Carver - By Tom Cain Page 0,62

compound. But then the target had been a single individual, not a giant industrial installation. So how much damage could he do here? There was a limit to the amount of explosive anyone could haul up a cliff-face. A few well-placed C4 charges would certainly make a hell of a bang, but they’d struggle to do the kind of serious, long-term damage that sent a message no one would be able to ignore. For that you’d need a lot more explosive, and that meant some form of transport, either by land or by air.

Well, if anyone really wanted to recreate 9/11 with a death-dive into an oil refinery or nuclear power station there was not a lot Carver could do about it. So what about a truck-bomb? It would have to get past the roadblocks. And even though a truck could deliver a massive amount of explosive, it only delivered it to one place and made one very big hole. But the refinery covered a huge area. It could surely survive a single bomb, no matter how big.

No, the way to attack a place like this was to mount some kind of spectacular: hit it more than once. An image came to his mind of black and white film from the Second World War – Russian ‘Katyusha’ rocket launchers, mounted on the back of trucks, blasting a fusillade of projectiles at the German lines. Like so many Russian weapons, Katyushas were very basic, very brutal and very easy to copy.

He looked at the map again. If he had a rocket launcher, where would he put it?

There weren’t too many options. Anyone using home-made devices would want them as close as possible to the refinery, without actually getting on to its own, well-defended, regularly patrolled property. They’d also need cover behind which to hide: trees, walls, even low hills. But there didn’t look to be much of anything near the refinery. The land was flat, with only the odd copse of trees marked on the map, and virtually all the buildings in the area fell within the refinery’s property. There was just one farm close by whose buildings might fit the criteria Carver had set himself.

He walked around Holloway’s desk, sat by his computer, and called up a satellite picture of the area. He zoomed in on the farm, frowning as he peered at the screen. The buildings seemed unoccupied, even derelict. One was missing its roof. Even from the aerial shot it was obvious that the farmyard was overgrown, the stone or tarmac long since lost beneath a cover of vegetation. Well, if he were going to launch anything, Carver thought, that’s where he’d do it from. He looked at the broken-down buildings for a few more seconds. ‘Yes, that’s the place,’ he muttered to himself. And then he, too, left the room.

45

* * *

Mid-air, en route to Rosconway

THE TWO AUGUSTA Power Elite helicopters packed with VIPs took off six minutes late, but the pilots put the hammer down and made up time along the way. ‘Don’t worry, everyone, we’re going to arrive bang on time,’ the RAF lieutenant at the controls of the lead craft assured his passengers. Nikki Wilkins passed the news on to her colleagues on the ground.

‘This could get interesting,’ she was told. ‘We’re still a couple of TV crews short. Channel Four News should make it in time, but God only knows where the missing BBC lot have got to.’

‘Do you want us to slow down, then?’ Wilkins asked.

‘No. Get here on time. You’re due at ten forty, right?’

‘That’s the time I was given, yes.’

‘Right then, let’s try to stick to the schedule if we possibly can. If the BBC don’t get their own pictures, that’s their problem. They’ll just have to take a feed from someone else.’

‘What’s it like there, though – apart from all the madness? You think this is going to work?’

‘Well, that depends … if the TV people all turn up, and if there isn’t some God-awful cock-up, this is a great place to do it. You’ve got this huge industrial complex – you know, all steel and concrete and flaming chimneys – set against this stunning coastline. And the weather looks pretty good. Plenty of blue sky, fluffy clouds, bright sunshine. I think we’re going to get some spectacular pictures.’

‘That sounds great,’ said Nikki Wilkins. ‘Full speed ahead!’

46

* * *

Wentworth

MALACHI ZORN HAD been unable to contact Nicholas Orwell during his helicopter journey. The total embargo preventing anyone revealing the location