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  ‘Shall we stop pissing about, then?’ she said at last, and though her voice was low, it cut through every other conver sation and focused attention on her. ‘Control will be handed over to the SAS for a hard arrest of Laszlo Antonov.’

  There was a series of nods and murmurs of assent. But Edward Clements, a career FCO man in his mid-fifties, wearing the civil servant’s uniform of pinstriped suit, crisp white shirt and tie – no hot colours or strong patterns, of course – raised his hand. ‘Let’s just take a deep breath here, shall we, Minister?’ His voice was as smooth and mellow as the malt whisky he liked to drink in his London club. ‘That suicide vest won’t be the only weapon Antonov has procured.’

  The home secretary gave him one of her steeliest glares. ‘Do I take it, then, that the Foreign Office has specific intelligence on that front?’

  Clements gave a brisk nod. ‘Yes, Home Secretary.’

  ‘So we should proceed with extreme caution.’

  He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t disagree more. There’s all the more reason to authorize immediate military action rather than a non-lethal arrest.’

  ‘If you want to achieve a bloodbath, perhaps,’ she said acidly. ‘The military and the police always tell us, “We can do it” – but why wouldn’t they? It’s money on their budgets, and a poke in the eye for their rivals in the Security Service and the SIS. But we can – and should – be rather more objective and measured in our response.

  ‘It’s very easy to be an armchair warrior, but which of you . . .’ she glanced around the room, making sure she still had everyone’s full attention ‘. . . is prepared to take responsibility for that decision? Which of you would be willing to shoulder the blame if it all goes pear-shaped?’ She gave the DSF a look that left him in no doubt that she spoke his language. There would be no bullshit getting past her.

  She glanced around the table once more. Most of the assembled officials and all of the politicians avoided her eye. ‘Precisely,’ she said. ‘Nobody. I’ll be the one in the firing line.’

  Clements leaned forward. ‘Be that as it may, Home Secretary . . .’ He cleared his throat and waited until everyone was listening. ‘Make no mistake. If he’s cornered, Antonov has the commitment – and the full intention – to use his weapons.’

  ‘Which is precisely why there’s a Red Notice on this animal.’ The home secretary gave him another glare. She had no time for civil-service theatrics.

  Laszlo Antonov had been officially charged with war crimes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and a Red Notice had been issued by Interpol. Interpol did not have the authority to issue arrest warrants in the formal sense – that was the domain of the sovereign member states – but a Red Notice was the closest thing there was to an international arrest warrant.

  Antonov was a South Ossetian, and had known war all his life. North Ossetia was part of Russia, but South Ossetia had always been the subject of dispute between Georgia and Russia. Most South Ossetians carried Russian passports and wanted to break away from Tbilisi. They had declared it a republic in 1990 and the Georgian government had sent in tanks. A series of conflicts followed.

  Laszlo, by then a well-seasoned fighter and nationalist, had turned to the Russians for support. The Georgians were preparing to slaughter his people again, and he needed to defend himself. Happy to have a vicious and well-trained proxy, the Russians gave him the funding and the weaponry to raise a clandestine paramilitary unit from men he had fought with for years. Officially it was called the 22nd Black Bear Brigade, but the locals referred to them simply as the Black Bears. Laszlo was the unquestioned leader and his brother, Sambor, was second-in-command.

  The Black Bears fought like a Special Forces unit: they lived covertly in the field for weeks, attacking Georgians in small numbers before fading into the night; destroying their line of supply and communication and killing as many high-ranking officers as they could until their army was incapable of making tactical decisions on the ground. Laszlo conducted his war with speed, aggression and surprise, in a way that even the SAS would have admired.

  When Georgia launched an offensive in 2008 to retake the breakaway republic, about fourteen hundred locals had been slaughtered. In retaliation, Laszlo had led a massacre of more than six hundred innocent ethnic Georgian men, women and children in one night of carnage. He had then provided the Russians with vital information that helped Moscow make the decision to send troops and tanks over the border to ‘protect Russia’s citizens’.

