The Assassin Drone, Part 12
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Lucas drove in silence, and after they had turned a few corners, he recognized Ravenscourt Park ahead. In his ear, Malcolm was silent, too; he'd reported earlier that they had traced the origin of the call, but had not found Owen or anybody else there. Now there was nothing more to say. The team was dependent on the trackers and any information Lucas could give them.
"Find somewhere to park," the man said. Lucas mentally thanked the car ahead that was just pulling out, and backed neatly into the space. As soon as he'd stopped the engine, the man said, "Now get out, both of you."
Lucas got out, automatically tucking the keys into his jeans pocket. The man had slipped his left arm around Olivia's waist as though embracing her, but Lucas could tell by Olivia's stiff movements and the faintly sick look on her face that the man was jamming the gun into her side. The man made eye contact with him and commanded, "Walk in front of us. Straight across the park to the other side. No talking."
"Ravenscourt Park, walking west," Lucas whispered as he walked. As soon as the other end of the park became visible, the man said, "Go to the white van."
"White van," Lucas repeated. "License plates not visible."
As they approached, the van's side door opened and another man got out. Scanning the van in the quick moment before the man slid the door shut again, Lucas was unable to see anybody else, and assumed the man was the driver.
"Take off your clothes," the first man said, and Lucas glanced back at him, pretending surprise. "Take off my clothes?"
The man let go of Olivia and gave her a little push so that she stumbled in Lucas' direction, then clarified, "Both of you. Everything. Stark naked."
"Look, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm not –" Lucas started to protest. The first man lifted his gun and aimed at Lucas' heart, and Lucas raised his hands in surrender. "All right. Stark naked."
He started unbuttoning his shirt. Olivia hesitated only until the man pointed the gun at her, then gulped and stepped out of her shoes. Lucas stripped down to his pants, then glanced over and saw that Olivia, hampered by her sling, had only managed to wrestle her jeans off.
"Let me help her," Lucas said, but the gun man waved the pistol at his pants. "Forgot something?"
Lucas stepped out of them, glanced at the man again for permission, then reached out to slip the sling over Olivia's neck. Blushing, Olivia looked away, and Lucas saw that something had caught her attention. As he unbuttoned her blouse, he followed her gaze, and saw that an older man was walking a dog about fifty meters behind the man with the gun, and staring curiously at them.
"We've got company," the driver of the van said in Russian, and Lucas kept his face expressionless, trying to appear as though he didn't understand. Instead, he watched the gun man turned to confront the dog-walker. A glance was all it took, and as soon as the older man registered the gun, he picked up his pace until he was practically running away.
Don't call the police, Lucas urged him silently. Don't ruin this! He carefully guided Olivia's blouse over the cast on her arm, then unhooked her bra in the back and slipped it off, too. As he tugged on her panties, she shivered violently, more from fear, Lucas thought, than cold. Lucas wanted to catch her eye and give her an encouraging smile, but she was staring determinedly away from him. Lastly, he pulled at her socks, and she lifted each foot in turn for him to remove them.
"Lean against the van," the man said. "Arms and legs apart."
Wondering idly if there were any more dog-walkers out there staring at them, and if there'd been enough time for MI-5 to get an agent in place here at the park, Lucas spread his arms and legs and supported himself against the van. Olivia was slower because of her cast; she lifted it awkwardly above her head and leaned it against the van, then rested her forehead on it as she stretched her legs and her other arm. Her hand came in contact with Lucas' elbow and she recoiled. He wished she hadn't; the touch of her fingers had been ... nice.
The driver of the van came around behind them, pulling on plastic gloves as he did so. In prison, Lucas had been body searched so many times that he'd thought it would never bother him again, but undergoing it stark naked in a public park in the middle of London brought a new and unexpected level of humiliation to the process.
"Look at this," the driver said, running his hand down Lucas' back, and Lucas felt their stares boring into his scars.
In English, the gun man said, "You like it rough, huh?" He made a noise like cracking a whip, and both men laughed.
"No, I don't," Lucas corrected him, aware of Olivia's horrified expression. "And I'll never get caught smuggling drugs in Thailand again, either."
Olivia's face was already red; she bit her lip and stared down at the ground. The gun man translated Lucas' comment into Russian, and the driver laughed, then turned to her next. Lucas heard her try unsuccessfully to suppress a sound of discomfort.
