Remote Control Read Free Page A

the vehicle and I clicked the pressel four times.
    Golf came back, ‘Standby, standby!’
    That was it, we were off.
    I let them walk towards the main square, and then I got up. I knew we wouldn’t lift them here. There were far too many people around. For all we knew the players might want to go out in a blaze of glory and start dropping the civilians, take them hostage, or even worse, go into kamikaze mode and detonate the device.
    Alpha came back on the net. ‘Hello all call signs, all call signs – cancel, cancel, cancel! I do not have control! Cancel! Golf, acknowledge.’
    At once I heard Kev’s not-so-formal reply: ‘What the fuck’s going on? Tell me – what’s going on?’
    ‘Wait . . . wait . . .’ Alpha sounded under pressure. There were voices in the background. ‘All stations, all stations, the police need another ID, they need to be sure. Golf acknowledge.’
    What do they want, introductions? ‘Hi, I’m Danny, bomber and murderer, I enjoy travelling and working with children.’
    We were in danger of losing them if we didn’t act soon.
    Alpha came back: ‘All stations, ATO is moving to check the vehicle. Delta, we need that confirmation.’
    I acknowledged. There was obviously some flapping going on in the ops room. The boss was getting a hard time from the police and it sounded like a chimps’ tea party in there.
    The terrorist team would be crossing the border within minutes. Once they were on the other side, they could detonate the bomb with immunity.
    I was now on the other side of the road, and wanted at least to get parallel to them so that I could see their faces again. I had to reconfirm the players, then stick with them.
    More activity on the net. I could hear the tension in Alpha’s voice now, telephone lines ringing, people milling about.
    Kev cut in: ‘Fuck the ops room, let’s keep on top of them until someone somewhere makes a fucking decision. Lima and Zulu, can you get forward?’
    Zulu came on the net for himself and Lima, very much out of breath: ‘Zulu and Lima, we . . . we can do that.’
    ‘Roger that, move up, tell me when you’re there.’
    Kev wanted them beyond the health centre. They were running hard to get ahead of the targets; they didn’t care who saw them, as long as the players didn’t. But we still hadn’t got control.
    Kev came back on the net: ‘Alpha, this is Golf. You need to get your finger out now – we’re going to lose them. What do you want us to do?’
    ‘Golf, wait, wait . . .’
    I could still hear noise in the background; lots of talking, more telephones ringing, people shouting instructions.
    Everything went quiet.
    ‘Wait . . . wait . . .’
    All I could hear now was the background noise of Alpha on my radio, plus my pulse pounding in my head. Then, at last, the voice of Simmonds – very clear, a voice you wouldn’t argue with. I heard him say to Alpha, ‘Tell the ground commander he can continue.’
    ‘All call signs, this is Alpha. I have control. I have control. Golf acknowledge.’
    Kev got on the net, and instead of acknowledging, said, ‘Thank fuck for that. All call signs, if they get as far as the airport, we’ll lift them there. If not – on my word, on my word. Zulu and Lima, how’s it going?’
    They came back on the net. ‘That’s us static at the junction. We can take.’ They were at the intersection of Main Street and Smith Dorrien Avenue, the main approach road to the crossing into Spain. The players were moving towards them.
    I could lift off soon. I’d done the job I’d been brought here to do. I prepared myself for the hand-over.
    But then they stopped.
    Fuck . ‘Stop, stop, stop!’ I said. ‘That’s Bravo One, Two and Echo One static.’
    Everybody was closing in. Come on, let’s lift them here and now .
    Savage split from the other two and headed back the way they’d come, towards the town centre. It was all going to rat shit. We had two groups to control now and we didn’t