Nine Lives (Sam Archer 1)

FOURTEEN

  Across the Channel, the Parisian café that Henry was using to kill time was located on Rue De Chevilly. Two miles from the city centre, it was convenient enough to allow easy access to the heart of Paris, yet was far enough out to give a sense of distance and escape from the hustle and bustle of the city.

  The interior was warm and welcoming. Small tables and chairs were placed around the room, seemingly random yet adhering to some sort of pattern. A number of them were in use, patrons enjoying drinks and talking in quiet tones. In one corner, a number of people had gathered to watch two older men play a game of chess, the whole group engrossed.

  Across the room, Henry leaned his considerable bulk back into his chair as he watched a television mounted on the wall in the café. Someone had switched the channel to BBC World and it was showing footage from outside the Emirates stadium.

  Over a hundred feared dead, the banner headline was telling him.

  Henry snorted. It was a shitty result. He knew from memory that the Emirates had over 60,000 seats inside. The ratio was one out of every six hundred killed. Only a hundred of them dead. A drop in the ocean. Pitiful. He wondered if Dominick was watching the report, wherever he was. He was probably pleased, figuring it was a good outcome, that it would buy him some credit whenever they next met. Instead of being sedated and waking up as he was being thrown into the Seine, he probably thought he’d be welcomed back into the fold with open arms, the prodigal son returned. Everything would be forgiven. Henry felt his mood darken at the thought of the boy.

  He was in for a surprise.

  His actions in New York had ended relations with a brother cartel which had been a major and profitable partner in recent years. Henry had worked tirelessly to set that one up. Not only had the boy cost his business a shitload of money, but one of the guys the moron whacked in the hotel was a lugarteniente, a lieutenant, one of the highest guys in the other group’s organisation. No wonder the boy was desperate to get back in his uncle’s good graces.

  A waitress approached him, looking nervous. She was petite and slim like so many Europeans and held a pad and pencil in her slender hands, ready to take his order.

  Before she had a chance to speak, he told her what he wanted.

  ‘Coffee, three pastries. I’m hungry.’

  He wasn’t sure if she understood him, but he didn’t care. He had a feeling she’d end up giving him what he wanted. People always did. Turning, he saw her cast anxious looks at the two giant men sitting fifteen feet away; they had their backs to her, watching the door. Henry saw her weighing up whether to approach them, but decided against it and hurried back behind the counter to fetch Henry’s order.

  Clever girl, he thought.

  Tilting his wrist, Henry checked the time on his Rolex. He had a few hours to wait. Faris had gone with the jet and the pilot to London to fetch Dominick, the coke still inside the cabin. The business deal with the Albanians based here wasn’t set to happen until after midnight, Paris time, and he was only twenty minutes from the airfield so it wouldn’t take long to return. All he had to do now was sit back and wait for his cocaine to return and for his nephew to be brought into the café, served up like a sacrificial lamb.

  The waitress reappeared carefully carrying a tray. She was quick, impressively so. She arrived at the table and laid down a full cup of coffee with a pot of milk and sugar, which were then joined by a plate holding three Danish pastries.

  She stood up nervously, seeing if he was happy. Ignoring her, the feared drug lord grabbed one of the pastries and pushed it into his mouth, chomping down.

  It was delicious, fresh from the bakery, and the frosting smeared over his lips as he munched down on the treat.

  After watching him for a moment, the waitress turned and scurried away.

  In London at that moment, the accident and emergency ward of St Mary’s Hospital was in meltdown. Gurneys and the wounded were rolling in as if they were coming off a factory line. The most seriously injured were being seen to immediately, the rest tended to as soon as any staff became available. It was relentless work, as the injured just kept coming and coming.

  By reception, the unfortunate Chief of Surgery for the evening, a grey-haired man in his fifties called Jeff Mays was desperately trying to direct operations and maintain some semblance of order.

  Hannah Gibbs suddenly appeared, pushing her way through the double-doors. She still carried the IV hooked up to the injured woman on the bed, who remained unconscious and motionless on the frame. A group of medics rushed over. One of them picked up a medical pad resting on the bed which Hannah had filled out on the brief journey over.

