Backlash (47 page)

‘He dealt with a date-rape case about twelve months ago and the offender got off in court – a white guy on an Asian girl, so no surprise there – and the offender used scopolamine, which makes people very compliant and leaves them with no memory of what they've done. I checked the property store for the drug, but it wasn't there. I think he used it on you and simply walked you into the Winter Gardens and through security at a time when no other bobbies were around who could identify you. The security people wouldn't have known you from Adam – or Eve. Once inside, he just steered you down into the basement to that room which he'd discovered during the pre-conference search. He could come and go pretty much as he pleased, without anybody questioning him. We found your warrant card cut up in his flat and he'd stuck your photo on a conference pass he'd stolen and Bob's your uncle.'

‘Ahh, I see.' She looked up at Henry. Once again, he was in a hallway, face to face with a woman. She reached up, kissed him, then they embraced and said goodbye.

Henry drove away, glancing quickly over his shoulder to see Roscoe and her husband watching from the front door.

Back in the conservatory, Roscoe settled down on the pine settee and picked up the newspaper. The headlines told her of the shock resignation of the home secretary for ‘personal reasons and political differences' and the intimation that the police were investigating his right-wing connections. It looked like a story with much more to come. There was also the parallel story of the fast-track appointment of Basil Kramer into the vacant position. There was a photograph of Kramer shaking hands with the PM and a few quotes from Kramer about what he would be doing in the future, in particular with regard to law and order, pledging more money to forces and promises to put more cops on the streets, where they should be.

Before Henry reached the motorway, he pulled into the side of the road and picked up his mobile phone, thinking, ‘Sod the paper work.' He knocked a number into it. It was answered quickly.

‘Kate? It's me, Henry . . .'

Boston, six months later

Another rooftop, this time in Boston, looking down towards a gay bar, his next target. The bomber sat on his favourite fishing stool, remote control in hand, waiting for the most appropriate moment to blow the shit out of the bastards.

He felt good. He had done his bit for society by providing tools of terror for right-wing groups across Europe, and now he was back on home ground, about to take up the mantle again in his home country. Maybe next year he would do another tour of Europe.

He checked his watch. Through his binoculars he watched the sickening activity spilling out of the bar onto the sidewalk. The perverts in their tight white vests, leather trousers, their bulging muscles and ridiculous moustaches. Did they not know how obscene they were to decent, right-minded folks? Disgusting.

He picked up the remote control. Time to kill.

Then he felt something cold, hard and round being pushed into his neck. The muzzle of a pistol. The bomber swallowed, his thumb hovered over the red button. A voice whispered in his ear.

‘My name is Karl Donaldson and I am an FBI agent, just like yourself. You have a choice. Place the remote down slowly and live; press the button and you die – make me even think you're gonna press the button and you die. Which d'you fancy?'

Over the past six painstaking months, while heading the investigation to bring him to justice, Karl Donaldson had got to know this man intimately. He knew what drove him, what motivated him, what his beliefs were and what he would die for. The only thing he had not known about him was his identity, but now he even knew that. He also knew that the bomber would feel he had no choice. He would believe he had to carry on destroying people to the end.

The thumb twitched.

Karl Donaldson did not have a choice either.