I told everybody about my little adventure as we walked across the bridge to the tube station. It was kind of fun, because I could stop at a particular place, and say things like, “And right here, I grabbed a nurse, and said . . .”
Jane was really excited, as we now had “one of ’em in the bag,” as she put it.
“Now we can find Emma.”
Back in Highgate, Blyth showed up as scheduled. After just a few seconds, he said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
There was instant silence.
“Emma Schiller,” he said. “I’m very sorry to have to tell you that she’s dead.”
There was lots of commotion, of course. I think everybody had expected this, true, but still, it hit fairly hard. Jane and Vicky in particular. Regardless of the emotions, Jane pressed for details.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you much,” said Blyth. “It’s all still very secret. We do know that she was killed after the last tape. I can tell you that.”
He was really adroit. He didn’t say “after the last tape was made.” By not saying that, the assumption on Jane’s part was that she’d died after the last tape was received, not after it was made. That being the case, the wild goose chase at Down Street station wasn’t revealed as such. I was very grateful for that.
He only gave us about three or four minutes, and then said to Jane, “Did you know that the man your father apprehended this afternoon was the one who had stabbed you?”
That got everybody’s mind onto a different track for a moment, but not for much longer than that.
“Did she suffer?” persisted Jane.
“At this point, I can’t say. I wouldn’t think so, at least not much.”
“Why do they hate us so?”
“It’s the information age, really,” said Blyth. “I don’t think anyone appreciated the effects that such sudden, all-encompassing access to western society would have on some of the others.”
“But to just kill people . . . ?” said Vicky. “I mean . . .”
“A fundamentalist segment,” said Blyth, “who are enormously offended, feel hugely threatened, and who are fueled by fanatic followers . . .”
“Offended by what?”
“Different ideas.”
“That’s it? Just different ideas?” Jane was getting angry.
“Different ideas,” said Blyth, “have accounted for the deaths of millions upon millions of people. I suspect it’s second only to the great plagues, really.”
“But . . . to pick somebody at random? Kidnap and kill at random?”
“She was an American,” said Blyth. “That did have some influence on their choice.”
“It could have been me or Jane?” asked Vicky. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“It could have been, and easily,” said Blyth.
“That’s just not fair,” said Jane. “Not fair for any of us.”
Conversation stopped for a few seconds, and then Vicky said, “That wasn’t a natural gas explosion, was it?”
Blyth surprised me by saying, “No. It was not.”
“What was it?” asked Sue.
“It was a woman, a suicide bomber,” he said.
“Why . . . ?”
“She was sent to kill the owner of the flat. You all know who he was. What you don’t know about Robert Northwood is that he was also the man who originated the idea of kidnapping Emma Schiller. They wanted to stop him before he could talk with us.”
A little lightbulb went on in my head. “The guy in St. Thomas’s? The one with the cop at the door? Was that who the guy I chased was going to see?”
“You’re entirely too good,” said Blyth, “to be let out on your own. Yes, it was. He was a fellow conspirator. Injured in your same explosion, but on the second floor landing. On the way here, I was told that he was the backup plan.”
“He was a bomber, too?” I asked.
“In a manner of speaking, yes. He was equipped with a mobile phone. They had rigged her with a phone detonator, as well as one that she could use herself. His intent was to wait a few moments, after he heard the door open. If he thought she was hesitating, or was not going to do it at all, his job was to set her off by dialing the number of the phone connected to the bomb.” He smiled. “Unfortunately for him, he got too close, in order to hear her gain admittance.”
“He set her off?”
“We don’t think so. We believe he would have descended the stairs before dialing. What he didn’t anticipate was that she’d self-detonate before she was completely through the door.”
I was kind of surprised that they stayed with that natural gas explosion story, and even more surprised they got it to stick. Security Services were helped by the fact that England won the rugby match on Saturday. The World Cup, over Australia, and in overtime. The first time they’d ever won. Nobody talked about anything else, on TV or in the papers. November 22nd, 2003.
It was also the fortieth anniversary of the killing of JFK. Sue and I talked about that, remembering where we were on that day. Carson, Vicky and Jane hadn’t even been born, then. It’s hard to imagine that I would have ever thought of those as better times, but I did.
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