by Jeff Gulvin
‘Went to school, didn’t I. Shit, you think I’m just some dumb Indian?’ He stood up then. ‘Anyways, you coming for a drink? That’s what I came over for.’
Harrison closed the Bible and stood up. ‘You drive,’ he said.
They sat at the bar in the Silver Dollar. Cecil and Margarito were shooting pool for five bucks a stick. Jesse and Wingo were seated a few stools along from them and Jesse had a mean look on his face. He kept staring at Harrison.
‘Am I wearing something of yours?’ Harrison said after a while.
‘I don’t know, hick. Are ya?’
The bar fell quiet. Chief shifted in his seat, a slow smile on his face. ‘Hey, cool down. It ain’t the fucking weekend.’
‘Fuck you, Indian.’
Chief looked at the floor. Harrison could feel a tingling sensation all across his skin. Wingo touched Tate on the arm, but Tate pulled away. Harrison looked in his eyes. ‘You need to learn to be a little more polite,’ he said quietly.
‘And you’re gonna teach me. Right?’
Vicki, the bartender, slapped her palm on the counter. ‘That’s enough,’ she said.
Red Mayer, one of the Passover marshals, walked into the bar and twirled his hat in his hands. ‘That your Lincoln out there, Chief?’ he asked. ‘You got a busted tail light.’
Swann and Byrne sat up front with the pilot. The Squirrel had been scrambled from Lippetts Hill and picked them up from the roof of the Yard. They flew low over the City and Swann checked the grid reference on the map. They could see Liddesdale Tower as they approached, at the eastern end of the Barbican complex, abutting Aldersgate and Beech Street, across the road from the tube station.
They ran a fly-past, the pilot winging slowly across the tower, rotor blades whirring with a whump whump above their heads. Swann saw the blacked-out window straight away, though the sun glinted off it. He indicated to the pilot to ease them in closer and he set the Squirrel almost motionless in a hover alongside the window. Swann peered at the dark panels of glass. He made a circular motion with his index finger and the pilot lifted away again.
‘Set me down where you can,’ Swann told him, and picked up the radio. ‘Control from Squirrel four/nine,’ he said.
‘This is Colson, Jack. Go ahead.’
‘Fly-by complete, Guv. I’m not happy. Pilot’s going to set us down and I’ll speak to the concierge. It would pay to get an Expo down here.’
The pilot swung round and set them down on the HAC ground, just off City Road. Swann and Byrne climbed out of the helicopter and made their way through Chiswell Street to the underpass on Beech Street. At the far end was Liddesdale Tower. The concierge, a young man in a blue shirt with sweat marks at the armpits, was dipping a roll into a mug of soup and sucking off the moisture.
Swann laid his warrant card on the desk. ‘Flat thirteen on the twenty-third floor,’ he said. ‘Have you got a tenant in it?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll check.’
‘Quickly, if you would.’
The concierge took a clipboard from his desk and ran his finger down the list of names. ‘The flat’s owned by Mr and Mrs Bridgewater,’ he said. ‘They’re in Saudi right now and yes—you’re right, they have let the apartment.’
‘Who to?’
‘A Spanish gentleman. Mr Raoul Mendez.’
Byrne tapped Swann’s arm. ‘He’s used Mendez before,’ he muttered. ‘Colombia.’
Swann felt a spider walk over his back. ‘Has he had any visitors?’
‘Only his assistants that I’m aware of.’
‘Male or female?’
‘Male. Two of them. Foreign gentlemen like Mr Mendez.’
Swann thought for a moment. ‘Did they use the car park?’
‘Oh, yes. Frequently.’
‘Can you get the lift straight up from there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are they still in residence?’
‘As far as I know, although I haven’t seen anyone for a day or two. They rented the apartment from Franklin Rees on Long Lane.’
Swann could hear the wail of a siren as they stepped out of the lift. He glanced at the wall sign which denoted the spread of the numbers and followed the corridor left. They came to number 13, moving quietly now. Swann looked at the door. The edges and keyhole had been sealed with black mastic.
As they came out of the lift again on the ground floor, Webb and Phil Cregan, the explosives officer, were coming in through the revolving doors.
