Tom wasn’t listening. He thought he knew exactly where Jason was and why the vessel had left early.
“Okay, thanks, Jonno. Let me know when you find out anything else.” He hung up and turned to John.
“We need to talk – right away.”
John nodded. “Thanks, Janice,” he said, following Tom into his office.
“We have to do something, John. I have a strong feeling that Jason Midanda is on that boat and that the change of schedule is somehow linked with Kadawe’s arrest. Don’t ask me what the connection is – I haven’t a clue, only a feeling. But once he’s on Alpha, there is no way of getting him off. If there’s a possibility he’s innocent, then he has to be stopped. If he’s confirmed as guilty at some future date, I’ll personally row him over there myself.”
“I understand, Tom. I’ll do what I can, make some calls. But I can’t promise – in fact, I don’t think… Just remember, Tom – and believe me, I don’t like reminding you at a time like this – but you were prepared for this. In fact, you prepared everybody else for this. Some innocent souls lost along the way – an acceptable risk, you said. And, anyway, we may never know, after what’s happened with Kadawe today, whether Jason was innocent or not. What we know for certain is that right now – officially – he’s still guilty as charged.”
Tom had stopped listening.
“Can I use your phone?” he said. “In here, in private?”
“Yes, I guess so. But you won’t be able to pull any strings, Tom. Leave that for me to try.”
“It’s a private call to someone who won’t be interested in all this.”
John left the room.
Tom finished the call ten minutes later, checking his watch; 12.20 pm. The PTV would be sixteen hours into its journey with another six to go at the most. That should just about be okay.
John was sitting on the corner of Janice’s desk.
“DI Cottrell is ready to see you,” he said. “Room 36A. Can you find your way back there?”
“Okay, I’ll go straight away.”
*
It was a few minutes after 1.00 pm when Tom turned into the Terminal 1 car park at Heathrow and made his way on foot to the secure private charter area. He wondered whether he would get much further. By now, they would realise at GCJ that he was not in the building. It was three-quarters of an hour since he had left John’s office, supposedly en route to meet Jo Cottrell less than a minute’s walk away. He could not imagine the DI’s patience allowing more than ten minutes to elapse before chasing up her errant interviewee. The re-dial button on John Mackay’s phone would reveal his current destination – something Tom hadn’t thought about when he had contacted Josh Wilcox.
At the check-in lodge, he succeeded in convincing the guard to let him through using his Ministerial ID Card – albeit invalidated – along with a story about his continuing to work at tying up loose ends at the personal request of the Prime Minister. He was surprised and more than a little dismayed when it worked, especially in light of the recent publicity he had been attracting. He made a mental note, when all this was over, to email Ruby Weller, the Minister for Security and Counter Terrorism. But right now, it meant that the alarm had not yet been raised back in Guildford, or at least they had not worked out where he was heading.
Josh Wilcox was waiting for him at the departure gate. The pilot was in his late thirties; tall, tanned and muscular. The premature greying of his close cropped hair did nothing to detract from his good looks.
“Fuelled up; cleared for take-off at thirteen-fifty hours,” he said, checking his watch. “You’ve cut it a bit fine; if we’re not taxiing in about thirty seconds they’ll cancel our spot. And what was all that about a parachute? Suddenly developed a fear of flying, have we?”
“No, just rediscovered a love of parachuting.”
“In which case, you’ve chartered the wrong plane, buddy. You need to book ‘Jump-for-Joy’ through one of the Charity Event websites.”
They climbed the five steps into the Cessna Citation Sovereign, Tom pulling them up behind him, and both settled into the cockpit. They were in the air in less than five minutes.
“Next stop North Connel,” Josh said. “ETA in sixty-five minutes at fifteen-oh-six hours. Shame about Cheryl.”
“What about Cheryl?” Tom asked.
“She’s not here. And how come you only needed me as far as Glasgow last time?”
Tom thought back to their last flight together, heading north with Mags, ultimately to the rug and the peat fire in Farcuillin Lodge. It took him a while to compile a suitably flippant reply.
“Because you’re not good enough to land this thing on the side of a mountain, so we had to pick up a chopper on the way. Anyway, Cheryl kept complaining that you were leering at her.”
Josh laughed. “She was right. Every chance I had.” He paused and turned to his passenger. “Listen, Tom. I’m really sorry about… You know…”
“Yes, I know. Thanks, Josh.” He was still wondering how he had managed to get this far without the alarm being raised.
Once they had reached their optimum altitude and cruising speed, Tom took out his mobile, checking his contacts for the three new numbers.
“Am I going to be informed of the purpose of this trip?” Josh asked.
“Just some private loose ends to clear up,” Tom replied. “Is it okay to use my phone?”
“So you’re not going to tell me,” Josh sighed. “In which case, no, you can’t use your phone…” Tom shot him a surprised look “…but you can use one of the in-flight handsets in the arms of the seats back there.”
Tom smiled and squeezed Josh’s shoulder as he left the cockpit and went through to the passenger cabin. Five minutes later he returned.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but it seems Lochshore isn’t taking any calls. How the hell can a major establishment like that just take the phone off the hook?”
