Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,24

something as they'd pulled out of the lot, something that had instantly struck him as odd.

Across the street, at they’d passed, he'd noticed two men sitting in a car. The North London area where the ARU headquarters was based was a business area, but these guys didn’t looked like businessmen. They looked tough and out of place. The windows to the Ford were blacked out, so they didn’t make eye contact with Archer, but he’d turned his head and glanced at them through the window as they pulled out of the lot and moved off down the street.

Beside him, Chalky finished with his mic and looked at the gas mask in his hands. It was an Avon C50 model, just about as comfortable a gas mask a police officer in this line of work could wear, an all-black ski mask and protective face seal combined with a solitary single filtration respirator that would stop any airborne toxin from entering an officer's lungs. In their training, every man on the team had become accustomed to wearing the mask on drills and exercises. The training had begun with all the officers huddled in a hut wearing the gasmasks. Then their instructor had unceremoniously tear-gassed the building. One by one, the recruits were ordered to remove the masks, to get an idea of what it felt like to suffer from exposure to the gas. Aside from being shot, it was up there as one of the worst experiences of Chalky's life. He'd staggered out of the hut, choking, his eyes and nose clogged up, struggling to breathe, rendered temporarily useless and totally incapacitated from its effects. He hadn't been forced to use the mask yet in the field, and looking down at it in the car was the first time he had held it since that training over two years ago. It was stirring up some unpleasant memories.

‘Question - what use is this thing going to be against anthrax?’ he said.

‘A lot of use,’ Fox said, checking the safety of his MP5 sub-machine gun, as Porter turned the car to the right. ‘It’ll keep you alive.’

‘Yeah, but HAZMAT have full body suits. I get a gas-mask.’

‘Why don’t you stay in the car then?’ Fox replied.

‘You alright, Arch?’ Porter asked, noticing the blond man was unusually quiet, looking at him in the rear view mirror.

‘Yeah,’ the blond officer said, distracted, frowning. 'I think so.'

As Fox and Chalky continued their exchange, arguing about the benefits of the mask, Archer ignored them and made a quick decision. He pulled his mobile phone from a Velcro pocket on the left collarbone of his tactical vest.

He held down button 2, and the call went straight through to Nikki back at the ARU's HQ.

Sitting at her desk, her tech team working around and behind her, Nikki was just pulling up a map of the US Embassy and the possible contamination zone, when the phone on her desk rang. She grabbed it, not taking her eyes off the screen in front of her, still typing away.

‘Yep?’

‘Nikki, it’s Arch.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Do me a favour. Can you leave your desk for a moment?’

She looked at the schematics on the screen in front of her desk and at the busy tech team around her.

‘Not really. Is it urgent?’

‘Just do me a favour and go through to the briefing room.’

She shrugged, then rose and walked quickly through to the adjacent room.

The place was deserted, littered with half-drunk cups of tea and coffee, newspapers abandoned on seats. She looked left and right around her at the empty room.

‘OK. Now what?’

‘Go to the window.’

She did.

‘Look past the parking lot. Do you see two guys inside a car on the far side of the street? Black, license plate beginning FG6.’

Her eyes narrowed as she peered outside.

‘Yeah. It’s headed into the car park.’

As this exchange took place, the phone on Porter’s uniform started ringing. It was hooked up to a hands-free inside the car, so he pushed Answer, returning his hand to the wheel.

‘Porter,’ he said.

‘Sergeant, this is Dr Jim Keith from HAZMAT,' a man's voice said, filling the car. 'I'm here at the Embassy examining the package.’

‘How's it looking, doc?’ Porter asked.

‘I have some news. My team took a sample from the package and tested it here at the scene,' Keith said. 'The powder immediately showed up as just two ingredients mixed together. Hydrated magnesium silicate and sodium hydrogen carbonate.’

Pause.

‘Is that bad?’ Porter asked, the car speeding down the street.

‘No, not at all,’ Keith said. ‘Quite the opposite