James Barrington - Overkill

‘I’d like a helicopter,’ he said.

‘Where and when?’ Lacomte asked.

‘As soon as the boffins have finished, to fly me to Reims to catch the Tornado. My guess is it will take them at least a couple of hours, but I’d like it on standby here sooner than that.’ Lacomte nodded and rattled off instructions in French to the radio operator beside him.

Colin Dekker walked over and stuck out his hand. ‘We’re off,’ he said. ‘It’s seven forty, so we’re leaving for Reims now. I wouldn’t,’ he added, ‘want to miss the Hercules and all the fun down south.’ Lacomte and Richter shook his hand.

‘Have a good trip,’ Richter said. ‘I hope I’ll reach Gib about the same time you do, but I’ll definitely be there well before the assault.’

As the Transit drove out of the rest area and headed south for Reims, Lacomte radioed the gendarmes at the Chambry junction and ordered them to escort it to Reims airport. Lacomte and Richter walked over to the lorry to check on progress. The professor was directing operations from behind, in the best military tradition.

‘How’s it going?’ Lacomte asked.

Dewar turned round and looked at him. ‘Difficult to say,’ he said. ‘We’ve identified three anti-handling devices so far, and I suspect there’ll be at least one more. When we’ve disabled those we’ll be able to get at the weapon.’

‘Time is very short, Professor. Can you give me any idea how long this will take?’

‘No,’ he snapped. ‘We’re working as fast as we can, and we won’t be helped by you two standing there asking stupid questions.’

Lacomte started to speak, but Richter took his arm and moved him away. ‘Better we leave them to it,’ he said.

One of the radio operators walked over to Lacomte and passed him a message. ‘Things are moving,’ Lacomte said. ‘The Hercules left Northolt a few minutes ago, and its estimate for Reims is eight fifteen. Your helicopter is on its way from the Gigènes ’ base at Maisons-Alfort, and should land here in about twenty minutes. Finally, your Tornado is flight-planned out of RAF Honington and that will reach Reims no later than eight thirty our time.’

‘Good, and thank you,’ Richter said.

‘I’m out of here, Paul,’ John Westwood said, walking over to Richter. ‘I’m going back to Paris now, then on to London. From there, I don’t know. It all depends on what happens down in Gibraltar, I guess, so good luck.’

‘Thanks,’ Richter said, shaking his hand. ‘I think I’m going to need it.’

10 Downing Street, London

‘The London weapon has been stopped in France, Prime Minister,’ Sir Michael Geraghty began, as he walked into the private office at number 10 Downing Street. ‘There were no casualties on our side, and the operation was entirely successful.’

‘Excellent news,’ the Prime Minister said, rubbing his hands and looking cheerful.

‘It isn’t all good news, unfortunately,’ Geraghty went on. He had been briefed by Simpson about Gibraltar only minutes earlier. ‘The architects of this scheme have arranged a demonstration of the weapon’s power in Gibraltar, and we are racing to disarm the device before it can be detonated.’

The Prime Minister sat down, and motioned Geraghty to a chair. ‘Explain, please.’

‘There is a Russian ship there, Prime Minister, called the Anton Kirov ,’ Geraghty began, and reached into his briefcase for his notebook.

Autoroute A26, vicinity of Couvron-et-Aumencourt, France

It was nearly nine thirty before the Aldermaston team finally completed the disarming of the weapon, and Dewar beckoned Richter over. ‘All done,’ he said. ‘Sorry it took so long, but we obviously didn’t want any accidents.’

‘Quite,’ Richter replied. ‘Will it take me as long with the Gibraltar weapon?’

Dewar shook his head firmly. ‘It shouldn’t do. Our main problem was not knowing how all the anti-tamper devices were rigged. You should be able to disable the other weapon in about ten minutes. Now, come with me and I’ll show you.’

They climbed into the back of the lorry and looked at the Russian bomb. It was much smaller than Richter had expected, and didn’t look like a bomb at all. The outer steel box was about ten feet long, four feet high and five wide. At one end of it were three large lead-acid batteries, wired in parallel, while the weapon itself was a virtually invisible three-foot-diameter cylinder underneath a tangle of wires and cables in the centre of the box.

‘Right,’ said Dewar. ‘The first thing is the bank of batteries. Do not under any circumstances disconnect those, as they power the anti-tamper devices. If you interrupt the power supply, all four circuits are made simultaneously, and the explosive charge will detonate. It won’t,’ he added, ‘trigger the bomb, but you won’t be around to appreciate it.’

He pointed at the mass of cables. ‘You have to cut the following seven wires, in this sequence,’ he said, and gave Richter a sheet of paper on which he had written the colour coding of the wires, and the order in which they were to be severed.

‘And that disarms the bomb?’ Richter asked.

‘Of course not,’ Dewar said, shaking his head. ‘That just means you can shift all this crap—’ he gestured at the wires ‘—and see the weapon. Now watch.’ He bent down and undid four butterfly nuts, then lifted out a large aluminium plate in the centre of which was a sealed box and around the box most of the wiring. ‘The box,’ he said, ‘contains about four kilos of plastic explosive, but once the wires are cut there’s no further danger from it.’ He put the plate down carefully on the floor beside the box, and they both looked inside again.

‘This weapon,’ he began, ‘wasn’t armed. That is to say, the firing circuits and all the other components are present, but the connections hadn’t been made. I presume that this would have been done once the weapon had been finally positioned.’ He pointed at a black plastic box with eight cables emerging from it. ‘This box is the link to the power supply. The weapon can be powered either by a mains supply – one hundred and ten or two hundred and forty volts alternating current, or by a twelve-volt direct current from a battery pack like the one in this container. In fact,’ he continued, ‘we believe it would normally be powered by the mains with the battery pack as a standby, as the circuitry incorporates a battery charger.

‘Now listen carefully. When you look at the weapon in Gibraltar, you will probably see a cable entering the box, just here.’ He pointed. ‘That will be the power supply. Again, as with the anti-handling devices, don’t interfere with it. This weapon doesn’t incorporate any kind of timing device, so we assume that it can only be detonated by an external signal of some sort.’

‘That is what we have been told,’ Richter assured him.

‘The trigger,’ Dewar said, ‘is here – this black cylinder with the four leads attached to it. On the Gibraltar weapon, there will also be one or more other wires which will be attached to whatever radio or communications device they are using to actuate it.’

Richter looked where he was pointing. The cylinder was about six inches in diameter and a foot long, and stuck at right angles out of the centre of the cylindrical bomb casing. ‘Do not attempt to disconnect or interfere with any of these leads. The only safe way to disarm the weapon is to physically remove the trigger.’

He looked at Richter. ‘Are you good with your hands?’

‘I hope so,’ Richter said.

‘So do I, because if you cock this bit up there’ll be a sodding great bang and most of Gibraltar will disappear. You,’ he added, ‘will be the first to know about it.’ Dewar wasn’t smiling. ‘The trigger is held in place by six Allen bolts – or rather Russian variants of them. These look like normal Allen bolts, with recessed hexagonal sockets in the heads, but differ in one important way. They have a left-hand thread, instead of the usual right-hand. That means that to undo the bolts you turn them clockwise.’