Powerstone (12 page)

‘Nothing like,’ Irene smiled. ‘The
British still have not learned about security. They are to be carried in a
glass topped Rolls Royce so that the crowds can view them. The vehicle will
drive slowly from the castle.’ She clicked onto a map of the Royal Mile and
traced the route with a pointer. ‘Down here, passing these intersections,’
Irene moved her pointer down the narrow street of Canongate to a roundabout at
the palace. ‘Then the procession goes around this roundabout and up to the
Parliament building in
Holyrood
Road
.’

‘How wide are the streets?’ Mary
asked. She blew smoke toward the screen and smiled as Irene wafted her hand in
front of her.

‘Narrow; they are mediaeval, with
hardly any room to move.’ Irene clicked through her collection until she found
a photograph of Canongate. The maroon-and-white double decker bus dominated the
street, squeezing past a line of cars travelling in the opposite direction.
‘Like this.’

Mary stood up and moved closer,
bending forward to inspect the screen.
Bryan
immediately gave a wolf-whistle, to which she responded with a quick
upward jerk of her middle finger. ‘As you say, the street is narrow.’ It was
the first civil words that she had spoken to Irene, and the accompanying smile
seemed genuine.

Irene nodded; her charisma was working
at last. ‘Ready?’ On Mary’s nod she returned to a map of the Royal Mile and
reverted to flattery. ‘Well Mary, you’re the driver, so you know best. Where
would you arrange the hit?’

‘The broadest street, where we
could have room to manoeuvre,’ Mary said at once. She remained beside the
screen, examining the map. ‘I would wait in one of the intersecting streets,
come out at speed and hit the convoy as it passed, then drive up here,’ she
jabbed her finger at the South Bridge, which cut a straight path north toward
the centre of Edinburgh, and southward out of the city.

‘That would be the sensible place
to hit,’ Irene agreed. ‘So that is where the security will be tightest.’
Relations between her and Mary might have thawed, but she would not allow the
woman to dictate tactics.

‘Security!’ Patrick grinned,
shaking his head. ‘A glass topped vehicle!’

Desmond lifted his head. ‘How much
protection will there be?’

‘Obviously I don’t know the
details,’ Irene said, ‘but the British like their Queen, and judging by
previous royal occasions they will pack
Edinburgh
with police. They have lots of experience, and they did
the 2005 G8 summit quite effectively, remember, and foiled that attempted
attack on
Glasgow
Airport
in ‘07.’ Meeting Patrick’s eyes, she winked. ‘But let’s
start at the beginning. The Queen has a personal Scottish bodyguard, the Royal
Company of Archers.’

‘Jesus,’
Bryan
stared. ‘Archers? You mean bows
and arrows? Have the Brits forgotten about al-Qaeda already?’

Mary said nothing, but nodded to Irene
to continue. The next picture showed a member of the Royal Company of Archers;
everybody stared at the elderly man wearing a dark green tunic with black
facings. ‘These gentlemen have served as the sovereign’s bodyguard in
Scotland
since
1822.’

‘The same men, by the age of that
one,’
Bryan
laughed.

‘There are 530 of them, and they
have to be Scots.’

‘These men are for decoration.
Show us who will really be guarding the Queen.’ Mary raised her eyebrows in a
manner strikingly similar to that of Ms Manning.

‘There will be a ceremonial
guard,’ Irene said. ‘Possibly of cavalry, such as these.’ She showed a picture
of the Household Cavalry, their breastplates and swords gleaming, plumes
wafting in the wind and great horses clumping in front of
London
’s
Buckingham
Palace
. ‘Or of infantry soldiers.’ She
showed an image of the Scots Guards, with red coats and bearskins, marching in
procession.

‘Toy soldiers,’ Patrick gave his
inevitable opinion.

Bryan
looked over to Desmond and
smiled. ‘Targets,’ he said, and pointed his index finger toward the screen.

