Jack Morgan 02 - Private London (17 page)

A number of smaller demonstrations had already taken place but this looked like a large-scale organised one. As this kind of protest was illegal in the square they obviously hadn’t made any public announcements about it.

I looked at my watch again and my phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out, flicked the lock off and clicked on the incoming-message icon. It read: ‘Don’t forget to pay the piper.’

I looked across the square.

The black-faced dancers in black, yellow and green rags and with feathers in their hats were about fifty yards or so away now. People were milling around them. One of them was holding out a gaudy cap as if to collect money. But it was neither the time or place for that – unless they were looking to collect big, of course.

I could see why they had picked this time and place now. It was absolute chaos. The dancers didn’t seem to be in any hurry, mind. They were dancing and twirling, shouting and clattering sticks.

I’ve always hated Morris dancers. Now I wished I had packed some serious heat. Do the whole world a favour right there and then!

I looked at them. None of them was big enough to be Brendan Ferres. That was for sure. The guy with the collecting hat was tall but nowhere near as wide as Ferres and he was wearing black-rimmed glasses. One of the dancers in the middle didn’t seem too enthusiastic. Smaller-framed than the others. Hard to tell from this distance, but my guess was that it was Hannah. She was surrounded at all times. As one dancer twirled away another jigged in. They were corralling her.

Just as well I didn’t bring the shotgun. Like I said, I would have been sorely tempted to take them all down. Wasn’t my call, to make though, and the instructions from Harlan Shapiro through Jack Morgan had been explicit. No heroics. No improvisation. Just pay them the agreed amount and get Hannah home safe.

I put my hand in my pocket, putting it around the bag of diamonds, clasping it tight.

And then everything went to hell in a handcart.

Chapter 66

A LARGE GROUP of uniformed policemen came running past the dancers, heading straight for me.

DI Kirsty Webb followed closely behind.

The crowd milled past the dancers who had stopped dancing and were watching me. The lead dancer pointed his finger at me like the barrel of a gun and mimed pulling the trigger. Then they were lost in the huge crowd that surged around them. I tried to give chase but at that moment the riot police arrived and a wall of perspex shields and raised batons blocked my way.

‘What the hell are you doing here, Kirsty?’

‘We got a call!’

‘What are you talking about? Got a call from who?’

Kirsty held her warrant card up and led me past the riot police who were attempting to ‘kettle’ the demonstrators behind us.

‘Division got an anonymous call. Telling us the missing package will be delivered at the Robert Peel statue here at ten o’clock. We got here as fast as we could.’

‘Yeah, well, you just might have served her a death sentence.’

She glared right back at me. ‘You got the same message, I take it? Seeing as you’re here.’

‘Something like that.’

She shook her head. ‘When, Dan? When did you get the message?’

I didn’t answer.

‘You already knew, didn’t you? Last night, all the time you were fucking me, you knew! And you didn’t tell me.’

Kirsty slapped me across the face. Hard.

Felt like old times.

‘They said they’d kill her if the police were involved.’ I had to shout to be heard above the noise. ‘What was I supposed to do?’ I said.

‘Maybe you could have trusted me.’

‘The person who called it in – man or woman?’

‘Man.’

‘Accent?’

‘I don’t know, Dan. The woodentop who took the call just wrote it down and stuck it on my desk. Didn’t think it was important.’

‘“Woodentop” was an expression the kidnappers used.’

‘What, you think it was me?’ she snapped sarcastically.

‘Of course not – just thinking out loud.’

‘Seems to me you’ve left it a little late for thinking. We had a chance here. You should have told me.’

‘I would have done if I could.’

‘Doing the right thing isn’t exactly your strong point, is it, Dan?’

‘You didn’t seem to have any complaints last night.’

Kirsty snorted angrily. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to bring that up. You got me drunk on cheap brandy, is all. Doesn’t change anything.’

‘You don’t have to tell me!’

‘And you have got more serious things to worry about.’

‘Yeah, I do know that.’

‘Do you, though?’

‘You got a point to make, Kirsty, how about you spit it out?’

‘Somebody told us where the exchange was going to take place.’ She looked across at Sam and Suzy as they forced their way towards us through the crowds. Brad Dexter was following behind with more of his security team trailing in their wake.

