This is all trifling stuff, of course, and, until now, Ricky could have batted it back without any trouble.
But the other part of the problem - the bigger part, frankly, right at this moment - is that Benjamin was fooling around with the telephone exchange during my conversation with Barnes.
Forty-one minutes.
‘So what’s it to be, Benj?’ I say.
He presses his cheek harder against the stock, and I think I can see his finger turning white on the trigger.
‘You going to shoot me?’ I say. ‘Now? Going to pull that trigger?’
He licks his lips. He knows what I’m thinking.
He twitches slightly, then pulls his face away from the Steyr, keeping his huge eyes on me.
‘ Latifa,’ he calls over his shoulder. Loud. But not loud enough. He seems to be having trouble with his voice.
‘They hear gunshots, Benj,’ I say, ‘they’re going to think you’ve killed a hostage. They’re going to storm the building. Kill us all.’
The word ‘kill’ hits him, and for an instant I think he might fire.
‘ Latifa,’ he says again. Louder this time, and that has to be it. I can’t let him shout a third time. I start to move, very slowly, towards him. My left hand is as loose as a hand can be.
‘For a lot of guys out there, Benj,’ I say, moving, ‘a gunshot is just what they want to hear right now. You going to give them that?’
He licks his lips again. Once. Twice. Turns his head towards the stairs.
I grab the barrel with my left hand, and push it back into his shoulder. No choice. If I pull the weapon away from him, the trigger’s depressed, and so am I. So I push it back and to the side, and as his face comes further away from the stock I drive the heel of my right hand up under Benjamin’s nose.
He drops like a stone - faster than a stone, as if some massive force is pushing him down to the floor - and for a moment I think I may have killed him. But then his head starts to move from side to side, and I can see the blood bubbling away from his lips.
I ease the Steyr out of his hands and flick down the safety catch, just as Latifa shouts up from the stairwell.
‘Yeah?’
I can hear her feet on the stairs now. Not fast, but not slow. I look down at Benjamin.
That’s democracy, Benj. One man against many.
Latifarounds the corner of the lower flight, the Uzi still slung at her shoulder.
‘Jesus,’ she says, when she sees the blood. ‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. I’m not looking at her. I’m bending over Benjamin, peering anxiously into his face. ‘Guess he fell.’ Latifa brushes past me and squats at Benjamin’s side, and as she does so, I glance at my watch.
Thirty-nine minutes.
Latifaturns and looks up at me.
‘I’ll do this,’ she says. ‘Take the lobby, Rick.’ So I do.
I take the lobby, and the front entrance, and the steps, and the hundred and sixty-seven yards from the steps to the police cordon.
My head feels hot by the time I get there, because I have my hands clasped on top of it.
Not surprisingly, they frisked me like they were taking a frisking exam. To get into the Royal College of Frisking. Five times, head to toe, mouth, ears, crotch, soles of shoes. They tore most of my clothes from my body, and left me looking like an opened Christmas present.
It took them sixteen minutes.
They left me for another five, leaning against the side of a police van, arms and legs spread, while they shouted and pushed past each other. I stared at the ground. Sarah is waiting for me.
Christ, she’d better be.
Another minute went by, more shouting, more pushing, and I started to look around, thinking that if something didn’t happen soon, I’d have to make it happen. Bloody Benjamin. My shoulders started to ache from the weight of my leaning. ‘Good job, Thomas,’ said a voice.
I looked to my left, under my arm, and saw a pair of scuffed Red Wing boots. One flat on the ground, the other cocked at a right angle, with the toe buried in the dust. I slowly tilted up to find the rest of Russell Barnes.
He was leaning against the door of the van, smiling, holding out his packet of Marlboro to me. He wore a leather flight jacket, with the name Connor stitched over his left breast. Who the fuck was Connor?
The friskers had fallen back a little, but only a little, out of an apparent respect for Barnes. Plenty of them kept on watching me, thinking maybe they’d missed a bit.
I shook my head at the cigarettes. ‘Let me see her,’ I said.
Because she’s waiting for me.
Barnes watched me for a moment, then smiled again. He was feeling good, and relaxed, and loose. Game over, for him. He looked to his left.
‘Sure,’ he said.
He bounced himself casually away from the van, making the metal skin of the door pop, and gestured for me to follow him. The sea of tight shirts and wrap-around sunglasses parted as we walked slowly across towards the blueToyota. To our right, behind a steel barrier, stood the television crews, their cables coiled about their feet and their blue-white lights puncturing the remains of the night. Some of the cameras trained on me as I walked, but most of them stuck to the building.
CNN seemed to have the best position.
Murdahgot out of the car first, while Sarah just sat and waited, staring ahead through the windscreen, her hands clasped between her thighs. We had got to within a couple of yards before she turned to look at me, and tried to smile.
I’m waiting for you, Thomas.
‘Mr Lang,’ said Murdah, coming round the back of the car, stepping between me and Sarah. He was wearing a dark-grey overcoat, and a white shirt with no tie. The sheen of his forehead seemed a little duller than I remembered, and there were a few hours’ worth of stubble around his jaw, but otherwise he looked well.
And why wouldn’t he?
He stared into my face for a second or two, then gave a brief, satisfied nod. As if I’d done nothing more than mow his lawn to a reasonable standard.
‘Good,’ he said eventually.
I stared back at him. A blank stare, because I didn’t really want to give him anything right now.
‘What’s good?’ I said.
But Murdah was looking over my shoulder, signalling something, and I felt movement behind me.
‘See you around, Tom,’ said Barnes.
I turned and saw that he had started to move away, walking slowly backwards in a casual, loose-limbed, gonna -miss-you style. As our eyes met, he gave me a small, ironic salute, then wheeled round and headed off towards an army jeep, parked near the back of the mess of vehicles. A blond man in plain clothes started the engine as Barnes approached, then tooted his horn twice to clear the crowd from around the front of the jeep. I turned back to Murdah.
He was examining my face now, a little closer, a little more professional. Like a plastic surgeon.
‘What’s good?’ I said again, and waited while my question travelled the immense distance between our two worlds. ‘You have done as I wished,’ said Murdah at last. ‘As I predicted.’
He nodded again. A bit of a snip here, a tuck there - yes, I think we can do something with this face.
‘Some people, Mr Lang,’ he went on, ‘some friends of mine, told me that you would be a problem. You were a man who might try and kick off the traces.’ He took a deeper breath. ‘But I was right. And that is good.’