by Daniel Cole
He hesitated before continuing:
“Baxter, I don’t think you are going to be able to stop whatever’s coming.”
“Cheers for the confidence boost.”
“It’s just . . .” He looked concerned. “Look at the amount of work that must have gone into persuading Glenn Arnolds to stitch another man onto his back, building him gradually to that level of delusion, systematically substituting his meds like that—all tailored solely to that one person. This is beyond obsession . . . This is someone’s sole purpose on this earth . . . and that terrifies me.”
Ten minutes and a cup of shed tea later, Baxter was on the doorstep, bag of presents in hand.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Edmunds. He rushed back down the hallway to fetch something. He returned with a white envelope, which he tucked into the top of the present bag. “Last one, I’m afraid. Listen, Baxter—”
“Do myself a favor and don’t open it?” she interrupted, knowing Edmunds was once again about to voice his opinion on them spying on Thomas.
He nodded.
“Merry Christmas,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek before walking back out into the night.
Baxter returned to the house to find it empty. She had completely forgotten that Thomas was out at one of the numerous work dos scheduled over the festive season. She placed the bag of presents beneath the Christmas tree and two things slowly dawned on her: One, Thomas had purchased a tree. Two, thanks to everything going on, she hadn’t actually bought him a single present yet.
With Echo asleep in the kitchen, Rouche spending the night in the hospital, and Thomas no doubt getting pawed at by Linda “the Cougar,” she wished she had dropped in on Finlay after all. She hadn’t wanted to intrude on his and Maggie’s evening with the grandchildren so had thanked him for his help over the phone and arranged to pop around to see him after Christmas.
Suddenly feeling very alone, and resolute not to start thinking about the other people, the ones she had lost from her life over the past year and a half, she kicked off her boots and went upstairs to run herself a bath.
Baxter picked Rouche up from the entrance to St. Mary’s Hospital at 8:34 A.M. Still buzzing from the pain meds, he was irksomely cheerful company for a Monday-morning rush hour. As they escaped the queue for one junction just to join another for the next, she didn’t have high hopes of them making their 9:30 A.M. meeting with MI5 T-Branch, who were, all of a sudden, taking the threat against national security very seriously indeed.
Rouche turned up the radio.
“. . . morning, the UK’s terror threat level has been elevated to ‘Critical,’ meaning that the security agencies believe an attack on the country to be imminent.”
“About bloody time,” said Baxter. She looked over at Rouche and caught him smiling to himself. “How has any of this given you reason to smile?” she asked him.
“Because there isn’t going to be an attack. We’re going to stop them.”
Baxter jumped a set of traffic lights:
“I like your optimism—PMA and all that—but—”
“It’s not about optimism. It’s about purpose,” he replied as the news bulletin moved on to the story that both Betfred and Ladbrokes had ceased taking bets on a white Christmas. “I’ve spent years drifting aimlessly, wondering why I survived that day and my family didn’t . . . Now I know . . .
“Just think about the innumerable decisions and chance events required to lead me out of that Underground station a victim of a terror attack a decade ago, only to find myself in the position to prevent one tomorrow. It’s like history repeating itself, giving me a do-over. It’s like I finally understand why I’m still here and, at last, I have a purpose.”
“Look, I’m glad you’re feeling more upbeat and everything, but our priority is that Underground station and whatever these shits have planned for it. We need to handle it. We can’t let them manipulate us like in New York. We can’t pull resources from elsewhere in the city, no matter what happens down there, no matter what happens to us. The diversion is our responsibility. The bombs are the security services’. We’re not going to be involved with that side of things . . . Sorry,” she added, feeling guilty for raining on his parade.
“Don’t be.” Rouche smiled. “You’re right, but I just know that by playing our part tomorrow, we’ll stop this from happening.”
Baxter forced a smile to humor him.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” she pointed out. “We might still have one more murder to deal with before then. And if our stitched-together Gemini man is anything to go by, it’s going to be absolutely horrific.”
“Unless we’ve already arrested that particular Puppet.”
“Because we’re just that lucky,” scoffed Baxter bitterly.
The traffic started moving more freely. Rouche kept quiet while Baxter changed lanes and overtook a procession of buses. The sporadic sweeps of the windscreen wipers had already compacted the beginnings of a snowman around the edges of the glass.
“We could . . .” Rouche hesitated, trying to form a more compelling argument. “We could wait until five to five and then evacuate the station.”
“I wish we could,” said Baxter. “But we can’t.”
“But if we—”
“We can’t. If we do that, we’re risking them dispersing across the city again and then they could attack anywhere. At least this way, we know where they’ll be and we’ll be prepared.”
“We’re using innocent people as bait . . . Why does that sound so familiar?” he asked. He didn’t sound accusatory, only regretful.
“Yes, we are, but I don’t see another option.”
“I wonder if someone said something similar about me and my family back in 2005.”
“Maybe they did,” Baxter said sadly.
She felt a little disgusted with herself for her callous assessment of the situation. She suspected that Rouche was going to struggle with their day of strategic meetings, regarding people’s lives as no more than figures on a graph. Sacrifice one digit here, save two there.
