LONDON ALERT (26 page)

Drivers and a cyclist
were surprised to see the road at the centre of the bridge rising up in front
of them. A cyclist almost fell off into the water through the widening gap
between the bascules, while the vehicles first stopped, then started slipping
backwards, with the drivers behind not knowing what was happening and still
coming on.

Cars were piling up on
each other, and the occupants, seeing people fleeing, tried to exit their concertinaed
vehicles and do likewise.

The massive cruiser was
coming on relentlessly. The stern, slightly off centre, first ploughed into the
left bascule, bending it back, and a fraction of a second later the ship’s superstructure
was crumpling as both bascules ripped into it.

A couple of seconds
later it was all over. The ship was through, leaving the bascules at the centre
of the bridge contorted into ugly shapes, as if hit by a bomb, and the gearing for
raising and lowering them damaged beyond repair. A landmark bridge that had
miraculously largely survived the Blitz was fatally wounded.

As one can imagine, the
TV stations were having a field day. Though the Owl had failed to bring about
the semi-paralysis of London by unseating the five key bridges, the more
visually dramatic events, such as the blinding of the police helicopters by
kids firing from motorized ducks and destruction of the centre spans of Tower
Bridge by the
Belfast
– filmed live by the BBC crew waiting to interview the mayor
outside City Hall – were being viewed by the whole country and millions abroad.

The Owl had waited for
the
Belfast
to finish its
task before again claiming responsibility and sending his ‘political wish list’
to every TV station, newspaper and press agency.

Tower
Bridge was
a
mess
of contorted metal
, and
HMS
Belfast
was not a pretty sight either as
she drifted
on
downriver
with much of her
aft
superstructure
missing or contorted
.

The two naughty
teenagers had felt the shock of the ship’s impact with the bridge and had heard
the crumpling sounds. Realizing from the ensuing silence that the danger was
over, they went up on deck to find considerable damage at the stern, while the
bow was unscathed. They moved right to the prow and started waving at the
armada of boats following them.

With so much attention
being paid to the carnage taking place at the bridge and the sight of the wounded
Belfast
continuing on
downstream, the escaping launch had for a moment been forgotten by those
following the massive ship. Anyway, none of the boats were fast enough to catch
up with it.

On learning that it had
not been stopped and was fleeing downriver at high speed, the prime minister confirmed
the order for the two RAF Tornado fighter-bombers to engage it. They were to take
it out dramatically with a missile in a demonstration of the government’s
power.

Despite the warnings
from Sir Charles and military officials, the prime minister refused to back
down.

‘Blow them to
smithereens,’ he ordered.

In only a couple of
minutes, the Tornado pilots had Tower Bridge in sight in the far distance and,
dropping down to five hundred feet, easily picked out the fast-moving launch from
the great amount of wash it was generating. Only one of them would engage it,
as they did not want to risk firing more than a single missile in the centre of
London. If Flight Lieutenant Saxton, who was the one going to fire, was not
careful, he would overshoot, and it would take at least six minutes before he or
his colleague could turn round and line up for another run, by which time the
launch might well have disappeared up a canal. There, with buildings and people
close by, it would be a more difficult and dangerous proposition.

His controller had already
confirmed his orders to fire on sight and not waste time requesting
reconfirmation – the prime minister had said they would be court-martialled
should they disobey the order to fire – so he simply locked on to the speeding
launch and fired a single missile, which, with its sophisticated guidance
system, could not miss. As he did so, there was a small puff of smoke from the
launch, and he himself received a warning of an incoming missile.

He launched flares to
try to confuse it. All to no avail, for just as he was initiating a climb, the
missile from the launch detonated alongside his craft, crippling it. He was,
however, able to point the nose downwards to ensure it would crash into the
river, before ejecting himself.

Coming down in the
river slightly concussed, he looked around but could not see the debris of the
launch. A couple of minutes later, a couple of officers in a police launch pulled
him out of the dirty Thames water.

‘Congratulations, sir,’
said one of them, making Saxton for a moment think he was a hero.

‘You’ve just demolished
Big Ben!’

No one was ever quite
sure whether the fact that the missile hit Big Ben was down to bad luck or was
the result of the Owl having such sophisticated equipment that he had been able
to take actual control of the missile fired by the Tornado and direct it there.
Many thought it was too much of a coincidence that it would end up hitting such
a famous landmark when there were so many other places where it could have come
down.

Meanwhile, the prime
minister and his advisors, expecting the launch to be blown up by the missile
from the Tornado, had told police launches and other pursuing craft to hang
back at a safe distance. With no boat near enough or fast enough to pursue it, the
high-speed launch had disappeared into a smokescreen generated by devices set
up by the Owl on the windward bank of the river.

