14 - Stay of Execution

by Quintin Jardine

  It seemed to take an age, although only two minutes elapsed between the emergence of His Holiness from the aircraft and his entering the familiar vehicle with its canopy of bullet-proof glass and its ton and a half of armour plating, hidden and unsuspected under the gleaming white coachwork.

  As the convoy, led and tailed by two police vehicles and flanked by eight motorcycle outriders, headed off for the City Chambers, Brian Mackie allowed himself a very small sigh of relief.

  79

  There were no smiles around the table in the room that normally seated dinner parties in Bute House, the First Minister’s residence. Bob Skinner knew it well enough, having been there on several occasions during his term of office as security adviser to the secretary of state for Scotland, the official occupant of the fine Georgian terrace before his eviction by the creation of the Scottish parliament, but for the other six it was a first-time visit.

  Brian Mackie had come straight from the airport, with Giovanni Rossi, Jack Russell, the Prime Minister’s senior protection officer, and Adam Arrow, who had flown north with him. Skinner himself, Neil McIlhenney, and Special Agent Merle Gower had headed there from Fettes. The DCC had chosen the venue for its discretion, since there were no watching eyes or wagging tongues in Charlotte Square.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Adam,’ he said, after he had explained the day’s developments, ‘and thanks for not asking why I wanted you here.’

  ‘No problem.’ The little major’s accent was the one he reserved for serious business, not his customary Derbyshire twang.

  ‘Now that you’re all up to speed on this new situation, let’s try to analyse the threat. Why are Alsina and Middlemass here? What’s their mission? I don’t think there’s any coincidence about it. I do not believe that two international terrorists would park themselves in Scotland, with almost foolproof and effective new identities, just to be out of the way. I believe they are here to pull something, and until I’m proved wrong, I’m going to assume that it’s connected with this visit.’

  ‘Why so sure?’ asked Russell. ‘Couldn’t one of the naval bases, Faslane or Rosyth, be a target?’

  ‘Rosyth’s a dockyard,’ said Adam Arrow. ‘I don’t see them attacking an empty vessel. As for Faslane, it’s a nuclear bunker. It’s the most secure facility in this country.’

  ‘What about one of the nuclear power stations? Hunterston or Torness?’

  ‘That would have to be another September Eleven,’ McIlhenney told him. ‘And even then, it wouldn’t work. They’re built to withstand aircraft impact.’

  ‘Something from within, then. He’s a chemist, isn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right; and not a nuclear physicist. Anyway, they’re also built to withstand earthquakes and they have all sorts of emergency shut-down mechanisms.’

  ‘What about a gas attack?’ asked Brian Mackie.

  ‘Gas is non-specific,’ Merle Gower pointed out, ‘a random weapon. These two people have been here for eighteen months. If that’s what they were here to do they’d have done it already.’

  ‘I have thought about it, though, Brian,’ said Skinner. ‘In the five or so hours since I found out about this, I’ve had people crawling all over their home, and over Alsina’s work areas at Heriot-Watt looking for traces of anything that might relate to the manufacture of ricin, or sarin, or XV. There’s absolutely nothing in their house, and a facility for producing a nerve agent in a university would attract attention, I reckon.’

  He pointed at Russell. ‘To answer your original point, Jack, it’s the timeline that makes me think their presence is related to this visit. I’m going to make some assumptions here; one of them is that these two people were in Dubai for the specific purpose of taking out an American intelligence operative, a counter-strike in the war on terror. Would you go with that, Merle?’

  Special Agent Gower nodded. ‘Yeah, we know that they both arrived and left there at the same time.’

  ‘During the period they were there, Pope John the Twenty-fourth died, and Gilbert White, Cardinal Archbishop of Edinburgh, was elected as his successor. We’re in an era of non-Italian popes now; the last one was French. What do they do, invariably, within the first couple of years of their reign?’

  ‘They go home,’ Arrow said ‘to let their own people see them in their new exalted state.’

