Red Notice (30 page)

Jockey raced through the options in his head. The route to target would be floodlit in less than five minutes. If they were still in the open, it would take a miracle for them to reach the carriages without being spotted. The op would go noisy. It would be a long, hard fight to get as far as the front three carriages. By then, all the Yankees and call-signs might be dead. To make matters worse, there was a gun position at the French end. If this kicked off, the gun would simply swing round and start hosing them down.

The decision took Jockey a matter of seconds. Realistically, there was only one option. He came back on the net, his voice quiet and calm.

‘Blue team, listen in. We will move to target in a new order of march. Blue Seven will take the lead. At the train, Blue Seven will make entry into the first carriage. It can then move forwards along the train, clearing the route towards the first three carriages.

‘All other call-signs will follow behind Blue Seven in the same order of march as now. Blue Seven will go static when it reaches Coach Four, the buffet car, which will be Blue team’s start-line.

‘On my “go”, Blue One to Six will exit on the right-hand side of the train and move to our entry point in double time – and make entry immediately.

‘Sierra call-signs: you will give cover forwards towards the gun position, and back onto the front three coaches. If at any time it goes noisy, Blue Seven will take on the threat while Blue One to Six bypass the contact and move to their target any way they can, in double time, and get on with the emergency response. Sierra call-signs will cover. Wait.’

Jockey gave the call-signs time to let it all sink in. He had more to say, and no one was allowed to come on the net before he spoke again. He gave it a couple more seconds. ‘Blue Two, acknowledge.’

Click-click
.

Jockey ran through all the ground call-signs before addressing the hangar. ‘Alpha, acknowledge.’

‘Alpha, roger that.’

Blue Seven, with Vatu in the lead, were already on the way past him. Jockey and his assault group fell in silently behind.

87

LASZLO WATCHED THE
driver close his eyes and pray. It was a curious sight, because he looked like a man who hadn’t done anything of the kind since he was a child. Except, perhaps, when his football team was two-nil down with ten minutes to go before the final whistle.

He switched the mic back on. ‘Mr Woolf, I still do not have power.’

‘Mr Antonov, as a gesture of good faith, we’re willing to restore the power to the train,
and
food and drink, as well as any medical care that may be needed.’

‘How kind you are, Mr Woolf.’ Laszlo bared his teeth in a smile. ‘And how stupid you must think I am. We have no need or desire for food, or care of any kind. If you were thinking of dressing your SAS as pizza-delivery boys, you can tell them to stand down. And I know that the power can be turned on remotely. Make sure that it is done that way. If I see
any
Special Forces soldiers masquerading as electrical repairmen . . .’

For a moment Laszlo considered telling Woolf to call off Tom as well. But he decided against it. He admired Tom’s determination. He admired his sheer guts. And, more than anything, he enjoyed the fact that he didn’t have the slightest idea what was really happening here.

‘Mr Woolf, no more games. Just do it.’

He switched off the mic again and smiled at Sambor. ‘And the Lord said, let there be light and, lo, there was light.’

A moment later, right on cue, the fluorescent strips flickered and the air-conditioning unit began to emit a low hum.

The driver began to sob.

Ignoring the pathetic gratitude of the man on the floor, Laszlo stood. ‘You won’t have long now before they send in their dogs. Work quickly.’

Sambor nodded. But before he could move away, Laszlo gripped his arm. ‘And, brother, I think it’s time to put Delphine on the menu. If it’s the SAS team who were in Hampstead yesterday, they will know Tom. And very probably they will know her.’

88

LASZLO PUT DOWN
his weapon and produced a roll of silver duct tape, which he proceeded to wind around Delphine’s neck. He dragged her across the buffet car, manhandled her up onto the far end of counter, and wound the tape around the stainless-steel shelving pillars behind her. Sambor did the same with her arms, waist and thighs. By the time they had finished, she looked like a badly wrapped present.

Laszlo and two of his men then set to work on the junction boxes that were set into the bulkhead at the end of the carriage.

