Bad Soldier: Danny Black Thriller 4 (48 page)

Motorcade distance, twenty-five metres. Danny lowered his scope and turned to peer through the woods on his side of the road. Nothing moved. Back to the motorcade. Yellow Seven was talking at Tony nineteen to the dozen. Tony was nodding vaguely, but Danny could see that really he was trying to look through the treeline on both sides.

Twenty metres.

Danny’s heart was thumping. There were no militants on this side of the road, he decided. He would have seen them by now – or they would have seen him. He decided to concentrate on the trees at the far side. With their mist-shrouded, gnarled shapes, some of them even looked like people. Spotting a shooter at this distance, in these conditions, was a massive ask.

But when the motorcade was fifteen metres distant, he spotted
something
.

It moved. A grey silhouette. The height of a man. Danny trained his rifle, zoning out the thick knot of mist and trees, focussing on that moving silhouette. His finger rested carefully on the trigger.

His eyes tightened.

The figure had stopped.

Danny had a decision to make. Should he fire? A suppressed round would be all but inaudible. He wouldn’t give away his presence. He could stop an imminent attack.

But he’d also lose the chance of getting a lead to his daughter. And what if this figure in the trees was entirely innocent, like the photographer he’d just put to the ground?

Danny took his eye from the scope and checked the position of the motorcade. It was now almost adjacent to his position. Distance, ten metres. Yellow Seven was laughing loudly. Tony was grinning, but also looking left and right, his gun hand still at the ready.

He suddenly locked gazes with Danny. He had clearly picked him out behind the treeline – the only one of the royal CP team who had done so. Tony raised an eyebrow. It was a sly, arrogant expression, but Tony couldn’t hide his anxiousness: the slight twitch around the eyes, the way he momentarily bit his lower lip.

But he did nothing to reveal Danny’s location. Danny himself looked back through his scope. The motorcade passed in front of it. The black vehicles dominated Danny’s field of view. He had to pull away again and watch the royals pass with his naked eye. Tony glanced in his direction once more, then to the left.

Danny’s heart thumped. He was waiting for the shot . . .

Waiting for one of them to go down . . . 

Waiting for the bastard militant who could lead him to his daughter to reveal himself . . .

He could hear Yellow Seven’s braying voice barking a boorish laugh. Tony was still smiling. Still glancing occasionally towards Danny.

And now, the motorcade had passed his position.

Danny moved through the trees, keeping adjacent to the vehicles, every sense on high alert. The motorcade had another thirty metres to travel before it cleared the tree cover on either side of the road. He took a moment to scan the trees on the other side through his scope. Again, the gnarled, mist-shrouded trunks came into focus. Again, he thought he saw a figure, mirroring Danny’s own movement alongside the vehicles.

The figure increased its speed, so now it was in position just ahead of the motorcade. Danny kept up . . . stopping when the figure stopped . . . raising his weapon . . . trying to see the face through his scope . . .

The mist cleared momentarily. His target’s features flashed across the scope’s field of view.

White skin. Headset. Boom mike.

This was no shooter. It was a member of the royal CP team.

Danny lowered his weapon. He was sucking in lungfuls of air. The motorcade cleared the treeline. The CP guy emerged from the trees on the other side of the road.

Tony looked back over his shoulder, sneering dismissively at Danny.

The motorcade entered the cordoned-off area in front of the church.

The royals peeled off to shake hands with their adoring public.

They were completely unharmed.

Twenty-four

London. 0958 hours.

–
All units, this is unit base. The PM has arrived. Repeat, the PM has arrived.

Barker stood up and looked back down the aisle of the abbey. He could see the Prime Minister’s entourage, rather than the PM himself. A huddle of approximately ten people entering the building. Three CP guys at the front. Two girls – the PM’s daughters. His wife. The PM was in there somewhere but Barker couldn’t see him. More CP guys at the back. Everyone in the congregation – it was full now, and buzzing – had turned their heads to take a look.

Barker turned his attention elsewhere. The podgy clergyman with the sweaty upper lip had taken his place up at the altar. His ornate communion chalice was right in front of him. To either side, set slightly back, were two more clergymen. And behind them, in the facing choir pews, fifty or sixty young choristers. All boys.

Barker’s eyes shot back to the clergymen. Was it his imagination, or did they look nervous?

He glanced over at his mate Connor who was standing by a column on the other side of the abbey. He was watching the clergyman too. Watching him very closely . . .

‘Move.’

Barker started. The PM’s entourage had reached him. One of the CP guys was nudging him. Barker stepped to one side, allowing the security guys, then the PM, then the girls, then the PM’s wife, to take their seats. Barker took his own position in the same row, in the seat next to the aisle. He had barely glanced at the famous face of the Prime Minister, which he was seeing in the flesh for the first time.

The organ music swelled. Then stopped.

Silence in the abbey. Someone coughed. It echoed around the vaults.

Silence again.

The clergyman at the altar raised his hands, palms outward.

‘My brothers and sisters,’ he announced. His voice, picked up by the small microphone on his lapel, echoed over the loudspeakers. ‘In the name of Christ, I—’

Feedback squeaked over the loudspeakers. The sweating priest hesitated. He lowered his hands and moved them to his belt area, hidden by the altar.

It was pure instinct that made Barker move his hand to his own holster. And from the corner of his eye he saw Connor taking several steps forward from his position in the wings. Just as Barker was feeling for his sidearm, however, his earpiece burst into life again. Barker recognised Conlin’s withering voice.

—
Relax, everyone. He’s adjusting his microphone pack.

