Overkill (71 page)

‘Right,’ Richter said. ‘We can’t do this with kid gloves, not now, so we have to risk alerting these fucking Arabs.’ He pointed a few yards up the road at a
telegraph pole and shone his torch at the cross-trees at the top of it. ‘Those cables are probably the ones carrying Dernowi’s transmissions. Shoot them off it.’

‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ Ross asked.

‘Damn right I am,’ Richter said. ‘Do it now.’

Dekker gestured to a trooper who walked up, aimed his silenced Hockler at the top of the telegraph pole and squeezed the trigger. The weapon made a popping sound, alarmingly loud in the
darkness, and wood splinters flew from the cross-trees. One cable fell, then a second, and the third and fourth together. Another trooper ran over, used his torch to locate the cables in the
hedgerow, then severed each of them with his knife.

‘You still there, Baker?’ Richter snapped.

‘Yes.’

‘OK. We’ve just cut some telephone cables. Is Dernowi still on-line?’

There was a pause that seemed to last minutes as Baker looked at the computer screen in London. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘The connection’s been dropped.’

Richter breathed again. ‘Good. We’re definitely in the right place,’ he said. ‘Baker, is Simpson still there?’

‘Yes,’ Baker replied shortly. ‘I think everyone still in the building is here in the Computer Suite.’

‘OK, just as a precaution, get Simpson to contact Lacomte and tell him to disable all the mobile phone cells in this area, as soon as possible.’ Richter grabbed the map Dekker had
been using. ‘That’s within, say, a fifty kilometre radius of Mont de Marsan, and for at least the next two hours. This bastard may have a mobile phone as well as a landline.’

‘It’ll take time,’ Baker replied.

‘I know, so best you get started. Disconnect now, but call me immediately there’s any other sign of Dernowi.’

Le Moulin au Pouchon
, St Médard, near Manciet, Midi-Pyrénées, France

Like Dmitri Trushenko had done in the Crimea, Hassan Abbas looked at the screen of the computer with considerable irritation. The double-computer icon in the Taskbar at
the bottom right of the screen had abruptly vanished, taking his connection to the Krutaya mainframe with it. The sudden disconnection didn’t surprise him because he had experienced similar
problems in the past with France Telecom, and he knew perfectly well that line failures were by no means unusual in rural France.

He instructed the computer to re-dial his Wanadoo Internet access number, and watched as the Dial-Up Networking dialog box appeared in the centre of the screen. He pressed the
‘Connect’ button, and the system reported ‘Status: Dialing’. Seconds later the status message read ‘Disconnecting’. Abbas clicked on ‘Details’ and
read the brief message ‘There was no dial-tone’. Something was wrong, he realized, with a sudden chill. Losing the connection to Krutaya was one thing, but losing the line completely
was quite another. He grabbed the telephone beside the computer and pressed it to his ear. Silence. He depressed the receiver rest a couple of times, with no result.

Abbas was no fool. He got up, walked swiftly to the top of the stairs and shouted down. ‘Arm yourselves. The house may be attacked imminently.’ He walked into the main bedroom and
paused beside the bed only long enough to shake Fouad awake, then moved swiftly over to the shuttered windows. He opened the window, then carefully eased one shutter open and peered out into the
darkness, eyes and ears attuned for the slightest unusual sight or sound. Nothing, apart from the usual faint noises of the night.

Abbas pulled the shutter closed again and walked across the landing. Downstairs he could sense the tension, could hear his men murmuring quietly, and the metallic sounds as they checked and
cocked their weapons.

‘Lights out,’ he called, ‘and prepare.’ Then he turned and walked back into the rear bedroom. He grabbed the leather Samsonite case containing the laptop computer and
mobile phone, opened it and quickly checked that everything was there. Then he snapped the case closed, walked out of the bedroom, locked the door behind him and pocketed the key.

St Médard, near Manciet, Midi-Pyrénées, France

‘That must be it,’ Dekker muttered. ‘Yes,’ he added, swivelling his night glasses to the postbox standing by the roadside. The letters on the box
were hand-painted, faded and weathered, and partially obscured by a bush, but he could just make out the last part of the name ‘
Pouchon
’.

