Rafi and Kate stood at the side of the Ops Room looking on in awe. The Air Chief Marshal’s military machine was an impressive sight. The scale of the operation beggared belief. By early afternoon the last task given to the Wood Street Ops Room in respect of Stratford had been completed and an exhausted Air Chief Marshal handed over to COBRA and the command centre in Wilton, near Salisbury.
Under the watchful eye of the brigadier, the focus of the Ops Room moved back to coordinating the capture of the terrorists.
Rafi became aware that Ewan was standing next to him.
Ewan had a pretty good idea of what was going through Rafi’s mind and put his arm around Rafi’s shoulder. ‘You know, had it not been for your early warning, we would be faced with a catastrophic disaster far bigger than anything we are witnessing. Your forewarning gave the Air Chief Marshal the opportunity to take the unprecedented step of putting the whole UK military machine into a state of readiness a full five and a half hours before the train was hit. Your determination to beat the terrorists has enabled us to have a response time we could never have dared dream of. I know it won’t make you feel much better, but thank you.’
While all eyes were on the unfolding disaster at Stratford, MI5 had been tasked with the surveillance of the two Chechen terrorists who were on the run. Without their Kornet and Vektor missile launchers they no longer posed a serious threat to national security. The PM, in approving the plan to let the terrorists run, had made it crystal clear that if they posed any danger to the public they should be stopped by whatever means necessary. The object of the exercise now was to round up the terrorists, their associates and the ringleaders.
Sergy Kowshaya, fired up by the success of his missile attack at Cruden Bay and his escape from the hail of bullets, had in a well-executed move swapped his motorbike for an elderly car. Unbeknown to him, however, he was being observed. He opted for a circuitous route up the coast to retrieve the Vektor mortar he’d left in the utility van the afternoon before. The van was parked on the grass verge in front of a terrace of cottages, just over a mile to the north-west of the St Fergus gas terminal.
Sergy made good time to the van and, 300 metres short of it, he steered over to the bushes at the side of the road, stopped dead and inspected the scene in front of him. All was quiet. He felt under his leather jacket for his Stechkin automatic pistol. He paused and then continued on his way towards the van. Adrenalin pumped through his veins. He knew he would be vulnerable as he approached the van. If the security services were on the ball, there was the possibility that they could have pieced together the location of his second target. If so, they would be watching the surrounding area like a hawk for all unexplained movements.
He stopped his car in front of the van, pulled out a set of keys from his jacket pocket, walked over and opened the van’s sliding side door. On the floor were two heavy-duty workman’s tool bags. He lifted them up, turned and made for the small gap in the hedgerow a few metres away. He dropped to his knees, opened the first bag and lifted out the Vektor mortar. In moments it was pointing through the gap towards the St Fergus gas facility and storage tanks over the slight hill in the distance. He had already calculated the sets of angles of trajectory and compass settings required in ballistic mode. The missiles would explode above the main gas storage tanks.
In the second tool bag, lying next to the mortar, were twenty missiles. He pulled opened the top of the bag, picked up a missile and, in one fluid movement, dropped it down the barrel of the mortar.
‘Svoloch!’ he swore in Russian. The damn thing had misfired; either the firing pin was damaged – but he’d checked it the day before – or it was a dud missile? If so, there was an outside chance that the missile could go off at any moment. The odds were that it was a dud, but did he want to risk it exploding as he got it out of the barrel?
Sergy then did what he would never have done on the battlefield: he left the mortar where it was, put his hand into a side pocket of his jacket, fished out a small explosive with a timing device, armed it and placed it in the bag with the nineteen remaining missiles. He stood up, returned to his car and left the scene, heading towards a small industrial unit on the outskirts of Peterhead.
He was in contemplative mood; he was €3 million richer after his success at Cruden Bay, but destroying the St Fergus facility would have earned him a further €1 million. He abhorred the sense of failure, but whether he had €3 million or €4 million in the bank made little difference – he was now richer than in his wildest dreams.
Moments after Sergy’s car had disappeared out of sight, the three special services men who had been watching his every move broke cover. They had known that the terrorist would suffer a misfire, as they had removed the firing pin, and had watched Sergy place an explosive in the bag with the missiles. The nearest soldier was seventy-five metres away. He spoke with his commander. It was agreed that the terrorist had left an explosive with a time delay to cover his tracks. It was now time to decide whether to investigate or wait for the big bang. The SAS soldier ran crouching close to the ground. If it had been him, he would have set the device to explode in ten minutes in order to give him time to get well away from the scene.
He opened the bag. His eyes locked on to the small explosive device. It was a small but lethal piece of plastic explosive with a sophisticated timing device. The digital readout showed 0:37. Delicately, he picked it up and walked fifteen paces out into the field, placed it on the ground, turned and ran for cover.
Sergy wound down his window; it was a bitterly cold day and the heater of his old car barely made an impression on the wintry air flooding inside. He heard the dull bang of the explosion; it was far quieter than he’d anticipated. His mind put two and two together. Koit, the Russian bastard, had sold them duds. He wound up the window and thought unspeakable thoughts. Suddenly, not having the full €4 million rankled.
Twenty-five minutes later and still thinking foul thoughts, Sergy arrived at the industrial property that had been his base for the past twenty-four hours.
Away from prying eyes, he swapped his car for an old moped and changed into scruffy sailor’s clothes. Unbeknown to him, the front of the property was being watched. It was on Rafi’s list.
Sergy opened the back door to the industrial unit and left via an overgrown dirt track on a short cut through an adjoining property. He came close to losing those watching him, but as he turned into Catto Drive his moped chugged straight past the nondescript MI5 communications vehicle coordinating his surveillance. Instead of heading straight for the harbour he went to a truckers’ cafe a mile away. Here he consumed a hearty English breakfast washed down with several cups of coffee, read a tabloid newspaper and watched, with pleasure, the awful news on the small television secured to the wall. The team, watching his every move, kept their distance.
Just before noon Sergy paid, got on his moped and headed slowly towards the docks. He counted three police cars with lights flashing pass by. They paid not one jot of interest in him. At the docks, he parked a short distance away from the trawler Northern Rose, went into a warehouse and came out moments later carrying a crate of supplies. He headed towards the trawler and climbed on board as she was slipping her mooring lines.