More Than You Can Say (27 page)

I went into the box room and looked for Adeena’s bag. It was still there. I opened it. It was empty. I went into the bedroom. The clothes she had been wearing at breakfast had been thrown on a chair. I could see no sign of the burka, either in the wardrobe or anywhere else. A feeling of panic was rising in me. I opened my sock drawer and dug out the Sig Sauer once more and checked the clip. There were still seven rounds left. I stuck the pistol in the belt of my trousers. Then I went back to the kitchen and opened the door. The conference call was still going on but I ignored it. Nick and Bas rose from the chairs the moment I came in but I ignored them too. I went straight to the pile of post that lay on one of the worktops. As I leafed through it Bas took me by the arm.

‘It’s gone,’ I said.

‘Come on, sir,’ said Bas, trying to steer me out of the room, but Nick stopped him. He hit the mute button on the phone.

‘What’s gone?’

‘My invitation,’ I said stupidly.

‘Your invitation to what, exactly?’ I could see Nick was trying to keep his temper.

‘My invitation to the veteran soldiers’ reception to meet the president of Afghanistan: the reception at Lancaster House. It’s gone. Adeena must have taken it.’

Nick sat motionless as he took this in. Then he said: ‘Oh,
shit,’ and ran his hands over his face and through his hair so that it stood up in spikes. ‘Oh, God. You couldn’t have told us this sooner, could you? That’s the answer. That’s why she was here. She wanted access.’

He waved at me to sit down, then turned off the mute button to rejoin the conference call.

‘We lost you there for a moment, Nick,’ the minister said, ‘please repeat what you were saying?’

‘We have new information. We believe that there will be an attempt on the president at the Lancaster House reception. We have a female suspect who has a security pass issued in the name of Gaunt. Commander Verdon, have you got that?’

There was a chaotic noise on the other end of the line as everyone talked at the same time.

‘We’ll advise security at Lancaster House,’ Commander Verdon’s voice drowned out the others, ‘but your suspect may already have got in. We must abort the president’s visit there. I will contact the Foreign Office and ensure the reception is cancelled. The convoy will go straight from the Palace to Number Ten. Minister, I assume you will keep the prime minister’s office informed? Nick, can you give me a physical description of the woman we are looking for?’

Nick turned to me, the question in his eyes.

‘I think she’s wearing a burka,’ I told him, ‘but she looks European. She may have put on a veil as well.’

Nick looked at me in horror.

‘There’s no time to get a photograph circulated. Can’t you do better than that?’

‘I’d be able to recognise her whatever she was wearing,’ I said.

‘Nick, who is the new voice on the line?’ asked Commander
Verdon. Nick turned back to the phone and explained.

The commander spoke again: ‘Give me your address, and I will send a car immediately to collect Mr Gaunt. We need him to go to Lancaster House to identify the target, if she is still there. Nick, it would be best if you could return to your office and then rejoin this call from a secure line. We have a possible terrorist event in progress.’

‘If this is an AQ event then there will almost certainly be more than one incident,’ said Nick. ‘Their signature is multiple attacks.’

‘I agree,’ said Commander Verdon. ‘I am raising the threat level from ‘‘Severe’’ to ‘‘Critical’’. I repeat: the threat level is ‘‘Critical’’.’

The minister spoke. ‘I’m leaving this call now and handing over to the Gold Commander. He is in charge. Call in with any developments, especially you, Nick. This is your department’s responsibility.’

I saw Nick mouth an obscenity at the mobile.

‘And remember,’ the minister continued. ‘We don’t want a repeat of July 2005. We don’t want to shoot another innocent passer-by. Dead civilians do not make good headlines. Any mistakes and the officers responsible will be held fully accountable. That’s you, Commander Verdon; and you too, Nick.’

The call ended. Nick stood up.

‘There you are. That’s how to say ‘‘You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t.’’ I’m going back to the office. Bas, you stay here with Mr Gaunt until CO15 pick him up. Richard, if you remember any other details that might have slipped your mind, perhaps you’d be kind enough to let us know.’

He was halfway through the door when I said: ‘There was something in the bag.’

Nick turned so suddenly he almost fell over.

‘What bag?’

‘She came back from Oxford with a canvas bag. It was heavy. She told me it contained her personal belongings.’

