“No joy. Two coppers here.” Liam kept his voice low. “No wait! They’re leaving. It’s a little chapel or something. Okay, this may be our only chance to get in, unless you prefer to use the climbing gear.” He looked up, his eyes surveying the sheer sides of the walls. “But I sure don’t want to scale that.” He withdrew the camera.
“Not with that floodlighting,” Staveley said, taking a small plastic bottle with a sharp tipped nozzle out of one of his pockets. “The phrase ‘sitting duck’ comes to mind.”
Liam smiled. “Ducks don’t sit on vertical walls.”
Staveley took hold of the door knob with his left hand and turned it, but the door did not open. With his right hand he inserted the tip of the bottle into the keyhole, located several inches from the handle, and squeezed, wiggling the bottle around to give full coverage. As he took the bottle away from the lock, smoke and an acrid smell rose from the keyhole.
Staveley turned the knob again. The door opened inward with no resistance, and they entered.
They found themselves in a small chapel. The external door was sunken into an alcove. A curtain, which would have hung to cover this door, was held to one side by a large stack of hymn books on a stone ledge.
Liam closed the door, but with the dissolution of the lock it would not stay shut. He took a few of the nearby stack of Hymns Ancient and Modern and placed the weight of them against the closed door, keeping it in place.
“That won’t keep anyone out,” Staveley said.
“Yes it will. Trust me.”
The soldiers crossed the peaceful chapel to an internal door, and looked out. It opened onto an aisle extending to the Minster’s east end on the right, and to an arch on the left which opened into the nave. Directly across the aisle from Liam and Staveley was the chancel, a rectangular area within the east end of the church marked out by pillars supporting gothic arches which in turn supported the vaulted ceiling high above. To enclose the chancel, elaborate structures and screens surmounted the gaps between the pillars, boxing in the entire area and creating a private space for services while still allowing tourists to mill about in the cathedral.
Across the aisle they faced a door opening into the chancel. They glanced several times up and down this aisle before crossing it and pausing to look in.
Glancing inside and taking in the elaborate and detailed woodwork of the quire and the sanctuary containing the high altar, they noticed several uniformed and armed policemen.
They backed away from the area and moved along the aisle toward the nave.
To the right, on this side of the arch, the cathedral organ’s enormous bass pipes were anchored into the stone floor, surrounded by a waist-high wrought-iron fence. The pipes were several times the height of the average man. Liam and Staveley looked out into the south transept to their left and the nave straight ahead and to the right.
These areas, usually quite peaceful, were normally much emptier. The transept rarely contained any furnishings, and the nave should have been filled with pews and perhaps a few people sitting in them for silent contemplation or rest. But now, the area was alive – or rather, asleep, for it was night – with people. Sleeping on the pews were men and women, many in police uniforms. Here and there, temporary partitions marked out semi-private living areas for certain echelons of militia, mostly in the transept, taking away the usual open feel of the place.
“Look at all these guys,” Liam said. “It’s like they’ve made this place into their barracks.”
“How do we get into the tower? That’s all we need to know.”
“Er…” Liam paused for a barely perceptible moment. “That way.” They could not see the area they wanted, their view being blocked by partitions and other apparatus.
Staveley glanced back down the aisle. A patrol was emerging into view from the furthest corner at the rear of the chancel. “Cover!”
They both looked around. There was a dark gap between the nearest stone column and the massive bass pipes. The two soldiers squeezed themselves into the space and waited for the patrol to pass, going through the arch and turning right to follow the crossing between the transepts.
Liam stepped out of their hiding place, looking around the corner to check on the progress of the patrol, and gave his partner an OK sign. They turned their attention back to the transept.
“Come on,” Staveley said, “let’s get over there.”
“Hang about. What’s do we do about all these guys?” Liam gestured forward to indicate the mass of people sleeping in the nave and transept.
“Nevermind those guys,” Staveley said. “We only need to avoid them seeing us. Apart from that they’re an SEP. Let’s go. Should be a piece of cake, with all these partitions and things.” Staveley got up and started moving, leaving Liam no choice but to follow.
As they moved from cover to cover around the outer perimeter of the transept, a darkened corner came into view, which was the target area. A blue and gold painted iron gate stood open, and through it and to the left was a small ticket desk at which, on any ordinary day, a young woman would sit collecting entrance tickets from a long queue of tourists eager to climb the tower for the best views over York. Also within the gated space was a lift enclosed within a large wooden cube – a down-only lift, lacking any shaft above. Through the space between the ticket desk and the elevator was a cramped area with two doors and – almost invisible in the shadowy tower-access area – two armed men standing guard.
“We want the door on the left,” Liam whispered. “It’s the way up to the tower.”
“And the one on the right?”
“That’s the gift shop. Fancy some shopping?”
“Maybe I’ll buy a present for those cops,” Staveley said, referring to the two policemen who stood between the ticket desk and elevator, holding formidable automatics at their chests.
They moved a little closer to their objective, constantly checking all around them, and came to a large wheeled rack of chairs which provided them some moveable cover to take them as near to the guards as they dared.