‘There will also be police.’ Irene
clicked onto a photograph of a Scottish police constable with his diced cap and
truncheon. She allowed Patrick a minute to jeer, and then showed an image of an
officer with a gun. ‘Some will be armed.’

As she had expected, the sight of
a police officer armed with an automatic rifle sobered the scoffers. They began
to ask technical questions, which Irene allowed Patrick to answer. He had spent
two days researching the type of weapons that British police were allowed to
carry, and gave detailed information which the others wrote down.

‘Maybe they carry guns,’ Stefan
said, his accent so thick that Irene had to struggle to understand him, ‘but
can they use them? Have they the will to shoot?’

Desmond grunted. ‘Ask Jean Charles
de Menezes.’ His eyes were bright as he stared at the Ukrainian. ‘That’s the
Brazilian that the
London
police murdered after the
London
bombing. They mistook him for a
terrorist, so they said.’

‘And ask anyone in the north of
Ireland
. The RUC were brutes,’
Bryan
added to Desmond’s allegations.
‘The British police are as capable of slaughtering civilians as any other
enforcement agency.’

Irene waited until the emotional
response had died down. ‘So we have the Royal Company of Archers. We have
soldiers, unarmed police and armed police.’ She allowed her words to sink in.
‘There will probably be plain clothed Special Branch officers amongst the crowd,
and more than likely Special Forces ready somewhere nearby.’

‘Jesus. They’re animals.’
Bryan
shook his head. ‘The SAS are
trained killers. Savages. Uniformed murderers. Remember the three martyrs in
Gibraltar
?’

‘I remember.’ Irene had no
recollection of any martyrdom in
Gibraltar
, but knew instinctively that it was best not to reveal ignorance to
men such as Bryan Kelly.

There was a few minutes’ silence
as the team digested this new information. ‘Are you certain that we should try
for the Crown Jewels when they are in transit?’ Patrick acted as spokesman for
the rest.

‘Yes.’ Irene said. ‘Now listen.
View this objectively. As Mary pointed out, the soldiers are just for
decoration. They are more concerned with pleasing their sergeant than in
watching the crowd. They want to look their best, and they won’t be carrying
loaded rifles anyway. Discount them. And discount the Royal Archers. They are
decorative old men. That leaves the unarmed police, a few police with weapons
they’ll hesitate to use in crowded streets, and maybe some SAS.’

‘
Maybe
some SAS? Maybe is
more than enough,’
Bryan
’s voice rose an octave. ‘Special
Branch and SAS together? Count me out.’ He frowned when Stefan laughed. ‘Don’t
display your ignorance, Stefan. These people are killers.’

‘And you are a frightened little
Irishman,’ Stefan taunted, ‘full of big words but running from shadows.’

Irene allowed the testosterone to
simmer for a few seconds. ‘Nobody is running,’ she soothed away the tension.
‘Now tell me, gentlemen, what will be the priority of Special Branch and the
SAS? The Queen and heads of state,’ she answered her own question. ‘To them,
the Honours are just old baubles of little importance. Indeed,’ she produced a
smile that had even Desmond responding, ‘the English would be pleased if the
Honours were to disappear. That way there would be one less symbol of
nationhood for the Scots. The English are scared that the
Union
might break up.’

‘Are they?’ Desmond showed more
interest. He lit a cigarette.

‘Of course.’ Irene had been
successful in her career because she thoroughly researched every project on
which she was engaged. Now she could capitalise on the mind-bending hours she
had spent studying modern Scottish history and the politics of devolution.
‘That’s why they allowed the Scottish Parliament, to quieten the threat of complete
independence. That’s why they lied to the Scots about the quantity of
North Sea
oil. That’s why they crack down
far harder on any militant Scottish nationalism than they do to Irish
nationalism. The English need
Scotland
far more than
Scotland
needs the
Union
.’ On an impulse she clicked back
the PowerPoint to show the scarlet-coated Scots Guards. ‘Without the Scots, who
would fight
England
’s wars? Without
Scotland
’s oil, how could the English
finance their cradle-to-grave welfare state?’

