London-Wood Green, North London 10 August 0414 GMT Chace came around the back way on foot, as instructed, mounting the six steps to the apartment building, hands thrust deep in her windbreaker, head down, pretending to the walk of shame, just in case anyone who shouldn't see her coming did. She'd passed one of Box's surveillance vans almost two hundred meters back, done up to look as if it was on its last legs, and she knew they'd seen her, and that was to the good, because it meant no one would be surprised by her arrival, and that therefore no one would shoot her by mistake.
She was armed herself, an HK P2000 tucked at her waist, and that in and of itself was almost as odd as the errand she'd been sent on. It was a rule broken: Minders did not go armed in London.
But the errand itself broke another rule: SIS and Box do not work together.
It was a big, sad building, late fifties architecture that had forgone aesthetics in pursuit of efficiency, but even that had failed it, and in the cast of the electric lights over the door the masonry had the hue of a smoker's teeth. She pushed through the entrance, out of the night, and into a hallway that was even more poorly illuminated than the world outside. She stopped to let her eyes adjust before continuing down the hall, stepping carefully around the trash in the corridor, food wrappers, empty bottles. A television was playing in one of the apartments she passed and she heard the unmistakably empty passion of a porno.
She ignored the elevator and took the stairs, climbing three flights before stepping onto a landing and orienting herself. The light was marginally better, flickering from a spastic bulb in a fixture halfway along the wall. Chace slowed down, going as quietly as she could. She passed four-twelve, stopped in front of four-fourteen, and didn't knock.
The man who opened the door was dressed in black tactical BDUs, and he motioned her inside without a word. Chace stepped through, then aside, and he closed the door as silently as he'd opened it. He pointed to her, indicated toward the main room, and Chace nodded, following as he led the way.
There were three others just like him, one affixing a fiber-optic cable to the wall with strips of tape he'd stuck to the left thigh of his pants. The other two were crouched around a laptop, their faces lit in green from the light from the screen. All were armed, pistols set in holsters on their legs, MP-5s hanging from the straps at their backs. None of them looked up.
The furniture had been moved to the far side of the room, and Chace could see the naked picture hooks on the wall that adjoined four-twelve, where the Assault Team had taken down the frames. Resting in a corner of the couch, she counted four stuffed animals, heaped haphazardly atop a stack of picture books. One of the toys was a small fat panda bear, with thick, brightly colored pieces of hardened rubber stuck to its hands and feet.
A family's apartment, Chace concluded. One child, young enough to still be teething.
She wondered where they'd been relocated to, and if they had any idea why the Security Services had so covertly and unceremoniously evicted them from their home.
The man guided Chace across the room, pointing down to indicate the coiled power cables and cords, mutely warning her to watch her step, heading for a door opposite the wall to four-twelve. She heard a soft whine, cast a glance back to see that the one who'd been placing the fiber optics was now using a small electric drill to cut a lead hole into the drywall. They'd place charges next.
The man gave her another nod, then left her to go through the next door alone. She did so, stepping into the bedroom and more light than she'd encountered in the last ninety minutes. She hadn't expected it, and it blinded her for an instant, and when her vision came back she was facing a man.
"Fucking hell," David Kinney said softly, and he looked anything but pleased to see her. "You."
"Me, Mister Kinney," Chace said. "How nice to see you again."
Kinney pulled a face, then turned away from her, lifting the radio in his hand to his mouth, whispering a string of orders. He was built of a similar stock as the Deputy Chief, but a larger version, as if Weldon had been the structural test case and David Kinney the final product. In his early forties, straight black wiry hair and a mustache to match, black suit, hands like hammers, he always made Chace think of the stereotypical trade union leader, at least physically. Kinney's position was much like D-Ops's own, except at Box, where he ran Security Service operations in the Counter Intelligence and Counter Terror divisions.
This was most certainly a CT operation. It made sense that Kinney would be here.
But Chace had to wonder why he couldn't have been somewhere else instead, at one of the two other operations running, perhaps, where Poole or Lankford would have had to deal with him instead of her. But she knew the answer as soon as she posed the question; she'd dealt with Kinney before, and the bad blood of that past encounter notwithstanding, Crocker had been obliged to send his Head of Section as a courtesy. Anything else would have been an insult.
Chace waited until Kinney was finished on the radio, then asked, "How many?"
Kinney sucked air through his teeth, as if debating whether or not to tell her. It was against his every instinct to be honest with SIS, just as it was against all of Crocker's to play fair with Box. But tragedy made for strange bedfellows, and for the moment inter-service rivalry had been forced into the backseat, at least for tonight.
"Five," Kinney said. "Three men, two women."
"Armed?"
"That's what we've been led to believe."
"Explosives?"
"Suspected. Not confirmed."
"And they're HUM-AA?"
"That's what our intelligence suggests, yes." Kinney looked at her pointedly. "Unless you have anything to the contrary?"
