by Jeff Gulvin
‘You just gonna convict me, Jake? Or do I get a say?’ Harrison could feel his heart thumping. He needed more on tape.
Salvesen looked cautiously at him, then at his watch, and he nodded. ‘You can have your say.’
‘I just wanted to ask you a question.’ Harrison moved to the edge of his chair. ‘Something I can’t figure—aren’t you a little ahead of yourself?’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, all this New World Order stuff. Who is it you read—Hal Lindsey?’
‘Among others.’
‘What, like Robertson and that other guy with the videos—what’s his name—Jack Van Impe?’
Salvesen looked at him with a slant in his eyes. ‘They’re all good men, men bold enough to speak the truth.’
‘But you’re ahead of them. Seems to me that they’re interested in the souls they save and the money they get donated to them. They’re making a buck, Jake. Nothing wrong with that. Shit, it’s the American way.’ He paused then and cocked his head to one side. ‘What’s the hurry, Jake? How come you went and planted a bomb in the middle of London?’
Salvesen looked at him carefully then. ‘The time is upon us,’ he said, leaning forward and clasping his hands together like Harrison had seen him in church, bent over the pulpit like some spiritual benefactor. ‘The problem is, Harrison, that those other men only see half the picture. The militia, people I’m close to, who try to protect the constitutional rights given this nation by God himself, only see half the picture. I’m doing this country a favour. People see black helicopters and concentration camps and the United Nations, but that’s just a ploy.’
‘Ploy?’
‘Oh, it’s probably real enough, but it’s still so much rumour. The whole situation is a product of the Devil. The Bible tells us that in the last days of the world there is little or no mention of the United States. People like Lindsey and the others recognize it, but they don’t seem to have too much to say about it. Now me,’ he poked himself in the chest. ‘I’ve had a better education than most and I’ve had a little more money than most and maybe because of that I can see things a little more clearly than most. What better way for the Antichrist of the revived Roman Empire to undermine the only truly independent power left in the world?’
‘I’m not with you, Jake.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to be. You work for them.’
‘Enlighten me. Call it a last request.’
‘I’ll put it to you this way,’ Salvesen said. ‘What better way for the Devil to create his own world than to undermine the US with revolution. There’s people here in Idaho, people in Michigan, in Texas and Arizona; people in Florida, Nevada, Louisiana and Baltimore ready to go to war right now. Only a couple of years ago, there was a call to arrest Congress. All of that undermines the stability of America.’
‘So why the fuck are you arming them?’
‘Not just arming them, Harrison, educating them.’ Salvesen shook his head. ‘Me, I’m your saving grace. They want to go to war now. I’m telling them the war’ll come here soon enough. All I’m doing is showing them how to defend themselves when it does.’
‘War from Europe?’
‘The New World Order under the sign of the Beast.’
‘So that’s different to the war on the Internet, then?’
Salvesen’s gaze shallowed. ‘It’s one and the same, only the timing is different. The Antichrist wants civil war on US soil, so the rise to power in Europe is that much easier. Me, I’m just trying to prevent it.’
‘By planting a bomb in London.’
‘Sometimes that’s what it takes.’
‘Storm Crow.’
Salvesen threw back his head and laughed. ‘This time he’s bringing good news. He might just be bringing salvation, only they don’t know it.’
‘An international terrorist worse than Carlos the Jackal.’
‘In times of war, Harrison, a man uses everything at his disposal. What were the British in Palestine after the war, if not occupying terrorists. They themselves presided over the second generation of concentration camps, when they stopped the Jews going back to Israel.’
‘That why you got something against them?’
‘They were foremost in trying to prevent the reformation of Israel. Ernest Bevin, the greatest exponent of it all. Maybe he knew what would happen when Israel was reborn.’
‘“And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” In 1967, Jake. When they kicked Hussein back into Jordan.’
Salvesen lifted his eyebrows. ‘You’ve done some homework. In other circumstances, I might even congratulate you.’
Harrison cocked his head to one side. ‘Don’t you think you might just be a little off the mark, though. I mean, Lindsey and those other boys who talk about the revived Roman Empire, the fourth kingdom that you preach about—they reckon it’s the ten horns in Revelation. Ten nations, Jake. I don’t know if anybody noticed, but there’s fifteen in Europe right now.’
Salvesen smiled then, the light cold in his eyes. ‘Exactly. And that’s where I part company with them. It seems to me they’re just making money out of it, after all. Now me, I got all the money I ever needed, so my desire is righteous. I looked a little further than they did, Harrison. I took account of chapter twelve in Revelation.’
‘The dragon with seven heads and ten horns.’
‘Seven whole heads. Seven crowned heads, Harrison. Seven crowned heads at the time that this begins. You know how many kingdoms or royal families there are in Europe right now?’
‘Tell me.’
‘There’s seven, Harrison. If you include Luxembourg.’
‘Which you obviously do. But what about the ten nations? You got me there.’
‘Not ten. Sixteen.’
‘Now, you have lost me.’
‘Listen to me, fool. In 1957, six countries of Europe signed the Treaty of Rome. Rome, Harrison. Rome. West Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and Italy. Six nations. The six good heads in Revelation thirteen.’
