State Of Emergency: (Tom Buckingham Thriller 3) (32 page)

Whoever had occupied it most recently had fitted an intercom. He pressed it and waited. Nothing. The night was still and very cold, and it looked as if more snow was coming. There were several things that could have preyed on his mind, like the whereabouts of his father, and Mandler, and just what the hell he was getting into. But none of that was useful.

He buzzed a second time. Still no answer. There was no point in freezing out there, so he got back into the Range Rover to wait. A pick-up appeared, coming towards the gates from the inside. It pulled up and two men in jeans, Rab Summit jackets and Gore-Tex boots got out. He recognized them straight away from the Invicta campus: Morton and Sharp, relatively recent recruits, unlike Randall and Evans, ex-infantry fitness freaks who specialized in Iron Mans and other such modern forms of voluntary torture.

Tom nodded at them. ‘Evening, all.’

They opened the gates. ‘Go straight up to the house. The boss is waiting for you.’

The drive was bordered by tall poplars, several of which had fallen. Claimed by the ivy and bramble that had taken charge of the verges they looked like strange, camouflaged defences. Parked in front of the grim-looking Victorian pile were two people-carriers and the Mercedes G-Wagen. What also caught his attention, parked well away from the house and visible only by its own interior lights, was an executive type white helicopter, an S-76.

As he came up to the house an outside light went on and a door opened. It was Hanson, the warden. He was dressed civilian but practical: strong boots, sweatshirt, cargos, stuff he could easily move about in.

‘Thought you lot were in Dartmoor.’

Hanson gave him a wry look. ‘Some people think we still are.’

‘Why all the cloak-and-dagger?’

‘You’ll see. Come on in.’

They stepped into a big, wood-panelled hall. Through one door Tom could see folding army cots, green nylon with aluminium cross legs, scattered about the place with multi-coloured sleeping-bags crumpled on top. Washing and shaving kits lay next to bergens, along with green body armour, some of it being used as improvised headrests on the cots. Empty mags for both 5.56 assault weapons and 9mm shorts lay beside it or in the pouches attached to the body armour. All that was missing were the weapons but Tom knew where they would be.

From one of the other rooms came the sounds of ten or more men eating off paper plates and drinking from plastic beakers. A black bin-liner was taped around a door handle with a handwritten cardboard sign fixed above it:
All crap in here
.

It was familiar. Tom had been in enough holding areas before an operation to know one. It almost made him feel nostalgic.

Hanson waved him in the other direction. ‘We’ve got a briefing at twenty-one hundred but the boss wants to see you first. He’s set up shop down there.’

Tom followed him along the creaking wood-floored corridor.

In a small side room, Ashton looked up from a desk where he was studying some documents. He got to his feet when he saw Tom. ‘Ah, hello again. Glad you could join us.’

Tom nodded and saw the weapon bundles on the other side of the room: large green nylon roll-outs, a bigger version of the sort of bag a chef would keep his knives in. These held assault weapons and the shorts, the easiest way to move weapons around. The padding protected not only the weapons but, more importantly, the optics. ‘Good to be here.’ He gave Ashton’s hand a firm shake and added a confident smile to show willing.

‘You had no trouble getting away?’

‘I’m not exactly overworked right now.’

Ashton waited for Hanson to leave them, then faced Tom, his face set with a to-business look. ‘So you decided to come after all.’

‘Were you in any doubt?’

‘Well, I did think we might have put you off, what with all the, er, vetting.’ He cracked a faint smile.

Tom grinned. This wasn’t the moment to give him any cause for suspicion. ‘Seemingly not. So, what’s the deal?’

Ashton was still standing. He folded his arms and adopted his trademark addressing-the-troops stance, face stern. ‘Before I get into any detail, understand this. Once I give you the briefing – that’s it. No backing out. No fucking around. You’re in. You got that?’

This was the moment, Tom realized, where he crossed over. If he felt a flicker of doubt he didn’t show it. ‘I don’t do backing out and I don’t fuck about. You should know that by now,’ he said tersely.

The beginnings of a smile twitched at the corners of Ashton’s mouth. ‘Okay. That’s good.’