‘That’s a positive,’ Swann said. ‘We’ve found them all right. Raoul Mendez is renting, a name Louis says he used in Colombia. Had two visitors and I’ll give you three guesses who they are.’
‘Fits with the glass,’ Webb said. ‘Right mileage.’
‘I want to take a look,’ Cregan told them.
‘Door’s sealed with mastic, Phil.’
‘I still want a look.’
‘I’m going to walk down to the estate agent’s on Long Lane,’ Swann told them.
They left Webb and Cregan to do a second walk-by upstairs, and crossed between the cars. Franklin Rees were halfway down Long Lane, on the right-hand side of the road. Swann showed his warrant card and spoke to the manager.
‘Yes, we rented it, about three months ago,’ he said. ‘Spanish-American, good references.’
‘I’ll bet,’ Byrne muttered.
The manager squinted at him and Swann said, ‘Who came to view it—Mendez?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Hang on a second.’ He went over to one of the desks and spoke to a young man in a striped blue shirt and gold cufflinks. The two of them came back. Swann looked at the younger man.
‘A woman viewed it,’ he said.
‘What was her name?’
‘Jane Taverner.’
‘You remember her?’
‘God yeah, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Long blonde hair.’
Cregan stared at the door, then scratched his jaw and looked at Webb. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t like it. Don’t like it at all.’
They made their way back downstairs. ‘You staying here?’ Webb asked him.
‘Till EOD arrive. After that, it’s their problem.’
‘I’ll get back to the Yard.’
‘Ring Cannon Row. Will you? Let them know what’s happening.’
Outside, Webb climbed into the Expos’ Range Rover where Nicholson was still sitting in the driver’s seat. ‘Does Phil need me?’ he said.
‘Not this time, Tom. Going to be a military job.’
‘Definitely chemicals, then.’
‘Looks that way.’ Webb leaned over the dashboard and picked up the phone. He dialled Colson’s direct line.
‘George Webb, sir.’
‘What you got, Webby?’
‘Wheel’s come off. Big time. Cregan’s staying here. The front door is sealed with mastic’
‘Hang on a second, George.’ Webb heard the phone being laid on the desk and then voices. After a moment, Colson picked it up again. ‘George, get back here as fast as you can.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘We’ve just received a phone call. The one we didn’t want.’
Colson had got straight on to the duty officer at Snow Hill, and the City police put in cordons and started evacuating. When Webb and Swann got back to the fifteenth floor, everything was in ‘go’ mode. The floor was sealed and all non-essential personnel were gone. Clements was on the phone to Porton Down and the Meteorological Office. Webb looked at the computer-aided dispatch that had been issued by the central command complex.
Operation Stormcloud is live. Chemical bomb. Flat 13, twenty-third floor, Liddesdale Tower, Barbican. Suspect confirmed—Ismael Boese, alias Storm Crow.
Colson called Swann and Webb into the commander’s office. Sir Paul Condon, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and force duty officer for the day, was there.
‘Close the door, Jack,’ Garrod said. Swann did so and leaned on it.
‘We’ve just had a phone call fr
om your girlfriend.’
‘Pia?’ Swann stared at him. ‘Is something wrong with my kids?’
Garrod held up a palm. ‘They’re fine. She’s at your house with them and they’re fine.’ He looked at Condon and then at Webb and finally back at Swann. ‘A little while ago somebody rang your doorbell. Pia answered it, but nobody was there. She found an envelope on the doorstep. It had a crow’s feather in it.’
Swann took a moment to digest it. ‘I need to speak to her, sir.’
‘Of course. Go ahead.’
When he had gone, Webb looked from Colson to the commander. ‘The door’s sealed with mastic, sir Jack’s …’
‘Tell me as we go, Webb. Tell me as we go.’
‘Go where?’
‘Ever met the Prime Minister? You’re about to.’ Garrod picked up the phone and dialled the Ministry of Defence. He spoke to the duty officer. ‘This is Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Garrod, Antiterrorist Branch Commander. Operation Stormcloud code E-7/ D10 is live. This is not an exercise. Repeat. This is not an exercise.’
