hold button again and put the phone back to his ear. ‘Names, names! For God’s sake, man!’ he said as he grabbed a pen and started scribbling. ‘
‘That’s Dutch Navy ground, isn’t it?’ said Tanner.
‘Yes, and you could hide a bloody supertanker in those waterways. The
‘Why’s this info taken this long to get to us?’ asked Singen.
‘The report’s been lying on some idiot’s in-tray all bloody day. She could be on our east coast by now,’ Sumner said as he stuck a pencil on the map and drew a line due west across from Den Helder. ‘Twenty-eight thousand tons. What kind of draught would that be?’
‘Two, three metres maybe. Depends what kind of boat it is,’ Stratton said.
‘Hull to Ipswich,’ Sumners said, marking the map.
‘Big area to cover,’ Tanner added.
‘Your teams should head for somewhere central to start with.’
‘What’s exactly due west?’ asked Stratton following a line.
‘North Norfolk. Great Yarmouth to Hull.’
‘Split the difference,’ Sumners said. ‘Head for Lynn. You can go either way from there. We’ve got a Nimrod somewhere in that area. Get going. Hopefully I’ll have something for you before you’re halfway.’
Singen and Stratton headed for the door and were gone.
Sumners picked up the phone as he stared at the map, as if hoping it would tell him where the boat was. ‘Twenty-eight thousand tons, two metre draft,Yarmouth, Lynn or Hull,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘Unless they stopped off the coast and transferred to another boat, or went north or south along the coastline to another port.’
‘Or it’s a boat load of Afghans,’ Tanner said.
‘That would be a good one to tell the local authorities,’ said Sumner. ‘Time to bring them into the game, I think.’ He dialled a number. ‘Sumners here. Time to alert the port authorities . . . All of them from Cornwall to Edinburgh. Start with Ipswich to Hull.’
On the camp rugby field the twin rotors of a Chinook helicopter beat the air. Two vans pulled up near the rear ramp and a dozen men in black assault gear, equipment harnesses and carrying weapons, climbed out. Most were equipped with the reliable H&K SD silenced SMGs, two carried bags containing a selection of sniper rifles including 22.250s and 7.62 Barking Dogs, and everyone wore a Sigmaster 226 9mm semi-automatic pistol in a holster strapped low on their thigh. They trooped into the techno-cave interior of the CH47 where equipment boxes were already stacked and a loadmaster was making final pre-flight checks. Stratton arrived carrying a bulky black kitbag, with Singen close on his heels. He took a seat near the forward door while Singen plugged his headset into a communications socket across from him, then looked over at his team leaders, who gave him a thumbs-up.
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Singen said to the pilot via his headset.
The loadmaster started bringing up the ramp.
‘Wait up!’ Stratton shouted. ‘Where are the Yanks?’
‘Are those them?’ asked the loadmaster, pointing towards three men emerging from the trees, running as fast as they could under their heavy kitbags.
‘Yeah, that’s them,’ Stratton said.
As the men bounded up the ramp the loadmaster continued closing the back.
Stewart dropped his kit bag on to the floor and slumped into the seat beside Stratton almost completely out of breath. ‘Wouldn’t be trying to leave without us, would you?’ he asked.
‘Don’t you read the newspapers? We can’t do anything without our American cousins these days,’ Stratton shouted above the noise of the engines.
Jasper and Pete dropped into a couple of seats, both sucking in air as the helicopter screamed and shuddered and slowly raised its awesome weight off the ground.
‘Where we to?’ Stewart asked, removing the tie he had put on for his meal in the mess.
‘Norfolk mean anything to you other than in Virginia?’
‘Nope.’
‘Well maybe it will by the time this day is over,’ Stratton said.
Stewart nodded and was quickly lost in thought. On the surface the American was blase, cool, laid back, which was his style and he wore it well. But deep down he had concerns he’d been unable to shake since the briefing. He’d pushed to the front of this operation, got his boss to bully the Brits into allowing him and his two chiefs to take a point responsibility on the assault, since it was the Brits’ fault Hank had been kidnapped. That the Brits had allowed them to take part was actually a compliment. They wouldn’t have done so a few years back, but his unit had since reached standards the Brits considered high enough to play with them, the arrogant bastards. But now it was suddenly real.
He’d gained a lot of experience over the years - perhaps more in the last four than most SEAL officers had in the thirty or so since the end of Vietnam - but nowhere near that of these guys.They were still way ahead of every Special Forces unit in the world when it came to small team, waterborne assault ops, the undisputed champs, with a dozen successful operations to their name over the last decade. Shit, they were still the only people in history to have captured and sank a ship after landing on it from the air - and that was twenty years ago.
They were a tough act to join but the past five or six years had been good to the SEALs. They had gained a lot of experience around the world and had no major cock-ups to be embarrassed about. He knew he was up to this job. He’d had the training and enough combat experience to know he was confident and reliable in a firefight. But assaults of this kind were not ordinary. Boarding a boat occupied by armed terrorists with the view to capturing it and rescuing a hostage without losing any of the team required pure surgery. Stewart and his team were amongst the most qualified in the SEALs to mount a ship assault - having led most of the rehearsals over the past year, boarding a dozen different types from small merchants to super tankers - but no one in the training or ops team had ever done one for real apart from a couple of drug boats, which didn’t really count. The Brit operators surrounding him in the helicopter knew that. They would all be wondering if these Yanks could cut it. There was more at stake here than just Hank and the virus. By pushing his guys to the frontline Stewart had made a statement: that they were as good as the best. Stewart was one of the finest officers the SEALS had, an ‘A’ student, smart, fit and had never screwed up in his career. But he knew that record was not just down to ability. Luck had played its part. This business was often like that of a trapeze artist’s; sometimes you had to leap blind, trust in fate as well as your teammates, and hope the bar was where it should be when you reached for it. He’d been lucky. He just hoped it would stay with him for this one.
‘What’s your sensitive equipment?’ Stratton shouted into Stewart’s ear, snapping him out of his reverie.
‘What?’
‘The sensitive equipment you’re carrying. What is it?’
‘Nothing too sensitive really,’ Stewart admitted.‘I was pissing on your tree a little.’ He reached for his bag, unzipped it and took out three small black plastic hexagonal shapes, each half the size of a cigarette packet, and also a small electronic device. He handed one of the hexagons to Stratton. ‘I was gonna give ’em to you guys anyway. It’s our new super explosive remote-door charge. The initiator’s good up to a hundred metres line of sight, fifty in a built-up area.’
‘I’ve heard of this stuff. Is it as good as they say?’
‘Don’t know what you’ve heard, but it’s good. Faster burn rate than C4 or PE, higher temperature, lighter; down side is it’s harder to shape, which is why it comes in pre-moulds, otherwise great . . . Take ’em,’ he said, handing Stratton the other two and the detonator. ‘I’ve gotta bunch of ’em.’
Stratton nodded a thanks, then studied the devices. Super ‘X’, a nice addition to anyone’s arsenal.
Kathryn was seated in the second to rear carriage of the train as it sped through the countryside towards King’s Cross. Beside her on the seat was the hatbox. A ticket inspector came through the connecting door to the
