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Chapter One
NO ONE SAW them No one heard them They were not supposed to The black-clad Special Forces soldiers slipped unseen through the pitch-dark night towards the target house
In ht, even in deepest night, but this was the outer suburb of an English provincial town and all public lighting had ceased at one in theThis was the darkest hour, 2 am A solitary fox watched them pass but instinct bade hihts broke the gloom
They encountered two single hu with friends The soldiersblack on black, until the wanderers had stumbled towards their homes
They knew exactly where they were, having studied the streets and the target house in intimate detail forcars and overhead drones Much enlarged and pinned to the wall of the briefing roo Lines, the headquarters of the SAS outside Hereford, the ies had been memorized to the last stone and kerb The soft-booted men did not trip or stumble
There were a dozen of them, and they included two Americans, inserted at the insistence of the US team that had installed itself in the embassy in London And there were two froiment, a unit even more clandestine than the SAS and the SBS, the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service respectively The authorities had elected to use the SAS, known siiment’
One of the two from the SRR was a woender equality It was the reverse Observation had revealed that one of the inhabitants of the target house was female and even the British hard squads try to observe a little gallantry The point of the presence of the SRR, solars’, was to practise one of their many skill sets – covert entry
The et house and its denizens but to ensure they were not seen by any watcher inside and that no one escaped They approached froarden fence, front, back and sides, crossed the garden and ringed the house, still unseen and unheard by neighbour or inhabitant
No one heard the slight squeak of the dialass cutter as it described a neat circle in a kitchen , nor the low crack as the disc was reh the hole and unlatched theA black figure climbed over the sill into the sink, jumped quietly to the floor and opened the back door The team slipped in
Though they had all studied the architect’s plan, filed with the registry when the house was built, they still used head-les (NVGs) in case of owner-installed obstructions or even booby-traps They began with the ground floor,fro figures, trip wires or silent alarms
After ten minutes the teale-file column of five up the narrow staircase of as evidently a very ordinary detached four-bedrooly bewildered, remained below This was not the way they would have subdued a thoroughly dangerous nest of terrorists Such a house invasion back hoazines of ammunition by now Clearly, the Limeys were pretty weird
Those below heard startled exclamations from above These quickly ceased After ten more minutes of muttered instructions the team leader uttered his first report He did not use internet or cellphone – interceptible – but old-fashioned encrypted radio ‘Target subdued,’ he said softly ‘Inhabitants four Await sunrise’ Those who listened to him kneould happen next It had all been pre-planned and rehearsed
The two Americans, both US Navy SEALs, also reported in to their embassy on the south side of the Thames in London
The reason for the ‘hard’ takeover of the building was simple Despite a week of covert surveillance, it was still possible, bearing in e to the defences of the entire Western world that had coht contain arht be terrorists, fanatics,behind the innocent façade That hy the Regiment had been told there was no alternative to a ‘worst case’ operation
But an hour later the teaain
‘You are not going to believe e have found here’
In the very earlyin a modest bedroom under the eaves of the Special Forces Club in an anonye, a wealthy district of London’s West End At the third ring the bedside light ca – the outco his feet to the floor and glanced at the illu the apparatus to his ear He also glanced at the clock beside the la Did this woman never sleep?
‘Yes, Prime Minister’
The person at the other end clearly had not been to bed at all
‘Adrian, sorry to wake you at this hour Could you be with reet the Americans I suspect they will be on the warpath and I would appreciate your assessment and advice They are due at ten’