Here Be Dragons: A Short Story (7 page)

All the men in his boat have guns in their hands, although he sees they are holding them close to their bodies, or pointing downwards, just in case someone is watching from the bank.

Lacey’s eyes flicker his way but she doesn’t let on that she knows him. Neither does Uncle Fred who is still at the helm. The other two constables on board the police RIB are men whom Joesbury doesn’t know.

‘Moor up, we’re coming on board. Back on your feet, jackass, hold the boat steady.’

Joesbury gets up and takes the wheel. At a grim nod from Fred, Lacey and one of the other constables throw lines across and the two RIBs are secured together.

‘Stay in neutral, son, I’ll hold us in the water.’ Fred looks directly at Joesbury, who nods back. Two boats with engines this powerful could tip over if not handled properly. Fred will need to hold them in position and stop them drifting for as long as they are roped together.

Assaf and Malouf have already scrambled on board the Marine Unit boat.

‘This is a very serious offence, guys.’ Fred isn’t going quietly. ‘And if I don’t contact base in the next couple of minutes to tell them everything’s fine, we’re going to have a lot of company out here.’

‘Shut it, or your boy gets it between the eyes.’ Haddad points his gun at Joesbury.

They cannot know about the connection between him and Fred. And yet something tells him that, bad though the situation may be, there is worse to come.

‘Officer.’ Assaf is speaking to one of Lacey’s fellow constables. ‘Can you and your colleague here kindly board our boat?’

‘What’s going on?’ one of them wants to know.

Fred calls from the helm, ‘Do what he says, Josh. You too, Rory. Take care, both of you.’

What’s going on is a swapping of personnel, a hijack, the occupants of each boat being moved on to the other. Lacey is about to climb aboard the terrorist boat. Her eyes are wide and her jaw-line tight with tension. Cool as ever, though, she doesn’t even glance at Joesbury as she steps up towards the rim of the police RIB.

‘Not you, Miss. Stay where you are, please.’

No, Lacey has to be on this boat, where she has a chance of being safe in a few minutes.

‘Jackass, over you go. Take the wheel.’

Joesbury crosses on to the Marine Unit RIB, grasping Lacey’s hand briefly, as if for balance, and then takes the helm from Fred. Haddad follows, leaving Safar and the two constables on board Rich’s RIB. First Fred, then Lacey is made to crouch in the bow of the police RIB whilst their wrists and ankles are bound with duct tape. Tape is stretched across their mouths. There is a tarpaulin next to them. Throw that over the top and no one will know they are there.

‘These two will just slow us down,’ Joesbury tries. ‘Put them on the other boat.’

Assaf raises his gun and aims at the boat they’ve just vacated. He fires twice. Constable Rory’s head bursts apart like a ripe fruit. Constable Josh takes a shot in the neck and collapses down out of sight.

‘Are you sure?’ Assaf says.

THE CAPTURED BOAT
makes its way upriver towards Westminster. Tower Bridge is behind them now.

The colour of the sky is deepening, its eggshell blue becoming turquoise, deeper on the horizon, with a hint of the indigo to come.

The air around the RIB seems to have become heavier. Joesbury can feel the weight of it pressing him down.

The whole of London might be on the river tonight. Every riverside pub and café overflows with sunburned bodies. People sit on the river wall or walk along the embankments, watching the craft on the river.

The radio crackles into life. ‘MP to Marine Six, can we have an update on your situation?’

Assaf taps Joesbury on the shoulder. ‘You know what to say. One mistake and your girlfriend and uncle will suffer.’

Joesbury feels fear creep around his heart the way a snake coils about a tree branch, but he makes himself stare vacantly at their two trussed prisoners. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen these people before—’

‘We know exactly who you are, Detective Inspector Joesbury, we know about your familial relationship with Frederick Wilson and your romantic involvement with Constable Lacey Flint. Do exactly as we say for the next thirty minutes and no harm will come to any of you. Depart from my instructions for a second and I will shoot first of all your uncle, then the woman you love. Am I making myself clear?’

Fred’s eyes close briefly; Lacey’s gaze hasn’t wavered.

‘MP to Marine Six, what’s going on out there? I need a response, Marine Six.’