She shook her head. "Terrorist cells operating in London are your province, not ours."
Kinney started to respond, then seemed to think about what she'd said. He closed his mouth abruptly. Chace continued before he could respond to the slight.
"So we're taking them?"
"We are taking them, yes."
"When?"
"When we're ready. You're here as an observer, Miss Chace, as a courtesy. This is a Box operation, not some Minder shoot-'em-up. We want them alive, for questioning."
"That's a lovely sentiment," Chace said. "Have you shared it with them?"
Kinney held her stare for a second, then turned away, speaking into his radio once more. • Chace moved back into the main room before dawn, settling on the couch to watch the video feed of the action coming in over the laptop. The CT team had finished placing their breaching charge, a snake of explosive that ran in a tall oblong on the wall, roughly half a meter from where the camera had been placed. The detonator sat beside the laptop, a toggle switch with a lead that ran back to the explosive on the wall.
The camera itself could be turned nearly ninety degrees in any direction, controlled by a remote with a thumbstick set in its center, and the image it sent back was remarkably clear for a device so small. Looking into apartment four-twelve was like looking into a mirror image of their own room, at least in terms of dimension and layout. But content was radically different, and there was no question in Chace's mind what all that equipment on the kitchen table was meant to do.
Four-twelve held explosives, and its occupants were building themselves a bomb.
"If there's one, there could be others," Chace said. "We don't know what else is in that apartment."
"The second team drilled through into the bedroom, from four-ten," Kinney retorted. "They've seen nothing but the two women asleep in the bed."
"Where are the men?"
"Out and about. We've got them under surveillance. We'll take them when they get back."
"Out and about at five in the morning? They're scouting locations, Mister Kinney."
"We have them under surveillance. If they try anything, they'll be stopped."
The four men on the CT team had stopped their work, listening to the hushed debate. Chace looked to the man who'd let her into the apartment, the one she took to be the team leader. He shook his head slightly, turned his attention back to the laptop.
"The point is that they're not trying anything yet," Chace whispered. "You wait until all of them are in the apartment, you're giving them a chance to react."
"Miss Chace, you're here as an observer-"
Chace gestured angrily at the laptop screen. "You don't even know if it's armed! For God's sake, Kinney, at least start evacuating the building!"
Kinney clamped his mouth closed, and for a second, Chace thought she could hear his teeth grinding.
"Miss Chace," he said, "if you cannot keep your voice down, I will have one of these men escort you from the scene."
"You want to get blown up?" she demanded.
Kinney leveled a finger at her. "One more word. One more word and you're out. Now, be a nice little girl and sit down, shut up, and mind your own."
Chace bit back the immediate urge to respond, feeling heat climbing down from her neck to her shoulders, feeling the eyes of the four men on the CT team on her again. Normally she could take sexism in stride, but here, now, coming from Kinney, in front of an audience, it infuriated her. She knew why he was opposed to evacuating the building, let alone the floor; it would tip his hand, give the game away, and as far as it went, he was right, it would. His targets might escape, and he wasn't willing to let that happen, especially in the wake of the disaster on the tube only three days gone.
The Security Services were taking it on the chin, and Kinney wanted the big success, to prove that they were still in the game. Hence the three operations in one night, timed to coincide; a message to say, what you did to us, we can do to you.
Chace understood it, right down to the symbolism of Box picking three targets of their own. But looking at the monitor, and on it the view of the kitchen table, of the bomb-in-the-making, it seemed an awful risk to take for the sake of soothing a bruised ego.
Kinney moved forward, bending his mouth to the ear of the CT leader, whispering. The leader glanced at Chace, then back to Kinney, nodding. Kinney returned to her, fingering the radio in his hand.
"I've informed Sergeant Hopton that if you so much as cough, he is to remove you from the site," Kinney whispered at her. "Further, should it be required, he has been directed to take whatever action is required to keep you silent. I'm sure you understand what that means."
Chace stared at him, then mouthed the word "yes" as widely as she could manage. Hopton was watching her, and she caught him looking, and he turned his attention to the laptop once more.
Kinney nodded and slunk back toward the bedroom.
She fumed, leaning forward on the couch, trying to get a better look at the monitor. Hopton shifted to his left, trying to accommodate her view, and that mollified her somewhat. She didn't doubt that he would do as Kinney had directed, but at least he didn't seem happy at the prospect. • At eighteen minutes to six, they blew the wall, and even then, it was almost too late.
Activity started in four-twelve at oh-five-thirty-three, with the return of the three men Kinney had been waiting on. They were all in roughly the same age bracket, mid to early twenties, two of them of indeterminate Middle Eastern origin, the third Caucasian, and Chace could hear them through the thin walls even as she watched their entrance on the video feed. They looked exhausted and nervous, and she thought that was a bad combination. They'd been living in fear since the seventh, she supposed, knowing what the inevitable response to the attacks on the tube would be, knowing that Box would be out in force, bent on finding anyone anywhere who might be a threat.
