TWO
The layout of the Briefing Room at the ARU’s headquarters was simple. It was about the size of a rectangular school classroom. As you walked in, to your left was a table pushed against the wall. On its desktop an aluminium coffee machine took pride of place, surrounded on either side by a big box of tea bags, stacks of polystyrene cups and some packets of biscuits dumped on the countertop.
The other end of the room was set up as a briefing space, with two rows of chairs placed in front of a screen. However, this morning so far only three of the seats had occupants; they were the officers who’d been the first to arrive after receiving the call from Director Cobb. Behind them, the rest of the team was starting to trickle in through the door one by one, quickly joining the three already seated.
By the drinks stand, a good-looking young blond officer poured himself a cup of tea as he stifled a yawn. His name was Sam Archer and he was the youngest member of the task force. He and the other officers had been given the week off for Christmas on the condition that they stayed on call and were always contactable the entire time. Archer’s phone had rung at 8:15 am and he’d made it up here in twenty minutes. Unlike some of the older men, he didn’t mind the constant commitment and unpredictability of the hours. After all, it was what he’d signed up for.
At twenty-six years old, Archer was still pretty inexperienced in counter-terrorist police work compared to most of the other guys in the ARU. When he’d told his colleagues at his old station at Hammersmith and Fulham earlier in the year that he was applying for the ARU, most of them had laughed in his face. Good luck with that one, they’d said.
They weren’t laughing now. Archer had crushed the fitness and marksmanship tests, adept with both pistol and sub-machine gun, and despite his age, he’d already put in over six years on the street. It had got to the point where the brass weren’t considering the reasons why the young officer couldn’t join the Unit, it was why not. Whenever he was asked in the interviews if he thought his age would be a problem, he gave the same response every time. If you're good enough, you're old enough.
And he believed it. His whole life, the only thing he’d ever wanted to be was a police officer. His father was a Sergeant in the NYPD and although they hadn’t seen each other in over ten years, Archer had grown up idolising him. For anyone who knew the boy, it came as no surprise that the man had ended up with his own badge and gun twenty years later. Being selected for the ARU a few months back had been a huge step for him; Archer came to work every day ready and raring to go, the voices in his head reminding him how inexperienced he was.
He was desperate to get out there and prove himself, but he knew that would only come with time.
As he drank from his tea and was about to move forward to join the others, he paused and smiled when he saw his best friend Chalky enter the room. The squad had been given the week off, but Chalk liked to burn the candle at both ends; while Archer liked a beer, he was typically in the sack before 1am, but Chalky figured that being asleep before four equalled a pointless existence. And when he went out drinking, he didn’t exactly hold back.
‘Jesus Christ, you look dreadful,’ Archer said, as his friend approached. ‘Where the hell did you end up last night?’
Chalky grunted a response as he arrived by the drinks stand. Grabbing a polystyrene cup, he poured himself a thick coffee; black, three sugars. He paused for a moment, thinking, then added a fourth. Archer winced.
His full name was Danny White, but as long he could remember everyone had called him Chalky. He’d once said that the only people who called him by his proper name were his mum when she was pissed off with him and Sergeant McGuire, their commanding officer. Archer had met him eight years ago on the first day of basic when they both signed up to join the police. He was four years shy of thirty, like Archer, and was of similar physical stature, both of them six feet tall and solidly built at a hundred and eighty-five pounds.
However, that was where the similarities ended. Archer’s blond hair and blue eyes were a stark contrast to Chalky’s dark, almost Mediterranean complexion, an irony given his nickname. After training, they’d been processed to the same division in the Met, and had decided to apply to the ARU together. Archer didn’t have much family left, but he quietly considered Chalky to be the brother he'd never had.
‘You left too early last night, blondie,’ Chalky said, rubbing his temples. ‘For a change.’
As Archer went to answer, an officer in his mid-thirties entered the Briefing Room, following three others. His name was Deakins, a barrel-chested, outspoken veteran, and he immediately noticed Chalky’s condition.
‘What’s the matter, Chalk, too many cocktails?’ he called.
