by KJ Griffin
***
Clayton was smoking outside the temporary HQ in the Guildhall, taking a last cigarette before the four o'clock meeting, when his mobile rang. He cursed the wheedling electronic tune, wishing he had set it to something more funereal.
The display on the mobile showed an Oxford number. He let it ring several times more, deciding whether to accept the call. What more could he possibly say to his daughter now? Almost accidentally, his thumb depressed the yellow button.
‘Hello, Sophie.’
There was a long pause. When she did speak, her voice was soft and persuasive.
‘Will you do what you can to get him out alive?’
Clayton looked around to check for intrusive ears, instinctively moving away from the Guildhall towards the barricade. Across Parliament Square the lights in the Palace blazed fiercely into the fading, grey November daylight.
‘Get him out? Even if I wanted to, there's not much I do for Robbie now, Sophie. He's got himself holed up in there and all hell's breaking loose all over the world. I think the top brass have well and truly lost patience with him by now.’
‘All the more reason then why you have got to do something. If anything happens to Omar, I'll never forgive you.’
‘That's hardly fair,’ Clayton retorted angrily. ‘I didn't put Robbie in there.’
‘And you didn't do much to get him out of prison when he was court martialled, either.’
Clayton stared harder than ever at the Palace, as if Robbie could hear their conversation or was secretly directing it.
‘I think Robbie's had his payback for that already, Sophie, and by bringing you into the equation, he went a lot further still. He's dug his own grave. There's precious little I could do for him now, even if I wanted to.’
Clayton heard the line go dead and he felt relieved. He would think about the nineteen-year-old daughter who had just been thrown into his life after this was all over. But Robbie had to go first.
Across the square the wind was picking up in celebration of the gathering gloom, and the unnatural quiet was shattered by Big Ben chiming in the hour. Clayton turned on his heel. By the time the thirteen-and-a-half ton hour bell had taken its fourth, sonorous toll he was flashing his security pass at the entrance to the temporary HQ. Robbie's fate was soon to be decided.