Staveley made eye contact with Liam, pointing two fingers to his own eyes and then to the militia men who would obstruct their paths. He removed a pistol from his belt, a silencer already fitted to its muzzle. Liam did the same. They peeked out from their cover and raised their weapons, taking careful aim. “One. Two. Three,” Staveley whispered.
Both men fired their weapons in perfect unison. Just visible in the almost non-existent light, blood drained from the militiamen’s necks. They could only make a gurgling sound as they swayed and staggered. In the couple of seconds it took the guards to fall, Liam and Staveley dashed behind them and caught them, lowering them to the floor without a sound.
They dragged the bodies behind the little desk, and then turned and moved toward the stone spiral staircase.
“Holy…” Liam was holding a hand up in front of his face, noticing the shine of wet blood on his glove, visible in even in this dim light.
“Holy what?” Staveley whispered.
“I– I– I’ve never killed anybody,” Liam stammered, “in a church before.”
“My uncle always says cathedrals are just administrative centres for a lot of suits with their collars on backwards.”
Liam suppressed a gasp. “My mum says these places are holy. I think I’ll try and see it your uncle’s way.
“Anyway, there was no other way. What else could we do?”
They started up the stairs, keeping a brisk but silent pace.
Too narrow for two men to ascend together, periodically the stairs widened to accommodate small windows or narrow locked doors leading to restricted upper areas.
After a hundred steps the spiral ended at an open door. The soldiers approached it carefully, having heard the sounds of conversation coming down to them.
Liam used the snake-cam to survey beyond the door without being seen. It was an outside area, the roof of the cathedral sloping sharply up to the right, with a sheer drop to th
e left, and a narrow path along the ledge between. Two guards were at the opposite ends of the path, the one almost, but not quite, obscuring the other, and walking toward the camera.
Liam showed the display to Staveley, who took it in at a glance.
Staveley pointed at the guard bringing up the rear, and then at himself, and indicated that the other man was for Liam.
Setting down the display, they drew their silenced weapons and made themselves ready. When the targets had come close, the soldiers ascended the last few steps, emerging in perfect unison, rapidly firing several shots each at the guards, striking flesh and bone with each bullet. The trailing policeman fell down in place, but the leading one slumped over the railing, threatening to fall off. Staveley sprinted over and grabbed the dead man by the belt, dragging him back and letting the body collapse onto the pathway.
The victors gave each other a quiet high-five.
“Silent as the grave,” Staveley said.
Liam didn’t return Staveley’s smile, but turned to resume his journey.
“Come on mate, show a little job satisfaction.”
Liam turned to look at his partner. “You’re a sick man bro,” he said with only a faint smile.
“Would I have signed up for soldiering if I wasn’t?”
Liam returned his partner’s half-smile. “Hey, what is an SEP anyway?”
“Somebody else’s problem.”
They followed the path across the roof area to another small door in the base of the tower. Another, narrower, spiral staircase led up. Liam went first, while Staveley brought up the rear.
***
The two-man patrol continued their all-night circuit around the chancel. This time, rather than turning right at the crossing, they went left to circle the south transept. Coming to the darkened area containing the ticket desk, one spoke: “Max? Josh? Are you there?” He strained to see anything in the darkness. “Why do you guys have to hide in the dark all the time? What’re you doing in there anyway?”
The dead men failed to answer.
“Come on, you ain’t scarin’ us.”
They listened to the relative silence for a moment longer. “Somethin’s not right.”
The two men entered the darkness, shining a torch.
“Look! Behind the till!”
He shone the light onto the blood-soaked bodies of their two fallen comrades.
“Get some help, and fast. We’ve gotta get up this tower, and we’d better take reinforcements!”
***
Arriving at the top of the tower, it took a few minutes to establish the number and pattern of guards from the cover of the staircase, after which Liam and Staveley emerged into the open air. The nearly three-hundred stone steps which had brought them to this point took little toll on their army-fit bodies.
The layout was a square, a wide pathway tracing the perimeter, and a raised sloping platform taking up most of the central area. Visibility was limited as all around the pathway were screens of tough mesh fencing to prevent people falling or jumping off the sides, and more fencing to prevent access to the central platform, and still more fencing above, such that a visitor would be fenced in with little freedom of movement. At many points this fencing had been removed, some places bearing evidence of considerable force, leaving about half of the area fence-free.
Having discerned only two men patrolling the roof, Liam and Staveley dealt with them as cleanly as they had the ones on the lower roof, leaving the bodies where they lay.
Ignoring the fine nighttime views over the city, Liam took position over the opening of the spiral staircase while Staveley scoured the area to find the most vulnerable parts of the jamming equipment. This consisted of a towering mast standing on a tripod at the centre of the space, some electronic devices nearby, a portable generator, and several small drums of petrol. Among the electronic devices, there was what appeared to be an advanced home-made digital radio set, connected via cable to a tablet computer displaying waveforms of radio traffic and interference patterns. The unit was large and heavy. An audible stream of white noise could be heard coming from one or more of the devices.
