Sixty-two
Paul Wise was sitting on his veranda with his second gin and tonic of the evening when the mobile phone in his left trouser pocket rang. Hook was calling, and Wise wondered what he wanted. He hadn't expected to hear anything more from him until after the job was done, and his mood immediately darkened at the prospect that something might have gone wrong. Charmaine was out with girlfriends in the nearby town of Kyrenhia, and the staff had all gone home, so he took the call from his seat.
'They're closing in on us,' said Hook, his voice calm.
'That's not what I want to hear.'
'I've got rid of Fallon, but he managed to alert the authorities to parts of the operation.'
'What are you saying exactly?' Wise demanded irritably.
'We have everything in place, but we need to bring the timings forward. It's too risky leaving the cargo where it is until ten p.m., and I'm concerned that we're going to have trouble getting it to the target site, so I think we should choose another.'
Wise looked at his watch. It was 8.30 at his home, and darkness had fallen; 6.30 in the UK. The operation, so long in the planning, was beginning to unravel, thanks to the interference of one man. He might be dead now but the obstacles he'd placed in their way were still there.
But Wise wasn't the type of man to worry too much about things he could do nothing about, and the beauty of his plan was that as long as the bomb went off and caused both chaos and casualties (preferably significant), neither the exact location nor the time actually mattered too much.
'Are all the elements we discussed in place?' he asked. 'The ones which will ensure success?'
'Yes.'
'Then move the cargo as soon as is practical. Aim for the target site, but if it gets intercepted, I'm not worried as long as it's still delivered.'
'It will be.'
'Make sure everything gets cleared up, and get rid of the phone you're using. I don't want to hear from you again. When I see confirmation of success on Sky News, you'll receive the balance of your money.'
Wise hung up and stared out to sea, gazing at the patchwork of stars in the night sky. If all went well tonight, he would earn millions. The thought made him smile as he put the gin and tonic to his lips and took a sip, wondering what it would be like to die choking on mustard gas.
Sixty-three
The pain in her foot had reduced to a dull throb, but Tina was feeling faint and desperately thirsty as she lay on her side in the lorry, barely covered by the thin material of the foul-smelling duvet, trying to work out her next move. The three men were still outside talking, their conversation, when she could hear it, boring and innocuous, the light-hearted tone suggesting that their job, whatever it was, was done.
She was torn between staying put in the hope that the lorry would leave eventually, and slipping out the passenger side and making for the barn doors. In the state she was in, weakened and hardly able to walk, the latter course seemed the more risky of the two. But it was difficult to think straight, difficult even to imagine how she'd survived until now.
She tensed, hearing another sound. It was the barn doors opening, followed a few seconds later by
'We're just having a quick drink,' said another Northern Irish accent in response, but he sounded less sure of himself. 'Everything's ready.'
'There'll be plenty of time for a drink later. Everyone needs their wits about them before then. Come on, we need to get moving.'
Tina cursed. Now that he was back, her escape was going to be discovered very soon, and then she was finished.
The voices faded out and she risked poking her head out to take a quick look round. The barn doors were shut, but she was certain he hadn't locked them behind him. Barely five metres away. If she made a dash for it – or the closest she could get to that, anyway – she might just make it.
There was a sudden sound of footsteps just outside and she ducked back down.
Just in time, because a second later she heard someone getting into the driver's seat. Something clattered in the hollow well between the seats, only inches from where she was lying, and she heard him open the glovebox and fumble inside for something.
Tina lay absolutely still, holding her breath, until she heard him clamber back out.
There were voices outside again, but they seemed to be coming from the back of the lorry. Once again she risked peering above the duvet.
That was when she saw it. A mobile phone in the well beneath the handbrake. He'd obviously dropped it when he was messing about in the glovebox, and he'd be back for it soon.
But Tina also knew it was her best chance. Mobile phones can be traced to within the nearest few metres, which meant if the police could trace the phone they could find her.
Grabbing it, she flicked through the menu to the 'create text' command before typing silently and furiously in block capitals ITS TINA IN DANGER DONT TEXT BACK TRACE THIS NUMBER NOW, praying that she was in a decent reception area. She remembered Mike Bolt's mobile number because it started with the same five-digit prefix as hers and was then followed by an equally memorable 787878. She punched it in and pressed Send, then deleted the message and returned to the main menu.
She'd just put the phone back when she heard footsteps again, this time coming from both sides of the lorry. She felt a stab of pure terror. Were they coming for her?
