‘I’ve just tried calling you, ma’am,’ said Riz Mohammed. Like everyone else in the room, his expression was tense.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked, shutting the door behind her and telling herself to remain calm. Tina was looking for the twins. She had a lead. It might still turn out all right.
‘I’ve just had a call from the man called Wolf. Either we switch the internet service back on inside the hotel or they kill a hostage publicly. They’ve given us fifteen minutes to comply. And the call came in at 20.35.’
‘We’ve got a tape of the call if you want to listen to it, ma’am,’ said Will Verran.
Arley shook her head. ‘Have either Gold or Silver been informed?’
‘I relayed the message to Gold,’ said Riz. ‘We’re waiting for him to come back to us.’
‘What’s your assessment, Riz?’
‘Wolf sounded a lot more stressed than he did when we first talked to him. Given their propensity to violence, I’d say we’ve got to take this threat very seriously.’
Arley’s gaze found Cheney, the most senior person in the room after her. ‘What’s your take, John?’
‘I agree with Riz. It’s serious. Are the SAS ready to go in yet?’
Arley felt her guts clench. ‘I don’t believe so, no.’
‘Then we should let them have their internet connection back. They probably only want to bang out one of their propaganda videos, and it’s not worth sacrificing a life not to let them. Not if we’re not ready for an assault.’
‘I think it would do a lot to help calm the situation,’ added Riz.
Arley was wholeheartedly in agreement, but what she knew and the other two didn’t was that Michael Prior possessed highly sensitive information that the government were desperate to keep inside the building.
At that moment, Commissioner Phillips appeared on one of the screens as he sat back down at his desk in his office at Scotland Yard. ‘Can you hear me?’ he said, his voice booming through the incident room.
‘Loud and clear, sir,’ answered Arley.
‘I’ve just spoken with the PM, and it’s been agreed that internet access can be restored to the hotel as the terrorists have requested, as long as we are able to speak to Michael Prior and ascertain that he’s in good health.’
Arley felt a rush of relief. ‘We’ll get on to them straight away, sir.’
Riz picked up the secure phone and the incident room fell silent. The mood was tense for everyone, but for Arley it was almost unbearable, and she had to make a conscious effort not to drum her fingers against her cheek, a nervous habit of hers that was capable of driving others to distraction.
The phone rang twice before being picked up.
‘We still haven’t got internet access,’ said Wolf angrily. ‘Don’t you care about your hostages?’
‘Of course we do,’ said Riz, his tone firm yet conciliatory. ‘But we need something in return.’
‘What?’
‘We need to speak to Michael Prior.’
‘He’s not available.’
‘Is there a specific reason why we can’t talk to him?’
‘Yes. Because we don’t take orders from you.’
‘But I’m not ordering, Wolf. I’m asking you to allow us to talk to him. If you do that, we’ll restore the internet immediately. I promise you that.’
‘Just turn the damn thing on. Understand me? Now. I gave you an ultimatum, and you’re ignoring it. Your deadline runs out in ten minutes. After that, a hostage dies. And then one dies every five minutes until you reconnect us.’
‘This is not going to help anyone,’ Riz said, working hard to keep his voice calm, but Wolf had already hung up on him. He exhaled loudly, and looked at Arley, and then at the screen where Phillips still sat impassively at his desk. ‘Do you want me to call back?’
Arley wanted to shout: yes, call back, do whatever you can to delay things. If a hostage was executed then the SAS would go in and that would be the end of everything.
But it was Phillips who answered him. ‘No. We can’t show weakness here. We have to call his bluff.’
‘I’m pretty certain he’s going to do it, sir,’ said Riz, and for the first time there was a definite quiver in his voice. ‘And it’s very likely he’ll kill other hostages until he gets what he wants.’
‘And I have orders from the Prime Minister not to restore access until we speak to Prior.’
Arley’s body was rigid with tension. She desperately wanted to throw up. ‘Doesn’t the PM realize the kind of flak he’s going to get if the family of the hostage find out that he or she died because we wouldn’t let the man holding them have a bloody internet connection?’
‘This is a matter of national security, DAC Dale,’ the commissioner said coldly. ‘You of all people should know that. I’m sorry, but on this we’re going to have to stand firm.’
Fifty-five
20.50
YOU’RE NEVER SO alive as when you’re on the verge of death. Martin Dalston remembered reading that somewhere once. And the thing was, it was true. He felt more alive than he’d felt in years. Probably since those heady days with Carrie, almost a quarter of a century ago now. He wanted to survive this night. He wanted to tell his friends all about it over a pint and a decent Italian meal.
It was quiet in the restaurant. The thirty or so hostages looked tired and drawn, but an uneasy calm seemed to have descended on everyone. For the last hour there’d been no threats or angry scenes. The guards had become visibly more relaxed, and occasionally one would disappear into the kitchen for a few minutes, leaving the other on guard alone. At the moment, the cruel Scandinavian with the limp was the one in there, which made Martin feel a little better. He was thirsty, but knew better than to ask either of the men for a drink. Best just to keep his head down and count the hours, because at some point this ordeal had to end. Either way, he’d decided that he wasn’t going to carry out his plan for a quiet, dignified departure from the world. He wasn’t usually superstitious, but he took the day’s events as a sign that perhaps he should make the best of his last few months rather than throw away what little time he had left.
Still keeping his head down, he looked over and caught Elena’s eye. They hadn’t spoken since the incident earlier, when the Scandinavian guard had threatened her with death, but they’d exchanged the occasional smile, and he’d mouthed more than one ‘thank you’ at her for sticking up for him when he was being beaten.
He smiled at her again now, and she smiled back. ‘Tell me something,’ she whispered, stealing a glance towards the guard to check that he wasn’t looking at them. ‘I’ve been wanting to ask. What happened to Carrie? If she was the love of your life, why did it end?’
Martin never spoke about Carrie, not to anyone. She’d always been the guilty secret he’d carried with him all his adult life, but now he was suddenly keen to talk. ‘Because I was a fool.’
‘Tell me about her.’
He leaned closer, keeping his voice low as he pictured Carrie Wilson as she was more than twenty years ago. ‘She was beautiful. We met in Australia when I was travelling after university. That’s where she was from.’
Elena’s eyes lit up. ‘That’s where my fiance Rod’s from too. We’re going to move there at Christmas.’
Martin grinned. ‘You’ll love it. I loved it. Carrie and I bought a clapped-out Beetle and travelled the whole country. It was the best time of my life. I still dream about it at night.’ For a few seconds he took himself back to those wild, carefree days, with the heat and the sun and the azure sea. ‘When my visa ran out I had to come back here. But we were still together, and we kept in touch, and we talked about all the things we were going to do. She was going to move to the UK for a couple of years, and a few months later she came over on business. She added a week to her stay and we spent it driving all over England. That’s when we came here for a romantic weekend.’ He smiled to himself. ‘I don’t think we left the room once.’
‘It sounds lovely,’ whispered Elena.
Martin sighed. ‘It was, and I really thought it was all going to work, but she had to go back to Oz, and although she applied for jobs over here, it was in the midst of a recession and there wasn’t anything. She didn’t
