Chapter 1
At nearly midday, Ryker’s seat at the edge of the café’s terrace was in full fierce range of the summer sun’s rays.
The blinding light was one very good reason why he slipped on his sunglasses. The other reason was so he could continue spying.
The café, at the north eastern end of a modern square in central London, a stone’s throw from Tower Bridge, was flanked on all four sides by ultra-modern and sleek office blocks of varying sizes and shapes. There were a total of five cafés and bars clustered around, each with generous outdoor seating areas that were already brimming with punters dressed in office garb and munching on trendy titbits. A constant flow of people crossed the middle of the square, heading in all directions. Although a little public for Ryker’s liking, this was a perfect spot for blending in. Which perhaps explained why the targets had chosen this as a location.
Ryker had nothing but a sparkling water in front of him on the bistro table. Kaspovich, in his tailored blue suit and sitting next to Ryker, had the same. Behind their shades, both had their eyes on the grand canopy entrance of the office building directly across the way from them at the other end of the open space.
‘He’s late.’ Kaspovich glanced at his watch. Ryker took a sip of his water.
‘Anything?’ he asked.
Not to Kaspovich. He was talking into the mic on his lapel. ‘Nothing,’ came the series of three responses from the other eyes in the area immediately beyond the square.
Kaspovich let out a big sigh. Ryker ignored him. He kept his eyes busy, as subtly as he could, his gaze never leaving the entrance of the office building for more than a couple of beats.
Finally...
‘Here’s Parker,’ Ryker announced.
A man strode out from the revolving doors of the office, walking tall, if that was possible for someone several inches away from six foot. Parker’s grey suit fitted him like a glove, and showed off his slender and athletic figure. His tanned face and neatly coifed salt-and-pepper hair topped off the immaculate image of a fifty-year-old man as successful in life as he was confident about his appearance.
Yet as he looked around him, and then walked off to his left, Ryker thought there was a slight nervousness in the man’s step.
‘Where’s he going?’ Kaspovich said. ‘Just relax,’ Ryker responded.
Kaspovich shot him a look. At least Ryker thought he did, though the sunglasses shielded the glare.
Parker walked into the small Waitrose store at the corner of the office building and moments later was out of sight.
‘Shit,’ Kaspovich exclaimed.
‘He’s just buying time. He’s late. But Yedlin is even later.’ ‘Or he’s running out of the back entrance as we speak.’
‘No. I’m seeing nothing at this side,’ came the response to that in Ryker’s ear – presumably in Kaspovich’s ear, too, given he stopped whinging.
‘I have something here.’ A different voice this time. ‘Two Range Rovers travelling in tandem along Merchant Street. Just approaching the traffic lights on the corner of George Street.’
Two vehicles.
‘Yedlin was supposed to be alone,’ Kaspovich uttered. ‘You didn’t really believe that, did you?’ Ryker said.
‘They’ve passed the traffic lights. Pulling over into the loading bay just after the Starbucks.’ ‘Registrations?’ Ryker asked.
‘Can’t see from this angle. I’ll only be able to see them after they’ve pulled away again.’
Ryker held his tongue. He’d suggested they needed more eyes high up. Instead, Kaspovich had opted for a tactical team on the ground. Backup. But due to late planning and pure geographical logistics that team were a couple of hundred yards away right now, and had no eyes on anything except the inside of the back of a panel van.
Ryker’s senses worked overtime as he scanned the square, searching for anything untoward. Given the word in his ear just now, the two vehicles were all of twenty yards from where Ryker was sitting, around the corner at the other side of the café.
‘Doors opening.’ That same voice in his ear. ‘Two men. No, three men out now.’
‘ID?’
‘Give me a minute. But I’m pretty sure it’s not Yedlin.’
‘It’s probably just some arsehole stopping for a coffee,’ grumbled Kaspovich.
No. Ryker didn’t think so. And if Yedlin wasn’t there, in those two cars, he didn’t think that was a coincidence, or a positive development.
