There was a knock on the door, Carla and Max looked alarmed and watched Tim as he went to peer through the spy hole in the door. It was an old woman from next door, in her dressing gown, looking deeply distraught. Tim suspected her seriously ill husband had become worse or had died, so he unlocked the door. The moment the door started to open, three men burst in, bearing guns fitted with suppressors, followed by another man and the old woman.
Both Max and Carla recognized the four men, they were arriving at Bill’s home as Max and Carla left, and passed in the alley at the side of the building.
The four men said nothing but tied their captives’ hands behind their backs with thick plastic zip ties. They sat the old woman down and put duct tape across her mouth, they were not bothered if she told the police about them, because it looked like she might die from shock.
As the captors manhandled Carla, she barged into Max and tripped him up. He fell on the table, knocking the wine and glasses onto the carpet. He rolled over on his back, there was a crunch of glass, then he sat up looking dazed, rubbing the pit of his back. Max was pulled to his feet by another man.
Three men roughly shoved Max, Carla and Tim to the door, and the other picked up Tim’s laptop computer, and they all exited the flat.
***
The night attendant in the entrance lobby was missing; they had overpowered him when they came in and hid the body. They also emptied the high resolution video equipment of media.
Early morning rays of sunlight were breaking through the overcast sky, but with no one around, the kidnapping went unseen, except for the driver of the ubiquitous white van. He started the vehicle and drove quietly towards them, everyone bundled into the back, the doors closed and it sped off.
Max, Carla and Tim lay face down on the dirty metal floor, so they could not see where they were, but to them it felt like the route was circular. Probably the men were checking for a tail, or just confusing their captives about their location.
The journey took just ten minutes, ending when the van reversed up a short driveway to a modern detached house. It was built tightly between older Victorian properties on either side. As soon as a passing car had driven by, the three were ushered at gunpoint through the side entrance of the house, into a kitchen.
Judging by the fast food cartons littering the room, unwashed cups and plates on the draining board, this is where the four men had been staying, for some time.
They pushed their captives into the hall and upstairs, into the surprisingly large and tidy main bedroom. There was a made up double bed, a small desk and chair, and a bathroom in one corner. It was probably Ruhab Gupta’s room.
Gupta plugged the computer into the mains socket and a router, to connect to the internet, and woke it from sleep mode.
With an air of self-satisfied confidence, Gupta lit a cigarette and sat down at the desk. He held a gun fitted with a suppressor, while the other three searched Carla, Max and Tim. Apart from the DVD that Carla had, they found nothing of interest on them.
“What’s on the DVD? demanded Ruhab Gupta as he inserted it into the computer. Carla had decided to be as cooperative as possible, the longer they stayed alive and uninjured, the better their chances of escape. She knew the men would kill them when they were no longer of any use, but not here. Noise, blood spatter and the removal of dead bodies is something they would avoid. The van would transport them, to be shot in some isolated place, away from here.
“A client of ours was being blackmailed by the family of a jeweler. We traced a girl to the Jeweler’s home, but you men got there and killed the whole family. We discovered where the data was stored, found the file and erased it. We just put a copy on the DVD for our client, so he had proof of the recording.”
Gupta watched bits of the recording and listened to the conversation, he was satisfied it was nothing to do with his plot.
“I presume you too are being blackmailed and want to remove all traces of the recording. If you tell me the date of the incident and the room number, I will get the record for you, you can delete it permanently.” Carla thought that by mixing misinformation with truth, the story should prove convincing.
Ruhab Gupta stared at the girl, her calmness and apparent indifference to her situation made him wary. He then studied the faces of Max and Tim, they also appeared unperturbed.
“So, you have got all you came for, on the DVD?” Gupta affirmed.
“Yes, we are not interested in anything else, we are professionals, and this is all we will get paid for” Carla replied.
“Look up the 13th, room 236.” Gupta commanded.
“I will need my hands free to type.” Carla replied. One of the men cut the plastic tie.
