Knife Edge

Let the fuckers find out themselves.

'I've got a phone call to make,' Doyle said, walking past Calloway.

'What is the big secret about Neville?' the DI wanted to know. 'Why are you after him?'

Doyle smiled. 'Let me worry about that,' he said quietly.

'I could do you for obstruction,' Calloway said menacingly.

'You couldn't do me for gobbing on the fucking pavement,' Doyle said dismissively, brushing past the DI.

'We're supposed to be on the same side,' the policeman called after him.

Doyle ignored him and kept walking.

As he turned the corner of the corridor he saw that the public phone was in use.

'Shit,' he muttered under his breath, sidling close to the user, a man in his mid-fifties who kept peering anxiously in Doyle's direction.

Come on, get a fucking move on.

Doyle drew on his cigarette and leaned against the wall, gazing at the man who was glancing all around him, anything to avoid making eye contact.

When he finally finished he gave Doyle an apologetic smile as he stepped away from the phone.

The younger man picked up the receiver and began feeding coins into the machine, aware that the other man was staring at him.

Only when Doyle turned and glared back at him did the man hasten his retreat along the corridor and out of sight.

Doyle jabbed the digits and waited.

An officious-sounding voice greeted him at the other end.

'I want to speak to Major John Wetherby,' Doyle said. 'Tell him it's Sean Doyle.'

The other voice said that Wetherby was busy.

'Then interrupt him. This is urgent.'

The officious voice insisted Doyle should hold.

'I'm using a public phone, you prick, now get Wetherby and stop fucking about. This is very urgent.'

There was a moment or two of silence on the other end, then Doyle heard a more familiar voice.

'Doyle, I-'

He didn't let the Intelligence officer finish. 'What have you got on Kenneth Baxter?'

'Well, he wasn't hard to trace. It makes for interesting reading, Doyle.'

'Cut the small talk. Where is he?'

'He's in London. He's lived there for the past twelve months. Kenneth Edward Baxter, age thirty-eight. Born May-'

'I don't need his fucking life history,' Doyle snapped.

'It's relevant,' Wetherby replied angrily.

'Is he still serving?'

'That's the interesting bit. Kenneth Baxter was court-martialled eighteen months ago, while he was a serving paratrooper. He was found guilty and sentenced to six months in a military prison in Aldershot. After his release he was dishonourably discharged from the army.'

'Jesus Christ, what did he do?'

'Well, like our friend Neville, Baxter was an explosives expert too. The only problem was, he was selling explosives, army explosives, to the IRA and the UVF.'

'For fuck's sake.'

'There was some talk of him selling weapons too but that charge was never proved.'

'So where is he now?'

'Like I said, he's living in London. He works for a private security firm called Nemesis.'

'They obviously didn't ask for references.'

'He's been there for about eight months.'

'Addresses?' Doyle fumbled in his pocket for a piece of paper. He found an old betting slip in one back pocket of his jeans and pulled a Bic from his jacket, scribbling away as Wetherby relayed the information. 'Anything else I should know?' he said finally, shoving the worn pink slip back into his pocket.

'Just find Neville,' Wetherby said.

'Doyle!'

The counter terrorist turned as he heard his name being called.

He looked around to see Calloway hurrying up the corridor towards him.

'Got to go,' Doyle said into the phone and hung up.

Calloway looked flushed around the cheeks.

'What's going on?' Doyle asked.

'I just spoke to Mason at New Scotland Yard,' the DI told him. 'He called me on my mobile. Neville rang there five minutes ago. He says he's ringing back in a couple of minutes. He wants to talk, but he'll only talk to you.'

'What the fuck does he want to talk to me for?'

'He said something about a bomb.'

11.41 A.M.

Doyle stood beside the black Granada, gently rocking from one foot to the other.

'This is bollocks,' he muttered, glancing around the hospital car park.

A red Metro had just pulled up close by and he watched as two elderly women clambered out, one of them carrying a Cellophane-wrapped bunch of flowers.

'He's not going to call back,' Doyle insisted, watching as the women linked arms and headed off towards the hospital's main entrance.

Calloway was seated behind the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the mobile phone which lay on the parcel shelf, as if by mere power of thought he could make it ring.

'Come on, come on,' Doyle muttered.

The phone rang.

Calloway snatched it up.

'It's him,' DS Mason said on the other end of the line. 'He wants to speak to Doyle.'

'Patch this through the radio too,' Calloway instructed. 'And get a fucking trace going on the call.'

'He won't be on long enough for that,' Doyle said.

'He will if you keep him talking,' Calloway snapped, handing the mobile to the counter terrorist.

The DI himself grabbed the radio and pressed 'Receive'.

Doyle looked at the phone for fleeting seconds then pressed it to his ear.

'Neville,' he said.

'Is that you, Doyle?' the voice at the other end said.

'You asked for me, didn't you? Why bother me with your bullshit?'

'Because I know you'll listen.'

'What makes you think that? What if I switched you off right now, shithead?'

Calloway waved his hand frenziedly, fearing that Doyle would carry out his threat, but the counter terrorist held the phone firmly to his ear.

'Why did you try to kill your wife and kid, Neville?' Doyle enquired.

'I didn't, you ought to know that.'

'Yeah, I know that. What do you want, a fucking medal for your handiwork? So, you can blow the roof off a house without damaging anything nearby. What do you do for an encore?'

'You'll see,' Neville said softly. 'I used ten pounds of Semtex to lift that roof, I've got plenty more.'

'How much more?'

'Enough to put a fucking crater where the centre of London used to be.'

'How much?' Doyle persisted.

'A hundred and fifty pounds of it.'

Doyle and Calloway looked at each other but if Doyle was surprised it didn't register in his expression.

'Jesus fucking Christ,' whispered the policeman, swallowing hard.

'So, what are you going to do with this explosive then, Neville?'

'I know you're tracing this call.'

'Good for you. Then you'll know that I'm going to find you.'

'You're not going to find me. Not you or any of the fucking coppers listening to this conversation.'

'Look, just tell me what the fuck you want, will you? You're starting to bore me,' Doyle said.

'I want my daughter back.'

'No chance,' Doyle said flatly.

'In fifty minutes a bomb will explode somewhere in the centre of London,' Neville informed him. 'If you don't give me my daughter back then another one will explode every hour after that. Different locations. Different lives, Doyle. You know what it's like. You've seen what bombs can do. A lot of people are going to die if I don't get my daughter back.'

'Fuck you, Neville.'

'One bomb every hour,' Neville continued. 'You'll never know where. And if you haven't seen sense by eight o'clock tonight, if I haven't got my daughter by then, if you're not sick of filling fucking body bags, then that's when the big one goes up. Eight tonight, Doyle. One hundred pounds of C4. Now get my daughter.'

The radio crackled.

'We've got the trace,' DS Mason said triumphantly.