He sat down and gestured at another chair. Tom tried to scan the documents on the desk as he sat. But Ashton rested his forearms on them and knitted his fingers together. From now on he had to be on high alert, absorbing everything he could, while he could.

‘What you need to know, and I want you to keep in mind all the way through, is that what you’re about to do – there’s a lot of support for it. By that I mean from people who matter, the powers that be, inside Westminster.’ He straightened up in his chair. ‘We’ve got backing in the MoD, high up, same in the Met, in the Civil Service, those who’ve come to the end of the road with the current status quo, who recognize that things can’t go on as they have been any more, that something’s got to change and it has to be drastic.’

‘So what is this, then?’

Ashton shrugged. ‘Call it what you like. I’d call it saving our arses.’ There was a cold gleam in his eyes.

Tom kept his face neutral. ‘And how does Rolt fit into this?’

Ashton leaned back and spread his hands. ‘He’s got the right ideas but, let’s be frank, you know as well as I do, the prime minister only let him get this far so he could save his own political arse. Now the election’s over he’s going to drag his feet on all Rolt’s strategies, and time’s running out.’

‘You’re going to replace the PM with Rolt?’ Tom couldn’t help his tone of surprise.

Ashton pointed at him. ‘
We
are, Tom. Be clear about that.’

Neither of them spoke for a few seconds. Ashton was studying his face to gauge his reaction. ‘You’ll get fine detail on the whole mission when I give my formal orders to the team but your role is very particular.’

‘Okay.’

‘This job is all about stealth. The weapons are just to show we mean business. I very much hope we can get it done without a shot being fired in anger. You’ll all have Tasers to dominate the area if there’s a problem with any of the security round the target. It’s about a show of force, no more than that. If we fuck up in any way, we’re done for. It’ll be the end of Invicta, the end of Rolt. You understand that? There’s no exfil, no second chance.’ He nodded at Tom. ‘But you’ve been there before, haven’t you? You know the score.’

Get to the fucking point
, thought Tom. But it was also time to show Ashton some enthusiasm. He smirked. ‘You bet. So fill me in.’

‘I’m putting you up front on this because Rolt knows and trusts you. He’ll do what you say. He knows your background, knows what you’re capable of. I’ll be honest – it was he who said he wanted you in. In fact, he insisted.’

Ashton was still scrutinizing Tom as if even now he hadn’t made up his mind about him. ‘You came through pretty convincingly the other day. But I’m still not one hundred per cent. I’ve never totally bought you signing up with Rolt. I think you’re too smart for that.’

Tom came straight back. He needed to dispel that notion right now. ‘He helped me after you binned me from the Regiment, remember? I owe him a lot.’

Ashton didn’t even blink. ‘And he thinks he owes you after what you’ve been through dealing with Invicta’s “rogue elements”. You won’t have any more trouble there, by the way. They’ve all been dealt with.’

Yes, thought Tom, and I was just a few metres away at the time when you slotted Evans. It was time to move him on and get some answers. ‘So who’s funding all this?’

‘Supporters.’

It was time to try out a name. ‘Oleg Umarov?’

Ashton’s eyes narrowed. Evidently he wasn’t expecting him to come up with that. ‘You got any problem with him?’

‘I’ve never met the man.’

An unexpected light came into Ashton’s eyes. ‘Well, if you’ve got any doubts you can ask your father when it’s all over. Umarov’s keeping him close by at the moment. Very close.’

Every muscle in Tom’s body tensed. Was this some kind of threat?

Ashton gave him a chilly smile. ‘Let’s say it gives me confidence in you. I know how important your old man is to you.’ He leaned back in his chair and continued: ‘And I gather that if the deal they’re working on goes through, your family’s financial troubles will be over.’ Ashton raised his eyebrows and nodded
. Think about that.

It was clear he wanted Tom to be under no illusion: he had him by the balls.

Not for the first time, but with much more force now, doubt surged through Tom, laced with anger. Here he was, right out on a limb with no safety net, no backup, no Mandler, about to lead a coup against the very government he was working for, with his own father as a hostage. It was an insane situation, and he had walked right into it. He had no one to blame but himself.

