Bloody long 'shortly after'.
He stood by the sliding windows and looked across the roof garden and noticed a movement behind one of the taller shrubs. First he thought it must be a bird or a cat. Then another movement showed it was larger.
Someone was out there.
The hairs straightened on the back of his neck. He backed away from the window, waited a few seconds and then took another look. The same figure ducked out of sight behind a bush, but not before Harry noticed he was cradling something that looked horribly like a submachine-gun. There was another movement at the edge of Harry's vision. Two of them at least. He had an impression of black uniforms.
Police marksmen.
Jesus.
He swung away from the window, back out of sight against the wall. It didn't take rocket science to work out that it was an ambush and he was cornered. They'd have men in the corridor as well, waiting to pick up the others if they hadn't nicked them already.
Hold on, he thought. They won't bust us until after the crime is committed. They'll let Rhadi bring the Hatton Garden man in here and they'll delay until the moment the diamonds are snatched.
They'll need to time it right.
The place must be bugged.
A listening device is so small you can hide it anywhere. There wasn't time for him to make a proper search.
His eyes darted left and right and lighted on the flowers the woman had brought in. Was she really a hotel employee? He stepped closer. Those enormous lilies could hide a microtransmitter with ease. The police couldn't have known in advance which suite would be used, so it was a cool move. He bent closer and examined the flower arrangement without touching anything.
The bug was there all right, lodged in the side of one of the spike-shaped buds.
He picked up the entire arrangement in its vase and carried it to the bedroom, placed it on the floor of the wardrobe and gently slid the door across. Then he returned to the main room, shutting the bedroom door after him.
He took out his mobile and called Zahir again.
An agonising pause followed. Then Zahir's terse voice asking: 'What is it?'
'Pull the plug.'
'What?'
'It's off. Cancelled. We've been shopped. Tell Rhadi, will you?'
'We can't do that.'
'Why?'
'He doesn't have a phone.'
'Christ.'
Harry switched off. Then he collected the flowers from the bedroom and replaced them on the table.
His old friend Rhadi was going to walk into the trap. Surely those bastards could stop him.
No, he thought. They'll save their own skins and to hell with everyone else. Thick as thieves, the saying went. Thick as thieves, my arse.
Think of a way out of this, Harry, he told himself. You're a con man, the very best. You can save Rhadi and yourself.
But it wouldn't be easy, up here on the top floor with armed men outside and every exit covered.
He made a rapid check of the rooms, looking for the ventilation shaft or the loft space he could use as an escape route. No such luck.
Determined not to be downed, he told himself he wasn't a goddamn escapologist anyway. He was a con artist. He'd do this his way. Sweet-talk his way to freedom.
He sat on the sofa, removed his gloves and gave the matter some thought.
Rhadi was going to arrive any minute with a Hatton Garden diamond merchant expecting to do business with a Kuwaiti prince. Or - far more likely - with a policeman posing as a Hatton Garden diamond merchant. The fuzz had obviously got advance information, so they would have planned this. They would send in one of their SO 19 people, armed and ready for combat. At a signal from him, police gunmen would burst in from all sides.
Harry let out a long, nervous breath. He'd only agreed to do this because it didn't involve violence.
Every instinct urged him to get out now and plead ignorance and hope for leniency. Only his brain told him there was a better way.
The buzzer on the door sounded.
He got up and looked through the little spyhole and saw Rhadi in the corridor with two men, one carrying a briefcase.
He opened the door a fraction and peered out. Rhadi saw him and looked horrified. It should have been Ibrahim or Zahir who opened the door. Harry should have been out of the hotel and on his way to the airport.
Harry said in the elegant accent he'd used when he was registering, 'A slight hitch in the arrangement,
