‘Followed by his busting out to burn the city and grab hostages.’
‘Whipping ass, I believe it’s called in the vernacular. And the brothers just love it.’
‘They won’t be so gratified when they’re hooded and chained and shuffling onto a Con Air shuttle flight out of Oklahoma City.’
‘Where would ecstatic worship be without short-termism and lack of perspective?’
‘Or demagogues be without mass gullibility?’
‘And mass demand.’ St Clair returned to examining his teeth in the glass. An un-ironic fusion of fatness and vanity. His words distorted around the fingertip examination of a molar. ‘In Flame, the Reverend’s deeply moving autobiography, has reached number one in over ten countries.’
‘Deserves to. It’s the marketing stunt of the century.’
‘Gets better. All proceeds to black and African causes.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Almost. He’s Mullah, Messiah and Idi Amin rolled together and wrapped in the guise of a victim. It’s a winning combination.’
Kemp rested his head against the driver partition. ‘Winning all the way.’
Home run. The cab completed its laps and emerged on to the Embankment to pull into a parking bay on Grosvenor Road. Opposite, the frontage archways of Dolphin Square gaped impressive yet unobtrusive, denoting a boundary, making a point, marking an affluent enclave for ministers, mistresses and the middle-aged upwards. Civility abounded. There were rules, bridge, snobbery, an epidemic of vibrating blinds and trembling curtains, the hasty departure of parliamentarians heading for the division bell or divorce courts. People watched. It was more effective than the twenty-four-hour security, the bank of monitors in the carport control room.
Kemp took his leave. A handshake from St Clair, intercom pleasantries and a joke swapped with Clive, and he was entering the security gate and pathway leading to the Maria Johanna. At ease. She rode high on the tide, her deck flush with the gangplank, a halogen-illuminated museum piece looking good, looking right, against the speckle lights of the riverfront and polished blackness of the water. It was a few steps from the roadway, but a leap into guarded isolation. The air was cleaner here, the capital’s pollution soup of summer washed and freshened, the pace slower, the gulls and mud-picking birds replacing the grime-fascism of pigeons. Somewhere he could breathe, hide. He stood awhile, hands thrust in pockets, feet deep in the gravel, watching the pale chimneys of the power station and a last train heading out across the rail bridge. There were several ways to view a city.
He unlocked and raised the clamshell-hatch, descending stairs to the main sitting and dining hold. Lights on, jacket off, the playing of answerphone, the instinctive hunt for coffee. The ritual and routine of home alone. He flicked the radio into life, ‘… the face of the eighty-four-year-old was slashed repeatedly…’ and switched it off. The only shock was it made the news, that anyone cared to listen; that anyone cared, period. People had become immunized to mindlessness, expected the worst, accepted the price of urban existence, the daily fare of stabbings, shootings, robbery and threat. Week by month, the tolerance threshold grew, its upper limits pushed further out. Evil had become necessary, commonplace, coercion a sport from playground to waste ground, from adolescence to adulthood. London had never been innocent. Neither had it ever been so vicious. And they called it cultural expression. Coffee brewed. He poured. The news blackout would remain until morning. Nothing to intrude.
An hour. The Mercedes rolled gently from the road and halted before the gate. It was hardly a noteworthy manoeuvre, scarcely a vehicle that would draw the eye. Metallic finish, corporate look, Germanic auto hallmarks guaranteed to bore, unlikely to alarm. At this hour, surveillance would be desultory, resistance asleep. The driver time-checked, spoke four words into a microphone clip, and left the car to slip across the road into the side streets beyond. He had left a package, a canvas sack containing grapple hook and nylon assault ladder dropped at the front wheel. MOE. Method of entry. All ready. Five minutes passed, the first stage of the spacing. The stags would be maintaining watch; the hit was underway. Warning – Anti-climbing paint. Of scant concern, no deterrent. A tracksuited figure jogged into frame, approached the car, leaning on the bonnet to gather breath, to scoop the bag. He paced to the reinforced steel-mesh wall, extracted and unfurled its contents and cast. Seamless action, fluid throw. Hooked. Everyone had a visual signature. It was a question of keeping it to a minimum, or keeping it out of sight. Ascent was rapid, hidden by foliage, a slither-climb of only a few seconds and twelve feet before rope deployment and touchdown on the other side. Within two minutes he was joined by a colleague, then another, and the final team member. A stick of four. Timing on the mark, infil achieved. They filed low along the edge of the tennis courts, crouching to aim air-pistols at the lighting overhead. Pellets flew on a low-velocity burp, the lamps dying sequentially, darkness flickering and creeping towards the boat. Behind it came the men. They stayed down, crawling and weaving rubber-soled in short bursts of energy, their night-vision goggles sweeping ahead, to the sides, to the windows of the mansion flats. Insomniac pensioners could disrupt the best-laid plans; insomniac pensioners would be dealt with, interdicted, in a fighting withdrawal. Incontinence and curiosity could be a fatal combination. The ghosts loped forward, the gravel traversed on compound matting. Without a sound. Attention to detail, attention to everything. They were here not to wake, but create the dead.