She suspected that she was going to struggle with it too.
By 6:04 P.M. Baxter was exhausted. As expected, the day had consisted of back-to-back meetings. Security had been doubled on the London Underground and at all major attractions. The five largest A&E departments in the city were on standby to implement their Major Incident Protocols, while the London Ambulance Service had arranged additional cover through private providers.
The Puppet interviews had continued throughout the day without any major revelations. It had been futile to threaten or bargain with Green’s fanatical followers when they had no interest whatsoever in self-preservation. Green himself had been in the hands of MI5 overnight, being subjected to whatever enhanced interrogation techniques they could throw at him; however, the lack of communication suggested that they were yet to break the psychiatrist.
The department had spent the entire day on tenterhooks but reports of a final grotesque murder somewhere within the city never came. As such, the uninterrupted hours had left Baxter feeling as well prepared as possible for the Puppets’ final act.
It was a strange feeling, knowing what might happen, a betrayal to every soul she’d passed on the street not to warn them. She wanted to call everyone in her phonebook, shout from the rooftops that people should stay out of the city, but to do so would only be to delay the inevitable and to sacrifice their one advantage.
She spotted Rouche waiting to say good night as she filed some paperwork. By then she felt as though there was nothing more they could do to prepare. She packed up her bag and walked over to him.
“Come on,” she yawned. “I’ll give you a lift back. I need to pick up a couple of bits anyway.”
Baxter and Rouche had made it as far as Vincent Square before both their phones went off in unison. They shared an exhausted look, anticipating what was coming. Rouche put the call on speakerphone.
“Agent Rouche,” he answered
. “I’m with DCI Baxter.”
Baxter’s phone immediately stopped buzzing in her bag.
“Apologies, Agent Rouche. I’m aware you’ve both left for the day,” started the woman on the phone.
“It’s fine. Go ahead.”
“One of Dr. Hoffman’s patients, an Isaac Johns, just used his credit card to pay for a taxi.”
“OK,” he said, presuming there was more to the story.
“I called the taxi firm and got put through to the driver. He said the man was very intense, told him that he was dead anyway, that he’d go out while he still had his dignity, in a way that people would remember. According to Hoffman’s statement, Johns was recently diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. The driver had already called it in. A unit from Southwark has been dispatched.”
“Location?” asked Baxter as she switched on her sirens and maneuvered out of the traffic.
“The Sky Garden,” replied the woman.
“In the Walkie-Talkie?” asked Baxter, using the building’s nickname.
“That’s the one. Apparently he was heading for the bar, which is on the thirty-fifth floor.”
The wheels spun against the slushy road as Baxter sped down Rochester Row, heading north.
“Stand them down,” she shouted over the noise, “and back us up with an armed unit. We’re seven minutes out.”
“All understood.”
“Have you got a description?” asked Rouche.
“Caucasian, ‘built like a brick shithouse,’ short hair, dark suit.”
Rouche hung up as the colors of the city flashed by. He took out his firearm and checked it:
“Here we go again.”
Baxter stifled a yawn: “No rest for the wicked.”
Chapter 34
Monday, 21 December 2015
6:29 P.M.
“Come on. Come on,” Baxter uttered under her breath as the LED numbers ascended toward their destination.
Rouche had already unholstered his service weapon, but doubted that this latest Puppet could have smuggled anything illicit through the airport-style security check on the ground floor.
31 . . . 32 . . . 33 . . . 34 . . .
The lift slowed to a gentle stop.
“Ready?” asked Rouche.
The doors parted; music and the soft hum of sophisticated conversation greeted them. They shared a pleasantly surprised shrug before Rouche quickly concealed his gun and they stepped into the cavernous space to join the smartly dressed queue waiting to be seated.
As moodily lit as the city sparkling in the background, the immense cage of steelwork was glowing pink, an enormous arch of glass and metal reaching fifteen meters overhead, greedily laying claim to a little more of the sky.
While they were waiting, they scanned the busy hall for anyone matching the description they’d been given, only to find that at least a third of the clientele were wearing dark suits and that a person’s brick shithouse–ness was a difficult thing to judge while seated.
A smartly attired man gestured for them to step forward. A not-so-subtle look down over Baxter’s practical winter outfit and then back up via Rouche’s crumpled suit ended in a condescending smile.
“Good evening. You have a reservation?” he asked skeptically.
Rouche flashed the man his identification.
Baxter leaned in close to speak quietly:
“Detective Chief Inspector Baxter. Don’t react!” she told him when he suddenly recognized her and looked around for a supervisor. “I need you to check your list. Do you have a reservation for an Isaac Johns?”
A brief pause; then the man ran his finger down his clipboard of names: “Johns . . . Johns . . . Johns . . .”
“Really think he’d use his real name?” Rouche asked her.
“He used his own credit card,” replied Baxter. “He’s got nothing to lose now. I don’t think he cares.”
“Johns! Found him!” the man exclaimed. Several people looked in their direction.
“Again,” said Baxter patiently, “don’t react.”
“Sorry.”
“Which table? Don’t turn round! Don’t point!”
