Big Boy Did It and Ran Away (47 page)

‘The leader of our nation is headin’ to Cromlarig this very afternoon for the Highland Games. Another wild coincidence, huh?’

Angelique gawped at the front page. ‘The leader of … The First Minister.’

‘Not as prestigious as the Prime Minister at a football international, but you said it’s his style to go for the less expected target.’

‘It sure is. Not a head of state, but the closest thing Scotland’s had for a long time. Your pal Simon’s certainly got a sense of irony.’

‘How?’

‘General Mopoza threatened an attack on “the British state”, quote unquote, and if you’re right, it looks like our man’s planning to take out a potent symbol of its gradual break‐
up.’

‘Wrong,’ Ray argued. ‘On three counts. One, that bastard is not my friend. Two, you need a sense of self‐
awareness before you can have a sense of irony; and three, there’s nothin’ ironic about targetin’ Andrew MacDonald.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he was Defence Secretary at Westminster during the Sonzolan conflict.’

Angelique’s eyes widened. ‘Of course. And he always goes to these bloody Highland Games in his constituency, doesn’t he? It’s the human‐
interest angle they wheel out about him every time. I remember him takin’ flak for it from the tabloids during the war. Swarming off to drink whisky while “our boys” were in action, all that stuff.’

‘So Simon would have had plenty of notice to come up with his plan.’

‘If it was his plan,’ Angelique questioned. ‘Could have been Mopoza’s idea.’

‘No chance. Killing Scotland’s man‐
in‐
charge would be far too pleasing to Scotland’s biggest ego for him not to have thought of it himself. On top of that there’s Dubh Ardrain: arguably Scotland’s greatest engineering achievement, so who better to vandalise it.’

‘We don’t know Dubh Ardrain is part of the equation now though, do we. If MacDonald is the target, Darcourt could be planning something for the Highland Games. Security would be comparatively light, the way he likes it.’

‘Dubh Ardrain is part of the equation,’ Ray insisted, removing the newspaper to clear their view of the model.

‘Otherwise, why would he take out the road before it reached the power station? It would have been far easier to block the route closer to Cromlarig. The road and bridges on the other side weren’t widened or strengthened, because all the heavy plant was coming from the south. Simon doesn’t want anybody to be able to reach Dubh Ardrain from this side, because this is the direction the cavalry would be coming.’

‘And the ambulances,’ Angelique added grimly. ‘But what can he do at Dubh Ardrain that’s going to affect MacDonald down in Cromlarig?’

Ray stared at the model, looking back and forth at the two locations Angelique was talking about. They were four or five miles apart along the tight and winding glacial glen, the power station hidden beneath the mountains and the postcard town sitting at the north‐
western shore where the long and narrow loch came to an end. At that scale, it looked like a landscape from Civilization or Populous, strategy games for the budding megalomaniac.

‘No explosion at the power plant could be strong enough to do more than shake a few sporrans at the Games,’ Angelique said, articulating Ray’s very thoughts, with the exception of the sporran remark. ‘And I can’t think of any way he could use the electrical capacity, so what does that leave?’

Only one thing, Ray deduced, by process of elimination. If this was Populous, as a competing deity, you would have a number of cataclysmic means to visit destruction upon the town that had incurred your wrath. Simon, however, had only one, and it was the deadliest in the game.

‘Water.’

‘Water? How?’

Ray looked at the model once more. He already knew what he was going to say, but felt he needed a moment to let the insanity ferment before sharing it round.

‘Like Anne Elk, I have a theory. You’re not going to like it.’

‘Just run it by me. And who’s Anne Elk?’

‘Never mind. I think he’s going to blow the dam.’

‘What would that do?’ Angelique asked, then had another look at the scaled‐
down landscape. ‘Oh fuck.’

‘Yup,’ Ray confirmed. ‘However many million or billion gallons of water there are in the reservoir would come beltin’ down the mountainside into Loch Fada, hittin’ the opposite shore here where the glen bends inwards, which is gaunny channel the whole lot down between the mountains like a canal.’

‘Won’t it just raise the water level? I mean, Loch Fada’s long. Surely it could accommodate—’

‘Eventually, yes. But you’d get a massive wave effect first. And to amplify that effect, Loch Fada is artificially shallow along this stretch.’

‘Artificially?’

