Silent Weapon Read online

  ‘Right.’ Wolston shut off his phone with a grim flick of the wrist. ‘I was hoping they could fast-track us through Immigration, but apparently we’re not that much of a priority. The adjutant says the minibus that was going to pick us up at Heathrow is en route to Southend, but that will take at least a couple of hours whichever way round the M25 it goes. Till then, we sit tight and go nowhere. And meanwhile, lads, fill your minds with happy thoughts of Tenerife.’ He smiled. ‘Because everything you’ve been looking forward to – beaches, warm sea, soft sand, drinking the Playa de Las Americas dry, dancing till dawn, getting laid by numbers’ – he paused – ‘isn’t going to happen. All leave is cancelled.’

  Sheer relief at being on the ground, in one piece and in no danger made the passengers talk just that little bit too loudly as they disembarked. Except for the dark, fuming knot of pissed-off Fusiliers who were now trying to push their way to passport control and get through the airport as quickly as possible.

  ‘Fucking leave fucking cancelled,’ Bright grumbled. ‘It’s giving in to terrorism, that’s what it is. And this fucking airport is nothing more than a large fucking shed.’

  The main airport building was heaving. Sean could see why. Parked up next to their Boeing was another plane of similar size, and presumably it had kicked off the same number of passengers. Further along were a couple of little EasyJet runarounds parked nose-in to the terminal as well. Southend airport wasn’t designed for crowds like this.

  Passport control was a wide open space divided into twisty lanes heading down to the passport desks at the end, like the entrance to a theme park. The queue for EU passports was almost out of the door. The lane for non-EU passports was almost empty, and the Nigerian contingent from the plane promptly streamed down it.

  ‘Fuck this,’ Wolston said. He headed down the non-EU lane after the Nigerians, and gestured for everyone to follow him.

  ‘Shit, Corporal, that’s leadership,’ Marshall said.

  ‘Learn from the best, Lance Corporal.’

  A few paces ahead of him Sean saw Okwute calmly waiting with his passport already open. Otherwise it seemed like the people in the queue hadn’t realized they would actually be expected to produce a passport, and had all taken bets to see how deep down in their hand luggage they could bury theirs.

  Sean’s eyes lingered on the woman going past the passport desk now. Nice action. He had always been a rear-view man. He followed her as she slipped her passport into her bag and headed for the exit door marked BAGGAGE RECLAIM.

  And so he saw the way her body language changed – a split second before he saw why. The casual walk came to a sudden jarring halt – and then she took a reflex step backwards as a black-clad arm appeared and shoved her further back into the hall. Sean tensed himself for action, his instinctive response whenever aggro loomed on the horizon – even though she was on the other side of a whole group of people and he couldn’t have reached her.

  Sean always remembered the next bit in slo-mo. The owner of the arm appeared. A man in black – black trackies, black gloves, black balaclava mask, black webbing around his top half holding spherical HG85 grenades, a pair of white phosphorous smoke bombs, the size and shape of insect spray, and spare curved black magazines – brandishing a black Heckler & Koch MP5, holding the pistol grip in one hand and pointing it at the ceiling. And then it was back to normal speed. With his free hand the guy pulled back on the cocking handle, took hold of the stock and sprayed a half-second burst into the roof. At the same time two other guys with MP5s burst in behind him. The shots roared in the enclosed space, and the echoes faded away into screams and shouts. A baby howled as the first man grabbed a megaphone dangling from his neck.

  ‘Down on the ground! Now!’

  Chapter 8

  Wednesday 2 August, 07:00 BST

  The burnt smell of discharged propellant was sharp in Sean’s nostrils as he flung himself flat on his stomach. The rest of the section were half a second behind him. When you’re caught in the open without a weapon, it’s the only place to be. Above them, the great British public screamed and milled about in confusion.

  Sean’s first instinct had been to reach for his weapon, but it was back in Nigeria. His second had been to bury his face in the worn lino and wait for it all to go away. Which wouldn’t achieve anything. So he lifted his head as far as he dared and kept on looking around, while he felt his heart thud beneath him.

