want to come without a job so she asked me to go over there. I was working as an accountant and I think I probably could have got something over there, but I dithered, and I made the mistake of listening to my dad, who kept telling me I had a good job, with good prospects, and shouldn’t even think about leaving it. And in the end, I didn’t. Our conversations got fewer, I kept delaying a decision even though I was desperate to go, and finally the conversations stopped altogether. She stopped taking my calls, and then eventually she sent me a letter. It said that she’d met someone else.’ He paused. ‘That was twenty-two years and two months ago, and we haven’t spoken since.’
Elena put a hand on his arm. ‘Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be.’
Martin felt tears well up and forced them back down. He looked away, which was when he caught the eye of a well-built man in his mid-twenties who was sitting on his own a few feet away. He was dressed in a crumpled suit and had the lived-in, slightly puffy face of a rugby player. The man looked at him and gave a very small nod. There was a grim determination in his face, as if he’d recently come to an important decision, and Martin noticed that he was inching closer to him across the floor.
Martin looked away quickly. He knew the man was thinking about some kind of escape attempt, and he wanted no part in it. It was far too dangerous, and he didn’t think he had the physical strength or the necessary speed to take on the guards. Deliberately, he lowered his head and stared at the floor, telling himself he wasn’t a coward, that under the circumstances he was simply being rational.
The sound of a lift door opening, followed by purposeful footsteps, interrupted his thoughts, and he looked up to see the leader of the hostage-takers march into the room through the kitchen door followed by the female terrorist in the black dress and jacket. They were both holding handguns with silencers attached, and the Scandinavian was just behind them.
Something about their demeanour told Martin that their presence meant bad news.
They stopped and conversed with the other guard in hushed tones, occasionally looking over at the assembled hostages; then, as Martin watched, the leader handed the woman a balaclava, which she quickly pulled over her head.
The tension in the room seemed to mount substantially. Something was about to happen. Everyone could feel it. Martin and Elena exchanged glances but neither spoke.
The woman broke away from the others and skirted the floor and the hostages before leaning over the furniture and pulling up one of the six blinds that covered the restaurant’s viewing window. She secured the drawstring then stepped to one side, facing the hostages again, the gun pointed at a forty-five-degree angle in front of her – a pose that, with the balaclava, gave her the appearance of an executioner.
‘Your government, the people you voted for in your precious elections, do not want to help you,’ announced the terrorist leader, stepping forward, his tone angry. ‘You are not important to them. None of us here wants violence, but we have to make your government listen to us.’ He paused. ‘And for that reason, one of you has to die.’
A collective gasp went up. Someone cried out, a strangled ‘oh God’, but otherwise there were no hysterics. Just a cold, silent sense of shock. Two young women to Martin’s right, still in their work clothes, probably no older than he had been when he came here with Carrie, clung to each other, shaking with fear.
Keeping his gun in front of him, the leader walked out among them, his eyes scanning the group as he hunted for a victim.
Martin stared at the floor, every nerve in his body taut, every sense heightened, more alive than he’d ever been. More terrified too.
He could sense rather than hear the footfalls as they came closer, and he bent his head down even lower, as if this would somehow make him invisible.
He could hear breathing right above him, knew that the leader was there. Only inches from him. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Just waited. Praying.
‘You,’ said the leader, and Martin felt a hand grip him firmly by the shoulder.
His prayers, it seemed, hadn’t been answered.
Fifty-six
ARLEY DALE STARED AT the ops room screens. Three of them were showing close-ups of the Park View Restaurant, where the recently opened blind was giving the whole world a narrow view inside. Behind the piled-up tables and chairs, Arley could clearly see hostages sitting on the bare floor, and a masked gunman moving among them. As she watched, the gunman leaned down, pulled a middle-aged man to his feet, and put a gun to his temple. The man looked pale and terrified as the Sky News camera panned in on him, and Arley felt her mouth go dry.
‘CO19 have a moving target inside the building,’ said Chief Inspector Chris Matthews, speaking from the incident room next door, his voice reverberating loud and clear through the loudspeaker in the incident room. ‘They have a clear shot at him, ma’am. They can take him down now.’
Everyone in the room was looking at Arley. Waiting for her to say something. Rather than leading from the front, Gold and Silver – Commissioner Phillips and Assistant Commissioner Jacobs – were nowhere to be seen. Doubtless keeping their heads down, leaving the hard decision for her. Bastards.
The gunman was leading the hostage towards the window now. On the TV screen Arley could see resignation in the hostage’s demeanour. So could five hundred million other people. He was about to die, and only she could stop it. She could give the order for CO19 to fire and save his life, even if the respite was only temporary. She had that power in her hands.
‘Ma’am?’
She thought of her children, thought of everything she had to lose personally, and knew there was only one decision she could make.
‘Tell them to keep their guns trained, but not to fire,’ she said. ‘We can’t risk the gunmen shooting other hostages as well. I’m sorry.’
Fifty-seven
MARTIN DIDN’T RESIST when he was hauled to his feet and felt the pressure of the gun barrel against his head. In fact, a strange calm descended upon him. The leader wasn’t gripping him roughly, rather there was an almost respectful manner in the way he led him towards the window.
In a few seconds’ time it would all be over. One loud bang and all the stress, the sadness and the regrets would be gone. He would leave his life, and his cancer, behind. He would finally be free. He closed his eyes, shutting out the world, as he allowed himself to be guided towards the place where he knew he would die.
And then there was a sudden commotion, and he was pitched forward.
Martin’s eyes flew open and he saw the young rugby player who’d looked at him a few minutes earlier struggling violently with the terrorist leader as he wrestled to get his gun.
‘Help me!’ he yelled, a desperation in his voice, as he, Martin and the terrorist stumbled around together. The rugby player was holding on to the terrorist’s wrist, forcing his gun up in the air. The gun went off with a loud pop, and someone screamed.
‘Help me!’
Martin knew that this was it – his chance to do something, even if it meant dying a hero’s death – but everything was happening so fast that he didn’t have time to react before the woman took three quick steps