‘They hollowed out a mountain to build this place. Where do you think they put it all?’

Angelique bit her lip. ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘I don’t like your theory. I just wish it was because I could find a big hole in it.’

‘So do I,’

‘Hang on, I’ve got one. If they flooded Cromlarig and they’ve taken out the road south, how are Simon and his pals supposed to get away afterwards?’

‘Boats,’ Ray remembered. ‘They had two speedboats on trailers back at the farmhouse. Have we come to that bridge we need to cross yet?’

Angelique got out her mobile phone. ‘It sure sounds like it. Time to call in that cavalry. And before you say anythin’, jet fighters don’t need to cross bridges. Let’s see how he likes an airstrike up his arse.’

‘He’ll like it fine. He’s inside a mountain, and the entrance tunnel’s got a shield door that was designed to withstand nuclear war.’

Angelique began dialling. ‘I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t brought you,’ she said.

‘Me too.’

Ray watched her walk outside for privacy – classified privacy no doubt – and turned back to the model. Over at the counter, the receptionist was keying something into her computer, cheerfully oblivious of what had just landed on the shoulders of her visitors.

Even before Angelique returned to tell him, Ray knew what was coming. The First Minister was officially opening the Games at three, and Ray’s watch said five past twelve. The nearest sizeable police or army presence was at least two hours away on the wrong side of a big hole in the only road that led to Dubh Ardrain from the south, with the alternative route involving a three‐
hour detour.

‘We are the cavalry, aren’t we,’ he asked as Angelique walked back in.

Her face confirmed it. ‘I was going to say, I am, but thank you for volunteering.’

‘Are they at least going to evacuate the town?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Not yet? What, are things not quite cliff‐
hanging enough for them so far?’

‘Two good reasons, Ray. One, this theory of yours is still just that until we see somethin’ solid to back it up. And the other is that he wouldnae be the Black Spirit if he wasnae ready for it. He’s taken steps to prevent anyone intervening while he and his chinas are at work, so he’s got contingencies against us findin’ out where he is. It’s not a major leap to assume he’s got a contingency against us findin’ out what he’s up to as well. He could have a remote camera or just a bloke up a hill with binoculars, but if we start evacuatin’ people now, he could just blow the dam ahead of schedule. He might not get the First Minister, but he’d get two or three thousand others.’

‘I take it the VIP won’t be running the same unknown risk as his constituents?’

‘He’s been told, but he’s still comin’. He’s travellin’ by helicopter, so they’ve the option to abort at any time.’

‘Lucky him.’

‘It makes sense. If Darcourt thinks everything’s hunky‐
dory, at least that gives us—’

‘Less than three hours,’ Ray stated. ‘That’s what it gives us. Less than three hours for the two of us, unarmed I might add, to get inside a heavily guarded subterranean fortress and take down one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.’

‘And yet you’re volunteering.’

‘Well, just like you, I’ve got two good reasons. One is that they’re gaunny hunt me down and kill me anyway. Kate too, for a motive that I think I made clear, and probably Martin just for what he represents. Simon might forget, but he never forgives, and when he saw me at the airport it would have reminded him of a very big unsettled score,’

‘What’s the other reason?’

‘I fancy our chances.’

‘You do?’

‘Yeah. You might be up against the Black Spirit, Angelique, but I’m up against that fanny of a flatmate. He might be a world‐
feared terrorist these days, but I’ll bet he’s still a wank.’

Simon looked at his watch, aware that if he maintained the current frequency, he was in very real danger of developing a twitch before this was all over. The problem was, there was nothing else to occupy his time other than watching it trickle away, the spare hours being steadily eroded while the buttress walls were steadfastly not. He lifted his radio from the control‐
room console and called May.

‘What’s the situation? Any progress?’

‘Yes. We’re approximately ten minutes further forward since the last time you asked, ten minutes ago.’

‘Watch the fucking lip, okay? Can you get Deacon to give me some kind of ETA?’

‘No. Deacon’s busy trying to fix the equipment. Why don’t you just pick a time at random and add the duration of these calls. That way your guess would be as accurate as his.’

‘I should have shot you while I had the chance, if you weren’t going to be any fucking use to me anyway.’

‘You’d be better shooting whoever fucked our equipment.’