Still speaking Russian, the gun man said, "Take their watches and all their jewelry. Kostya said everything."
The driver stripped off his gloves and unbuckled Olivia's watch, tossing it to the ground, then undid a necklace from around her neck. As he held up the two wedding rings hanging from a simple chain and threw it away, Olivia opened her mouth as though to cry out, then clamped it firmly shut. Lucas was tempted to remove his own earring, but that would have drawn unwanted attention, so he stood motionless and simply waited. In an attempt to not only distract the man from the infection and lessen the chances of him deducing that the earring was suspicious, but also to give Malcolm and the other agents a clue to the identity of the terrorists, Lucas said, "Are you speaking Russian? I met a Russian girl once."
"Shut up," said the gun man at the same time as Malcolm asked, "They're Russian?"
"Yeah, she wanted to marry me," Lucas went on, trying not to wince as the driver fumbled with the clasp, and hoping that Malcolm had at least been able to hear his affirmative answer before the earring came off. The gunman punched him hard in the kidney. "I said, shut up."
"What's he talking about?" The driver flicked the earring away and removed Lucas' watch.
"Nothing," the gun man replied. "You done? Then get the saw and get that cast off, too. No, wait, we'll get them in the van first. Too many perverts around here, walking their dogs, one of them's going to phone the police soon."
"Yeah," the driver affirmed.
"Step back," the gun man commanded in English. "When we open the van, you get in and sit down."
"What about our clothes?" Olivia asked, straightening up. Cuffing her on the head as the driver opened the van door, the gun man ordered again, "Get in and sit down!"
Taking the lead, Lucas climbed in and sat down by the window. Olivia followed, curling in on herself to hide her nudity, though Lucas privately thought she didn't have anything to hide. Oh, she had a few old stretch marks, and a bit of a tummy, but nothing as disfiguring as his scars. She resisted somewhat as the driver grabbed her by the cast, and as the driver braced her arm against the seat in front, he gave her a hard look that dared her to move it.
"What –what are you doing?" Olivia asked as the man got into the front seat, picked a saw from the floor, and turned around to apply the blade to the plaster.
Hopefully, Lucas thought, the man would simply cut the cast off and throw it away without checking for devices. He watched as the man sawed carefully, then looked beyond the driver to see the gun man picking something up from the pile of clothing. It was his wallet; the gun man removed all the cash and credit cards, stuffed them into his own trousers, then tossed it away again.
"Ow!" Olivia cried, bringing Lucas' attention back to her. The driver had cut through the plaster and nicked her arm, and a tear ran down Olivia's cheek as the man removed the cast. Lucas would have been relieved to see that he didn't inspect the inside before throwing it out through the open door, except for the fact that the loss of both trackers and the microphone meant that MI-5 would now find it very difficult to follow their movements. Their only hope now was CCTV, but Lucas knew there were hundreds of these ordinary looking white vans on the road.
The gun man straightened up, then pulled the side door shut from the outside. Taking advantage of the fact that the driver was shifting seats, the gun man was getting in on the passenger side, and nobody was watching them, Lucas leaned close to Olivia and whispered, "Pretend it's really broken."
She looked at him for clarification, and he mimed cradling his arm against his body. Nodding, she did the same, and as the engine started, she even kept her left arm immobile while reaching for the seatbelt. They drove through the London streets, and Lucas steadfastly ignored the sinking feeling in his gut. The men had made no attempt to keep their prisoners from seeing their faces, or where they were going, and it could only mean one thing; that they had no intention of letting them go afterwards.
They headed in the general direction of the Thames and Lucas wondered if they were going to end up in Battersea Park, where Jeremy Owusu had died, but they pulled up just outside the north gate of Brompton Cemetery instead. They were obviously expected; the gates were opened from the inside just as the van came to a stop.
"Out," the gun man said. "Hurry."
As they stumbled out of the van, Lucas looked around for security cameras. The only one that he could see, however, had been vandalized and dangled brokenly from its perch. As the gun man hurried them in through the gate, Lucas could see that the lock had simply been sheared through. Behind them, the man who had opened the gate now pulled it shut, and the van drove off.
They were shepherded down one of the paths and into a more secluded area of the cemetery. It was the perfect place, Lucas thought, with nobody around to see what they were doing. He wondered why the terrorists had used Battersea Park before, instead of another cemetery, but maybe, after the bus fiasco, they were more worried about security now than they had been before.
