BlindFire (31 page)

  He awoke with a start around seven o’clock and almost fell out of the chair he had slept in. After the daily routine of washing and drinking tea he massaged his bad leg, this morning it was particularly stiff and slightly swollen. This annoyed him; he could do with full usage today.

  "Sahra!" It was a full throated yell, one that made the sleeping child sit bolt upright in bed.

  "What.... What is it?" She stuttered sleepily and rubbed her eyes.

  "Get your breakfast eaten."

  She looked over a bowl lying on the edge of the bed, the contents looked like porridge. "What is it?"

  "Cold bread soup, it's all that was left from last night.... Pretend its Ready Brek or something." That last part was added with some sarcasm in his voice. "By the way you're going home tomorrow morning."

  Sahra froze and then took a deep, shuddering breath of air. "Home?" She dared to repeat.

  Jack smiled. "You won’t see old Uncle Jack again after tomorrow."

  "Does this mean you're going to kill me?"

  "Home means just that, and you won’t be dead."

  The little girl slid to the side of the bed and put her shoes on. She felt elated yet at the same time she felt the need to hide her emotions from him. He was a very strange man with massive mood swings, one wrong word could set him off on a trip of terror. He would scream and shout obscenities, usually about the Queen and then smash the place up. This could last for two ho
urs or more before he would
suddenly calm down and sometimes even apologize.

  Sahra had learnt her lesson years before with the woman who would be Mummy. All she had to do to survive was smile and be polite and never but never answer back or argue.

  Jack held up a rope until Sahra looked at him. "You know the score by now."

  She smiled and held out her hands to be tied.

 
***

  He hadn't realised how heavy the equipment was before, and the limp didn't help. The conference coordinator had received his engineer with a reverence verging on panic.

  "Thank God you're here."

  Jack nodded and took his ID card back. "So where's the hall?"

  "Would you follow me please....? Oh I'll carry that."

  Jack handed him the bag with the Bomb in it and followed behind smirking all the way. A short way down the corridor the man suddenly turned left and Jack found himself facing the podium. "I see there's already some other mics up there."

  "The Irish news team set up last night and ITN this morning. But don't worry there's loads of room left."

  Jack simply nodded and held out his arm for the bag. "I'll just get on with it then."

  "When should I expect your Camera-man?"

  "Later.... Much later I should think."

  He was silent for a second as if searching his memory for anything else he should mention. "Fine... Very good." Suddenly he was gone leaving Jack alone in the great hall.

  He slowly gazed around the vast room, and then cautiously moved forward to the platform. Jack listened, mind racing, knowing he was at his most vulnerable without a weapon. A dangerous situation called for bold tactics.

  Now he was on the platform and looking at the hundreds of seats, his eyes drifted between them and the microphone he now held in his hands.

  "Why the hell didn't I think of this before?" He whispered sadly and shook his head. Then got to work installing his own special brand of sound equipment.

***

Gunter shook Danny’s
hand vigorously. "I'm an uncle."

  Danny
was beaming; he had been since Beth told him. "I still can't believe it myself."

  "Congratulations." Cried the Colonel and smiled at Beth. "No more work for you young lady."

  "But I will be there tomorrow; nothing is going to change that."

  Danny
rolled his eyes. "I think John's right, you should stay here."

   "No way..!
"

  Gunter was still shaking his head in disbelief. He thought it was about time Tom had some luck.
"We must have a drink later, Danny
. But right now two of us have to go to the
Queens
centre and sign our guys in."

  "I'll go with you." Said the Colonel.

  They arrived about forty-five minutes later and entered the building by the rear door under the cover of darkness. The other Force Four security men had already been signed in by the Police and were keeping regular patrols.

   Gunter made himself useful by showing the Colonel how to use the close circuit television camera system. The SAS man was keen to learn but still argued his point about men on the ground.

  "With this I can cover the whole building from here and look at video tapes from the day before. This console will literally run all by its self."

  "Well now you've shown me how to use it, are you going to let me have a play?" Gunter moved aside allowing John to take control. He immediately brought up the front exterior of the building and zoomed in on a tramp smoking a butt which he had just found on the floor. More buttons were tapped and the platform and conference rooms came to view.

  "I'm going to take a look around." Said Gunter and picked up the nearest Motorola radio. "Channel five right?"

  The Colonel nodded, he was too interested in the monitors to notice Gunter leave the room. It was like a new toy with every button pressed promising fresh delights. He monitored Gunter through the corridors and into the great hall and then on to the platform.

  The other screens played back footage from earlier. There were the cleaners in the canteen smoking and drinking tea, the time sequence for that indicated zero five thirty. John soon bored of that and fast forwarded the tape to ten hundred hours. Evidence showed ensuing Pandemonium as the
Queens
took deliveries for the Talks tomorrow.

  His interest was drawn back to Gunter who seemed to be giving his own speech on the platform in a very dramatic way. John laughed and looked back at the other screen. The time now indicated ten fifteen hours and the screen showed the hall. He just sat back, relaxed and let it play.

  Gunter was still trying to win over his imaginary crowd five minutes later when John noticed something on the other screen.
The mans face
was well hidden and his cloth
e
s revealed no clues, but there was a definite limp and his general posture seemed familiar. He entered the main hall with another man, who the Colonel recognised as one of the managers, they seemed to chat for some seconds and then the manager left.