“Did you try more than one phone? Perhaps that one…”
“No, I put a call in to my apartment – got straight through to the answer machine. The problem’s at their end.”
Josh thought for a moment.
“Look, I can contact Lochshore helipad control, if you like. If there’s a wider problem with site communications, that might not work either, but…”
“Yes, do it, Josh. Thanks.”
Josh entered the frequency for Lochshore on the radio keypad in front of him.
“K38-dash-C, Wilcox Sovereign calling Lochshore control. Please respond.”
Half a minute elapsed with no reply.
“K38-dash-C calling…”
“Not recognised.” A crackling neutral voice with no inflection interrupted. “Repeat!”
Josh looked across at Tom with large questioning eyes and shrugged.
“This is K38-dash-C, Pilot Joshua Wilcox, out of Heathrow, flying Cessna Citation Sovereign, calling Lochshore; destination North Connel, ETA…”
“Not recognised. What is your current position and course?”
Josh checked a screen.
“Position north fifty-five zero-nine-one; west zero-one one-zero-six; cruising twelve thousand feet, speed four-nine-five mph; just changed course to current bearing two-nine-six degrees. Do you copy?”
There was complete silence for almost two minutes, then the robotic voice again.
“Directive. Change course immediately through one-thirty-six to new bearing one-sixty degrees. Return to Heathrow. Do you copy?”
The emphasis on the word ‘you’ was the first indication that it was a human being on the other end of the link-up. Tom looked across at Josh and shook his head. Josh looked a little uneasy, but met the challenge head-on.
“Negative. Maintaining course. Have received no indication of contravening airspace regulations or re
strictions. Please identify. Is this Lochshore control?”
Another silence, longer this time.
“You are designated call sign ‘space invader’. Change course immediately. Return to Heathrow. Do you copy, space invader?”
“Copy but do not accept. This is routine charter flight to North Connel. Maintaining course and changing frequency. Out.”
Josh punched a new set of data into the keypad.
“This is K38-dash-C, Pilot Joshua Wilcox, out of Heathrow, flying Cessna Citation Sovereign, destination North Connel airport, calling North Connel control, ETA in twenty-five minutes at fifteen-zero-eight hours. Request permission to…”
“Space invader, this is your final warning, change course; return to Heathrow.”
Josh turned to Tom looking more than just a little uneasy now. Tom remained calm and focused. Neither spoke for a few moments. When he broke the silence, Josh’s voice was unsteady. “I don’t know about this, Tom. There must be something serious going on. I’m turning back…”
“No, you’re not!” Tom’s remark came out more aggressively than he had intended, betraying his own anxiety. “Look, Josh. They can’t expect to push people around who are just going about their normal business without telling them why. Keep going – please.”
Josh continued to look at him and then shrugged.
“Okay, we’ll keep going for now until we get some sort of explanation. But in the final say-so, I’ll decide what we do. Okay?”
Tom did not reply but looked ahead leaving Josh to decide how to respond to their ‘final warning’.
“By the way, I noticed back there that you do have a parachute?” Tom said.
“Two, in fact; one here as well.” Josh pointed under his seat. “You’re thinking in case we get shot down?” He gave a hollow little laugh.
“No, in case I need to get off before you turn back.”
*
Over Moffat they turned due west to circumvent the air traffic around Glasgow and Prestwick airports. At the same time, 180 miles away, two Typhoon F2s from the Quick Reaction Alert Force at Lossiemouth in Morayshire screamed into the air. Climbing at a rate of 1,000 feet per second, it took just half a minute to reach their optimum cruising altitude of 30,000 feet, at which height they could achieve an airspeed of over 1,300 mph, taking them to Lochshore in less than six minutes. Each carried a payload of four ASRAAMs – advanced short-range air-to-air missiles. They wheeled south-westwards.
The tracking station on Benbecula picked up the Cessna as it reached the south end of Kilbrannan Sound, between Arran and Kintyre, and turned due north. Within a few seconds the station captured precise details of its position, bearing, altitude, speed and transmitting frequencies and fed them directly into the Typhoons’ navigation system, locking the Eurofighters onto their prey to ensure they came together at the earliest possible moment. It also established a direct plane-to-plane radio link between the hunters and the hunted.
*
The now familiar voice informed them of their situation.
“Space invader, copy this. You are being tracked by two Eurofighters whose task it is to ensure you comply with this directive. They are already airborne and are due to intercept you in seven minutes. You are to alter course immediately and return to Heathrow. You have been identified as a threat to national security.”
“National security!” Josh shouted, abandoning communication protocol for the moment. “Now I know this is a fucking wind-up!”
Tom was thinking hard, with his eyes fixed on their position in the centre of the downward-scrolling map on the display in front of him. They were leaving the Sound and passing over the tiny ferry terminal at Claonaig, heading towards Loch Fynne. He adjusted the image, zooming out so that he could see where they were in relation to the Western Isles and beyond.
