Chapter 46 Dangerous driving

Saturday 14th August

Peter Rogers drove from the sliproad onto the M25, heading east.

Sam was pleased and mildly surprised that she had not been noticed. If it were not for the ethical considerations, functional invisibility might indeed be a viable strategy for Shingetsu to effect free entry to Carrow Road.

Sam looked forward through the windscreen and watched Beth for many minutes, shining in the southern sky. Sam could understand why such a spectacular sight would be viewed as a portent in ancient times. It was disappointing, however, that so many people today had also viewed it in a similar way. Because the nature of reality could appear mystical and hard to understand, it did not follow that any mystical superstition might be reality.

Sam closed her eyes, and an image of a foggy London street formed in her mind. She knew the year was eighteen ninety-eight. A tall man in a smart suit was hurrying to a meeting. A figure emerged from the shadows, raised a pistol and fired four shots. The tall man fell to the ground, dead.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang in Sam’s current reality. She quickly opened her eyes. The car swerved to the left, narrowly missing a vehicle in the nearside lane. Sam noticed a new mark on the window of the driver’s door. Before she could conclude what was happening, there was a second loud bang. This time, the car deviated only slightly and then accelerated. There was now a second mark on the same window.

Sam glanced to her right and behind. She saw a silver BMW. A woman was pointing a gun from a rear window. Sam noticed the flash of a shot, but this time, there was no impact with Peter’s Mercedes. That shot had missed. But in any case, the Mercedes had clearly been bulletproofed.

Peter swung the vehicle into the nearside lane. The BMW followed. A sliproad was just ahead, and Peter kept left onto it. The BMW was now immediately behind. Peter slowed in the outer lane of the slip, allowing the BMW to begin to come alongside.

As the driver of the BMW aligned with Sam, Peter swung the Mercedes to the left, hitting the front wing of the BMW with the rear of the Mercedes. It was clear that Peter had been trained in how to drive during such an attack.

There were a series of lighting post along the sliproad, with a broad grassed verge beyond. The road was only just wide enough for two vehicles, and the impact deflected the BMW onto the verge and towards one of the posts. The post struck just a glancing blow on the driver’s side of the BMW, but the impact was adequate to flip the speeding vehicle into a roll. Sam looked back as the BMW turned over three times, landing upside down on a wooden fence at the far side of the verge.

Peter’s Mercedes swerved from side to side as he expertly regained control. Partly due to momentum and partly through choice, Sam threw herself into the rear footwells. She was aware that the incident had shaken her. Fear had caused the seat of her awareness to return once more to a location inside her head, and she was unable to focus her mind sufficiently to locate it elsewhere. She concluded that she would be visible.

Peter continued along the sliproad and around a large roundabout, eventually rejoining the M25.

Once back on the main carriageway, he tapped a touchscreen on the dashboard.

A female voice came from the car speakers. ‘Security service.’

‘Operative 8948. Code five hundred,’ Peter replied.

‘Report please, Sir.’

‘I came under fire from a silver BMW. Two occupants. A man was driving, and a woman fired a handgun from the rear of the vehicle. Both appeared to be Chinese. They pursued me along the slip road near Cobham Services. I managed to use a pursuit manoeuvre to deflect them off the road. They hit a lamppost and flipped. I’ve returned to the M25, travelling east.’

‘Thank you, Sir. The protocol has been activated. Please continue on your current route away from the incident and await further instructions.’

Silence then followed for five minutes. Sam kept as quiet as she could. She sensed that she had not yet been noticed.

Suddenly, another voice came from the car speakers. ‘Hello, Peter. It sounds nasty. How are you?’

‘Hello, George. I’m fine.’

‘The incident was picked up on traffic cameras. Armed officers are on the way. Pull off the motorway at Clacket Lane Services. Security will meet you there.’

‘Good. When will they be at the services?’

‘Fifteen minutes. You’ll be there before the security team. I’ll ask them to bring you straight to the Shorncliffe bunker. We’re getting reports about the operation from Mexico City, although it’s not clear if they’ve recovered the Teterodat. We may know more by the time you get here.’

‘OK. Is there anything else?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll see you in a couple of hours, George.’

‘OK. Drive safely,’ George concluded with a hint of irony.

There was silence for a further ten minutes until Sam felt the car slow down as it pulled off the motorway to the left. This would be Clacket Lane Services.

Peter parked close to the main building and quickly got out of the car. Sam lifted herself up and glanced through the window to see Peter hurrying towards the main building. She surmised that, despite Peter’s calmness during the telephone call, he was in urgent need of the washroom.

She watched him enter the main building. She then opened the back door of the car, climbed out, and closed the door behind her. She felt a little unsteady on her feet. She was still shocked by what had happened.

Sam walked a hundred metres away from the car and then sat down on a wall. She pulled out her phone and dialled Sahadeva.

Ben answered. ‘Hello, Sam. Are you OK?’