‘Yeah, so what’s your point?’ I had to shout again. Hundreds of the protesters had produced those vuvuzela horns from last year’s World Cup and were blasting away behind the perspex wall that the police had formed.

‘It wasn’t whoever took the girl who phoned us, was it?’

‘No.’

‘So who else knew?’

‘No one.’

‘Just you, Dan. You and your team of superheroes.’ Kirsty did practically spit the last couple of words out. I took in what she was saying but she spelled it out for me anyway.

‘Someone’s rotten on your team, Dan. Someone set you up.’

Chapter 67

HARLAN SHAPIRO WASN’T much to look at.

But then, what are multibillionaires supposed to look like? He was a small, quiet man. Dustin Hoffman’s shy cousin, perhaps.

He had been angry, naturally, when I explained what had happened at Parliament Square but hadn’t gone ballistic, which surprised me a little. One thing all billionaires have in common – they’re used to getting their own way.

Del Rio was exactly as I remembered him, though: hard as nails and a man of few words. But when he spoke people listened, or they did if they knew what was good for them.

I hadn’t told Harlan what Kirsty had said to me but I outlined it to Del Rio who was with me in my office drinking black coffee. Their flight had been delayed and hadn’t landed until just after ten o’clock. About the same time the blacked-up Morris dancers had disappeared into the crowds. You would have thought their distinctive costumes would have made them easy to spot. But by the time the chaos had been brought under control they had long gone.

I held a hand to my cheek, remembering the slap Kirsty had given me. Maybe she cared after all.

Del Rio put his cup down. ‘Your ex-wife reckons we’ve got a rotten apple in Private?’ he said.

‘It makes sense.’

‘You got any theories?’

‘No, and I can’t see the point in the play. What do they get out of it?’

‘How many people here knew about the drop?’

‘We took a big team out there, covering all the exits.’

‘So it could have been pretty much anybody in your outfit?’

I nodded. ‘Or Stateside,’ I said.

‘How do you figure?’

I opened a desk drawer and flipped a picture of the dark-suited American who’d been with Brendan Ferres and Ronnie Allen at his pub last night.

‘I kept thinking this has nothing to do with the original kidnapping. Nothing to do with America. But now I don’t know.’ I tapped on the photo. ‘Do you know this guy?’

Del Rio tilted his chin slightly and worked his jaw muscles as he looked at the picture. ‘Wiseguy, name of Sally Manzino. East Coast. Importer and exporter.’

‘I take it we’re not talking coffee beans.’

‘He’s on the payroll of the Noccia family. Not the mobile-phone people. Sally Manzino is their East Coast connection. Private has had dealings with the family before. What’s the connection?’

‘This man’ – I pointed to a photo of Brendan Ferres – ‘was seen entering the university where Hannah was studying, a couple of hours before she was abducted. He works for a piece of work called Ronnie Allen.’

‘I’ve heard the name.’

‘He denies any connection with the kidnapping.’

‘You buy it?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s not his usual line and if he knew what Harlan Shapiro was worth, then if he had taken the girl he’d be asking for a lot more than a million pounds’ worth of pretty stones.’

‘It’s not exactly chump change, but I take your point. So what’s his story?’

‘Snake Ferres reckons he was making a delivery.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Yeah. Tertiary-educational institutions in our country are not exactly immune from drug abuse. And in the main the students at Chancellors come from money. They can afford the good stuff.’

‘And Ronnie Allen can provide it?’

‘He certainly can.’

‘I’ll speak to Jack. Check them out.’

‘If Noccia is involved in the kidnapping, is he likely to say so?’

‘Depends how you ask the question,’ Del Rio said.

He had a point. I finished my own coffee and my mobile rang as Sam came into the office. I waved him in, looked at the caller ID and saw that the number had been withheld. I answered it, clicking it to loudspeaker.

‘Dan Carter.’

The same mechanical voice as before boomed out.

‘You were told not to talk to the police, Mister Carter.’

‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to listen to me …’

‘No, you have to listen to me,’ he said. ‘You were told not to speak to the police and you were told what the consequences would be if you did so.’