“Do you mean this month?” Carla questioned, she did not want to appear familiar with the date he had in mind.
“Yes” Gupta replied as a slight smile crossed his face. ‘Perhaps they do not know about the incident, if so, we will have contained the breach,’ he thought. ‘We can safely dispose of these three and end the matter.’
Carla typed and recovered the record; she looked up and spoke to Gupta. “I don’t want to know what you are mixed up in so you can take it from here.”
Gupta sat down and studied the video, not attempting to lower the volume, everyone in the room could hear. It was not a good omen!
***
Carla sat back down between Tim and Max. She felt for the shard of glass Max had slipped between his belt and waistband, when he deliberately fell on the wine glass back in the flat. She sliced into the plastic tie and Max felt the plastic break. Then he passed the glass back to Carla, so she could cut Tim free.
She leaned forward and spoke politely to Gupta. “I need to use your toilet please.”
He pointed towards the bathroom but said nothing. Carla walked over to the room and went in, closing the door behind her. There was a toilet on the left, a vanity unit on the right and between them, a pressed steel bath along the back wall. The room had no window, just an extract fan that started up and rumbled like a diesel engine, when she pulled the light cord.
She looked at the array of men’s personal products in the cupboard and on the glass shelf over the basin. The unused deodorant spray would serve her purpose; she released the travel catch and tested the spray. There was also an almost full, glass bottle of cheap cologne. She slipped both items under her belt, so the back of her jacket covered them.
Mulling over what was to come, she then flushed the toilet.
She strode out into the bedroom, directly towards Gupta as he felt for another cigarette, in the packet on the desk. She paused while he lit up and drew on it heavily. The cigarette end glowed brightly, better than she could have hoped.
“You have got what you want, now let us go!” she demanded as a distraction.
***
Gupta looked up at Carla, in surprise.
In a blur of movement, she pulled out the deodorant in her right hand, directing the spray at the glowing cigarette tip, straight into Gupta’s face. The inflammable propellant ignited in a long jet of flame, engulfing his head, instantly searing his skin and temporarily blinding him. She turned the jet into the faces of the other three men, causing them to stumble awkwardly back through the open door onto the landing, while struggling to pull out their pistols.
Max and Tim leapt up and snatched the gun from Gupta, pistol-whipping him to the floor. Max picked up the DVD for Robert and pocketed it.
Carla threw the bottle of cologne on the carpeted floor of the landing. She was about to stamp hard on it, to smash the thick glass bottle, but Tim shot at it. She ignited the fluid from her mini flame thrower and the alcohol content exploded in a loud whoomp! The rapidly developing flame filled the width of the narrow landing in an instant, driving the three retreating men, back further towards the stairs. Scorched by the blast, Carla dashed back into the bedroom and slammed the door. The men on the landing fired a fusillade of bullets blindly through the flame and door, but fortunately, no one was hit.
The shots stopped and before the men could barge open the timber-paneled door, Tim wedged a bedroom chair under the handle, although he knew it would only slow the men down by seconds, when they tried to smash their way in.
How could they escape, trapped in the first floor bedroom? A glance out of the window filled them with horror; there was a fully glazed conservatory below. There was no escape that way!
Max ran into the bathroom and saw it had no window. He stood on top of the low flush cistern, and hammered frantically at the ceiling with his fist. Based on the give and the sound, he located the space between the ceiling joists, and punched a hole through.
He tore at the flimsy plasterboard and ripped a hole large enough to squeeze through. Tim and Carla joined Max in the bathroom, leaving Gupta, still unconscious on the floor.
“Carla, bring in all the bed sheets, I will use them as a rope,” directed Max.
The men on the landing had leapt through the flame and were breaking down the bedroom door. Tim fired a round through the door, to hold them back a few moments more.
After throwing the sheets up to Max, he pulled Carla up into the loft in a single lift, as though she were a child. He told her to feel her way in the darkness, across to the other side of the house, and push through the tiled roof covering, as close to the bottom as she could.
