Impeding Justice (33 page)

‘
Lorne!’

She put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Leave
this to me, Chief, I know him. I need to get him rattled…’

‘
You think you’re so clever.
I used to enjoy playing cat and mouse with you, but now you’re
nothing. You have the intelligence displayed by a dog when it
chases its tail. Reynolds’ and Ramon know nothing. They had their
uses, but what they think they know cannot harm me. I am my own
universe. I have power all over the world. I have played with you.
You have been no more than an amusing toy. I have controlled you.
Made you weep. Made you despair. Made you grieve. Frustrated and
devastated you. Got you into trouble and ruined your marriage.
Raped your daughter and took out people you were close to. You are
my puppet. Your destiny is in my hands. Do you hear me? I OWN
YOU!'

Lorne couldn’t speak. The truth of his words
iced the blood in her veins.

‘
So, the penny has dropped,
has it? About time, too! Well, let me tell you how we’re going to
play this, shall I? You are going to log on to a computer, which
has a webcam attached. You will find one at the local pub, The
Anchor. The key to the pub door is under the flower tub on the
right of the entrance and when you get in, the landlord will be
tied to a chair. Ha! Just a little amateur touch for you, much more
in your league, hidden keys and men tied up. Anyway, enjoy the
connection with your father. Oh, by the way, I have left you a box
of chocolates to help you enjoy the experience. Not that you
deserve them. One more thing, before you leave, give orders to
these idiots around me to behave. You’ve some here who should be
fishermen. They don’t know how to play it with a criminal of high
intelligence. They’re more used to pirates and smugglers. We don’t
want any slip ups, do we?’

The phone went dead.

‘
Lorne, Lorne, what is it?
What did he say? Lorne…’

‘
Christ, Sean. He’s a
monster. I think he’s got my dad!’

‘
What? Lorne, you’re not
making any sense. Tell me what he said.’

‘
I’ll tell you on the way,
we have to hurry.’ She turned to the local Chief Inspector,
squatting on her left. ‘Sir, I have to get to the Anchor pub.
Nothing must happen here whilst I’m away. He’s going nowhere, but
he has fixed up something for me. Something involving my father, I
have to find out what it is before anything can move on the current
situation. Leave all your men in place, but whatever happens make
sure none of them play the hero. I know this man. He is likely to
come out on deck to smoke a cigarette in full view, looking like he
is a sitting target, but nothing is simple with him. It’s a game.
There will be terrible consequences if one of your men even thinks
they can take him out and have a go. And, tell them all to keep
under cover. Don’t put themselves into vulnerable situations. We
are dealing with a mad man, a man who has no feelings other than
for himself and his own ambitions.’

‘
Right, Inspector. Don’t
worry. I’ll keep my team in check. None of them will breathe unless
I tell them to.’

He spoke into his radio and then told her to
walk back the way they had come, and in a hundred metres or so they
would come to some steps leading to the promenade. An officer would
meet them there and take them to the pub.

As they made their way Lorne relayed word for
word the conversation she’d had with The Unicorn, to the
Chief.’

‘
Christ, Lorne…’

‘
How has he done this, Sean?
How has he set up, yet another hostage? It’s like we’re dealing
with God himself! And, do you know something? I do feel like a
puppet. At this moment in time I don’t think I can pee without him
knowing. I’m scared, Sean. I’m more scared than I’ve ever been in
my life. No one is safe around me. No one I love is
safe!’

Sean spoke volumes with his silence. She knew
he agreed. His helplessness conveyed itself to her. The Unicorn had
stripped them of their power. They were nothing.

Chapter Sixty-Three.

The screen lit up, Lorne connected with Skype
and typed in the address. Her fingers felt like wooden pegs. A cold
sweat doused her body. Her exhausted mind prevented her from
thinking about what to expect. Whilst her body felt as though
someone had thrown it into a furnace and was ravaged with pain.

The dial tone unique to Skype beeped on. Then
a picture emerged. ‘Dad… No… no…!’

Petrol is a beautiful colour. Funny that
thought registered. The light caught the rainbow effect as the
figure, clad in fire-protective gear, poured the liquid from a
great height over her dad’s head. The only other thought she had at
this horrendous time contained a flash reference to her father’s
courage. He was sitting bolt upright, his whole body bound to a
chair with thick rope. Looking straight ahead, he neither flinched
nor protested.

Sean put his arm around her. She shrugged it
off. If her father could display such bravery, she could match
it.

A voice came through the computer speaker.
Her boss took out his pad and started to take notes.

‘
The judge is dead. He died
en route, probably from a heart attack. Therefore, as you can
appreciate, a dead hostage is a NO hostage. I threw him out of the
helicopter, somewhere in the countryside between London and
Portsmouth.’

This wasn’t The Unicorn’s voice, but someone
reading from a script.

‘
My demands are: That I’m
allowed to leave the port and to sail away without anyone following
or tracking me on radar. I must be allowed to do this within the
next hour, if not the petrol will be set alight and your dear
father will burn to death.’

Everything inside her drained away, she could
not swallow, her chest tightened restricting her breath.

‘
You are to return to the quayside to give the order. In
twenty-four hours, if you have kept to your half of the bargain, I
will contact you telling you where your father can be found. If
there is one hitch to my plan, your father gets it. My man has
instructions that I will keep in touch with him on the hour of
every hour, if I miss one contact, your father will be dead! Now,
your father will speak.’

The camera zoomed in on her father’s face. He
didn’t utter a word. His courage shone from him, but then, a
vicious blow sent his head reeling.

‘
No… Dad, Oh, God, I’m
sorry, Dad.’

‘
None of this is your fault,
Lorne. You do what you have to do, girl. I love you.’

The screen went back to the Skype home
page.

The heavy silence clawed at her. Even to move
felt like she had to wade through Jelly.