‘It wasn’t us,’ I said, keeping my voice level.

There was a pause. ‘You get one more chance, Mister Carter.’

I sighed quietly. ‘Go on …’

‘As is traditional in these kind of negotiations, when instructions are ignored you get penalised. The fee has gone up to five million. Same deal. Flawless stones. Five million pounds’ worth.’

‘Where and when?’

‘Two o’clock this afternoon. Eastbound platform for the Metropolitan Line. Finchley Road Tube station. Have Harlan Shapiro with you. Anyone else and the consequences will be terminal. Her father is to make the drop.’

‘If I can arrange—’

‘He’s in the country, Mister Carter. Please don’t take us for fools. That’s the deal. It is not negotiable.’

‘Okay.’

‘Trust us, this is your last shot. Sit on the second bench heading towards the end of the platform and put him on the first Metropolitan train to Baker Street. Not a Jubilee Line train.’

‘How do I know Hannah Shapiro isn’t already dead?’

‘Check your email, Mister Carter. There’s all the information you need.’

Chapter 68

THE LINE WENT DEAD.

I walked around my desk and sat down, pulling my keyboard towards me and angling my monitor so Del Rio and Sam could see it.

I opened my mailbox and there were three new messages.

Two of them were unrelated but the third was from a similar random numbers and letters address as the first YouTube message I had received. The subject line read Last Chance Saloon.

I opened the email and sure enough the message was the same as the first – another hyperlink to a YouTube address.

I clicked on the hyperlink and it opened to a dark screen in the video panel. I clicked on the play icon and after a second or so it faded up on the same room as before. This time, however, Hannah Shapiro was sitting on a chair. She was still wearing the same black underwear, and her face was scrubbed clean of any make-up. She looked like the girl I had first met. Young, vulnerable and very afraid.

She had good reason to be.

What was different this time was that she had explosives strapped around her body. Wires connecting the various packages, suicide bomber-style. Rope hung again from one wrist and the other hand held a typewritten note.

She looked at the camera, her voice trembling.

‘They want you to know,’ she said, ‘that this bomb I am wearing can be triggered remotely. Any attempt to do anything other than what you are instructed to do and it will be detonated. Likewise if you attempt to deliver fake diamonds. They will be examined and if they are not genuine the device will be detonated. If police are there again as they were this morning, the device will be detonated.’

She let the paper fall to the floor as tears welled in her large, terrified eyes.

‘Please help me,’ she added in a desperate whisper.

The screen faded to blackness and I rewound the video and paused it. Looking at the devices strapped to her body.

‘They look genuine to you?’ asked Sam.

‘Yup,’ I replied.

‘We have to tell the police, then.’

‘Can’t do that,’ Del Rio said softly.

Sam held his hands up. ‘We can’t let a walking bomb get on the London Underground.’

‘We go to the police and they’ll kill her,’ I said to Sam.

‘What is it they call it – collateral damage?’ he persisted.

‘They’re not going to do anything, Sam. They want the money, is all. It’s business.’

Del Rio worked his jaw muscles again. ‘We have to protect the client,’ he said. ‘That’s our job here. We save the girl.’

Chapter 69

HARLAN SHAPIRO HAD barely said three words to me since our first meeting earlier that morning.

Sam and Del Rio had driven us to the Finchley Road Tube station and we had been sitting on the seat as we’d been told, for some twenty-five minutes. It was five minutes to two. I had looked at my watch seconds earlier. But I checked it again, anyway. Hard to be perfectly calm when a bomb is thundering up the Metropolitan Line on its way for a date with you.

We had been put between a rock and a very hard place. If Hannah was indeed on the train then theoretically we could have placed operatives at all stations on the Metropolitan Line between Finchly Road and the four terminuses it finished at: Uxbridge, Watford, Chesham and Amersham.

We had the manpower for that. But the Metropolitan Line intersected with other lines on the Underground at many stations and with the overland mainline services at Harrow-on-the-Hill. Meaning that the kidnappers could start their journey potentially from anywhere in London and still end up heading towards us on the eastbound train that was due in five minutes. Private had a lot of resources but we didn’t have enough for that, not in the time available to us.