The Hit List (3 page)

The second man turned his magazine through ninety degrees. Tuck me!' he said, grimacing with disbelief. 'Look at the state of that!'

The driver glanced at the magazine and turned back to Slater. 'A slow-moving maroon Cherokee that you think you've seen before.'

'And these have got to be silicone,' murmured the second man. 'They're all over the rucking shop.'

'I took the number,' said Slater, ignoring him. 'You might want to get it checked out. Here, I'll put it on your pad.'

Smirking, the driver handed Slater his pad. It was blank. Slater wrote down the number.

'Don't worry, sir,' said the driver, returning the pad to his pocket without looking at it. 'We're professionals. But thanks for the tip.'

'As the actress said to the bishop,' added the second man.

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As Slater made his way up the drive, he heard both en laugh.

st

pounds Cherokee was parked in a lay-by 500 yards down ie road.

In the driver's seat, smoking nervously, was a !prenty-year-old man of Pakistani descent in an >ro tracksuit. He was good with cars, and over the course of his teenage years - five convictions taking and driving away, thirty offences taken into deration - had refined his skills to the point icre he was now considered one of the top wheel in the Gateshead area.

the back seat sat two slightly older men, both ded, both dressed in black windcheaters, jeans and boots. They were Shi'ite Muslims from al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia's eastern province. The men were ; their mutual grandfather had emigrated from Iranian Gulf port of Basra in 1925 and, unlike their neighbours, the two had been brought up strictly tenets of their faith.

yy were followers of a radical Shi'ite holy man d Shayk Nabil Rahmat. Rahmat was the founder revolutionary faction called al-Hizb al-Makhfi Hidden Party. Acting with the utmost secrecy, and its identity closely, the Hidden Party had out bombings in Riyadh, Jeddah, and even the set's own city of Medina.

>fphe Hidden Party, however, had been dealt a severe Seven of its members had been convicted of

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terrorism by a religious court in Ahsa province, and condemned to death by beheading. Only the decision of a senior judge sitting on the Court of Cassation, the final court of appeal, stood between the seven party members and the execution of sentence.

And unless extraordinary pressure was brought to bear, that decision was a foregone conclusion. The judge in question was known as one of the most conservative members of the Saudi judiciary, and vehemently opposed to everything that Rahmat and his followers stood for. His name was Shaykh Marwan al-Jubrin. He was Masoud al-Jubrin's father.

The two men in the Cherokee had come to England in order to set in motion the applying of extreme pressure on the old judge. They had secured false Turkish passports from the intelligence services of the Islamic Republic of Iran, flown from Tehran to Rome, and then travelled across Europe by train to Denmark. In Copenhagen they had embarked on an overnight ferry to Newcastle, where they had shown their Turkish passports and been met by a local sweet manufacturer. This man, a devout Shi'ite who had once burnt an effigy of Salman Rushdie for the benefit of an ITV news crew, had placed his spare bedroom at their disposal. At dawn, having picked up the driver, the sweet-manufacturer had driven the cousins to a lock-up garage where the stolen and replated Cherokee was waiting. Concealed beneath the driver's seat were the two weapons they had requested: a loaded Smith and Wesson Model 25 revolver and a

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jAsheathed Gerber Patriot knife with a six-inch oxidised 1 blade.

The trio had begun the drive south immediately and |, by 2pm, after an unpleasant meal consumed at a service | Station outside Henley-on-Thames, had begun to recce I the roads around Bolingbroke's School.

The cousins waited in the car, smoking, until it was JfNfully dark. Then they embraced, whispered a prayer, |took a weapon each, and climbed out into the icy cold |bf the lay-by. Their point of entry to the school, flselected two hours earlier, was close to the rugby pitch |where the 1st XV practice game had taken place arlier.

Within minutes both men were crouched outside ic seven-foot perimeter wall. A leg up, a grunt of effort, a helping hand and they were both over, falling ith a soft crunch into the frosted bracken, purposefully they made their way towards the school lildings, by now a blaze of light. Their afternoon's connaissance had told them they had little to fear am the security guards and they moved fluently from adow to shadow, eventually vanishing from sight long the ground-scraping branches of an elderly yew ee. A gravelled path led past this tree - a path joining lie main school building to the modern refectory lock. The two men settled down to wait.