Ignoring the nausea she was suddenly experiencing, she slipped back under the duvet, curling up and shutting her eyes, as if this might somehow prevent them from seeing her.
Two people got in the cab, one on either side.
'Right, we all ready?' said a voice – not his – from outside.
The driver and his passenger said they both were, and Tina wondered what it was they were ready for. She also wondered where he was. Was he on his way upstairs to finish her off?
'You've got the GPS coordinates of your destination,' continued the man from outside, who sounded like he was in charge. 'Park up there and then you call me. OK O'Toole? So I know you got there?'
'Sure.'
Underneath her makeshift cover, Tina willed them to hurry up. Before he discovered she was gone.
'And go straight there,' continued the guy outside the lorry. 'Don't stop for anyone or anything. Do you understand? Otherwise you don't get paid a penny. It's a quarter past seven now. I want to hear you're there by eight. Get going, and good luck.'
The lorry's engine kicked into life, and Tina allowed herself a small sigh of relief as the driver turned the wheel and drove through the barn doors, out into the gathering darkness.
At last she was putting some distance between herself and him.
Now it was simply a matter of staying put, keeping quiet, and waiting.
Sixty-four
Bolt and Mo drove northwards into Essex on the B184, avoiding the M11 where, as Big Barry Freud had predicted, roadblocks had been set up on all the slip roads. Traffic was still heavy for much of the way though, and their progress was slow. Several times on the drive helicopters flew low overhead, only serving to add to the already high levels of tension in the car.
For Mo, it was fear for his family and for the city in which he lived. For Bolt, whose mother lived only twenty miles away in St Albans, it was the same. But it was also the intense frustration at constantly being one step behind a quarry he'd been after for years. Someone whose callous disregard for his fellow human beings had ruined so many lives, and who, for the first time, had almost certainly killed someone close to Bolt.
He'd been thinking about Tina a lot that day, more than he'd let on to anyone else, and with a sense of real regret. Beneath her cool, often distant exterior, he'd known there was a passionate woman there, yet he'd never managed to bring her out into the open. He couldn't help feeling that they could have been really good together. Now he was sure that if they found Hook's hideout, they'd also find her body, and he knew that this would be one of the most difficult sights of his life.
There'd only be one small consolation, and that would be if they also got hold of the man responsible for murdering her. Bolt had killed before, on two occasions, and he knew with total certainty that if he had Hook at his mercy he wouldn't hesitate to do it again.
But why was Hook involved in all this? And was Sir Henry Portman his client? They seemed unlikely partners in crime, yet Bolt was now convinced Sir Henry was part of the conspiracy.
His mobile rang, interrupting his thoughts. It was Big Barry Freud's office number, and he immediately put it on to loudspeaker.
'Where are you, Mike?'
'Just short of Great Dunmow on the B184.'
'Good. We've managed to track down the tenants of two of the four properties Obanje was looking at, and they're definitely kosher. We also think a third one is, because we've spoken to the guy who's letting it, and we're just doing a background check on him now. However, the fourth one's more interesting. It's a three-month company let, taken out three weeks ago, and with the rent paid upfront. It's in the name of an investment company registered in Palm Beach, Florida, but there's no answer on the number supplied for their UK offices, or from their head office, and we can't find any published accounts for the company either, or a website.'
'Sounds promising,' said Bolt, looking at Mo, who managed a tight smile in return. This was exactly the kind of dummy company Hook would use to cover his tracks. Doubtless, Big Barry would take full credit for the lead, even though he'd been reluctant to let Bolt look into it in the first place, but right now that didn't matter. 'Who's the registered tenant?'
'A Mr Andrew Regent, supposedly one of their employees, but no one from the agency's ever met him, and there's no one of that name registered at the property. The agency have given us a mobile number for him but I don't want to call it yet in case it alerts Hook to our enquiries.'
'Which property is it?'
'It's called Willow End, a farm near a village called Finchingfield, just off the B1057. How far away are you?'
Bolt remembered it as the second of the addresses he'd fed into his GPS, and he brought up the details now. 'About fifteen minutes. Ten if I put my foot down.'
'Good. I want you and Mo to get over there right away. DAC Bridges has just been on the phone to the Essex chief constable and they're sending ARVs, surveillance units and a hostage negotiation team over there now. We've advised them that we want the area secure, but we don't want them making any kind of move until we've ascertained whether or not it's the right place. And we definitely don't want the local plod stamping all over the place and advertising their presence, so we've cleared it that you and Mo, as experienced SOCA surveillance operatives, will check the place out, then
