Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,57

the current, and job done. The engine is on and you're good to go.

Looking up to make sure no one was around, he took one of the two red wires and pulled it from the cylinder.

He then started to cut into the end of the wire, removing the sheath.

Back inside the hospice, the six men had just left Fletcher's room, Cobb leading the way as they walked down the corridor. All of them were slightly distracted, thinking about what Fletcher had told them and the revelation about Carver’s connections.

They turned the corner, Cobb pushing the release mechanism for the security door, and the group walked back into the reception area. The woman who’d shown them in was back behind the desk, and she pulled the key from her pocket as soon as she saw them, turning back to the locked room behind her and sliding the key into the lock. She looked keen to return the four weapons. Archer figured she thought the quicker she gave them back, the quicker they would all leave.

As she opened the door and the four officers walked around her desk to retrieve their weapons, Cobb turned to speak Jackson, who was looking outside.

But he saw the American’s attention was directed at something outside in the car park.

He was frowning.

‘What the hell?’ Jackson muttered.

Cobb followed where he was looking.

And he saw a teenager sitting inside his car.

Leon had just cut off the second red sheath, the two copper inner wires themselves now exposed, and held them close, one in each hand.

'Hey!'

He heard a shout and looking right, saw a dark-haired man shouting, looking straight at him and pushing open the door. Behind the guy, Leon saw a group of cops, two of them with a sub-machine gun in their hands, turn and look over, just as they slapped a magazine into each weapon.

Oh shit.

He was stealing a cop car.

Without another moment's hesitation, he pushed the two wires together.

And just as Cobb started to run towards his car, the Mercedes exploded.

He was thrown back, the glass on the front entrance smashing from the shockwave. As the car exploded, Jackson's BMW reacted to the blast and went up too in a second explosion, both cars thrown up vertically into the air, erupting into one huge fireball.

The flaming wrecks of both cars landed on the ground with two thuds and burned away, smoke billowing out of each, the alarms of other cars in the lot set off by the rippling shockwave of the explosions.

SIXTEEN

At the same moment as the two cars exploded, the seatbelt signs on a Boeing 747 aeroplane which had just finished taxiing on a Heathrow runway clicked off with a ding. In the next moment, passengers undid their seatbelts and rose, stepping out into the aisles, stretching, opening the overhead lockers to retrieve their hand luggage and getting ready to disembark.

It was the earliest flight to arrive from Washington, the 4:50 am direct from Dulles to London Heathrow. They had made good time, the flight five hours and forty minutes in total, the trans-Atlantic wind behind them shaving another forty minutes off the flight. Most of the people on board were businessmen and women or families returning from holidays, lots of suits and briefcases, sunburnt skin and noisy tired kids. Up ahead, the aisles started to clear as the passengers began to disembark, the airline staff standing to one side formally, smiling and thanking everyone for flying with them as they filed past

A small man dressed in a black sweater and blue jeans with scarring across his face and neck ignored the flight staff as he passed them, moving off the plane and heading swiftly down to the immigration hall. They had landed at Terminal Five, the newest Terminal at Heathrow. The man was carrying a small holdall as luggage, no suitcase to collect. He didn't even really need the bag, but he figured travelling with nothing could attract unwanted attention, and as he had murdered someone in the last seven hours he didn't fancy any unnecessary scrutiny from airport security.

After a few moments of walking along the clean corridors, he moved down several escalators and arrived at the passport check hall. All EU members were being directed one way, everyone else to the left, and he headed in the direction of the EU queue. The man had the best fake passport money could buy, and his dark features backed up the Spanish passport's credentials.

When it was his turn he moved forward and passed over