commissioner wants you in the control room right away.’
Arley had been with the Met for over twenty years. She was used to crises, and knew how to handle them. It was one of the reasons she’d risen so high. ‘I’m on my way,’ she said, knowing that the bath and the Sauvignon Blanc were going to have to wait, but already feeling the adrenalin as it pumped through her system, shaking her out of the torpor of the meeting.
Fifteen
HE WASN’T GOING to come.
In her hotel room, Cat was about to light another cigarette and break the cardinal rule they’d set of never calling Michael on his mobile when there was a loud knock on the door.
She put down her glass of Evian and bounded over to open it.
It was Michael, his presence immediately filling the doorway. He was a big man with big, rugged features who’d worked hard to keep himself in shape, and even though he was in his early fifties, he wore the years easily.
He grinned and produced a bunch of flowers from behind his back, handing them to her.
‘Darling, you shouldn’t have done.’ Smiling, she stepped aside to let him inside, taking in the scent of his Dior aftershave and a tang of single malt on his breath. ‘But I’m glad you did.’
Michael took her in his arms and kissed her. ‘I need you, Cat,’ he whispered. ‘God, I need you so, so badly.’
‘You’ve got me,’ she whispered back, feeling his hardness against her. ‘And we’ve got all night.’
She twisted round and threw the flowers on the bed, and a second later they were kissing again. Outside, she could hear the blare of police sirens coming past the window.
They walked crab-like together towards the bed, his hand running up her leg to the stocking top, his breathing getting faster now as he became more and more aroused.
She felt his phone vibrate in his trouser pocket. He ignored it. So did she.
By the time it had stopped vibrating they were standing against the bottom of the bed, and his fingers were stroking the bare flesh of her inner thigh. Instinctively she opened her legs a little, and he gave a pleasing grunt of pleasure.
Almost immediately, his phone started up again.
‘Damn,’ he cursed, removing his hand from the folds of her dress. ‘I’d better see what they want.’ He gave Cat an apologetic look and turned away, putting the phone to his ear. ‘What is it?’ he demanded brusquely.
As he listened to what was being said, his shoulders slumped visibly.
Cat stepped away and reached under the pillow on her side of the bed as outside more sirens shrieked past.
‘All right,’ said Michael at last, ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ He ended the call and turned round with a frustrated sigh, his eyes dark with disappointment. ‘I’m truly sorry about this, Cat, but there’s been some kind of terrorist incident—’
‘I know,’ answered Cat, her voice perfectly calm as she brought the gun round from behind her back and pointed it right between his eyes.
Sixteen
MICHAEL STARED AT her in utter disbelief. His phone fell to the floor. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he asked.
Cat stared back coldly, her gun arm steady. ‘Don’t ask questions. Just do as I say.’
‘But I’ve just told you, there’s a major terrorist incident going on and—’
‘And I told you, I know. There’s been a bomb at the Westfield Shopping Centre, and two more at Paddington.’
Michael’s eyes widened. ‘God, how the hell—’
‘Because I’m involved. Now sit down in the chair by the bed, and no more talking.’
She cocked the pistol, still keeping it trained between his eyes, and deliberately tightened her finger on the trigger.
‘Now look here, Cat, I’m sure we can sort this out,’ he said, a patronizing expression on his face, as if he was confident that she could be reasoned with, which was typical of him. Michael Prior was a man used to getting his own way.
‘There’s nothing to sort out. I’m a soldier of the Pan-Arab Army of God and you are my prisoner.’
Michael sat down heavily in the tub chair next to the window, his face pale with shock.
‘If you put the gun down, we can sort this out, I promise. It’s not too late.’
Cat could hear the strain in his voice. ‘And if you keep talking, I’ll shoot you in the kneecap, and I won’t miss. I’ve had extensive training with the Glock 17, and the suppressor does a very good job of keeping the noise down, so if I do pull the trigger no one’s going to hear. My orders are to keep you alive, but no one’s going to care if you can’t walk.’ She kept her voice totally calm, as she’d been trained to do, and it seemed to do the trick. Michael was visibly nervous now and beginning to sweat.
Keeping the gun on him, she reached into a Harrods bag she’d brought with her, pulled out two pairs of ankle restraints, and lobbed them over to him. ‘Put these on – one hoop round each ankle, the other round each of the front chair legs. Make sure they’re locked, then throw the keys on the bed.’
He caught them easily, but rather than put them on he made one last effort to salvage the situation. ‘Come on, Cat,’ he said, looking at her imploringly. ‘We have something together, don’t we? Something special. Let’s not destroy it. I’m in love with you, darling. Remember that. I’m in love with you. You mean everything to me.’
Cat shook her head. What fools men could be sometimes, especially when they wanted sex. ‘You make my skin crawl, Michael. I was given orders to draw you into a relationship, and that’s exactly what I’ve done. Now put those restraints on before I lose patience.’
She watched the realization that he’d been utterly suckered finally sink in. He looked truly upset, which pleased her. She’d done her job well.
‘You’re making a big mistake, you know,’ he blustered. ‘If you go through with this, you won’t see the outside of a prison for years.’
Once again her finger tightened on the trigger, and Michael must have seen the contempt in her face, because he finally did as he’d been told.
When he’d finished she came up behind him and made him put his hands behind his back and lean forward, towards the floor. ‘The Glock’s trained on your right shoulder blade, so don’t try anything,’ she said, putting a pair of old-fashioned handcuffs on his wrists and locking them with her free hand.
Michael was now completely helpless.
‘But I’ve seen your background details,’ he said, the confusion in his voice obvious as he watched her remove the ball gag from the Harrods bag. ‘How could this have happened?’
She bent down close to his face, smiling coldly. ‘The woman you employed does not exist. Catherine Manolis died in Nice in October 1985, aged twenty-three months. Her identity was stolen and used to apply for false identity documents. We tailored her to suit the job application, and no one spotted it.’
Michael sighed. ‘So, everything you told me about your upbringing was rubbish. You’re not a widow at all.’
‘Oh yes,’ she told him, her voice hardening, ‘I’m definitely a widow. My husband was murdered last year defending his country against men like you. Except while he was fighting on the frontline you were sitting far away behind a desk giving orders.’
‘But Cat, you must understand, I had nothing to do with that. I was—’
Before he could finish the sentence, she stuffed the ball gag into his mouth. Again he tried to protest, but she
