Fazal’s first contortion as a red hole appeared in his chest, the Uzi beginning to droop in his hand.
Al-Saddi’s head dress jerking up, as it filled with the bone and brain tissue blown out by the bullet.
And, surely in the same moment, a flash in the darkness of the doorway.
‘Stop.’ This time the order was more controlled. ‘Back one frame, and freeze.’
The picture wound back, like a reversing snail.
‘Yes!’
There it was.
A light in the darkness and a puff of smoke. And behind it, framed for that millisecond in time by the tiny flare of the gunshot, alone in the entrance hall, was a black shape: a tall, slim, short-haired, perfectly balanced silhouette.
‘Maitland!’
97
The name escaped from Skinner’s lips in a whisper.
He sat and stared, as frozen as the image on the screen, his gaze unmoving and unblinking. Even as a shadow picture, the grace of the man was unique. The perfect killing machine.
Michael Licorish, a decisive man by nature, did not know what to do. He gazed at Skinner as he sat there wide-eyed and suddenly white-faced. For a moment, the poetic thought came to him that the Assistant Chief Constable looked like a man who had seen something so horrible that it had turned him to stone.
Skinner stayed motionless until Licorish, his resolve regained, began to move round from behind the monitor. And then Skinner’s right hand shot up, palm outward, in a sudden clear command to halt. For one of the few times in his life Licorish was suddenly, and irrationally, afraid.
Skinner reached forward with his left hand and switched off the monitor. Then he stood up and looked at Ray, the cameraman. ‘I must have that tape.’
Something in his voice forbade argument. Without a word, Ray removed the Betacam cartridge and handed it over.
‘Yours too,’ said Skinner to the second cameraman. The second cassette was also handed over. The two men looked to Licorish, testing his willingness to intercede for them. But they found no response.
‘You will square it with our bosses, won’t you,’ said Ray. ‘And we’ll get them back sometime?’
Skinner looked him straight in the eye. ‘Forget that these ever existed. You’ve already sent film out of here tonight. And if your editors ask if you have film of the assassination, then blame Michael here. Tell them he wouldn’t let you move to follow the procession, so you didn’t have a view. But, from this moment, forget these tapes.’
The two men stared at Skinner, reading his deadly serious expression, and they nodded.
At that moment they were joined by their reporters. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked one, a tiny blonde girl.
‘Nothing at all,’ replied Ray.
‘Bob!’ Sarah’s voice carried to him across the Hall. Skinner turned and they moved towards each other. When they met, she clasped him tight.
‘Thank God you’re okay. All they would tell me was that there’d been shooting, and to get here fast. And when they call me, that usually means a body. I was scared to death. You’re all right, aren’t you?’
He smiled and hugged her close. ‘Yes, love, I’m still in one piece. But there are four people lying around here who ain’t, and who won’t be ever again. So you’d better take a look at them. The man we were hunting was the one over in the doorway.’
‘I’ll get to it. But where’s Andy?’ The anxiety was still in her voice.
‘He’s at the Royal.’ She started in alarm. ‘No, he’s all right, but Mario McGuire’s been shot. Andy’s gone with him — and with two other casualties.’
‘Are they bad?’
‘The other two are superficial, but Mario was hit twice. They think he’ll make it, though. Now, love, I must go. Did you see Brian Mackie on your way in?’
‘Yes, near the entrance. There was another man with him looking terrified.’
Skinner smiled again, grimly. ‘Good. Off you go and look at those four poor bastards.’
‘Which is the President? Oh, he’d be the one in uniform. And who’s the young man?’
‘David McKnight, the footballer. He was hit first. The other two are our hits.’
As he said the words, he shuddered. He was talking about death with the woman he loved, and about a man he had just killed. He was talking about the part of the job which put his life in danger. The shudder turned into trembling.
Sarah read the signs. ‘Bob, sit down.’ He obeyed. ‘Did you kill one of those men?’
He nodded.
‘This isn’t exactly the South Bronx. Have you ever shot anyone before.’ This time he shook his head.
‘How do you feel about it? Think, and tell me. Say it out loud. Admit it to me. Don’t keep it inside.’
Skinner sat in silent thought for several seconds. Then he looked up, and into her face. ‘I feel a lot of things at the moment. I’m glad that when it finally came down to it, I was able to react in the right way, and that my men and I were brave enough, and well enough trained, to stand up there, and do what we had to do.
‘I’ve killed a man. But he had a gun, and he was going to use it, so he killed himself in a way. What worries me is that I’m looking into myself for remorse, but as yet I don’t see any. What sort of a man are you marry-. ing, eh, Doctor?
‘Where I do feel remorse, it’s because I’ve failed. It was my job to keep that Syrian brute alive, and now he’s dead. The world might be a better place for it, but right now, that’s immaterial as far as I’m concerned. He was in my hands and I lost him.
‘How the Christ did my people let a man with a fucking Uzi just walk in through the front door? That was the only way in. Everything else is sealed.’
By now, Skinner was speaking to the night, but Sarah answered him.
‘Maybe your people were helping the girl.’
‘What girl?’
‘One of the men — the one over there with the silver on his hat — was telling me that it’d been a hell of a night. “First some girl is attacked and cut up by a maniac, right outside, then all this happens.” That’s what he said.’
‘The ba ... astard.’ The word hissed through Skinner’s teeth, its first syllable dragged out. Abruptly he stood up. All the shock and self-recrimination had gone, and fury came back to the surface. Sarah, better than anyone, could sense it.
‘What is it, Bob? You think that your Arab over there attacked the girl just to draw the police away from the door?’
‘Don’t ask me any questions, love. Not now. I have to keep this to myself.’
She was suddenly afraid. ‘Be careful, my darling.’
He kissed her softly and left the Hall.
He found Mackie and Allingham standing near the entrance. Sarah had been right: the man looked frightened.
‘I’ve done what you asked, Mr Skinner. By now the MOD will have put all forces in the Mid-East on the alert. Next, the Foreign Office will inform the Syrians. It’s always difficult to predict how these people will react.
‘Now I’d like to get away from this place!’
‘Shut up. You’re going nowhere till I say so.’
He turned towards Mackie, and gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘Brian, tell me how friend Fuzzy got in here with a fucking Uzi. What’s this story about a girl?’
‘That’s how, sir. A girl was attacked just along the road there. She’s been taken to hospital, slashed on the face and body. Superficial though. She was walking home when she was grabbed from behind and pulled into a dark corner. The guy pulled a knife, but she said she got loose, and he cut her. She started screaming, and all the uniforms just ran over at the same time, even the sergeant in charge. You can’t blame them really.’
‘Who can’t! Where’s that sergeant? Brian, this was a fucking kid-on. Someone gets the soldiers sidetracked on their way here, then pulls this stunt so that the front door leading right in to Al-Saddi himself is left lying wide open. This is our man from the Royal Mile. Exactly his style. This guy kills and maims without a second thought, but there’s always a purpose.’