‘You don't really need me to tell you, do you? I'd say that this is, or was, a Red Box.'
If it is, since we've found McGrath's, this must have been Davey's. It must have been open when the bomb went off.' The DCC paused. 'And what would you say that these marks are?'
Legge took the object from him and held it out. would say…' he began. Looking at him, Skinner was certain that for all of his training and experience, Legge gave a small shudder. would say that these top abrasions, these two sets of four, are the fingers of whoever opened the box, fused into its surface. The others? Well, I would suppose that he had the box on his lap, and that those two wider marks are the tops of the poor fellow's thighs.' He gazed at Skinner and Arrow, this time without the faintest hint of a smile.
`But Bob, if I may correct your assumption, ever so slightly. You said that the box was open when the bomb went off. I'd put it another way. I'd say that because it was open, the bomb went off.
I'd say that the bomb was in the bloody Red Box!'
TWENTY-TWO
‘You are MOD Security, and you are sitting there telling me that there was a bomb in your Secretary for Defence's personal document case?'
Skinner had seen Adam Arrow under fire. He had seen him in a cold, killing rage. He had seen him in situations that would have thrown a scare into a rock. And he had never seen him rattled, not in the slightest… until now.
Special Agent Merle Gower stared at him across the table in the Command vehicle, fixing him with an unblinking gaze, letting her question hang in the air. Arrow stared down at his plastic coffee beaker, spinning it slowly in his fingers. Skinner could see the back of his neck turning pink.
Eventually he looked up at her. 'That's the way it looks at the moment.'
She whistled. 'Jesus! They told me that you guys were good. I recommended to my Ambassador that we should fly Secretary Massey up to Scotland on our own transport, but he laughed at me. Know what he said? He said, 'Don't worry, Merle, it'll be fine. The Brits have those shuttle flights stitched up tighter than a fish's asshole.'
`Now I'm going to have to tell him that Massey is dead because you let Secretary Davey board the plane with an exploding lunch-box. And I'm going to have to do it without the faintest hint of 'I told you so'. Incidentally, do any of you know who Shaun Massey was?
Only the Ambassador's brother-in-law that's all!'
Joe Doherty's successor in the FBI London Bureau was a short, fleshy, severely suited black woman in her late twenties, with gold-rimmed spectacles and close-cut curly hair.
Looking at her, Skinner felt that he understood properly for the first time what a firecracker was.
She had arrived a few minutes earlier, driving a Vauxhall Vectra with the Hertz tag still hanging from the driving mirror, just as Skinner and Arrow had returned in the helicopter, with the two Red Boxes, and with three firearms recovered from shattered, dismembered bodies pinned in a row of three seats at the second crash point. One was a Smith and Wesson revolver, while the others were Colt Automatics. Now they lay on the centre of the table around which the trio were seated.
`Look…' Arrow began, but Agent Gower had a few shots left in her locker.
`Christ,' she said. 'If only he had listened to me. I mean, Scotland — Edinburgh. This is where you managed to let the President of Syria get shot a couple of years ago, isn't it?'
Involuntarily, Arrow gasped and flashed a quick glance at Skinner. Two deep frown-lines had appeared between the DCC's eyes.
`Come on, lass,' said the little soldier. 'These things happen, and your lot ain't perfect either. Reagan, the Kennedys, King, Waco, Oklahoma… That balls-up in Iran when your so-called Special Forces 'ad a go at rescuing those hostages. I could go on.'
Now it was the woman who was frowning. 'Don't 'lass' me, Captain Arrow,' she said grimly.
Seated between them, Skinner threw up his hands. Beyond the table, at the far end of the cabin he could see Sir Jim Proud, who was standing beside Maggie Rose, glowering his disapproval of the exchange.
'Enough!' Skinner called, not a shout, but not far short of one. He gazed at the woman; then he smiled, and his frown disappeared. Gower, startled at first, then charmed, looked back at him in silence.
'We're in danger of getting off on the wrong foot here,' he said. 'Ms Gower, I think I'd better spell out the ground rules. I'm in charge of criminal investigation in this part of Scotland; and that's what we are dealing with… a crime, in Scotland. The bomb exploded over my territory: the aircraft came down on my territory: two hundred and four people died on my territory. This is where the crime was committed, and so it's my job to catch whoever did it. Understand?' She nodded.
The fact is that you've got no status. You're sat here now because of your special interest, just as Adam is, but you are both simply observers. Any role you have to play, any opportunity to say your piece, is at my discretion. Now let me tell you, as gently as I can, that I don't tolerate hecklers in my team. If that's all you've come to do, then you'll be getting in my way, and with just one phone call I'll have you back in Grosvenor Square.'
He paused and put his hands flat on the table. 'That said, when Joe Doherty told me last month that he was leaving to become Deputy Chair of your National Security Council, he said that he'd found a first-class operator to fill his shoes. If that's what Joe thinks of you, that'll do for me, and so I would value any positive input you can give me.
'So. From now on, can we act as if we're playing on the same side?'
It was Agent Gower's turn to look flustered. She nodded. 'Yes, sir. I'm sorry.' She glanced across at Arrow, and saw his eyes twinkling back at her.
Okay,' said Skinner. 'That's sorted out. Look, Agent, I sympathise. You've been in post for only a few weeks, yet here you are with the murder of a member of your Government on your hands. What you should remember is that he's just another dead guy now, one among many, and that we're not working here for countries or flags or anything like that.
We're here to make sure that all the families of the victims see justice done at the end of the day.'
I know that, sir,' she said. 'I'll keep it in mind. So, how can I help?'
Skinner reached across the table and pushed the two automatic pistols towards her. 'First off, take a look at these guns.'
She picked one up. 'These are Colt pistols. Secret Service standard issue. What's the other one?'
`That's the type of revolver our protection people usually carry.' `Where did they come from?'
`From the occupants of Row 2 — seats D to F.'
Merle Gower sighed and put the Colt back on the table, quickly. 'I saw two of those guys just last night. They arrived at the Embassy with Secretary Massey.'
`Well, you wouldn't want to see them now,' said the DCC savagely. He went on quickly:
'Ms Gower, the first thing I'd like you to do to help is to contact Joe Doherty at NSC. I want a full dossier on recent threats made against your country in general and against members of your Government in particular. Adam, you do the same at this end'
`That'll be under way already,' said Arrow.
`Good. Now, there's one more thing I want you to do, Captain. I want every member of Colin Davey's Private Office staff, and everyone else who even clapped eyes on that Red Box lined up for questioning by my officers. I'll send a couple of them down to London tomorrow.'
He stood up from the table. He had changed back out of the Army flight gear, but his woollen suit was creased, and muddy in places. 'Unless we get very lucky we are not going to solve this thing in an instant.
`What do we know so far? We know there was a bomb, and we're pretty certain we know how it was taken on board the plane. Once all the wreckage is pieced together, and once Major Legge has told us more about the device, we'll be able to prove all that to a jury.
But that's the easy part.
The hard questions are the who's, the why's and the how's. Who wanted to kill Davey, or Massey, or both of them? Why did they want to do it? And how, how in Christ's name, did they get access to the Secretary of State's
