Powerstone (26 page)

‘Where’s the car? Where’s Mary?’

Irene pulled off her own mask.
Either the gas had not seeped so far down or the wind had dissipated it, for
the air was as clear as in any other
Old
Town
close. ‘Down here. Not far.’ She
ran on, keeping her face down in case the CCTV cameras penetrated this far into
the close. If not, she hoped that her wig was sufficient disguise.

Stefan was at her side when she
reached
Holyrood Road
, but instead of Mary and the car,
hundreds of people packed the street. He muttered as his foot caught an empty
bottle, sending it spinning into the street. Irene tried to hide the sceptre
inside her bulky coat, but everybody was too concerned with their own problems
to pay them attention. She started at the wailing of sirens, but whether of
police, fire brigade or ambulance she did not know.

‘Shit,’
Bryan
said, ‘and shit again. These are
refugees from the High Street. Where the fuck’s Mary with the car?’

‘Not here yet,’ Surprisingly,
Desmond was the calmest of them all. He leaned on the Sword of State with a
nonchalance that Irene could only admire. ‘We are ahead of time, after all.’

Irene glared at him, but he
shrugged. ‘It only took three minutes from the first explosion,’ he explained,
‘and it takes Mary four minutes to drive here.’

‘Three minutes?’ Irene glanced at
her watch, astonished to see that Desmond was correct. She thought that they
taken much longer.

‘That’s all,’ Desmond said. ‘The
whole thing went like clockwork. There!’ He pointed as a red Cherokee thrust
through the crowd, sounding its horn. It pulled up beside them and Mary blinked
through heavy goggles at them.

Irene closed her eyes. Maybe this
would work, after all. They had achieved the impossible, now all they had to do
was escape. She fought the bout of relieved hysteria that nearly reduced her to
giggling uselessness and stepped toward the vehicle.

‘Hey! Youse!’ The voice was pure
Edinburgh
as two tartan-trousered
infantrymen erupted from the foot of the close. The man in front was hatless
and his hair was distinctively red. He levelled his SA 80 so the silver blade
of the bayonet glittered evilly.
Bryan
had been confident that the army would not carry loaded rifles
through the city. He had not mentioned that Scottish infantrymen were quite
adept with the bayonet. ‘Gie’s them back!’

Irene heard herself shriek as she
saw her dreams dissolve in front of her.

‘Get in!’ Mary’s scream sounded
above the noise. She gunned the engine. Jerking open the passenger door,
Bryan
threw in the crown and launched himself
inside before reaching for Irene.

‘Come on, for God’s sake.’

Stefan slipped into the passenger
seat beside Mary. ‘Desmond! Get in’

‘You shot my brother, you British
bastards!’ Desmond glared at the two advancing soldiers. ‘You killed him in
Armagh
!’

As the second soldier knelt and
aimed his rifle, Irene saw the scar on his lip and remembered him laughing in
the Ensign Ewart only a few months ago. He was not laughing now. ‘
Bryan
! You told us that the army would
have empty rifles!’

‘So they have; he’s bluffing!’
Bryan
raised his voice, ‘Desmond! We’re
doing more for the cause this way!
Erin
gu Brath!’

‘
Erin
gu Brath!’ Desmond echoed, but rather than climbing into the
Cherokee, he lifted the great sword around his head and ran at the kneeling
Royal Scot.

Irene did not know if she was
prompted by a desire to retain all the Honours, or if she had some loyalty to
Desmond, but she dropped the sceptre and slid out of her seat. ‘Desmond! Don’t
be a fool!’

Desmond ignored her. As he swung
his sword, the red-haired Royal lunged forward. He ducked the great blade with
a quick jerk of his head, grunted and plunged in the bayonet. Desmond squealed as
it entered his chest, and screamed again as the Royal Scot twisted the blade
before withdrawing. Desmond seemed to stiffen; he looked down at the torrent of
blood that had already soaked through his jacket, swore softly and crumpled to
the ground. The sword clattered at his side.