They had followed the twisting road that climbed up out of the village to the north-east and were now the better part of a mile outside St Médard. In front of them, clearly visible in the
faint moonlight, was a square white house sitting in a small garden just off the road on the outside of a right-hand bend. The walls were white-washed and looked as if they were solid stone and
thick. The front door looked old and heavy, and Ross had been right about the windows – they were small and square and, predictably, tightly shuttered.

But there were some signs of life inside the property. Faint vertical and horizontal lines of light showed behind and through two of the shuttered windows on the ground floor on the left-hand
side of the front door, but even as they looked the light was extinguished.

‘Anyone here think they’ve just gone to bed?’ Dekker asked.

‘Not a chance,’ Richter snapped. ‘They’ve just lost the connection to the Russian mainframe and by now they’ll also know that the landline has been cut. No doubt
Dernowi or whoever’s in charge has told the bodyguards to expect an attack. That, anyway, is the way I read it. They’re certainly awake, and they’ll be alert.’

‘Right,’ Ross said. ‘Mr Beatty is probably right, but even if he’s wrong we still have to assume that they know we’re out here. Normally we’d wait and try to
ascertain exactly how many of them there are inside, and where they’re likely to be found. Tonight, we can’t. I don’t like going in blind, but in the circumstances I don’t
see we’ve got the slightest option. Colin – do you disagree with that?’

‘No. We have absolutely no choice.’

‘So, we use all the firepower we’ve got and try to finish it as quickly as we can.

Le Moulin au Pouchon
, St Médard, near Manciet, Midi-Pyrénées, France

Abbas walked swiftly down the stairs into the tiny hall. A nightlight was burning in a power-point, and by its dim light he was able to check that his three bodyguards
were ready. ‘You are prepared?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Karim Ibrahim replied. ‘We have checked the explosives and set the tripwires. All is correct. We have put the extra ammunition in our bags.’

Abbas nodded his approval, and glanced at his watch. ‘You are certain,
sayidi
?’ Badri asked. ‘You know we will be attacked?’

Abbas shook his head. ‘No, and I hope I am wrong, but the telephone line is not working and that concerns me greatly, now that we are so close to success.’ Abbas turned to Fouad.
‘Saadi, set the floodlight time-switch for three minutes, then follow me. And switch off that nightlight – there is to be no light inside the house at all.’

Abbas turned and led the way into the kitchen. Fouad opened a wall cupboard and adjusted the floodlight time-switch as Abbas had instructed, then walked over and ripped the nightlight from its
socket, before turning to follow the others out of the hall.

In the kitchen, Jaafar Badri hauled back the faded red carpet to reveal the flagstone floor below. Just off-centre in the floor was an old wooden trapdoor about three feet square, which Badri
lifted. Then he reached down into the opening and clicked a switch. Dim electric lighting flickered into being, revealing a rusted steel ladder which descended into a rough-hewn vertical shaft, at
the base of which Abbas could just make out the gleam of a trickle of water.

This was the unique feature of the property which had made Abbas select it. The house was called ‘
Le Moulin au Pouchon
’, but unlike many other similarly named properties in
France, the building had actually been a working mill until the end of the nineteenth century. The passageway into which Abbas was about to descend had then been the watercourse which had
channelled water under the house to turn the long-vanished milling machinery.

Years ago, the stream which had supplied the water had either dried up or been diverted, but the stone-lined watercourse was still in good condition. More importantly, from Abbas’ point of
view, the watercourse led away from the house and up the hill to an old stone-built outhouse, some hundred metres distant, which had originally housed the sluices.

Abbas paused for a few moments before climbing down the ladder and looked at the three men with whom he had spent the last four months of his life. He shook hands with Badri and Ibrahim, but
pulled Fouad into a close embrace before releasing him.

‘
Inshallah
we will meet again, Saadi, my friend.’

‘
Inshallah
,
sayidi
Abbas,’ Fouad murmured respectfully.

‘We should go,’ Badri interjected. ‘We may have very little time.’

Abbas nodded, but kept his eyes fixed on Fouad. ‘Yes, you’re right. Saadi – you know how much we are depending on you.’

