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

fully automatic and aimed roughly, because at that distance he couldn’t possibly miss. Then he squeezed the trigger.

When the raked bow of the patrol boat impacted the side of the cabin cruiser, the entire vessel rode up out of the water and for the briefest of instants it felt almost as if the Targa had become airborne. And then it crashed back down again, sending a massive cloud of spray and a large wave surging across the surface of the river. It didn’t land completely flat, the collision having knocked it slightly to one side due to the angle at which it had struck the other vessel, but it righted itself immediately and rocked from side to side as it stabilised.

The three MPU officers on board had seen the impact coming and had not only braced themselves for it but also ensured that their harnesses were properly attached so that when the collision was over they would still be on board the boat rather than swimming for the shore.

Paul Carter had pulled back the twin throttles at the moment when the Targa had hit the cabin cruiser and checked that his two colleagues were uninjured as soon as the boat landed.

‘You both okay?’

He had no doubt that all three of them would develop impressive bruises over the next few days, but there were no broken bones, which was all that mattered.

‘We’re still afloat then,’ Bob Fisher pointed out.

‘Somewhat to my surprise, yes,’ Carter responded.

The Targa launch seemed to be handling somewhat sluggishly, probably because it had taken some water into the hull through the bullet holes from the Kalashnikov, and from the inevitable damage caused by the impact, but it was handling and didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger of sinking.

Cautiously, he turned the wheel to head back to the expanding area of floating wreckage which was all that remained of the cabin cruiser.

He and Bob Fisher saw the threat at precisely the same moment as the bearded man in the shattered remains of the cockpit of the destroyed boat aimed his assault rifle directly at them and at point-blank range.

Neither of them said a word, just threw themselves down flat on the deck of the Targa to try to avoid the fusillade of bullets that they knew was coming their way.

The Kalashnikov is arguably the most robust and reliable assault rifle ever made, and it can and will operate even if it’s been dug up out of the ground or pulled out of a body of water. But most people on retrieving such a weapon will at least remove most of the debris before attempting to fire it.

That thought never occurred to Khalid because of his inexperience. He also failed to register the fairly obvious fact that he had pulled the weapon muzzle first out of the river, and was then aiming it upwards. So when he pulled the trigger and the round in the chamber fired it was an instance of an unstoppable force – this time a 7.62mm bullet – meeting a largely immovable object, in this case the barrel of an old and very well used assault rifle almost full of murky and incompressible water and debris from the Thames.

The result was predictable and utterly catastrophic for the man holding the assault rifle.

The breech and barrel of the weapon blew apart, and because Khalid was the person holding it and his face was just a couple of inches from the breech, most of his head blew apart as well.

He slumped down in the right-hand side of the cockpit, dead before his legs had even started to give way.

Carter heard the bang, which sounded louder than a rifle shot and nothing like the barrage of rounds he’d been expecting, a volley of shots that he was quite certain would be the last sounds he would ever hear because nobody, not even the most comprehensively untrained and manifestly incompetent person ever to have been given a weapon, could possibly miss him and the two other officers with an AK-47 at that range.

But what he didn’t hear was a second shot, assuming that the bang was the first round of a volley. He eased himself up cautiously into a crouch and stared warily at the wrecked cabin cruiser. He was just in time to see the body of the man with the assault rifle collapse bonelessly into the remains of the cockpit like a puppet the instant the strings have been cut. His face and head appeared curiously misshapen and Carter guessed that either something had gone wrong with his weapon – a catastrophic blowback or something of that sort – or against the odds the Met police had managed to get a sniper in place in time. That seemed less likely because no sniper would go for a headshot unless it was unavoidable. But either way, it was clear that he would be taking no further part in the proceedings.

But the other man, the one who had been driving the boat, was still on board and could quite literally have his finger on the trigger, so the danger was still absolutely immediate and very real.

Carter pushed the throttles forward and turned the wheel to point the bow of the Targa launch directly at what was left of the cockpit and the figure of the second man standing there. The boat was the only weapon he had and there was no way he wasn’t going to use it. The last time he’d aimed at the midships section of the cabin cruiser. Now his target was going to be what was left of the flooded cockpit at the stern.

Perhaps twenty or thirty yards separated the two vessels and he knew that it would still take precious seconds to cover even that short distance from a standing start on the river. But Carter had no other options.

He had to go for it. There was nothing else they could do.

Despite having been knocked off his feet,