Scorpia

were sitting in business class. They were blank-faced and bleary-eyed, not just from the long flight but from the series of defeats they had left behind them. The tour had been a disaster from start to finish. These were only exhibition games. The results weren’t meant to matter, but the trip had been something of a humiliation.
    As they gazed out of the windows, looking at the grey light and the grey tarmac of a Heathrow twilight, the captain’s voice came over the intercom.
    “Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Heathrow. Once again, I’m sorry for the late running of this aircraft. I’m afraid I’ve just spoken to the control tower and for some reason we’re being re-routed away from the main terminal, so we’re going to be out here a little longer. Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened, and we’ll have you out of here as soon as we possibly can.”
    And here was something strange. As the plane taxied forward, two army jeeps appeared from nowhere, one on each side, escorting them along the runway. There were soldiers with machine guns in the back. Following instructions from the control tower, the plane turned off and began to move away from the main buildings. The two jeeps accompanied it.

    Alan Blunt stood behind an observation window, watching the 747 through a pair of miniature binoculars. He didn’t move as the plane trundled towards a square concrete holding area. When he lowered the binoculars, his eyes still remained fixed on the distance. He hadn’t spoken for several minutes; he’d barely even breathed.
    There is nothing more dangerous than a government that does not trust its own intelligence and security services. Unfortunately, as Blunt was only too well aware, the prime minister had made his dislike of both MI5
    and MI6 clear almost from the first day he had come to power. This was the result.
    “So what now?” Sir Graham Adair was standing next to him. The permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office knew Alan Blunt very well. They met once a month, formally, to discuss intelligence matters. But they were also members of the same club and occasionally played bridge together. Now he was watching the sky and the runway as if expecting to see a missile streaking towards the slowly moving plane.
    “We are about to watch eighteen people die.”
    “Kellner is a bloody fool, but even so I can’t see how they’re going to do it.” Sir Graham didn’t want to believe him. “The airport has been sealed off since six. We’ve trebled the security. Everyone is on the highest possible alert. You looked at the passenger list?”
    Blunt knew just about everything about every man, woman and child who had boarded the plane in Lagos.

    Hundreds of agents had spent the past hour checking and cross-checking their details, looking for anything remotely suspicious. If there were assassins or terrorists on the plane, they would have to be under deep cover.
    At the same time, the pilots and cabin staff had been alerted to look out for anything amiss. If anyone so much as stood up before the squad had disembarked, they would raise the alarm.
    “Of course we did,” Blunt said irritably.
    “And?”
    “Tourists. Businessmen. Families. Two weather forecasters and a celebrity chef. Nobody seems to have any understanding of what we’re up against.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Scorpia will do what they said they would do: it’s as simple as that. They never fail.”
    “They may not find it so easy this time.” Sir Graham looked at his watch. It was nine minutes past seven. “It’s still possible they made a mistake warning us.”
    “They only warned you because they knew there was nothing you could do.”

    The plane came to a halt with the two jeeps on either side. At the same time, more armed soldiers appeared.
    They were everywhere. Some were in clusters on the ground, watching the plane through the telescopic sights of their automatic weapons. There were snipers dotted about on the roofs, all of them linked by radio. Armed policemen with sniffer dogs waited at the entrance to the main terminal. Every door was guarded. Nobody was being allowed in or out.
    Sixty more seconds had passed. There were just five minutes to the deadline: quarter past seven.
    On the plane the captain switched off the engines. Normally the passengers would already be standing up, reaching for their bags, anxious to leave. But by now they all knew something was wrong. The plane seemed to