Bombproof (17 page)

Lucy’s father is standing at the doorway. He says something in Chinese and holds up a meat cleaver like some mad Ninja warrior. Sami pulls out the gun. The cleaver clatters to the tiles. Hands come together. He bows apologetically.

Sami bursts out the side door of the kitchen into Horse and Dolphin Yard. Right is a dead end. Left takes him back to Macclesfield Street where the bobby is waiting. He has no choice.

Suddenly, a police car pulls up, blocking his only exit. Sami tries the nearest door. Locked. Looks for a fire escape. Nothing.

The kitchen door is still open. He throws himself inside. Slams the door. Bolts it shut. Topples a metal shelf. Braces it across the doorframe.

Lucy and her father are staring at him.

‘What’s upstairs?’

‘Our flat,’ says Lucy.

‘Anyone else home?’

She shakes her head.

‘Is there another way out?’

‘No.’

‘You got a phone?’

She points behind the counter, but doesn’t take her eyes off Sami’s hand. He’s still holding the gun.

‘I want you to lock the front door. Can you do that for me?’

Lucy nods.

‘Are you going to hurt us?’

‘No.’

Sami walks into the main restaurant. Nobody has moved. It’s as if they’ve been zapped by some sort of freeze-ray like you see in cartoons and old episodes of
Star Trek
.

Lucy’s mother is at the cash register.

‘I need to make a phone call,’ Sami tells her. She says something back to him in Chinese.

‘My mother doesn’t speak English,’ explains Lucy. ‘She wants you to pay for the call.’

Sami roots for change in his pockets and finds a handful of coins. They spin and rattle on the counter top.

He calls Tony Murphy. Tries to speak. The words are like barbed wire in his throat.

‘There’s a problem.’

‘I told you not to call me again.’

‘The police think I have a bomb.’

‘How did they get that idea?’

‘I might have mentioned it.’

‘You must be the world’s biggest moron.’

‘You got to get me out of here.’

‘And how do you suggest I do that, son?’

‘You must have contacts.’

‘Sure. I’ll call the good fairy. She owes me a wish.’

Sami doesn’t appreciate the sarcasm. ‘You can’t leave me here. I still have the shooter.’

Murphy curses. ‘I told you to get rid of it.’

‘Must have slipped my mind.’

‘Listen, you muggy toerag, don’t fuck with me. Don’t you
ever
fuck with me.’ He’s screaming down the phone. ‘Destroy the gun. Get rid of it. You hearing me?’

Sami doesn’t answer. He’s too busy watching events outside. People are hurrying along the street, looking over their shoulders. They’re leaving shops, restaurants and the supermarket. Mr Wu’s Noodle Bar, the Golden Gate Cake shop, the Pagoda restaurant … Police are evacuating the area. Sealing it off.

Tony Murphy is still yelling down the line. ‘You get pulled, you keep your mouth shut. Understand? You mention my name and you’re dead. Your sister is dead. Your entire family are dead. Am I making myself clear?’

‘You got to help me,’ pleads Sami.

‘I am helping you, son. I’m telling you the truth. Don’t call me again. Forget this number. Forget you ever met me.’

‘What about Nadia?’

‘Yeah. Exactly. You think about your sister.’

Sami tries to protest but the line is silent. He’s talking to dead air.

27

Commander Bob Piper surveys the empty streets and the abandoned shops and offices. The perimeter has been secured and civilians evacuated. It’s textbook stuff. Two cordons. Concentric circles. The only people allowed through the outer ring are police and emergency services. The inner ring is for the counter-terrorist squad, CO19 (Specialist Firearms Command) and the bomb squad. Now the only civilians within the cordon are the hostages and the hostage taker.

Piper hates sieges. In the old days they were easy. You gave the guy a few hours to cool down (or sober up) and then issued a final warning. If he didn’t surrender you went in. Breaking down doors. Firing teargas. Shooting the bad guys. Restoring order.

But ever since the Jean de Menezes debacle at Stockwell Tube, procedures have been changed. Not so much procedures as public sentiment. Two firearms officers put seven bullets into the head of a Brazilian electrician they mistook for a suicide bomber. Who knew that people would take it so badly? Turned out that shoot to kill is only acceptable if you smoke the right suspect.

There were public inquiries, internal reviews, an inquest and calls for the Commissioner’s head on a spike. De Menezes became a poster boy for the civil liberties whingers and bleeding hearts who delight in portraying law enforcement agencies as totalitarian secret police.