  ‘Exactly. I believe that the people running Middlemass and Alsina, or Polly Price and Anwar Baradi, or whoever, anticipated this, and sent them here to settle down, find work that would fit their experience, keeping them as far away from potential surveillance as possible . . . a South African banker and a Spanish doctorate student are pretty good cover, we have to admit . . . and wait for the moment; this moment. That’s what I see so far. The bits I can’t see yet are why they ran or what they’re planning to do, but does anyone disagree with my assessment so far?’

  Nobody contradicted him.

  ‘So what do we do about it?’ asked Russell. ‘Call the Murrayfield rally off?’

  ‘If that’s what the Pope wants, yes. Gio?’

  ‘What’s the risk to the public?’

  ‘There’s no evidence of a potential gas attack. The place is completely swept for explosives on a daily basis. We’ve even searched inside the scaffolding poles that make up the platform on the pitch. If there’s a threat, it’s likely to be personal.’

  ‘Then there’s not a chance he’ll pull out.’

  ‘What about the mass this evening?’

  ‘Admission is by ticket only; had to be, because of the numbers.’

  ‘I want officers at all entrances to the cathedral all the same, with mugshots of the pair. We’ve done some alternative images from the Kabul photo.’

  ‘Then go ahead and station them.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Skinner acknowledged. ‘The Royal Infirmary visit tomorrow’s easy: we can lock that up tight. That leaves the rally as our real problem, our point of potential weakness. What do we do about it? We catch them if we can. But if we can’t, then at the very least we try to guess what they’re planning and make sure they can’t carry it out. For example, nobody gets near the Pope who shouldn’t be there.’

  He looked at Gower. ‘We’ve all got our part to play in this. Merle, forget which agency pays your salary. I want the CIA to put its resources into finding out who this woman really is, and to create some potential attack scenarios for us, based on what’s happened elsewhere.’

  ‘That’s already happening, Bob.’

  ‘Good.’ He turned to Arrow. ‘Adam, do we need more soldiers?’

  ‘We could use them to set up a wider security perimeter around the ground and let no vehicles through. That would prevent a mortar attack. I can do that.’

  ‘Do it.’

  ‘Where do the public’s cars go?’ asked McIlhenney.

  ‘Saughtonhall sports fields,’ said Mackie. ‘We divert them there. The buses can go on the back pitches, as planned.’

  ‘Anything else we need do?’

  ‘There’s already a no-fly zone in place, Bob,’ Arrow replied. ‘Any light aircraft heading anywhere near Murrayfield will be seen off.’

  Skinner looked back across the table at Russell. ‘Jack, I’d be happier if there was only one potential high-tariff target on that platform. Could you persuade him to pull out?’

  ‘That would run counter to the basic principle of not letting terror be seen to gain the smallest victory,’ said the protection officer. ‘Sometimes I reckon that “martyr” is the word, above all others, that my man would like carved on his tombstone.’

  80

  Mario was gazing out of the window when the buzzer sounded. He liked the view across the water, even at night when all he could see were the lights of the docks and of Ocean Terminal beyond. When his Aunt Sophia had decided that she could live there no longer after his Uncle Beppe’s death, he had seized the chance to move into the family-owned penthouse, and had not regretted the decision.

  As he picked up the handset that connected h
im to the main entrance he knew who would be waiting below. ‘Hi,’ said the quiet voice he knew so well, the one he had expected to hear.

  ‘Come on up.’ He pressed the button that opened the door, holding his finger on it till he heard her shout, ‘Okay!’ then walked out of the apartment to wait beside the lift.

  ‘Hiya,’ he greeted Maggie as she emerged, kissing her lightly on the cheek. He held the door open for her, and watched her as she stepped inside. She was dressed casually, as she had always dressed, yet there seemed to be something different about her, about her manner, about her bearing.

  ‘Are you not seeing Paula tonight?’ she asked him. There was no animosity in her tone; indeed, there had been none between them since they had split.

  ‘She’s at the theatre with her mum,’ he told her. ‘They’ve got tickets for the musical at the Playhouse; afterwards they’re going to Ferri’s for supper. They had to take a taxi, though. I warned Paulie off trying to drive there: with the papal mass in the cathedral just across Picardy Place, the traffic’ll be hellish.’

  ‘So you’re on your lonesome.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Are you still upset about Colin Mawhinney?’