  ‘She’s critical,’ Gibbs told him.

  He nodded, rapidly reading the sheet, then followed the bed as it was wheeled away out of sight.

  Gibbs paused for a split second, breathing hard. She turned, preparing to find another ambulance and head back to the scene. But as she went to walk back towards the entrance, she heard someone calling her name. Turning, she saw it was Chief Mays standing by the reception desk. He was beckoning her over.

  She moved towards him, dodging a wounded Tottenham fan who was being helped into the ward.

  ‘Have you seen Beth or Will?’ Mays asked as she arrived by the counter, referring to two of her fellow medics who were on rotation for the evening’s shift.

  Gibbs thought for a moment, then shook her head.

  ‘I checked in at 5.30. The next thing I knew, I was in an ambulance heading to the stadium.’

  She thought for a moment.

  ‘Come to think of it, I didn’t see either one of them over there.’

  ‘Well I’m not surprised. Neither one showed up for work. I’m not happy, Hannah.’

  He looked at her like she knew something he didn’t.

  ‘Well, I haven’t seen them in a couple of days,’ she replied. ‘I thought they had time off.’

  ‘They haven’t. And wherever they are they have an ambulance. I’ve been trying to call them but they won’t pick up and answer.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know what they’re playing at but I need every available pair of hands.’

  Grabbing a pad from the desk, he passed it to Gibbs. It was a contact sheet, a list of phone numbers for everyone on shift tonight printed on the paper.

  ‘Keep trying. Find out where they are,’ he ordered. ‘Tell them I don’t even care that they’re late, I just need them both here soon as possible.’

  Hannah looked out the entrance and at the sheer volume of wounded in the room around her. She needed to get back to the stadium, not waste time doing errands like this.

  ‘But Chief-,’ she said.

  But he was already walking away. Gibbs cursed under her breath, and snatching the phone she started dialling a number.

  Despite her frustration at being made to perform this mundane task, she was also surprised. She’d known the other two medics for four years.

  And neither of them ever missed work.

  Inside a dark vehicle across the city, a fluorescent light flashed on and off like a firefly.

  It was a mobile phone. The small dark shape rang quietly, muffled and dimmed from inside a white piece of pocket fabric.

  It belonged to a woman lying in the back of the vehicle.

  She was lifeless, her body limp and sprawled in a heap, like a puppet with the strings cut. Another dead body had been dumped on top of her, a young man staring with lifeless eyes at the rear doors of the vehicle.

  Both of them were surrounded by a pool of congealed blood which had clotted and thickened, sticking them to the floor of the vehicle. The bruising around the young woman’s neck showed that she’d been strangled. The man had put up more of a fight, so his throat had been cut.

  The phone continued to ring quietly, flashing on and off.

  But no one was ever going to pick up.

  Fifty yards away, the man from the shopping centre checked the traffic as he strode across Up
per Street towards the vehicle. Cupping his hands together, he blew hot air into his palms. It was cold, too cold. Dodging the traffic that passed down the road in front of him, he approached the vehicle parked on the kerb.

  An ambulance.

  Checking to make sure no-one had followed or was watching him, the man moved around the side of the stolen white vehicle. Pulling a set of keys from his pocket, he opened the door and climbed inside, slamming it shut behind him.

  A sudden noise from the back of the vehicle startled him. He snapped his head round but realised it was just the dead bitch’s mobile phone. He relaxed; the damn thing had made him jump.

  Ignoring the constant, quiet ringing, he grabbed a set of overalls from the front passenger seat beside him. They were light green medical scrubs; he’d planned to use what the guy in the back had been wearing, but he’d had to cut his throat and the prick had bled all over the white paramedic outfit as he died. He’d been forced to improvise but after raiding the ambulance he’d struck gold.

  Pulling off his shirt, he started to change into the uniform quickly.

  Over his shoulder, the phone continued to ring.