Delphine stared up at him. She knew it was pointless resisting, but she could still show the defiance that Tom had mustered in her. The hatred in her eyes was all her own. ‘I will
not
be bait for your trap,’ she hissed.

Laszlo gave her a look of contempt. ‘You almost make it sound as if you have a choice in the matter.’ He reached for his weapon and pressed the muzzle against her head. ‘Would you prefer me to pull the trigger and end it now for you and your child?’

‘Yes.’ She pushed against the cold, hard steel. ‘And don’t forget to say goodbye to Tom for me when he cuts off your balls and stuffs them into your mouth.’

Laszlo merely smiled. ‘I can see why he was attracted to you.
You have more than a child in your belly. There is fire, too.
Spirit
.’

An expression appeared on his face that she hadn’t seen before. She wondered for a moment if he was a little jealous. She suspected that Laszlo had been fighting and hating for so long that he had never had the time to find a woman, let alone worked out how to keep one.

He nodded slowly. ‘You are extremely lucky to have each other.’

She worked her jaws for a second and spat at him.

He paused to wipe his cheek. ‘Hmm . . . Perhaps too much spirit.’

Pinpricks of light danced on her retina as he punched her just above the temple.

‘I think it may be time for some silence.’

He tore another length from the duct tape and wrapped it around her mouth and the back of her head.

‘You seem very confident that Prince Charming is going to ride to your rescue. It may surprise you to hear that I hope he does, too. And I hope he brings his black-suited friends with him.’ He forced her head back against the shelving to duct tape her neck even closer to the unit. She wasn’t going anywhere: she was the prize perched high on the counter for all to see.

She soon heard the splash of water behind her in the galley. Sambor appeared in the customer area, pushing a drinks trolley in front of him, laden with beer, wine and mineral water. Delphine stared at them, baffled, as the two brothers smashed the neck of one bottle after another against the edge of a table and poured their contents onto the floor.

She saw Laszlo select a Châteauneuf du Pape and pause for a second. He invited her to admire the label. ‘A good wine like this should be savoured, don’t you think?’ Then he smashed that one too and thrust its jagged spout closer and closer to her cheek.

Time came to a standstill as she watched a globule of crimson liquid glisten on the razor-sharp edge of the glass.

His face once more devoid of emotion, Laszlo inched it
towards her eye, but at the last moment he tipped it, too, onto the floor.

When they had finished, a pool of froth-slicked liquid covered the middle of the buffet car. Laszlo was pleased with their work. He beamed at Delphine. ‘I imagine that you share my excitement about what will happen next,’ he said. ‘You won’t be disappointed. It promises to be quite a spectacular performance, a veritable
son et lumière
.’ He turned and ushered Sambor down the carriage, towards the front of the train. A moment later the glass door slid shut behind them.

Delphine summoned up as much of her dwindling reserve of energy and defiance as she could muster, and began straining and heaving herself against the duct tape that bound her. It held her fast. She breathed in as deeply as the constraint would allow, trying to ease the tension from her shoulder muscles and the feeling of dread that rose inside her.

89

VATU HAD MADE
entry through the first blown-in door he came to, four coaches from the rear of the train. His assault group pulled on their respirators and eased themselves into the carriage. Sig 9mm semi-automatic pistol up, both eyes open, both hands on the weapon, he kept as far to the left of the passageway as he could. His number two, immediately behind him, stayed as far to the right. That way, their two weapons could fire at once, and cover the whole arc of the space in front of them.

They moved quickly and deliberately, jerking their heads left and right to check no one was hiding behind the seats. Their forward and peripheral vision from inside the respirators was good. All they could hear was the gentle rasp of the diaphragms as they breathed.

Jockey and the rest of Blue team stood poised to follow.

Vatu hunched his shoulders forward to create a firm support for his weapon as he entered every new carriage. His number two was so close behind him that his barrel almost brushed Vatu’s right shoulder. Numbers three and four of the call-sign carried Heckler & Koch 9mm sub-machine-guns, and stayed static immediately after moving left and right into each seated area.