The hungover officer flipped him the finger as the other guys in the room laughed. They knew Chalky’s habit of putting the same amount of energy into his nightlife as he did into his career. Most of them had done the same thing a few years ago when they were his age. However, he got away with it due to his ability in the field. It didn’t matter if he’d had one drink or twenty the night before, if a call came in, they all knew that Chalky would be standing there right beside them, ready to go.
As two more officers entered, a short, stocky man walked in behind them and the room instantly quietened. His name was Sergeant McGuire Cobb’s second-in-command and head of the task force, though every guy on the team just knew him as Mac. Almost thirty years of frontline combat and policing experience had left Mac as a consummate professional and a man not afraid of sharing his opinions with his superiors as frankly as he did with his peers and subordinates.
He didn’t talk much about the past, but Archer knew Mac had done three tours in the Gulf, and had seen action in Bosnia and Iraq again after 9/11. He’d joined the police after he left the army in 2005, and had risen fast due to his obvious skills and leadership abilities. He had a quick temper but one thing was for sure, whatever he may have lacked in charm, he more than made up for with loyalty. Everyone who operated with the Unit knew better than to mess with his men.
'Morning lads,' he growled, a voice battered by years of onslaught from cigarettes. Like Al Pacino would sound if he was English and Cockney, Archer thought, as he moved forward to sit in an empty chair.
Mac stood in front of the men and went to continue, but then noticed Chalky’s condition by the coffee stand.
'Jesus Christ Chalk, what time did you get home last night?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t, Sarge,’ Chalky said, sipping his coffee and taking a seat beside Archer.
Mac had left the door open and the last person to enter the room was a slim, attractive young woman with dark hair and glasses; she walked in briskly and closed the door behind her. Her name was Nikki; in a world where everyone knew each other by either their last name or a nickname, she was the exception and not just because she was female. She’d earned that respect. At only twenty eight, she was already the lead analyst within the intelligence team stationed next door. Cobb had plucked her from behind a desk at Hammersmith and Fulham, and he’d struck gold. Forensically attentive and consistent, she served as the eyes and ears for the task force when they were out in the field.
Along with Archer and Chalky, Nikki epitomised the new generation of police, fast-tracked and blending in well with those more experienced. It was something the Prime Minister had apparently demanded for the detail. He wanted it to be a unit that would be around for the future, long after he was gone. Archer knew Cobb had pissed off a lot of people by picking the three of them for the squad and the trio were all desperate to justify their selection.
Nikki took her place beside Mac, dark-haired, delicate and petite beside his stolid frame. Including Mac, all ten officers were now gathered in the room. Each man was dressed in off-duty clothes, jeans and sweaters thick enough to protect against the chilly air outside blowing in from the North. There were also a few yawns being stifled; if the call hadn’t come in half an hour ago, most of them would still have been in bed.
‘
Morning lads,’ Mac repeated. ‘Sorry about interrupting your leave, but this one’s come straight from the top. Listen up.'
Beside him, Nikki clicked on a laptop.
An image appeared on a white screen in front of the group. Nine photographs, each one accompanied by a name and a number printed above in bold lettering.
‘Take a good look boys,’ said Mac. ‘These handsome fellas are our new best friends. All nine of them are planning to bring in the New Year with their very own firework displays, but are planning to use some very different things that go boom. Like home-made explosives, nails and bits of glass.’
He paused, letting each man in the room observe the mug-shots projected on the wall.
‘GCHQ had eyes on this lot, but apparently they got wise and scarpered into the city. Now they want us to clean up and bring these ugly bastards in before they go and do something stupid.’
Chalky pointed at the wall, at Number Nine. 'The bloke on the right looks different from the others, Mac. Sharper.’
Mac smiled. 'Well today's your lucky day, Officer White. Each unit has been assigned a different target and he just so happens to be ours. Maybe when he's in custody, you can interrogate him over a candlelit dinner.'
Everyone laughed.
'Who is he, Sarge?’ Archer asked, staring at the guy’s photo. ‘Chalky’s right. He doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest.'
Nikki answered him, reading from a page in her hand.
‘His name is Dominick Farha,’ she said. ‘There’s not much about him on file. It looks as if he may be linked with a drug cartel in the Middle East.'
'He's also the leader of this lot,' added Mac. ‘The most recent surveillance says he’s been staying at a flat in Knightsbridge, so that's our first stop. Our day doesn’t end until all nine of these boys are in custody. Understand?’