‘I will, I promise, if we ever find the bastards. There’s about twenty miles of tunnels around this place, plus access shafts, vents, surge chambers. It’s a shitey place to be playing hide‐
and‐
seek if you’re “it”.’

‘There’s also the possibility that they aren’t here at all. If they got out of those crates while we were taking the control room, they could have doubled back out of the entrance tunnel.’

May was right. They hadn’t posted anyone on the front gate because the next shift wouldn’t arrive until around eight and they needed all hands elsewhere at that stage. Their gatecrashers could have snuck out and might already have flagged down a passing car. To make matters worse, the road collapse was bound to be public by now, meaning that the first vehicle they were likely to encounter would be a cop car on its way to or from the accident site.

‘It’s been a couple of hours,’ Simon said, thinking aloud. ‘If they’d raised the alarm, I think we’d know about it by now.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure. These backwoods cops would hardly just come screaming up here if they’d been told we were heavily armed.’

‘That’s a very good point,’ he conceded. ‘We should put somebody on look‐
out topside and lock the shield door until the morning shift is due.’

The landline phone rang on the console, as if he didn’t have enough on his plate. If it was someone from the National Grid, he’d have to retrieve whoever was in charge from among the hostages. It was something he had planned for, but he wasn’t expecting it to come up until daytime, as the plant was in non‐
supply mode overnight.

‘Radio silence,’ he told May, then lifted the phone. ‘Control room, Dubh Ardrain,’ Simon answered.

‘Maybe we should consider aborting while the going’s good.’

Simon walked to the window and looked across the machine‐
hall floor to the gathering around the sabotaged equipment. He saw May staring back up at him, holding the receiver of a wall‐
mounted telephone. May wisely didn’t want the conversation relaying around every radio in the team, but it was well seeing the bastard didn’t have the balls to suggest this face‐
to‐
face.

‘That’s a little premature, Brian. We’ve a few problems to solve, but nothing’s desperate yet. I think it’s a bit early to hit the ejector button.’

‘It’s never too early to walk away, Freddie, but it can be too late. And you know what too late means, don’t you. You’ve been a guest on the good ship Black and Decker too, I assume.’

Simon took a breath. It was understood (if seldom discussed) among the inner circle that they all had Shub in common, but nobody knew how close anyone else might be to the man in the middle. Some might never have met him; others, particularly lower down the food chain, might not know he was their conduit into a given operation. This was the first time anybody had directly acknowledged so much, and it certainly helped explain why May had been so jumpy about whether Simon knew Ash.

‘I didn’t hear that and you didn’t say it,’ Simon told him. ‘That’s about the biggest favour I can do either of us right now, agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

‘If we walk away, we’re finished, and I mean even if we walk away clean. Never mind reputations. You’re only as good as your last job, so a failure on this scale wipes everything else from your CV. There isn’t a seniors tour for our game. If you fuck up, you disappear, forever; and if you’re lucky, you perform the vanishing act yourself.’

‘We’ve all made provisions,’ May said.

‘So you see yourself lyin’ on a beach somewhere, livin’ off your savings? Fuck off. You’d go nuts.’

‘Yeah, those cocktails and blowjobs would really start to wear me down.’

‘Don’t kid yourself, Brian. I know what kind of blowjob gets your rocks off, and we’ve got one lined up right here.’

‘She seems to be playing hard to get, though. And her over‐
protective big brother could be paying us a visit any minute.’

‘That’s why I always make sure we have options. MacDonald will be there until at least five, so that’s two extra hours, if we need them, to hit our primary target. Knowing you, your demolition plans are probably very belt‐
and‐
braces, so we can space the bores a bit wider and put more explosive in each one.’

‘If you’re going to cut corners, I’d recommend instead that we concentrate more explosive on the central buttress. Take that out, and the water should do the rest.’

‘See? Power of positive thinking, Brian. Whistle a happy tune while you’re at it and we’re laughin’.’

‘Fuck you. And what if the cops show up outside?’

‘We’ve got eight hostages now, about twenty more due in a few hours, and we’re holed up inside a mountain with a nuclear shield door. Even if we end up with half the British Army outside, there’s not a lot they can do except negotiate, which suits us fine. We ask for a helicopter. We set a deadline. The negotiators try and stall to get more time, which is cool because it’s time we want.’