182
It’s been a long drive. The drive of his life. But he’s made it.
Larry Petty, a man previously known as Chris Wilkins and originally christened Charles James Wood, slides the rental car down the tight driveway of the house and squeezes on the brake. The dash tells him the outside temperature just hit 106 degrees, so he leaves the air-con running, unbuckles the safety belt and sighs with relief as it zips back over his shoulder.
For a moment, he just wants to sit and enjoy the fact that he’s stopped running. That he’s alive. Safe and free. It’s taken him more than twenty-four hours, two stolen cars, a bus and train ride, plus the use of his one remaining false ID to get here.
Quite a feat.
There were moments when he wondered if he’d make it. Times when he realized that Tess hadn’t. He’d pulled to the side of the road and sobbed himself in half. Convinced himself that she’d been arrested. Nothing worse. That she was sat somewhere laughing at the cops and saying jack shit to them. But then he’d heard her death on the news and his world had fallen apart.
The whole journey has been spent with one eye on the road and the other in the mirror looking for cops. He’d gambled they’d focus on airports and freeways and he’d been right.
From Stockton he’d taken the long and winding back roads until he hit Fresno. Out there, he’d stolen a Chevy parked in a car-share pool and worked minor roads to Bakersfield, where he picked up a bus to Flagstaff. He found his way to a train station and bought a ticket to Mexico.
Now he’s about to grab a shower, heat up a pizza bought at a gas station and crash out in the two-bed row house he’s rented down by the Sonora River.
He turns off the engine and steps out into the baking heat. The neighbourhood looks upmarket and smart. Brightly painted houses are stacked next to squares of burned grass and the odd slab of tarmac to park on. Nothing special, but it’s neat. There’s no trash. No graffiti. No gangs out on the streets. It’s the kind of place he can blend in for a day or two.
When he’s rock-bottom sure all the heat has died down, he’ll catch a plane out of Garcia International and start over. Life goes on.
183
The doctors tell Mitzi that Amber is going to live.
They also tell her it’s too soon to define what quality of life she’ll have.
The bullets have ripped tissue, caused trauma and chipped bones. Recovery will be slow. Long. Painful.
The consultant, a big man with white hair and kind eyes, says, ‘She’s still unconscious, Mrs Fallon, but her vital signs are good and I expect her to come round any time soon.’
Mitzi pushes for good news as he takes her to the recovery room where Amber’s resting. ‘She’s going to walk again, right?’
He smiles. ‘We’re really hoping so. Right now, we just need her to regain consciousness and start talking to us. Then we can run tests.’
They turn a corner and in the corridor Mitzi sees a hard chair staked outside a room. There’s a familiar figure crumpled uncomfortably on it.
Eleonora Fracci looks up, bleary-eyed.
‘How long have you been there?’ Mitzi asks.
‘All the time. I stay until you arrive.’
The Italian stands up and straightens herself out.
‘You really look like shit,’ says Mitzi, then opens her arms to her.
They both hold tight and try to squeeze the pain away.
When they break, Mitzi takes the Italian’s hands in hers. ‘Thank you for being here, for looking out for my daughter.’
Eleonora nods. ‘I wish I could have done more.’
She nods to the door. ‘I’m gonna go in and sit a while.’
‘Then I take a shower, so I look less like shit when you come out.’
Mitzi smiles and enters the darkened room. The first thing she notices is the beep of the machines. That and the fact that Amber’s dressed in pink flowery PJs. She’d go crazy if she saw herself.
Mitzi slides into the seat by the bed and goes to take her hand. She sees the bandage around the severed finger and almost cries. Her head fills with the screams she heard down the phone. Amber’s words — ‘They’ve c — ut me — Mommy!’
Mitzi lifts the hand and gently kisses it. ‘It’s gonna be okay, baby. Your mom’s here now and everything’s gonna be okay.’
184
Sir Owain Gwyn’s grapheme under-armour soaked up most of the blast.
But not all of it.
Not enough of it.
The C4 concealed in the candle was remotely detonated just as he lifted it from the right hand of the Welsh national shrine. Because the ex-Guardsman was so large, he absorbed enough of the force to save the pontiff and all surrounding clergy.
But not himself.
The blast took off the front of his face and the top of his head. If he’d been a few seconds earlier — if he’d managed to pull the candle tighter to his body, then maybe he’d have survived.
Lance Beaucoup guides Lady Gwyn down the aisle of the Church of Our Lady of the Taper. Once her husband’s remains had been taken back to the private family chapel at Caergwyn Castle, she insisted on being taken to the spot where he spent his last moments. Throughout the journey she’d replayed the message he’d left on her phone: ‘I love you, Jenny. Love you more than you’ll ever know.’
Somehow, the world’s press has learned of her visit. Local police have shut off the streets in an attempt to give the widow of one of Britain’s most distinguished knights a little privacy.
And, of course, Beaucoup has deployed enough SSOA men to make doubly sure the area is safe.
Laid outside the church are hundreds of bouquets, all carrying messages of condolence, praise and respect. Among them, wreaths from the Pope, the British prime minister and the American president.
As Lance and Jennifer enter the nave, they notice the back pews are still covered in masonry dust. The normally vibrant church light is muted because so many windows have been blown out and boarded up. The front pews have been removed and stacked at one side.
To the front of the chapel, there are heaps of rubble, wood and glass in different piles and Beaucoup’s expert eyes detect where the bomb squad have been, where they have inspected and where they still intend to carry out further examinations.
The deputy chief constable and two senior officers are only yards away in case they can be of assistance. But Jennifer doesn’t need them to point out where her husband had died.
Her heart guides her to the fatal spot.
She takes her arm out of Beaucoup’s and looks into the eyes of the man her husband chose as her lover, the man destined to look after her when this terrible moment arrived. ‘Could you ask everyone to leave? Just for a minute. I’d like to be alone with my thoughts of him.’
185
The quiet backstreet in Greenwich Village is filled with overhanging trees and birdsong. Gareth Madoc checks for a tail as he zaps the central locking on his Range Rover and crosses the road.
He walks a full block and a half to the safe house where Zachra and her mother Nasrin have been since Khalid Korshidi was lifted by the NIA. He speed-dials a number on his encrypted cell.
SSOA agent Dana Levine answers. ‘All clear for you to come up, sir.’
Madoc lets his eyes drift to the upstairs window of the dainty row house and sees a curtain cracked and Levine looking down on him. He climbs six stone steps to the big door and presses the buzzer.