  John switched cameras
to view the same sequence from a different angle and zoomed in on the faces he saw.

  "
Mckay." He said it almost as if he expected it. He watched as Mckay approached the platform and slowly climbs the steps. Squinting to see, the Colonel zoomed in and watched as the Irishman carefully took a microphone out of his bag and connected it on to the lectern.

  One look at Gunter still messing about on the stage confirmed his fears. Knocking the chair over as he stood he raced out of the door and charged down the corridor. "Gunter Stop!" He screamed as he entered the hall.

  "It's not that bad is it?"

  "Get away from there. There's a bomb in one of those mics."

  A simple explanation is usually the most effective in times such as these, Gunter didn't need telling twice. Once again the professional, a slightly nervous one, he inspected each microphone individually searching for signs of tampering. A shooting glance at the colonel was enough to call him forward. "I think it's this one, see the scratches on the joint where it's been forced open."

  "What are you whispering for?"

  The big German ignored the comment and very slowly began to pull the mic from its housing on the lectern. "I should think it is remote controlled." He didn't know how long he had or whether it would explode on opening. Silence from his partner only added to the tension as he looked for a way through the outer casing.

  "Can't we just flush it down the toilet?"

  Gunter shook his head and a bead of sweat splashed onto the bomb. "If I can get inside maybe I can diffuse it."

  "Put it down and I'll call the bomb squad."

  "No...... If we attract any attention we could scare Jack away, trust me I can do this."

  The Colonels dry lips parted with shock, absolutely speechless all he could do was nod. Gunter knelt and slowly placed the mic
rophone
on the floor between his knees. Forming a tight fist he cracked his knuckles, the sound seemed to reverberate throughout the hall and made the Colonel flinch.

  Millimeter by millimeter he unscrewed the bottom half of the casing, stopping twice to wipe his sweaty hands on his trousers, the second time he looked at John and breath out nervously. "Only a little way to go now. You can leave the room if you want."

  "I'm going nowhere. If you blow us up I'll kill you."

  He blew out hard once again and turned his attention back to the bomb. One more turn and the device seemed to fall apart in his hands. "It's not tamper proof, but it's good.... Bloody good."

  "Can you do it? Or should I start running now?"

  "Looks like Semtex but I can't be sure. Got a knife?"
He said. “It’s a shaped charge with just enough explosive to blow a mans head clean off of his shoulders.”

  The Colonel took a second to react; he was still waiting for the big explosion. "Why? What are you going to do?"

  "I've seen these types of bombs before. The explosive is packed around a circuit board and activated by sound. I'm going to cut the Semtex away until I've located the sensor mic."

  "Could this thing go up any time?"

  "I'm not sure. If it’s got a remote then no
it won’t..... The knife please! Something like this might even respond to the sound of an
ind
ividuals voice.”

  John felt around in his pockets and came out with a large clasp knife. "I always knew it'd come in handy someday." The words sounded somehow hollow.

  Gunter took it, chose a point on the explosive. "Wish me luck." Then started to cut and scrape the Semtex. On the second scraping he located the main circuit board and disabled the remote by cutting the receiver module out.

  "Have you done it yet?"

  "No, that was only one part. Now I've got to stop it going off the next time an idiot like me shouts in to it too loudly." Suddenly he closed his eyes and sighed.                

  "What is the matter?"

  "I'm down to the last two wires, they are both red and both could set it off. Which one do you reckon? "

  "I... I don’t..." John didn't like this, the Germa
n was too nervous. " Don’t cut the red one!
"

  "I already said, they are both red! Think
I'll cut this one." He pretended to cut a wire and then screamed. "BOOOoomm." at the top of his voice.

  The Colonel jumped with fright and stepped back almost falling down the
steps. "You bastard, you stupid
German bastard.... You scared the shit out of me..!" He screamed.

  "I'm sorry I just couldn't resist it. You should have seen your face, BOOooom." He laughed and wiped more sweat from his brow. "Let’s go for a coffee, I know I need one." But first he carefully reassembled the mic and put it back in its place on the lectern.

***

   The Prime minister balanced precariously on the edge of his seat, his beady little eyes darted from the report on his desk to his Internal affairs Mini
ster and then to Bella Tiemann
the head of MI5. "No, Bella, I don't like it." He said tentatively. "You are asking me to make myself a target for this madman."

  "John Rothschild has assured me there are no more bombs in the building and I trust him explicitly....."

  "I'm sorry; it's too great a risk..... Cancel the talks."

  "Sir, you are the Prime minister of
England
. If these talks fail, you will personally be responsible for the deaths of many.... I won't let you cancel this because of your own failings.

   "You think I'm weak?"

  "It doesn't matter what I think and it doesn't matter what your opposition thinks, but what will your public make of all this at the elections next year?"

  "They'll crucify me....... What exactly do you want me to do?"

  Her face was as impassive as ever, and her voice churned out the words as
she
gestured to the red file lying on the PM's desk. "Leave it to Rothschild; all you have to do is make your speech." She looked at her watch. "....Your car should be here in about forty minutes, try and get some rest." She said and turned to the Internal Affairs Minister. "I'll have my report on your desk before breakfast."