mat out of place leading to an operator being compromised.
My brain started to bang against my skull. There was something strange about what I had seen outside. I hadn't been clever enough to notice, but my unconscious had. I had learnt the hard way that these feelings should never be ignored.
I looked back out of the window and it hit me in an instant. Instead of looking at the column of smoke to my right, the crowd's attention was on the hospital to my left. They were looking towards the sniper positions, listening to the dull thud of six or seven short, sharp, single shots ... There were more screams below the window, mixed with the wail of fast approaching police sirens.
I opened my window as far as it would go and pushed the net curtain aside, sticking out my head and looking left, towards the hospital. A fleet of police cars and vans with flashing lights had been abandoned along the embankment, just short of the sniper positions, their doors left open. At the same time I saw uniforms hastily organizing a cordon.
This was wrong. This was very, very wrong. The event I was witnessing had been planned and prepared for. The frenzy of police activity down there was far too organized to be a spur-of-the-moment reaction to an explosion a few minutes earlier.
We had been stitched up.
Three more shots were fired, followed by a short pause, then another two. Then, from further along the riverbank, I heard the heavy thuds of a flash bang going off inside a building. They were hitting Number Three's position.
Adrenaline jolted through my body. It'd be my turn soon.
I slammed the window down. My mind raced. Apart from me, the only person who knew the exact sniper positions was the Yes Man, because he needed to position the target well enough for it to be identified. But he didn't know precisely where I was going to be, because I hadn't known myself. Technically, I didn't even have to have eyes on target, I just needed to have com ms with the snipers.
But he knew enough. Messing up the shoot was the least of my worries now.
FIVE
Helicopters were now rattling overhead and police sirens were going ape shit in the street as I closed the door gently behind me and moved out into the wide, brightly lit corridor.
My Timberlands squeaked on the highly polished stone floor as I headed towards the fire-exit door at the far end, maybe sixty metres away, forcing myself not to quicken my pace. I had to stay in control. I couldn't afford to make any more mistakes. There might be a time to run, but it wasn't yet.
There was a turning to the right about twenty metres further down, which led to the stairwell that would take me to the ground floor. I reached it, turned and froze. Between me and the stairwell was a wall of two- metre-high black ballistic shields. Behind them were maybe a dozen police in full black assault gear, weapon barrels pointing out at me through the gaps in the shields, blue assault helmets and visors glinting in the strip-lighting.
'STAND STILL! STAND STILL!'
It was time to run like the wind. I squeaked on my heels and lunged the couple of paces back into the main corridor, heading for the fire exit, just willing myself to hit that crossbar to freedom.
As I zeroed in on the exit door, the corridor ahead filled with more black shields and the noise of boots on stone. They held the line like Roman centurions. The last couple emerged from the offices on either side, their weapons pointing at me at far too close a range for my liking.
'STAND STILL! STAND STILL NOW!'
Coming to a halt, I dropped the bag to the floor and put my hands in the air.
'Not armed!' I yelled. 'I'm weapons free! Weapons free!'
There are times when it's an advantage just to admit to yourself that you're in the shit, and this was one of them. I just hoped these were real police. If I wasn't a threat, then in theory they shouldn't drop me.
I hoped, too, that my black cotton bomber jacket had ridden up enough to show them there wasn't a pistol attached to my belt or tucked into my jeans.
'Not armed,' I yelled.
'Weapons free!'
Orders were screamed at me. I wasn't too sure what it was all too loud and too close, a confusion of echoes along the hallway.
I pivoted slowly so they could see my back and check for themselves that I wasn't lying. As I faced the corridor junction, I heard more boots thundering towards me from the stairwell corridor, closing the trap.
A shield moved out of the corner then slammed into position on the floor at the corridor junction. A muzzle of an MP5 came round the side of it, and I could see a sliver of the user's face as he took aim on me.
'Weapons free!' My voice was almost a scream.
'I'm weapons free!'
Keeping my hands in the air I stared at the single, unblinking eye behind the weapon. He was a left-handed firer, taking advantage of the left side of the shield for cover, and the eye didn't move from my chest.
I looked down as a red laser spot the size of a shirt button splashed on it dead centre. It wasn't moving either. Fuck knew how many splashes there were on my back from the fire-exit crew.
Frenzied shouts finished bouncing off the walls as a loud, estuary-English voice took command and shouted orders that I could now understand.
'Stand still! Stand still! Keep your -hands up ... keep them up!'
No more turning, I did what he wanted.
'Down on your knees! Get down on your knees. Now!'
Keeping my hands up, I lowered myself slowly, no longer trying for any eye contact, just looking down. The left-handed firer in front of me followed my every move with the laser splash.
The voice shouted more orders from behind.
'Lie down, with your arms spread out to your side. Do it now.'
I did as I was told. There was total, scary silence. The cold of the stone floor seeped through my clothes. Minute pinpricks of grit pressed into my right cheek as I snorted up a lungful of freshly laid wax.
I found myself staring at the bottom of one of the stairwell group's ballistic shields. It was dirty with age and chipped on the corners, so that the layers of Kevlar that gave protection from even heavy-calibre ammunition were peeling back like the pages of a well-thumbed book.
The silence was broken by the shuffle and squeak of rubber-soled boots approaching me from behind. My only thought was how lucky I was to be arrested.
The boots arrived at their destination, and heavy breathing from their owners filled the air around me. One old black creased-leather size ten landed by my face and my hands were gripped and pulled up in front of me. I felt the cold, hard metal bite into my wrists as the handcuffs were ratcheted tight. I just let them get on with it; the more I struggled the more pain I would have to put up with. The handcuffs were the newer style, police issue: instead of a chain between them they had a solid metal spacer. Once these things are on, just one tap against the spacer with a baton is enough to have you screaming in agony as the metal gives the good news to your wrist bones.
I was in enough pain already as one man pulled at the cuffs to keep my arms straight, and someone else's knee was forced down between my shoulder blades. My nose got banged against the floor, making my eyes water, and all the oxygen was forced out of my lungs.
A pair of hands, their owner's boots each side of me now that he'd removed his knee from my back, were making their way over my body. My wallet, containing my Eurostar ticket and my
Nick Somerhurst passport, was taken from the inside pocket of my bomber jacket.
I felt suddenly naked.
I turned my head, trying to get as comfortable as possible during the once-over, and rested my face on the cold stone. Through blurred vision I made out three pairs of jeans emerging from behind the shield at the junction and heading my way. One pair of jeans moved out of vision as they passed me by, but the other two moved in close: a set of trainers and a pair of light tan boots, their Caterpillar label now just inches from my nose.
I started to feel more depressed than worried about what was coming next. Men in jeans just don't ponce about during an armed arrest.
Behind me I heard the zip of my holdall being pulled back and the contents given a quick once-over. At the