For twenty-five minutes the darkness reshaped itself aund them. Boys passed by, but always in twos or rees. Finally a solitary figure appeared, a slender fair ired youth of about fourteen carrying a Game Boy.

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Apparently heedless of the cold, the teenager paused beneath one of the lighted refectory windows, his fingers stabbing at the little console. The two men's eyes met. Soundlessly they climbed to their feet.

It was skilfully accomplished. Within seconds the boy had been bundled into the blackness beneath the yew. One man held him, clamping a strong hand across his mouth, the other urgently motioned silence. Eyes wide with terror, the boy nodded. To reinforce the need for silence one of the bearded figures produced the Smith and Wesson. In response the boy wet himself and began to shake.

'Listen, my friend,' whispered the second man. 'We are not going to hurt you - we just wish to talk. Now, what is your name?'

'C-Christopher,' the boy managed.

'OK, Christopher, when I give the word we are going to walk down the hill towards the games fields. Like I said, we will not hurt you but you must keep silent. Do you understand?'

The boy nodded, still shaking.

'Good boy. Let's go.'

The two men led the boy back in the direction they had come. Soon they were below the perimeter fence again. Getting him over was not easy. An icy frost now coated the stone, and terror seemed to have robbed the boy of all co-ordination. Eventually, however, they managed to bundle him up and over.

'Are you hurt, Christopher?' hissed one of the men as they landed to either side of him.

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The boy shook his head.

'Just walk then,' said the man. 'Like normal, OK?'

. the Cherokee they turned on the ignition and the ater. The man with the Smith and Wesson pocketed ; weapon and took out a small mobile phone. i'OK, Christopher. I want you to ask to speak to soud al-Jubrin. I'm going to dial the number of his e, and I want you to arrange to meet him in the ic place that we . . . that we met you.' 'But I don't know Masoud. At least, I know who he Ibut--'

'It doesn't matter. Just say you have something of at importance for him. Something you have to give i in person.'

; you going to hurt him?' f 'No. We just have to speak to him. To give him a essage. That is all.'

The boy frowned doubtfully at the windscreen. At side, the black-clothed figure punched out a lorised number and handed him the little

Ibtorola.

I

?A murmured conversation ensued. A more Imfident tone was returning to the boy's voice,

ecially now that the revolver was out of sight. 'Masoud's in the sick bay,' he said eventually,

leering the phone. 'He's got a flu bug or something.' AThe men looked at each other. ' 'I'd like you to take us there, Christopher,' said one.

le Delves house prefects were watching a 23

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documentary about the artist Tracey Emin in their common room. In theory they were supposed to be in their dormitories by ten; their minds and bodies, the headmaster insisted, needed proper recovery time if they were to handle the combined demands of competitive sport and the A-level syllabus. In practice, however, they could request late TV time if the programme in question was deemed to be of sufficient cultural value. As deputy housemaster of Delves, it was Slater's duty to police this system. He had never heard of Tracey Emin but had given the programme the nod anyway.

When he stuck his head into the common room there was a pair of soiled knickers on the TV screen.

'What's this?' he asked one of the boys, a rangy computer-fanatic named Tyrell.

'It's the documentary I asked you about, sir,' said Tyrell.

The camera panned across a wrecked bed, paused to [ examine a discarded condom. '

'How much longer has it got to go?' If Latimer, the Delves housemaster, came in now there would be questions asked.

'About fifteen minutes. Do you agree that this is art, sir?'

An unshaven man in square-framed glasses was now standing in front of Tracey Emin's bed. 'Bad sex, skid marked sheets - today it's all up for grabs,' he was saying.

'I'm afraid it's not my special subject, Tristram,'

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I' Slater replied. It was a weak answer and he knew it. He should watch this business of Christian-naming the boys, too. The other staff-members didn't like it, and he'd been warned about it more than once. Undercutting discipline, he'd been told. Tracey Emin was now on screen, topless. 'What do you think of that, sir? She's quite fit, isn't �she?'

'I'm sure she'd value your approval,' said Slater If drily. He glanced round the room. All eyes were on f ITracey. 'How did you goons get to be made prefects, j anyway?'