  There were still some people who couldn’t seem to believe that this was real, or were just plain paralysed by fear and shock. They were still up, or sort of crouching halfway down like they were waiting for confirmation of the original order.

  Sean found himself beaming willpower at them.

  Get down! He said get down and he meant it!

  Because people who had got as far as firing live ammo in public weren’t doing it for the lulz.

  The guy with the megaphone fired another ceiling burst. ‘I said down! Now!’

  It was muffled by the mask but it sounded like a bog-standard Essex accent.

  The message sank in and the hold-outs let themselves down onto the floor of the hall to join the rest. Meanwhile the lads’ bodies were all complying with the gunman’s instructions but their minds were in overdrive.

  A second gunman was gesturing with his MP5 for the passport staff to come together on the airside with everyone else. The third ran up the side of the hall and stood poised halfway, where he could cover everyone from the flank.

  Sean was no expert tactician but he could still see the basic problem. How the fuck were three guys going to secure an area this size? Even three guys with weapons. They could exert control through fear, but if the worst came to the worst they couldn’t shoot everyone.

  But no civvy was going to take the chance that it might be them who did get shot.

  And did the gunmen know that their hostages included a section of Fusiliers? Sean was going to guess that no, they didn’t, and that would give the lads an advantage. But they had to take it quick. He had heard tales of hostage taking. Sooner or later the hostage takers generally went through wallets and IDs, clocking people they didn’t like, such as Americans, Israelis … Members of the British Army would be in the same category, and the lads all had their military IDs in their wallets.

  And the thing soldiers did when they came under fire was to bunch together and fight back as a unit. Sean glanced over at Wolston in case the corporal was ready to give any orders, but he couldn’t see his face with Bright’s butt in the way.

  The first gunman stood at the head of the queue for the passport desks. The second made his way along the line of prone bodies.

  ‘You lot. On your feet.’

  Between them they had cut off the head of the queue. About fifty people were being made to stand: black and white, men and women, and every lad in the section. Somewhere Sean could hear sobbing, and that baby was still crying at top volume.

  ‘Hands on your heads. Move forward.’

  At gunpoint, the hostages were herded past the desks towards the baggage reclamation area.

  ‘Keep your hands on your heads.’

  Sean’s eyes darted left, right, up, down, taking in the location. Its pluses and minuses. Mostly minuses. The two areas were linked by a short passage; the narrow walls meant that the hostages had to bunch closely together. The lads grouped themselves in a unit, hands still on their heads but poised for action.

  ‘Wolston?’ Marshall muttered. Sean guessed he was carefully not saying ‘Corporal’. ‘Orders?’

  ‘No talking! Keep moving!’

  The gunmen could dream. It felt like the lads were the only ones keeping shtum. Otherwise there was a steady background drone of muffled weeping and sobbing.

  They were coming out into the baggage reclaim area. It was smaller than passport control. More defensible. There were solid walls on three sides, and the fourth wall was the outside one: a big window that looked out onto a car park.

  Shit, we should be able to do som
ething with that!

  That window meant that the whole hall was totally exposed. But Sean could also see its advantages to the gunmen. They would spot anyone sneaking up on them.

  ‘Go forward and sit between the luggage belts. Go on!’

  The room was dominated by two large conveyor belts that trundled ceaselessly around with the luggage from the plane before theirs. Each one was fed by a smaller belt that came up through the floor in the middle of the carousel. The few passengers in the hall who hadn’t already fled at the sound of gunshots stood rooted to the spot. The lead gunman, megaphone man, hit the emergency stop button and leaped up into the centre of the left-hand belt. He gave the ceiling another spray for the benefit of newcomers, and got the expected chorus of shouts and screams in return.

  ‘Everyone! You lot’ – he waved the weapon at the passengers already there – ‘and you’ – that was to the hostages – ‘into the middle.’ He aimed at the floor between the two belts. ‘Sit down with your hands on your heads. Go!’