‘I read that. And the bad head?’
Salvesen licked his lips. ‘The wounded head that was miraculously healed. The others think that’s the mortal wound of a man, something he’ll recover from and the world will be amazed. But people come back from the dead all the time. Thirty minutes with no heartbeat is the longest I heard of so far. That isn’t gonna fool anyone.’ Salvesen shook his head. ‘The seventh head in Revelation thirteen is Rome. Symbolic, not literal. The second phase of the kingdom, mortally wounded in AD 400 and resurrected in 1957. Now that is amazing.’
‘And the ten horns?’
‘The other ten nations who joined after 1957.’
‘That makes sixteen, Jake. There’s only fifteen right now.’
‘Fool,’ he said. ‘Hungary is waiting to join.’
Now Harrison saw it: Jakob Salvesen’s urgency. For a split second, his logic and his voice, Harrison wondered if he might not be right. He sat very still and remembered what Kovalski had said to him on the phone. With a single currency Europe would become a federal state. And then he knew exactly why so many militia leaders had been in this compound. Their avowed goal was a violent showdown with the Satanic Federal Government, the United States of America. But for Salvesen, it wasn’t America at all. It was the United States of Europe.
Jesse Tate was restless behind Salvesen’s chair. Across from him, the others shifted in their seats. ‘We’re off the point,’ Salvesen said. ‘You’ve said your piece. Now we get on. You’ve been charged with treason and I find you guilty.’ He stood up then. ‘John Dollar, at six o’clock tomorrow morning you will be taken to a place of execution and hanged by the neck till you’re dead.’
Harrison stared at Salvesen, then at Jesse Tate. ‘Not worth a rat’s ass, eh, Jesse.’ He leapt up and threw his chair across the table. Then he was on his haunches scrabbling for the trap door and hauling it open. Jesse recovered himself. A shot rang out,
but Harrison was already dropping into the darkness.
26
PORTER ARMED THE CENTRAL disrupter on Buck-eye’s modular weapons system, and sighted the attack camera. If it failed, the whole place would go up.
‘Preparing to con-ex,’ he said into his microphone, voice hoarse and distant. They-looked briefly at one another, sweat speckling Mitchell’s face through his mask. Porter fired the pig-stick. They heard the dull thud from above and the image on the camera wavered. Porter watched as the camera focused again, aware of the pulse at his eye. ‘Con-ex successful,’ he said.
They climbed back to the twenty-third floor, overheated and weary under the weight of their suits. Nearly six hours had passed since they received the call telling them that the operation was live. Taking a manual lever, they opened the front door to Flat 13, where the remnants of the ruined booby trap still dangled from the handle.
Five minutes later, they were joined by Salmons and Richards from the diagnostics team, carrying the X-ray machine and their cases.
‘We can’t tell where the wires from the booby traps end,’ Porter told them, ‘but the det cord on the window finishes up in the box. Once you two have X-rayed everything, we’ll come back up.’
Salmons was strapping night-vision glasses over his bomb helmet. ‘Don’t worry about it, Tim. Major says you boys have had enough.’
Porter looked at him gratefully. ‘See you back at the ranch, then.’
He and Mitchell made their way back down the twenty-three flights of stairs to the incident control point. They debriefed Hewitt and the render safe team, then climbed aboard a lorry to be ferried back to the inner cordon and decontamination. It was late now, and the streets were absolutely deserted. Everyone had gone and London seemed crippled by an eerie silence, accentuated by the sound of the diesel engine. Porter sat in the back of the tarpaulin-covered truck, letting the air flow over his charcoal suit. The weight of the Kevlar and the bomb helmet was gone and he felt strangely light and free. They passed nobody on their journey from the Barbican to Shepherd’s Bush; no sound, no movement, only the fragile glow of street lights and the expanse of the sky above them.
Colson sat with Dr Firman and the commander, who was on the phone to the Prime Minister at Chequers.
‘We’re working on it now, sir,’ the commander said.
‘Is it safe yet?’
‘Not yet, I’m afraid.’
‘We need the City open, Mr Garrod. The country cannot afford this.’
‘I know that, sir. But it’s delicate. They’ve discovered a very large and very intricate improvised explosive device. It’s booby-trapped and they had to enter the flat through the next-door wall. The Royal Engineers have erected a balloon on the outside of the window to try and catch most of the chemical if it goes.’
‘What about contamination?’
‘Well, they’re only just entering the room, but it’s been negative all the time they’ve had a hole in the wall.’
‘That’s good news at least. We must work fast, though—international confidence is falling. The economy will suffer, Mr Garrod, and people need to be back in their homes.’
Garrod rubbed at his eyes with a palm. ‘I appreciate that, sir. But if we get this wrong, there won’t be any homes to go back to.’
‘I understand, Mr Garrod. Believe me. You have my direct line; please keep me posted of any developments.’
‘PM wants his capital city back,’ Garrod said as he put down the phone.
Colson rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. ‘Don’t we all.’ He got up and looked out of the window, across towards the luminous blue glow of the decontamination tents.
