Cyberstrike by James Barrington (best english books to read .txt) 📗

they wanted to do was mow down a few civilians they could have used that assault rifle to shoot up a London bus, no problem. But this is different. I think their target is almost certainly either Parliament or the MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, but that’s a hardened facility, not to mention the fact that they’ve already gone past it. Unless you can think of something else, that means they must be heading for Parliament.’

As Carter spoke, the three police officers watched as the cabin cruiser started angling over to port, heading for the wrong side of the river – traffic on the Thames, as on almost every waterway, always keeps right – and Westminster. That was a clear and unmistakable confirmation of what he had suspected.

‘It’s wallowing,’ Fisher said. ‘It could be stuffed full of Semtex or C4 and you can get a hell of a lot of explosive inside a boat that size.’

‘I doubt if they’d have access to that much plastic,’ Carter said, ‘but a fertiliser bomb would be bloody nearly as dangerous.’

‘So what are we going to do? They’re heading for Parliament right now.’

‘We’re going to stop them. Buggered if I know how, but that’s what we’re going to do.’

Chapter 12

Secret Intelligence Service Headquarters, Vauxhall Cross, London

Ben Morgan was standing up ready to leave when the phone beside Dame Janet rang. There were standing orders in place to ensure that that particular number was only known to certain high-level officials and government ministers, the intelligence services, the military and the police, along with very specific instructions about who could call it and under what circumstances. So when it rang it meant that one of two things had happened. Either a confirmed terrorist attack, or an incident that was most likely the work of a group of terrorists, had taken place or was then in progress.

Morgan sat down again as Dame Janet picked up the phone and announced herself crisply just as ‘C-TAC’ and then listened. About ten seconds into the conversation she told the caller to wait.

‘It’s the duty officer at the Marine Policing Unit – the river police – out at Wapping,’ she said, and switched on the loudspeaker. ‘Tell me that again.’

‘We have a developing situation on the Thames near Lambeth Bridge,’ a male voice said, speaking urgently. ‘There’s a cabin cruiser out there that failed to stop. It was approached by one of our patrol boats because it looked as if it was overloaded, and a registry check showed that it was possibly stolen. But when our launch started to close with it, one of the two men visible on board opened fire with an assault rifle.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Dave North muttered.

‘Any injuries?’ Dame Janet asked.

‘None reported.’

‘Which side of Lambeth Bridge?’ Ben Morgan interjected, and Dame Janet repeated his question to the duty officer.

‘North, near the—’

‘Houses of Parliament,’ Morgan finished for him, walking up to Dame Janet so that the duty officer would hear his voice. ‘Put it together: an overloaded boat, a man with an assault weapon and the Houses of Parliament. It has to be a bomb attack. Are the officers on the police launch armed?’

‘Negative. We have armed officers preparing to board a second patrol boat but it will be at least half an hour before they can reach that location. You’re on my list of people to call.’

‘There’s not much we can do from here,’ Morgan said, ‘apart from shut down the cell phone network in central London in case the weapon is intended to be remotely triggered by a mobile.’

‘I’ll do that right now,’ Angela Evans said, reaching for her own phone.

Dame Janet nodded her approval.

‘Keep us in the loop,’ she told the police officer, and ended the call.

‘I really hope,’ Natasha Black said, glancing in the general direction of the River Thames, ‘that we don’t hear a sodding great bang in the next five minutes.’

‘Amen to that.’

Chapter 13

North of Lambeth Bridge, London

The obviously laden cabin cruiser was wallowing its way across the river, now aiming directly towards the centre of the Palace of Westminster, the vast and elegant building glowing golden in the afternoon sun, the roofline marked by spires and scaffolding in equal measure, a necessary part of the refurbishment work that had been going on for some time on the fabric of the structure.

‘We need to keep him in the middle of the river,’ Carter said urgently, ‘where the effects of the blast will be minimised.’ He pushed the throttles forward and started to accelerate. The target vessel was still about two hundred yards in front of them. ‘Get on to Wapping and make sure they’ve warned the PaDP at the House. They’ll need to evacuate Parliament and get everyone into the Old Palace Yard or at least outside and somewhere on the west side of the building. And then they need to send as many armed officers as they can to the wall by the river. Make sure they know that we’ve been fired on, and what we think the people in that cabin cruiser are planning. It’d be a really good idea if they forgot about their stupid bloody rules of engagement and loosed off a few rounds to persuade the people in that boat to back off, or at least to show them that we’ve got teeth.’

The PaDP was the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection branch of the Met’s Specialist Operations directorate, with responsibility for guarding Parliament, 10 Downing Street and other government buildings and politicians, and while on duty they were invariably armed, usually carrying both a Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol and a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachinegun. Neither of those weapons would have been Carter’s choice to try to stop the cabin cruiser, but he was hoping that a few carefully aimed volleys of 9mm bullets from the riverbank beside the Palace of Westminster would be enough to try to deflect or disrupt the bomb attack that he was now sure was in progress. He also knew that it