'Born to it, sir,' drawled a general's son named f Springell, looking pointedly at Slater. 'Natural selec- I tion.' Running his fingers through expensively barbered I hair, he turned back to the screen. 'Oh, you dirty, dirty Igirl. . . Bloody hell, that's a used Tampax, isn't it?'

'I think you should discuss it with Mr Parry in the art room, Springell. And less of the bloodies, please.' 'It's not my Tampax.'

'Don't wind me up Springell, OK?' Suddenly ISlater's voice was raw steel. The temperature in the | room seemed to drop several degrees. The boys stared |at the TV screen, where Tracey Emin was dancing and aughing.

'How're al-Jubrin and Ripley, sir?' Paul Reinhardt [.said eventually.

'I don't think Masoud's going to be in that three I quarter line on Saturday, if that's what you mean. Gary Ripley should be OK.'

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Slater was grateful for the change of subject. Even after fifteen years hard soldiering he was still vulnerable to the suggestion that he had been put on Earth for the casual amusement of the likes of Springell. I'll give him natural fucking selection, he thought.

Reinhardt's question also reminded him that he had promised to look in on the flu-stricken team members. It shouldn't be too late.

'How much longer does this go on?' he asked for the second time.

'Fourteen minutes now, sir,' said Tyrell.

'Right. I'm just going over to the sick bay and when I come back I want you all upstairs in your rooms. Springell, you're responsible for making sure everything's turned off. TV plug out of the wall, please.'

'Sir,' said Springell, injecting the single syllable with all the irony he could muster.

The sick bay was at the back of the main building on the top floor, well away from the classrooms, kitchens and other centres of activity. Pupils were only ever detained there with minor conditions. Anything that exceeded the expertise of Matron - a corpulent body who regularly contacted her late husband by means of a spiritualist - demanded a visit from the Henley GP or transfer to a hospital in Reading. That, in turn, often meant a second transfer to a private clinic in London; the school had given up trying to explain to foreign parents that for most conditions the local NHS hospital

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was a better and safer bet than even the most expensive clinic.

( The lift was waiting on the ground floor. Slater thought this strange: it usually remained on the top floor once Matron had retired to her quarters for the \ night. She slept next to the sick bay. There was also a knight nurse, a willowy redhead named Jean Burney. j1 Slater had caught Jean's eye once or twice and detected 14 definite twinkle. Since she was always on duty in the Lfvenings, however, he had not had the chance to poliow it up.

He stepped out of the lift, heard the doors slide shut ehind him. The sick bay was arranged around a ijuare lobby containing a pair of sofas, a low table and le night nurse's desk. On two sides of the square were lined-off enclosures; these were for junior boys, id none appeared to be occupied. Nor was the night nurse's desk. Perhaps Jean Burney gone to the toilet. Slater decided to go straight jugh to the sixth form bay. Passing the desk, jwever, he saw that a table lamp had fallen and ashed, leaving curling fragments of glass on the Jrhite linoleum floor. Among the glass were smears of Gently shed blood. More splashes led towards the for to Matron's quarters and the sixth form bay. Had accidentally knocked the lamp to the floor and len cut her hand on the broken glass? She didn't look

clumsy type.

$' And then, at the edge of a smear of blood by the sr, Slater saw a faint chevron-shaped imprint. It was

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no more than an inch long, but he recognised it instantly. No member of the teaching or medical staff wore commando-soled boots, and the boys all wore regulation lace-ups.

He froze, instantly alert, felt the familiar thud of his heartbeat as the adrenaline kicked in. For a moment he paused, ears straining for the slightest sound, and then moved at a crouch to the passage door. It opened, but not easily. Something heavy had been laid against it. Silently he raised himself to the level of the glass panes in the upper half of the door. The lights were offin the corridor but he made out a human shape - two bare legs, the faint scrabbling of fingers. Gently, Slater forced the door open, pushing the figure away from him until there was room to squeeze through.

It was Jean Bumey. Slater recognised her by her hair. She had been blindfolded and gagged and her | wrists were taped behind her back. Drying blood ran | from both nostrils, her lower lip was split, and her nose i looked broken. She was unconscious.