Powerstone

by Malcolm Archibald

  Drummond looked up briefly, raised his eyebrows, and then returned his attention to the game. He putted gently and watched as the ball rolled directly into the hole. ‘What sort of threat?’

  Removing both balls, Meigle replaced the pin and walked slowly to the next tee. He eyed the distance to the green, allowing the North Sea breeze to fan his face. ‘I’m not sure yet. The report was a bit garbled, but it seems definite enough.’

  Drummond lined up for the hole, adjusting his tie so that it did not flap in the wind. ‘Definite enough to justify a meeting of the Society?’ He surveyed the fairway ahead. ‘You know this course better than I, Sandy, so what do I do, drive left where there’s plenty of room but the approach is awkward, or drive right, between these ugly bunkers and the gorse, and have an easier approach?’

  ‘You’re driving blind, Jamie, but hit left of Cheape’s Bunker and go with the wind, Jamie. Always go with the wind at St Andrews.’ Meigle watched as Drummond hit right, shaking his head as the wind carried the ball straight into a bunker. ‘Bad luck.’ He waited for a moment. ‘Yes; the message did seem to justify an extraordinary meeting of the Society.’

  Drummond waited until Meigle addressed the ball. ‘That’s unusual. When was the last extraordinary meeting held?’

  ‘1941,’ Meigle replied without lifting his eye from the ball. His driver struck sweetly and the ball soared toward the green, until a fluke of wind flicked it back, a full fifty yards short.

  ‘Hitler’s War,’ Drummond hoisted his golf-bag onto his back and made for the bunker, with his nailed brogues leaving neat punctures on the grass. He studied the lie of his ball, selected a sand wedge and stepped quietly down. ‘If I remember correctly, the Society had the Stone buried, together with all the associated paraphernalia.’

  Meigle watched Drummond chip his ball expertly onto the fairway. A handful of sand drifted downwind.

  ‘I haven’t heard of any specific threats of war,’ Drummond said as he climbed out of the bunker. ‘And I would hear of that before you, so it must be something more direct.’

  ‘I’ll know more by the time we arrange the meeting,’ Meigle sliced his next shot and the ball landed in the gorse.

  ‘Damned bad luck. That’s these tungsten shafts, fine for distance but poor for close work. You’d be better with the more traditional materials; centuries of experience and all that.’

  ‘Damned bad play,’ Meigle corrected. ‘Never did like this game. I’ll drop a shot and replace the ball.’

  ‘How is your family?’ Drummond asked. ‘I heard that Anne has retired?’

  ‘Two years ago,’ Meigle agreed. ‘We were married forty years then she decided to stop bringing in the money. Now she tries to help me all the time and manages a dozen different meetings for charities and the like.’

  ‘Under your feet, eh? Hard luck,’ Drummond sympathised. ‘And the children?’

  ‘Young Alex is doing well. He’s in oil, you know; managing director of a multi-national. Just made a large strike in the Thar Desert or some other God-forsaken place. Rich as Croesus and a bigger sinner than Herod. Always got some stunner attached to his arm, or elsewhere.’

  ‘You’ll be proud of him, then.’ Drummond lobbed his ball on to the green.

  ‘Oh aye; chip off the old block.’ Meigle smiled at some distant memory, and then examined the head of a number three iron. ‘He lives his own life though; no time for an old duffer like me. You already know that Charles is in politics. He’s an MP now, spending half his life working with the most appalling people.’

  ‘They tell me that Westminster is like that. Terrible place.’ Drummond watched as Meigle dropped a ball and knocked it a yard short of the green. ‘And your girl? Young what’s-her-name? Dammit, I should remember, I am her godfather for goodness sake.’

  Meigle replaced his club. ‘Young Rachel. They do say that the memory is the second muscle to fail, Jamie. She’s not so young now, though. Caught herself a man and created a family. Quiet children; must take after the father. She’s working on scientific research at Roslin. Something to do with environmental studies; God knows we need it with the world in such a state.’ Meigle shook his head. ‘You’ll meet them later.’