Louis Byrne sat across the desk from Swann and watched his face. ‘Don’t take it personally, Jack. It’s the way he likes to do things.’
Swann glared at him. ‘You know what, Louis. I do take it personally. I take it very fucking personally.’ He had just come off the phone to Pia who sounded very shaken. He wanted to go to her, go to the children, but it was impossible right now. He had told Pia to take them over to Caroline Webb’s house in Amersham. He sat where he was and stared at the pictures that were pasted up on the wall. Ismael Boese stared back.
On the fifth floor of Old Scotland Yard on Cannon Row, Nick Knight stood at the window of the spacious office he shared with another explosives officer. He heard the siren long before the BMW pulled up outside the gates to Downing Street. The DPG officers opened them and the car swept up to. Number 10. He watched as John Garrod, Paul Condon and then George Webb got out. ‘Good God,’ he said. ‘The fat detective—going up in the world.’ He watched as the door to Number 10 was opened and they all trooped inside. ‘Hope you haven’t had your tea, Mr Blair,’ Knight muttered. ‘You’re going to get indigestion.’
Jakob Salvesen glowered across the desk at Jesse Tate. ‘Who?’ he said. ‘Who breached my walls, Jesse? Which federal agent dared to trespass on my land?’
Jesse had never seen him like this, a changed man: gone was the genial giant with the soft Louisiana voice and the ‘for the people’ ministry. In his place was a cold, calculating man, under threat.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Somebody in the town.’
Jesse narrowed his eyes. ‘Somebody who knows what they’re doing,’ he said softly. ‘Someone with experience, maybe.’ Then his eyes darkened. ‘Harrison,’ he said.
‘Who’s Harrison?’
‘The Tunnel Rat.’
‘Tunnel Rat? Ah yes, I remember.’ Salvesen sat back in the chair. ‘He was in church one Sunday. Never saw him before. Never saw him again.’
‘He lives in the trailer park with the beaners,’ Jesse said. ‘Works at the lumber yard on Main Street.’
‘Find out, Jesse. Do it now. I want to know everything about him. Find out where he comes from and contact our nearest friends. If it is him, I’ll hang him.’
Lisa was asleep and Harrison was reading Revelation, chapter thirteen. ‘Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads; on each of its horns there was a crown …’ He scribbled a note ‘ten crowned horns’. ‘… and on each of its heads there was a name that was insulting to God.’ He wrote the number seven and put a circle round it. ‘The beast looked like a leopard, with feet like a bear’s feet and a mouth like a lion’s mouth. The dragon gave the beast his own power, his throne and his vast authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have been fatally wounded, but the wound had healed.’
He lit another cigarette, took up his pen once more and began to look at his notes. He had scribbled down what he had seen of Salvesen’s etchings from the video he had taken. The number 17 and the number 16. The number 6 was ringed and then 1. 6+1=7. He stared at it, then back at the passage—seven heads and ten horns. Ten crowns on the horns. The telephone rang and he picked it up.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Tom.’
‘What’s up?’
‘Two things. Leg-att’s been on the phone from London. Storm Crow’s planted a chemical bomb right in the middle of the city.’
Harrison whistled softly.
‘They’ve got your product and Byrne’s planning to go to Paris to check out the receipt. We might be able to put Salvesen with someone and hit him.’ Kovalski paused. ‘The other thing is—somebody just rang one of your “hello” lines in Marquette.’
Harrison sat very still. ‘They did?’
‘Yes. Someone’s checking you out.’
Harrison flicked ash from the end of his cigarette. ‘So they’re checking me out, so what? The lines are good.’
‘We can pull you out.’
‘No.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yep.’ He paused. ‘Any of you figured out the Biblical stuff yet?’
‘Some.’
‘What you got?’
‘Number seventeen.’
‘Me too. Salvesen disagrees with Lindsey on this ten-nation confederacy stuff.’
‘Right.’
‘There’s fifteen countries in the European Union right now.’
‘That’s right,’ Kovalski said. ‘And if they go ahead with the single currency, that’s gonna effectively make them a federal state.’