The pursuing vessels
milled around haplessly in the smoke, hoping to find the launch but without
success, and when the smoke cleared there was no sign of it. Its burnt-out hulk
was found further downriver at the next low tide. The men onboard had doubtless
got off at the bank, holed it, and set it on fire to erase fingerprints before
releasing it.

The
Belfast
was
still being carried downriver by the tide, with the authorities wondering
whether they could throw a line to the two gesticulating teenagers. However,
none of their boats were powerful enough to hold the giant ship against the
powerful tide. Their greatest fear was that it would damage the Thames tidal
barrier defending London against floods, but fortunately it went aground on one
of the bends further down the river before reaching it. Shortly after, the
chastened teenagers were taken off, very much shaken, with their parents
shocked to see them on TV when they were meant to be in safe hands on a school
trip.

Once again, Sir Charles
came out of the affair honourably, having put the warning about not using
missiles on official record. The value of the pound dropped even further than
it had done earlier in the day, and the Owl and his associates had certainly
made a financial killing, even though they had not brought London to a state of
paralysis by destroying as many bridges as intended. Even so, the damage to
Tower Bridge was so extensive that it would be many weeks before any vehicles
would be able to cross, and as a result traffic jams on the south of the river
continued for weeks.

But who was the Owl?
Theories abounded.

‘The Owl,’ said Sir
Charles, ‘could be one of us, someone in the secret service. On the other hand,
he could be living in luxury abroad, say in the south of France, where you
possibly met him. Or amongst the high and mighty in the UK, in which case he
might well be a Russian oligarch, senior politician, top civil servant, banker,
hedge fund owner, or businessman.’

These were all people
difficult to interrogate and investigate. The claim he made that he could have
been prime minister, just like Sir Charles, was probably a red herring.
Assuming it was not a red herring, the use of the term ‘
our country’
would rule out Russian oligarchs. He also gave the impression that he went to
the same private school as Sir Charles and other establishment figures, but
again that would be easy to do, and it would be unlikely he would narrow down
his background so much after taking so much care to ensure Holt did not know
the precise time they had met supposedly, but not definitely, with him behind that
mirror.

‘The fact,’ said Sir
Charles, ‘that the Owl mentioned pilots and aircrew being sacrificed in
addition to French civilians suggests he might be someone whose family lost
members as pilots and civilians in World War II. But there were so many of
those, and again it could be a red herring.’

Sir Charles made it
known that he thought it was ludicrous for the security services to concentrate
their limited resources on looking for a relatively benign ‘
terrorist
[Ma92]
 
’ – who, after all, wanted what
many in those services and the country really sought – when there were so many evil
ones posing much greater threats. Sir Charles maintained that Giraffe should be
the unit responsible for seeking the Owl, with the help of GCHQ intercepts, of
course.

The press was having a
field day, running articles saying both the politicians and their parties
should reveal all contacts with lobbyists and any donations or invitations to
overseas conferences and seminars, with airfares and hotel costs included.

For
Holt, there was one unexpected highlight
–
a visit to Buckingham Palace to receive an
honour from Her Majesty the Queen. Because of the
confidential nature of his work, it was all very low
-
key, with him only allowed to bring along someone with a
high security clearance to witness it. Celia was the ideal candidate, and to
his surprise he fou
nd she had a security clearance
even
higher than his.

Wearing his captain’s uniform,
more to impress her than anything else, he looked good, and with his confidence
bolstered, asked Sir Charles, who was accompanying them to the palace in the
official car, why he was not getting a gong too.

‘You deserve one – you
managed everything, made it possible.’

‘I’ve already got my K,
and it would only provoke my establishment enemies. Besides, at my level extra
honours are only a balm to console you when you retire or are let go.’

The ceremony at the palace
was a laid-back affair, and before he knew it, Holt was slipping back into the
role at Giraffe originally intended for him. To his dismay, Celia was hardly
ever in the office, as she had been parachuted into a job as PA to a
high-profile VIP too often in the news. The idea was that she would nominally
be keeping a daughterly eye on him while all the while sniffing out what some
of the rich foreigners he was hobnobbing with were up to.

The colleagues betting
on when she would lose her virginity were still convinced she had managed to
retain it.

‘Her face isn’t relaxed enough,’ they claimed. ‘It
does not have that satisfied glow showing she’s getting it, or that look of
frustration proving she needs it again.’

Holt did sometimes
manage to meet Celia in
St
James’s Park, out of the
sight of colleagues but not perhaps out of sight of security, which meant they
had to be watchful. Blackwell had programmed their platonic relationship so
well that Holt was not in the least put out when, on one of their afternoon get-togethers
in the park, she suddenly came up with a suggestion that seemed to indicate she
still thought they should not be intimate.