  ‘What do you think? I reckon Neil’s got a lead, though. He hasn’t said, but he was closeted with an American the other day, and then they went off to see the Big Man.’

  ‘How about you? Does the uniform still fit? Are those badges on your shoulders wearing you down yet?’

  ‘Not one bit.’

  He walked over to the bar set in a corner of the big open living space. ‘You want a drink?’

  ‘What do you have open? No. Wait. Let me guess. Chianti?’ He laughed. ‘What else?’ He filled a glass for Maggie and topped up his own. ‘So what’s up?’ he asked, as he handed her the dark red wine. ‘Why the official visit?’

  ‘There’s something I have to tell you to your face,’ she answered. ‘I’ve moved in with Stevie.’

  She watched his eyes as he digested what she had told him; they gave nothing away. ‘I see,’ he murmured. ‘You mean move in as in share a flat, or move in as in . . .’

  ‘Why would I want a flat-share when I have a perfectly nice house? I’ve moved in with him, Mario, period.’

  ‘And it’s okay?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s okay. In fact it’s better than that; it’s like I never thought it could be.’

  ‘Does he know? Have you told him? About your father, the abuse?’

  ‘No.’>

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Good. Where is he anyway?’

  ‘Downstairs, in the car. He’d have come up, but I preferred it this way.’

  ‘Well, bring him up, for fuck’s sake!’ exclaimed Mario. ‘I won’t eat the guy. Far from it; I owe him a drink.’

  ‘Why?’>

  ‘For taking you off my conscience, okay?’

  ‘I’ll drink to that too.’ She took out her cell phone and called Stevie on his. ‘Come on up,’ she said, when he answered. ‘The bear’s friendly.’ She pressed the button when the buzzer sounded a few seconds later, then opened the front door.

  As he stepped into the room, Mario glared at him; and then a grin spread over his face and he reached out and shook his hand. ‘Good luck, mate,’ he said.

  ‘As in, he’ll need it?’ Maggie challenged, as she poured her partner a glass of Chianti.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Stevie. ‘Before you say anything, Mario, I promise I’ll look after her.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to, but it’s good to hear. How widely is this known?’

  ‘Mary Chambers and that’s it,’ Maggie replied.

  ‘And Bob Skinner,’ Stevie grunted.

  ‘How? God, what’s the point in asking!’

  Stevie smiled. ‘It’s okay. I promised him I’d look after you too.’ He leaned against the bar and sipped from his glass. ‘Nice place this,’ he exclaimed, looking around. He wandered across the room to the glass-topped dining-table that stood in the opposite corner, strewn with papers and other items.

  ‘Mario,’ Maggie began, ‘about the house . . .’

  He held up a hand to cut her off. ‘It’s yours. We agreed that, and nothing’s changed.’

  ‘Do you mind if I rent it out?’

  ‘Mags, I don’t mind if you . . .’

  ‘Excuse me!’ There was a strange urgency about Steele’s voice as he cut into their conversation. They turned together to see him staring at something on the table. ‘What is this?’ he murmured.

  Mario walked over to join him, to see what had caught his eye, and held it. ‘Those are Colin Mawhinney’s personal things,’ he said. ‘I’m looking after them until his colleagues collect them. What you’re looking at is a photograph of his wife, Margery. She was killed in the World Trade Center.’

  As he looked at Stevie, he saw that his face was chalk white. ‘Then either it’s her twin sister who’s just disappeared from the Scottish Farmers Bank,’ he whispered, ‘or else she’s risen from the ruins.’

  81

  ‘Neil,’ Skinner barked into the phone, ‘I want you to pick up your witness Spoons, the guy who knows a Land Rover when he sees one, and I want you to show him a picture of a Mitsubishi Pajero. Ask him if he can really tell the fucking difference. You’ll find that he can’t. While your guys are finding him, I want you to get hold of the two NYPD officers and have them come to Fettes. Finally, do you know where Merle Gower is? I’ve tried her cell phone, but it’s not responding.’

  ‘She’s at the consul’s residence. I dropped her there after the meeting in Bute House. Huggins and Donegan are in the Ellersley House Hotel; that’s not far away so they should . . .’ McIlhenney paused. ‘Am I right in assuming that a very big balloon has just gone up?’