The men nodded. Deakins raised his hand.
'Use of deadly force?' he asked.
'Use discretion,' Mac replied, candidly.
A sandy haired officer, Fox, interjected.
'Can you elaborate on that?'
'Well, let me put it this way,’ said Mac. ‘If we kick in the door, and he's sat there in his underwear eating corn flakes, then there's no need to use your weapon. But if you walk in and he's got a bomb strapped to his chest, then you make an intelligent decision.’
He paused.
‘And make sure I'm standing behind you when you make it.’
The room laughed.
'Any more questions?’ Mac asked.
There were none.
‘Alright, lads. Get your kit. Chalky, drink some water. I want you all outside in ten.'
He turned and strode out of the room. Director Cobb was outside waiting for him, and together they walked to Cobb’s office to talk alone. Nikki moved to the door to return to her desk in the tech area; before she left, she dumped a stack of papers on a table by the doorway.
'Take one of these before you go,' she told the team from the doorway. 'Photocopies of the slide. All nine guys.'
As she departed, the remaining officers in the room rose, draining their drinks and heading towards the door, tossing the empty cups into a rubbish bin beside it. Archer remained where he was sitting, staring intently at the screen. Beside him, Chalky groaned, rubbing his temples.
'Can't believe this. It’s derby day, Arsenal-Spurs, and I'm stuck here doing this shit,' he grumbled.
Archer didn’t reply. Turning, Chalky saw his friend’s eyes were fixated on the projection.
'Arch? What are you looking at?'
Archer frowned, then turned.
'Nothing. Number Three looks familiar, that's all.’
Finishing his cup of tea, Archer rose, patting his friend on the shoulder.
‘Drink up Chalk. Its game day,’ he said with a grin.
Turning, the young blond officer walked to the door and grabbed a photocopy, moving out of sight as he headed downstairs to get changed into his gear.
Now alone in the Briefing Room, Chalky rolled his eyes.
Finishing his coffee, he climbed to his feet with a groan and followed him.
THREE
Twenty miles across London, a series of jars and bottles stood on a brick wall in the middle of an empty park. They were stacked in a line, like a makeshift shooting gallery.
Suddenly, one of the bottles exploded. A gunshot echoed around the field and a flock of birds on the grass across the park reacted to the noise of the gunshot, flapping their wings frantically and lifting off from the ground, flying away from the threat of danger.
Twenty yards from the row of glass vessels, a thirteen year old boy stood still as he held the pistol that had fired the bullet. His brown eyes were wide with shock and excitement, having just experienced the sheer power and accuracy of a real handgun for the first time.
He stood motionless, savouring the moment.
Then his dark features broke into a broad smile and he lowered the stolen pistol, turning it to one side and examining it in his hands.
It was a nine-millimetre Beretta 92, the famous Italian pistol. Holding both a fifteen-round magazine and a reputation as one of the most accurate handguns on the planet, the weapon was a firm favourite for law enforcement and military forces around the world, particularly in the United States. It was also just a bit too big for a thirteen year old’s grip. After all, the pistol was designed to be held by a soldier in combat or by a policeman on the street, not by a thirteen year old boy in his local park.
Behind the young man, two of his friends were staring at the gun, wide-eyed and clearly impressed after that first shot. Turning, the teenager carefully passed the pistol over to one of them, who stepped forward and took it in his hands. Raising the weapon, he aimed at an empty Coca-Cola bottle on the far right of the targets, lining up the fore-sight on the centre of the glass. He suddenly remembered something he’d seen in a war movie about snipers and started taking deep breaths as he tried to slow his breathing. It seemed to work. The fore-sight stopped dancing around and settled on the Coke bottle, straight and still.
But he was too tense, anticipating the weapon’s response when it fired. He snatched at the trigger and the weapon boomed, pushing him back from the recoil. A plume of dust burst from the brick wall behind the glass targets as it took the bullet but the bottle remained intact. He’d missed.
As his friends laughed, the boy fired twice more in quick frustrated succession. The second shot hit the bottle, scoring a hit and restoring some pride, and the glass vessel shattered, disintegrating into a thousand fragments and sprinkling to the ground like fairy dust.
