Sharp Shot

by Jack Higgins

  Rich and Jade were sitting opposite Chance and Ardman on a small, fast jet. Goddard was due to meet them from the landing strip near the palace, and Goddard would meet them there. Darrow was already on his way by helicopter, under careful guard courtesy of Chuck White’s Secret Service team.

  “Make him talk? Oh right,” said Jade. “So, we’re into torture now are we? Remind me—who are the terrorists here?”

  “Well, if it’s that or let tens of thousands of people get blown up…” Rich protested.

  Chance watched them argue. “It isn’t that simple, sadly,” he said. “Darrow’s been trained to hold out, and that’s all he has to do. He has the luxury of time and we don’t.”

  Ardman was talking quietly, but urgently, on a mobile phone. He ended the call and snapped the phone closed. “That’s settled,” he said, with the faintest trace of a smile.

  “What?” Rich asked.

  “The Professor is already on his way to join us on the fastest plane the RAF can spare. He agrees that Darrow can’t be forced to talk, and he won’t easily be tricked. But the Professor does have an interesting suggestion.”

  Jade had met the Professor before. With his dark beard and saturnine features, he looked like he had escaped from the ranks of Mephistopheles’ henchmen. But he was actually a stage magician who specialised in mind-reading. Jade had seen him trick a gunman into telling them exactly what they wanted, and he’d told Jade some things about herself that she had no idea how he knew…

  “So what’s the Professor say we need to do?” she asked.

  “Well, as I say, it’s an interesting one,” said Ardman. “The Professor suggests that we should let the bomb go off.”

  The Professor had already arrived by the time they got to the desert palace. A tall man in a dark suit, he was supervising several of Goddard’s team. They seemed to be carrying buckets of rubble through to one of the rooms.

  “We’ll keep it round the corner here,” the Professor told them. “Then it’s ready to spread round as we need it. Thank you.”

  He smiled as he saw Jade. “It’s Miss Chance. How delightful to see you again.”

  Jade grinned back at him and introduced Rich. The Professor shook his hand.

  “You got everything you need?” asked Ardman.

  “Almost. I think the RAF left my stomach behind somewhere over Kent. But apart from that…” He led Ardman through to one of the large reception rooms. “I’ve chosen this room as most suitable. You’re sure the owner won’t mind if we mess the place up a bit?” He sniffed. “Not that you’d notice actually, I think someone else got here before me. John Chance by the look of it.” He turned to smile at Chance.

  “Let’s leave them to it,” said Chance. “I want to check on Darrow.”

  “So what’s this Professor bloke up to?” Rich wondered.

  “Who knows? It’ll be complicated and brilliant, though. Let’s just hope it’s brilliant enough to work on Darrow.”

  Watching on a monitor with Pete and Alan in the lab, it was soon clear that Darrow wasn’t going to give away any information willingly.

  The lab had been converted into an operations room like the one at Algernon’s mansion house in England. Rich and Jade were surprised and pleased to find Dex Halford helping Pete set things up. Alan was busy at another computer.

  Halford turned down the sound on the monitor showing Chance talking to Darrow. One of the SAS team who had stormed the palace stood in the corner of the small room. Still in his black uniform, he was holding an assault rifle and was obviously ready to step in if Darrow caused any trouble.

  “You think Darrow will talk?” asked Rich.

  “Not a hope,” said Halford.

  “So what’s the Professor planning this time?” Jade wondered.

  “I don’t know, but he wants us to set up a video conference link with some number in the Greater London area. Near Ealing. Guy called Mike.”

  Rich was interested in the technical stuff, but it left Jade cold. She left them to it. She was tired and thirsty, but it wasn’t easy to relax knowing that a nuclear bomb might go off at any moment.

  The Professor was talking with a group of people in the corridor outside the room he’d shown Ardman.

  “We don’t have time for a full rig,” the Professor was saying. “Ideally we’d build a raised floor and false walls, but time is rather of the essence.”

