Shaun Hutson - Knife Edge

Doyle smiled to himself. You fucking hope.

'Is he armed?' another journalist asked.

O'Connor looked at Calloway.

'He is armed,' the DI said, leaning a little too close to the microphones. There was a momentary piercing whine of feedback. The DI tapped the microphone nearest to him almost apologetically.

'Are you using armed police to get him?' the same journalist persisted.

Calloway looked at his superior as if for confirmation before answering.

The big Scot merely nodded almost imperceptibly.

'We have armed units in the field,' Calloway said.

'An armed suspect, armed police too, this could be dangerous for the public.'

'It'll be more dangerous if we don't catch him,' Calloway replied irritably to the journalist's question.

'Are you sure he's working alone?' a TV interviewer asked.

'Yes,' Calloway answered.

'And there are no political motives behind the bombings?' the TV interviewer continued. 'Has he made any other demands?'

'We're not releasing that information yet,' O'Connor interjected.

'So he has made demands of some kind?' the interviewer pressed. 'What does he want? Money? Is this bomber holding the city to ransom?'

'It's nothing as melodramatic as that,' O'Connor said dismissively.

'Two bombs have already been detonated, can you assure us there won't be more?'

'We are confident that the suspect will be apprehended within the hour,' O'Connor responded.

Doyle raised his eyebrows.

Very fucking optimistic.

'Will there be more bombs?' the same voice echoed.

O'Connor got to his feet. 'This press conference is now officially closed,' he said.

Calloway and Mason also stood up.

Another volley of flashes accompanied their movement towards the door.

Doyle slipped out of another door, leaving the journalists to shout more questions at the retreating policemen.

He found the trio of men in a corridor beyond.

'Who the hell are you?' O'Connor demanded, casting a distasteful glance at Doyle.

'Doyle. Counter Terrorist Unit. Army Intelligence sent me after Neville.'

The big Scot eyed Doyle warily, taking in the long hair, unshaven face, the battered leather jacket, grubby jeans and polish-starved cowboy boots.

'Why?' the Commissioner wanted to know.

'He's an ex-para, isn't he?' Doyle said.

'He's a civilian now, he's nothing to do with the bloody army,' O'Connor snapped.

'He's been making big fucking bangs with army explosives, shooting your boys with army weapons and he's using his army training to make you look like cunts. I'd say the army had an interest, wouldn't you?' Doyle said quietly.

O'Connor turned to his officers.

'Listen, you get this bastard Neville,' he hissed. 'And you get him fast. If those bloody newspaper people start digging, Christ alone knows what they'll come up with. They could have the whole city in panic by four o'clock. Now you take care of this.'

'We've had a bit of a set-back, sir,' Calloway said.

O'Connor narrowed his eyes.

'We were going to meet with Neville, bargain with him,' the DI said. 'He says all he wants is his daughter. The only problem is, we don't have his daughter any more.'

'Where the hell is she?' O'Connor snarled.

'We had her and her mother in a safe house in Lambeth,' Calloway explained. 'I was told, just before we went into the press conference, that his wife had fled from there and taken the girl with her.'

'Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on around here? Why did she run?'

'I told her we might use the kid as a bargaining tool to get Neville,' said Doyle. 'It must have frightened her.'

'So it's your fault?' O'Connor snapped. 'Keep your bloody nose out, Doyle. This is police business.'

'Fuck you,' the counter terrorist retorted. 'I was sent to get Neville and that's what I'm going to do. I don't care how.'

'So now we've got to find his wife and kid as well as him,' Mason interjected.

'How the hell are you going to do a deal with Neville when there's no kid to bargain with?' O'Connor demanded.

'Neville doesn't know that,' Doyle explained. 'He has no idea he's been set up.'

'And when he does?' O'Connor challenged. 'How many more bombs does he have?'

Doyle took a drag on his cigarette.

'When he finds out he's been fucked over,' he said quietly, 'I think we're going to find out exactly how many he's got left.'

The cross-threads of the telescopic sight wavered for a second before settling on the woman's head.

She was over five hundred yards away but the powerful scope made it seem as if she were no more than a foot or so ahead.

The cross-threads matched perfectly on her forehead.

'Bang,' murmured Doyle.

He handed the Heckler and Koch HK81 rifle back to the uniformed man next to him, amused at the look of bewilderment on the policeman's face.

The man was part of an armed unit perched atop the Cumberland Hotel like so many blue-clad crows. From their vantage point high above Marble Arch they could see virtually the full length of Oxford Street, Park Lane and the Bayswater Road.

From whichever direction Neville decided to approach, they'd spot him with ease.

If the bastard even showed up, Doyle mused, crossing to the parapet of the hotel and looking down.

It was a straight drop.

Over four hundred feet to the pavement below.

Doyle peered down at the pedestrians beneath, jostling along the heaving thoroughfares.

Two pigeons were sitting unconcernedly on the parapet, heads bobbing back and forth.

'Wondering which one to shit on?' Doyle mused and turned again to look at the six armed men he shared the rooftop with.

All were lying prone on the roof, four of them already with the stocks of their weapons pressed to their shoulders. Another was feeding rounds into the magazine of his rifle. The HK81s were designed to take either five-, twenty- or thirty-round mags, Doyle remembered.

Nice guns.

He slid the Beretta from its holster, worked the slide then flicked on the safety.

Ready.

The pistol would do sweet FA from this range but then Doyle didn't expect to have to use it from four hundred yards away. He planned on being much closer to Neville when he emptied it into him.

The remaining officer was tightening the wing nut which held the bipod at the end of the barrel in place.

Doyle knew that there were six more armed officers on the roof of the building opposite.

Six more on the roof of the Odeon Marble Arch.

Christ alone knew how many plain-clothed and uniformed coppers were down there amongst the tourists and shoppers, workers and sightseers.

They were all armed.

Neville would expect that.

That was one of the reasons he was armed.

If the shooting started, Doyle thought, how many body bags would they need?

He carefully surveyed the faces of the policemen around him.

Older men. Mostly in their forties.

Experienced?

How many of them had ever shot at anything other than a target?

Doyle peered down at the throngs of shoppers and shook his head.

All it would take would be one nervous finger. One shot.

Shit.

He didn't even want to think about it.

Calloway glanced at the dashboard clock of the Peugeot 405 then at his own watch.

He sucked in a worried breath, held it for a moment then let it out as a sigh.

Even with the windows wound up, the noise of the traffic passing was loud. The sheer volume of traffic was quite awesome. He saw one of the London sightseeing buses pass, the guide standing at the front of the upper deck, gesturing towards Marble Arch as the heads of the three occupants of the bus turned in that general direction.

The Peugeot was parked close to the mouth of the underground car park just off North Ride. The vehicle was hidden from the view of anyone approaching from either Oxford Street or Park Lane, stationed, as it was, on the exit ramp of the car park.