It had taken Carver just a few seconds to collate, analyse and process all this data: considering all the various possibilities, rejecting some, accepting others on an essentially subconscious level. Meanwhile another part of his mind was watching the waiter push and squeeze his way through the crammed guests towards the staff exit. And then the word ‘Zorn’ flashed into his brain like a neon sign.
No, that was impossible. Zorn was a wanted criminal. He was certainly smart enough to have worked out for himself that there would be an unofficial death sentence on his head. It would be an act of utter foolhardiness to walk into a room filled with armed men employed by the government he had publicly humiliated, and with the wealthy, powerful men he’d secretly ripped off. Either that or the act of a supremely confident, even arrogant man, convinced of his own superiority over the common herd, and addicted to the challenge of pitting himself against apparently overwhelming odds and winning.
The waiter had not looked like Zorn, but the differences were superficiaclass="underline" long dark hair instead of short and blond; a heavy moustache where Zorn was clean-shaven; heavy-rimmed glasses for a man with twenty-twenty vision. The height and built, though, were entirely consistent.
There was no guarantee whatever that the waiter really was Malachi Zorn. He could turn out to be completely legitimate. This could all be an example of Carver’s excessive paranoia. But Carver’s willingness to see potential danger in even the most innocent circumstances had helped keep him alive all these years.
Before he had even finished thinking the problem through he was already on the move, easing his way past dark-suited men and brightly dressed women, murmuring brusque apologies as he went, following the waiter like a hunter tracking his prey.
89
The Goldsmiths’ hall occupies an entire block of the City of London. Its main entrance is on Foster Lane, and the rear facade, on which can be found the Assay Office, which officially tests and grades the purity of precious metals, backs on to Gutter Lane. Malachi Zorn, however, left the building by a side entrance, which opened on to Gresham Street. He turned right and walked across Gutter Lane and then turned right again into the entrance to the Wax Chandlers’ Hall. This, too, occupies a small block of its own. And its eastern facade runs along Gutter Lane, directly parallel to the rear elevation of the Goldsmiths’ Hall.
Armed spotters from the Anti-Terrorist Squad watched him all the way, noting that his appearance matched that of one of the catering staff assigned to the Zorn Global launch: a Pole by the name of Jerzy Kowalski. They saw him approach the private security guards manning the front door of the Wax Chandlers’ Hall and be granted admission.
‘Typical fucking Pole,’ grumbled one of the spotters. ‘Got a second job tonight.’
‘Good luck to him,’ the man on the other end of the radio link replied. ‘Our kids are too lazy to get off their arses. Not the Poles’ fault if they’re prepared to graft.’
‘Better call it in, anyway.’
They alerted the command centre, but it was purely a formality. The man was leaving the reception. If he’d left anything nasty behind him he wouldn’t have popped next door. He’d have got as far away as possible as fast as he could manage.
Carver couldn’t believe it. One minute he’d been following the waiter across the hall, the next he’d run straight into an impenetrable scrum of people that seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. A legendary supermodel was deep in conversation with the multi-billionaire owner of a Premiership-winning football club, and even in this exalted company their overwhelming combination of celebrity, sex appeal and stupendous wealth was enough to draw a crowd. Carver couldn’t get through the mob, so he’d had to go around it, and by the time he’d done that the waiter had disappeared. He might have stayed in the main body of the hall, but if he had it would be almost impossible to find him. So Carver took a chance and went through the staff exit into the barely controlled chaos required to provide five hundred guests with a constant supply of drinks and canapes. He tried to look through the hubbub for the bespectacled, moustachioed waiter. But the man he was hunting had gone.
A ripple of anticipation spread across the hall. One of Drinkwater’s minders had stepped behind the wheelchair, and was now pushing it across the room towards a stage that had been erected at one end, just in front of the treasure display, while his colleagues marched ahead, clearing the way. The MC for the evening was a famous newsreader. He was picking up a twenty-thousand-pound fee for making a two-minute introduction written for him, he thought, by Zorn’s PR team. In fact it had been composed by the Prime Minister’s speechwriters, and then vetted in painstaking detail by the Attorney General. It was vital that the newsreader’s bland platitudes and insipid jokes contained nothing that might in any way create a legal liability for the government, as and when its deception was revealed. Now the newsreader made his way to the front of the stage, his progress broadcast to the guests by two large screens on either side of the room. He glanced at the autocue to his right, and gave a quick, throat-clearing cough to confirm that his mic was working. Beside him there was a small podium, approached via a ramp and equipped with another mic on a low stand. This was where the man he believed was Malachi Zorn would make his speech.
On the floor of the hall, Ginger looked over the heads of all the shorter, lesser mortals to check the progress of the wheelchair and its entourage. Drinkwater would reach the stage in around a minute, she reckoned. It would then take another minute or so for him to be correctly positioned, and for the mic to be adjusted so that he could speak into it with ease. Ginger allowed another two minutes and thirty seconds for the newsreader’s introduction, and the applause that would certainly follow. All in all, Drinkwater would begin his speech in approximately five minutes.
She took her phone out of her evening bag and sent a three-word text. It read: ‘Go in five.’
She waited for the one-word reply: ‘Roger.’
And then she turned on her heels and made for the exit.
90
Damn the London traffic! Damn the security controls everywhere! Alix was stressed enough as it was, her emotions torn between her longing to see Carver and anxiety about what might happen if she came face-to-face with Azarov at the reception. She could only hope that the presence of so many other people would force him to control his temper. Just to make matters worse, she was running way late. And then she was literally running, heading down the road in her high heels as she gave up on the logjammed traffic, paid off her taxi-driver, and made a dash for it, praying that her high heels would not give way under her or catch in the gap between two paving stones. Suddenly the lightweight summer jacket and nylon stockings she’d put on in recognition of the chilly weather seemed horribly superfluous, doing nothing but make her hotter and sweatier, and adding to her feeling of physical discomfort and emotional fluster as she arrived — breathless, her chest heaving — at the entrance to Goldsmiths’ Hall. Her invitation was checked, her name ticked off a list, and her body and bag were both scanned before she was allowed into the entrance hall. A uniformed doorman was waiting for her at the foot of the main staircase.