Fouad nodded, but seemed to swell slightly at the implied praise. Abbas clapped him on the shoulder, then handed the Samsonite case to Badri and began to climb down the steel ladder. At the
bottom he stood aside to let Badri and Ibrahim join him. Badri passed Abbas the Samsonite, then moved away, up the old watercourse and towards the outhouse, torchlight dancing on the damp stone
walls, his Kalashnikov in his right hand. Abbas followed and Ibrahim took up station behind him.

Behind them, the lights went out and they heard the sound of the trapdoor in the kitchen closing. Fouad would remain in the house either until whoever had cut the wires actually attacked the
property or until it became clear that it had been a false alarm.

St Médard, near Manciet, Midi-Pyrénées, France

Ross had divided his men into two teams, one to hit the front of the house and the second, led by Colin Dekker, to work around to the rear of the property to try to effect
an entrance there. It was comparatively slow work for the second team, because of the absence of any plans of the property or knowledge of the terrain immediately surrounding the target, and twice
the troopers had to move back and approach from a different angle when they encountered impenetrable vegetation. Finally Dekker announced that they were in position.

‘Acknowledged,’ Ross murmured. ‘On my signal, we take out the front door, then get in and finish the job. As briefed, we’ll take the upstairs rooms. Colin, get through
the back door as soon as you hear the grenade, and clear downstairs. Everyone, be very careful of blue-on-blue – we don’t want any more casualties. Wilson – don’t forget to
aim the grenade at the stone beside the front door, not the door itself, or it’ll probably just go straight through it. Any questions, anybody not ready?’

There was silence on the net for a couple of seconds, then a blaze of light surrounded the old house as the eight exterior floodlights, installed as a precaution by Abbas almost as soon as they
had moved into the property, kicked in.

‘Jesus Christ,’ someone muttered. ‘That’s fucked up my night vision good and proper.’

‘Right.’ Ross’ voice was crisp and sharp. ‘That’s a clear enough indication, I think. They definitely know we’re out here, so let’s not keep them
waiting any longer. Three, two, one. M79, go.’

Le Moulin au Pouchon
, St Médard, near Manciet, Midi-Pyrénées, France

Saadi Fouad had rehearsed his actions many times before, and knew precisely what he had to do. Almost immediately they had begun their occupation of the house they’d
spent some time moulding plastic explosive charges, studded with pounds of ball-bearings, nails and screws as a kind of rudimentary shrapnel, around the ground-floor doors and windows, to be
triggered by simple tripwires. Those, they were confident, would eliminate the first wave of any assault, leaving them plenty of time and firepower to engage the remainder of the attacking
force.

As soon as the floodlights switched on, Fouad ran swiftly up the staircase and crouched in front of the locked door of the small back bedroom, looking down the stairs and into the blackness of
the hall over the barrel of his Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Abbas had briefed Fouad and the others very thoroughly. He didn’t expect that the house would ever be assaulted, simply because of the security surrounding
Podstava
and
El
Sikkiyn
, and he had always believed that if the French authorities ever tried to gain entrance to the house they would simply be dealing with a small group of gendarmes, effective enough at
controlling traffic and handling normal French criminals, but hopelessly unprepared for the level of training, weaponry and dedication that his men possessed.

As the M79 fin-stabilized high-explosive grenade smashed into the stone wall immediately beside the door frame and virtually vaporized the front door of
Le Moulin au Pouchon
with a roar
that shook the house to its foundations and showered him with debris, Fouad suddenly realized that in this matter Abbas had miscalculated, and very badly. Moments later he heard the flat crack as
the plastic explosive around the doorframe detonated, the explosion precipitated by a section of the ruined door which had snagged on a tripwire, and flattened himself on the floor as the air
filled with flying steel.

‘Arwens, now,’ Dekker called, and immediately two almost simultaneous explosions ripped through the night, tearing the rear door of
Le Moulin
off its hinges.
As the door toppled outwards and crashed to the ground, the first troopers rushed inside the property, weapons at the ready, alert for the Arab terrorists they expected to find.

But the danger wasn’t in front of them, it was behind. The home-made booby-trap placed by Abbas and his colleagues exploded less than a second after the first five men had dashed into the
kitchen. Small but lethal steel missiles flew everywhere, bouncing off walls and ceiling, ripping into flesh, and all five men fell.