Gallery Whispers
Page 37
'Know what?' said the Special Branch commander. 'I think us two
catering contractors have just been dropped right in the soup.'
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Skinner thumped the steering wheel in frustration, 'and swore loudly
as the stolid, uniformed sergeant held up a big, gloved hand. He had
already been stopped by two other officers, either ignoring, or ignorant
of the call from Control that the DCC's car was to be waved through
all barriers.
He sounded his horn, but the man simply turned his back on him.
The DCC jumped out to rend him limb from limb, but as he
approached the main entrance of the Caledonian Hotel came into his
line of vision. The Russian convoy was just pulling out, a black Rolls
Royce limousine with full escort.
'Sergeant,' he barked, 'clear out of the way once they've gone.' The
man turned, gulped as he recognised the angry figure behind him, and
stepped aside.
Sliding back behind the wheel of the BMW, Skinner moved off
heading for Lothian Road, only to see the Prime Minister's convoy
swing out of Charlotte Square at speed, cutting across in front of him.
He swore again, but knew that patience was now his only option, and
so he pulled in behind the rear outriders as they swept past the great
hotel, heading for the EICC. One of the bikers dropped back, and
took up position alongside his window, peering into the car from
under the visor of his crash hat, recognising and acknowledging him
with the wave of a gauntlet.
He was snarling with frustration as the cars in front slowed almost
to walking pace, marking time, he realised, to allow the elderly Russian
President to make his ponderous entrance first, but at last, they turned
right into Lothian Road, the one-way system irrelevant under Jim
Elder's movement plan. He looked at the car clock: six minutes to
nine.
He swung violently into the car park, narrowly missing the young
constable who moved momentarily to block his path, but sensibly
stepped backwards, out of the way, drew to a halt in the first available
space, jumped out of the car and moved quickly to catch up with the
Prime Minister's party. He was twenty yards short of the great glass
entrance when the phone in his pocket sounded its urgent signal.
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Stopping in his tracks and snatching it from his pocket, he pressed
the green button and held it to his ear. 'Yes,' he snapped.
The DG's calm plummy tone was gone. 'Your man Ventnor,' he
said tersely. 'Is he on your patch?'
'Right in the middle of it.'
'In that case you have a major problem. You were right, he was in
van Roost's jungle group. He was his second in command, in fact, and
it was he who saved his life when he took his leg wound. He's half-
Australian, half-Afrikaner, and he's an explosives expert. D'you
remember the Asian Head of State who was blown out of the sky in
one ofHawkins'jobs?'
'Yes.'
'Well, the intelligence community suspected that he had help in
making the bomb, but they never worked out who. You may have
come up with the answer. My hypothesis is that when Hawkins was
killed Ventnor was brought in as a replacement.'
'That's a contradiction. It would mean that Hawkins wasn't after
Walesa, he was on this job all along. Therefore he wasn't in Poland
and he isn't fucking dead. He's here, and he's posing as an adviser to
the Iranian delegation.'
'But he was identified,' the DG protested.
'By his teeth alone! Somehow they've faked that. My guess is that
his paymaster for this job came up with a body, and put a dentist to
work on the lower jaw; who knows, maybe they used Hawkins' own
teeth. When they found the stiff in the plane the top of his head was
gone, so the dental identification was only partial.'
Even against the background street noise, the detective heard the
gasp from the other end of the line. 'You have to stop the conference,
Skinner,' the DG shouted. 'You have to clear the hall before there's a
massacre.'
'It's probably too late for that. The Prime Minister's just gone
inside; the plan is that he goes straight into the hall, up on to the stage
with our Secretary of State, and at that point the event is declared
open. As far as I know, Hawkins and Ventnor are in there now.
'Look, if you're right and we're dealing with a bomb, they ain't
going to blow themselves up. The whole place was checked by snifter
dogs first thing this morning. If there is a device in there, the clever
bastards have taken it in with them, and I think I know how.'
'What do you mean?'
'I think Hawkins is sitting on it. The best chance we've got is if we
can arrest them right now, and take them by surprise in the process so
they don't have a chance to trigger the thing and take us all out with
them.'
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'Do you have to arrest them?'
Skinner knew exactly what the man was saying. 'Don't be daft,' he
retorted. 'This event's being broadcast live. I can't shoot two guys on
world-wide television.' He cut off the call, slipped the phone back
into his pocket, and began to run.
The uniformed inspector in charge of the detail at the entrance saw
him approach, and saw the look on his face. 'Where's Andy Martin?'
the DCC called out.
'In the foyer last I saw, sir.'
