you go then, before I notice you!’
88
The Syrian President’s Boeing 737 touched down at RAF Turnhouse at 7.00 p.m., dead on time. The evening was cold, dry, crisp and moonlit. Skinner and Martin bounded up the steps into the aircraft. Mario McGuire remained on the runway. All three were armed with Browning automatic pistols, and wore lion badges.
Allingham was waiting at the door. He was white-faced. For a fleeting moment, Skinner felt sorry for the transplanted pen-pusher.
‘Don’t worry, man. It’ll be over soon,’ he said in reassurance.
The rear section of the aircraft was screened off. Allingham led the two policemen through.
‘Assistant Chief Constable Skinner, Chief Inspector Martin, may I introduce our guest: His Excellency Hassan Al-Saddi, the President of the Republic of Syria.’
The man who turned to face them was short and squat, in early middle age. He stood between two escorting diplomats. He wore an olive green uniform, with heavy badges of rank on the shoulders and rows of medal ribbons on the left breast. The tunic was beautifully tailored. The cut emphasised the thickness of the President’s chest and the width of his shoulders. The impressive picture was topped off by a black and white chequered headdress held in place by a black circlet.
But all the style of his dress could not hide the real man. Skinner had met many killers in his time, and he recognised another in the President of Syria. There was no laughter in the face. Instead, the grim set of the jaw and the hard gleam in the brown eyes emphasised that this was a man with no conscience, and with the will to succeed whatever the cost in other people’s lives.
‘Welcome to Scotland, Mr President,’ said Skinner, formally. ‘We are operating to a tight schedule, so there will be no ceremonial at the airfield. We will drive straight to the Hall. There you will be met by the Lord Provost, and by the President of the Edinburgh University Students’ Union, who will chair the evening.
‘As I believe you know, the debate is run on British Parliamentary lines. The motion is “That this House believes that a Palestinian state should be established without delay”. You will be invited to sum up, in favour of the motion. You can expect to be called to speak at around 9.00 p.m. The debate is scheduled to end by 9.30.
‘As soon as the result is declared, and before the Hall is emptied, the Chairman will lead you from the Chamber. From there you will be driven to the Norton House Hotel, where you will spend the night. Be assured that you will be under armed guard throughout your stay with us. Have you any questions?’
Al-Saddi shook his head, jerking the headdress into sudden motion. ‘No. I know the programme for the evening, and I have every faith in your security arrangements. Let us go.’
Skinner led on to the floodlit runway, which was guarded by men of the RAF Regiment, armed with automatic rifles. Three cars were lined up close to the aircraft. At the head of the small convoy, two motor-cycle policemen in day-glo tunics straddled powerful BMW bikes.
Martin held open the rear door of the second car, a black Mercedes. limousine. Al-Saddi stepped in, followed by his equerry, a tiny nervous man in a dark grey suit. Martin followed him into the long car and perched himself on a jump seat, his back to Al-Saddi. Skinner steered Allingham towards the lead car. As he climbed into the front passenger seat of the Granada, its blue light whirling on top, he shouted to the motorcyclists, ‘Okay, boys, move out. Lights and sirens all the way!’
He jumped into the car and slammed the door shut. With McGuire in the third vehicle, the convoy swung out through the airfield gates. As it did so Skinner picked up the hand-microphone which hung from the car’s radio transceiver. ‘Blue One to HQ. Patch me through to Blue Two.’
‘Understood Blue One. Blue Two on line.’
‘Blue One calling Blue Two. Package on the way. Over.’
‘Blue Two receiving.’ Brian Mackie’s eager voice seemed to fill the car. Skinner adjusted the volume. ‘The venue is filling up. Searches proceeding smoothly and without trouble. The crowd seems quiet, sober and responsible. The press are in position, with their escorts. There’s only one problem: there’s no sign of the bloody military!’
89
On the darkened square at Redford Barracks, Maitland assembled the twelve men who were to guard the MacEwan Hall. Their eight colleagues were, even then, positioned invisibly around the Norton House, each clad in a black tunic and carrying a rifle with a wide, round night-sight on top.
The soldiers wore a variety of civilian dress, some in denim jeans and bomber jackets, some in overcoats. Each man carried a Walther automatic in a shoulder holster.
A white mini-bus stood nearby, its passenger door open.
‘Gentlemen, let us go to work,’ said Maitland calmly, quietly, but with chilling purpose and authority.
One by one they climbed on board the vehicle. Maitland, in black slacks and a Daks sports jacket, brought up the rear. The bus, with a military driver at the wheel, pulled out of the Barracks and headed towards the centre of Edinburgh.
Colinton Road ends at a complicated junction, known popularly as Holy Corner because of the three churches which seem to glare at each other across the roadway. The white bus was about three hundred yards from the traffic lights, with the driver easing his foot slightly on the throttle, when there was a roar from the left. Just as it passed Napier University, a big modern college building, incongruous among the grey tenements, terraces and villas of staid, conservative Morningside, an old, battered Land-Rover came roaring out of its car park.
The heavy green vehicle skidded and smashed full tilt into the front nearside comer of the bus, which spun out of control, crashing, as the driver jammed on the brakes in vain, into a grey Montego parked on the other side of the street. The engine roared in neutral for a few seconds, then spluttered and died.
‘Bastard,’ shouted the bus driver. Blood streamed from a cut on his forehead where it had slammed into the window. Several of the soldiers had been thrown into the aisle, and one looked slightly dazed. All but he had drawn their weapons in an instinctive reaction. The man next to the passenger door forced it open and looked out. The Land-Rover was slewed across the road, empty, as its driver, a slim youth in jeans and a dark sweatshirt, sprinted away into the night. The soldier was about to jump from the bus in pursuit of the escaping man when Maitland stopped him.
‘No, Jones. Leave it. It’s police business. A drunken bloody student, I imagine. Dismount, boys, and haul this damn thing out of the roadway.’
Already the traffic was beginning to tail back in both directions from the accident.
‘I’ll go into the college and call for a replacement vehicle.’ Maitland disappeared into the cloistered entry to the Polytechnic.
When he reappeared five minutes later, the squad had manhandled the bus from the middle of the roadway to a position which allowed the traffic to pass. The build-up was clearing slowly.
‘Well done, gentlemen. Another bus is on its way. However, the delay means that the Hall will already be well filled. By the time we got there, the debate would be well under way. Our entry, in our baggy jackets would be rather conspicuous. Therefore we will have to trust to luck and the efficiency of the police security. You will divert to the hotel and take up position there. Jones, when the new bus arrives, re-direct it to the Norton House. I will contact the police and advise them of the change. See you at the hotel.’
He disappeared into the night.
90
The motorcycle outriders carved a path through the evening traffic for Skinner’s small motorcade, leading it through South Gyle towards the Western Approach Road. The cars were passing Murrayfield, the national rugby stadium, when the radio burst into life once more.