After the war on terror and the war on drugs there should be a war on irritating people, thinks Piper, on the Marxists, the moaners and the greenies.

Last year a siege in North London went six days. Everyone praised the police for their patience and tolerance - except for local residents, unable to sleep in their own beds or get a change of clothes.

This one can’t go on for six days. Tomorrow morning a million people are going to be catching trains and buses into Central London. What then? Chaos.

Piper glances at a TV monitor. The front of the Red Emperor is bathed in light that reflects off the silver and gold letters painted above the main window.

A dozen firearms officers are positioned on the rooftops around the restaurant. Sharpshooters. Trained professionals. One clear shot and they can all go home. In the meantime Piper is supposed to negotiate. Confer. Reach a deal.

That’s his dilemma. Piper is a conservative and a believer in law and order, but not in lawyers or judges or in a judicial system which has too many flaws; too many gaps for criminals to slip through.

Piper is also a realist, who has accepted the fact that in all probability his decisions will cause irreparable harm to innocent individuals. That’s the nature of policing. No matter how much training you do or how sharp your skills or how modern your armoury, sometimes the most efficient weapon is a broad axe.

The Commissioner has called a media conference. He wants Piper by his side. He will doubtless express full faith in his Commander, thereby ensuring that if the operation goes south, he can blame someone else for the debacle.

28

Tony Murphy is being ‘schmeissed’. A giant-sized loofah slaps against his naked body, smearing soap over his large expanse of skin while geysers of steam billowing from pipes condenses on the marble walls and ceiling.

He over-imbibed at the garden party and now he’s sweating out the toxins in a Russian steam room at Porchester Spa, an art deco building on Queensway.

The giant loofah smears across his shoulders and down his back. Peter, his masseur, offers him a cold towel.

Normally being ‘schmeissed’ relaxes Murphy - refreshes the parts other saunas don’t reach. Not today. Sami Macbeth is on his mind.

Leaving the steam room, he takes a breathtaking dip in the plunge pool, shrinking his testicles to marbles. Peter is waiting for him at the slab. Lying face down, Murphy closes his eyes and feels the perspiration prickling on his flesh again as strong fingers go to work, breaking down knots of tension in his shoulders and neck.

Peter’s hands leave his skin. Maybe he’s getting more oil. The door opens. Cool air brushes his flesh.

A moment later comes a different sensation. Murphy rears up, roaring, naked as the day as he was born, only bigger, fatter and whiter. A scalding hot towel drops from his back, leaving an angry red burn.

‘Hello, fat man, how’s the restaurant business. You look like you’ve been eating all the fookin’ profits.’

Murphy is looking at a familiar face in unfamiliar surroundings - Jimmy Ferris, better known as Ferret.

Irish, Catholic and Scouse, Jimmy has a chip on both shoulders and a nest of angry bees buzzing in his head. Rumour has it he once trained to be a priest. He spent three years in a seminary: up before dawn, mass every morning, vows of silence. Then one day he had a religious epiphany in reverse. He stopped believing in God. This had nothing to do with atheism or humanism or moral relativism. Ferret still believed in a higher divine, supernatural power but it wasn’t Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha. The power lay within him. Behold, a nihilist was born.

Ferret approached his new career with the same single-minded fervour that he once gave to God and the Catholic Church. He became an IRA fixer. Nobody ever discovered the exact role he played in the organisation, but his phone number kept appearing on the call sheets whenever they picked up a terror suspect.

Murphy wraps a blue gingham towel around his body, tucking it under his armpits. Ferret is also wearing a towel, but his body is lean and sinewy, covered in tattoos. He has a gold crown on one of his front teeth, making him appear even more rat-like.

‘I always wondered if fat men are fat all over, you know, but you must have trouble finding that thing to piss. Now fat chicks are different. Everyone knows they got tight pussies.’

‘What are you doing here, Jimmy?’ asks Murphy.

‘I’ve come to check on my supply chain. I hear from our buyer that one of the samples I sent him didn’t arrive.’

‘There’s been a delay.’

‘Nobody told me about any fookin’ delay.’

‘Unforseen circumstances.’