  “How about we blow the supporting beams?” someone asked.

  “Won’t the floor just drop out?” someone else said. “Mind you, that’d be pretty convincing.”

  “Well, we don’t blow them all, then. Just enough for the floor to shake.”

  The Professor nodded. “Could we do the same with the walls, do you think? Charges on the other side, enough to shake some plaster off?”

  “Don’t see why not,” the man who’d talked about the floor beams said. “Easy enough, and pretty quick.”

  “Then that’s what we do. And make sure there are no clocks in there.”

  Jade watched the men working furiously for a few more minutes— rigging the furniture in the room with tiny detonators, and fixing devices on the adjoining walls. When she went downstairs, she found a team in the room below attaching putty-like plastic explosive to exact points marked on the ceiling. She had little doubt that something similar must be happening on the floor of the room above the Professor as well, but she had no idea why.

  They were all still hard at work when she returned from the kitchens with a pot of coffee and tray of mugs to take down to Rich and the others in the lab.

  Ardman was rubbing his hands together and looking pleased as Jade passed. He was deep in conversation with the Professor.

  “We’ve taken his watch along with his belt and other possessions. Oh, and we’ve slipped a little something into his tea,” said the Professor, catching sight of Jade and the tray. “Just enough to disorient him slightly and with luck it’ll put him to sleep. In this heat he has to drink something, even if he thinks we may have drugged it. But he seems fairly relaxed. When we wake him, he’ll have no idea how long he’s been out.”

  “Everything else on track?” asked Ardman.

  “I was just going to check with Pete whether he’d got Mike online yet. I’d like to know how the plate work is going.” The Professor turned to Jade as she passed. “I hope you’ve got a spare mug here for me.”

  In the lab, Pete was talking to a man with long, dark hair on one of the monitor screens.

  “I’ve found a local news crew who are getting me the plate shots,” the man was saying. He grinned as he saw the Professor appear beside Pete on his own monitor. “Hi, Guv. How’s it going?”

  “Hello, Mike,” said the Professor. “We’re all set at our end. Just waiting for you.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve got the elements coming together. As I was saying, the news crew can give me good enough backgrounds, and I’ll degrade them anyway to look like mobile phone footage or amateur stuff. Have you thought about EMP, by the way?”

  The Professor sighed and muttered something under his breath. Jade looked at Rich, who just shrugged as if to say, “Don’t ask me.”

  “Good point,” said the Professor. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t think of that.”

  “We’ll go to static or something at the end anyway. That might be enough.”

  The Professor nodded. “We’re going to let him sleep for a bit, but time is getting tight. How long do you need?”

  “Longer than we’ve got. I found some footage of the local hospital with ambulances and stuff. Got an actor friend to do a voice-over, which he thinks is for a demo-reel. Which it might be actually, if I can show it to prospective clients once you’re done with it. I could do with the work. Give me an hour and I’ll stream it over to Pete to sort out.”

  The Professor thanked Mike, and Pete ended the call.

  “We’re all set,” said Pete. “Got a cable link to the room. So long as your explosives guys don’t cut the link
or blow up the TV by mistake we’ll be fine.”

  “Excellent.” The Professor clapped his hands together. “Just time for a mug of coffee then, thank you, Jade. Then we’ll blow everything up.”

  There was an anxious but expectant hush in the laboratory. Rich and Jade were sitting at the back of the group watching the main screen. They had to crane their necks to see over Ardman, Halford, the Professor, Pete and Alan and several other people including Goddard.

  The wide screen showed a good view of the room the Professor’s team had been working on. There was a large wooden desk, with leather captain’s chairs either side. A large LCD television was on one wall, a painting of a ship at sea on another. A glittering chandelier hung from the ceiling.

  As they watched, the door opened and John Chance led Darrow into the room. He gestured for Darrow to sit one side of the desk while he sat the other. The SAS guard closed the door and stood in front of it.