A justified paranoia, as far as Chace was concerned.
She watched over Hopton's shoulder as the three men removed their coats, dropping them onto the couch in a heap, then headed in different directions-one toward the bathroom, one toward the bedroom, the third, the Caucasian, digging into his discarded coat, where he pulled a small digital camera from its pocket.
Site selection, Chace confirmed for herself. They've been out choosing targets.
The Caucasian had moved to a chair at the kitchen table, and Hopton twisted the knob on his control, turning the camera to keep the man in view. Chace watched as the man opened a laptop computer of his own, booting it up, then attached a cable from the computer to the camera, preparing to upload his photographs.
Chace heard the soft click of the bedroom door opening, Kinney stepping carefully to join them. Chace glanced away from the screen long enough to look the question at him, but Kinney shook his head.
"Not yet," he murmured.
She wanted to scream at him.
"The women," Kinney explained softly. "They're too close to the wall from four-ten. If it's blown they'll get hit in the blast, and we don't want to risk losing them. I want them alive."
Chace rolled her eyes, looked back to the monitor. Hopton was getting to his feet, holding the detonator for the wall-charge in one hand, using hand signals to motion the rest of the team to prepare for their entry. All of the men were moving carefully, quietly, pulling their balaclavas and gas masks into place, swinging their weapons into their hands.
On the monitor, the Caucasian man was bent to the laptop, back to the camera, working.
Then he stopped, and Chace saw the tightening along his back as his head came up, saw him turn his chin, realized he was listening, that he'd heard something.
She felt one of the stuffed animals resting against her thigh where she sat on the couch, reached down for it, brushing the hard rubber of the teething bear with her fingertips.
It wasn't what he was hearing, Chace realized. It was what he wasn't.
"Now!" she hissed to Hopton.
"Chace," Kinney growled.
On the screen, the man had risen from the table, was walking toward the wall, their wall.
"Jesus Christ, do it now!" Chace said. "He knows, dammit-"
Kinney dropped a hand onto Chace's shoulder, already turning to Hopton, snarling, "Get her out, and don't be gentle about-"
She launched herself off the couch, trying to shrug free of Kinney's grip on her shoulder, pleading with Hopton. "He doesn't hear the baby, Sergeant! He knows!"
"Sergeant, get her out of here."
Hopton grimaced. In her periphery, Chace could see the man on the monitor, now at the wall, so close to the camera his image was distorting.
"Clear," Hopton said, and Chace shut her eyes, tucking her head, trying to save her vision from the inevitable flash of the explosion, and even then she could see the light, a searing red that matched the crackling burst of wood and wall. There was a scream, and Hopton shouting, and she opened her eyes to see the CT team pouring into the apartment, stepping over the Caucasian man, twisted on the floor.
Beside her, Kinney was shouting into the radio, telling the other team to go go go, but even as he was saying it Chace heard the second detonation, muffled, and a scream.
The bathroom door opened, and the man inside surged out, pants half-raised, and Chace had just registered the pistol in his hand when one of the CT team shot him.
She pulled the pistol from her waist, stepped through the breach in the wall, coughing as she caught a lungful of atomized debris still hanging in the air. The CT team was already disappearing into the bedroom, and she heard an exchange of fire, two single shots, and the rattle of multiple MP-5s in response.
Behind her, Kinney was shouting that he wanted them alive. Chace didn't know if it was directed at her, the radio, or God above. She didn't much care.
Pistol held low in both hands, Chace followed after the CT team, peering around the doorframe into the bedroom. Blood spattered the wall and ceiling, and she saw the two women, still in the bed, each in their nightclothes, one of them now being dragged free of the sheets by Hopton as another of the CT team readied a set of plasticuffs. The other woman was pitched face forward, as if she'd been sitting and then simply toppled, and past her Chace could see the gap into four-ten, where the explosion had taken the wall. It had also taken the back of the woman's head.
The third man was slumped against the wall, legs splayed, eyes wide.
Chace stepped back and nearly slammed into Kinney as she turned.
"You bitch, you stupid bitch! Look what you've done!"
Past him, on the floor, Chace could see the Caucasian man trying to roll onto his side. The blast had caught the side of his face and chest, and blood bubbled out of him where the shrapnel of the wall had driven through his flesh.
"You've fucking ruined it," Kinney raged. "I wanted them alive! We needed them alive!"
"Two of them are." She indicated the man on the floor with the pistol in her hand. "Though I don't fancy his chances. Shall I put him out of his misery?"
Kinney's face lost all the color that had flooded into it, and he struck at her forearm, trying to get her to lower the pistol. She laughed, tucking the pistol back into her pants.
"You're an evil piece of work," Kinney said, raising his radio again.
"No," Chace told him, heading for the door. "They're evil, Mister Kinney. Me, I'm one of the good guys."