front of him, but he wasn’t drinking it. He broke their gaze as soon as it connected. Ten seconds later a voice came over the Tannoy: ‘This is an announcement for all passengers travelling to New York JFK on flight number AA346. The gate for this flight has changed owing to a technical difficulty. Please now proceed to Gate 3, where your flight will shortly be boarding. All passengers for flight AA346 to New York, please proceed now to Gate 3, where your flight will shortly be boarding.’
The woman looked up at the departure board. Sure enough, the gate number had changed. She glanced over at the man who had just dragged his gaze from her. He too was staring at the board.
She stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. The man picked up the briefcase at his feet and went to join the crowd of people that were starting to cross the concourse, following the signs for Gate 3.
Terminal 5 at Heathrow was a great deal busier than Tampa International. It was later here, and the passengers were swarming – scanning their passports at the self-service check-in desks, greeting and saying farewell to loved ones. The air rang with echoing announcements – security warnings and final calls. ‘Passengers for flight BA729 for Dublin are requested to make their way to Gate 12, where boarding will shortly commence.
The 186 people who, having heard the announcement, started to filter out of the shops and restaurants and seating areas in the direction of Gate 12, made no impression on the thousands of other passengers milling around, waiting for their own flights. Why would they? They were not out of the ordinary. Just normal men, women and children. Preparing to take an uneventful flight.
Unaware anything might be wrong.
Joe skirted south along the western edge of Bristol International Airport. Somehow he needed to gain access to the airfield.
He was off the main road now, speeding along a deserted lane. Every 100 metres or so there was a little cluster of red-brick houses, long since left empty because they were so close to the airport. Beyond the houses he saw glimpses of overgrown gardens and tumbledown sheds. Then fifty metres of wasteland. And then the wire fence, easily five metres high and topped with razor wire, that marked the airport’s boundary.
Unscalable. But not impenetrable.
Joe stopped by one of the empty houses. The front garden was a jungle and the windows were boarded up. There was, however, a cracked tarmac driveway leading to the back of the house. He dismounted and let the bike fall. He was clearly alongside the runway now, because he could see and hear an EasyJet flight rising in a straight line into the air, about 200 metres to his east. The roar of its engine thundered across the sky. A hundred metres beyond it he could see the Agusta circling. To have a chopper in the airspace around a commercial runway was unusual. That it appeared to have followed a route similar to his own was suspicious. They were looking for someone.
He ran five metres along the cracked tarmac and into the back garden, crashing through metre-high grass and thistles to a dilapidated shed at the end. The door came off in his hands as he pulled. Inside it was filled with cobwebs and old paint pots. There was a mouldering deckchair and three dusty demijohns. Then Joe spotted a pair of rusty secateurs. He grabbed them and scaled the wooden fence at the end of the garden, before sprinting across the wasteland between the house and the airfield’s boundary.
The EasyJet plane that he had seen taking off was a speck in the distance to the south. By the time, half a minute later, that Joe had reached the fence, a second aircraft, with a logo he didn’t recognize, had taken its place. Not that he was paying much attention to it. The secateurs in his right hand were stiff and blunt and it was with difficulty that he cut through the reinforced wire of the airfield’s perimeter fence. He’d made twelve incisions before he had created a hole large enough to stuff through the bag containing the sniper rifle, and then himself. The jagged wire cut through his clothes and into his arms.
Time check: 0939. The Agusta was still hovering 300 metres away on the far side of the airport.
As far as he could see in front of him, there was a open expanse of airfield. If the guys in the Agusta had eyes out for him, there was nowhere he could hide from them. He had two or three minutes before they spotted him. If that.
He had to focus on just one thing. A diversion. Big enough to put the shits up every air-traffic controller from Bristol to Bangalore. And he had less than twenty minutes to do it.
The waiting area for Gate 3 at Tampa International’s departures lounge was filling up. Two smiling air hostesses stood at the entrance, inserting the boarding cards of each of the passengers and checking that their features matched the image that appeared on the screen in front of them, before ushering them through with a cheery ‘Good morning’. The grunts they received in return were, in general, not friendly. The passengers for flight AA346 were tired from rising early, and not pleased with the long walk to this gate in an isolated part of the airport. It didn’t stop the two hostesses from sounding chirpy.
When a plain-looking young man wearing a University of Miami sweatshirt and carrying a bright orange shoulder bag handed over his card, there was nothing to give the two young ladies any indication that he was not a student. But then an FBI air marshal who was scanning the assembled passengers for suspicious-looking personnel noticed the way he was avoiding eye contact with his five colleagues who had already passed through.
A bland voice from the Tannoy: ‘This is the final call for flight AA346 to New York. Will any remaining passengers please proceed directly to Gate 3, where your aircraft is ready to board.’
Five minutes later a middle-aged man with a grey beard and wearing an airport uniform approached the hostesses. ‘All passengers accounted for?’ he asked them.
They nodded, and when the man took hold of the microphone that they themselves would normally use to address the passengers, the two hostesses exchanged a glance. This was unusual. But they were practised at looking unflustered, and their faces registered no surprise when he spoke. ‘Excuse me, folks, if I could have your attention. As you know, we’ve encountered a few technical difficulties with our gate system. We’ve arranged for some buses to take you directly from your gate to the aircraft. If I could ask all passengers sitting in rows A to G to make their way to the first bus, we’ll have you all boarded and in the air in no time at all.’
He released the button on the microphone and turned to the hostesses. ‘Emergency code Alpha Twelve,’ he breathed. ‘We’ll take it from here.’
The two young women looked startled. One of them glanced over her shoulder. Standing in the stark white corridor twenty metres distant from the gate, she saw two broad-shouldered men. They were wearing holiday gear and carrying shoulder bags. But they didn’t approach the gate. They didn’t move at all. They stood there, human barriers, waiting for anyone who felt the sudden need to run from the gate.
Eva fell.
She cried out as her phone dropped to the ground, and although she barely felt the strength to stand up, her hand shot out to check it wasn’t damaged. The screen was still intact. But there was still no signal.
Mustering all her energy, she got to her feet again. The bandage around her waist was soaked with blood – the wound was suppurating again. She put it from her mind. The road was heading uphill to a rise thirty metres away. Her teeth grinding, her jaw set, she limped on.
Joe ran north, keeping close to the perimeter fence. Airport security was always tight, but whether anyone had eyes on the right place at the right time was impossible to predict. Joe just had to keep to his plan, and that meant following the runway up towards the taxiing area, and from there in the direction of the terminal building.
A hundred metres passed. Two hundred. The Agusta was still circling in the sky above the far side of the runway, about a half klick from his position. He counted three aircraft queuing for the runway and a fourth