A folding table had been set up in between two of the graves, and a laptop was open on it, its screen lighting the dusky surroundings with an eerie glow. A man was sitting on a folded chair at the table, but he stood up as they approached, and said, "Here. You can get dressed in this."
He handed them each a pair of pants and a T-shirt. Without asking, Lucas tucked his own pile of clothing under his arm and started to help Olivia, holding the mens' pants open for her to step into, then rolling up the T-shirt so that he could ease it over her "injured" arm. Olivia was trying desperately hard to keep up the pretense of being hurt, continuing to keep her left arm immobile, and overdoing it so that all of her joints were rigid with tension. Once he'd finished, Lucas stepped back and dressed in his own allotment of clothing. They were a bit on the small side, but it was better than running around in the nude, especially now that the wind was picking up and the clouds were coming in again.
Olivia obviously felt braver with clothes, too, because she demanded, "Where's Owen?"
"He's all right," the man said. "You spoke to him just a few minutes ago, so you know he's still alive."
"You've kidnapped Owen?" Lucas asked, then feigned indignation. "Olivia, why didn't you tell me? We could have –"
"Gone to the police?" the man interjected. "That is exactly why we did not let Olivia tell you."
His accent reminded Lucas of Lina's; the cultured English of someone who had learned it formally and very well indeed, but still couldn't hide all traces of his foreignness.
"I w-want you to bring Owen here," Olivia said, her voice quavering.
"He's coming," the man said. "It will take a few minutes for him to get here. We'll start in the meantime."
"How do we know you haven't killed him already in the meantime?" Lucas said, and Olivia gasped at the prospect. Playing for time, Lucas went on. "I don't know what you want us to do, but we're not doing anything until he's here and we know he's all right."
"He's coming," the man repeated, his voice hard. "But since we're in a hurry, I will call Owen and let you speak to him."
He picked up his mobile and dialled. "Let me speak to Owen."
To Owen, he said, "I've got your mother here, and your Uncle Scott. Tell them how much you want to go to Legoland."
Olivia stepped forward eagerly, grabbing for the mobile. "Owen? Yes, I know. I know, I want you to go to Legoland, too. And I love you, Owen. I just want you to know, I love you. No matter what happens, remember that. I love you."
She stopped speaking, and was still listening when the man took the phone away and spoke into it. "That's enough, Owen. Let me talk to Mickey now." He paused, then said more forcefully, "Owen, give the phone to Mickey."
Owen must have finally handed over the mobile to Mickey, because a moment later, the man switched to Russian and said, "If your phone rings again, shoot the boy first and then answer it."
Lucas felt a chill go down his spine, and distracted himself from it by staring at the mobile phone. From where he stood, it looked exactly like the mobile that they had given Olivia – or was it the same phone? It couldn't be, he told himself. They'd been so careful up until now, surely they would have thrown Olivia's phone away already. They probably all had the same type of mobile anyway.
Switching off, the man put the mobile back into his pocket, then looked at him and said, "Since Olivia has a broken arm, Scott, you will get to fly the drone. Sit down here."
"Drone?" Lucas asked, trying to keep to his legend as much as possible. "What drone?"
"You can tell him, Olivia," the man said, but Olivia was looking around. "Where is it?"
"It's not here," the man said. "You don't need to be right next to it to fly it, do you? Our informer tells us you can sit in London and still fly it anywhere in the world."
"Anywhere you've got satellites," Olivia corrected him, but Lucas hardly heard. The man had spoken in present tense. Did that mean they still had an informer inside Tarla? That it hadn't been Jeremy Owusu, but someone else who was still alive even now? Lucas considered who else knew so much about the drones. Mr Blaze himself, of course, and then there was the other engineer, George Kumar, who might well be in need of extra money to satisfy his two lovers. Wishing he hadn't lost the earring and could communicate his suspicions to Malcolm, Lucas groaned inwardly.
"Have you at least got the right software?" Olivia was asking. "I put the memory stick in the bag with the drone."
"We have it," the man said, indicating the side of the laptop. "Scott, sit down on this chair. Olivia, you sit down here."
He led her to a space on the grass just beyond the table and turned her around to face Lucas, then forced her down. Once seated at the laptop, all Lucas had to do was glance up in order to see her white, frightened face, and the gun man standing menacingly behind her with his weapon in his hand.
