Then he would throw the gun down — to be hailed, when the full story broke, as the saviour of the free world.
His hand moved to withdraw the gun as the bluff sergeant moved toward him. ‘I’m sorry, ma mannie, but you can’t go in ... ’
The rest of the sentence went unsaid — and the sergeant lived to see his wife again — as the screaming began. The big policeman turned away from Fazal and rushed off after his colleagues towards the source of the disturbance.
Fazal Mahmoud slipped quickly and quietly up the steps and into the Hall. A few seconds later, a second figure turned towards the building from Teviot Place, and followed him inside.
96
The procession had almost reached the end of the passageway when Fazal appeared. Deirdre O’Farrell had stepped to one side, to allow her guests to leave, as the
In a second, the air was ablaze with gunfire. Fazal’s burst of fire was slightly high at first. One of the first bullets caught David McKnight in the head. The million-pound footballer was dead before he hit the ground.
Mario McGuire’s gun was already drawn as he leapt in front of the Syrian President. Two bullets caught him high in the chest, throwing him backwards in a spray of blood.
Al-Saddi, Fazal and the third man were hit simultaneously.
A red hole, slightly bigger than a caste mark, appeared suddenly in the middle of the President’s forehead. The black-and-white headdress was tossed wildly by the bullet, as it cleaved its exit.
Fazal jerked around as the returning gunfire concentrated on him, Mackie and Martin each emptying their magazines into the human marionette.
The third man did not even get off a round before Skinner shot him dead with two bullets through the heart.
As the procession was nearing the doorway, Skinner’s eye had scanned the crowd. Suddenly it had focused hard when a dark-skinned, unshaven man had jumped out of his seat, his hand probing inside his leather jacket. Even as Fazal appeared, shouting and firing, the man had pulled out a pistol and brought it up to a marksman’s firing position.
In the second when Skinner pulled the trigger of his Browning, the realisation came to him: he’s aiming at the doorway, not at Al-Saddi!’
But he was already committed. The man went down.
As the firing ceased, the hysterical screams throughout the Hall turned to frightened whimpers. Many of the audience, instinctively, had dived for the floor at the very first shots. Now as the firing stopped, and the reek of cordite filled the air, they began to stand up, staring in shock at the figures sprawled in the passageway by the door.
Bodies littered the floor: some still and bleeding, others simply crouche in terror.
Skinner, moving towards the doorway with his pistol still at the ready, called out to his men one by one.
‘Mackie.’
‘Okay.’
‘McGuire.’
Silence.
‘Martin.’
‘Okay.’
He looked quickly at the body in the doorway. It was still twitchin slightly, as its dying brain sent out random, pointless messages. Skinner kicked the Uzi into a comer, and turned back towards the aisle.
The three victims lay in a row. McKnight was first, his body twisted on its side. McGuire lay behind him, but McGuire was still moving. Blood bubbled from his chest, the sure sign of a lung shot.
‘Andy.’ Skinner barked the order. ‘Ambulances, quick. Everything they’ve got!’ But Martin was already speaking urgently into his radio.
Skinner stepped across to McGuire and crouched beside him. He inspected the wounds, then put a hand on his shoulder. The man’s expression begged for reassurance. Skinner spoke to him with more confidence than he felt.
‘It’s okay, son, just take it easy. The Royal’s right next door. You’ve copped a good one, but you’ll be all right. They’ll have you fixed up i no time.’
He moved beyond, to Al-Saddi. The President was now a closed chapter in history. His eyes were open, but they had no lustre; none of the cold, hard anger which had shone from them only a few minutes before The headdress had fallen away, the head was tilted slightly backwards, and a thin line of blood traced from the bullet wound into the receding hairline, eventually running into a spreading puddle on the floor.
Skinner became aware of a thin, soft wail alongside him. Looking over his shoulder he saw the tiny Syrian equerry on his knees, keening over his leader’s corpse.
He rose to his feet, and joined Martin, who was still talking urgently into his radio, ordering all available men to seal off the Hall.
Sobbing was audible now from various parts of the auditorium, so Skinner raised his voice. ‘Attention please, everyone. I must ask you to remain seated, exactly where you are, for the moment. The Hall will be cleared as soon as possible and in an orderly way, once we have taken statements and personal details from everyone here. Now, is anyone else hurt?’
Two voices answered. Herbie Clay had been hit in the arm by a stray shot, but the bullet had passed right through. He remained conscious and calm. A girl student had cut her head badly in diving to the floor, and her boyfriend had fainted, thinking she had been shot.
‘Help is on its way. If there are any medical people in the room, either qualified or students, will they please render assistance to the injured.’
A handful of people came forward, among them two nurses in uniform and a young man in a white coat.
Skinner walked back to the doorway, where Mackie stood over the fallen Fazal, whose twitching had finally ceased.
‘Brian, get on to HQ on the radio. Andy’s called up all the available uniforms, but I want every CID man on duty in Edinburgh here within the half-hour, to take statements from these people before they leave the building. Then get outside, and find out why those fucking clowns on the door let a man with an Uzi just wander in here.’
Mackie nodded and began to speak into his radio. Skinner turned to find Michael Licorish, the senior of the Scottish Office men, standing at his shoulder.
‘Bob, the media want to know if they can leave to file their stories.’
‘Sorry, Michael, not for the moment. I want total security on this for the next hour at least. I must give the Foreign Office time to do what it has to with the Syrians. You know what the Middle East is.
‘You can confirm to your people that the President is dead. So are David McKnight, and two armed men of Arab appearance. One of my men, Detective Constable McGuire, is badly wounded, and Herbie Clay has sustained what appears to be a flesh wound. There’s also a girl with a badly cut head, but she hasn’t been hit.
‘You could remind the people also that this is now officially a murder enquiry, and that they should bear in mind the rules and requirements of the courts in terms of reporting. That isn’t a threat or anything, just advice.
‘Oh, and one more thing, can you ask the TV guys if they recorded all that? If they did, I’d like to review their footage as soon as possible.
Licorish nodded. ‘Sure, Bob. I’ll ask them. But you’ll get them clearance as soon as you can?’
‘As I said, give me an hour.’
Skinner turned back and bent over the body in the doorway. The man had been hit in the chest by several bullets. The face, which now wore the yellow pallor of death, looked young, peaceful and oddly beautiful. But a lake of blood had spread beneath the corpse, like a dark blanket.