‘
I’ll handle this, Lorne.
You stay here and rest. I’ll send an ambulance up for you. You’re
exhausted.’

‘
No. I have to do it. He may not respond unless I am there.
You heard the message. “
You
must return to the
quayside and give the order” – me, Sean. It has to be
me!’

‘
It’s like you said before,
Lorne, it’s as though we are dealing with God.’

‘
I’m going to request
something and I don’t want the answer even thinking about. I want
an armed guard on all of my family and my closest friends. MI5 will
know exactly who every one of them is, and where they live or are,
at this very moment. I don’t doubt with my involvement in all of
this that they haven’t a complete dossier on me. Some things Tony
said intimated that to be the case. Get in touch with him and
demand they use it as a template of just who to protect. There has
to be no more. No more, Sean.’

Before leaving they instructed the officer
outside to remain guarding the pub. They would send others up to
help him and a medical team to attend to the shocked landlord, and
forensics would give the place the once over. They ordered the
landlord to stay where he was. They had removed his restraints and
blindfold to make him more comfortable and stressed the need not to
disturb anything.

Once back on the quayside, Lorne’s phone
rang. She opened it and put it to her ear, but did not speak.

‘
Well, well, this is a
first, I expected some choice words, Inspector. Got the message
have we? Good. Now, call everyone off and quick. The clock is about
to strike the hour.’

Her phone went dead.

‘
Sir, give the order. And
give it now. No ifs, no buts. We have less than a minute for him to
see a withdrawal of the boats surrounding him and us to start to
leave.’

Chief Inspector Roberts gave the order. His
counterpart looked astonished.

‘
Now, wait just a minute! I
think MI5 should be consulted.’

‘
There’s no time for that.
Call off the coastguard and do it immediately! I am in charge here.
I will take any comeback for my decision. You just follow my
orders.’

Lorne could have hugged Sean for standing by
her. She watched as the boats began to return to shore. She felt
numb inside, in a way, it comforted her and cushioned the pain.

Her phone rang. Once again she didn’t
speak.

‘
I see you really do get it.
Well done and, see you around some time…’

Lorne and the Chief remained on the quay. All
units had pulled back so they were no longer visible. It took a
good thirty minutes for the boat to up anchor and manoeuvre out of
the dock. Lorne watched its every move. One hour later, it had
become a serene picture, a modern sleek-designed yacht, sailing
against a back drop of a blue sky and a darker blue, calm sea.

Lulled into a calm place by the sight, Lorne jumped when
her phone rang. Warner’s name displayed on her screen,
Fuck off, Warner, I’m not going to
fight you over the security of my family!
This thought psyched her up to answer him.

‘
Lorne, God, sorry to hear
about your dad, but something’s come up. I don’t know how to tell
you this, but, Lorne, it could jeopardise your dad’s
life...!’

‘
No, Tony, don’t say that,
please. We’ve done everything by the letter!’

‘
I know, but we have just
been contacted. It seems Abromovski put into place a revenge
strategy. He knew what Baldwin was planning. He did all he could to
protect himself, but in the event he didn’t succeed, he also put
measures into place to destroy Baldwin.’

‘
What? What can a man do
from his grave?’

‘
A Russian contacted this
solicitor, who then contacted us. The Russian said there is a bomb
aboard the yacht and he had instructions that the moment the yacht
left the harbour with Baldwin aboard, he had to detonate it. In
return there is an account in his name; activation of this account
depends on the story appearing in the papers of the explosion and
death of Baldwin. We have no address, no name, nothing. This could
happen any moment, Lorne…’

‘
Oh, Tony. What can we do, I
can’t bear it… And, why has he contacted? Was there a
reason?’

‘
We think it is because,
like in a terrorist threat, he is warning us to make sure the area
is clear of other traffic. We’ve contacted the coastguard. Look,
Lorne, you shouldn’t be there…’

‘
But, Baldwin pulls all the
strings. I had to be here, he demanded it.’

‘
I know. And, though it’s
like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, we’ve carried
out your request. The rest of your family and friends are safe.
And, we are doing everything in our power to save your dad. We are
scouring that area of London following his last known movements. We
know your dad left the hospital and went home. That was just before
you called him. A neighbour said he left home around half an hour
after he got there. He didn’t seem in any hurry. He got in his car
and drove off. She even knew the direction he took. We have checked
the local shops and it seems he stopped, bought a paper and some
chocolates and flowers and a women’s magazine. From that we can
deduce he intended to visit the hospital again. From there we have
him on a couple of CCTV’s heading that way. Then, we lose him. Now,
you took under an hour to get where you are, so the time lapse from
his known activity to his capture and you linking up with him can
only be twenty minutes at most. That places him within a 30-40
miles radius of his home. I have every resource working on tracking
him down, Lorne.’

‘
Thank you…’

She’d hardly uttered the words when a massive
explosion at sea rocked her world.

Chapter Sixty-Four.

She could hear a moan, but couldn't tell
where it had come from.

‘
Lorne…Christ, Lorne, don’t
break now, not now…’

She looked at Sean. His arms opened. This
time her resistance weakened and she collapsed against him. He
stroked her hair.

‘
Shush, shush,
baby…’

The words shocked her. No, she didn’t want
this! She wanted a friend. A hug from a friend that’s all! She
pulled away.

‘
I’m sorry…I…’

‘
It’s okay, Sean. I needed a
hug and you obliged, that’s all that happened. You’d be some kind
of shit if you hadn’t!’

He laughed and the tension lifted.

‘
What now?’

‘
Well, tell me what Tony
said first. The second hour deadline passed five minutes before the
explosion, so we can assume Baldwin phoned in. I think he meant to
keep that promise. So, that means we have just under an hour to
find your dad. What’s been done so far?’