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  Siriwardeen was an experienced cop who had worked in the Special Task Force (STF) for almost two years. He handled the Land Rover with skill, guiding it across the ubiquitous bumps and potholes until he pulled up outside a 3-metre- high metal fence. He could just see the white shape of the house known as Singha Pitiya, which translated meant something close to ‘The Place of Iron Blood’. Siriwardeen had heard about this house and the many different rumours linked to its owner. But whatever he had been told, none of it matched the reality, for it was quite simply larger, more beautiful and extravagant than he could have ever believed possible.

  The car pulled up at a guard box close to a pair of ornate black gates. The box was unoccupied and to the policeman’s surprise, the gate hung open. Beyond lay a gravel path bordered by immaculate lawns and flowerbeds. Automatic reticulation hoses scattered water in a wide arch. Siriwardeen brought the Land Rover to a halt in front of the main door of the house and the four STF men jumped out.

  The Captain’s boots crunched on the shingle as he walked around the car and marched up to the huge front door. It lay wide open. He pushed his head inside, suspicions growing. Then he pulled back and indicated that his sergeant should come with him and that the two constables must stay outside the door.

  ‘Keep your eyes open,’ he said. ‘Maintain radio contact.’

  The two men entered the house wearily, fanned out, crouching low, their AK-47s sweeping the air in front of them, every sense heightened.

  Siriwardeen had never seen anything like this house. It was a palace. A vast swirl of staircase opened up in the middle of a mezzanine, wings extending right and left. The hall itself had the floor space of his house, a home he shared with his wife and six children. He had been invited to the Chief of Police’s residence a year before. It had been the boss’s fiftieth birthday and he had held a lavish party in the grounds of his mansion. Until today, that had been the most incred- ible home Arjuna had ever been inside. At the time, he had marvelled at how any one man could acquire such a place in a single lifetime of work. But the Chief of Police’s home was a ghetto shack compared to Singha Pitiya. This place was so far outside his imagining, he could have believed the owner was a god . . . or perhaps a devil.

  Siriwardeen shoved aside such thoughts and concentrated on the job at hand. He led the way through a gigantic dining hall, out through a kitchen glistening with polished steel and into a sumptuous living room in which everything was the purest white – white carpet, white sofas, white walls. At the far end of the room, wide French doors opened onto a broad outdoor dining area shaded by white silk sails flapping in the gentle breeze. The Captain could just make out the turquoise water of an oddly shaped pool.

  He turned to his left and saw the sprawled bodies. Two men in suits. Their blood had soaked into the white carpet and the walls were spattered with grey matter. Each of the men had a ragged red hole in their forehead.

  Siriwardeen’s assistant, Sergeant Ranatunga, came up beside him and stared at the dead men. ‘A professional hit,’ he said.

  The captain heard a sound. It came from a point close to the edge of the pool, behind a hedge to their left. He made for cover at the far side of the outdoor dining area. Ranatunga took up position on the other side. They strained to hear.

  The sound came again. Captain Siriwardeen crouched low and edged his way towards the source, his back against the hedge. Bringing up his gun, his finger ready on the trigger, he twisted away and ran across an expanse of marble close to the pool.

  For a few seconds, he could not quite take in the scene. The fattest man he had ever seen was seated in a metal chair a few metres in front of him. The man was naked except for a pair of flimsy Speedos. His massive, flabby chest was heaving. He was drenched in sweat and the Captain could smell his stench from where he stood. The man had a length of duct tape across his mouth and was straining to speak, but not a word could be made out.

  Ranatunga appeared at the captain’s left and exhaled loudly. Siriwardeen glanced around at him, told his man to stay put and took two careful steps towards the enormous figure, sweeping his AK-47 to left and right. The man in the chair reacted immediately, his voice rising in panic. His eyes widened further. He started to shake his head furiously as though he were trying desperately to tell the captain something.