They kept as close to the sides of the train as they could. Their job was to cover Vatu’s advance down what was in effect a well-upholstered gallery range and put down suppressive fire if any X-rays bounced into view. Vatu and his sidekick could keep pumping forward without ever crossing the arcs of fire of the weapons behind them.

The further Vatu and his number two moved down each carriage, the narrower the arcs became for the static three and four, but that was where trust kicked in. It was why the team always trained with live ammo. You needed total conviction to sit in a close-combat room feeling the blast from 9mm rounds against your cheek. Vatu was so confident in the others that he’d stand between two wooden targets in the dark while they burst in with pistols and torches and fired either side of him.

Each team member literally put his life in the hands of the others. One mistake and you could kill your best mate. There had been casualties over the years, but given the high number of rounds that were fired – more than by the rest of the British Army put together – they were very low.

90

TOM WORKED HIS
way towards the rear of the train as rapidly as his wound allowed. The team option would kick off any minute. It had to. COBRA wouldn’t let this go on any longer. He had to intercept them. It was the only way he had left to save Delphine. And – if Laszlo’s plan was to detonate the pipeline – the life of everyone else aboard.

The power had come back on. Lights blazed through every pane of glass, splashing across the sides of the tunnel. He’d had to move deeper under the train, right into the middle of the track, and it slowed him down.

He was now on his hands and knees. His thigh burned with every movement, but he kept driving himself on. He had to link up with the assault team. He had to tell them about the device on the gas pipe. Was he going to kick it off as soon as the team turned up? All Tom knew was what he’d seen and what he’d heard. He didn’t even know if Laszlo was still sticking with the negotiation pantomime, issuing a string of demands and deadlines. All he knew was that if an option went in it could result in disaster. And Laszlo could be right: the explosion might be enough to fracture the tunnel.

But how to intercept the team? He had two options. He could go to the end of the final coach and wait; Keenan and his
mates would take out the PKM position before moving on. Or he could try and get beyond the gun, and intercept the team on their way in.

With four carriages to go, he heard movement above his head, four sets of boots thumping across the linking steel-plate walkway. The sound receded and he carried on.

Tom finally reached the rear of the train. The lighting was good: too good for him to try and get past the PKM. He could see the silhouettes of the two-man team about a hundred metres ahead. But they weren’t sitting or standing, one ready to fire, the other feeding in the link: they were lying prone on the tracks. Unless they were asleep, they were dead. And from what he’d seen of these guys – and their commander – he knew they wouldn’t be sleeping.

Alarm bells started ringing in his head. The four sets of boots . . . The team was already aboard.

91

VATU NEARED COACH
Four and peered through the glass door into the buffet car.

Delphine was gagged and duct-taped on the counter. As soon as she saw him, she made frantic attempts to free herself, moaning and twisting, bucking and shaking her head, but the tape was so tight she barely moved.

Vatu had a job to do – to keep moving and take down whoever and whatever was in his way. Once he’d sorted that, once the attack was going in, he’d come back and sort Tom’s girl. She looked like shit, but she was breathing. She wasn’t bleeding. She was alive.

If it was a trap, he’d soon find out. And then the South Ossetians really would have the mother of all battles on their hands.

Delphine watched in desperation as Vatu piled through the door and the liquid on the floor splashed across the tops of his boots. There was a blinding flash. Sparks flew from the barrel of his Sig and the weapon fell from his hand as if a lightning bolt had erupted from inside his body. He crashed to the ground, collapsing into Laszlo’s supercharged cocktail. His huge, friendly body convulsed and twitched.
Smoke streamed from the wiry hair beneath his hood.

Insulated by the counter, Delphine was numb with shock. Stock still, she stared in horror. This was the first time she’d seen a human die. And he’d died horrifically, in excruciating pain. This wonderful, generous, invincible giant of a man had been transformed in the space of a few seconds into a smouldering corpse.

The rest of Blue team were close behind. Jockey got straight on the net. ‘All call-signs, go! Go! Go! All call-signs, go! Go! Go!’