‘Does it look as though it’s gonna happen?’
‘Depends on who you read.’
‘Salvesen thinks the Antichrist is going to rise out of the European Union. Six Six Six and all that.’ Harrison scraped the blunt end of his pen over his notes. ‘What I wanna know is what all this has got to do with the militia.’
‘You sure you don’t need some back-up?’
‘Back-up’ll blow everything, Tom. We still got nothing to book Salvesen with.’
He hung up. Salt Lake must’ve been spooked for Kovalski himself to call. He looked back at his notes again. Ten crowned horns, ten nations. Six heads, one of which had been mortally wounded. He flicked back to the Old Testament and the dreams of Daniel. Chapter seven and verses twenty-three and twenty-four: ‘Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.’
The resurrected Roman Empire. The ten kings where Lindsey got his ten-nation confederacy and the EU began in Rome. But it was not ten, it was fifteen. Harrison looked again at the second of Lindsey’s books and thought it was a bit of a cop-out to just stick to what you’d said twenty-five years earlier without any real explanation. Clearly Jake Salvesen didn’t agree with him and Salvesen was the dangerous one of the two. He looked again at Revelation thirteen, stubbing out his cigarette and lighting another. Through in his bedroom, Guffy sighed and he heard her roll over. Seven heads, one of which had been mortally wounded but had been miraculously healed. Lindsey believed that wound to be a physical one to the man who was the Antichrist, indicating that one of the seven heads, i.e. the one that was wounded, signified him; and yet in the same breath he seemed to be saying that the little horn rising from the ten horns was the Antichrist. How could it be both?
Harrison looked again at his notes: six nations signed the original Treaty of Rome—six heads? But there were seven in chapter thirteen. And then it dawned on him, the seventh head, mortally wounded yet healed. Could the wounded head be the symbolic rising of Rome?
24
GEORGE WEBB LOOKED ACROSS the Cabinet table at the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minist
er and had to remind himself where he was. The Prime Minister was speaking to him. ‘You’re definitely sure it’s chemicals?’
‘Not sure, sir. No. We can’t be sure until we get a look at it. But the door’s sealed with mastic, so is the keyhole. It bears all the hallmarks of what we saw in Northumberland.’
The Prime Minister looked at Dr Firman who had been helicoptered in from Porton Down.
‘Only this time it’s in London.’
‘Operation Stormcloud, sir,’ Garrod said. ‘We’ve been preparing for it ever since the incident at Healey Hall Farm. I’ve got an explosives officer down in the City right now and 11 EOD are on their way in from Didcot.’ He leaned forward. ‘We need to evacuate, sir. And we need to do it immediately.’
The Prime Minister looked at Dr Firman. ‘How many people do you think we need to evacuate?’
‘That depends on what we’ve got. If the device has been planted on the twenty-third floor of a tower block, he’s going for maximum atmospheric dispersal, which would indicate a large quantity of the derivative. The airborne persistency is potentially as long as seventy-two hours. The wind can blow it a long way in that period.’
‘How many people?’
‘Wind speed is twenty miles an hour, a northeasterly,’ Firman said. ‘Downwind hazard of say, twenty miles initially. I would suggest the funnel to be four miles at the top and spreading to perhaps fifteen. That’s as far north as Stratford, spreading from Stoke Newington to West Ham.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Southern borders—Greenwich, Penge, Croydon. Draw a line to Shepherd’s Bush, Isleworth, Hounslow, as far south-west as Shepperton.’ He passed a hand through his hair. ‘You know, it’ll make sense to use the natural boundaries for cordons, North and South Circular Roads perhaps and the M25 at the bottom of the funnel.’
‘That’s the whole of London,’ the Home Secretary said. ‘You can’t evacuate the whole of London.’
‘We can, sir,’ Garrod told him. ‘We have to.’
‘OK. OK.’ Blair held up his hands, his face pinched and serious. ‘For how long?’
‘Till whatever we’ve got is completely rendered safe,’ Firman told him. ‘As I said, the last time we tested its atmospheric persistency it lasted three days. Just how many years it remains in the water system or in the ground, I cannot tell you.’