Fox gestured for Cat to follow him, and reluctantly she did so, but they’d only gone a matter of yards when he heard a burst of automatic gunfire from the mezzanine floor, followed by shouts.
‘Jesus,’ he grunted. ‘This is all we need.’
Knowing it was essential he stay calm, Fox pulled on his balaclava and took off up the stairs at a run, charging into the ballroom and what appeared to be a full-scale rebellion in progress. At least a dozen of the hostages were on their feet shouting, while Bear retreated slowly in front of them. From the way brick dust was floating down from the ceiling it was clear he’d fired into it as a warning, and it hadn’t worked. Far more worrying was the sight of Wolf struggling on the floor with a male hostage in a suit who was trying to wrestle the AK-47 out of his hands, and looking like he was getting the better of him.
As Fox strode across the floor, all the hostages looked at him and the fight went out of most of them. But not all. Bear also turned his way, and the hostage closest to him – a middle-aged member of the kitchen staff – seeing that he was momentarily distracted, went for him.
It was a brave move. But stupid, too. He had a distance of twenty feet to cover and he’d covered less than half of it when Fox put the rifle to his shoulder and put a burst of gunfire into the man’s upper body, sending him sprawling backwards until he fell over one of the seated hostages.
‘Sit down now,’ Fox yelled, ‘or you die!’
Everyone hit the floor, except the man fighting Wolf, who’d now yanked the weapon from Wolf and was in the process of getting to his feet, while Wolf held on to one of his legs like an annoying dog, all the trappings of leadership gone from him now.
The hostage pulled away from his grip, turning the weapon round in his hands.
Behind him, Fox could hear Cat firing at him with her pistol and missing. He and Bear then turned their weapons on him and opened up at the same time.
The hostage’s head snapped back as he was hit, and he dropped the AK, doing a kind of manic dance as the bullets tore him apart. Then, finally, he fell heavily to the floor, and all was silent in the room, except for the sound of the ringing telephone coming from the satellite kitchen next door.
Fox stood in front of the hostages, noticing with interest that nobody had attempted to move the rucksack bomb. ‘Anyone else try anything like that again, and ten of you will die as punishment,’ he shouted above the ringing in his ears. ‘Do you understand?’
No one spoke. The hostages sat hunched and motionless, their heads down, subservient once again.
Angry, and still short of breath, Fox looked across at Bear. This was why he’d been anxious about using him for the operation. He was a good, solid soldier, but he simply didn’t have the necessary ruthless streak to kill without question, and it had almost cost him, and them all, everything. ‘You messed up,’ Fox told him, loud enough so that everyone else in the room could hear. ‘The next time someone gets to their feet, kill them. OK?’
Bear answered with a respectful ‘Yes, sir’ and settled back to watching the hostages, while Fox went over to Wolf and pulled him to his feet.
Wolf looked furious, but there was shame in his eyes too, as there should have been. He’d been made to look a fool, and Fox could see that he knew it.
‘You need to check the laptop for any messages, Fox told him, then answer the phone. You’ll need to calm the negotiator and get things back on track.’
Wolf nodded, and a silent message passed between them. Whatever the situation had been a few minutes earlier, Fox was now the leader.
Sixty-nine
21.45
ARLEY DALE STOOD IN the middle of the cramped incident room desperately waiting for proof that her son and daughter were still alive, while all around her was chaos. The phones inside the room were ringing off the hook with reports from senior officers stationed at various points inside the inner cordon about the sudden and prolonged eruption of gunfire coming from various points inside the hotel. On the screens in front of them, the TV cameras were panning round the front of the building, searching for any sign of activity behind the curtains and blinds. And all the time, its sound like a death knell, the incessant ringing of the terrorist’s phone over the loudspeaker, as Riz Mohammed waited for Wolf to give them some kind of explanation of exactly what was going on in there. Something that might just delay an assault and give Arley breathing space.
She was already late in calling back Major Standard to give him an update on their failed attempts to speak to Michael Prior, and she was dreading making the call now. With the deadline looming, and still no sign of Prior, Arley was sure that Standard would decide enough was enough, and begin the assault.
She looked across at Riz.
The ringing stopped and Wolf’s voice filled the room. He sounded agitated. ‘Everything is fine in here,’ he said, before Riz had a chance to speak. ‘We had some problems with a couple of the hostages, but all is back under control.’
‘Has anyone been hurt?’
‘No. They were warning shots only. Everything is fine.’ As he spoke, he began to sound calmer.
‘You promised me we could speak to Michael Prior. Is he there?’
Wolf hesitated. ‘Not at the moment.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we haven’t had time to get him. You can talk to him soon.’
‘You said that over half an hour ago. We need to speak to him now.’
‘And I need you to meet our demands. How is that going, uh?’
‘All your demands are currently under discussion. I believe we have until midnight to meet them.’
Wolf hesitated again, clearly thinking. As he did so, Arley felt the mobile in her pocket vibrate with the arrival of a text. She desperately wanted to look at it, but knew that to do so at this juncture would raise all kinds of suspicions among the other people in the room, especially Cheney, who she’d caught looking at her strangely several times since they’d talked outside.
‘I will let you speak to Prior in the next half an hour,’ said Wolf finally. ‘You have my word on it.’
The line went dead.
Commander Phillips, sitting back at his desk on one of the screens and patched into the incident room, took a very deep and very loud breath. ‘Mr Mohammed, you’re an experienced negotiator. Tell me frankly, do you think this man Wolf is going to let us speak to Prior?’
Riz sat back in his seat, making it creak under his bulk, and ran a hand through his thick head of hair. ‘No, I don’t. For some reason, he seems to be stalling.’
‘Why might that be?’
‘I honestly don’t know, but the only reason I can think of is that Prior’s been incapacitated.’
‘You mean he’s dead?’
‘It’s certainly possible.’
‘We don’t think he’s been compromised, sir,’ said John Cheney. ‘GCHQ haven’t picked up any coded messages being sent out of the Stanhope containing classified information.’
‘That’s one thing, I suppose,’ said Phillips grudgingly. ‘But the fact remains that because we can’t get hold of him, we can’t get a location for him inside the building, which was the reason for holding up the assault. I’m also keenly aware that the terrorists’ deadline is only just over two hours away. Therefore, we need to get on to the military and tell them that there’s no longer any point waiting to go in.’
Arley felt her heart sink, but she stood up straight. ‘I’ll call Major Standard and inform him, sir. Janine, can you get him for me?’ she added, before Phillips had a chance to interrupt. If anyone was going to speak to Standard, it was her.
She was aware of the mobile ringing in her pocket, but flicked it on to silent.
‘You’re through to Major Standard on line four, ma’am,’ said Janine.