Joesbury picks up the transmitter. ‘Marine Six to MP, we’re good here, thanks. We hailed a vessel in difficulties, offered what assistance we could and sent them on their way. We’re proceeding upriver now as previously instructed.’

‘Thanks for that. MP out.’

And that’s the final piece in the puzzle of why the gang need him. Not just for his boat-handling skills, not just for his knowledge of the river, but also because his voice, over the radio, will be just about indistinguishable from that of his uncle.

As they near Southwark Bridge, Joesbury wants only one thing. To find the cunt who betrayed him and cut out his tongue. His boss? No, he’d stake his life on Philips being sound. Beenie then. Rage fills him and for a second he feels he might lose it completely, but in the bow of the boat, Lacey’s calm, hazel-blue eyes never leave him and he holds it together.

A pleasure cruiser is steaming down the centre channel, probably heading for Greenwich. As it draws close, Assaf throws the tarpaulin over Fred and Lacey. The passengers in the pleasure craft will see a Marine Unit RIB with five uniformed officers on board. Several of them wave as the two boats draw level, no doubt seeing the young, predominantly dark-skinned crew and thinking how encouraging it is that the Metropolitan Police are finally embracing ethnic diversity. Haddad waves back.

Millennium Bridge.

Twenty-two minutes to go.

Blackfriars Bridge. Lacey moves restlessly beneath the tarpaulin.

‘Get that cover off them. If they suffocate under there, your bargaining power sinks without a trace.’

Assaf nods his permission, and the tarpaulin is dragged off Fred and Lacey. Fred is bright red; even Lacey looks unhealthily pink. Both are breathing heavily. Both are beginning to look very scared.

Enough is enough. Joesbury speaks up.

‘Fellas, I have no idea where I’m going. I need to do exactly what this crew have been instructed, report in when they’re expected to, or the game’s up.’

At a nod from Assaf, Malouf crouches down and pulls the tape off Fred’s mouth.

Fred sucks at a spot on his lower lip where the skin has been removed by the tape. ‘We’re heading up towards Westminster,’ he says. ‘We’re covering the south bank, expecting big crowds tonight. Then we’re going to cover the exclusion zone while a reception takes place on the House of Commons terrace.’

Joesbury knows that Fred isn’t telling them everything. Fred has always been a crap poker player.

Assaf isn’t convinced either. He aims a kick, catches Joesbury’s uncle on the hip. ‘And the rest. We already know, by the way. This is for the new skipper’s benefit.’

‘That’s all we’ve got. We were told we’d get further instructions once we’re in the vicinity of Westminster.’

Assaf bends down, and with a small knife he’d had concealed in a pocket, cuts the tape fastening Lacey’s hands. He pulls her left hand out, pins it down on the floor of the RIB and presses the knife blade against her index finger.

‘Fred!’ Joesbury yells.

‘OK, OK!’ Sweat is breaking out on Fred’s forehead. ‘At 20.30 hours, we go across the river to Waterloo Pier. We pick up two passengers and their escorts and take them back to the House of Commons to meet their mother.’

Waterloo Pier is directly below the London Eye. Two passengers, important enough to have escorts and be driven across the river by a Met police boat? To meet their mother.

Oh no. Oh shit, no.

He can’t quite picture the President’s daughters but knows they were two little girls on the day their father entered office. They’ll be older now, but not much.

Two young girls, in the hands of men like these.

They pass beneath London Bridge and Joesbury can see the London Eye. Never before has it looked menacing.

Westminster is the next bridge. They are just minutes away. The Thames flows endlessly towards them, its frothy, gold-tipped waves bouncing playfully amongst the pleasure boats and working vessels.

How could he have got it so wrong? There will be no big distraction. No fire on the bridge. No plans to storm the Palace of Westminster. No gunfight. No high-speed escape upriver.

Just an unspeakable crime against two little girls.

‘So what are we talking? Murder or kidnap?’

Whatever they’re planning, no one answers him.

There are long queues to get on the London Eye tonight but one capsule, just lifting away from the landing stage, seems emptier than the others. Joesbury can see men in suits, but he’s probably just imagining the two small, slim figures with dark hair and bright summer dresses in their midst.

And across the river, a woman holds a pair of binoculars to her eyes, watching her daughters, without a clue that she might never see them face to face again.