 ‘I am sure,’ she said,
‘you would agree…’

‘Agree with what, Celia?’
he asked as he turned away from the ducks on the lake to look into her eyes.

‘That we do not want to
spoil our relationship by doing something silly.’

‘I quite agree,’ he
replied, wondering how far one would have to go for it to be something silly.

‘I was thinking it
would be great to do another trip abroad. Like the time we went to Japan, but
just for our own sakes. We could go to some fantastic place. A honeymoon but
not a honeymoon, if you get my gist.’

‘I am not sure I do.’

‘Like our first night
at The Loughty, without the peep show. You wouldn’t need the sedative this
time. We managed without it on our trip to Japan, didn’t we?’

‘Only you know that. I take
you at your word. Every time we had a bad coffee I wondered…’

‘Well? How about it?’

‘I think…it’s a…great idea.’

While it indeed was a
great idea, he had agreed without hesitating for fear that if he declined she
might seek out someone else, who would inevitably exploit the situation. Losing
her, particularly to a colleague, would be a tragedy of the highest order, and
it would most likely be a colleague because of the security angle, which always
concerned her.

The ‘we do not want to
spoil our relationship by doing something silly’ stipulation was not of great
concern, for after his pulsating trysts with Consuela he was not gagging for
it. Besides, the added confidence gained through that experience would enable
him to adopt a haughty attitude in that domain.

After consulting
friends – or rather, acquaintances, as they had none working for the service – they
opted for the Maldives. Several had said if they were going all the way
money-wise, even if as they claimed not otherwise, the ultimate escape was to
have a chalet there perched on the sea, with a glass floor to watch the
tropical fish milling about below while enjoying each other’s company above
with a glass of bubbly.

And so it was. Their Maldivian
chalet was everything they had been told to expect and more. Each island had its
resort and nothing else, so there was a sense of relative privacy and privilege.
Of course, that did not apply to the ordinary citizens, and there had been
troubling stories about a fifteen-year-old being raped by her stepfather and
sentenced to a hundred lashes, to be applied on her reaching the age of eighteen.
Eventually, the highest court had stepped in and overturned the judgment after
representations from foreign governments and fears that it would damage the tourist
industry.

Such iniquities were
far from their minds as they enjoyed a great seafood dinner at the restaurant
on the beach by the sea on their first evening. On returning to their chalet, they
collected the bottle of champagne waiting in the fridge and went out to the
veranda facing the sea, where a couple of glasses were already laid out.

They felt as if a charm
had come over them as they sat silently, gazing reflectively at the water
flecked with moonlight. There was no need to talk – after all, they had known
each other and shared each other’s company closely, if not intimately, for a
long time. Resisting the temptation of a second bottle, they decided bed was the
better option.

As on that unforgettable
first night at The Loughty, Celia insisted Holt be the first to go to retire. Again,
as at The Loughty, she emerged from the bathroom with a bath towel wrapped
around her, but instead of allowing it to slip off right next to him and waltz in
her birthday suit to her case for her knickers, she kept it firmly in place and
made straight for the foot of her bed for her nightie. Only when the nightie fully
encompassed her did she unclasp the top of the towel, extract it from
underneath, and jettison it on the back of a rattan chair.

This time there was no
gap between the twin beds, and consequently she had to get into hers on the far
side and wiggle her way across.

 ‘Gosh, what a place!’
she exclaimed on arriving in the middle.

The schoolgirl language
again took Holt back to The Loughty, adding to his guilt at thinking she must
have nothing on underneath. A girl like her would hardly keep on the underwear she
had worn during the day.

‘Why…don’t you come over
here? It’ll be easier to…um…talk.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure of what?’

‘Sure that you’ll…be
all right.’

What a stupid remark. Again
he had forgotten the golden rule that one should never put too much into words.

‘There’s nothing,’ replied
Celia, ‘to be afraid of. Or
is
there?’

‘Of course not. Hold
on. I’m coming over.’

Unlike at The Loughty, it
was not only his resolve to behave himself that was stiffening.

Moving like a crab with
an unwieldy pincer, he wriggled over to her side, glad not to have to untuck
the sheets, which the maids of course had not tucked in between the beds.

On arriving by her side,
he did not know what to say, let alone what to do, so accustomed had he become
to behaving as her brother. Contemplating the fan gyrating languidly above
them, she seemed oblivious to him. Or was she too shy to look at him directly?

As he was resigning himself
to the idea that after the meal, wine, and champagne they would drop off to
sleep like that with no word spoken, she rolled over and looked at him
intensely.

‘It’s wonderful,’ she
whispered.

‘Wonderful?’

‘To be so close like
this. Isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but…’

Raising her head, she gazed
into his eyes, at the same time bringing her lips towards his in the obvious
expectation of a kiss – an expectation he guiltily satisfied. Blushing and
batting her eyelids, she was behaving as if she had never been in such a predicament
before.

