Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

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.

The Galaxy pulled on to the car park behind the Darwen End stand of Ewood Park, inside which the police facilities had been constructed, including cells, refs rooms and a custody office. Henry sat ruminating as he looked at the big stand, erected in the 1990s on the back of the millions of pounds provided by a local businessman. Not like the days of corrugated roofs and rotting concrete stands, it was all steel girders and seating. The River Darwen flowed — or trickled — by the north-eastern side of the ground and beyond it was a steep, grassy hill from which, in the old days, fans who could not afford to get into the ground could watch some of the action of the matches, though they could only ever see one or the other goalmouth at one time.

‘Not a bad place for a sniper.’ Henry pouted thoughtfully as he looked at the hill. ‘Have you got a copy of the operational order?’

Bill reached into the back seat and found his dog-eared copy which detailed the visit. Henry skimmed through it. ‘Blah, blah, blah … she’s being driven from the school to the football ground … stopping on Nuttall Street at the front and entering through the VIP door, then she’s into the ground itself. Visiting the police post, the CCTV room, the players’ changing rooms, going to the shop — no doubt buy herself a Rovers’ shirt — meeting the staff, then leaving as she came in … so, scratch the sniper on the hill theory cos he can’t see Nuttall Street from there,’ Henry said glumly. He turned to Bill. ‘What would you do if you were a fanatical terrorist and you wanted to kill her today?’

‘Well, she’s pretty well protected, so it won’t be easy, but I’ve always said that if anyone doesn’t give a fuck about themselves and thinks they’re going somewhere better, it becomes a hell of a lot easier. She’ll be doing walkabout, touching heads, kissing babies … and if you’re a fanatic you can definitely get close enough to her to stick a gun in her face or blow everyone in the vicinity to kingdom come. You just can, cos not everyone can be searched and no one knows what a terrorist actually looks like.’

‘But they do know what this terrorist looks like, because his most recent photo’s been circulated — except he doesn’t do dirty work like this himself. He gets other dumb arses to do it. He’s like a paedophile in some respects, preying on young, vulnerable people.’ Henry paused for thought again. His brain had been so battered that he was finding it difficult to keep it concentrating. ‘There’s just something about Mansur Rashid that keeps eating away at me.’ His face rotated slowly to Bill. ‘Get me back to my car,’ he said quickly. ‘Something’s clicked.’ Henry gave Bill a quick explanation and by blue lighting it down the M65, heading north, then coming off at Whitebirk, they were back at Blackburn police station within minutes, where Henry had left his Rover.

He had been blocked in by other cars, but that did not matter. He rooted out his briefcase from the back seat and rejoined Bill, who had gravitated to the canteen to get two coffees. They sat at the only empty table — the canteen was swarming with bobbies because of the visit and they all needed food and drink at some time.