Before that day, Irene had never
seen a man shot or stabbed. She opened her mouth in horror, as Stefan’s huge
hand closed around her arm. ‘It’s over. Get in. Hurry.’

‘Up the Royals!’ The red haired
private lifted his bloodied blade and advanced toward them, with his companion
at his side. ‘Come on you bastards! Come oot and fight!’

‘The sword!’

‘Forget the sword, the soldier
boys can have it!’ Stefan bundled Irene back inside as Mary threw the Cherokee
into a crazy three point turn that nearly knocked two pedestrians off their
feet and had the Royal Scots swearing in anger. The red haired soldier lashed
out as the Cherokee passed, his boot thumping from the bodywork.

‘Come oot you cowardly bastards!’
Stooping, he lifted the empty bottle that Stefan had kicked and threw it after
the retreating car. It spun in the air, crashed against the rear windscreen and
clattered away.

Mary thrust down the accelerator
and the vehicle powered along
Holyrood Road
.

Irene looked back. The second
soldier had lifted the Sword of State and gestured obscenely at them. Desmond
lay where he had fallen with his blood a spreading puddle. Leaning forward,
Irene vomited onto the floor of the car.

Edinburgh
, July

‘Go! Move!’
Bryan
leaned over the back seat. ‘Just
motor through.’ The crowds in
Holyrood Road
were increasing as people pushed down the closes to escape the gas and smoke in
the High Street. Police in yellow jackets struggled to establish order as a
long line of ambulances helped the coughing casualties.

Irene leaned back, gasping for
breath as she relived the horror of Desmond’s bayoneting, and wondered where it
had all gone wrong.

‘Are you happy?’ Mary shouted over
her shoulder. ‘You’ve got your trinkets now.’

Irene shook her head, wordless.
Hollywood
had not prepared her for this
sordid reality. Was Ms Manning’s lifestyle worth it?

‘Move it!’
Bryan
had removed his gas mask but
pulled a green baseball cap low over his face. ‘Keep rolling, Mary.’

With her hand firm on the horn,
Mary weaved from side to side to negotiate the crowds. Twice they passed people
lying retching on the ground, and once a man tried to flag them down. He
carried a child and looked desperately at them, mouthing the word ‘hospital.’

‘The diversions worked then,’
Bryan
had already recovered. ‘We should
be home free in a few moments.’

Irene shook her head. ‘Oh, God, I
didn’t expect it to be like this.’

‘No? What did you expect, Irene?
Disneyland
? A film set with lots of tough
heroes and only the villains being hurt?’ Mary’s laugh cut deeply. ‘Better hope
that’s not right, because in this film, we’re the villains!’

‘Watch your driving.’ Stefan said
quietly. ‘Police.’

The
Edinburgh
police had acted swiftly to place a line of orange and
white cones across
Holyrood
Road
, and manned it
with four uniformed officers. Two were busy giving first aid to the injured,
but the policewoman who stepped forward had sergeant’s stripes on her arm. She
held up her hand.

Mary slowed until she was within
five yards of the barrier, then rammed down the accelerator and swerved around
the sergeant, who jumped aside, her mouth working rapidly. The Cherokee hit the
cones at speed, flicking one high in the air. A second jammed beneath the front
axle and scraped along the road for the next fifty yards until Mary stopped,
threw the vehicle in reverse and curved around the cone.

‘Lost it,’ Mary said briefly. ‘Who
needs
Hollywood
when we can have
Edinburgh
, eh? Here’s our junction.’ She turned
into the Pleasance, dropped down a gear and threw the Cherokee onward.

Irene looked behind her she heard
the approaching wail of sirens. ‘Police. No, it’s a Landrover.’

‘Redcaps,’ Bryan told her. ‘Military
Police. Bastards with snouts.’

