Chapters (124)
- Cover
- About the Author
- Acclaim for Frank Gardner’s Luke Carlton thrillers
- Also by Frank Gardner
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
Luke’s nose and throat were full of the smell of burned-off explosive, dust and plaster. And there was something else he couldn’t quite place at first. Something he remembered from Afghanistan. It was the smell of singed human flesh. As the smoke cleared he looked across the floor of the warehouse and swallowed hard. He had seen more than his share of injuries in his time: in Kandahar he had helped staunch a man’s arterial bleeding after one of his patrol got hit by an IED. But this was different. This was an industrial estate in Essex, it was supposed to be peacetime, and Luke had never expected to witness the sight in front of him now. The CTSFO was still alive – at least, half of him was. His legs, severed just above the knees, were blasted apart and lay some distance off, inanimate objects, still in their wolf-grey fatigue trousers, the black Salomon boots still attached. In the near-silent seconds following the blast, Luke heard him call out in distress and confusion.
‘I’m okay!’ the man cried, as Luke rushed over to him. ‘Tell Ginny I’m fine. I’ll see her tonight,’ he kept repeating. Luke held his hand and tried to reassure him as other officers rushed up to help, desperately racing to stem the bleeding and get tourniquets on to the stumps of his thighs before he bled out. But they were too late. He was still looking up at Luke’s face when his eyes rolled and his head flopped to one side.
‘He’s gone,’ Luke said. ‘I’m so sorry, guys.’
He got to his feet, brushing the dust and plaster off his clothes, and walked quickly back to the Land Rover. He felt the anger rising in him once more. He had never doubted that this organization was ruthless, but watching that policeman die right beside him had left him shocked and more determined than ever. And Jenny Li had been right: it had been a mistake to join in the search. He should have left it all to the CTSFO team. As he made his way back to the command vehicle he shook his head in sympathy as he passed the other officers. They had lost one of their own, and he knew what that felt like. First blood had been drawn on UK soil. It was the dead of night, the targets had escaped them and were on the loose. This op was going about as badly as it possibly could.
For a brief moment the thought flashed through his mind that since the people who had left that bomb on a timer had access to a viral pathogen, could there have been more to it than high explosive? He dismissed the thought. Explosives and biological agents did not mix well: one tended to cancel out the other. Still, he had better get himself checked out when this was over.