unconsciously drove the cab into Bessborough Gardens, smashing into the iron railing gates, where the cab came to rest.
The Sun journalist was positioned opposite the park and his high powered zoom lens honed in on the details of the scene as the rapid shot setting on the camera captured the round stunning the driver, the cab’s passage and the cab crashing. He took shot after shot of police running forward.
Through the lens, on the digital screen, the camera saved the images of Mason rising from the cab’s floor well in the back, the flashes from the Sig220 instantly matching two policemen knocked to the ground as the rounds slugged their way into, but not through, their body armour. Finally the camera caught Mason’s face as three sets of high velocity armour piercing Enforcer rounds penetrated the cab door at chest height, puncturing both lungs and heart. Mason grabbed the door handle and in desperate pain struggled out the door. He fell to the ground on all fours and was knocked onto his back by a kick from a policeman pointing an MP5 at his prone body.
Ambulance men came over, paramedics bearing stretchers. News teams arrived and though held back were able to get shots of the scene from behind the now powerful police cordon.
The cab driver was carefully extracted from the wrecked cab and rushed to St Thomas’ hospital near Westminster Bridge. They checked Mason, but he was dead. He was stretchered to the ambulance and taken away.
The police searching the cab found the case with the bomb in it. It took fifteen minutes to evacuate the entire area including all the buildings surrounding. Press, news teams, police and anyone else in a quarter mile radius was evacuated. Bomb disposal arrived, they used a controlled explosion to destroy it and had they not done so a strange fact would have been revealed, which might well have raised interesting questions at the time, but it was thought safer to blow it up under safe conditions.
The cab, of course, was a wreck. Bullet ridden, dented, glass shattered, ripped apart inside and charred all over with twisted metal pointing out at odd angles, embedded in iron railings. It sat like a gargoyle memorial to yet one more of the hired killers and a testimony to their desperate fatal struggles to remain un-captured.
Traffic was backed up along the Thameside roads as the Vauxhall Bridge was closed at both ends. Traffic on the embankment on both sides took until night time to get flowing again and even then the taxi had not been moved.
Back at the DIC centre, Euston Tower, Jack Fulton and many members of the team watched the scene in awe from live CCTV footage from the numerous cameras in the area.
For a few seconds the whole building sat in silence, all work stopped as the scene was brought up on every screen in every office.
When the shooting was done Diane Peters was standing at Jack Fulton’s side.
“What a mess!”
“Yes it is. Is the taxi driver dead?”
“You want me to find out?”
“Yes. If he’s alive and can talk he can say where Mason was going, the address he’d been given. It might tell us the target of these assassins.” Fulton rubbed his chin in thought.
“I’ll find out and let you know.” Diane replied and strode away with purpose.
Jack noticed Tony Deany by his side.
“Four down one to go boss.” Tony said too brightly for Jack’s liking.
“Very true, aren’t you seeing Else today?”
“Yeah,” Tony looked at his watch, “In about ten minutes, Ellie’s having her session first.”
“Good Else will be off down to Dover to see David tomorrow.” Fulton said reflectively.
Everything had stood still at Euston Tower. Then when the shooting had stopped, some began watching the news footage, but most went on with their searches, knowing that it was their work that had brought down Spencer and Wheeler, and, as they thought at the time, their work alone that had ended the lives of Cobb and Mason. Pride swelled in the building as the teams of watchers knew that they had stopped four of the most murderous assassins the country had ever seen. They all focussed on finding the last man, Trevor Stanton.
Chapter 89
London
10-30 a.m.
April 19th
Tarquin Robinson looked over the assembled press. BBC news, ITN news, CNN and various journalists from the newspapers who were all gathered in the press briefing room. He was sat behind the table with the head of the Met Police beside him, who was answering questions.
“We’re not sure what the intention of the men is in detail. All the men killed are not people we have been watching, not have they been under surveillance from Special Branch.” The head of the met said slowly and deliberately as if reading.
“Brian Mayhew CNN. Is this a new tactic for Al Qaeda, employing paid assassins to plant bombs and carry out killings?”
“We have no information to either confirm or deny such a theory. That these men don’t appear to have links to any terrorist group is not a reason to preclude that being true. In the meantime we can only assume that the device found indicates their intention to target someone or something in London.”
“Minister, what is your view?”
Tarquin Robinson gathered his thoughts.
“There is no doubt that these men have a target in mind. Who or what that is has not so far been revealed. We have no leads and government security agencies are doing their upmost to find this last man and get him alive so that we can get to the bottom of this. We can’t rule out terrorism nor the fact that the use of paid assassins might be a new terrorist tactic.” Robinson said relishing the attention he was getting.
“Can you reveal how the men first came to the attention of security services?” A BBC reporter asked.
“I’m afraid I cannot. Needless to say our methods of observation must be kept secret in order to make the effective.” Robinson replied stonewalling with skill.
The questions continued with the back and forth verbal tennis of government press conferences. Robinson excused himself after having made a final statement and left the room listening to the head of the met assure the press that security measures in London had been stepped up to maximum level.
Robinson got into his car, surrounded by security. He put up the security glass between himself and the driver and pulled the orange coloured cell phone from inside his jacket.
He dialled the only number in its memory.
“How much longer?” He asked.
“Today. We’re certain. It’ll either happen or the ‘product’ won’t get through.”
“I need to ask questions… important information… this line…”
“Be careful what you say.”
“I want to meet. I need answers and I can’t ask on this line. If the time is close I’d like to decide whether we go ahead or not. We must meet.”
“No out of the question.”
“Can you send B… your man again?”
“Again out of the question, ‘you know who’ will be watching closely now.”
“What if I send someone to meet you, someone we can both trust?”
“You’ve told someone?”
“My wife knows. I talked to her.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Hello.”
“Well it’s good you’ve got such a trusting marriage.' Sternway said in an exasperated tone of voice thinking to himself, ‘why couldn’t the man just see it through?’
“My wife has always supported all my ambitions.”
