Simon Kernick - Ultimatum

‘Only the core members of the team know the guy exists. I shouldn’t even be discussing him with you.’

‘Come on, Mike. I’ve helped you today. I know we had a lucky escape, but don’t shut me out. We make a good team. You know that.’

She was right and, even after what had happened earlier with Brozi, it still felt good to Bolt to be working with Tina again.

He gave her a brief rundown of what Jones had been doing, without divulging his ID or any details that might help her put a name to him. ‘I gave him two GPS units this morning and I got Nikki to switch them on three quarters of an hour ago. Last time I spoke to her they were both still together.’

‘So why don’t we get surveillance units on to them?’

‘On what grounds? I don’t know who the units are with, and I won’t know until I get hold of the informant, but he’s not answering his phone. I called HQ and the commander told me to hold back until we know more. There’s not much else we can do.’

He took a gulp of freezing cold coffee and pulled a face.

‘Want another one?’ asked Tina, pointing to his cup.

‘Please,’ he said, aching for something stronger.

As she left the room, Bolt stared back through the mirror to where Brozi was answering ‘No comment’ to yet another question. It was at times like this, he thought, that even something as extreme as torture would be justified. It wouldn’t take long. A man like Brozi would break in minutes. Bolt had seen his kind before, full of bravado when faced with police officers forced to abide by stringent rules, but a coward at heart. It upset him that he could even countenance a thought like this, but he was exhausted and frustrated.

His mobile rang, and he checked the caller ID. It was a landline he didn’t recognize, but he picked up anyway, more in hope than expectation.

Jones’s voice came on the line, tense and breathless. ‘There’s a Stinger missile in circulation. Cain’s got it.’

Bolt took an instinctive breath. The shock was immense but he knew he had to stay calm. ‘Where is he now?’

‘I don’t know. He left us about twenty minutes ago, but I left a GPS in the front of his car, and another on the box with the Stinger in it. So you should be able to track it.’

‘How come you waited so long to call?’

‘It would take too long to explain now.’

‘Christ … Whereabouts are you?’

‘In a pub in Stoke Newington, not far from home.’

‘Do you have any idea how he’s planning to use it?’

‘No, but I can give you the make and registration of the car Cain’s driving, in case the GPS batteries run out.’

Bolt pulled a notebook and pen from his back pocket. There were a hundred other questions he wanted to ask Jones but there was no time for any of them. He needed to get off the phone and find that missile.

‘OK. Stay where you are. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.’

‘I need protection, Mike. If Cain finds out I talked to you, I’m a dead man.’

‘Don’t worry, there’s no way we’re going to be going public with this. By the time things start to happen, I’ll have pulled you out and sorted protection. I’ve got to go.’

He ended the call, and immediately called Nikki Donohoe back at the office. She picked up on the second ring.

‘Where are the GPS units right now?’ he asked her.

There was a short pause while she checked. ‘They’ve split up. One’s just passed through the Elephant and Castle roundabout and is heading north on St George’s Road towards Lambeth and Westminster Bridge.’

‘Jesus. Towards Parliament?’

‘In that direction, yes.’

‘What about the other?’

‘It’s in Bermondsey. On a place called Gowland Street, just off Tower Bridge Road. And it appears to be stationary. It looks from Google Earth like there’s a set of lock-up garages running parallel to the street, and it’s in one of them. I’m just checking but I don’t think the area’s covered by CCTV.’

Bolt’s heart was racing. Finally they were in the game, but the problem was, he had no idea which of the two GPS units was with the Stinger.

‘Get on to HQ straight away, Nikki, and tell them the exact locations of the two units. One of them, and I don’t know which one it is, is stuck to a box containing a Stinger missile. We need to scramble arrest teams and ARV units. I don’t care what it takes. We’ve got to get hold of this thing and take it out of circulation. I’ll call the commander.’

‘I’m on it,’ she said with the calm tone he’d learned to expect from her.

‘What’s up?’ asked Tina, coming back into the room with the coffees.

‘Leave the coffee, we’re out of here,’ said Bolt, checking the location of Gowland Street on his phone. ‘I’ll tell you about it in the car.’

18.45

The central atrium of HMP Westmoor’s Central Wing was busy with prisoners enjoying the chance to socialize for an hour after supper before they were locked in their cells for the night, as Devereaux approached the table-tennis table, head down, flanked by two other lifers.

One of the lifers bumped shoulders with another prisoner, and as he turned round to remonstrate, the lifer slammed him bodily into the table-tennis table, knocking it on to its side. One of the other prisoners who’d been playing yelled something and Devereaux went for him, throwing a punch that sent him sprawling into another group of prisoners sitting at a table playing cards. They were up on their feet in an instant, charging into the fray as the aggression that always simmered beneath the surface in closed male environments suddenly erupted.

That was all it took. A single nudge, and within seconds more than a dozen prisoners were involved in a messy, swirling brawl, while three dozen more either tried to get out of the way or closed in to watch.

Such was the speed with which everything happened that the two closest prison officers were caught completely by surprise. For a few seconds they simply stared at the scene erupting in front of them. Then they blew their whistles in unison and moved to break things up.

Two things stopped them before they’d reached the melee. First, Devereaux — a man who scared the shit out of all but the hardest of the screws at the best of times — yanked one of the legs free from the table-tennis table and screamed an unintelligible but bloodcurdling battle cry. Then, waving the table leg above his head, he ran at the screws, a look of such intense fury beneath the skull tattoo that it looked as if his eyes were going to pop out of his head.

Second, Wahid Khan, a convicted drug dealer and gangland torturer with anger management issues, emerged from his cell on the first floor carrying a flaming mattress which, with a roar, he sent hurtling into the safety netting below. Afterwards he would state that he was simply caught up in the moment, but the fact that he’d managed to set fire to his bedding within seconds of the violence starting meant his claim was treated with scepticism during the subsequent investigation.

Most of the screws, unused to such a general challenge to their authority but recognizing the volatility of the situation, ran for their lives, an act that immediately sent the prisoners into a euphoric frenzy as they saw how easy it was to take charge. The TV was smashed, as was the table-tennis table, and chairs that had been screwed to the floor to prevent them being used in just such a disturbance were ripped from their fittings and flung at the two screws who were still in their midst, and who’d been joined by two more from the other end of the wing. But only four strong, they were hopelessly outnumbered by the prisoners and they too retreated rapidly, shouting into their radios, as the alarm sounded across the prison.