‘Do I look like a fookin’ eejit, Murphy? You had one fookin’ job. You had to take the fookin’ guns, retool the fookin’ barrels and transport the fookin’ things. Now I have buyers questioning my fookin’ ability to deliver on my promises. ’ Ferret brings a whole new meaning to expletive-laden conversation. ‘Why was the consignment short?’

‘I kept one of the guns.’

‘Why?’

‘I took a liking to it.’

‘That wasn’t the fookin’ deal. The fookin’ guns are supposed to be in fookin’ Africa.’

Murphy gets defensive. ‘Don’t try to heavy me, Jimmy. I was doing you a favour.’

‘No,’ says Ferret shaking his head. ‘You were
repaying
a favour. That’s a very fookin’ different thing. You owe fookin’ people and those fookin’ people owe me. That’s how the fookin’ system works.’

Murphy’s throat has gone dry. He can’t tell him about Ray Jnr taking the Beretta and getting arrested, or Sami Macbeth stealing it back. Macbeth should have destroyed it by now. What if he hasn’t? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Ferret wets one end of a towel and twirls it into a cord, flicking it like a whip. It snaps against Murphy’s thigh and he dances away. Ferret moves him around the marble slab, laughing. Then he tosses the towel into the plunge pool and pushes through the misted doors to the changing rooms.

Murphy is panting and pink, but not because of the steam. He gets himself a drink of water from a fountain and spills some of it down his chest.

Maybe it’s time to walk away, he thinks. Sail into the sunset or at least fly there first class. Bermuda is nice this time of year. The condo is waiting. But first he has to do something about Sami Macbeth.

29

It should be getting dark outside, but the colour of the light is unnatural. Spotlights are bathing the cobblestones in a brightness that makes them look like the centre of a stage. We’re in the right place for drama - the West End. This one is unfolding in three acts.

The front door of the Red Emperor is barricaded with tables turned on their sides and stacked on top of each other. The kitchen door is also sealed and Sami has locked everyone in the storeroom where they’re sitting on sacks of rice and cans of cooking oil.

Sami takes the semi-automatic from the plastic evidence bag. Weighs it in his hand. Marvels at the raw power it seems to hold. He likes the way it fits into his hand and the delicate lines his fingertips leave when he strokes the freshly oiled metal.

Taking out the ammunition clip, he counts eighteen slug-like bullets. Hollow points. The magazine takes twenty. Two bullets are missing. Dessie said Ray Garza’s boy fired on a rozzer.

A chopper sounds overhead. The whump, whump of the blades seems to shake the air. Sami heads upstairs. Walks through the flat. It has a small kitchen, a bathroom, two bedrooms and a lounge.

Lucy’s room has a desk tucked under the window and books piled on either side of her chair. She’s studying business or management. Her handwriting is neat and precise.

From the third floor window he can see more police cars and ambulances, parked in Wardour Street. A truck is unloading barricades, lifting them with a portable crane and dropping them across the road. Police in black body armour are crouching behind vehicles.

Sami opens a window. Leans out. He’s looking for external stairs or a fire escape. Nothing. The uppermost window leads to a small flat roof overlooking Horse and Dolphin Yard. It’s about fourteen foot across to another flat roof on the far side. Even with a run-up he’d struggle to make a jump like that. And even if he could get to the other side, where would he go?

A dark shadow moves at the very edge of his vision. He turns. Someone is watching him. They’re crouched behind a brick wall on the opposite side of the yard. A policeman? A sniper?

Fuck. Shit. Fuck.

Sami pulls back from the window and presses his body against the wall, fear sucking at his chest. Tugging a cord he lowers the blind and turns off the lamp on Lucy’s desk. Staying low, he moves through the flat, locking windows. Lowering blinds. In darkness, he searches the drawers and cupboards for anything that might be useful - masking tape, a ski mask, scissors, pliers and a pocket knife.

He can hear someone beating on the storeroom door downstairs. Sami takes the shooter from the waistband of his jeans. Unlocks the door.

‘It’s about fucking time,’ says the van driver. ‘There ain’t enough air. We’re suffocating in here.’

‘There’s plenty of air.’

‘And the place is filthy.’

‘What are you, the food inspector?’

Lucy protests. ‘It’s not dirty. I clean it every week.’

Lucy’s mother and father are sitting on rice sacks, arm in arm. The girl in the wheelchair and her mother are at the centre of the storeroom. The wheelchair is barely wide enough for the space. Her mother is soft spoken. Modestly dressed.