In the operations room at the Yard, Christine Harris dozed, her head resting against a rubber-gloved palm. Larry Thomas sat by the window, looking out over the deserted city and thinking about his wife and children back in Virginia. Webb monitored the communications. It occurred to him that all they needed now was PIRA to break their ceasefire and then they’d be really stuffed.
Salmons and the less experienced Richards checked one another’s respirators and Richards made sure his indicator paper was properly attached, and that he had a bottle of Fuller’s Earth in his pocket. They had the door open and entered Flat 13 in pitch darkness, using their NVGs. The movement sensors were still live and they knew from Buck-eye’s boom what was a safe height to work at. So they crawled on their hands and knees and between them brought in the X-ray machine and PINS analysis system. Richards gawped as Salmons removed the weight of his helmet.
‘If it goes off with me right over it, the helmet’ll keep my head in one piece,’ Salmons said. ‘It’ll still be four miles from my body.’
He could see more easily without it. He had done it many times, taken the helmet off up close. It really did not matter: from five to ten yards it might make something of a difference, depending on how lucky you were, but on top of the box itself, luck had nothing to do with it. He worked quickly, making the most of his energy before the heat of the suit began to sap it. Richards was alongside him, preparing the plates and deciding which way to approach the box. They had to X-ray from all angles, so they could get a clear idea of exactly what was inside. If they were very lucky, they might be able to find out how much time they had left. They would X-ray some of the tubes as well, see their make-up, what kind of detonator and charge had been applied and what the liquid content was.
Cautiously, Richards approached the empty plastic drum which stood alongside the glass wall of the dirty room. He watched his indicator paper through the fuzzy light of the NVGs that protruded from his forehead like a Dalek’s eye. When he got near the container, the paper started to fade and he felt his heart rise in his chest.
‘Col?’
Salmons was busy with the X-ray machine, setting it carefully along the front of the box. He could see the microswitch booby trap just under the hasp.
‘Colin?’
‘What?’ He turned and Richards pointed to the colour of his indicator patch.
‘Shit.’
‘It’s that container.’
Salmons looked across the room and bit his lip. ‘Is there anything in it?’
‘No.’
‘Run the PINS,’ Salmons said.
Richards set up the isotopic neutron spectroscope, checking the time on his wristwatch, strapped over his black rubber glove. It could take up to twenty minutes to get an accurate reading and he was painfully aware that they might not have twenty minutes.
‘Control from diagnostics,’ Salmons spoke into the radio.
‘Go ahead, Colin.’
‘Preparing to X-ray. There’s an open plastic container on the floor, and we’ve got the first traces of positive contamination.’
He X-rayed, moving round the wooden box to take pictures from all sides, inching his way, being careful not to disturb or move it. He counted a second microswitch under the lid on the right-hand side, close to the hinge. As the lid was lifted, so the switch would push out and complete the circuit. There was no way of opening the box with det cord without disturbing them, so they would have to be dealt with manually. For a moment, he thought of the mind that had rigged this thing up. Perspiration ran off his nose and he licked at it.
While he was working, Richards started the spectroscopy analysis. He tested the general atmosphere, then the plastic drum and then the piece of copper tube in the dirty room. Inadvertently, he touched the fallen container, and patted down with Fuller’s Earth. The signs in the room were positive but minimal. He moved back to Salmons who was now X-raying the pipes. ‘Positive in the dirty room, although marginal, Colin. Positive on the plastic container, and the copper tube.’
Salmons nodded.
‘I’ll start on the pipes.’
‘Just do a couple, Mike. We need to get the pictures developed quickly.’
Swann and Byrne walked alongside the Seine, a world away from London. Paris, as always, was heaving. Swann checked the directions he had got from Yves Merrier of the D
CPJ, his counterpart in the French police. An old friend, Mercier had been on the fifteenth floor more than once recently to discuss four Algerian activists they had arrested up in Manchester. He had given them directions to the floating barge restaurant close to Notre Dame Cathedral. Byrne had hailed a cab and they were walking the rest of the way. Swann pointed out a flight of steps which led down to the quayside.
‘You speak French, Louis?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Pidgin.’
‘I’ll figure it out, Jack. Don’t worry.’
Byrne took the receipt from him and they made their way into the barge, which turned out to be an extremely exclusive place with only a handful of tables. All of them were full, with well-dressed patrons who could afford the luxury of Notre Dame as a backdrop and the horrific nature of the prices. Byrne took the maître d’ to one side, showed him his FBI shield and then began to speak to him in perfect French. Swann caught the words ‘Scotland Yard’ and he showed the man his warrant card. Then Byrne handed him the photograph of the receipt. The man wandered over to the payment counter, where he began checking through a book.
Swann touched Byrne on the arm. ‘You’ve been here before?’
‘Not Paris, but France a couple of times.’
‘How come you’re so fluent?’
‘Studied it at school.’
‘What else d’you speak?’
‘Bit of Spanish. German. Russian. Little bit of Arabic. It helps with the Middle Eastern guys I have to interview.’
The maître d’ came back with a copy of the reservations book. He checked the date on the receipt and then opened the pertinent page. Swann saw the name before his finger ever got to it. ‘Monsieur Salvesen’.