Tim ripped the handle from the bathroom door, so it could not be opened easily, and he slid the flimsy bolt to lock it.
The bedroom door gave way, and they rushed in looking around for the captives, now realizing they had them trapped in the bathroom.
With flames and dense smoke filling the landing and bedroom, they fired two clips each through the stud walls of the bathroom. Totally riddled with holes, they felt certain no one in the room could have survived.
Grabbing their unconscious leader the men, carried him through the flames, down the stairs and out of the burning house.
***
Tim climbed out of the steel bath he had used as a shield and Max helped him up through the hole in the ceiling. Looking back down, one side of the bath was severely dented by at least a dozen bullets, and he was covered with fine, white, splintered enamel.
“That was close,” he muttered to Max.
Carla had kicked through several tile battens and pushed off sufficient roof tiles to squeeze through the hole. She was now tearing the two bed sheets in half, and tying them together to form a long rope. The knot at one end anchored the rope in the angle where the rafter met the ceiling joist.
“I had better go first, then Carla then you Tim, pick anyone off if they come around this side of the house. We don’t want to be shot by them as we slide down the rope.”
Max was on the ground in seconds, followed by Carla; Tim threw the gun down to Max so he could guard their escape.
The three men and Gupta had already gone, the white van was still in the drive; they had used another vehicle that was parked nearby.
Max looked round as a car engine started, further down the street; he dashed for the van, but there were no keys inside.
“Carla, can you start the van, the keys are gone.” Max knew she would be quicker than him, with the wiring.
“I am looking for a tool to break the steering lock, Tim.”
“Let me deal with the steering lock, Max,” and he directed a shot downwards, smashing the mechanism. A few wrenching movements with the steering wheel, and it was free to be steered.
“Or you could just shoot it to bits.” joked Max.
Carla smiled and shook her head, “You boys do so love to break things.”
The ignition wires sparked briefly as Carla twisted them together, and she checked the ignition light was on. Another wire arced as she earthed it to the steering column, the starter motor turned over the engine, and it came to life.
Carla drove the van out onto the road, engine revving hard and tires squealing, as she turned to follow the escaping car.
There was a steady flow of traffic on every road now, as the early morning rush had started, but that did not appear to daunt Carla. Max and Tim looked at each other grimly, hanging on tight, as the van sideswiped any vehicle that stood in her way. She tore down the road, straddling the central white line, as if it was her private lane.
They were quickly gaining on the four men, who avoided collisions by weaving in and out the traffic.
“What do we do when we catch them?” asked Carla. “They have three guns and probably plenty of ammo, so they are not going to roll over and give up!”
“I expect the police are already on an intercept course for us” suggested Tim. “They cannot turn left or right because they are in the middle of the road, like us. It will be a couple of miles before we come to a roundabout. My guess is that’s where the police will be waiting.”
Sirens blared all around the speeding vehicles, and there were blue flashing lights closing on the van from behind.
Just then, Carla saw the opportunity she was looking for.
“Wipe down the van for prints wherever you can, and hang on, this will get a bit rough” she warned.
With the van engine revving hard in third gear, Carla started to overtake the four men, where a stream of cars had pulled over and stopped to let the vehicles with sirens go past. She was now alongside their car and swung hard into them, wedging them against the vehicles on their left side. Carla matched her speed to theirs, so they remained locked together until van and car grated to a halt. There was no way the four men could get out of their car now, except through the front or rear window.
Carla, Max and Tim climbed out of the driver’s side of the van, wiping off anything they had touched, and ran off amongst the traffic to escape.
Bullets whizzed past them as they ran, the men shot at them through the van windows until they were out of sight.
Police swarmed the area, car drivers and passengers made a dash for safety, leaving the four gunmen struggling to break through the front and rear windows.
An armed response team was called the moment shots were fired, and the police fell back to avoid being killed. The four men, surrounded by police, were effectively still free to run.
