“Not far,” little fat Annie said. “In the warehouse — you see?”
“Yes. Where can I sail it from? The water’s a long way down.”
“There is a what do you call it, a slipway?” Little fat Annie took the boy’s hand and led him to the warehouse. Stolnik took over from there. Out came the masterpiece, so beautifully made and never mind that within less than a minute now it would vanish for ever. He smiled at the child, patted his head with benevolence … the boy’s expression was rapt. A wonderful scale model, a little over a metre in length, of an ocean liner, one of the old-timers, the Ile de France. With the boy trotting beside him, excellent cover — who would ever suspect a small boy, intent on sailing his boat? — Stolnik ferried the model on a trolley towards a derelict slipway only a matter of metres from the warehouse, a slipway where the Seine lapped shallowly. One middle-aged man, one eager, trusting child, and the small deadly detonators, one set into either bow of the model, tiny torpedoes that under radio control would take the side of the pleasure boat, set off the packed high explosive, and fragment the passengers.
As man and boy went off, little fat Annie, standing beside the warehouse, slowly raised both arms to the sun, a lascivious, almost an abandoned gesture of sun-worship. As she did so Tex, across the river, brought up his long range rifle, put the sights on Stolnik, then waited until the man had come back to the warehouse. As he did so, little fat Annie approached the door and called to someone inside.
“With luck,” Tex said softly, “Mikhail’ll come out. Then I’ll —”
As he spoke he was spotted by one of the eagle-eyed Russians aboard the approaching pleasure boat. The sun had glinted … the Russian drew on the instant, an automatic rifle appearing as if by magic in his hands. He opened fire, fanned slightly, giving a spread. He got Tex. Tex collapsed to the ground in a heap, blood pouring. Shard bent. Tex could just speak, very low. “The boat, the model … get it for Christ’s sakes!”
All around, there was panic, hippies pressing away, many being trodden underfoot. No-one except Shard and Tex had so much as noticed the model liner. No-one except Shard could now be relied on to assess its significance in time once it came out from the slipway. Which, any moment, it would.
No hesitation now. Shard fought his way through the mob of swaying, screaming hippies, using his fists to clear a path. There was no more firing. No-one was going to slaughter the hippies. The model emerged, swung to its starboard side, headed under its unseen controls towards the VIPs. Not seen yet; Shard dived. That was when the firing started again, revolvers and rifles. Taking the river surface, he went deep.
*
“What a splendid model.” Mrs Heffer stood up unsteadily for a better view. She was quite shaken: things had turned nasty. She had seen Tex fall, seen the ominous swaying of the crowd that took place afterwards. Yells, cries, incipient panic. It was better to concentrate on the model liner, show the world that she was unrattled. Then more shooting: a man in the water. What was he up to? Who was he? He was very lucky, Mrs Heffer assessed, to be alive, whoever he was.
Shard thought so too. God must be with him. Swimming submerged beneath peppered water he came up close to the model, reached out, tried to deflect it from its course. Partially he succeeded, but it came round again, bringing its torpedoes closer to the river boat.
The shooting stopped. Aboard one of the police launches an inspector had ticked over and had used his loud-hailer. That launch was now bearing down on Shard and the model.
“Any minute!” Shard shouted at the inspector. “Get the VIPs out of it!”
The launch turned and raced away, the inspector using his loud-hailer again, urgently, his voice cracking. Aboard the pleasure boat, the captain swung his wheel fast; the boat began to turn away. The model followed, tearing from Shard’s grip, still under the radio control of its maker, Stolnik. Desperately Shard plunged on, got up alongside again, butted at the small hull and once again deflected it. This time it seemed to hesitate, made an uncertain movement … it could have been hit during the shooting, perhaps, was no longer able to make certain movements while it could still make others. It was a theory, anyway … Shard urged the lethal contraption across the river, anything to impede its progress towards the VIPs, who had to be given time to get clear away. If it blew, it blew — bloody bad luck … the hippies were already on the move, fighting, yelling, screaming to clear the banks on either side.
Nearer the Left Bank now. Then, as Shard got the thing closer in, coming beneath the quay where there was an opening in the wall above, an opening more than half obscured by debris, a round hole like a big drain, or a sewer, a man appeared, staggering like a drunk, emerging from behind the debris. Dishevelled, filthy, uttering cries, blinded by the sudden bright sunlight, Hedge went clean over into the river. He came down flat across the model liner, sank, but clung to it like a limpet, the one possibly safe thing in a crazy, unkind world, and rode there, like a partly surfaced whale, as the panic spread along the river banks.
*
Shard went to see Hedge in hospital. He was recovering, and had already been visited by the Ambassador and by Mrs Heffer. Weakly, long-sufferingly, he asked Shard for any further news. He asked why the model hadn’t blown up.
“A number of reasons,” Shard answered. “Firstly, its controls had been interrupted by gunfire. Secondly and more importantly, little fat Annie had managed to withdraw the detonators while the others were occupied. Before it was launched. On Tex’s instructions, that was.” He paused. “You were never in any danger, you know. No-one was — except little fat Annie.”
“Rubbish!” Hedge snapped. He saw the sardonic look in Shard’s eye and changed his tack; but it wasn’t fair to try to deny him his triumph. “What about those wretched men? Mikhail and —”
“In custody,” Shard answered briefly. “Little fat Annie too.”
“That stupid girl!”
“Not so stupid, Hedge. I’ve just told you —”
“Yes, yes, I know. And the man Tex?”
“Dead.”
“Ah yes. The Russians. Just as well.”
Shard looked down at obstinate petulance. No use trying to explain. Hedge never listened to explanations. But he was perking up. The Prime Minister had been congratulatory. If he, Hedge, hadn’t sunk the model half Paris might be no longer in existence. Shard allowed him the exaggeration and didn’t even make the point that his manifestation had been purely fortuitous. Hedge was now set for glory: not many people had ever saved a Prime Minister’s life, and it seemed that Mrs Heffer had settled on him as her saviour. Whitehall and the Press would obviously follow suit. Hedge would preen as never before. For Shard and WDC Brett it was just part of the job. For Tex, without whom all would now be blood and diplomatic nightmare, it was just a would-be villain’s death.
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