‘Both drivers still in the vehicles. The three on foot are moving toward the square now from the southwest side. You should see them any moment.’
The southwest side. The opposite side of the square to where Ryker was.
He got to his feet. ‘Where are you–’
‘Wait there,’ Ryker said.
Kaspovich screwed his face up with disdain, as though hugely insulted by the basic instruction, but he didn’t challenge Ryker.
Ryker slowly sauntered across the square. The three men from the cars were soon in view. They were pretty damn obvious at least to Ryker. They were young, mid-twenties probably, yet they had a presence. Confidence, arrogance and a certain knowing. Their jeans and T-shirts were casual and trendy – too figure hugging to conceal a firearm, Ryker noted.
‘Any IDs yet?’ he said. From a little more than twenty yards away, and with their sunglasses on, he didn’t recognise any of the men, though hopefully facial recognition would. One of the men had a patchwork of tattoos covering both of his arms and reaching up from the neck of his T-shirt. On trend, no doubt, though hardly subtle, and it should make him easily identifiable.
‘Eyes on Parker yet?’
Kaspovich. His voice sounded even more sulky through Ryker’s earpiece.
‘Yeah,’ confirmed Ryker. ‘He’s at the till.’
Two more slow steps for Ryker as the shop’s doors opened and Parker emerged with a paper under his arm.
The three men were less than ten yards from him. Parker clocked them. Did a double take. The sudden questioning look on his face suggested to Ryker that he, too, was unhappy about this development. Parker stopped and the three men headed up to him. A prominent and influential banker talking to three trendy-looking guys in their twenties. The picture looked as wrong as Ryker knew it was.
Mr Tattoo stood ahead of his chums and a conversation began as Ryker cautiously closed the distance. It was clear Parker’s usual confidence was already in pieces. He was trying to stand tall before the youngsters who towered over him, talking with meaning, his face showing the first signs of anger, but Ryker knew it was a front. Parker was scared.
The man to Tattoo’s right turned his head in Ryker’s direction. Ryker paused and grabbed his phone from his pocket and fake swiped away.
‘This isn’t right,’ Kaspovich said. ‘We should get Red team here now. Take them all in.’
‘No,’ Ryker interjected. For starters Red team were too far away. Ryker knew they’d not have enough time to get to the square if this lot scarpered.
Tattoo half-turned and indicated with his hand for Parker to walk. Parker looked tentative but began to move, Tattoo by his side, the two others a step behind.
‘Seriously, Ryker, what are we doing? They’re heading for the cars. We can’t let them take Parker.’
‘Red team are to the north side,’ responded one of the overseers. ‘We don’t have a vehicle on the south side at all.’
‘Red team, it’s a go!’ Kaspovich said. ‘Go now!’
Ryker clenched his teeth but he didn’t try to pull back the order. Kaspovich wasn’t his boss, far from it, but he did have direct operational command of the other team members here.
‘Ryker, you need to stop those vehicles from leaving,’ Kaspovich said.
Ryker had already decided this. Which was why he was now quickening his pace to catch up with Parker. And which was why he was so focused on the view ahead that he didn’t see the figure off to his left until she was only three yards from him.
‘Ryker, to your–’
He didn’t catch the rest of Kaspovich’s sentence. He abruptly turned to the left, to the woman who was striding directly for him, head down, staring at her phone.
She barged right into him. Ryker was jolted but stood firm. The woman’s phone went clattering and she was sent sprawling onto the flagstones.
‘What the hell!’ she yelled, pure indignation.
Her angry shout caught the attention of nearly every person in the square. Several dozen heads turned to Ryker. A crowd immediately drew in. Two bystanders reached down to help the woman off the pavement. She was tearful now.
‘He shoved me over,’ she sobbed. ‘What’s wrong with you!’ There were mumblings from several other people around.
Beyond, Parker was almost at the edge of the square, he and the men with him seemingly oblivious.
Or were they? Was this woman with them?