As the pair of gunshots echoed around the empty park, the boy turned to his friend, wide-eyed and excited.
‘Where the hell did you get this?’ he asked.
‘My brother,’ the kid replied.
‘Saqib? What’s he doing with a handgun?’
The dark-haired boy just shrugged.
He didn’t want to think about it.
His older brother wasn’t the kind of guy to carry around something like this. Only just turned twenty-three, Saqib had been as straight as an arrow growing up, never in trouble and never causing any. But then the riots of last summer had happened and the boy had watched his brother change. On the second night of the anarchy, their father had been killed, stamped to death on the street by a violent group who’d separated from the mob. His father hadn’t done anything to provoke them, he’d just been trying to get past quietly as he made his way home from work. The group knocked him to the ground and kicked his skull in, causing deep cerebral fractures and a resulting brain haemorrhage.
He’d died on the street before anyone could even get him to a hospital.
Despite his age, the teenage boy had come to terms with his father’s passing. True, he felt angry and bitter at what had happened, how unjust and unfair it all was. Not a day went past that he didn’t wish that he’d been there, that he could have at least tried to do something to stop the g
ang beating his dad.
But despite his age, he already knew there was nothing he could do to change what had happened. His father had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And any lasting feelings of rage he might have felt at the cruelty of it all were swept away with concern for his mother who’d suddenly found herself a widow. Needless to say, she had taken the unexpected death of her husband hard.
As had his brother, Saqib.
Since that fateful night last August, Saqib had become a different man. It was almost as if the incident had planted a seed of hate inside him, and day by day that seed was growing, sprouting weeds that twisted and wrapped their tendrils through all his veins and arteries. His younger brother watched as he drifted away from all his old friends. He started drinking and doing hard drugs; he often wouldn’t come home at night, and his mother would stay up until dawn, worried sick that she was going to lose another member of her family.
And he was spending a lot of time with a new group. There was one of them in particular whom the boy didn’t like, a guy who called himself Dominick. He’d appeared on the scene a few months ago seemingly out of nowhere, and Saqib seemed to be hanging out with him a lot lately.
The youngster would never admit it to anyone, but there was something about the stranger that terrified him. He had a look in his eye that was unsettling, a gleam that contradicted all the smart suits and polished shoes that he wore.
One word came to mind, a word the teenager had picked up from his English class at school.
Psychotic.
Saqib had called his brother last night, asking him to bring round a takeaway for him and his friends. For some reason, he claimed none of them could leave the house, so the kid had to go and get it for them. That was all bullshit; they were just being lazy. Nevertheless, the boy had reluctantly headed out and picked up a couple of pizzas, taking them over to an address Saqib gave him over the phone.
On the way, he found himself praying that Dominick wouldn’t be there.
He’d been in luck. There were only three people inside the house, his brother and two guys whose names he didn’t know. Whoever owned the place had given up cleaning and maintenance a long time ago. The place was a complete dump. It was dirty and dank, and there was some strange thumping noise coming from the bathroom upstairs. Saqib had grabbed the pizzas without thanks or payment and told him to get the hell out. Pissed off and feeling used, the boy had walked through the hallway to the door, alone.
As he turned the handle he’d suddenly spotted a handgun resting on a table by the entrance.
Like a kid in a sweet shop, he couldn’t resist. Fuelled by his feelings of being used the boy had grabbed the weapon, tucking it into the folds of his coat and then left. Thank you guys, he’d thought as he rushed off down the street, the pistol hidden inside his jacket. He couldn’t wait to show his friends.
Another gunshot brought him back to the present, as the second boy fired at the glass targets again. He checked his watch. 8:55 am. He had to be at work in the shop for his Mum before 9:30am which meant he also had to take the gun back, something he was dreading. But much as he didn’t want to, he didn’t have a choice.
‘Bad news. I need to go,’ he told his friends. He turned to the third boy, who was yet to fire the weapon. ‘Want to try before I leave? I need to take it with me.’
The third teenager nodded eagerly.
Taking the weapon from the second boy, he aimed at an empty jar, closing one eye like he’d seen Clint Eastwood do in all his movies.
He pulled the trigger and the jar exploded.
Four thousand miles away the overweight man from the yacht was about to break the habit of a lifetime for the second time that day.