The DCC sped into the auditorium. As he dived through the metal
detector archway it buzzed loudly. The two civilian security guards
who were manning did not recognise him and together, they moved to
stop him. There was no time for explanations; first one, then the
other, went down, winded by short disabling blows. He left them
gasping and ran into the wide passageway which encircled the main
auditorium.
To his relief, Martin and McGuire were standing in the main
doorway. They had their backs to him and were looking into the hall.
Beyond them stood the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State. If I
can stop them, he thought. He moved towards them, but too late. As
he reached the door, the two politicians set off down the shallow
sloping centre aisle, and as they did, the assembly rose to its feet in
spontaneous acclamation.
Skinner grabbed Martin by the arm and hauled him out into the
passageway. 'Andy,' he gasped, breathing hard, as he looked at his
astonished friend. 'Problem. Big-time problem.' McGuire spun round
also at the sound and stared anxiously at the DCC.
'Wayne Ventnor, Karen's Australian; he was the sapper in Michael
Hawkins' squad of jungle killers. Find him and arrest him, now. Get
all the help you can, split up and search the whole place. But don't
involve Neville!
'Before you go. The man in the wheelchair, Crombie. Is he in the
hall?'
'He should be, sir,' the inspector answered. 'He's with the Iranians
in Karen's sector, far side of the left aisle. But why'
'He's Hawkins: it's some disguise, right down to the false teeth
maybe, but I'm sure of it. If he's not Michael Hawki
ns, then my
name's Camilla Parker Bowles .. . and I've never been on a horse in
my life.
'Now go on.'
As his two colleagues ran off. Skinner stepped across to the doorway
and looked into the hall, down and to his left, but his view was
obscured by the assembled politicians and delegates, who were still
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on their feet clapping the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State
onto the stage. Turning, he ran round the passageway, to the next
doorway, at the top of the next aisle.
Karen Neville was standing there, unperturbed, looking into the
hall. Could she have knownl he wondered for an instant. But no, his
ego refused to let him believe that his judgement of a woman could
have been so badly wrong once again.
'Dennis Crombie,' he said, ignoring her surprise at his sudden
appearance. 'Where is he sitting?'
'About half-way down the aisle, sir, on the left; that's the Iranian
position. Israel nearest the gangway, then Ireland, then them, last in
the row.'
'Is he there?'
'Yes. I was looking down at him just as everyone got to their feet.'
Skinner felt a trickle of sweat run down his spine. 'What's the
betting .. .' he murmured under his breath. He stood on tip-toe, trying
to catch a glimpse of the Iranians; among the many tops of heads, he
picked out several wound in white cloth, standing in the -area Neville
had described.
'How many should there be in the delegation?' he asked.
'Eight, sir. Seven Iranians and Dennis.'
As she spoke the Prime Minister came to the centre of the stage,
beaming, nodding and gesturing to the gathering to be seated. Skinner
stared down their ranks as they complied, counting the Iranians aloud.
'One, two, three, four, five, six ...' Then an empty place; and finally,
an empty wheel-chair, on the outside of the row. Neville looked where
he looked, saw what he saw. Her hand went to her mouth.
'Oh my G'
'Exactly lass.' Skinner murmured. 'Either there's a faith healer in
the house, or your man Crombie's a wrong 'un.
'Now where the hell's he gone? Because he hasn't passed us by.' He
looked down into the auditorium. On either side of the stage there
were two sets of double exit doors. Those on the left seemed to be
swinging very slightly. Beside it were two hard-looking men, both of
them wearing little gold badges.
He looked at the woman beside him, and saw shock on her face.
'No time for discussion,' he snapped. 'How did Crombie and Ventnor
get here?'
'By car,' she answered, her voice cracking for an instant. 'Dennis
got a disabled permit for the Centre car park.'
'You know what their car looks like?'
'Yes.'
'Okay I want you to grab Andy or Mario; the first armed colleague
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you see, then go and find it. Meanwhile, I'm going to get that
wheelchair out of the hall.'
'But why, sir?'
'Because it's a bomb, Karen. Your boyfriend and his pal have been
planning all along to blow this place to Kingdom Come. Now go!'
As she turned and sprinted along the passageway, feeling her bolstered side-arm banging against her hip. Skinner stepped briskly
down towards the Israeli delegation. Reaching them, he turned in and
made his way along to the Iranian position. He recognised the Prime
Minister at once from television footage. The man glanced up at him
with fleeting curiosity, but then looked back towards the stage, where
the British Prime Minister was standing at the lectern, surveying his
audience.
'Good morning, my fellow Heads of Government, and good
morning, Heads of State,' he began, his voice ringing round the
auditorium. 'Good morning Excellencies, and welcome to you all.'
Crombie, or Hawkins ne van Roost, had chosen his moment perfectly.