“Sorry. Beside the window. Right-hand side. Closest to the doors, as he requested.”
Baxter held the man’s gaze as Rouche glanced across the room:
“Table’s empty.”
“Did you see what he looked like?” she asked the man.
“He was . . . tall . . . and big, as in muscular. He was wearing a black suit and tie . . . like he was going to a funeral.”
Baxter and Rouche shared a look.
“OK,” she told him. “I want you to carry on as normal. If you see him, I want you to walk over to us very, very slowly and whisper it in my ear. All right?”
He nodded.
“Start on the terrace?” she suggested to Rouche.
Unexpectedly, she linked arms with him. They walked through the bar under their camouflage of happy couple and out onto the terrace, the tip of the Shard sparkling white in the distance like a snow-capped mountain. As they strolled over to the metal railing, snowflakes blew around them from all directions before scattering over the twinkling metropolis below.
The only people braving the cold were a shivering couple toasting champagne glasses and some accommodating parents being led outside by their excited little girls. From the relative privacy of the dark terrace, the indoor space was lit in neon pink, allowing them to search the room of faces without attracting attention.
“Perhaps he went home,” said Rouche optimistically, but then he spotted their well-dressed assistant pacing around the room searching for them. “Or perhaps not.”
They hurried inside and then followed the man’s directions back past the lifts to the toilets. There, they were confronted with a row of identical cubicles, the shiny black doors promising a more pleasant setting than the last set they had occupied together.
Rouche took out his weapon: “I’ll go in. You keep watch.”
Baxter looked like she might hit him.
“We don’t know for sure he’s in there,” explained Rouche, glad he was armed. “Plus, there might be more than one of them. I need you watching my back.”
“Fine,” Baxter huffed, slumping against the wall to stay out of the path of the harassed waiters struggling to cope with the demands of simultaneous Christmas parties.
Rouche made his way down the narrow corridor of partitioned bathrooms to find the first two standing empty.
“Someone’s in here!” a woman’s voice called from the third when he tried the door.
“Sorry!” he shouted over the sound of a hand-dryer as the next door along unlocked.
Fingers wrapped around the handle of the weapon inside his jacket, he relaxed when an elderly gentleman wobbled out, giving him a rosy-cheeked smile.
Rouche passed one more vacant cubicle before reaching the final black door, propped closed despite clearly being unlocked. With his gun raised, he kicked the flimsy piece of wood open. The door swung back loudly into the side of the empty room.
Against the back wall stood the lid from the cistern; beside it, a rubber bag had been discarded, dripping water onto the floor. On the back of the door hung a large black suit jacket and tie. Rouche turned to leave, kicking something metallic across the floor. He walked over and picked up a brass nine-millimeter bullet.
“Shit,” he said to himself, rushing back out into the main room.
“He’s not in th—” Rouche started, colliding with an overladen waiter, who dropped his tray of precariously balanced glasses across the floor. “Sorry,” Rouche apologized, looking around for Baxter.
“Entirely my fault,” the young man responded politely, even though it entirely wasn’t.
“Did you see a woman waiting out here?”
Then came the sound of chair legs scraping across the floor as people abandoned their tables.
Rouche hurried toward the uproar and shoved his way through the crowd moving away from the g
lass windows.
He paused.
He could see Baxter out in the dark. She was standing by the railing as her hair blew wildly in the wind. A few meters from her, huddled in the corner beside the glass, the young family was cowering, the father crouching defensively in front of his two daughters.
Weapon first, Rouche slowly stepped outside.
Free from the glare of the lights reflecting in the glass, he finally understood the situation; there was one other person out on the terrace with them, behind Baxter.
A muscular arm was holding her still, a small pistol pushed up under her chin.
In the other hand, a second weapon was pointed at the family in the corner.
“Rouche, I presume,” said an unfittingly high-pitched voice from behind Baxter, only a sliver of a face visible behind his human shield.
He pronounced it correctly, meaning that Baxter had either given up his name or, more likely, she had called out to him.
“Mind putting that down?” asked the man pleasantly, pulling the hammer back on the gun beneath Baxter’s chin.
She gave a subtle shake of her head, but Rouche hesitantly lowered the weapon.
“Isaac Johns, I presume,” said Rouche, hoping that his calm tone was catching. “You all right, Baxter?”
“She’s fine,” Johns answered on her behalf.
“I leave you alone for one minute . . .” Rouche laughed, casually taking a step toward them.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” yelled Johns, dragging Baxter backward, losing Rouche the ground he’d just made up.
He was as imposing as his description had promised. Although Baxter’s slender frame was insubstantial cover for the man’s bulk, his vital organs, and therefore any hope of an instant kill, were safely out of sight.
“So what’s the plan, Isaac?” asked Rouche, keen to get Johns talking. He had already registered the difference between this man and the other killers: he appeared calm and in control. He was enjoying his moment in the limelight.
“Well, it was to get our audience to decide which of them”—he gestured toward the huddled family—“lives or dies. But then I spotted Detective Baxter here and simply couldn’t help myself. So that responsibility has, regrettably, fallen to you.”