‘Just about. I’m sitting on a wall outside Clacket Lane Services. Someone tried to kill Peter Rogers. We were shot at on the M25. Peter’s obviously been trained in how to handle that sort of situation. The upshot was that he rammed the other car, causing it to roll and crash, and then he drove here to await the arrival of a security team.’

‘Wow. Are you sure you’re OK after all that?’

‘I’m not injured. I’m pretty shaken up. I couldn’t dissociate my awareness after the incident.’

‘Did he see you?’

‘No. I ducked into the rear footwells, and his first thought when he parked here was to have a pee, so I just got out of the car when he’d walked away.’

‘OK, you sit tight. We’ll be with you in a couple of hours.’

After the call, Sam closed her eyes, took several deep breaths and tried to compose herself. When she again opened her eyes, she noticed that another black Mercedes was stopping next to Peter’s car and a flatbed lorry was pulling up in front of it.

She watched as Peter returned from the main services building and got into the other Mercedes, and then she watched it drive away. Sam continued to observe as Peter’s Mercedes was winched onto the lorry.

As that lorry drove away towards the exit, Sam stood and walked towards the main building.

Chapter 47 An international firefight

Saturday 14th August

Two nearly simultaneous explosions shook the fabric of the Russian Embassy in Mexico City.

The timing of any attack had been uncertain, but inside the embassy, Commander Mikhail Dormatov and his ten men were prepared for an assault.

Mikhail was unaware of the nature of the consignment that had arrived at the embassy late on the previous evening. He had been warned this morning, however, of the possibility of an attack by a foreign power to capture it, and he had planned defensive action accordingly. The embassy staff had all been evacuated.

It had been decided that the consignment would remain in the building until it could be safely transported to Moscow. The Kremlin had calculated that it would be at greater risk in a less defendable environment. Unknown to Mikhail, the option of destroying the consignment had been discounted in case it could be used to Russian advantage.

Mikhail’s briefing by the ambassador had been unusual in several respects. Firstly, he had not been told about the nature of the consignment he would be guarding. Secondly, the storming of an embassy by foreign troops was almost unheard of due to the huge diplomatic implications. Finally, the ambassador had seemed unclear about exactly which foreign power might attack. It was apparently possible that it could be Chinese troops, American troops, or UK forces.

This final point was the most significant to Mikhail because special forces from different countries employed different tactics. His knowledge of these might have given him a small advantage in defence and counterattack.

Sounds of explosions and gunfire echoed through the building. Mikhail could also hear the sound of what appeared to be at least two helicopters overhead.

‘Commander.’ His second in command entered the office in which Mikhail stood. ‘American soldiers have entered by door four and Chinese soldiers have entered by door five.’

‘Is it a combined and coordinated attack?’

‘I don’t think so. They’ve engaged our men and have also engaged each other.’

Mikhail picked up his machine gun, and the two of them ran from the office, heading towards one of the most dangerous firefights of their careers – and certainly the most puzzling.

Chapter 48 Taking stock

Saturday 14th August

Ben passed the salt shaker to Sam. ‘How are you feeling now?’

‘I’m OK, thanks, Ben.’ Sam sprinkled salt onto her veggie burger and then picked it up and took a bite.

Sahadeva looked around the motorway services restaurant in which they sat. Nobody was close enough to follow their conversation. ‘You did very well, Sam. I think we can assume that the base for Starchild is in a defensive bunker at Shorncliffe Army Camp near Folkestone, and from what Rogers said, there seems to be some operation going on in Mexico City to recover Teterodat. The George that Peter Rogers was speaking to was presumably George Mackenzie.’

‘Shorncliffe’s less than half an hour’s drive from where I live in Boughton Alph,’ said Ben. ‘That could give us a base of operations if we needed to work from Kent.’

Sam put down her burger. ‘That’s helpful, Ben. Now, what’s the immediate plan?’

Sahadeva looked at Ben. ‘I think we need to drive to Southampton so Ben can get his car. Then we need to go back to Diss and review the situation with the others.’

Chapter 49 Grandpa’s first attempt at a first-person shooter

Saturday 14th August

There was an eery silence throughout the badly damaged interior of the building which had, that morning, been the Russian Embassy in Mexico City.

Commander Mikhail Dormatov crouched behind a pillar and exchanged the magazine in his AK-74. The walls, floor and ceiling of this room were closely peppered with bullet impacts and the evidence of explosions.

Thirty minutes ago, there had been around thirty troops in this building – Chinese, Americans and his own men. As far as Mikhail knew, they were all still here. Most, however, must now be dead following the relentless gunfire and detonation of grenades. Mikhail wondered how many were still alive and how many of those were Russian.

The operations of special forces were planned to be precision interventions. Ideally, no shot would be fired. The sudden proximity of three groups of special forces, however, each surprising the others, had rendered all normal action plans inoperable. The result had been akin to grandpa’s first attempt to play his grandson’s first-person shooter. Anything that moved had been fired at, together with many things that didn’t. It had been chaos, and it had been carnage.