  ‘Of course.’ Drummond looked behind him as two more golfers edged onto the fairway. One waved to him. ‘Getting a bit public now, Sandy, don’t you think?’

  ‘Positively Princes Street,’ Meigle agreed. ‘Call it a draw shall we?’

  ‘Fair result.’ Lifting his ball, Drummond returned the wave and began to walk slowly back toward the clubhouse. ‘You’ll let me know in plenty of time about the meeting, I dare say?’

  Meigle nodded. ‘As soon as I get it arranged, Jamie. I’ll have to allow time for the overseas members to come in.’

  They walked past the golfers who had waved. One shouted over to them, enquiring if they had given up and Drummond stopped for a second. ‘Too cold for an old man like me!’ He waited for a response and grunted when none came. ‘Poor quality. No sense of style at all.’

  Meigle watched the golfer muff his drive. ‘Poor golfer too, but that’s no wonder when he’s all padded up like that. He’s got more layers of clothes on him than a polar bear. I was thinking of next month, Jamie. I don’t want to wait any longer than that, in case anything happens in the meantime.’

  Drummond nodded. ‘That would be best then. You know my mobile number?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Anytime, day or night, Sandy, if you need me.’ They had reached the first tee, and people were gathering around the clubhouse to watch the golfers. ‘I can come alone or with company.’

  ‘Bring your son, Jamie; it’s as good an opportunity as any to introduce him. And use your contacts; see if you can find out anything.’ They shook hands, nodded and turned aside. Meigle rolled his clubs to the silver BMW and placed them carefully in the boot before sliding into the driving seat. It would take him nearly an hour to drive home to Edinburgh, and he had a meeting at ten. He looked up briefly as the helicopter lifted from the grounds of the Old Course Hotel, circled the town once and headed North West toward Perthshire. Trust Jamie to travel in style.

  The news about the Clach-bhuai was disturbing, but it added interest to a life that was fast becoming dull. Perhaps people fantasised about retirement, but the path to enforced leisure was paved with boredom. He slammed the horn to warn a slow moving vehicle that he was coming, overtook smoothly and pressed down the accelerator. He hoped that the threat was genuine, so he could set his teeth into a challenge.

  Chapter Seven

  New York and Edinburgh, May

  ‘The Honours have only left Edinburgh Castle twice in the last three hundred years,’ Irene once again stood beside her laptop, lecturing her team. They listened intently, eyes focussed on the screen as she produced a series of images.

  Patrick leaned across to Bryan and whispered something that made both smile.

  ‘May I continue?’ Irene’s glare caused both to withdraw to their seats. ‘In 1953 the Crown was taken for a national service of thanksgiving when Queen Elizabeth took the throne, and again in 1999 when the new Scottish Parliament was opened in its original building on the Mound.’

  Irene flicked up a picture of the steep road that curved alongside Princes Street Gardens and pointed to the sombre structure that the Scottish Parliament used until their custom-built home was complete.

  ‘And here are the Honours themselves.’ Irene had located a further set of pictures of the Honours, and described each artefact in some detail. She noted that her team was much more focussed now that the hit was definite. ‘One crown, one long sword and one sceptre.’ She paused for a second before adding another click. ‘There is also a mace, but that is reserved for Stefan. It is more modern than the others, so does not have the same historic value, although its intrinsic value is considerable. Added to your three-quarters of a million, Stefan, you should be able to retire on the proceeds.’

  Stefan did not reply to her smile, bu
t his eyes were sharp as they surveyed the picture.

  ‘The Honours are being removed again, this year, when the Queen, Prince Phillip, Prince Charles and Camilla are all going to Edinburgh. The Scottish Government is hosting a European Union conference, so various heads of state will be coming. The Honours are to be used to highlight the importance of the occasion.’

  Irene did not know what type of persuasion Patrick had used to mollify Mary, but the driver looked nearly relaxed as she produced a cigarette lighter in the shape of a Formula One racing car and lit a cheroot. She looked to Patrick and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘How are they to be transported?’ Mary asked. ‘Armoured car?’

  ‘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 successf
ul 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.