“Okay,” he said. “They’ve told us to change course, let’s give them a bit of what they want. Take us nor’-west again, bearing… three-one-five. Go for it!”
“But that’s…”
“Trust me, Josh, please. Just for a little while longer at least, until we find out what this is all about. You might want to change altitude as well; make it as confusing as possible for the chasing pack.”
“Chasing pack?” Josh repeated. “That makes me feel really good!”
*
On the short drive back to the magistrates’ court, Jo tried again to contact Tom Brown on the mobile number John Mackay had given her. And again with no success, the continuous note telling her for the second time that it was unobtainable. She wished she’d left a message for him with the receptionist apologising for having to postpone their interview.
Right now she was wondering whether she would live to regret the call she had made to Cat the previous evening, just as she was arriving at Etherington Place. It had simply been to reassure the singer with the news that Mickey would be appearing before the magistrate at 9.30 am the following morning. It had been harmless enough – except when she thought of what had just taken place on the steps of the magistrate’s court and recalled Dagger’s comments of three days ago; one remark in particular – ‘She’s only going to be safe if he’s either exiled or dead.’
She got into the back seat of one of the police cars parked outside the court. Already in the car and waiting for her was the young woman whose statement had prompted the call she had received whilst waiting for Tom Brown in Room 36A.
“Mrs… Miss… Brennan?”
“Miss, but it’s Alison – please call me Alison.”
“Okay, Alison, I’m Detective Inspector Cottrell. You told Constable Medwin that you saw someone running from the scene of the shooting?”
“Yes, that’s right. Well, I didn’t know it was a shooting at the time. I was in Chapel Street – it runs parallel to Walcott Street – where the magistrates’ court is – and I heard shouting and some people screaming. Then I saw two people – a man and a girl – running past the end of Chapel Street, away from where it was all happening. I went to see what was going on and got sort of rounded up along with all the other people and asked if I’d seen anything.”
She paused and swallowed, looking away from Jo out of her passenger side window, as if she didn’t want to say any more.
“And I understand from PC Medwin that you recognised the girl,” Jo prompted.
Alison Brennan was silent for a few moments. Jo waited.
“Well, of course, I can’t be absolutely sure…”
“You seemed very sure when you told the police officer.”
Alison looked down at her hands, clasped together on her lap. She seemed to reach a painful decision.
“I am sure,” she said, looking up at Jo. “In fact, I’m absolutely certain. It was Lilli Bo-Peep – you know – the singer…”
“Yes, I know who you mean,” Jo said. “So she was running away from where you now know the shooting happened. Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And the man with her – did you recognise him?”
“No. I noticed she had someone with her, and then they were gone. I was just amazed at who it was. I’m a big fan, you know. I think she’s brilliant. And she seems really nice as well. I hope I haven’t got her into trouble.”
“Could you see if they were carrying anything? Either one or both of them?”
“No, I didn’t notice. As I said, I was just so amazed… I’m sorry I can’t be…”
“That’s alright, Alison. You’ve given your full statement to PC Medwin, I believe, along with your contact details. We may need to get in touch again. I’ll just check but I think that will probably be all for now.”
She got out of the car.
“Terry,” she called across to Constable Medwin. “All yours.”
She walked over to her own vehicle feeling
sick.
*
Sixty miles due north-west of them, starkly visible against the abnormal clarity of the Atlantic horizon, the monstrous shape of Hotel St Kilda rose out of the sea, competing in its dramatic isolation with the vast cliffs of the island cluster of St Kilda itself twenty miles north-east of it. It had been over twelve minutes since the last contact from the mystery voice and Josh was about to take the Cessna around Berneray, at the southern tip of the Long Island, picking up the route of the transfer vessel somewhere ahead. Tom scanned the surface with the binoculars stored in the side pocket of the co-pilot’s seat.
“There!” he shouted. “Ahead at one o’clock.”
“Great,” Josh said, without enthusiasm. He adjusted their bearing slightly to head directly towards the small shape in the middle distance.
*
The prisoner deck on PTV2 had been the vehicle deck of the Long Island Princess, before the vessel was modified for its new function as a key component of the government’s plans for expulsion. The deck had an opening ramp at each end, previously for the ‘roll-on, roll-off’ of private and commercial vehicles; now for disembarking the prisoners in four lines of individual two-metre-square cabins, linked together like a giant flexible fairground ride, each line sitting, and moving, on a separate rail track. Down the centre of the deck were one hundred and ten cabins in two lines of fifty-five, back-to-back. Along each side, a line of forty-five, facing inwards. Each of the two hundred cabins had three solid metal sides and a fourth with steel bars and a sliding door. A walkway, two metres wide, ran between the lines of centre and outer cabins on each side.
The atmosphere on the deck was calm. The initial hysteria – fuelled by anger and despair as the prisoners were embarking and during the early part of the voyage – had long since subsided. Prison officers were in the process of collecting plates from the cabins after the passengers’ final meal of the trip. Most were untouched, like the previous evening’s meal, breakfast and the mid-morning snack.
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