People called him Henry, but that wasn’t his real name. He’d adopted it at the age of thirteen after watching the gangster movie Goodfellas. To this day, he could still remember the first time he saw the film and the tremendous effect it’d had on him. As an impressionable young boy looking for an identity, it had changed his life. He’d started wearing the suits and tracksuits the actor Ray Liotta wore in the movie. His voice suddenly developed a New York twang. And he started calling himself Henry after the lead guy in the movie, Henry Hill.
A number of older boys around him had seen this as opportunity for humour. With a short attention span, Henry the boy had never sat through to the end of the movie so he hadn’t discovered that the character Henry Hill ended up being a rat for the FBI. They’d made cheap jokes, mocking him, deriding his stupidity; to his frustration, Henry knew he was too young to retaliate. Some of his tormentors were nineteen or twenty, far bigger and stronger than him.
But he’d been patient and he’d waited, never forgetting who’d ridiculed and teased him.
And when he was sixteen and been given a job as a halcone for a Riyadh cartel, he’d asked his new friends for some help on a private matter.
They’d gladly agreed.
To this day, his favourite method of killing someone was lifted straight from the Mafia stories that came out of New York. He had the person held down and sedated, and when they were unconscious their feet were passed through the holes of a cinder block, the gaps then filled with quick drying cement and locking their ankles tight.
He liked to be there when they woke up, watching that first moment of confusion and vulnerability as they wondered where they were. He would wait until the moment they realised their feet were lodged in over seventy pounds of cemented concrete.
By then, they were already being carried towards the water.
He’d often wondered what went through someone’s mind as they went beneath the surface, dropping like a stone. Death was certain. They’d know they had less than a minute to live. Did they fight to the end? Did they pray? Try to hold their breath? He smiled. If he could, he would watch every single one of them land on the seabed. He’d seen it once, when he’d ordered an associate who’d betrayed him thrown into an aquarium. The guy had tried everything. Pulling his feet free. Scrabbling at the window, his eyes as wide as dinner plates, his screaming muffled through the water. Henry had watched from the other side of the glass, an inch from the doomed guy’s face, grinning at him. I should have brought popcorn, he thought.
He’d killed his first man when he was sixteen. The guy had been one of his chief tormentors as a boy, endlessly mocking the overweight thirteen year old’s new Mafia persona. Seven more of them had followed, one by one, their feet dried into concrete and thrown in the sea, screaming like scared little girls.
Funnily enough, since then no one had made any jokes anymore.
And the name had stuck.
Twenty two years later, Henry had achieved his position as head of the cartel by being cautious. He had a rule never to attend deals personally, letting those beneath him do it instead. He didn’t fancy opening a car packed with millions of dollars worth of cocaine and suddenly find an entire police precinct descending on him out of nowhere. If his men got caught, they either went down without a word or shot their way out. They knew better than to talk to the police.
If they did, everyone they had ever loved would be killed.
His was a business built on two things; respect and fear. But in recent weeks, he’d been getting restless and wary. He could feel eyes on him. He knew the American Drug Enforcement Agency were sniffing about, like stray dogs looking for scraps of food. He’d received a tip off last night about a man who’d recently moved into a house near his compound, in the centre of Riyadh. He’d sent his two enforcers to investigate and they’d struck gold. Inside the house, the two knuckleheads had found a shitload of surveillance equipment, cameras, listening devices, bugs and a DEA agent himself. The guy had somehow wire-tapped all the phones inside the main house, recording and photographing Henry’s every move. Once the two giants had restrained the man, the drug lord had ordered him anaesthetised then carried to his yacht.
He smiled. Drowning the DEA agent earlier that morning had been welcome refreshme
nt. For a brief moment, he felt his mood lift as he thought of the American right now at the bottom of the sea. But his presence confirmed Henry’s concern that the DEA were getting close. Way too close.
Needing to get out of Riyadh and clear his head, several hours ago Henry had set up a quick meeting in Juarez, the first time in a very long time that he’d be face-to-face for a deal. It was an opportunity to make some good money, over four million US dollars, in exchange for 500 keyed bricks. The powder was second rate at best but they wouldn’t know that until Henry was back in the air. It had been sitting in his aircraft hangar for months; now seemed as good a time as any to get rid of it.
