sThe Quiet Wart (30 page)

‘LIZ!' Sean shouted, jumping to his feet. He sprinted to the door of the hotel room and located the stairs, gritting his teeth hard against the pain in his calf as he jumped three stairs at a time, with Praew behind him and Pete and Steve following on.

When he reached the front door, he almost knocked it off its hinges as he barged through and turned right towards Parc Leopold. Ignoring the traffic he dodged between cars and ran into the park. He couldn't feel the pain in his leg anymore, adrenalin was pumping through his system and all he could think of was Liz.

By his side and keeping pace with him, Steve charged past the lake, while Pete made sure Praew was okay and kept pace with her behind. As they ran up the hill on the opposite side of the lake to Place Jourdan, the three glass towers came into view above the tree tops and Sean knew that Liz was only a few hundred metres away. He needed to get to her; to save her.

The gate to the park was wide open and he sprinted through at full speed, turning left for the main entrance to the Parliament, then running through the tunnel towards the entrance to the Willie Brandt Building.

When he exited the tunnel he could see a large crowd gathered on the other side of the concourse; the place that he'd seen Liz fall. He sprinted with every ounce of energy that he had, pulling journalists out of the way.

When he finally got through the hordes of cameras, there was a large oval space in the middle. Liz was lying with her arms by her side and Clive was kneeling above her, with his hands on her stomach. Sean waited for a second, watching, then Liz's chest rose… she was still breathing. He dived to the floor beside Clive.

‘What can I do?' he said.

‘Nothing now. We just need to keep pressure on the wound until the ambulance gets here,' Clive replied.

Looking past Liz, Sean glanced towards the door, where two people were kneeling over another body, obscuring his view. He pulled a puzzled expression to Clive.

‘It's Faustein. She's dead as far as I can tell. The bullet was meant for her. It passed through her and into Liz. Luckily, she slowed it up a bit so there's no exit wound.'

As Sean was trying to descramble his mind and work out what was happening, a clearing opened up in the crowd and two uniformed paramedics ran in with a stretcher. They quickly applied a pressure dressing to the wound and pulled Liz onto the stretcher.

When Sean was leaving with Liz, he looked across at Anna. Just before the other team of paramedics lifted her onto a stretcher, they covered her head with a blanket. Clive was right: she was dead.

The ten-minute journey to the hospital was agonising as Sean watched the paramedics attaching a drip into Liz's arm. At one stage he thought she woke up, but it was just the jolting of the ambulance, as it bounced over a bump at high speed.

A soon as they reached the hospital Liz was whisked straight into surgery and Sean was told to wait outside. A few minutes later, it was no real surprise when the Belgian police arrived to ask Sean some questions.

While he was being interviewed, Clive, Praew, Steve and Pete ran into the waiting area, out of breath and sweating.

‘She's in surgery,' Sean shouted to them.

When he saw that Praew was crying uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face and her nose running onto her coat, Sean held up his hand to the Belgian policeman and asked for a minute. He ran over to Praew and pulled her into his chest, squeezing her. ‘She'll be okay,' he said, gently rocking from one foot to the other. ‘She'll be okay.'

‘Did they say anything?' Clive asked.

‘No, there wasn't time,' Sean said.

It was two hours before the door to the operating theatre finally opened and a surgeon dressed in scrubs walked out. Sean could see that his hair was soaked in sweat and he jumped up and ran over.

‘Are you a relative?' the surgeon asked.

‘I'm her fiancé,' Sean said, suddenly petrified by the question.

The surgeon bowed his head slightly, clearly searching for the right words. ‘I'm sorry, my English is not perfect,' he said. ‘Your fiancée is in a critical condition. She died twice on the operating table, but we managed to bring her back.'

Sean's head was spinning and his vision was suddenly blurring, he didn't know what to say.

‘Will she live?' Clive said.

‘If she makes it through the night, I think there is a strong possibility that she'll live. But you need to prepare yourself,' the surgeon said.

‘For what?' Sean asked, still trying to control his palpitations.

‘I don't know if there will be any brain damage from the few moments that she was dead.'

‘Brain damage?' The words hit Sean like a sledgehammer and he buckled over, shaking.

‘You need to be prepared for this. But first we need to make sure she lives through the night, which is not certain by any means,' the surgeon said.

‘Can I stay with her?' Sean said.

‘Yes, of course. She'll be transferred to an intensive care ward and you can be there the whole time.'

*

The small private intensive care room was cramped, with Sean, Praew, Clive, Steve and Pete all crammed into it, while the door was guarded by a uniformed police officer.

On the bed, Liz was breathing with the aid of a respirator, a drip fed vital fluids into her arm and her eyes were closed. Sean stared at the monitor showing her heartbeat; that and the slow rising and falling of her chest were the only signs that she was alive.

‘It's my fault,' he said.

‘No it's not, Dad,' Praew encouraged him.

‘It is. She never wanted to restart this investigation. I should've listened to her.'

‘Sean, wallowing in self-pity isn't going to do anybody any good,' Clive said firmly.

