‘I’m not. I’m just saying, let’s get real here and stop blubbering, which you seem to be doing an awful lot of recently.’ His eyes slid sideways for a quick glance at Anger. ‘The here and now is what’s important. There’s a killer on the loose and one way or another, we have to neutralize him, or the threat, either by catching the bastard or by putting him off by the massive police presence. I’m all for prevention, and at least everyone on duty in the town now has a recent picture of Akbar,’ FB concluded.
Henry wished his painkillers would just numb everything.
‘Why don’t you go home, pal?’ FB laid a gentle hand on Henry’s shoulder. ‘Maybe via a quiet A amp;E department? Everything round here’s being taken care of.’
‘I couldn’t,’ Henry admitted.
‘I know you couldn’t.’
He was thinking now, working things out. Everything had been screwed up by the morning’s events but yet somewhere, he knew, somewhere amongst this awful mess was the key to nailing Akbar and Rashid, maybe. He turned away from FB and Dave Anger and walked back to his car he’d had to park over a quarter of a mile away.
He had things to do. Such as track down Mansur Rashid.
He sat back in the leather upholstery in the most comfortable car he had ever owned. So what did it matter if there was no warranty with it? That the manufacturers had gone bust? It was a bloody good motor … if a little staid.
Reaching up, he tilted the rear-view mirror to an angle so he could look at himself.
‘Jeez,’ he grunted and shook his head, but not too severely because it made his face hurt, like there was something loose in it. He leaned back and thought ahead, not back. It was the immediate future that was important now.
Could he do anything?
Firstly, Condoleezza Rice.
For some reason she had been delayed in Merseyside, for her sins, but would only be stuck for another hour or so before she hit the road. Then she would be travelling in a very skilled, highly-trained convoy concocted of police motorcycle outriders, police cars and armed cops in high-powered vehicles. She herself would be in a vehicle that could probably withstand an RPG or a roadside bomb, so the chances of her being hit whilst in motion were slim.
If Akbar had not been put off by now — because he would no doubt know about the detention of his 2i/c, Ali — then the strike against Rice would probably take place at one of the venues she was visiting, either the school in the Pleckgate area, or at Ewood Park, the football ground.
Akbar, according to Karl Donaldson, had allegedly been heard to say that killing Rice would be his crowning glory and he would achieve this even if he lost his own life doing so.
Did that smack of a suicide bomb?
But from what little Henry knew of Akbar, this wasn’t his personal style of killing. He got others to do that — such as the impressionable youths he’d supposedly been working with in Accrington.
And he would see it as a personal victory if some poor, brainwashed kid managed to penetrate the security and blow up Rice and a hundred other innocent people. Akbar would take the glory in this life, whilst putting others en route to paradise to meet twenty-four virgins, or whatever the promise was in paradise.
Henry thought this could be a good option for Akbar. All the plaudits and none of the danger.
He started the car.
Akbar was an expert marksman, apparently. Maybe he intended to stake out the venues from a vantage point and take out Rice like the Jackal. One deadly shot through the head from a high-powered rifle, then filter away back to the east, again able to bask in living glory — and no doubt be presented with twenty-four real virgins.
But that option, Henry thought, was pretty unlikely. The venues would already be staked out with police rifle officers and any obvious vantage points for a sniper would be neutralized.
Another option was the stand-alone bomb, placed maybe weeks ago at one of the venues with either remote or timed detonation.
Henry thought this unlikely, too. The itinerary of the visit had been kept pretty tight — Henry hoped — and even at this late stage was being chopped and changed and rescheduled, the delay in Liverpool being an example of that. So an already hidden device would be too hit and miss. Plus Henry knew that the venues had been searched and secured by police search teams and he knew they were ultra-professional and no stone would have been unturned during that phase of the operation.
So did it all come back to a suicide bomb?
And if so, how could it be legislated for completely?
It couldn’t.
The bombs were getting sleeker, slimmer and less easy to spot. They weren’t as bulky as they used to be and didn’t have to be hidden under heavy coats any more, or even in rucksacks. Any sort of zip-up jacket would conceal a bomb big enough to blow the visitor to smithereens on her walkabouts.
Henry thumped the steering wheel.
Then there was Mansur Rashid. Something told Henry that the investigation into Eddie Daley’s and Sabera Rashid’s murders would not reach a satisfactory conclusion. If Rashid was ever caught, it was unlikely that Henry would ever get within spitting distance of him now. He’d probably end up in chains in Guantanamo Bay.
Which skipped his thoughts on to Karl Donaldson.
A bridge had been crossed in their relationship, then destroyed by fire. Henry could now only look back across a vast chasm and wish things were different. He hoped Donaldson’s consuming quest wouldn’t be the end of him.
He swallowed, feeling ill, wondering whether he would best be served by finding a darkened room and curling up into a foetal ball and sucking his thumb.
Henry’s radio rang out like a mobile phone. It was Bill Robbins calling him.
‘Any further instructions, boss?’
‘How’re you doing, firstly?’
‘I’ll survive, bit of a rough morning, though. Carly’s as sick as a dog. Doesn’t have the stomach for the gruesome. Not that I do, really.’
‘I think I’ve had my fill of it, too,’ Henry divulged. ‘Are you going to get some counselling?’
Bill laughed. ‘I don’t do navel gazing. Get back doing it, that’s my motto, and the best cure, if you ask me.’
The words struck Henry as good sense. ‘You know, I think you’re right there, pal … how’s about meeting at Blackburn nick in ten minutes? You can take me out on patrol.’
He didn’t add that something at the back of his mind was bugging him, something within his sphere of knowledge that had some crucial bearing on the events of the day. If only he could unearth it from all the other dross that was swirling around.
Sitting high in the front passenger seat of the ARV Ford Galaxy, Bill in the driving seat, gave Henry a good view over most other traffic.
‘What’s the plan, Henry?’
‘Let’s go and have a ride round to the venues.’
‘OK — and as I drive, you can tell me what’s going on.’
‘I’ll tell you as much as I know,’ Henry agreed.
Henry’s radio was now tuned into the frequency being used by the officers involved in the Rice visit. The dedicated comms operator broadcast to them that ‘the package’, as the American Secretary of State was referred to over the air, was about to set off from Merseyside. She was well behind schedule, but in less than an hour she would be setting foot on Lancashire soil. Henry hoped this would not be the last county she would ever visit.
Henry’s thoughts turned to Fazul Ali and whether he was holding up against the sophisticated interview techniques of Karl Donaldson. In some respects, Henry hoped he would spill the beans, not least for his own well-being; in others he hoped Ali would not break, in spite of the possible consequences. It would be a minor victory to show that torturing people did not necessarily work, war or no war.
Bill drove around Blackburn, firstly past the school on Pleckgate Road which Rice would be visiting, then across town to Ewood Park. Both places were crawling with cops: cops on foot and cops with dogs, cops on horses and cops with guns. It was always going to be a massively expensive operation and now, because every other cop in the world had been drafted in, would probably double in price.