Barker let his hand fall to his side. The priest cleared his throat and tried again. ‘In the name of Christ I welcome you! We have come together to . . .’

Barker zoned out as the clergyman droned on. Hyper-aware, he sensed movement up on the side balcony, but a quick glance told him it was a Regiment shooter shifting position.

Movement to the right. It was just one of the PM’s kids fidgeting.

‘. . . through scripture and silence, prayer and song . . .’

Movement behind the altar.

Barker caught his breath. Everything went into slow motion. Because he had suddenly realised, beyond question, where the threat lay.

All of the choristers standing in the pews behind the altar were under sixteen, some of them much younger than that. All white. Except one. He stood out, not just on account of his dark skin and black hair among the blue-eyed, blond angels surrounding him, but also because he was the only one moving. As the priest droned on, he had bent down, looking nervously from left to right, and was now holding a navy-blue rucksack in front of him.

One of the adjacent choirboys looked at his companion. Confused. A bit irritated. He clearly hadn’t been expecting this to happen. It was more than high jinks. It was unusual . . .

It was as if everything else in the abbey had become a blur. The only person on whom Barker was focussed was the dark-skinned chorister. Barker stepped out into the aisle. He strode up towards the altar. Somewhere on the edge of his perception, he sensed that the priest had stopped talking. He pulled his sidearm, unlocking it as he picked up pace towards the altar.

Voices in his ear.

–
Barker, what the hell are you doing?

–
Stand down! Repeat, stand down!

Barker did not stand down. He continued past the altar, running now, his weapon raised and held in two hands, the choirboy firmly in his sights.

Someone screamed. Several people. There was shouting all around. As Barker homed in on his target, the other choirboys fell to the ground like wilting flowers. His target, however, remained standing, clutching the rucksack close to his chest like it was the most precious thing in the world.

Distance: ten metres.

‘
DROP THE BAG!
’ Barker shouted, and his voice echoed dramatically around the abbey. ‘
I SAID, DROP THE BAG!
’

The kid didn’t drop it.

He clutched it.

His face was suddenly twisted in an expression of humiliation and anger. Barker had seen that expression before. The look of a bad guy who knew he’d been thwarted.

–
Barker, stand down! That’s an order!

‘
DROP THE FUCKING BAG!
’

The kid still didn’t drop it. In fact, he seemed to be trying to open the zip.

Barker’s reaction was immediate and instinctive. He released a single round. The report echoed around the vaults of the abbey as the round slammed hard into the choirboy’s left shoulder.

Screaming. Everywhere. Confusion behind him. The congregation rushing into the aisle. Barker’s earpiece was a sudden burst of such confused shouting that he couldn’t make out a single word.

His target seemed to spin on his heels with the impact of the round. His white choir robe was suddenly splashed red. The rucksack flew into the air as the kid crumpled in a heap, down on to his chorister companions.

Barker lunged towards the rucksack, catching it a fraction of a second before it hit the ground. It was heavy. He held it to his chest as his own body thumped to the hard stone floor.

He could hear sirens outside, above all the shouting in the abbey. The fierce barking of his Regiment-mates as they closed in on the altar area, screaming at everyone to hit the ground.

He was breathing heavily. Sweating. He closed his ears to the anguished shrieks of the chorister he’d just hit, and who was now writhing in agony just a couple of metres away. He ripped open the zip of the rucksack and carefully, gingerly, looked inside.

There was an iPad. Its screen was shattered. There were bags of sweets: Haribos, Maltesers. There was a hymn book and a phone.

But there were no weapons. No explosives.

He looked up. He was surrounded by armed Regiment men, weapons drawn, faces fierce. But none so fierce as that of his boss, Wallace Conlin, whose jugular was pumping, and whose every expression and body movement told Barker he’d just made his last mistake as a Regiment man.

Danny Black was numb.

He stared from his covert position behind the treeline. Thirty metres away, the younger royals were at the cordon, shaking hands with the members of the public crowded round to see them. Smiling. Laughing. The older royals were exiting their vehicle, royal protection officers loitering nearby. A priest was standing in the door of the church. White robes. Prayer book in hand. A gentle smile as he surveyed the scene.

Danny hardly saw any of it.

He’d failed. He’d thrown the dice and lost. He should have listened to Spud. Told the authorities what he knew and enlisted their help in finding his daughter, rather than coming here and clutching at straws. The old nausea washed over him. He felt himself starting to shake. As if all his strength had been drained out of him.

The younger royals turned from the members of the public. Still joking with each other, they turned towards the church.

Danny collapsed to his knees. He put his head in his hands. Anger was suddenly burning through his veins. He thumped a clenched fist against the bark of a tree, and didn’t even wince when he felt his skin scraping away. There was a strange ringing sound on the edge of his hearing. It seemed to come from inside his skull. With his face clenched, he shook his head to get rid of it.

The sound didn’t go. It was high-pitched. Needling. Distant.

He suddenly took a sharp intake of breath. His eyes shot open. He looked up.

The sound was not inside his head. It was airborne.

He blinked. A memory crystallised in his mind: the half-burned weather report he’d found in Dhul Faqar’s fire.

Wind speeds.

Danny had been so sure that piece of paper had indicated a sniper attack. He’d been wrong. Because it wasn’t just bullets that were affected by wind.

He shifted into the firing position. One knee down. He raised his rifle and looked through the sight. All the while, he forced himself to focus on the distant whining sound. Trying to discern the direction it was coming from. He couldn’t.

There were footsteps, crashing through the trees behind him. He quickly glanced over his shoulder. Spud was there, running towards him, face sweating, eyes wild.