Mikhail heard a movement and cautiously glanced around the pillar. A Chinese soldier was creeping along the far wall. The dilemma that had led to the uncontrolled firefight once again occupied his thoughts. Mikhail could not attempt to capture the soldier or another hostile hiding elsewhere might well shoot Mikhail. He could not let the soldier escape, however, as the hostile would then pose a future threat.

There was a sudden burst of machine-gun fire. The Chinese soldier cried out and fell onto a motionless American body. Mikhail glanced around the other side of his pillar to see the American soldier who had just fired. Mikhail shot him before Mikhail himself had been noticed.

The eery silence returned.

The nearest doorway to a corridor was about ten metres away from Mikhail. He listened, then peered around both sides of the pillar.

As he ran towards the door, he sprayed bullets into the large downstairs room to suppress any hostile return of fire. Once in the corridor, he quickly checked both directions and then looked behind him once more. He moved forwards and took cover next to a staircase where he was protected on three sides. Apart from the sound of his own movements and the firing of his own weapon, there had been no indication of any other living being since Mikhail had broken cover from the pillar.

His new vantage point allowed him to see the motionless bodies of Alexi, Dimitri and Leonid lying among Chinese and American soldiers in the corridor. It was too dangerous to check their life signs, and he knew his priority must be to ensure the safety of the consignment that had been locked in a safe – upstairs in the ambassador's office.

Mikhail quickly turned and ran up the stairs to the first floor. He crouched behind a table at the top of the staircase and remained still for several moments. There was no sound and no bodies in the corridor in front of him. Either no one had made it to this floor or whoever had got here was now hiding in one of the rooms.

The closed doors on the narrow top corridor made this a safer area for him because there was nowhere for a hostile to shelter and then quickly launch an ambush. Mikhail swiftly moved along the corridor to the ambassador's office. He tried the door. He was relieved that it remained locked. Without hesitation, he checked back along the corridor in the direction he had come and then fired at the doorlock until the door to the ambassador's office swung open. He stood in the corridor next to the open door with his back against the wall and listened. Again, there was no sound.

Mikhail took a stun grenade from his belt, primed it, and tossed it into the room. There was a boom and a flash. He ran into the room, urgently looking for signs of movement.

He reached the ambassador's desk and crouched behind it. There was no one else in the room. His attention was drawn to the hole in the wall where the window of the room had once been. The safe containing the consignment had stood below that window, but it was now gone. Mikhail could hear the distant sound of helicopter rotor blades.

He stood and ran to the window. A helicopter was visible, one hundred meters away, rising into the sky and flying away in the direction of the comet. He immediately realised that the object swinging beneath the helicopter was the safe – with the consignment inside.

Mikhail quickly turned to check there was no one behind him and noticed that the leather top of the ambassador's desk had been incised. The crude cartoon depicted a sword with what appeared to be wings attached to the blade.

Mikhail turned and glanced again at the helicopter that was now just a dot in the distance. ‘Fucking SAS.’

Chapter 50 Understandings

Saturday 14th August

Sam and Sahadeva had just arrived back from Southampton in Sahadeva’s car. Ben had driven his car directly to Sue’s flat in Thetford.

‘Do you want a coffee, Sam?’ Sahadeva turned on the kettle in his room at the Bodhiisha Temple.

‘Yes please,’ Sam replied, sitting down in a chair.

‘I expect you’re tired. A drive to Southampton, then a car chase and a shootout is a lot for one day.’

Sam laughed. ‘I don’t feel too bad, actually. In a way, it’s been a good day for me. I’ve learned some things about myself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was really scared in that car. I’ve become so used to observing and managing my thoughts, emotions and sense perceptions that a rather smug ego has been quietly building itself under the cover of me sharing my awakening with others. That ego rather liked being thought of as a mystic or a spiritual master – dispensing wisdom to the unawakened while rising above events in the world of forms with equanimity and humour. I’ve been bloody arrogant, you know.’

‘But it was so well concealed that no one, including yourself, spotted it. It’s hard not to fall for that one. I was going that way when my mother died. After that, I had to face the fact that awakening is not an escape from trials in the world of forms. I’m still subject to the same ups and downs in life as anyone else, and they can induce intense sadness – albeit in a different way to an unawakened experience. Part of the problem for me was not having a reference point – a mentor or teacher or someone like that who’d have had a quiet word at the right moment.’

‘That’s exactly the issue I have. I realised today that I’ve stalled in my spiritual development, and I haven’t found a teacher for many years who can help me along.’

Sahadeva handed a mug of coffee to Sam. ‘Peers can be as good as teachers.’ He sat down on a chair beside her.

Sam looked into Sahadeva’s eyes. ‘I’ve wondered on and off over the years how things might have been had we both not been committed to other relationships at Fort Meade.’

‘Me too.’

They looked at each other, and both laughed self-consciously. Body language and those last few words had possessed the properties of good poetry. They had condensed a vast amount of meaning into a few short expressions and had conveyed the emotions felt by both of them.

They each leaned an equal distance towards the other and kissed.