The street Syed had entered was crowded, pedestrians milling about as vehicles slowly bullied their way through the throng. ‘What’s this?’ Tony asked. ‘Kyle, show me the street ahead. Careful, though — don’t lose sight of him. And switch on the auto-tracking.’
‘He’s still got the tracer on him.’
‘Yeah, but it might get brushed off if he bumps into someone, and we’d end up following the wrong guy.’
Kyle entered commands. A pulsating blue outline appeared around the red diamond. The computer had locked on to Syed’s figure, identifying it by colour and shape; as long as the terrorist leader was partially visible to the drone, even in a crowd, the system would track him — and predict his movements and reacquire him if contact were briefly lost.
The camera tilted upwards to show the busy street ahead. In front of the shops, numerous small stalls were strewn along the sides of the long road, seeds sown in a furrow. ‘Imran, he’s at an outdoor market,’ said Tony. ‘He probably thinks he can lose any tails in the crowd.’
‘I know the place,’ came the reply. ‘There’s a street where we can cut across and get ahead of him.’
Kyle angled the camera back down to regard Syed from directly overhead. Even at the UAV’s altitude, it was easy to see the terrorist turning his head every few metres to check if anybody was following him. ‘You’re lookin’ the wrong way, assfag,’ Kyle said with a smirk. Holly Jo made a faint tsk sound.
‘Let’s keep the language professional,’ chided Tony. Everything that happened in the operations centre was being recorded. ‘John, is your team ready?’
‘Soon as you give the word,’ Baxter answered.
‘Okay.’ The distance between the green circle and the red diamond on the overview was rapidly shrinking. ‘Get ready.’
Lak swerved around a three-wheeled autorickshaw, giving its driver a blast on the horn before looking ahead. The road the Mercedes was now on ran parallel to the market street. ‘How far away is he?’
Baxter’s laptop displayed the same overhead view of the city as Tony’s. ‘Three hundred metres,’ he reported. ‘Two fifty.’
Lak accelerated, spray gushing from the van’s wheels as it jolted through puddles. He spotted the side road. They would emerge on the market street in front of Syed, but not by much. ‘The turn’s coming up,’ he called to the men in the back.
‘He’s eighty metres ahead,’ said Baxter. ‘Fifty, twenty… okay, we just passed him.’
‘Hold on!’ Lak braked sharply, the Mercedes squealing in complaint as he made the turn. The side street was short, but busy, a few stalls that had overflowed from the main thoroughfare at its far end. He sounded the horn again. Disgruntled shoppers cleared a path.
‘Jesus, he’s less than twenty metres away,’ Baxter muttered. If Syed decided to take the side road, they would have a tough job turning back around to follow.
But he was on the other side of the street, still moving through the market. ‘Here he comes,’ said the Alabaman. ‘Go right, go right!’ Lak turned again, forcing a taxi to an irate stop as he pulled out across its path and brought the van on to the crowded street. ‘Okay, we’re in front of him.’
Lak surveyed the street. Although there was strictly speaking only room for one lane of traffic in each direction, in places there were three or even four rows of vehicles as autorickshaws and scooters forced themselves into any available gap. ‘Which side of the road is he on?’
‘The left.’
‘Okay. Ready with the distraction?’
Baxter looked to one of his team, a beefy, mustachioed man named Perez, who nodded in reply. The laptop now showed that Syed was twenty-five metres behind the slowly moving van. ‘Ready, get ready…’ The gap opened up slightly. ‘Okay, go!’
Lak brought the van to a sudden halt, a scooter’s horn providing a shrill rebuke from behind. Perez slid open the side door and hopped out. He rounded the back of the Mercedes and jogged across the street, one hand raised to ward off an autorickshaw coming in the other direction. The van set off again.
Even though his target was now less than fifteen metres away, Perez didn’t turn his head, keeping his gaze ahead as if transfixed by the stacks of cheap plastic goods on one of the stalls. His hand slipped into a pocket, finding a roll of cigarette-sized metal cylinders.
He went to the stall’s side, pretending to examine a set of brightly coloured bowls as he took out the roll. The stallholder was haggling with a woman, not looking at him. A flick of his hand, and the cylinders were tossed into a doorway. The woman’s eyes twitched round at the faint clatter as they landed, but Perez had already moved on.
Syed was now level with him on the other side of the street. The American kept pace. The terrorist leader was about fifty metres from the van, which had stopped again beside a telephone pole. Perez crossed diagonally back across the hectic thoroughfare, slotting in behind his target. His hand went into his other jacket pocket. ‘Just give the word,’ he muttered into his Bluetooth headset.
Kyle zoomed in. None of the people in the operations centre needed the coloured symbols to pick out the players any more, watching unblinkingly as Syed drew closer to the van.
‘Stand by,’ Tony told Perez. Ten metres, the distance shrinking by the second.
Baxter and his two other men, Spence and Ware, stood inside the van, poised at the rear doors. The windows were covered with a tinted film to prevent onlookers from seeing in; the view outside was darkened, but still clear enough to reveal Syed approaching.
‘Set?’ Baxter asked. Both men nodded. One slowly pushed down the door handle, releasing the catch.
Baxter hefted the stubby stun baton in his right hand, thumb poised on its trigger.
‘Ready…’ said Tony.
Five metres. Four—
‘Go!’
Perez thumbed the button on the radio-control unit in his pocket.
The detonators he had thrown into the doorway exploded one after another, cracking like gunfire. The woman screamed, the stallholder leaping away in fright and knocking his merchandise to the ground.
People spun in shock and fear at the noise. Terrorists, the army, criminals — any of them could send stray bullets into the crowd. Where was the shooter?
For a moment, all eyes were looking in the same direction.
Including Syed’s.
He was two metres from the van when the device went off, whirling to find the source of the — gunfire? No, the sound wasn’t right. Just fireworks—
It took his mind only a fraction of a second to reach that conclusion, but by then it was too late.
The van’s rear doors swept open. The first two men jumped out to flank him. Baxter, a step behind, pressed the stun baton against the back of his neck. A harsh buzz — and over a million volts flooded through Syed’s body.
The cell leader slumped as if his bones had liquefied, eyes rolled up into his head. Ware and Spence caught him, swinging his nerveless body around and hauling it into the van. Baxter was already back inside; Perez followed, slamming the doors behind him.
Lak set the Mercedes moving as the last detonator fired. The entire procedure had taken a fraction under seven seconds. A few people on the street were left vaguely aware that something had happened behind the van — but in the confusion, all attention on the sound of shots, nobody could remember what the man who had been there just moments before even looked like.
The van turned down a side street and sped away.
Chapter 3
A Game of Leapfrog
‘We got him!’
Adam could tell from the excitement in Holly Jo’s voice that Syed’s capture had gone exactly to plan. Baxter’s team would now be bringing their prisoner to the operations centre.