The RIB leaves the warm sunlight behind to pass beneath the shadow of the bridge and emerges into an evening that, in Joesbury’s head at least, has turned very dark. Seventeen minutes to go until the pick-up.

Around him, Joesbury sees the terrorists assuming positions. Haddad fixes binoculars on the terrace. Malouf has a similar pair directed towards the giant wheel, no doubt focusing on one particular capsule slowly making its way towards the top.

‘I can see her. She’s watching,’ says Haddad.

‘I’ve got them,’ says Malouf.

Assaf takes a mobile phone in a bright turquoise flotation case from his pocket and looks at the screen. Only Kouri is watching Joesbury now, but neither his gaze nor his gun wavers.

Fourteen minutes until they have to set off for the Eye pier, to be waiting for the two girls as they leave the capsule. Except this thing isn’t happening in fourteen minutes. It’s happening now. The four men are trembling with tension.

And there are still three members of this gang whom Joesbury has yet to meet. Three men who have spent months infiltrating the House of Commons staff; who are there now, waiting. This cannot just be about kidnapping the two girls and racing upriver with them.

He looks at Lacey and Fred, as though either of them might have the answer, and looks away again quickly. Her hands free now, Lacey has edged closer to Fred and is trying to loosen his hands too. He can tell from the way they are sitting tight together, from the jerking movements her shoulders are making as she concentrates hard on a task that is taking place behind her back. Whilst there’s a chance they can get free, he must not draw any attention to them.

Just him, then.

Joesbury thinks back to the night on the river, holding the RIB in exactly this spot. He remembers eyes flicking backwards and forwards, from the palace to the – what? He’d assumed the gang was planning a distraction on the bridge.

He looks that way now, but beyond the bridge, to the Eye. They weren’t looking at the bridge the other night, they were looking at the Eye. Something is going to happen to the London Eye.

Beenie’s words, treacherous, but maybe with a grain of truth.
Mate, these guys have been working on this for months.

Assaf looks at his watch, at the display on the mobile phone. His hands are trembling. These guys are waiting for something to happen to the Eye.

A suicide bomber would never get through Security, would never get anywhere near the capsule the girls are in. The wheel itself is an incredibly strong structure, it would take a massive explosion at ground level to have a hope of impacting on the capsules and, besides, the girls are drawing closer to the top, getting further from the ground with every second.

Joesbury closes his eyes, praying for inspiration. He opens them and stares at his hands, white with tension, on the steering wheel.

He remembers Beenie again, trying to throw him off track with talk about destroying the barrier.
Relatively small explosives at the most vulnerable point of each lift mechanism.

If you want to take something out, you attack its weakest point.

The wheel, though, is a structure with no obvious weak point. A wheel is a construct of equal strength around its entire circumference. How do you attack a wheel?

You break it away from its column.

Exert enough force and the wheel in his hands would break away from the column holding it to the boat, becoming useless. He turns back to the Eye. A modest explosion in the spindle that fixes the wheel to its supporting uprights would rupture the connection.

This is something they’ve been planning for months.

The structure will be maintained regularly. Engineers will have access to the spindle. The explosives could have been left in it months ago. The man at his side, with his eyes trained on the capsule that is just about to reach the highest point, is about to dial the combination on his phone and trigger the explosion.

Joesbury has never thought as fast before in his life.

When the spindle is compromised, the weight of the wheel and its thirty-two capsules will be too great for the restraining wires to hold. The wheel will fall, probably quite slowly at first, because the wires will snap one at a time, but inevitably, because no force on earth could halt that propulsion once it begins. The wheel will fall and hit the surface of the river.

Lacey gives a tiny, almost imperceptible jerk, and he sees a flash of triumph in her eyes. Fred is free. Both of them can move now, although their ankles are still bound. Sweat is pouring down Joesbury’s back.

When the wheel hits the river, one of two things will happen. Either it will sink immediately and those people who aren’t killed in the fall will drown long before emergency services can cut them free. Or – and this is quite possibly the worst of the two alternatives – the wheel will stay afloat for a while and will drift off downstream. Its slow passage down the river will be witnessed by thousands of people on the banks, and millions around the world as the footage is inevitably captured, and the slow deaths of hundreds of people will be watched by the entire planet.