  ‘Orders?’ Marshall repeated, a bit more insistently. Sean shot a sideways look at Wolston – and couldn’t believe what he saw. The corporal’s face had gone blank, his eyes glazed. Suddenly he looked like he had been on an all-night bender, inhaling the kind of thing that could get you cashiered with one whiff of a suspicious Redcap’s nose.

  Marshall had clocked it too. Sean saw the flash of dismay, and his jaw begin to drop. But then he pulled it together. The look of determination on Marshall’s face was almost scary; Sean guessed it meant he was trying to hide the fact that he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, and as Lance Corporal he was second in command.

  ‘Right,’ Marshall began – and suddenly Wolston was back in the room and looking ready for action.

  ‘Gobby guy with the megaphone is designated Clarkson,’ he said. His lips barely moved. ‘Bright, Mitra, West, your mark. Guy on the right is Hammond. Marshall, Harker, Penfold, you’re on him.’

  The second gunman – Hammond – had jumped up onto the right-hand carousel and was beckoning them on with his MP5. That meant gunman number three was still behind them, bringing up the rear and sealing it off.

  Wolston rattled it all off as confidently as if he had been up all night practising. ‘Guy behind us is May. Burnell, with me.’

  Pete Burnell had tried for the SAS. He hadn’t passed selection and had been returned to unit – but just the fact that he had trained up to the point where he was prepared to hack it still made him about fifty times harder than Sean felt he would ever be. May was an unknown factor and would only be tackled by two lads, so Wolston was keeping the best for himself.

  ‘You go when we go. Each group grab a pew near to your target.’

  Sean could feel his own pulse speeding up. Excitement and fear mixed up inside him and he had to fight back a grin. Shit, it was like the old days on the Littern Mills estate had never gone away – setting an ambush, or even being a decoy to lure out another gang. Amble along, look innocent, don’t do anything to put their guard up … and pow.

  Of course, the other gang had never been kitted out with MP5s. Still, Sean knew the value of the element of surprise, and he also had confidence in his hand-to-hand training.

  But they would have to move bloody fast because they could never outrun a spray of rounds.

  ‘Move! Move!’

  And then they were between the carousels. Sean, Marshall and Penfold tried to drift naturally to the right and clustered together as they squatted down at the base of the belt, close to Hammond’s feet.

  ‘H-hands on heads!’

  That was Hammond, standing above them, without the benefit of a megaphone. Did his voice wobble a bit? Sean shot a sideways look at the gunman. He clocked the way Hammond’s feet shifted from side to side, his finger tapping against the stock of his weapon … and that voice had distinctly squeaked. Well, well. So Hammond was nervous? That had to be a break. He was also the least well armed of the trio – he had the MP5 and that was it. No spare magazines, no grenades.

  But if he was scared, wanting to prove something, that could make him the most dangerous of all …

  Sean bit his lip and turned his attention to May and Clarkson, straining his eyes across and moving his head as little as he could. They were a different story. Clarkson stood on top of his belt with his feet apart and his weapon slung casually in his hands – no effort to it, but ready to bring it to bear at any angle. May was trotting round the perimeter of the room with the casual lope Sean had seen in wildlife documentaries showing wolves encircling their prey. He slapped buttons that made metal grilles slide down over the exits – the way they had come, back to passport control, and the exit that led to Customs.

  Sean could dimly hear sirens. The outside world would have got the message by now. Seriously hard guys in black clothes and masks pretty similar to the three gunmen would be converging on their position. What was the endgame here? What did these guys want?

  The other hostages cowered. Some dared to look up slightly, to see what was occurring. Some kept their eyes fixed on the floor. Some had shoulders shaking as they wept. Even the ever-calm Okwute had his jaw clenched as he gazed blankly into the distance. Only the lads were absolutely silent and still, crackling with tension and ready to move. Fuck, how could the gunmen not see that? Sean wondered.

  ‘Secure?’ That was Clarkson, with the megaphone aimed at May. May had finished his tour of the perimeter and stood at one end of the space between carousels. Wolston and Burnell were right at his feet, sitting cross-legged, hands on heads as instructed. May’s poise was like Clarkson’s, casual and deadly. He flashed an O sign, thumb and forefinger together.