"So," Lucas asked. "You've kidnapped Owen, what exactly do you want us to do?"
"It's an assassination drone," the man said, "and you will fire it when and where I tell you."
"Who do you want to assassinate?" Lucas asked.
"It doesn't matter to you. The only thing that matters is that you fire when I tell you to, or we will kill Owen, and then Olivia, and then you."
"All right, all right, no need for any killing," Lucas told him. The man ignored his assurances, and said simply, "Now, make it fly."
Lucas turned his attention to the laptop and fired the thrusters, lifting the drone into the air. As it went up, he could see that it had been resting on top of a car, and was now in a street. The map function of the software identified it as Edwardes Square.
"Fly it west," the man told him. "Towards Holland Road. Keep it high, don't let it get in the way of any CCTV cameras, or I will tell my man to shoot Owen."
Olivia looked pleadingly at him, and Lucas said, "All right."
He guided the drone over a nearby church and across Kensington High Street, then up to Holland Road.
"A little bit farther," the man told him, and after they had passed the next intersection, he said again, "Farther."
The drone was now very close to the Georgian Embassy, Lucas realized, and wondered if someone there were the target. He couldn't remember hearing anything about any official visits from Georgian officials, though, and before the drone reached Russell Gardens, the man said, "Stop. There, right in front of the traffic light."
Lucas stopped the drone, and the man said, "Turn it so we can see what's coming up the road."
Sending the commands, Lucas fought down yet another surge of wishful thinking, hoping this time that the tracker was still in place inside the drone. It was frustrating, even terrifying, the way that the terrorists had managed to stay one step ahead of MI-5 so far. They were coming down to the last minutes of the operation now, he knew, and something had to happen soon. If it didn't, he'd be faced with a choice of doing exactly what the terrorists told him, which was killing somebody, and almost certainly being executed afterwards, or preventing the assassination of whoever the target was, and increasing his chances of being killed.
"Get it out of sight, park it up against a building or something where it won't be visible," the man said, and Lucas steered the drone to hover just under roof level of a nearby building.
"Now what?" he asked, and the man said, "Now we wait."
They waited, and after a minute or two, there was the sound of a high, boyish voice from across the cemetery. Turning towards the sound, Lucas saw a small light bobbing towards them in the rapidly falling dusk, and as it got closer, he could make out two men and a boy. Suddenly, Olivia called out, "Owen!"
"Mum!" Owen broke free of the men and ran forward, wrapping himself around her in a big hug that almost knocked her over. Lucas' heart sank as he saw that she'd instinctively put up both arms to reciprocate and was squeezing back tightly, at least until Owen fought one hand free and held up a stuffed animal. "Don't forget to hug Speedy!"
Immediately, Lucas cut the power to two of the drone's thrusters, letting it drop slowly to the ground, and called out, "We have a problem here," but it was too late. The man had already come around from behind him, and was pulling Owen away. Thrusting the child aside, he grabbed Olivia by the left wrist and began to hit her arm with the side of his hand, moving down towards her elbow with each chop and watching her reaction. "Your arm's not broken! You lied to us!"
Olivia cried out, but she sounded more surprised and indignant than injured. One of the two men who had just come to the cemetery gripped Owen's shoulder and held it.
"Stop making that pathetic noise," the man hissed to Olivia. "You couldn't act your way out of a paper sack!"
Olivia fell silent, staring guiltily up at him. The man let go of her, then pulled a gun from the holster under his arm and pointed it directly at Owen's head. "Tell me. Why did you lie to us? Why did you have a cast on your arm when it wasn't broken?"
Gulping, Olivia shot Lucas a quick, pained glance, just as Owen asked, "Is that a real gun?"
Shifting his aim just a little, the man pulled the trigger, and a bullet shot into the grass at Owen's feet. Olivia screeched in terror, and Owen jumped, staring at the man in shocked betrayal.
The man said, "Tell me, or I'll shoot him in the head!"
Olivia gasped, and Owen said, "But, Kostya, I thought you were my friend."
"The thrusters are on the blink," Lucas said quickly, shutting more of them down, but nobody was listening. Without speaking, Kostya pointed the gun at the boy's head and Lucas knew, even before Olivia flashed him a look filled with both guilt and anguish, what she was going to say.
"He told me to, he's from the government," Olivia cried, pointing at Lucas and flinging herself in front of Owen to protect him. "Don't shoot my son, please!"