  ‘Nah, mate, that would be easy. I’d just shoot it down. This is more like the Martians dropping in for cocktails. I’ve just found out who really killed Mawhinney.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Yes. It was his wife.’

  ‘His what?’

  ‘DI Steele will explain. Between you, you know the whole story; apologies to Lou, but I’d like you back in my office to help tie all the ends of this together. Stevie, Maggie and Mario are here now. We only really need Steele, but the other two might as well stick around. The chief and I are having supper with the Pope and Jim Gainer this evening, but I’ll come back to Fettes afterwards.’ Skinner’s mind was racing; he applied the brakes. ‘Listen, forget the Americans. I’ll phone Huggins, and Merle; you get here to catch any information they bring back.’

  He hung up. ‘Stevie,’ he snapped. ‘I want you to dig up Arthur Dorward, and get him, with his best team, back out to the Middlemass and Alsina house. They’ve to look for any forensic traces that confirm Mawhinney’s presence there. Likewise they should turn their car inside out if they have to.’ He turned to Rose. ‘Mags, do you want to do something useful, if wholly beneath your exalted rank?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You know your way around this floor. I’d like you to find the guest list for the reception that the chief was hosting for Inspector Mawhinney, and see who was due to represent the Scottish Farmers Bank.’

  Rose looked at Steele. ‘I don’t need to find it,’ she said. ‘Vernon Easterson told us. He and Proctor Fraser, the chief executive, were invited. But they both had prior engagements, so Aurelia Middlemass was nominated to represent them.’

  ‘And wouldn’t that have been a surprise for poor Colin?’

  ‘Remember the press coverage?’ McGuire murmured, drawing a frown from the DCC. ‘Colin told John Hunter that he’d be on Brian Mackie’s team for the Pope’s visit; that must have been reported.’

  ‘But was it?’

  ‘It’s a fair assumption.’

  ‘This is no time for them. Check it out. They must plan to be close tomorrow,’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘The woman could simply have developed tactical flu and missed the reception, but if they read that M
awhinney was going to be in the police team for the visit, in the heart of the action . . . I reckon they decided that he had to be taken out.’ He looked back at McGuire. ‘Did Colin ever mention to you where his wife worked in the WTC?’

  ‘Yes, he did. She was with a firm with a funny name. Wait a minute . . .’ He frowned and scratched his black, curly head, as if it would speed his thought process. ‘Garamond and Stretch,’ he announced at last, with a note of triumph.

  The DCC picked up one of his telephones and punched through to the switchboard operator. ‘Sir!’ came the sharp reply.

  ‘I want you to get Lieutenant Eli Huggins of the NYPD,’ he said. ‘He’s stopping in the Ellersley House Hotel.’

  He slammed the phone back into its cradle, then looked through his personal contact book until he located the number of the US consulate’s official residence. He dialled it on his direct line; it was answered, eventually, by a man. ‘Barton Taylforth. Can I help you?’

  ‘Bob Skinner here, at Fettes. I need to speak to Merle Gower.’

  ‘Maybe for security she should call you,’ the consulate’s principal officer replied.

  ‘I don’t have time to burn. Put her on.’

  ‘Bob?’ Special Agent Gower came on the line within seconds. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Yes, it surely has. I’ve got another identity for Aurelia Middlemass. Before she went to Dubai and became Polly Price, she was Mrs Margery Mawhinney, the wife of the New York cop we pulled out of the docks on Monday morning. She was an employee of a company called Garamond and Stretch, in the World Trade Center, and she was killed on September Eleven . . . only she wasn’t.’

  ‘I’ll patch that through to the CIA. It may help them.’ The other phone rang as she spoke; he motioned to Steele to pick it up. ‘I’ll get back to you,’ she said.

  Skinner laid down one phone and took the other. ‘Lieutenant Huggins?’

  ‘Sir.’>

  ‘I’ve got some news for you. I reckon your people Salvona and Falcone were in Florida after all. Someone else killed Mawhinney. Eli, how well did you know the man?’