  Siriwardeen took another slow step forwards. The bound figure was screaming frantically behind the gag. The captain began to move his right leg forwards, his boot suspended in the air a few centimetres above the marble. He stopped, his foot still raised but motionless. He looked down and saw the metal devices, a faint shimmer of light passing between them. He started to lower his foot and turn away, then felt Ranatunga come up beside him.

  Siriwardeen put out his arm. It knocked into the sergeant’s side and the Captain lost balance, put his foot down a millimetre too far and . . . War exploded.

  100

  Oceanview Castle, Big Sur, California

  The three Horsemen – Death, Pestilence and Conquest – had accepted a personal invitation to stay over at the castle from the owner and the man who had hosted the Brotherhood meeting, the billionaire industrialist Chaz Feltenberger III. They had all agreed to meet for breakfast in the grand dining hall and to meet Mrs Feltenberger, who was returning from LA with their twin daughters, Goldilocks and Precious.

  Death and Pestilence stood at the bottom of the grand staircase.

  ‘So it is done?’ Death said.

  ‘Light Touch wouldn’t return my calls, the arrogant shit. But one of my people is almost as good a hacker. I gave him the job.’

  ‘And they managed to transfer all of War’s assets to us, split equally, three ways?’

  ‘As agreed.’

  ‘And it is absolutely, completely untraceable?’

  Pestilence gave his colleague a withering look.

  Death looked right through him. ‘How much . . .?’

  They were interrupted by the sound of Conquest sashaying down the steps behind them. They turned in unison to see the man had a big grin on his face.

  ‘You look puke-makingly happy,’ Pestilence said, his face devoid of expression.

  ‘I am,’ the suave English aristo oozed. ‘As should you be. Apart from the fact that the three of us have become billions richer overnight, there’s this.’ He reached the last step and handed his mobile phone to his colleague. ‘Push the green button.’

  Death leaned in and Pestilence depressed the rubberised pad on the top of the phone. An image appeared on the tiny screen. ‘I had a camera set up there a few weeks ago,’ Conquest said quietly. ‘Our friend never spotted it.’

  The video clip began to play. It showed War seated in a metal chair. He was bound and gagged. He looked terrified, perspiring like a very hot pig, a puddle of urine visible under his huge backside. A narrow beam of red light could just be made out, stretching across the video image at the bottom of the screen.

  Then a man appeared. He was wearing the light brown uniform of the Sri Lankan Police Force. He stared at War, then stepped forwards. Another man appeared just in shot to the side of the screen. Then the picture seemed to erupt. For a second, it was almost impossible to understand what had happened.

  The film played on: 2 seconds, 3 seconds . . . The lens of the camera was smeared with something. It had a reddish hue. Then the image started to clear so that Death and Pestilence could see the chair again. It had fallen over, a tangled mess. The stumps of War’s legs stood either side of the twisted metal framework, the marble floor around the pool covered with small pieces of flesh like a rash.

  ‘That Turkish Delight obviously had one helluva kick,’ Pestilence said and lifted his head to see Conquest smiling like a Cheshire cat.

  The Horsemen turned at a sound from the far end of the wide hall. A man was shouting something. ‘You can’t just barge –’ They saw the Feltenberger’s English ‘butler’, Humphrey, confronting three men in suits. The men had Feds written all over them.

  Death turned to se
e his PA along the hall. Beside him stood the Horsemen’s three bodyguards.

  ‘The chopper is fired up and ready to go, sir,’ the PA announced and indicated the back entrance.

  Through an expanse of glass, Death could see his private helicopter on the rear lawn. All three Horsemen span in unison and began to follow Death’s PA, the bodyguards falling in behind them.

  ‘Stop right there, please, sirs,’ a voice called out.

  They kept walking.

  ‘I’m an FBI agent. Stop or I’m authorised to shoot.’

  The seven men stopped. Death let out a sigh, the other two Horsemen started to walk towards the agent who was holding up his ID in his left hand, a Glock 23 in his right. The other two FBI agents came up behind their leader. Humphrey, still complaining, retreated a few paces to the front door.