Part 13
Lucas drove in silence, and after they had turned a few corners, he recognized Ravenscourt Park ahead. In his ear, Malcolm was silent, too; he'd reported earlier that they had traced the origin of the call, but had not found Owen or anybody else there. Now there was nothing more to say. The team was dependent on the trackers and any information Lucas could give them.
"Find somewhere to park," the man said. Lucas mentally thanked the car ahead that was just pulling out, and backed neatly into the space. As soon as he'd stopped the engine, the man said, "Now get out, both of you."
Lucas got out, automatically tucking the keys into his jeans pocket. The man had slipped his left arm around Olivia's waist as though embracing her, but Lucas could tell by Olivia's stiff movements and the faintly sick look on her face that the man was jamming the gun into her side. The man made eye contact with him and commanded, "Walk in front of us. Straight across the park to the other side. No talking."
"Ravenscourt Park, walking west," Lucas whispered as he walked. As soon as the other end of the park became visible, the man said, "Go to the white van."
"White van," Lucas repeated. "License plates not visible."
As they approached, the van's side door opened and another man got out. Scanning the van in the quick moment before the man slid the door shut again, Lucas was unable to see anybody else, and assumed the man was the driver.
"Take off your clothes," the first man said, and Lucas glanced back at him, pretending surprise. "Take off my clothes?"
The man let go of Olivia and gave her a little push so that she stumbled in Lucas' direction, then clarified, "Both of you. Everything. Stark naked."
"Look, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm not –" Lucas started to protest. The first man lifted his gun and aimed at Lucas' heart, and Lucas raised his hands in surrender. "All right. Stark naked."
He started unbuttoning his shirt. Olivia hesitated only until the man pointed the gun at her, then gulped and stepped out of her shoes. Lucas stripped down to his pants, then glanced over and saw that Olivia, hampered by her sling, had only managed to wrestle her jeans off.
"Let me help her," Lucas said, but the gun man waved the pistol at his pants. "Forgot something?"
Lucas stepped out of them, glanced at the man again for permission, then reached out to slip the sling over Olivia's neck. Blushing, Olivia looked away, and Lucas saw that something had caught her attention. As he unbuttoned her blouse, he followed her gaze, and saw that an older man was walking a dog about fifty meters behind the man with the gun, and staring curiously at them.
"We've got company," the driver of the van said in Russian, and Lucas kept his face expressionless, trying to appear as though he didn't understand. Instead, he watched the gun man turned to confront the dog-walker. A glance was all it took, and as soon as the older man registered the gun, he picked up his pace until he was practically running away.
Don't call the police, Lucas urged him silently. Don't ruin this! He carefully guided Olivia's blouse over the cast on her arm, then unhooked her bra in the back and slipped it off, too. As he tugged on her panties, she shivered violently, more from fear, Lucas thought, than cold. Lucas wanted to catch her eye and give her an encouraging smile, but she was staring determinedly away from him. Lastly, he pulled at her socks, and she lifted each foot in turn for him to remove them.
"Lean against the van," the man said. "Arms and legs apart."
Wondering idly if there were any more dog-walkers out there staring at them, and if there'd been enough time for MI-5 to get an agent in place here at the park, Lucas spread his arms and legs and supported himself against the van. Olivia was slower because of her cast; she lifted it awkwardly above her head and leaned it against the van, then rested her forehead on it as she stretched her legs and her other arm. Her hand came in contact with Lucas' elbow and she recoiled. He wished she hadn't; the touch of her fingers had been ... nice.
The driver of the van came around behind them, pulling on plastic gloves as he did so. In prison, Lucas had been body searched so many times that he'd thought it would never bother him again, but undergoing it stark naked in a public park in the middle of London brought a new and unexpected level of humiliation to the process.
"Look at this," the driver said, running his hand down Lucas' back, and Lucas felt their stares boring into his scars.
In English, the gun man said, "You like it rough, huh?" He made a noise like cracking a whip, and both men laughed.
"No, I don't," Lucas corrected him, aware of Olivia's horrified expression. "And I'll never get caught smuggling drugs in Thailand again, either."
Olivia's face was already red; she bit her lip and stared down at the ground. The gun man translated Lucas' comment into Russian, and the driver laughed, then turned to her next. Lucas heard her try unsuccessfully to suppress a sound of discomfort.