  Back inside the shopping centre, a bartender had moved out from behind the bar with a cloth. If his boss asked, he was wiping down tables, but in reality he was using the opportunity to gain a moment’s respite from the mass of customers at the bar, leaving a colleague to handle the orders. There had been a brief lull when reports of an explosion at the Emirates had flashed onto the screens, but business was now back in full swing and it was exhausting work, constant shouted orders, people vying for his attention.

  As he moved from table to table, giving each one a cursory wipe, the barman zigzagged his way towards the exit. Picking up an empty glass from an outside table, he noticed something against the wall.

  Two black bags, sitting alone and unattended.

  He frowned, then looked around.

  There were sets of chairs and tables out there, but no one was using them. It was too cold.

  He shrugged. Someone must have left the bags by accident. They’d realise soon and would be back any minute to collect them, no doubt worrying that they’d have been stolen.

  The barman decided to move the two holdalls behind the bar for safe-keeping and until whoever owned them returned. He walked over and dropped to one knee in front of them. They were both bulky, packed full, and curiosity got the better of him.

  Holding the rag and glass in his right hand, he reached forward with his left and pulled the zip of one of the bags open.

  Tilting his head, he looked inside.

  An instant later, he gasped, snapping upright and dropping the glass.

  It hit the ground and shattered into a hundred fragments.

  FIFTEEN

  Outside the Emirates, most of the ARU task force officers were scattered amongst the crowd. They were helping the wounded and paramedics, organising the mass of people and most importantly, keeping an eye out for any further threats. The day had been wildly unpredictable so far and there were still five terrorists out there somewhere.

  Across the tarmac, Fox quickly appeared from the bowels of the stadium, Spitz and Mason jogging beside him. The sandy-haired officer pushed the pressel button on his vest as the three of them approached.

  ‘We checked the stadium, Mac,’ he said, his voice coming up over the ear piece in each officer’s ear. ‘There was nothing else. Place is clear, far as we can tell.’

  ‘Roger that,’ came Mac’s voice. ‘Move into the crowd and do what you can to help out’.

  As the three men dispersed, Porter’s voice came up over the radio.

  ‘Mac, we’ve got another problem.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just spoke with Nikki. An emergency call just came into the Met. Two bags, left outside a bar in Angel.’

  Helping a wounded man into an ambulance amongst the crowd, Archer heard this and turned.

  He spotted Porter, standing by their police car. His face was tense.

  ‘They sure it’s a threat, Port?’ Archer asked, pushing the button on his vest as he looked at Porter.

  He saw the other officer nod.

  ‘A guy opened one of the bags,’ Porter’s voice replied. ‘Said it was packed with what sounds like C4 explosive.’

  The radio went silent. From their positions all over the car park, each man froze as this registered.

  ‘The clock’s ticking, Mac,’ Porter added. ‘We need to get over there now.’

  Mac’s voice responded instantly, his tone changed.

  ‘Right, First team, we’re going. Archer, Chalky get over to the car. Deakins, take over ‘til we get back.’

  The three officers ran from their various positions towards Porter, who’d already jumped into the front seat and was firing the engine.

  Back at St Mary’s Hannah Gibbs put the phone back onto the cradle slowly.

  She was confused.

  Every paramedic she knew made it a point of honour to always be contactable, no matter what the situation was. It didn’t matter if they were on duty or off, they were always near a phone. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but for some reason Gibbs felt an uneasy feeling seeping into the pit of her stomach.

  Something wasn’t right.

  She considered what could have happened. There was the possibility that the two of them were secretly an item; right now they could be holed up in a hotel room somewhere, the ambulance parked outside, the television off, no idea of the situation at the stadium. But as soon as she considered the idea, Gibbs frowned.

  That was tenuous at best, and highly unlikely. Even if they were together, neither would be that unprofessional. In her head, the cautious part of her mind was going off like a fire alarm.

  Something felt off.

  Standing at the desk, she made a quick decision. Better safe than sorry. Picking up the phone again, she dialled three buttons. The call connected.

  ‘Police please,’ she asked.

  There was a wait as the operator transferred her. Then another voice appeared on the other end of the line.

  ‘Good evening. What is your emergency?’ the guy asked, from the Metropolitan Police call centre.

  ‘I’d like to report two people and an ambulance missing.’