  “So why the change of scene?” asked Darrow. He leaned back in the chair, looking totally relaxed.

  “I thought maybe after your long sleep, you might be more amenable.”

  “Ah, thumbscrews time, is it?”

  “Quite the opposite. I’m authorised to make you an offer.”

  Darrow laughed. “I wasn’t asleep that long, and I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “You were asleep for hours,” said Chance. There was a fleeting look of surprise on Darrow’s face, but Chance went on quickly: “And you might not have been born yesterday, but you let a kid with a biro get the better of you yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  Chance ignored him. “So, how much do you want? Be realistic, and you can walk out of here very rich. Just tell us where the bomb is hidden.”

  For a moment, Rich thought Darrow was going to do it, but then he grinned. “No chance. Or maybe that should be no, Mr Chance.” He laughed. “When that bomb goes off, I’ll be richer than you can imagine. And Ali won’t let you keep me. Once he’s in control you’ll have to hand me over. We’re still in East Araby and I’m guessing time is getting a bit tight now. Too late to get me out of the country, I’ll bet.”

  Chance’s fist slammed down on to the desk. “Damn it, Darrow— just tell us. Have you any idea how many people will die if you don’t?”

  Darrow seemed unfazed. “Pretty good one, yes. And you know what? I don’t care.”

  Chance leaned back in his chair as if defeated. “That’s it then. I can’t help you. You’ll be flown back to the airfield, where we’re going to hand you over to King Hassan’s security people. Just pray the bomb gets you before they start work on you.”

  Darrow laughed again, though this time it sounded forced. “That lot? They’re amateurs. And the King doesn’t have the stomach to let them do a proper job anyway. Plus they’ll know the score, and they know their own fate lies with Ali. They’ll want to keep in his good books no matter what.”

  “We’ll see.” Chance stood up.

  In front of Rich, the Professor was speaking quietly into a mobile phone. “Yes please, now,” Rich heard him say.

  A moment later there was the sound of someone knocking on a door. The SAS guard opened the door and took a note from the person outside. Without comment, he walked across and handed it to Chance, who read it.

  “He’ll be expecting us to try something,” the Professor explained. “So we will. And you never know he might even fall for it. Though that will make us look a bit silly after all our other efforts.”

  Chance looked up. “Well, it’s academic now. You missed your opportunity. And I think King Hassan’s people will actually be very pleased to see you.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Darrow suspiciously.

  “We’ve found the bomb.”

  There was silence for several seconds. Then Chance went on, “Turns out it wasn’t that well hidden at all, was it. You obviously didn’t expect anyone to go looking for it. You didn’t know we’d found out the bomb existed or maybe you’d have done a better job of hiding it. The Secret Service has a Nuclear Containment Team on site. They’ve already made it safe.”

  “It was hidden well enough,” said Darrow. Was it just the image on the screen, Rich wondered, or did the man look pale?

  “You call that well hidden? A child could have found it. Probably it was a child who did find it—like one who got the better of you.”

  Darrow tilted his head slightly to one side. Then he nodded and very slowly started to clap his hands. “Very good. And this is the bit where I say something like ‘Gosh, and I never thought you’d look in the base commander’s waste bin,’ is it?” He shook his head and laughed. “Oldest trick in the book.”

  Chance stood up again. “Well, we had to try,” he admitted.

  In the laboratory, Ardman tapped Alan on the shoulder. “Have them check the base commander’s waste bin anyway,” he said. “Just in case. Mr Darrow does have rather a warped sense of humour.”

  Alan nodded and reached for a phone.

  “And do you think now is the moment?” Ardman asked the Professor.

  “As good a time as any,” the Professor said. He stood up and loosened his tie. “I’ll just prepare for my big moment. Yes please, Pete—whenever you’re ready.”