  ‘Right.’ Clarkson’s amplified voice echoed around the hall, maybe for the benefit of hidden listeners. The security forces would probably be tapping into CCTV and picking this up before they received any official communication. ‘Do as you’re told and no one gets hurt. We have demands which we’ll be presenting to— SIT DOWN!’

  Every eye was pinned on Wolston as he slowly got to his feet. Sean shifted himself, poised to act as the adrenalin pumping through his system maxed out. Any second now …

  Wolston held his arms apart, palms facing forward, the most unthreatening stance there was. Which didn’t stop Clarkson from pointing his weapon slap bang at the centre of his body mass. One squeeze on the trigger would cut him in half.

  Forget that momentary blanking just now. Sean wasn’t even sure if he’d remembered it properly. He was looking at the bravest man on the planet, who had the undivided attention of every person in the room, including all three gunmen. The guy had balls that Miley Cyrus could write a song about.

  ‘You’re making a mistake,’ Wolston said clearly.

  ‘I said SIT DOWN …’ Clarkson thundered.

  Burnell kicked out his feet at May’s ankles and the gunman toppled over with a yell. His finger squeezed the trigger as he went down and the shots went wild.

  Clarkson and Hammond didn’t shoot, because Hammond was scared and Clarkson had to adjust his aim a fraction as Wolston dived to one side, and then each of them had their designated three soldiers piling on top of them, dragging them to the ground. On the way down Clarkson’s weapon fired off a couple of rounds that shattered the hall’s polished tiles, away from the hostages.

  On top of the carousel, Sean, Marshall and Penfold knelt on Hammond. The gunman writhed and bucked beneath them until Marshall drove one fist hard against his balaclava’d face. The back of his head cracked into the metal casing of the carousel and he went still. Sean was nearest to his right hand and he scooped up the MP5. Still on the carousel, he quickly stood up and moved away from the still gunman, taking the weapon with him.

  Fucking hell, it had worked!

  Grasping the gun was like meeting a new friend. Its shape and design made it fall into his arms. Together, they were back in charge, and it felt good.

  But Sean would let himself feel all that later. He automatically went through the NSP
s, pulling the cocking handle back to check the chamber. The gun was cocked and loaded. The MP5 looked like it had started as a simple automatic pistol and then its Borg implants had activated and sprouted new, extra gun fore and aft, sleek, black and deadly. He took a moment to locate the selector lever on the Heckler & Koch design. There was one on either side above the pistol grip. Instead of words or numbers, it used pretty pictures of bullets to show the number that would be discharged at each setting – none, one, two or lots. He clicked it to ‘none’ – a picture of a single bullet with a cross through it.

  Hammond was out cold with Penfold and Marshall on top of him, and he wasn’t going anywhere. Wolston stood a safe distance away from May, training his MP5 on the gunman, who was flat on his back on the floor. On the other carousel Clarkson was kneeling, hands behind his head, as Bright stood in front of him, weapon aimed squarely at his chest.

  ‘Report!’ Wolston shouted.

  ‘Hammond neutralized, weapon acquired,’ Marshall shouted back.

  ‘Ditto here, Corporal,’ Bright reported, less professionally. The triumph of his wide grin was matched in intensity only by the two cold eyes behind Clarkson’s mask; they didn’t waver from his face.

  ‘Everyone stay seated!’ Wolston shouted. ‘The police will be here soon, but let us secure the area.’

  They needed telling. The hostages were just twigging that the world had changed again, and one thing that could really bugger this up was a bunch of clueless civvies moping around and getting in the way.

  ‘Wonder what the ugly fucks really look like?’ Bright shouted. ‘Let’s see who was really behind this.’

  Penfold rolled his eyes. ‘Whatever.’ He grabbed Hammond’s mask and pulled. Nothing happened except that Hammond’s collar rode up a bit. The mask was buttoned down. He started to feel round Hammond’s neck to release it.

  ‘Oi, ugly,’ Bright ordered across the way. ‘Mask off.’

  Clarkson shrugged. His hands were already behind his head. He moved them further down—