‘Did you look inside it?’ asked Bas.

‘I did just now. It’s empty.’

‘Get down there to Lancaster House,’ said Nick furiously. ‘Find her. Stop her. Do something. Wake up to what’s been going on under your nose.’

Adeena was an associate of terrorists and was probably a terrorist herself. Deep down, I’d known it all along – I just hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself. I’d been taken in by her beauty; by the air of desolation that surrounded her. I felt sorry for her. I wanted her. And last night she had made quite sure that all I was thinking about was being in bed with her.

But for me, it had been much more than that: it was fuelled by my own longing to fill the hole in my life that had been there for the last two years since Emma left. I had to accept Adeena had used me. It was no use hating her for deceiving me: the only deception had been the one I’d practised on myself.

‘Are you all right, Mr Gaunt?’ asked Bas. He was staring at me. I looked down at my hands and saw they were both balled up into fists, my knuckles white.

‘I’m all right,’ I said, without looking at him.

‘The coppers should show up any minute.’

Adeena. Nadine. She wasn’t called Nadine, I told myself.

That name was taken away from her when they blew up her
father and mother in a camp in southern Afghanistan. Now she was Adeena Haq. No: she was Adeena Gaunt. And she wanted to make us pay for what had been done to her family. The truth was I didn’t know her and I had never known her. I remembered her talking about the war in Afghanistan with a passion that was different to her normal calm. Normal? I’d known her only for two weeks.

The doorbell rang.

Bas said, ‘I’ll answer that, if you don’t mind.’

He went to the door and opened it cautiously, then widened it to admit two very large men in jeans and fleeces. They had to duck their heads as they came in. I was over six foot tall and I didn’t need to do that, but these two men made the room seem very small indeed. There was a little courtship ritual while Bas and the men showed each other their warrant cards, then the older of the two looked at me.

‘You’re Gaunt?’

‘I’m Richard Gaunt.’

‘We’re from Counter Terrorism Command. You can call me Arthur.’ He jerked a thumb at the other man. ‘And you can call him Martha. Let’s get going.’

‘Good luck, Mr Gaunt,’ said Bas. I muttered something in reply and followed the two men down into the street and over to their car.

As we screeched off down Camden High Street, Arthur turned on a radio and picked up a mike from its cradle.

‘C5 reporting in to Control. We have the guy who can make the eyeball in the car and we’re on our way. There in twenty. Standing by for instructions.’

There was a burst of static and a garbled voice said something entirely unintelligible.

Arthur looked at Martha. ‘These new radios are no better than the last ones. Can’t hear a word.’

The car took a corner at unnerving speed. Ahead of us was heavy traffic. I heard the siren start up and the cars in front of us pulled over to the side of the road to let us past. I checked my watch: it was 3.20. Adeena might already be through security at Lancaster House. We hadn’t been asked to bring any identification, just the invitation itself. She would be admitted, along with all the other wives. The burka would even help her. Security would be terrified of doing or saying anything that could be construed as politically incorrect. Adeena would be waiting for the arrival of the guest of honour. What would she do when the news got out that he wasn’t coming? My job was to get to her first, make sure she was safe and that she didn’t get shot by Arthur, Martha or anyone else.

The next thing would be to find out where Aseeb was, and deal with him. Adeena would know. She must know. He must have picked her up outside my flat and taken her as close as he could get to Lancaster House. The car ground to a halt. Ahead of us the traffic was absolutely solid. Horns were sounding and there was the noise of an ambulance in the distance.

‘Christ,’ said Arthur to Martha. ‘Try and find a way round this, will you?’

Martha reversed, causing the driver of the car behind to lean on his horn. Then he did a U-turn in front of an approaching taxi, bumped on to the pavement and shot the wrong way down a one-way street, weaving between the oncoming cars. Luckily we didn’t hit anyone. We turned south again. The traffic was only slightly less solid than
before, but with lights flashing and siren going, we were able to make some progress. Arthur tried the radio again.

‘Control,’ he called over the mike. ‘When we make the eyeball, what are our instructions?’

‘… ake … op …’

‘Did he tell us to make the stop?’ Arthur asked Martha.

