Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

‘Has Ali told you anything?’ Henry asked.

Donaldson looked involuntarily at the floor and scuffed his foot. ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but he will.’

‘In that case, you’d better get back up there, hadn’t you? Put a dog collar round his neck, maybe that’ll help.’

Without warning Donaldson leapt at Henry, went for his throat and pinned him against the metal fence with a crash. His face, red, furious, dangerous, was nose-to-nose with Henry’s, who gagged for breath and tried unsuccessfully to prize the American’s big fingers from his windpipe. Then, just as he was about to say something, Donaldson seemed to realize what he was doing. He relaxed his grip and let Henry go, who fell to his haunches, choking and massaging his throat.

Donaldson spun on his heels and stalked back inside, leaving Henry alone in the courtyard, gulping for air, aware that in the space of just over an hour, his friendship with Karl Donaldson had ended more dramatically than he could ever have imagined and that his whole day had been turned on its head.

A huge area surrounding the house on Balaclava Street had been cordoned off. Traffic diversions were in place and the police were out in numbers to keep onlookers from pouring in and trampling any evidence there might be.

Henry stood just inside one of the stretched police tapes at the junction of Randal Street and Limbrick, speaking to a bleak faced chief constable and Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Anger.

‘This is completely horrendous,’ FB was saying. He was more affected than Henry had ever seen.

‘Incredible,’ Anger said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Their eyes were on Henry, but not in a critical way for once. They knew the full story leading up to why Angela Cranlow and Graeme Walling had knocked on the door in Balaclava Street and understood that no one could have suspected that the officers were stepping from a routine inquiry, albeit concerning a murder, into the world of international terrorism. FB seemed to have been hit particularly hard and was struggling to take in the enormity of the event … as was Henry.

He fished out a pack of Nurofen tablets he’d bought from a nearby chemist and thumbed a couple out of the blister pack, tipped his head back, filled his mouth with saliva and tossed them into the back of his throat, swallowing them with ease.

‘Two cops dead, terrorists on the loose intent on murdering the American Secretary of State who, despite the warning, is determined to visit the town and mingle … shit!’

‘Why can’t you pull the plug on the visit?’ Henry said plaintively.

‘Because politicians don’t have the sense they were born with,’ FB commented dryly, ‘and because we are expected to protect her.’

And because your own job would be in question if you took the unpopular step of cancelling it, Henry thought, but didn’t say anything.

‘Fortunately she’s been delayed in Liverpool, which has given us a bit of time to draft in virtually every remaining bobby from around the county who isn’t involved in the visit. There’ll be more cops than crowds.’

‘Let’s hope nothing happens anywhere else for a few hours,’ FB said grimly. ‘If the nuclear reactor blows in Heysham, it’ll just have to burn and destroy the known world.’

‘And nothing’s come from this Ali guy?’ Anger asked Henry, who shook his head and bit his tongue … but only for a moment.

‘How the hell is it going to be explained that the Americans are torturing people in Blackburn?’ he demanded.

FB gave him a stern look. ‘Shut it, Henry,’ he said. ‘What people don’t know won’t hurt them, got that? Blab one word, and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.’

Henry could hardly believe his ears, but yet he wasn’t surprised to discover that the people ‘up there’ were colluding in such unlawful acts. After all, it’s a war, he thought resentfully. ‘We’ve totally lost this if we can’t do things by lawful means,’ he bellyached.

‘Fine words, Henry. Admirable sentiments. You’re getting very highly principled in your old age and it’s very commendable …’

‘Don’t patronize me, Bob.’

‘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.