‘I’m sorry,’ Ryker said, and he made to move away. A burly man in a white shirt stepped in Ryker’s way. ‘What did you do?’ he blasted.
Other bystanders were pulling out phones – no doubt hoping for a ruckus so they could upload footage to social media and gain popularity points with people they’d never met.
Ryker said nothing but went to push past the man who tried to grab him. Ryker was about to react when there was a panicked shout from behind.
‘Bomb!’
Chapter 2
The voice was Kaspovich’s. ‘He’s got a bomb!’
Deflection, Ryker knew. But the general public didn’t. Yet even in ever alert central London, there was no sudden mass hysteria. No immediate stampede of pedestrians and office workers clearing the area. But there was a clear turn of attention away from himself at least.
That was all Ryker cared about. He barged past the man, easily avoiding a half-hearted attempt to stop him, then continued to push and shove past the bystanders until he was free from the group.
The problem was, Parker and his chaperones had apparently heard Kaspovich’s shout too, and perhaps seen Ryker’s altercation. Whatever had alerted them, they were now moving far more quickly.
Ryker burst into a sprint. Now the panic was steadily building. People were shouting, beginning to run. With Parker and the group with him, and Ryker all moving at speed, it took mere seconds for the cascade to amplify, and the mood to switch from curiosity and worry to full-blown panic.
It was the last thing Ryker wanted. He was closing on the edge of the square, but the crowd before him swelled and Parker moved out of sight.
‘Anyone see them?’ Ryker shouted into his mic as he tried to barge his way forward.
‘They’re nearly at the vehicles.’
‘Red team, where are you?’ Ryker said.
‘We’re... a few seconds… out,’ came the out-of-breath reply.
A white-haired man inexplicably sidestepped in front of Ryker, who tried to change his course but couldn’t move quickly enough. He steamrolled over the older man and sent him tumbling to the ground. Ryker groaned in frustration, but he had no time to stop and apologise as the crowd swept him up and carried him along.
Merchant Street was soon in view. Traffic was moving freely.
A few more steps and Ryker spotted the vehicles. Two identical looking Range Rovers. Black, with tinted glass.
No sign of Parker.
‘Where are they?’ Ryker said. ‘Already in.’
As the words came through the front car pulled away, closely followed by the second vehicle.
Past the bottleneck at the exit of the square, the crowd was quickly dispersing, and Ryker had the space to burst into a sprint again. His arms and legs pumped in a blur.
‘Which one is Parker in?’ he asked. ‘Second one.’
That Range Rover sped past Ryker a moment later. By the time he reached the pavement of Merchant Street, the car was nearly fifty yards away. The first Range Rover was out of sight altogether.
There was heightened shouting and panic behind Ryker now. Red team had arrived, no doubt. Armed and all tooled up. Too little too late.
In front of Ryker, the drivers on Merchant Street remained oblivious, but some of the pedestrians were starting to notice the growing hubbub emerging from the square.
Then a siren cut through the city noise, and a marked police car, blue lights flashing, came rocking to a stop where the Range Rovers had been moments earlier.
The driver and his colleague shot out. Ryker hated to do this, but had no choice.
The two policemen rushed toward him, heading for the square. When the driver was almost next to him, Ryker shimmied left and the policeman smashed into him in a scene reminiscent of how he’d felled the white-haired man just before. Except this time it was the policeman who clattered into Ryker, and Ryker who ended up on the ground. Unlike before, the policeman did attempt to stop, but Ryker quickly rose to his feet.
‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’
The officer didn’t hesitate, and was soon speeding away. Speeding away minus the key fob for his car, now clutched in Ryker’s hand.
Moments later he was inside the car and he fired up the engine, indicated, then swerved out into the road. The Range Rovers were nowhere to be seen.
‘Anything?’ Ryker said.
‘They went left onto Richmond, but they’re out of my sight now.’
Which meant it was all down to Ryker. He pushed a button on the dash and the siren came back to life. The effect on the cars in front was immediate, and a pathway slowly cleared as Ryker pushed his foot down further. He went past forty, then fifty, then sixty miles per hour as he raced toward the next junction speeds that seemed impossibly fast on the tight inner-city road.
