'Switchboard jammed,' Lisa replied quickly. 'Except for Tweed's line, which is separate.'
' I had a crazy call,' George commented, ticking off more names. 'Some nutcase said he was phoning from Berlin, had an urgent message. Been jabbering away for five minutes…'
Howard, the Director, appeared at the foot of the stairs. Immaculately dressed in a Chester Barrie business suit from Harrods, tall, plump-faced, he had thrown off his usual lordly manner. He stood by the desk next to George.
'Better leave,' said Newman as Monica vanished through the open doorway. 'It was Tweed himself who sounded the alarm from long distance.'
'I'm staying here until the last man and woman has left the building,' Howard said quietly.
Newman was surprised and his previous opinion of Howard as a pompous woodentop changed. He nodded, slipped outside ahead of a fresh file of staff coming down the staircase. On the doorstep, standing to one side, he froze.
A maroon-coloured Espace station wagon was parked alongside the building. Newman went down the steps, stood close and ran back inside the hall as the fresh batch of people walked rapidly off round the Crescent. They were assembling out of sight round the corner in Marylebone Road as planned.
'George,' Newman said as the guard showed the list to Howard. 'There's one of those large Espaces parked just outside.'
'Ruddy 'ell,' George blazed, 'I'd have seen the blighter if I hadn't had that loony from Berlin on the blower.'
'Which is precisely why he was on the phone.'
Time to leave,' Howard announced, gesturing towards the list. 'All present and correct. Present out of danger, that is. Fancy a quick stroll, Bob?'
'That will do me…'
They followed George out of the building, down the steps, turning left along the curve. All three men gave the Espace a quick glance then strode briskly towards where the staff were waiting. It was very quiet in the Crescent and no one else was about. Thank God, Newman thought.
'There was no one inside that vehicle,' he informed Howard.
'Let's hope we don't make fools of ourselves.'
'You've overlooked one point,' Newman commented. 'All the lines were jammed up with calls – phoney calls is my guess. If this is what I think it is we're up against a genius of a planner.'
'I'll call the Bomb Squad from one of the offices along Marylebone Road,' Howard decided. 'It's probably all a false alarm.'
'That doesn't link up with the avalanche of calls -including the crazy one to George,' Newman reminded him. 'I'll stay here.'
They had rounded the corner and Newman stayed behind a wall in a position where he could watch the building. He saw a silver Renault parked just beyond the far side of the Crescent. That was the moment when the world blew up.
Newman had put on sun-glasses he used for driving when the sun was low in the sky. There was a blinding flash. An ear-splitting roar. A cloud of dust dense as a fog. A brief nerve-wracking silence, succeeded by a sound like a major avalanche crashing down a mountain. No shock wave, which puzzled Newman.
The dust cloud thinned. He stared, hypnotized. The Espace had vanished. The section of Park Crescent which had been SIS headquarters was a black hole. Masonry rumbled as it slid down on to the pavement, out across the street. What staggered Newman was the clean-cut destruction of the target. On either side of where the building had stood as a section of the Crescent the walls stood scarred but erect. It was as though a vertical rectangular wedge of a giant cake had been sliced away. The sinister rumble of more debris slithering down over rubble continued, grew quieter, ceased. RIP, SIS headquarters.
Newman glanced across the Crescent. The silver Renault had disappeared. Howard came running up to him.
'What the hell was that? I called the Bomb Squad
'Hope they brought their sandwiches. No work left for them.'
'Oh, dear God!'
Howard stood like a man transfixed as he gazed at the ruin.
Automatically, he used both hands to adjust the knot of his tie, a mannerism Newman had noticed before when Howard was under pressure. With an effort he pulled himself together, looked back at the small groups of people standing on the pavement.
'It's cold,' Newman said. 'Some of them are shivering. Send them home. Tell them to stay there pending fresh orders.'
'Best thing to do.'
Like a zombie Howard walked back slowly and began talking to his staff. Newman stood very still, thinking about the silver Renault. Odd – the way it had been parked at that observation point and had then disappeared. By his side Monica was recovering from her shocked state.
Tweed should know about this urgently.'
'How can I reach him?'
'I have the phone number of Tresillian Manor. He might still be there.' She extracted her Filofax and a notebook. On a sheet of paper she wrote a number, handed it to Newman. 'Tresillian Manor.'
'Howard will be back in a minute. He may want a word with Tweed. More likely the other way round…'
The driver of the silver Renault was stopped temporarily in a traffic jam in the Huston Road. He picked up his mobile phone, dialled a number.
'Ed here. The property has been liquidated. The contract closed
'What about dispossessed occupants?'
Norton meant dispossession of their lives.
'A general evacuation took place a few minutes before we closed the contract.'
'It did?' Norton's American twang was a rasp. 'Could anyone have carried out the film and the tape?'
'I'm sure they didn't. No one carried anything which might have contained the canisters.'
'Any sign of Tweed? You have his description. No?
That I don't like. We'll have to trace him. He's due for a long holiday, a permanent one
'I'll report back in.'
Ed was talking into air. Norton had slammed down the phone.
'The Bomb Squad sent the top brass,' Howard observed while they stood in Marylebone Road near the corner of Park Crescent.
'Is it any wonder?' Newman remarked.
The door of a cream Rover opened and Commander Crombie, chief of the Anti-Terrorist Branch, stepped out. Several trucks had arrived, Bomb Squad operatives in protective gear were cordoning off the crescent, evacuating buildings. Other men stood in front of the pile of rubble.
'You're not here for a story, Newman, I trust?' were Crombie's opening words.
A powerfully built man with broad shoulders, in his forties, clean-shaven with a large head, he wore an overcoat with the collar turned up. As he spoke his eyes scanned the area of devastation.
'No, of course not,' Newman snapped.
'Just checking. You saw this thing happen? Any casualties?'
'None,' Howard assured him. 'We evacuated the building in the nick of time. I'll explain why later. The IRA?'
'I don't think so,' said Newman.
'How would you know?' Crombie demanded aggressively.
'No shock wave. Look, I'll show you where I was standing when the Espace blew itself to pieces…' He was walking fast and Crombie, a fit man, was hurrying to keep up. 'It was a maroon-coloured Renault Espace parked outside,' Newman continued tersely. 'Don't ask me for the registration number – I didn't get it – we were intent on saving our lives. Here is where I stood.'
'And no shock wave, you said?'
'Exactly. Look at the garden railings opposite. Not a scratch on them. All the blast went one way – into the
