Fox took the mobile phone from his pocket. He’d bought it from another inmate two days previously. There were always plenty of mobiles inside prisons, smuggled in during visits when physical contact was permissible, or by the guards themselves who sold them on for profit. Fox had always considered the British penal system far too liberal, but it was certainly working in his favour now.
He sent a text to a number he’d memorized. It was only three words long, and it said simply: SWITCH IT ON. When he’d got confirmation that it had sent, he deleted the message and turned off the phone, removing the sim card and flushing it down the toilet, before shoving the handset under the mattress on the bed.
He leaned back against the wall. Now it was just a matter of waiting.
Forty-eight
19.28
‘They’re clearing all the airspace above Greater London,’ said Bolt, coming off the radio to Scotland Yard. ‘Apparently it’s a huge inconvenience.’
Tina lit a cigarette and took a much-needed drag as she walked over to where he was standing at the entrance to the lock-ups. ‘It’s a lot better than having a plane shot down.’
‘The problem is, we’ve only got the word of one informant that this missile even exists, and the transport system’s in enough of a mess as it is after what happened earlier.’
‘We know that the guy who collected the weapon came here at around seven o’clock, and that he was driving a black four-wheel-drive, probably a Shogun,’ said Tina, who’d just been talking to the old man who’d seen him. ‘If we can get some footage from any CCTV cameras around here, we can get the registration and track the suspect that way.’
‘I’ve just been on to Control to get them to check all the available footage. Did the witness get any of the number plate?’
Tina shook her head. ‘Nothing. He said the guy wasn’t acting suspiciously so there was no reason for him to check it. We’re lucky he can almost certainly ID the model.’
‘I’ll make sure they know the time we’re looking at. It’ll narrow it down a bit.’
He went back to the car to radio in again, and Tina took another drag on the cigarette. The night was cold and clear and above her head she saw the lights of an approaching plane, less than a thousand feet up. Someone might be aiming the Stinger at it right now, preparing to fire. As she watched, the plane banked sharply and made a sweeping U-turn until it was heading east and away from the centre of the city, and she gave a sigh of relief. It was good to be back at the sharp end of the fight against crime but, as always, it felt like a losing battle. You put down one person, two more appeared to take his place. The key, though, was to keep fighting. That had always been Tina’s philosophy. Never give up. And, even though there’d been times when she’d come close, she never had.
‘I think we might have a break,’ said Bolt, hurrying back over. ‘Control says a black Mitsubishi Shogun passed through the camera at the entrance to Crucifix Lane heading south at six fifty-eight. That’s about three minutes’ drive from here so the timings fit perfectly. They’ve got the Shogun’s registration number so they’re pulling out all the stops to track its route.’
‘That’s got to be our man, Mike, and he’s got to be the one who’s going to be using the missile as well.’
Tina stubbed her cigarette out underfoot and looked at her watch. It had just turned 7.30. Less than half an hour to the terrorists’ deadline.
She took a deep breath. She hated waiting around, especially when time was so short. She just wanted to get out there, chase down the Shogun and its driver. Nicking the bastard before he had a chance to fire his missile. But just because they’d got his registration didn’t mean they were going to get him.
Knowing she wouldn’t be able to smoke in Bolt’s car, Tina decided to live dangerously and light another cigarette. The pressure was beginning to get to her. It had been a long and intense day, yet they’d made real progress. Now, with the sky cleared of planes, they’d taken away the terrorists’ targets, and although she knew that would only put off an attack rather than stop one altogether, it was still something.
An armed cop in one of the two ARVs parked a few feet away gave her a disapproving look as she dragged hard on the cigarette, savouring the dirty taste, and she gave him a far harder look back, pleased to see him drop his gaze.
She smiled to herself as she turned away, pacing the row of lock-ups, shivering against the cold.
And that was when she saw it. Over in the distance.
Her heart lurched in shock as the grim and terrifying possibility occurred to her.
The terrorists might not be after a plane at all.
Forty-nine
19.31
Voorhess stood amid the lush foliage of Mr Butt’s roof garden staring up at the dark sky. Although it was a clear night, he could see only two stars, the light pollution obscuring the rest. It made him think once again of home, where even close to Cape Town the stars would swarm like bright dust across the night sky.
There was a biting chill in the air, and he was pleased that, if everything worked out, he would be leaving this country first thing the following morning. He didn’t like crowds, and he didn’t like bad weather, and the UK could be relied upon for both. He was staying in a hotel in Heathrow tonight, then after flying to Bangkok he was off on a well-deserved week’s holiday down south on the isolated island of Ko Pida near the Malaysian border, away from all the backpackers and the boorish Russians, before returning to Cape Town via Singapore — a million dollars richer.
The money was being paid into an account in the name of a consultancy company based in Bermuda. From there it would go via Panama to the Cayman Islands before being transferred in small increments back into South Africa as and when he needed it. It was a complicated procedure, and it cost him a great deal of money to set up the shell companies and keep the accounts active, but Voorhess knew it was worth the investment. With this new money his retirement fund would stand at almost two million dollars. Not enough to quit work just yet, but five more years of earning and careful spending and he’d be able to realize his dream of opening a small guesthouse on the shores of the Western Cape, hopefully with a handsome young boyfriend in tow.
As he stared skywards, he frowned. When he’d first come out here a couple of hours earlier, the sky had been criss-crossed with vapour trails and the lights of planes coming in and out of Heathrow ten miles to the west of him. Now it was empty. Was it a coincidence or had someone somewhere found out about the Stinger? He couldn’t see how they could have done, but then he knew very little about the client who’d hired him to fire it. Usually, this was an advantage. The less he had to deal with his clients the better. But the problem was, he had to trust the fact that they were reliable and efficient. He told himself not to become too paranoid. It might simply be that the planes had been moved as a precaution after the bombs earlier in the day.
He removed the missile launcher from the holdall at his feet. The last time he’d fired a Stinger he’d brought down a helicopter in the Western Congo containing a high-ranking mining executive. They were extremely simple to use and very accurate if you knew what you were doing, which Voorhess did. He gave the launcher a quick inspection. It looked new, and appeared to be in perfect working order. But he still had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.
Putting the missile back down on the ground, he walked over to the edge of the garden and looked down at the empty street below. Lights were on in most of the houses on the opposite side, and in one of the windows he could see two boys of about twelve, faces pressed to a single PC screen, looks of intense concentration on their pale, round faces. Voorhess felt sorry for them. When he’d been their age he was out exploring the dusty hills and wooded creeks round his parents’ farm, hunting deer and fishing for trout, enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air.
And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. A marked police car cruising past the end of the street, sirens off. Moving slowly.