Still speaking Russian, the gun man said, "Take their watches and all their jewelry. Kostya said everything."
The driver stripped off his gloves and unbuckled Olivia's watch, tossing it to the ground, then undid a necklace from around her neck. As he held up the two wedding rings hanging from a simple chain and threw it away, Olivia opened her mouth as though to cry out, then clamped it firmly shut. Lucas was tempted to remove his own earring, but that would have drawn unwanted attention, so he stood motionless and simply waited. In an attempt to not only distract the man from the infection and lessen the chances of him deducing that the earring was suspicious, but also to give Malcolm and the other agents a clue to the identity of the terrorists, Lucas said, "Are you speaking Russian? I met a Russian girl once."
"Shut up," said the gun man at the same time as Malcolm asked, "They're Russian?"
"Yeah, she wanted to marry me," Lucas went on, trying not to wince as the driver fumbled with the clasp, and hoping that Malcolm had at least been able to hear his affirmative answer before the earring came off. The gunman punched him hard in the kidney. "I said, shut up."
"What's he talking about?" The driver flicked the earring away and removed Lucas' watch.
"Nothing," the gun man replied. "You done? Then get the saw and get that cast off, too. No, wait, we'll get them in the van first. Too many perverts around here, walking their dogs, one of them's going to phone the police soon."
"Yeah," the driver affirmed.
"Step back," the gun man commanded in English. "When we open the van, you get in and sit down."
"What about our clothes?" Olivia asked, straightening up. Cuffing her on the head as the driver opened the van door, the gun man ordered again, "Get in and sit down!"
Taking the lead, Lucas climbed in and sat down by the window. Olivia followed, curling in on herself to hide her nudity, though Lucas privately thought she didn't have anything to hide. Oh, she had a few old stretch marks, and a bit of a tummy, but nothing as disfiguring as his scars. She resisted somewhat as the driver grabbed her by the cast, and as the driver braced her arm against the seat in front, he gave her a hard look that dared her to move it.
"What –what are you doing?" Olivia asked as the man got into the front seat, picked a saw from the floor, and turned around to apply the blade to the plaster.
Hopefully, Lucas thought, the man would simply cut the cast off and throw it away without checking for devices. He watched as the man sawed carefully, then looked beyond the driver to see the gun man picking something up from the pile of clothing. It was his wallet; the gun man removed all the cash and credit cards, stuffed them into his own trousers, then tossed it away again.
"Ow!" Olivia cried, bringing Lucas' attention back to her. The driver had cut through the plaster and nicked her arm, and a tear ran down Olivia's cheek as the man removed the cast. Lucas would have been relieved to see that he didn't inspect the inside before throwing it out through the open door, except for the fact that the loss of both trackers and the microphone meant that MI-5 would now find it very difficult to follow their movements. Their only hope now was CCTV, but Lucas knew there were hundreds of these ordinary looking white vans on the road.
The gun man straightened up, then pulled the side door shut from the outside. Taking advantage of the fact that the driver was shifting seats, the gun man was getting in on the passenger side, and nobody was watching them, Lucas leaned close to Olivia and whispered, "Pretend it's really broken."
She looked at him for clarification, and he mimed cradling his arm against his body. Nodding, she did the same, and as the engine started, she even kept her left arm immobile while reaching for the seatbelt. They drove through the London streets, and Lucas steadfastly ignored the sinking feeling in his gut. The men had made no attempt to keep their prisoners from seeing their faces, or where they were going, and it could only mean one thing; that they had no intention of letting them go afterwards.
They headed in the general direction of the Thames and Lucas wondered if they were going to end up in Battersea Park, where Jeremy Owusu had died, but they pulled up just outside the north gate of Brompton Cemetery instead. They were obviously expected; the gates were opened from the inside just as the van came to a stop.
"Out," the gun man said. "Hurry."
As they stumbled out of the van, Lucas looked around for security cameras. The only one that he could see, however, had been vandalized and dangled brokenly from its perch. As the gun man hurried them in through the gate, Lucas could see that the lock had simply been sheared through. Behind them, the man who had opened the gate now pulled it shut, and the van drove off.
They were shepherded down one of the paths and into a more secluded area of the cemetery. It was the perfect place, Lucas thought, with nobody around to see what they were doing. He wondered why the terrorists had used Battersea Park before, instead of another cemetery, but maybe, after the bus fiasco, they were more worried about security now than they had been before.