  One of the bodyguards started to draw a gun.

  ‘Don’t,’ snapped the FBI agent.

  Pestilence and Conquest froze as four heavily armed SWAT officers dressed in black with balaclavas and body armour ran in through the front door, their 9-millimetre Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns raised, fingers poised on the triggers.

  101

  Cloud Tower, Dubai

  Steph had no time to even feel shocked as she saw Moham- med die.

  She pulled herself up and dashed over to Jessica and Charlotte. They were standing a metre onto the platform, ashen faced, paralysed with terror. She got between them, grabbed an arm each and rushed them forwards. She could see the chopper had moved west a few metres in the hope a new path across the platform would be safer. She could see Saeed had reached the passenger section and was being hauled aboard by the RAF men.

  Another boom came from the Tower. The platform swayed violently. Steph saw the Silverback pull away with the stretcher still dangling beneath it. Chloe was strapped in and Gina stood clasping the cable for dear life. Steph turned and saw the top of the Tower begin to crumble. Two storeys above her head, a column collapsed and the side of the roof level began to slide away into the air, disintegrating as it fell.

  Yelling pointlessly, she yanked at Charlotte and Jessica and propelled them forwards as hard as she could. They flew across the 2 metres of nanonet and tumbled into the arms of the men on the Chinook.

  ‘Come on!’ one of the RAF officers bellowed, his voice barely audible.

  Steph took a step forwards, heard a thunderous crash from behind her and whirled around. Spinning back towards the chopper, she saw a massive crack a metre wide appear in the nanonet. She would never make it across the platform now, not in time anyway. If the chopper stayed a moment longer, those aboard would be in mortal danger.

  ‘Go!’ Steph screamed.

  The men on the Chinook looked stunned. They knew the danger but still they hesitated.

  ‘GO!’

  Steph saw one of the men turn towards the cockpit and point upwards. The chopper slid backwards and up, its rotors scything the air.

  Steph felt sick and almost lost her footing. The air seemed to be overflowing with noise. Great clouds of dust and concrete particles billowed around her. A lump of masonry as big as a filing cabinet plummeted down through the air half a metre to her left. It shattered into dozens of pieces as it landed on the nanonet. She felt her legs give way from under her and started to fall backwards.

  The wall behind her groaned and she saw the fissure in the side of the tower widen like the jaws of a vast marine animal. She turned to her left and saw that Dimitri had pulled the Silverback away from danger and was now heading west. Far off, she could just make out the bulbous shape of the Big Mac hovering 100 metres away from the Tower.

  That’s when the full horror hit her. It reared up in her guts. She ducked and span around, rushing for the crumbling store, no logical thoughts in her head, no plans, no ration- ality, her training stripped away. She was just a wounded animal acting instinctively.

  She took two steps and felt herself start to fall. A lump of concrete slammed into her back, sending a spasm of pain down her spine. She felt herself lifting off the platform. Crazy thoughts ricocheted around inside her head. ‘So this is it’, a voice said. The air was rushing past her, taking her breath away. ‘These are the final moments between life and death.’

  Her senses were becoming confused. She could smell the familiar odour of her husband, Ted. But Ted was dead, she knew that. She gasped as she felt something wrap itself around her upper arm. She made to look but couldn’t move her head. A weight pressed against her and again she dreamed it was Ted.

  Colours flashed past, the tower tumbling down, crashing all around her. The silver fabric of the nanonet swirled into the air as it snapped and split; the distant orange sand and the blue, blue sky, the sun ablaze, a bright white light sucking her in.

  102

  Folkestone, England, the next day

  The E-Force chopper had just touched down on the helipad 100 metres from the main building of the quarantine centre. Its rotors were still spinning, rain danced on its fuselage and on the concrete around it.

  Pete, Mai and Josh were standing close to the exit of the building and had been left alone by the authorities so they could say goodbye in private. The two E-Force rescuers had agreed to spend 24 hours undergoing a battery of tests and checks, and then agreed to debrief a group of senior British and French military men, police and government officials. The tunnel, they learned, would be out of action for many months, perhaps years.