‘We can outrun them,’ Mary said
calmly. ‘Watch this.’ Dropping her gear again, she moved to the right side of
the road, forcing an oncoming car to swerve across the road, and then quickly
returned to the left side. Faced with the suddenly approaching vehicle, the Military
Police Landrover abruptly braked, skidded, and slammed sideways into a
lamppost.

‘Amateurs!’ Mary raised her gears
again and powered on. ‘There might be more ahead though. It depends how many
were diverted to the High Street.’ She overtook a BMW, flicked on her lights to
make the driver think she was braking and laughed when he dropped behind.
‘That’s another obstacle for the police.’

‘Well done, Mary,’
Bryan
approved.

Stefan glanced at his watch. ‘How
are we for time?’

Irene glanced upward, hoping that
Patrick was there with the helicopter. She thought of the man
Bryan
had shot, and of Desmond lying in
his own blood, and of the casualties the CS gas had caused. She had not
intended such hurt. She had not realised the pain and suffering that her idea
would cause. Shaking her head, she looked down at the gaudy crown that squeezed
in the space between the back and front seats, and the sceptre that she
unconsciously gripped in her hand. These trinkets were her tickets to power but
she no longer knew if the price justified the prize.

Ignoring red traffic signals, Mary
eased around slower moving traffic, weaving around a toiling cyclist. ‘Nearly
there.’ She laughed again as a solitary police car emerged from a side street
just behind them. Irene shuddered at the wail of sirens and sunk lower in her
seat.

Mary shook her head. ‘Don’t they
realize that sitting behind me is useless? I won’t go any slower and people in
front just clear out of the road quicker.’

There was a build up of traffic
ahead, but Mary jinked around the congestion like the superb driver that she
was. Turning left at the Commonwealth Pool, she circled both roundabouts and
slammed through the entrance to the Queen’s Park.

‘He’s not here! Jesus and Mary,
he’s not here!’
Bryan
stared beyond the red crags of
Salisbury
, scanning the sky. ‘The police
will be with us in a minute.’

‘Calm down.’ Mary’s voice was
sharp. ‘Paddy won’t let us down.’ Heading left, she veered off the road onto
the wide stretch of grass. ‘He’ll be here.’

Putting a hand over her face,
Irene glanced backward. The police car had negotiated the roundabout but had
had been halted by a slow moving bus.

‘There he is.’ Stefan gestured
upward just as Irene became aware of the slightly sinister beat of a helicopter
rotor.

Mary pushed the Cherokee into a
wide curve, waited until the helicopter hovered above them, and then braked.
‘All out, and don’t forget the crown jewels.’

‘Never travel without them,’
Bryan
assured her.

Irene felt her legs trembling as
she nearly fell from the seat and staggered outside. The helicopter hovered
above them, the downdraught from its rotors flattening the short grass and
causing their coats to flap madly around their legs.

‘Oh look,’ Mary sounded terribly
calm. ‘It’s not very large.’ She shrugged toward Irene, ‘I hope that we can all
fit in.’

‘Of course we can,’ Irene snapped
back. ‘Patrick worked out the passenger capacity months ago.’

The helicopter touched down
smoothly, its blades rotating. The passenger door slid open and Patrick looked out.
‘Hurry! The bastards have put an air exclusion zone in place, there’s a police
car coming into the park and army Landrovers driving from Holyrood!’

‘Oh Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!’
Keeping low to avoid the rotor blades, Irene ran toward the helicopter. Mary
was there first, laughing as Patrick pulled her on board. She eased into the
seat at his side. Stefan waited by the door, shouting above the noise of the
engine.

‘Come on Irene. I’ll hold that
while you get on board.’

Nodding, Irene handed over the sceptre.
She paused at the door. ‘This is not the same chopper!’

‘No!’ Patrick shook his head.
‘This is a much faster craft. Much smaller too. It only has space for two
passengers.’

‘What? Irene stared as
Bryan
tossed the crown to Mary and
eased on board.