‘Some fantasy,’ Johnny said. ‘If it’s a fantasy, how did you get that tape? How did you know where I was just now?’
‘Hell, Johnny, don’t be neolithic,’ said the man lightly. ‘Get your mind off buried cables and wire-taps. We got technology you would not believe.’
‘How can I trust you?’
‘Beauty of it is, you don’t have to. I’ll trust you. Bring it with you tomorrow. When she walks, you hand it over. OK? Only condition is, we never met. Ever.’
Johnny thought about it for a long time. He thought of his own bruising failure to arrange the deliverance he had prayed for. He knew Heather would not approve but he also knew it was the only thing in his power to do, and in the end he could see no other way. He nodded shortly. The man next to him seemed to ease down to a lower state of watchfulness and Johnny never knew how much worse it would have got if he’d chosen to shake his head instead.
‘Spoken with the full-hearted eloquent grace of a gentleman, young Johnny.’ The man turned to the driver. ‘Home, James.’
They drove back in silence, Johnny going over and over it in his mind, but every time he tried to think about the deal, his mother’s voice seemed to get in the way. ‘I wanted a clean end to them…’
The first thing he knew of the attack was when the Shogun’s brakes came on hard as they turned into the end of his father’s drive. A big vehicle had pulled across their bows. The doors were torn open, the two men in the front and the men either side of Johnny were yanked out into the dark. Johnny heard thuds, gasps. He sat there by himself in the dark not knowing which way to move.
Sibley? The final act? Propelled by that thought, he squirmed between the front seats, got in behind the steering wheel, started up and reached out to pull the door closed. A hand grabbed his arm from outside and he wrenched it away then Heather’s voice shouted. ‘Stop, Johnny. It’s us. It’s OK.’
He let out pent-up breath, ‘For God’s sake,’ he said, ‘what’s happening?’
‘It’s OK now,’ she repeated. ‘We’ve got them.’
He saw in the headlights four bodies lying on the ground with people kneeling on them. Boys in overalls, some with shaven heads, some with earrings. He got down and Heather rushed to him, hugged him.
‘What did they do to you?’ she said. ‘We couldn’t find you so we came back here.’
‘No, you’ve got it wrong,’ he replied faintly. ‘They’re trying to help.’
‘But aren’t these people NSA?’
‘Yes. Look, really, let them up.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The plane, Heather. It wasn’t them. It was my bloody mother and Ivor Sibley’s lot. I’ve heard a tape of my mother discussing it. There’s no doubt, I promise.’
Reluctantly, at her command, the boys let the battered Americans get up.
‘Jeezus,’ said the leather-faced man as he brushed himself off, ‘who are these guys, the SAS Cub Scouts?’
‘Young people at risk,’ said Heather distractedly.
‘They’re at risk,’ he said ‘you sure you got that right?’
‘Just go,’ she said.
‘Yes ma’am. I’ll say goodnight.’
When the Shogun had left, Heather rounded up the boys and got them in the van.
‘It was all I could think of doing,’ she said, ‘I thought they might have killed you.’
‘You were amazing. Thank you. Those boys are quite something.’
‘I’ll get in terrible trouble if anyone finds out,’ she said. ‘I chose the toughest nuts we’ve got.’
‘Do you need any help to get them back?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s better if it’s just me. They’ll do what I ask them. They were dead keen to help out.’
He kissed her but there was a chorus of cheers from the van and they stepped apart again.
‘There’s just no time,’ she said, ‘I must get them back, but I have to know what it’s all about.’
‘It can wait until tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’
Chapter Twenty
It was a request from the Base Commander, a good-luck breakfast, he called it, for Chief Inspector Reed and Sergeant Hayter. Reed was suspicious. It wasn’t at all the sort of thing the Americans usually did. When the Commander asked him to come ten minutes before Hayter, he smelt a rat. When he found Ray Mackeson there as well, the rat turned fetid.
‘Mr Reed,’ said the Commander, ‘I know it’s late in the day to say this, but we’ve done a re-evaluation of the parameters of this case and frankly, our opinion is heading south on this one.’
Reed raised his eyebrows to cover the fact he had not the slightest clue what the Commander meant.
‘We don’t feel that the er… the risks inherent in this hearing justify proceeding.’
‘I’m not sure I follow you.’
‘Well, come on now, Commander. I don’t want to get into policy issues with you, but you gotta know we have some major planning hoops to jump through with the local population here. We don’t think that a prosecution right now is going to help with that.’
Reed felt a red flush start to suffuse his cheeks. Steady, he thought to himself, hold on there.
‘It’s a little bit late for that,’ he said.
‘Things change. You gotta be flexible.’
‘Sergeant Hayter was the subject of a serious assault,’ said Reed, who had come to the scene after the event and had no reason to suspect otherwise. ‘If the Weston woman wins this case, he is liable to be prosecuted himself.’
‘That’s a separate issue.’
Reed was on his feet before the cautious part of him could lasso the raging bull. His fist slammed on the Commander’s desk. The Commander flinched. Mackeson merely gave a sardonic smile.
‘This is not in your jurisdiction,’ Reed said. ‘This is a case brought by the Crown Prosecution Service, the British Crown Prosecution Service, on behalf of us, the British Ministry of Defence Police, who are charged with the difficult job of protecting you. You have no say in the matter. I have my men’s future safety to consider.’
There was a silence.
‘Mr Reed,’ the Commander said, ‘we could go through channels on this one but the case starts in three hours and I guess I thought you could…’
‘I can’t.’
Mackeson and the Commander looked at each other.
‘OK,’ the Commander said, ‘get Hayter in here. Let’s eat some breakfast.’
By the time Hayter walked in, the Americans were all smiles.
‘Big day, Sergeant Hayter,’ said the Commander.
‘Normal line of duty, sir,’ said Hayter in what Reed always thought of as his sergeant major’s voice. ‘Open and shut, I’d say. It’ll be good to see that… er, that woman locked up.’
‘You better get your strength up. We got sausage, eggs, hotcakes. You want coffee? OJ? We got tea in case?’
Johnny sat high up in the public gallery, waiting, fretting while the court below slowly filled up with the drab-clothed servants of justice. They all seemed to have urgent reasons to talk in little knots among the ranks of light oak benches but their conversations were broken by smiles which seemed, unnervingly, to imply that there was a social life which was more important to them than the temporary business they were here to transact. Heather’s barrister, Lisa Gardiner, came in clutching a large pile of files.
He’d parked in the big car park under the mound of Clifford’s Tower at nine o’ clock and walked across the wide, open square to York Crown Court. There’d been a camera crew at the bottom of the steps and he’d made sure his face was averted out of sheer habit.