  The media had been kept away but all the survivors except for Louis had given video-link interviews. The Frenchman had suffered serious bruising to the brain and was in an induced coma. He was expected to make a full recovery.

  Ever since the story broke, news services around the planet had covered almost nothing else but the disaster in Dubai, the Chunnel attack and the cyberassault on ITAM, all three now known to be linked to a terrorist group calling themselves the Four Horsemen.

  Photographs of the collapsing Cloud Tower filled every front page and seemed to be on auto-repeat on TV stations everywhere. The death toll had stunned everyone. Fewer than 1000 had perished. A number that, the journalists and politicians never stopped reminding everyone, was 1000 too many. But given the circumstances and the fact that there were over 30,000 people in the tower at the time of the missile strike, the rescue was seen as something of a miracle. This had been partly due to the fact that the Tower had collapsed in on itself, and because the local rescuers had successfully evacuated so many people.

  The Dubai Disaster, as it was quickly dubbed, shared headlines and top-of-the-news status with the terrorist strike on the Chunnel. Ironically, because of the nature of the latter attack, almost as many died in the tunnel as perished in the Cloud Tower. There had been 917 passengers on the train – just six survivors emerged.

  The story of the cyberattack on ITAM had plenty of glamour but no real human interest. At least not anything quotable by journalists already covering two of the biggest peacetime man-made disasters since 9/11. But it had enormous repercussions for the world’s financial institutions. The world’s stock markets shuddered, billions were lost and gained within hours and, combined with the aftershocks of the GFC still rippling through the money-sphere, thousands lost their jobs and the governments of two small European nations were brought down.

  Josh, dressed in jeans and a sweater that the crew at the quarantine station had managed to find in his size, was looking out towards the soaked chopper, watching the blades slow. Mai touched his elbow. He turned and smiled. Pete was standing less than a metre away. They were dressed in their cybersuits.

  ‘It was good seeing you again, Josh,’ Mai said softly.

  ‘And you too,’ he replied. ‘Both of you. Please say “Hi” to the others, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure thing. So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked away, out at the view through the rain-spattered window and then down at his feet. ‘I guess, for a start, I’ll have to do a few interviews. Maybe I’ll write a book abou
t the rescue!’ And he laughed awkwardly.

  ‘You sound, I dunno . . . wistful,’ Mai said and looked around at Pete.

  ‘I’d say bloody miserable, mate.’

  Josh grinned and shook his head. ‘Funny, isn’t it? You can have almost everything but there’s always something missing – that something you can’t have.’ He looked into Mai’s eyes, then turned to slap Pete on the back. ‘I never thanked you two,’ he added.

  ‘It hardly seems appropriate, Josh,’ Pete replied. ‘You were as helpful to us as we were to you.’

  ‘Just like old times.’

  There was an uncomfortable silence. They all watched as a man in E-Force uniform and flying helmet trudged towards them through the rain.

  ‘You could always give Mark a call,’ Mai said and looked Josh directly in the face.

  ‘Oh, I don’t have his number anymore,’ he lied.

  ‘Then send him a postcard: Mark Harrison, E-Force, Tintara,’ Pete quipped.

  ‘I might just do that,’ Josh replied and walked with them to the door.

  103

  Base One, 14 December

  Tom and Mark were on the balcony of Tom’s quarters. The great vista of a spotless Pacific Ocean stretched out before them. Early morning sunlight played on the waves.

  Mark had arrived a few minutes earlier, a folder under his arm. Tom had fixed them coffees and they drank in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the view.

  ‘I’ve read your report, Tom.’ Mark waved the folder in front of him. ‘You still can’t find anything wrong with the nanonet system. Even though it almost fouled-up two missions.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it. In the first case, we pushed it beyond its limits. In Dubai, we went in before we had full integrity.’