He was only a few yards from the traffic lights when he spotted a police car approaching in the opposite direction – blue lights flashing. Were they after him? No, too soon. The car sped past.
He took the left turn sharply. The two Range Rovers were in view again, stuck side by side in a queue of traffic at a red light further ahead. They hadn’t yet realised they’d been followed, or else they surely wouldn’t have let a red light stop them. But which one had Parker? With them now side by side, Ryker wasn’t sure.
The lights turned back to green just as he approached. The drivers in the queue did the decent thing of squeezing left and right to clear the way for the fast-moving police car. All the way up to the Range Rovers. One of the drivers floored it, scraping past the car next to it to blast through a gap and through the lights. The second Range Rover was in close tow, and Ryker was soon edging past sixty again as he chased the speeding SUVs down. In close unison the Range Rovers took a sharp right, tyres screeching as the drivers battled to keep control. Both did.
They emerged onto the wider, four-lane Hilton Avenue. But on this occasion wider also meant busier. Up ahead was gridlock.
‘What was the plate of the car with Parker in it?’ Ryker enquired.
No response.
He tapped his mic. Asked the question again. No response. What the hell?
Then the front Range Rover took another hard right, nearly sweeping over a mother with a pram crossing the road. Ryker was set to follow but the other Range Rover veered left instead.
‘Shit.’
Ryker had only a second to make his choice. He went right.
This street was narrow, one way only. And they were going the wrong way. Which meant that after only a few seconds the Range Rover was heading straight for another two cars which had turned into the street further along.
‘Don’t do it,’ Ryker muttered.
The driver didn’t heed his advice. The Range Rover mounted the pavement. There were screams as pedestrians dived out of the way. The Range Rover weaved left and right through them. It clattered into a wall, then veered back the other way into the side of a car.
A man walking up the street, his back turned, seemed oblivious to the whole thing, but he was directly in the Range Rover’s path. The driver honked the horn. The man finally realised his predicament and darted left. The Range Rover edged to the right and it looked like it would just about squeeze past.
Then the Range Rover clipped a car on the right, and the driver must have panicked. He swerved left. The vehicle jumped up off the kerb. Three tyres left the ground and the driver had no way to adjust the direction as the vehicle flew through the air. It ploughed into the man, smashing him up against a wall. The Range Rover bounced back the other way, rocking on its suspension as the driver tried to regain control of the beast.
He couldn’t, and the veering worsened until the car was perpendicular to its direction of travel. It flipped. All tyres in the air, the two-tonne hulk spun and crashed down onto its roof. Whatever anti-roll stabilisation the car had wasn’t enough and the roof caved from the impact. The vehicle slid along the pavement, upside down, and came to a crashing halt against the front of a parked van.
Ryker slammed down the brake pedal and a moment later was out and racing toward the carnage.
He went right past the fallen man, whose face and clothes were torn and bloodied. He was already being attended to by a kind and luckier bystander. Ryker would have stopped, too, if he’d thought there was anything he could do to help, but it only took one glance to realise the poor man would never breathe again.
Ryker reached the battered Range Rover and slid down to his knees, next to what remained of the front passenger window. There was no one in the seat there. The driver across the way was wedged in place, head pushed back against the broken roof at a horrific angle to his neck. Blood was dripping everywhere.
He was dead, no doubt about it.
Ryker tried the door but it was wedged stuck. So, too, was the rear door, though the glass there remained strangely intact. He pulled back his elbow and clattered it into the window.
The glass shattered on the third strike. Ryker gazed inside. Two occupants in the rear seats. Just like the driver, one was clearly dead. The other was close to it, the blood around his nose bubbling softly with each faint breath.
Ryker roared in anger and frustration. Not just at the bloody trail of carnage that had been left in his wake across the city, but because it was clear, looking at the lifeless faces, that he’d chased the wrong vehicle.
And now Parker was gone.
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