  “My pleasure,” Pete said. He pulled a keyboard towards him. “Three, two, one, zero.” As he finished speaking, he pressed the Enter key.

  And the whole building shook, as if it had been hit by a nuclear blast. A moment later, there was a colossal boom.

  19

  The whole room shuddered. Plaster fell from the walls. The glass beads of the chandelier were jangling together. The painting fell, frame splitting as it hit the floor. Darrow’s chair shook so much it looked like it might fall apart. One leg of the desk collapsed, papers sliding across the surface as the whole thing tipped.

  “Is it that time already?” said Darrow as the sound and the vibration subsided.

  Chance stared open-mouthed at him.

  “You inhuman monster,” he finally spat out. “You actually let it happen!” He looked as if he was about to reach across the desk and haul Darrow bodily from his chair, but at that moment the door opened and the Professor hurried in past the SAS guard. His shirt was untucked and his tie was at an angle. His face was smeared with dirt. There was plaster dust stuck in his dark beard. The corridor outside was strewn with rubble.

  “Oh my God,” the Professor. “So many people…It’s all over the news.”

  Chance grabbed a remote control from the desk and turned on the TV mounted on the wall. The picture was breaking up, the sound distorted, but it showed the scene at the capital.

  The distinctive skyline of East Araby’s capital city was ragged and torn. Behind it, from the direction of the US airbase, a huge mushroom cloud was rising into the dusty sky. The footage was shaky and low-definition. The BBC World News banner was splashed across the bottom of the screen.

  “We’re just getting these images from our reporter’s mobile phone,” the announcer was saying. “It certainly looks like a major incident. We can switch now to live coverage from the East Araby News Network.”

  The picture broke up, and when it reformed again it showed ambulances and fire engines speeding along a highway. Again, in the background, the mushroom cloud continued to billow upwards into the sky.

  “We don’t have sound,” the announcer said, “but obviously the East Araby authorities are mobilising all their emergency services. We are still waiting for news of whether Air Force One had left East Araby or if the President is still in the city. There is also no news yet of King Hassan, though Crown Prince Ali has announced he will be making an official statement shortly.”

  The picture cut back to more mobile phone footage of the explosion. The image held for a few moments, then broke up into static and white noise.

  Chance turned off the television and hurled the remote control away.

  “What have you done?” he hissed at Darrow. “How many have you killed?”


  “I’m just the messenger,” said Darrow. He sounded as smug as ever, but he was looking shaken.

  “How can you just sit there?” the Professor said. “We had people on that base, and in the city. Good people. Never mind the thousands of civilians.” He suddenly grabbed Darrow by the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. “And you just sit there!”

  Darrow tried to shake free, but the Professor was pushing him back down into the chair anyway. “You didn’t even have the decency to hit a military target, did you?” he shouted.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You saw where that cloud was.”

  “It was the airbase,” said Chance. “Has to be.”

  “You think so? Because I don’t. He didn’t even dare go to the base, did he?”

  “That is where we found him,” said Chance.

  “A decoy then!” The Professor was ranting now, breathing heavily and clenching his fists. “That cloud was over the residential area. The hospital, schools, children’s playgrounds. That was your target wasn’t it?!” He grabbed Darrow again and pushed him to the ground. “You piece of dirt! Is that all you’re good for— killing the sick and the kids? Is it?!”

  “The bomb was on the base,” Darrow told him, wiping a smear of blood from his mouth. “That was the point.”

  “Never! We’d have found it. You knew that, you couldn’t take the risk. You weren’t man enough. So where did you leave it? A litter bin in the park, was it?”

  The Professor advanced threateningly at Darrow, who was still lying on the floor. He pushed himself backwards, watching the man warily. “It was on the base,” he repeated.

  “A school canteen, maybe?”

  “On the base.”

  “Under some old woman’s bed in the hospital? I bet that was it.” He took a swift step towards Darrow, drawing his leg back to kick him hard.

  “It was on the airbase!”