  The home secretary had been informed the moment the Security Service had discovered Laszlo was in the UK, and James Woolf, section chief, Branch G, had become the senior case officer.

  ‘And this government will honour all its commitments and agreements with the ICC.’

  Clements rolled his eyes. He never quite understood how the government decided on their cabinet appointments. This latest home secretary had come from the Department for Work and Pensions, where she’d been responsible for work rights and benefits for the disabled, not protecting a country. ‘Spare us the synthetic moral outrage, Sarah.’

  He ignored the horrified looks from those around the table. Even in these informal times, few civil servants, no matter how senior, would have been quite so forthright when speaking to one of their political masters. ‘If we went round arresting every tyrant and warlord with blood on his hands, we’d have to build another fifty jails to house them all, and we’d lose so much export business that our economy would collapse even more quickly than it already is. The death of a few hundred civilians in South Ossetia now and then didn’t even rouse the indignation of the Guardian’s bleeding-hearts brigade, let alone the rest of the press. I’ll tell you how interested any of us was: the only imagery we have of him dates back to 2001.’

  He paused long enough for that fact to sink in.

  ‘Can you imagine the media storm that would break if even one British citizen out for a gentle stroll on Hampstead Heath is shot by a foreign gunman because the government insisted on a kid-gloves arrest rather than sending in the SAS to do what they do best? Do I really have to remind you about the Libyan Embassy and the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher?’

  ‘That’s scarcely relevant in this case,’ she said. ‘Legally we have no choice but to arrest him or risk worldwide embarrassment. This isn’t the backwoods of Afghanistan, Clements. This is the UK, and our security forces have to operate here in the full glare of media attention, and within the law.’

  ‘You’re right, of course, Home Secretary.’ Clements’s voice now dripped sarcasm. ‘A firefight on Hampstead Heath would be so much easier to defend to the media if it resulted in the death of a ruthless and notorious terrorist during an operation to arrest him.’ He glanced at the DSF. ‘If that regrettable event were to occur, I am correct in assuming, am I not, that it would be revealed that Antonov was known to be armed and extremely dangerous?’

  The UKSF commander’s face immediately betrayed his dislike of Clements. ‘You would be correct in assuming that my men would meet force with force, Mr Clements. But if you’re implying—’

  Clements held up his hand. ‘I’m implying nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m merely trying to ensure that your men are free to take all necessary measures to halt this appalling terrorist and not be placed in jeopardy by needless restrictions on their freedom of action.’

  COBRA meetings weren’t minuted. The politicians could say what they liked: their words would never be available as evidence. The Thatcher government had offered the Regiment immunity from prosecution during its dark and dirty war against the IRA, but they had quite correctly turned the offer down. They had known that once the agreement was exposed it would be members of the SAS in the dock for breaking the law, not the politicos. They would simply say they had no recollection of any conversation or agreement that let the UKSF do such things in the UK.

  ‘The welfare of my men is my principal concern, Mr Clements.’ The DSF knew he had to be careful. ‘But whatever the terms of their
deployment, and whatever resistance Antonov puts up, I can assure you that there will be no fire-fight on Hampstead Heath. If there is collateral damage, it will be contained within the house itself.’

  ‘Just the domestic staff, then, and they’re probably all Russian,’ Clements said. ‘Brilliant. So in order to ensure that Antonov is arrested rather than eliminated, we’re going to send in the SAS with one hand tied behind their backs, increasing the risk to their own lives, not to mention those of the cooks, maids and gardeners. A hundred and fifteen thousand pounds per head in compensation will be a small price to pay for such good press.’

  ‘Thank you for being so constructive, as always, Edward.’ The home secretary’s sarcasm matched his own. She hit the table with both hands, hard. The walls were too thick for the sound to echo, but it got everyone’s attention all the same. ‘Right. If we’ve all finished?’ Her expression defied anyone to disagree. ‘Then let’s get on with it, shall we? But I hope I’ve made it sufficiently clear that I expect this to be a non-lethal operation.’