Right now, he was standing on the tarmac of his own private airfield. In front of him, the two meatheads unloaded the bricks of cocaine from a 4x4 Escalade, carrying it up a set of unfolded stairs and loading it onto Henry’s private jet. It was broad daylight, just past midday in Riyadh, and they were standing in the sunshine in the middle of the runway but Henry didn’t give a damn if anyone was watching. The local police knew the consequences if they tried to make a move on him. Their own families would pay the price.
He’d been standing watching when one of his men approached, informing him of the latest situation in London. The man’s name was Faris, Henry’s right-hand man, his lugarteniente as the Mexicans called it. He was efficient and reliable with a different level of intelligence from the two muscle-bound assholes loading the coke into the plane. He proved it by what he said next. He’d proposed an idea which Henry had considered then agreed to it on the spot without hesitation. It was a good plan, full of initiative and it turned out that Faris had been proactive; he’d already set everything up.
An Albanian cartel based in Paris would meet them at a runway outside the city later that night. They’d agreed to an asking price of six million US dollars for the coke which was two better than Juarez. And Faris had also contacted Dominick, Henry’s imbecilic excuse of a nephew. They would retrieve the boy tonight from the UK before the British police could get hold of him.
Apparently, he was eager to see his uncle face-to-face and finally explain himself after what he’d done.
Standing in the sunshine by the jet, Henry grinned. Not only would he finally get rid of this crappy batch of coke for one and half times the original asking price, he would also have his idiot nephew brought before him, begging for his life. Business and pleasure, his two favourite things, killing two birds with one stone. Literally, he thought with a smile.
So right there and then, he’d broken a lifetime of routine for the second time that morning and cancelled his trip to Juarez, opting to go to Paris instead. He knew he’d be pissing off a lot of guys in Mexico. These weren’t appointments that you just missed, but Henry knew how much power he wielded and figured he could ride the wave.
Standing by the plane, he watched as his two enforcers loaded the last few bricks of cocaine into the jet. Once they’d stowed the powder the two giants reappeared, plodding down the steps and standing on the runway, awaiting further instruction.
Ignoring them, the drug lord walked forward and grabbed the rail, clambering up the stairs himself. It took him ten seconds; after all, he was carrying over three hundred pounds of fatty adipose and bulk. Eventually he made it inside and collapsed in a seat that had been specially widened to accommodate him, sweating and breathing hard from the exertion.
The two enforcers followed, taking their own seats. It was pleasantly cool, the air conditioning blasting out of the fans, cold, crisp and refreshing. Wiping sweat from his sunburnt scalp, Henry looked at the two giants sitting across the aisle as Faris secured the door.
They were morons, both of them, more biceps than brain cells, but necessary muscle, considering the enemies Henry had. He’d been planning to get rid of them for a while; he liked to cycle his security, needing to keep them sharp and on their toes, eager to please and scared to fail. He'd noticed recently that these two were getting way too comfortable. And like the shitty coke, today seemed a good as time as any to ditch them. He decided there and then that neither of them would make it back from Paris.
He glanced over at Faris who was finishing locking the hatch, his back turned. Truth be told, the man had proven to be a surprisingly worthy investment. Henry had taken him on just over a year ago from a recommendation after his predecessor had been shot and killed by a rival cartel. It had been a wise decision; Faris was good at his job and the business’s profits had increased impressively with him on board.
But he asked too many questions and he was too intelligent for his own good. Henry knew there would come a day where Faris would challenge his position. It was inevitable, like two animals in the wild, the old leader and the young buck fighting for the right to head the pack. But he was ready for it. He’d waste the two meatheads in Paris then save Faris as a treat for when they arrived back in Riyadh.
He smiled to himself, feeling that tickle of excitement in his gut whenever murder was an imminent prospect, and heard a whining noise as the engine of the jet started to fully warm up.
The plane edged forwards to its starting position on the end of the runway, the long tarmac path stretching out ahead of them.
Faris walked into the cabin and took a seat opposite Henry. He noticed a broad smile on the drug lord’s face.
‘We’ll be in Paris in five hours,’ he said, watching his boss.
Without a response, Henry ignored him and closed his eyes.
Thinking of cement shoes.