Maria Johanna was reached, silently boarded, the quad splitting into working pairs to belly-swarm to the forward hatch and the wheelhouse in the stern. Escape covered and cut off. The vessel was battened down for the night, the rigid inflatable nesting on davits, the odd porthole open for air. As expected, as it should be. Josh Kemp, Security Service employee, at home, in his final moments. They could pump suppressed shots through the windows of the master-cabin, but that would be unsporting, untidy, unverifiable. Orders were for a close-quarter kill, a clean and crisp termination. Pressurized nitrogen and epoxy foam went into the alarm boxes, masking tape over the strobe light. Disabled. Final checks, a click on comms switches, and the hatch was lifted for scan and action. The pair dropped through. They were in the hold, their pistols drawn, covering the arcs, their field of vision an aquarium world of emotional detachment and luminescent green. It was well rehearsed, a classic workout, work-through, walk-over. They would make their way along, flow into rooms, head into the vessel, its living quarters, its engine compartment, for the breathing form. Anyone encountered faced elimination. That was their method. Above them, the soft footfall of their companions on deck. Operating in harmony, with total confidence – the definition of professional pride. A movement and infra-red detector blinked harmlessly and stayed in neutral; its cousin did the same from a corner opposite. Even the security devices were slumbering. It earned a let’s-motion-it sign from the leader, a step into the body of the cabin. A telephone rang.
The pause was tactical, an opportunity to assess. Neither of the men spoke. They listened for the words, watched the doorways, waited for the shrill electronic bleats to cut out. Interruption could be handled, the unexpected accommodated. Part one of the textbook. Nothing to be worried about. The answer-device kicked in, skipping its owner’s courtesy message, forwarding to receive the incoming call. Unusually loud, unnecessarily audible. The pair hunkered down. It was Kemp’s voice, amplified, broadcast to his audience. And it was live from elsewhere.
‘… I suggest the two of you consider your position. Every other member of your unit is in custody. If you do not leave your weapons and emerge through the main hatch, the only conclusion will be a violent one. You will come off worst. You are surrounded on all sides, overlooked by police marksmen in both the apartments and the boat club, and covered from the river. I’m sorry not to be around to play host. You have one minute. I say again, one minute. No delay, no shooting, no weapons up on deck. Keep your hands high and your movements slow.’ Short interlude. ‘If you want to live.’ Five seconds on. ‘I make it forty seconds. Counting.’
At thirty, the fogger system would initiate, belching out a gelatin and water-based mist to fill the hold, disorientate all trespassers. It was an instant cloud, guaranteed confusion. But the equipment on Maria Johanna had been modified. CS was almost certain to bring them to their senses, force them up for air. Rifle-sights were zeroed.
* * *
The USA
‘Tierra de los Muertos, Krista. How’s it grab you?’
Not much. She tried to keep her head down, to find shade, but the desert heat and searing light chiselled through, carried pain to her corneas and into the optic nerve. Land of the Dead. The Mojave. As far from the breeze and cooling waters of the Pacific as anyone could want to be; further from her home at Playa del Rey than she could ever have imagined. People stayed away during high summer. That was common sense, a sense of preservation. Even the landscape shrivelled, distorted, the limestone shimmering and refracting in the kiln brilliance, the sand embers scorching, the mud seams cracked and desiccated across the plains. Back-country. Wilderness. They had brought her here for sky burial.
He had the peak of an army cap pulled low on his brow, dune goggles clamping his eyes, a dun neckerchief brought up to sit on the bridge of his nose. ‘As hot as the Sahara, they say. I believe ’em, too. Fifty to sixty Celsius, maybe. What d’you think?’
‘Does it matter?’ Her tongue was thick, sticking dry to the roof of her mouth, her throat cauterized.
‘You’re the one who’s gonna experience it.’
There was a waft of chill air-con from behind, the sound of a vehicle door opening. They were in a laager of off-roaders, a temporary encampment way off the track, removed from the trails. Could be anywhere, could be nowhere. She was tuned to receive, counted the cars, the figures in paramilitary desert dress, attempted to memorize licence plates, silhouettes, head shapes. The exercise made her less passive, provided an improved alternative to hope. It was her right to keep reality at bay. The only one left. A pair of trucks had been backed up, their darkened rear windows facing her, their crews in light fatigues, canvas hats and mirror shades standing by, staying ready. Orders awaited. Everything hidden, furtive behind shadowed glass; everything secret, but the sweaty anticipation of a project ready to begin, the ozone and octane frisson of action. Quite an operation. All for her. Hands were unlocking her cuffs. Damn this glare.
Bell dug the toe of his boot at the ground. Hard earth. Hardened attitude. ‘S’ppose it’s a long way from interviewing al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, huh?’
‘Not as different as you think.’
A wry laugh, short-lived. ‘Oh, we’re not fanatics, Krista. Mean sons of bitches, I grant you, but not fanatics. We simply believe in doing our duty, being pragmatic, guiding the American peoples to an alternative path.’
‘One that’s littered with dead.’
‘Only this one.’ He buttoned a loose pocket-flap on his desert waistcoat. ‘See, we like to hunt round these parts. No interruptions, no surveillance. Take a look behind you.’ She turned, was confronted by an expanse of red limestone cliff, the walls high, a thousand feet cut with narrow canyons splitting off into its interior. A hostile environment, bound to get more so. ‘Creatures find it tough to survive in there. Want to give it a try?’
‘Is this your brave new world?’
‘Well, you sure have to be brave.’ His eyes cocked for others to get the joke. ‘Hope you’re as competitive as I am.’
She was creating a composite picture, her mind fusing the bottom of the face seen in the bunker with the top sections glimpsed here around the eyes. Piece by piece. It was something to do, to dwell on, a way to maintain discipline and avoid conclusions. She might be dead before the full image emerged.
He extracted a cigar from a vest pouch ‘I asked the question. Want to give it a try?’
‘If I don’t?’
‘You kneel and get a .45 soft nose at the base of your skull.’
‘If I do?’
‘You get a canteen of water and an hour’s start. Sixty minutes to run and hide. Then we come looking.’ Butane-ignition of the tobacco. ‘It’s the race of your life, Krista. Correction. The race for your life.’