  Her gaze travelled from the DSF to the Met’s assistant commissioner.

  As Clements collected his papers and strode from the room, the commissioner picked up the mobile phone lying on the table in front of him and spoke into it.

  7

  HALF A DOZEN miles away, still sitting at the table in the back bar, Woolf waited, listening to COBRA’s muffled waffle. As the words in his ears began to sound as if they had been caught in a blender, he thought about his much younger third wife. Today was their first wedding anniversary. He stroked a hand over his thinning hair. When this was all over, maybe he’d make the appointment in Harley Street she’d been on about. As a present for them both.

  Woolf held up a hand for silence and turned to Gavin. ‘COBRA wants confirmation that this is an operation for the hard arrest of one Laszlo Antonov.’

  ‘Confirmed,’ Gavin said.

  ‘Confirm that there will be no threat to his life or reason.’

  ‘Confirmed.’

  ‘Confirm that you will be using non-lethal weapons.’

  ‘He just fucking said that.’ Ashton was unable to control his impatience.

  Gavin smiled to himself. For some reason, the F-word always sounded twice as obscene when delivered in Ashton’s Home Counties accent.

  ‘But we’ll take on the threat as the operational situation requires,’ Ashton said. ‘So, if the arse-covering session is finally over, we need control – now!’

  Scowling, Woolf looked in vain for his notepad, then reached for a beer mat and scrawled a few words on the back. He signed his name, handed the mat to Ashton, with the reluctance of an atheist putting his last ten-pound-note into a church collection plate, and made the formal declaration: ‘I hand over control pursuant to the provisions of the Military Aid to the Civil Power Act. J. Woolf.’

  Ashton gave a theatrical sigh of relief, then nodded to Gavin, who immediately got on the net. ‘All stations, this is Alpha. I have control. Stand by, stand by . . . Go!’

  8

  IN A SIDE street in West Hampstead, an area that had little more than its name in common with the upmarket Village it bordered, a woman was pressing shirts in the back room of a dingy dry-cleaner’s, its windows so fogged with dirt and steam that they were almost opaque.

  While she worked, her ten-year-old daughter sat on the floor at her feet, playing with a car-boot-sale Game Boy. Although she could not have been much older than thirty-five, the woman’s hair was already streaked with grey and her face was lined and worn. She put down her iron as the phone began to ring.

  She picked it up, reached for a notepad, listened in silence for a few moments, then hung up without a word. Was something wrong? Had she made a mistake? She’d been told to expect the call some time on Monday . . . ‘Go and put your coat on,’ she said, in Russian, to her daughter. ‘Hurry!’

  As the child disappeared, the woman pulled a folding wheelchair from behind the door. She manhandled it through the shop and onto the pavement outside. Keeping an anxious eye on it, she took a piece of battered cardboard from under the counter and wrote on it in awkward capital letters: ‘BACK IN 20 MINUTES. SORRY IF PROBLEM.’

  She taped the message to the window, hurried her daughter, still clutching her Game Boy, out of the shop, and locked the door behind them. The little girl ran alongside her, struggling to keep up, and pestered without success to be allowed to ride in the chair.

  9

  AS GAVIN GAVE the ‘Go’, Tom broke cover. Ignoring the prone figure of the blonde, he ran towards White, then dropped to one knee and aimed his ARWEN baton gun at the upper windows of the house.

  He pumped two rounds into each of the unshuttered windows. As they smashed through the glass each circular disc ruptured and spun into the rooms, blinding anyone within range.

  Tom reloaded and switched to the lower windows, but this time, though the glass panes disintegrated, the fine CN irritant billowed outside the building. He sprinted through the gas, flattened himself against the wall and whipped out a telescoping steel rod. As he cleared the remaining glass and peeled back the shredded curtains, instead of looking into a room, he found himself facing a concrete wall.

