available in paperback, ebook and audio editions.
MI6 operative Luke Carlton returns in …
ULTIMATUM
Hidden from prying Western satellites, Iranian scientists are at work on a banned device …
They are acting on the orders of a renegade cell within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose objective is to transform their country into a nuclear-armed nation, and so seal its domination of the Middle East.
Britain’s intelligence agencies know something is up. Someone on the inside is ready to hand over information – but then the rendezvous with SIS officer Luke Carlton goes bloodily wrong. He needs to be extracted. And fast.
Forced on to the back foot after that fiasco, MI6 sees an opportunity to recruit an individual with unique access to the IRGC hardliners. Luke is chosen to reel them in. Going into Iran undercover is dangerous enough, but then there’s a killing and a kidnapping and the British government is presented with a shocking ultimatum. With time running out, it seems only Luke can stop a cataclysmic new war in the Gulf …
‘Utterly authentic … grips like a python from the first page.’ DAILY MAIL
‘Skilfully mixes knowledge garnered as the BBC’s security correspondent with breathless action.’ THE TIMES
‘Outstanding.’ SUNDAY TIMES
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Frank Gardner’s extraordinary and bestselling memoir is a must-read …
BLOOD AND SAND
On 6 June 2004, in a quiet suburb of Riyadh, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner and cameraman Simon Cumbers were ambushed by Islamist gunmen. Simon was killed outright. Frank was hit in the shoulder and leg. As he lay in the road, pleading for his life, a figure stood over him and pumped four more bullets into his body at point-blank range …
Against all the odds, Frank Gardner survived, and this is his remarkable account of the agonizing journey he’s taken – from being shot and left for dead, to where he is today, partly paralysed but alive.
It is a journey that began twenty-five years earlier, when a chance meeting with explorer Wilfred Thesiger inspired in the young Frank what would become a lifelong passion for the Arab world – an abiding interest that would take him throughout the Middle East and lead to his becoming a BBC journalist. And this same passion would, in the wake of 9/11, send Frank on another journey that came to dominate – and nearly end – his life: his coverage of Al-Qaeda.
Honest, moving and inspiring, Blood and Sand reveals a deep understanding of the Islamic world and offers an insider’s compelling analysis of the ongoing ‘War on Terror’ and what it means in these uncertain times.
‘Chilling, graphic and admirably unsentimental.’ GUARDIAN
‘A superb reporter … his terrible experience only makes his analysis all the more telling.’ EVENING STANDARD
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THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Bantam Press
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Gardner, Frank, Outbreak