Feeling like a college
lecturer embarking on an illicit relationship with a student, he brushed his
right hand up and down her back, noting with pleasure the protuberances along
her spine. Emboldened by her quivering response, he slid his other hand towards
her left breast, encountering what proved to be token resistance, for when she
finally ceded he found her nipples had already hardened under the cool linen of
her nightie.

As his fingertips
wandered at will over other sensitive areas, he could hardly believe his
reversal of fortune, except for one place remaining off limits, as her knees were
squeezed so tightly together that further exploration was impossible. Using a technique
Consuela had taught him, he placed the leading edge of his open hand between her
clenched knees and began sawing away. The sensation made her grit her teeth and
squeeze them even more tightly together to resist his attempted intrusion, but
after he had varied the pressure and the rhythm, even stopped once or twice, she
suddenly giggled violently as her thighs involuntarily sprang wide open. As
they spread, her nightdress rode up, allowing him to snuggle down between them.

The two of them remained
motionless for what seemed an eternity but what was in reality only a minute or
so. Gazing at him invitingly, she locked her arms around him and attempted to
pull him even closer.

All that followed was
so spontaneous and natural they might well have been lovers accustomed to sleeping
in each other’s arms night after night. Even so, at the key moment Holt held
back, only for her to shout out, ‘Don’t stop. Yes, no, no. Oh my…’

* * * * *

The
next morning, after a repeat but more paced performance, they lay there in each
other’s arms, replete, not saying a word.

With Celia lost in her
own thoughts, Holt got up, switched on the kettle to boil some water for the coffee
he so desperately needed, and went for a shower. Letting the water trickle over
his face, he savoured the moment. At last she was Miss Innocent no more, and the
limbo he had been in for months was over.

Later they would further
liberate their bodies by going diving together amongst the tropical fish. Could
life ever be better than this? He had said the same thing to himself when on
the C
ôte d’Azur
with Consuela.

Either he had the best
of both worlds or neither world was quite what he had imagined it to be. Was
Consuela the innocent one, and Celia not quite the innocent she made herself
out to be?

Having returned the
pillows on what had nominally been her bed back to their proper place while she
was away in the shower, he had raised the top sheet and was just tucking it in
at the foot of the bed when he noticed a little red stain almost in the middle
of the bottom sheet, right where they had been lying. He stood there
contemplating it, wondering about the implications.

‘Leave that to me,’
ordered Celia, who had come up beside him.

Letting go of the top
sheet, he went off to finish making the coffee, missing his chance to mention
the presence of the red spot without making a big deal of it.

On coming out to the
veranda to join him for coffee, Celia gave no indication she had noticed
anything. Not only did she look fulfilled, she looked completely at ease.

Was there a hint of
amusement in her eyes, or was it his imagination?

Later at breakfast,
again outside by the sea, neither of them said anything of any consequence, aware
that a postmortem might spoil things. Holt did mention a breakfast he had had at
a resort hotel in Thailand where a baby elephant went around the tables putting
its snout into women’s laps in the hope of being able to share their
breakfasts.

‘Women sitting alone
would give generously, only to be shocked to find the cute cuddly one had rough
skin like sandpaper and was not the pleasure to caress that they had expected.’

‘You know,’ said Celia
as if she were very knowledgeable in the matter, ‘there must be something special
about breakfasts on overseas holidays shared with someone one loves.’

‘How do you know that?’
asked Holt.

‘You remember how we
used to laugh at that couple who repeatedly told us how much they enjoyed that wonderful
breakfast in Paris they had together with coffee and croissants?’

‘Yes, only too well,’
replied Holt, relieved she was not speaking from personal experience.

‘Funny,’ added Holt, ‘how
they hardly ever mention the expensive dinner they had the evening before.’

‘We will have,’ replied
Celia, ‘to be careful not to be like them and bore people with our stories. Anyway,
we’ll have to keep all this secret from our colleagues at Farringdon.’

‘Especially them,’
retorted Holt, wondering whether the two colleagues placing bets on when she
would lose her virginity would be able to tell she was
different
.

With breakfast over, they
sat in silence looking at the sea. To give himself a breather and allow Celia
to go back to the chalet on her own and have free run of the facilities, Holt announced
he would hop over to the resort office to see if there were any brochures about
the activities, such as diving and catamaran trips. But just as he was placing
his hands on the arms of his chair to heave himself up, Celia leant forward and
stopped him.

‘Wait! Promise not to
be angry.’

‘I promise,’ replied
Holt, thinking he knew what she was about to say.

‘You remember that night
at The Loughty?’

‘How could I ever forget
it, with you parading around in your birthday suit? You were so pure and angelic
I was not in the least aroused – physically, that is.’