“Doesn’t look too hard.” Staveley finished his examination. He disconnected the tablet and held onto it. “This should come in handy for the techies. If we’re bothered by one of these jammers again maybe they can come up with some kind of cancellation pattern. This thing, on the other hand, I don’t think we can carry, so…” He took a small multitool from one of his pockets and unscrewed the top of the radio device, looking for its most vital components. “Aha!” He produced his vial of acid again, squirting the stuff onto carefully chosen internals of the offending device. “Oh, why not?” He poured the rest of the acid into the device, shaking it around liberally, adding to the already copious smoke flowing from it. “There won’t be anything usable left in this. Now for the mast.”
“Shh!” Liam leaned into the stairwell, ears straining. “You better be quick with that mast. I don’t like to hazard guesses, but the trail of bodies we left might just have been a little bit of a giveaway as to our position.”
“You think? Then you can get out of stealth mode.”
“Wilco.” Liam holstered his silenced pistol and equipped his submachine gun.
He checked that his high-capacity magazine was full, and kept his eyes focused on the half-dozen which then turned away out of sight.
A glimpse of someone’s head emerged from behind the central pillar of the staircase. “Whoa!” He squeezed the trigger and sprayed. Aiming at the curved wall enclosing the staircase, he caused bullets and chunks of stone shrapnel to bounce in all directions.
Liam heard a cry of pain and surprise, and then the clatter of someone’s equipment bouncing down the stairs. Staveley busied himself, first by fastening an explosive charge to the bottom of the mast, and second by fastening thin cords from the mast to carefully chosen points on his and Liam’s rucksacks.
“Okay mate,” the black man said, “we’re done here.”
“Not quite.” He turned for a fraction of a second to look at the disabled and smoking radio unit. “Chuck that thing down the stairs.”
“Chuck it? I promise you,” Staveley said, “there’s no need. It’s is completely dead.”
“For once, don’t argue!”
Comprehension dawned on Staveley’s face. He got behind the unit, which came up to his mid thigh, and leaned into it, pushing the object slowly and with strain. Putting his back, shoulders, and legs into it, he edged it toward the stairs even as Liam continued directing bursts of gunfire in the same direction.
“Mind out,” Staveley grunted, and pushed the contraption the rest of the way until it tumbled down the stairs, bouncing along out of sight and leaving a trail of shards behind it, followed by cries of surprise and pain.
“Okay, that’ll buy us at least a few seconds,” Liam said.
“Then let’s make our exit.”
“You sure about this?”
“Definitely. The minimum height we need is two-hundred feet. This tower is two-hundred and thrity-three feet. No problem!”
“Okay. On three!” After the count, they ran for the edge of the tower and vaulted over the side.
The lines connecting their rucksacks to the mast went taut, and then immediately released as the static lines were pulled. Above each man a parachute sprang open as he descended.
A breeze carried them south and east. “No! Other way! Gillygate’s that way!” The wind did not listen to Liam, and they soon touched down.
They hit the ground hard, but absorbed the impact with their legs, tucking into a roll. In a second they were up and throwing off their harnesses, though Staveley still clutched the tablet computer.
“Blow it,” Liam said, “now!”
Staveley extracted a small but old-fashioned radio transmitter from his pocket. Its aerial whipped out once it was free from his pocket, and Staveley pressed a button on the device.
The sound of a loud pop came from the to
wer’s summit, as well as a flash and a puff of smoke.
“Is that it?” Liam said.
“Just watch for the falling mast,” Staveley said, looking up at the tower.
The mast fell, tumbling over and scraping along the side of the tower as it plummeted.
Men poured out of the cathedral doors, looking for the saboteurs.
***
“That’s it sir,” Fuller shouted to Colonel Broadley, even before climbing off the ladder and onto the rooftop vantage point which the Colonel had made his temporary command centre.
“Well done Fuller!”
“I didn’t do it sir, but you’re welcome anyway.”
Broadley turned to Major Weldon who, as ever, was watching the city centre with his binoculars. “Would you like get on to London and apprise the General of the new situation? Or would you like me to do it sir?”
The Major seemed to ignore him for the moment. “I can see the mast coming down, and a cloud of smoke coming from the tower. That can only be a good thing.” He lowered the binoculars and looked at Broadley.
The Colonel smiled and pumped his fist. “Yes! Now we’re getting somewhere!”
“You keep an eye on things here and I’ll get on to the General.” He removed his mobile phone from his pocket and tried it. “No such luck here I’m afraid. The enemy must have physically disabled the mobile phone masts. I’ll get to the comms van.”
The Major handed his binoculars to the Colonel, who now had two pairs and who in turn handed one to his assistant.
***
Too late to find any cover, Liam and Staveley ran along Stonegate, a well-worn shopping street leading away from the Minster, at top speed, zigzagging to make themselves harder targets for the gunfire randomly peppering them from behind. They passed designer shops and restaurants, turning left at the first opportunity.
Sprinting straight ahead for a few seconds, they resumed zigzagging the moment their pursuers made the turn and resumed firing.
The road ended with another road, Black Swinegate, snaking to the left and a gated yard to the right, with the gate standing open. Left would take them back in the direction of the Minster. They turned right.