Somewhere in his mind Clive's words registered and snapped him back to reality. He realised that he had to be strong for Praew's sake, and for now, he had to believe that Liz would pull through; he couldn't think anything else. ‘Who do you think shot her?' Sean asked, swearing to himself that he'd kill them.

‘I've been thinking about that. I think it had to be Wagner. Faustein had failed and she could finger him,' Clive said.

It confirmed what he'd been thinking as well. He could get his revenge on Wagner when he passed the video to the police. Wagner would be charged with kidnapping, and with further investigation, probably the murder of Allsop, Phil and Dorsch. It wasn't a huge leap to add Anna Faustein to that list. When he looked at Liz again he thought
If she is added to that list, I won't be going to the police
.

‘We have video evidence of Wagner and Faustein's involvement in our kidnapping, and them telling us that we'll be executed,' Sean said, realizing that he hadn't told Clive.

‘How?' Clive suddenly turned his stare away from Liz.

‘Dorsch was spying on us, as well as the rest of humanity,' Pete said.

‘Where is it?' Clive asked.

Suddenly the room went quiet and Pete jumped to his feet. ‘It's at the hotel. I'll go,' he said opening the door and running out.

*

Seventeen minutes later, Clive's phone rang. Sean watched as Clive took the call nodding. ‘Get a cab to the house in Wulowe, then call the police to come and get the three Nazis we tied up. They may testify,' Clive said quickly, then hung up.

‘Your hotel room's been broken into and the computers are gone,' Clive said, relaying Pete's message.

‘Shit! How did they know?' Sean said.

‘Maybe tracking devices in the van, or the computers themselves. Dorsch had traitors in his group. They'd have known about them if they were there.'

‘The three at the house?' Sean suggested.

‘Probably. That's why I've sent Pete.'

*

A further twenty minutes passed before Clive's phone rang again. ‘Okay, I'll see you back here soon,' he said.

‘The house has been cleaned up. No sign of the three Nazis,' Clive said, after hanging up.

Feeling his life slipping out of control, Sean looked at Liz. She was breathing through a tube, fighting for her life. It didn't matter that they had no evidence against Wagner. If Liz died, he'd get his revenge anyway.

It was 4:30 a.m. when Liz opened her eyes. First it was just a flicker and Praew went to get the nurse. By the time she'd returned, Liz was awake, taking in the sights of the room. Her hand suddenly tightened onto Sean's, where he'd been holding it since he arrived, some twelve hours earlier.

A tube in her mouth was preventing her from speaking, but following a few checks by the doctor, she was taken off the life-support system and was now breathing on her own.

‘I love you so much,' Sean said, his eyes never leaving hers.

‘That's good, because it'd hurt if my feelings weren't reciprocated,' Liz said quietly, a smile breaking out on her face.

The doctor put his head into his hands and blew a sigh of relief. ‘Thank god, no brain damage,' he said, smiling at Liz.

When Liz fell asleep about half an hour later, Sean turned to Clive. ‘What are we going to do about Wagner?'

‘I'm going to pass the information on 4R18 to MI6. We've got nothing we can use against Wagner now. It'd just be our word against his, and with no evidence, he'll walk,' Clive said.

‘So we just let him go after he shot Liz, murdered Allsop, Phil and Faustein?' Sean showed surprise at Clive's comments.

‘I didn't say that, but I think it's a matter for the police now. There's nothing we can do.'

Unsatisfied, Sean brooded for a little while. He knew the emotions he felt were nothing more than the desire for revenge; something which Clive would always counsel him against as a starting point. But he hated to see somebody just walk away, especially somebody who had nearly killed Liz.

‘Are you going to write about any of this?' Clive asked.

‘Yes, the bits that I can. It should put paid to Grossi and I think I owe it to Blom to put the record straight about him. It's a good story and I think it'll sell well,' Sean answered.

‘Halliday?'

‘No, much as I'd like to include him, I agreed not to and I have other plans for him anyway.'

‘What about Koryalov?' Clive asked.

‘Yep, I've already written a piece on him in my head, using Dorsch's evidence. It should be enough to get the UK authorities to freeze his assets, which of course are actually Volkov's ill-gotten gains. Then I think he'll disappear without a trace. If he loses £8billion of Volkov's money, we'll be the least of his worries.'

‘Where's the info?' Clive asked.

A sudden bolt of panic shot through Sean, when he realised it was on his computer in the hotel room. ‘At the hotel,' he said. ‘But it's backed up in the cloud,' he relaxed again quickly.

‘Another good story,' Clive said.

‘Yes, it'll more than pay the costs of the last few weeks and oddly, we'd never have got to the truth about Koryalov if the Allsop investigation hadn't led us to Dorsch,' Sean agreed.

*

At 9 a.m. Liz was awake again and seemed even more responsive to conversation. She was quizzing Praew about school subjects and claimed that she wasn't even in any pain. They were interrupted shortly after she woke by the detective who'd interviewed Sean the previous day. When he asked Sean to step out of the room, Sean declined, saying that he had nothing to hide from the people in the room. The detective nodded and stepped inside.