Tom kept his face blank. All his time in the Regiment he had harboured suspicions about Ashton. As the boss, he was respected for his commitment and his resilience, but he wasn’t altogether liked, and there were others who felt they could never totally trust him. Tom had never deliberately given Ashton cause to dislike him, but there had always been a lingering hint of doubt. Perhaps it was a chip on his shoulder, an irritation that Tom, a public-schoolboy from a well-heeled background, had not gone the officer route. Perhaps it was because people naturally liked him and Ashton was jealous of that.

But why should Ashton know anything about his father’s business affairs? Tom fought with himself not to react. The surprise visit to his parents didn’t seem so surprising now. He forced himself to ignore the barely veiled threat. Nothing would be helped by an outburst. The more he kept his cool, the more he could focus on what was about to happen.

68

18.30
St James’s Park

Jamal sat in the van in the mews behind Invicta, the plans and notes Isham had given him laid out on his lap. There were the codes to the underground car park, the codes for the lift up to the office floors, and a plan of the rooms where Rolt and Tom Buckingham usually worked. He had photographs of them, of their PA, and of the rest of the staff. Isham was nothing if not meticulous. To Jamal’s intense relief, the offices were empty. All the lights were off and the security screens that protected the windows overlooking the mews were shuttered. Bashar was tapping the steering-wheel, nodding to whatever was coming through his earbuds.

‘Shall I take you to where you’re going to stay?’

Isham had arranged a room for him in a safe house belonging to one of his contacts in Leytonstone.

‘I want to do a proper recce. I need to check out the park in front and find a good place where I can watch the building undisturbed.’

Bashar nodded eagerly, as if he understood exactly what Jamal was talking about. On the journey down from Watford Jamal had done all he could to give his young driver no cause for concern about his precious passenger.

‘The van will become too conspicuous if you hover around here. You can leave me and I’ll make my own way.’

‘But Isham insisted I don’t leave you.’

Jamal gave him a cold look – he was getting quite good at it. ‘
I
am insisting, okay? This is
my
mission. I need to do what I need to do.’ He gave Bashar a fatherly smile. ‘Go on home, and thank you for driving me.’ He offered Bashar his hand. ‘God be with you.’

69

19.00
Monkton Grange

Ashton unrolled a large drone photograph of a stately home, marked up with various colours. Tom recognized the house instantly but said nothing.

‘Chequers. The prime minister’s official country residence.’

Tom’s eyes widened appropriately.

‘Just the cabinet are there, no minions, no mandarins or special advisers. It’s one of the PM’s strategy brainstorms, a.k.a. “What the fuck do we do now?”’ Ashton grinned and poked the photograph with a ruler. ‘Pretty much all you need to know is on here, a complete layout of all the systems and processes.’ He snorted. ‘Courtesy of a Regiment exercise six months ago to test the security. And, of course, all the blind spots where we can do what we need to do.’

Tom peered at the photo, training all his concentration on it.

‘Basically, it’s leaky as fuck. No one acted on our recommendations. They’ve literally done nothing, except add a panic room under the kitchens. Penetrating the perimeter will be a piece of piss.’ He shook his head pityingly. ‘Even with all the aggro going on around the country, all they’ve done is increase the headcount.’

‘What protects it?’

‘Now that the police have enough on their hands on the streets it’s farmed out to contractors, would you believe? Harcore. All their people have done time on diplomatic protection in places like North Africa and Iraq so they’re not knuckle-draggers.’

‘They armed?’

‘Of course.’

‘How many?’

‘Twenty-odd. It can vary, but only by two or three.’

Tom scrutinized the layout, absorbing as much as he could while Ashton continued.

‘As you know, these things are all about speed, aggression and surprise. If it goes to plan, the first thing they’ll know about us is when they’re on the ground with Taser barbs in them, getting plasticuffed.’

‘And if they’re quicker?’

‘Well, that’s the first reason we’re going in bombed up.’

The awful possibilities hung in the air. Ashton lowered his voice. ‘That’s why I’m briefing you separately – because you’re at the front of this. You’ll be going in with the documentation, which is being prepared now – hence you’ll be dressed as you are.’ He nodded in the direction of the hall. ‘The Invicta guys out there, they’ll make sure you get to the PM and deliver the paperwork.’