A folding table had been set up in between two of the graves, and a laptop was open on it, its screen lighting the dusky surroundings with an eerie glow. A man was sitting on a folded chair at the table, but he stood up as they approached, and said, "Here. You can get dressed in this."
He handed them each a pair of pants and a T-shirt. Without asking, Lucas tucked his own pile of clothing under his arm and started to help Olivia, holding the mens' pants open for her to step into, then rolling up the T-shirt so that he could ease it over her "injured" arm. Olivia was trying desperately hard to keep up the pretense of being hurt, continuing to keep her left arm immobile, and overdoing it so that all of her joints were rigid with tension. Once he'd finished, Lucas stepped back and dressed in his own allotment of clothing. They were a bit on the small side, but it was better than running around in the nude, especially now that the wind was picking up and the clouds were coming in again.
Olivia obviously felt braver with clothes, too, because she demanded, "Where's Owen?"
"He's all right," the man said. "You spoke to him just a few minutes ago, so you know he's still alive."
"You've kidnapped Owen?" Lucas asked, then feigned indignation. "Olivia, why didn't you tell me? We could have –"
"Gone to the police?" the man interjected. "That is exactly why we did not let Olivia tell you."
His accent reminded Lucas of Lina's; the cultured English of someone who had learned it formally and very well indeed, but still couldn't hide all traces of his foreignness.
"I w-want you to bring Owen here," Olivia said, her voice quavering.
"He's coming," the man said. "It will take a few minutes for him to get here. We'll start in the meantime."
"How do we know you haven't killed him already in the meantime?" Lucas said, and Olivia gasped at the prospect. Playing for time, Lucas went on. "I don't know what you want us to do, but we're not doing anything until he's here and we know he's all right."
"He's coming," the man repeated, his voice hard. "But since we're in a hurry, I will call Owen and let you speak to him."
He picked up his mobile and dialled. "Let me speak to Owen."
To Owen, he said, "I've got your mother here, and your Uncle Scott. Tell them how much you want to go to Legoland."
Olivia stepped forward eagerly, grabbing for the mobile. "Owen? Yes, I know. I know, I want you to go to Legoland, too. And I love you, Owen. I just want you to know, I love you. No matter what happens, remember that. I love you."
She stopped speaking, and was still listening when the man took the phone away and spoke into it. "That's enough, Owen. Let me talk to Mickey now." He paused, then said more forcefully, "Owen, give the phone to Mickey."
Owen must have finally handed over the mobile to Mickey, because a moment later, the man switched to Russian and said, "If your phone rings again, shoot the boy first and then answer it."
Lucas felt a chill go down his spine, and distracted himself from it by staring at the mobile phone. From where he stood, it looked exactly like the mobile that they had given Olivia – or was it the same phone? It couldn't be, he told himself. They'd been so careful up until now, surely they would have thrown Olivia's phone away already. They probably all had the same type of mobile anyway.
Switching off, the man put the mobile back into his pocket, then looked at him and said, "Since Olivia has a broken arm, Scott, you will get to fly the drone. Sit down here."
"Drone?" Lucas asked, trying to keep to his legend as much as possible. "What drone?"
"You can tell him, Olivia," the man said, but Olivia was looking around. "Where is it?"
"It's not here," the man said. "You don't need to be right next to it to fly it, do you? Our informer tells us you can sit in London and still fly it anywhere in the world."
"Anywhere you've got satellites," Olivia corrected him, but Lucas hardly heard. The man had spoken in present tense. Did that mean they still had an informer inside Tarla? That it hadn't been Jeremy Owusu, but someone else who was still alive even now? Lucas considered who else knew so much about the drones. Mr Blaze himself, of course, and then there was the other engineer, George Kumar, who might well be in need of extra money to satisfy his two lovers. Wishing he hadn't lost the earring and could communicate his suspicions to Malcolm, Lucas groaned inwardly.
"Have you at least got the right software?" Olivia was asking. "I put the memory stick in the bag with the drone."
"We have it," the man said, indicating the side of the laptop. "Scott, sit down on this chair. Olivia, you sit down here."
He led her to a space on the grass just beyond the table and turned her around to face Lucas, then forced her down. Once seated at the laptop, all Lucas had to do was glance up in order to see her white, frightened face, and the gun man standing menacingly behind her with his weapon in his hand.