Escape on foot was to be their best chance, so they followed Max, Carla and Tim. Apart from escaping, they must now kill the three, because they knew all about the terrorist plot to attack the spectators at the Olympic Games, and the identity of the men behind the atrocity.
The three were unaware of the four terrorists chasing them; their only concern was to get away from the area and the police.
***
Gupta made a phone call as he hurried along, having evaded the police. He asked for the home address of Robert Leighton and full details of the actual department where he worked.
As a senior terrorist leader Ruhab Gupta was well informed and knew of Robert Leighton from photographs, though he had never met him. He also knew Leighton was a member of MI5, more administrative than agent, but dangerous to his terrorist cause, none the less. At some stage Carla would meet with Leighton and confirm the deletion of the data from the blackmailer’s files. It was just a matter of time, before Gupta caught up with them.
By now, the four terrorists had reached a Mews and decided to go into hiding. Everyone they passed in the street was staring at Ruhab Gupta. His hair was burnt away at the front and the skin on his face was badly blistered, and actually bleeding. The tight, burnt flesh had split through facial movement and, because all the nerve endings were inflamed, he was in terrible agony.
One of Gupta’s men knocked on the door of the first dwelling in the Mews, and an elderly woman answered. The four men barged past and closed the door, keeping her with them. The terrified woman cried out feebly and struggled, but to no avail, and they pushed her down into an easy chair in the lounge. Gupta kept an eye on her while the other three checked out the house.
Gupta sent one of the men to a pharmacy for medication and bandages for his injuries. The others prepared a meal, while Gupta waited for the return phone call, with the answers he needed about Robert Leighton.
***
Max, Carla and Tim caught a taxi to the Hilton Hotel. As they walked in to the foyer, guests and some staff raised eyebrows over their unacceptably disheveled appearance. They just ignored it.
“We try and save thousands of lives by putting ourselves in great danger, and this is how we are treated,” Max murmured to Carla and Tim.
Philippe also observed their arrival. He hid behind a large newspaper, while seated comfortably in the lounge area, with a view of the foyer. He had been unable to follow them in the night, so decided to wait here for them.
Up in their room, they took turns cleaning up in the bathroom. Max and Tim were similar in build, so Tim borrowed some of his clothes.
Carla placed her first phone call to Sam, informing him what had happened and asked what he had done about the information she had sent him, concerning the terrorist attack plans. She was stunned, when he told her that the security forces would not consider looking into it. The men in the video were so high profile and well-connected that the whole thing looked like an elaborate hoax, it was just not credible!
“If that is the case,” said Carla aggressively “I wonder what Robert will do about it when I tell him he must apply pressure to act against these men at once, or I will expose him in every newspaper and television broadcast, here and in America!”
After an ominous silence from Sam, he replied, “I don’t think that will help to get these men arrested, I believe it is actually too late to stop the attack anyway. The various cells have their orders, and they will carry out the attack without these men. You would need to track the cells down, and then we could stop it. With just five days to go before the opening ceremony, time is not in your favor. The security forces would need more time than that, even with all their resources.”
Carla had to agree with his reasoning, perhaps Sam could have done more to get the masterminds arrested, but the cells would still function.
“Sam, I have a plan to uncover the cells, do I get your full backing?”
“I need to know what you have in mind first!” replied Sam warily.
“I want the names, addresses and full profiles of the men who planned the attack, we are going to kidnap them and find a way of forcing out of them, the information we need.
“I will need a secure building with cooking and sanitary facilities, in which to hold the prisoners, very close to the Olympic Stadium, and about twenty people to help look after them. A doctor and a nurse need to be part of the team, a cook and probably two ruthless interrogators as well” replied Carla assertively.
“I can quickly provide all that, Robert will help as well, in view of your earlier threat. However, no matter what you do, it must not lead back to Robert or The Organization!
“Go to Robert’s home now, I will text you the address. By then, he will have everything you asked for. Take his DVD, as well,” replied Sam and he ended the call.
Carla explained the arrangements to Max and Tim, who were puzzled as to how they would carry out her plan.