‘Mr McManus, yesterday you suggested that Ulrich Wagner may be responsible for the shooting?'

‘Yes,' Sean said.

‘We found Mr Wagner this morning in the back of his limousine. It was parked in a quiet layby near the town of Düren, just over the border in Germany. He had a single bullet hole in his forehead, as did his driver. They were executed some time yesterday afternoon.'

‘It doesn't rule him out,' Sean said defensively.

‘No, it doesn't, but it does suggest that there's more to this and the timing would have allowed the same killer to both make the shot in Brussels, then kill the two people in Düren.'

Signalling to Sean, Clive quickly agreed with the logic of the detective.

‘Is there anybody else you can think of that could have done this?' the detective asked.

‘Grossi?' Clive suggested.

‘The President?'

‘Yes,' Sean said.

‘Why?'

‘No reason. Just a hunch,' Clive said quickly before anybody else could speak.

The detective frowned at Clive. ‘Some hunch. Mr Grossi was found dead in his Frankfurt hotel room this morning, so why don't you tell me what you know?'

‘We've told you everything we know,' Clive said.

‘I doubt that,' the policeman said. ‘Who else was involved in this conspiracy? And who would want Faustein, Wagner and Grossi dead?' he asked, moving his glare from person to person.

Nobody spoke as the people in the room exchanged glances, none willing to comment about what they were all thinking.

The detective didn't thank them and left the small hospital room shaking his head angrily. ‘If I find out that you're withholding evidence, you won't like the consequences.' His parting words echoed around the room.

Once he'd gone, Clive, Liz and Sean all exchanged looks again before Sean spoke. ‘No, it can't be. That's just crazy.'

‘Wagner, Grossi and Faustein were probably the only three people who would know his real identity,' Clive said.

‘Whose real identity?' Sean questioned.

None of them spoke, all too unwilling to admit that it might even be a possibility.

‘Is it that unfeasible?' Clive said, shrugging his shoulders.

Before anybody could answer, Sean's phone rang. He looked at the screen and answered it immediately. ‘Prime Minister,' he said.

‘Mr McManus. I'm calling to make sure that your fiancée, Miss Channing, is okay and to ask you if there's anything you need?' Halliday's voice was loud and triumphant, unlike earlier when he'd seemed broken.

‘She's awake. Why don't you ask her yourself?' Sean said clicking onto speakerphone.

‘Miss Channing, I'm glad to hear that you're still with us.'

‘Thank you,' Liz replied, pulling a face and mouthing the word ‘
pervert'.

‘No, thank you. The British people owe you, Mr McManus and Mr Miller, a debt of gratitude, the size of which they'll never understand.'

‘What about Praew?' Liz said quickly.

‘Are you referring to the young lady who I've just witnessed on video, slipping through a police cordon to pass old Dalmas some sheets of paper? The young lady that Dalmas acknowledged as changing his mind when he spoke following the summit?'

‘I am,' Liz said defensively.

‘The same young lady that's responsible for the global “Shame your Bullies” movement?'

‘The same one, yes,'

‘Well, I was saving some special comments for her.'

A sudden surge of panic rose in Sean's body.

‘I believe that her brave actions and quick thinking quite possibly saved a whole nation from subservience to an out-of-control European machine,' Halliday said.

As Sean breathed a sigh of relief, Praew beamed with delight, holding on to Liz's hand.

Halliday continued. ‘I nominated young Praew for the George Cross twenty minutes ago,' he said.

The room fell silent as they took in the news.

‘Prime Minister, while I'm sure Praew really appreciates the offer, there is a more important thing to her and us… ' Sean said tentatively.

A brief chuckle came over the phone. ‘Mr McManus, how could anything be more important than a George Cross? It's the highest honour for bravery a civilian can be awarded,' Halliday's pompous voice echoed through the small room.

‘Well … ' Sean started again.

‘Sean — I hope you don't mind if I call you that — obviously you don't know much about the George Cross?'

Sean screwed up his face and looked at Liz, who shook her head. When he looked up, Clive was grinning from ear to ear. ‘No, I don't, but Clive seems to,' he replied.

‘Mr Miller, would you like to explain?' Halliday said.

‘Delighted to, Prime Minister,' Clive said, turning to Praew. ‘The George Cross can only be awarded to Commonwealth Subjects. I think the Prime Minister may have some news for you, Praew,' he said, wiping a tear from his eye.

‘What? How?' Sean said leaping up from the bed.

‘Just over an hour ago I had a meeting with my Home Secretary. I didn't want to be embarrassed by offering the George Cross to somebody that was ineligible. So I automatically upgraded the young lady's residence application to a citizenship application. I'm also pleased to tell you that it was approved by no less than the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister as soon as it was upgraded. Congratulations Praew, you're not only the United Kingdom's youngest ever recipient of its highest honour for bravery… you're its newest citizen.'