‘I can’t bloody well drive in this mess and listen to the radio,’ complained the driver. ‘You tell me.’

Arthur tried again, but the words were no clearer.

‘What’s ‘‘make the stop’’ mean?’ I asked.

‘You don’t want to know,’ said Arthur, briefly. As soon as he said that, I knew exactly what it meant. Every unit has its own slang and this was theirs. They were asking about instructions to kill Adeena on sight.

Arthur started fiddling with the radio to find a better frequency.

A voice said: ‘Pick up in ten minutes at number forty-three, Nelson Crescent, to go to King’s Cross. Anyone?’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Arthur swore. ‘I thought this was supposed to be a secure radio network.’

‘These minicab outfits don’t care,’ said Martha. We were now weaving through thick traffic down Upper Regent Street. ‘It’s always the same when they shut down the Mall,’ he continued. ‘The whole of London grinds to a halt. What time are we due there?’

‘Five minutes ago,’ said Arthur. ‘Get a move on.’

‘You should tell Control to look out for a black Range Rover,’ I said suddenly. Multiple attacks, Nick had said.

Martha muttered something and then did a hair-raising crossing of Oxford Street between two buses that were coming at us from opposite directions. Arthur picked up the
mike and started trying to talk to Control, to pass on my message.

‘Use a mobile,’ I suggested. ‘We did.’

‘We’re not supposed to once we’ve gone operational,’ said Arthur. ‘They’re not secure. But that’s exactly what I’ll have to do if I can’t get this heap of shit to work any better.’

We swerved down Regent Street towards Piccadilly. Arthur gave up on the radio and used his mobile. He got a connection at once, and tried to pass on my message. Someone at the other end was obviously more interested in telling Arthur what to do than in listening to him.

I heard him say: ‘I can’t make out what you’re saying. There’s a lot of noise in the background. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I understand. If you say so, sir.’

He hung up and turned to Martha.

‘They think there’s going to be an attack on the motor convoy. We’re stood down until the situation is clearer. We have to proceed to Lancaster House, make the eyeball, and then await further instructions. Can you believe it?’

It was now ten to four. For a frustrating ten minutes we fought our way through thick, almost static traffic around the streets of St James’s until we managed to turn into Pall Mall. Just after four o’clock we, and everyone else in that part of London, heard a huge explosion. I thought I felt a faint shudder travel through the car ahead of the bang. I saw car brake lights come on everywhere along Pall Mall. Pedestrians flinched, or ducked, or put their hands over their heads as they tried to work out what was happening.

Later we learned that a moment or two after four o’clock, a black Range Rover packed with explosives and driven by Amir had gone through the police barriers at Admiralty Arch.
On the roof of the vehicle was an emergency flashing light, which Aseeb had bought on the Internet using a credit card in the name of Khan. The lights had caused just enough confusion for the vehicle to be able to force its way through the police cordon and make a headlong run at the approaching motor convoy.

‘That was a big bang,’ said Arthur.

‘Not from the direction of Lancaster House, though,’ said Martha.

They were right, as it turned out. The point of impact between the Range Rover and the convoy was just opposite the Duke of York Steps. The first car in the convoy, an escort vehicle containing three police officers, pulled sideways in front of the car carrying the president to block the approaching Range Rover, which detonated just before it hit the police car, obliterating the occupants. Not a trace of the three police officers remained, nor of Amir, and not much was left of either vehicle.

Fragments of metal were strewn across the Mall, beheading one bystander and wounding several others. The visit of the president of Afghanistan was not a big-ticket event, and the few people who had lined the pavements probably didn’t even know which country’s flag it was that was flying overhead, and had simply stopped to watch in case the convoy contained a member of the Royal Family. Two shards of metal went straight through the windscreen of the president’s car. A permanent under-secretary and the driver were killed instantly. The president and the foreign secretary, sitting in the rear seats, were miraculously unscathed although, deafened by the explosion, they could hear little or nothing of the prime minister’s sympathetic remarks when they finally arrived in Downing Street.

As our car raced into the courtyard outside Lancaster House I could see dozens of people coming down the steps. Police officers were trying to control the crowd until they had found out where the threat was. There were several wives in frocks and hats but I could not spot the person I was most anxious to see. I leapt out of the car before it had stopped moving.