"So," Lucas asked. "You've kidnapped Owen, what exactly do you want us to do?"
"It's an assassination drone," the man said, "and you will fire it when and where I tell you."
"Who do you want to assassinate?" Lucas asked.
"It doesn't matter to you. The only thing that matters is that you fire when I tell you to, or we will kill Owen, and then Olivia, and then you."
"All right, all right, no need for any killing," Lucas told him. The man ignored his assurances, and said simply, "Now, make it fly."
Lucas turned his attention to the laptop and fired the thrusters, lifting the drone into the air. As it went up, he could see that it had been resting on top of a car, and was now in a street. The map function of the software identified it as Edwardes Square.
"Fly it west," the man told him. "Towards Holland Road. Keep it high, don't let it get in the way of any CCTV cameras, or I will tell my man to shoot Owen."
Olivia looked pleadingly at him, and Lucas said, "All right."
He guided the drone over a nearby church and across Kensington High Street, then up to Holland Road.
"A little bit farther," the man told him, and after they had passed the next intersection, he said again, "Farther."
The drone was now very close to the Georgian Embassy, Lucas realized, and wondered if someone there were the target. He couldn't remember hearing anything about any official visits from Georgian officials, though, and before the drone reached Russell Gardens, the man said, "Stop. There, right in front of the traffic light."
Lucas stopped the drone, and the man said, "Turn it so we can see what's coming up the road."
Sending the commands, Lucas fought down yet another surge of wishful thinking, hoping this time that the tracker was still in place inside the drone. It was frustrating, even terrifying, the way that the terrorists had managed to stay one step ahead of MI-5 so far. They were coming down to the last minutes of the operation now, he knew, and something had to happen soon. If it didn't, he'd be faced with a choice of doing exactly what the terrorists told him, which was killing somebody, and almost certainly being executed afterwards, or preventing the assassination of whoever the target was, and increasing his chances of being killed.
"Get it out of sight, park it up against a building or something where it won't be visible," the man said, and Lucas steered the drone to hover just under roof level of a nearby building.
"Now what?" he asked, and the man said, "Now we wait."
They waited, and after a minute or two, there was the sound of a high, boyish voice from across the cemetery. Turning towards the sound, Lucas saw a small light bobbing towards them in the rapidly falling dusk, and as it got closer, he could make out two men and a boy. Suddenly, Olivia called out, "Owen!"
"Mum!" Owen broke free of the men and ran forward, wrapping himself around her in a big hug that almost knocked her over. Lucas' heart sank as he saw that she'd instinctively put up both arms to reciprocate and was squeezing back tightly, at least until Owen fought one hand free and held up a stuffed animal. "Don't forget to hug Speedy!"
Immediately, Lucas cut the power to two of the drone's thrusters, letting it drop slowly to the ground, and called out, "We have a problem here," but it was too late. The man had already come around from behind him, and was pulling Owen away. Thrusting the child aside, he grabbed Olivia by the left wrist and began to hit her arm with the side of his hand, moving down towards her elbow with each chop and watching her reaction. "Your arm's not broken! You lied to us!"
Olivia cried out, but she sounded more surprised and indignant than injured. One of the two men who had just come to the cemetery gripped Owen's shoulder and held it.
"Stop making that pathetic noise," the man hissed to Olivia. "You couldn't act your way out of a paper sack!"
Olivia fell silent, staring guiltily up at him. The man let go of her, then pulled a gun from the holster under his arm and pointed it directly at Owen's head. "Tell me. Why did you lie to us? Why did you have a cast on your arm when it wasn't broken?"
Gulping, Olivia shot Lucas a quick, pained glance, just as Owen asked, "Is that a real gun?"
Shifting his aim just a little, the man pulled the trigger, and a bullet shot into the grass at Owen's feet. Olivia screeched in terror, and Owen jumped, staring at the man in shocked betrayal.
The man said, "Tell me, or I'll shoot him in the head!"
Olivia gasped, and Owen said, "But, Kostya, I thought you were my friend."
"The thrusters are on the blink," Lucas said quickly, shutting more of them down, but nobody was listening. Without speaking, Kostya pointed the gun at the boy's head and Lucas knew, even before Olivia flashed him a look filled with both guilt and anguish, what she was going to say.
"He told me to, he's from the government," Olivia cried, pointing at Lucas and flinging herself in front of Owen to protect him. "Don't shoot my son, please!"
Part 13