  There was the thud of another detonation outside on Red as more charges blew apart the steel security gates set into the wall. Two black Range Rovers ploughed through the garden, churning up the immaculate lawns and passing on either side of the rose pergola where the Russian blonde still lay, immobilized and unconscious. Aluminium ladders were fixed to the roofs of the cars and Red Three and Four stood on the bumpers and running boards as they roared towards the house, eyes fixed on the windows Tom had already destroyed.

  An X-ray appeared at one, threw up his AK-47 and kicked off a three-round burst. One of the Blue team dropped off the Range Rover and hit the grass, nursing a ragged hole in his leg.

  Before the guard could fire again Keenan, still perched in the crook of the tree, filled his sight with the target’s head, took up first pressure, aimed at the base of his nose, exhaled a long breath that was more like a sigh, and squeezed the trigger. Firing a subsonic round, his sniper rifle hardly made a sound.

  ‘Sierra One,’ Keenan said. ‘I had to take the shot.’

  Gavin had watched the 7.62mm round make contact on the monitor and knew it had been the right decision. ‘Alpha, roger that.’

  The Range Rovers slewed to a halt in front of the house as the two Blue team medics dragged the injured man into cover. A moment later the ladders clanged against the walls next to the shuttered windows and the assault teams clambered up them to make entry into the CN-filled rooms.

  Tom and Blue Five were ahead of them, sweeping through the downstairs rooms. Domestic servants, many still incapacitated and in shock after the detonations on White and Red, were curled up on the floor in pain as the CN did its job.

  Jockey and his team, Blue One, had made the second explosive entry. They met no resistance as they moved from room to room, but it was only when he opened a door that should have led to the hall that he found out why. The Scotsman’s face registered neither surprise nor alarm: like the rest of the team he was now on auto-pilot. The reason the Regiment were so good at assaulting buildings was because they trained every single day. Jockey got on the net. ‘More concrete, they’ve blocked us in sectors.’

  10

  TWO DARK SHAPES cradling AK-47s ran to intercept Tom and Blue Five as they burst into the hall and made for the stairs. The guards swung up their weapons; Tom dropped to one knee and fired two Value rounds, which struck them not with the soft thud of a projectile hitting flesh but with a hard, almost metallic sound that indicated they were wearing body armour.

  The two men were driven backwards by the force of the impact but remained upright until the CN clouds started to take effect. Tom closed in and gave them another two rounds between their legs that took them down. He checked their faces. The imagery of Laszlo might be old, but there was one thing that time wouldn’t change: the S
outh Ossetian’s washed-out grey-blue eyes.

  Tom ran for the stairs. Bryce Rea, Blue Five commander, was right behind him with another of his team. The other two zip-tied the fallen guards while they were still fucked up by the CN.

  The din of percussive bangs, thuds and shouts thundered from the upper floor as the Blue team cleared the house, fighting their way through yet more false doors and barricades. Tom’s group found no further obstructions as they cleared the hall and raced up the sweeping staircase. He crossed the landing, the plan of the upper floors firmly imprinted on his mind.

  He pushed open the master-bedroom door and dived through it, his gaze tracking the moving barrel of his rifle until it came to rest on a body-shaped hump on the emperor-sized bed. Tom pumped two rounds into it as the rest of the team made entry. He moved forward, ripped the duvet aside. The two pillows beneath it were dented by the hits, but were too soft a target to project their CN.

  Blue Five cleared the bathroom and dressing room.

  The half-full cup of coffee on the bedside table was still warm to the touch. ‘He’s here somewhere . . .’ Tom’s voice rasped through the respirator.

  Bryce yelled, ‘It could be the blonde’s.’

  ‘Could be.’ Tom headed for the door. ‘But in that case, whose is the one on the dressing-table?’

  The net was heaving with assault teams telling Alpha that their areas were clear. Then Jockey chipped in: ‘Stand by, stand by. Blue One has a possible escape route under the main hall stairs. Wait out.’