While everyone in the hall was gazing at the PM, he had simply risen
from his chair and quietly slipped away. Only the two or three men
behind him could have seen his departure and they had clearly been
too preoccupied to have been surprised or alarmed, had they even
noticed it.
Skinner stopped by the empty wheelchair, took it by the arms and
tested its weight. He could barely lift it. 'Christ, how much explosive
has he got packed in here?' he whispered. He crouched down and
looked under the seat, between the wheels. Bolted to the steel chassis,
he saw a heavy box, one that had not been put there by the chair's
maker.
Skinner took his phone from his pocket and was about to dial
Martin's number when he paused. He had no idea, he realised, how
the bomb might be triggered. For all he knew the microwaves from a
cellphone might be enough. For all he knew an arming device might
have been activated, causing the device to explode at the slightest
movement. For all he knew, Wayne Ventnor might be sitting in the car
park at that very moment, his finger on the button of a transmitter
which could atomise him and everyone else for yards around.
He bet his life on the third possibility.
Grabbing the wheelchair he kicked off the brake, then pulled it
backwards, out into the furthest aisle, and began to roll it down
towards the exit beside the stage. The two guards looked at him in
surprise as he approached. 'Open the door', he mouthed as he wrestled
with the impossibly heavy device, steering an erratic course down the
aisle, hoping that they were Americans and would understand him,
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rather than trigger-happy Russians who might do anything. Uncertain
for a moment, the guards looked at each other, then finally, as he was
almost upon them, threw the exit open and allowed him to propel the
chair through into the corridor, and out of the auditorium.
Behind him, he was dimly aware of the Prime Minister's inspirational
tones, as he continued to mesmerise his nation's guests.
He was sweating heavily as he looked ahead, to see another pair of
doors twenty yards away, their paintwork heavily scuffed and marked.
Dropping his centre of gravity. Skinner pushed as hard as he could, his legs pumping until he had worked himself up to a run once more.
His mind was a blank as he drove the lethal object at the second
doors, sending them flying wide apart as it hit them at speed, and
bursting out into a concrete loading bay beyond. Hoping against hope,
he looked around and saw only cardboard boxes in which some of the
technical equipment had been delivered. Mercifully the area was empty
of people.
Giving the chair one last push, he turned and crashed back through
the doors, running back along the corridor as fast as his powerful but
tiring legs would allow. He had made it half-way to the auditorium
doorway when he heard the blast and when the shockwave caught up
with him, lifting him bodily then slamming him, senseless, to the
ground.
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Karen was racked by sobs as she burst out into 'the foyer. As she
fought them back, and wiped the tears from her eyes, she saw Inspector
Jack
Good, the officer on duty at the door, staring across at her. The
two security men sat on the ground beside him, but she had no time to
think anything of it.
'Has anyone gone out of here?' she demanded.
'I don't know,' Good replied. 'I've been looking after these people.
What's up anyway? Mr Skinner came tearing in here a few minutes
back, these two tried to stop him and he just laid them out.'
She ignored him and called across to the two constables who were
flanking the door. 'You two, have you seen anyone leave?'
The taller of the men, on the right of the entrance door, looked over
his shoulder. 'Three guys went out of here a couple o' minutes back,'
he said. 'A well-dressed bloke with a beard, another fella, scruffy like;
both of them big chaps, and an Arab guy wi' a turban thing on his
heid. Ah asked them if they'd had enough; the scruffy bloke said "Just
about". They went along there.' He pointed to his left.
Neville turned back to the Inspector. 'Find Mr Martin, or DI
McGuire,' she ordered. 'Tell them the targets have gone to the car
park, and that I'm off in pursuit.' He looked after her, bewildered, as
she ran through the doorway, and out into the street.
The Centre car park was by no means full, but it was busy
nonetheless, most of the spaces taken up by suppliers' vans and staff
cars. She looked over the low wall as she approached the gateway, but saw no sign ofVentnor or Hawkins. The constable whom Skinner had
almost run over was still at his post. 'Three men, recently?' she
gasped.
He understood. 'Away over there, at the back,' he said, pointing to
the furthest corner of the park, tucked behind the east wing of the
Centre.
She nodded and ran down the roadway, scanning the rows of
vehicles, realising how difficult it is to spot a single car among dozens
of production-line clones. At last she caught a glimpse of a metallic
green roof, and a flash of white material. A second later the soft
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'clunk' of a closing door reached her ears.
Drawing her pistol, she stepped into the rank of parked cars; holding
it in both hands, arms outstretched. As she approached the green
vehicle she saw that the bays on either side were vacant. 'Wayne,' she
shouted, almost a scream, as she reached it. 'All of you! Get out of
that fucking car!'
Hawkins was behind the wheel, Ventnor was in the front passenger