Desmond exchanged a glance with
Bryan
. ‘Break the Scottish union and
what has
England
left? Only the north of
Ireland
and
Wales
.’ He leaned back in his chair,
allowing smoke to trickle through his nostrils. ‘Well now. Well, now indeed.
Carry on, Irene, you are beginning to interest me.’

‘So the English will have minimum
security around the Honours, and maximum around
Her
Majesty
.’
Irene sneered the title to display her adherence to the Irish cause. ‘What we
have to do is divert even more of their attention to the Queen; thin out the
security so the Honours are virtually unguarded when we hit.’ Irene looked from
one predatory face to the next to assess their enthusiasm.

Patrick was her current partner.
He would do as she wished until she dumped him. Stefan had no concern about
United Kingdom
politics. He was a mercenary
criminal, pure and simple; his reward was in dollar bills. Hatred of past
English misdeeds motivated Desmond and Bryan; they lived on stories of the
Great Hunger of the 1840s and reinforced historical tragedy with manufactured
myth. Both men were bred on bitterness and indoctrinated with racial
detestation. Mary was more enigmatic; Irene was not sure of her motive.
Certainly she was of Irish stock, but she seemed to lack the fervour of the
others. Perhaps gender issues drove her; a desire to prove herself equal to any
man.

‘Mary,’ Irene decided to ask the
direct question. ‘You look uncertain. Are you still with us?’

‘Still here,’ Mary confirmed. When
she looked up her eyes altered from lazy unconcern to intense concentration.
She even managed a wan smile. ‘But you seem to be keeping my part in this a
secret. Where do you want me to drive?’

‘I called this meeting to keep you
all updated and to hear your input. When I have formulated a plan I will let you
know.’ Irene stopped as Mary frowned. She believed it was best to let her
people have their say.

‘You are taking too much on
yourself,’ Mary told her. She gesticulated to the computer screen. ‘This all
means nothing. If I’m putting my life on the line, I want to see the ground,
not some map.’

Irene saw the sense in Mary’s
words. ‘We’ll all go over to
Scotland
,’
she decided, ‘and walk the route. Before the time comes for the hit, we’ll know
more about
Edinburgh
than the locals do.’

Since Stefan had demanded more
than she had expected for his share, Irene had been carefully balancing her
budget. She had only quarter of a million dollars to pay for everything, from
hotel reservations to transport and weapons, so there would be no five star luxury
on this trip, unless she dug deep into her own funds.

Mary surprised her with a smile.
‘We didn’t start off too good,’ she spoke quietly, woman to woman in a
testosterone charged room, ‘but I’ve been watching you. I think we can work
together.’

Irene ejected Patrick from his
seat to move closer to Mary. Discarding the male-trapping charm, she allowed
her voice to drop an octave. ‘We’ll have to learn to trust each other.’

‘I trust your professionalism,’
Mary’s response was immediate. She repeated that taut smile. ‘At first I
thought you were just a spoiled little rich girl kicking out because
The
Neophyte
failure had hurt you, but now I think there’s more there.’ She
tilted her head, dark hair flopping and eyes assessing. ‘I think that we both
had to climb up a long ladder, with men pissing on us from above.’

Irene nodded. She had been right;
Mary fought for feminism. She had not learned the advantages of being a woman
in a world where most participants thought with their groins. As the object of
life was success, empowering more women only increased the competition, so
clearly Mary had misjudged the nature of Pandora when she campaigned to open
the box. ‘You reached the top of your ladder, Mary, and now
you
can pee
on the
men
beneath. I’m still climbing.’

‘Not many people could change
course so quickly,’ Mary’s eyes were shrewd. ‘Last fall you were all set for
corporate success, now you are embarking on a criminal career.’ She
straightened in her seat. ‘I wonder if the two are linked.’ When Irene began to
protest, Mary lit another cheroot. ‘It’s quite all right, Irene. I don’t give a
shit. I had to bend quite a few rules, but it seems that you are intent on
completely burning the rulebook. Well, good for you, sister.’