‘I’ve already asked for camera footage from San Mateo Bridge,’ says Eleonora. ‘And from Bay Bridge too, in case they took a scenic route.’
Spinks has a bonus for them. ‘I called a friend running a helicopter flight business out at Camp Parks. He’s promised to help out, under the cover of running tourist trips, so I’ll give him locations near Diablo to scout.’
Beam checks his watch. ‘We need to get moving. Let’s have search teams briefed and out within the hour; I’ll fix for some of our people to start searching for rentals — cars, lodges, houses and whatever else is out there. Everyone get praying; we need a break and need it quickly.’
137
Mitzi hands over ten English pounds to the cab driver. She walks along Borough High Street and through large green gates announcing, ‘The George — London’s only surviving galleried coaching inn and the home of fine cask beers’.
The hostelry is a long three-storey building painted in white and black. Two of the upper storeys have wooden galleries from which dangle flower baskets. Mitzi passes over a large cobbled area filled with dozens of drinkers at rough wooden tables.
She enters through a side door near a sign showing St George slaying a dragon. People are squashed into a warren of tight downstairs rooms. The noise is so loud she’s scared of not hearing her phone. She holds it up so she can see the flash of any incoming calls as she pushes her way through an old bar with hard bench seating into one that looks even older and less comfortable.
Both areas are brimming with either bemused tourists or drunken Londoners. Some have food on tables, others are stood drinking.
The next room is more modern — a long and bright bar of blonde wood, gleaming brass pumps and blackboards offering fresh food. The crowd hanging here looks more family orientated, with mums, dads and kids grabbing the best tables by the windows.
Her phone rings.
‘Hello.’
No one answers.
‘Damn!’ Mitzi looks at it accusingly. Only two of those little signal lines. The reception must be bad.
She moves into a hallway to get better reception.
After five minutes and no call, she climbs a set of paint-chipped stairs to a series of uneven floors and private function rooms. Several people pass her. None have the alertness she’d expect of someone involved in a kidnapping.
By the time she finds the Gallery Bar, she’s uncomfortably hot and orders a glass of mineral water with ice. While waiting, she hears tourists discussing how Shakespeare and Dickens used to drink here. Given how long it takes to be served she wonders if they’re still around.
She takes her change and is dropping it in her purse when the phone rings again.
Mitzi almost drops her cash as she answers. ‘Fallon!’
Again, there’s no pick-up.
She scans the bar. No one is looking at her. The place is full of regular-looking thirty-somethings, a few business types and a group of young guys in the far corner. None of the waiters or waitresses is paying her any attention.
Mitzi tries to stay calm. She sips the drink at the bar. After ten minutes she starts walking again. Back downstairs, she puts her now-empty glass on a table and goes to the only place she’s not yet visited.
The restroom.
It’s cold and smells of damp plaster and cheap air freshener. She uses a stall, then washes her hands. The mirror above the sink gives a cruel reminder that her face is still bruised and her panda eyes now bloodshot.
She waits patiently for a thin brunette in black jeans, matching waistcoat and white T to finish drying her hands under a noisy wall-mounted blower.
Their eyes lock. Mitzi glances towards the door. An athletically built woman, mid-thirties with short blonde hair, has her back against it.
In her hand is a gun.
The brunette smiles, holds out a palm and waggles her fingers. ‘Give me the memory stick.’
138
Owain Gwyn slides into the shadows of a thin passageway off the main street, just down from The George and takes the call. ‘Gareth, I’m on foot and in public, is this urgent?’
‘It is,’ confirms Madoc. ‘I’ve this minute sent you a digital file. It’s of the al-Qaeda video that’s just been shot.’
Owain watches a silver Mercedes halt near the pub entrance and two burly men slip out. ‘Do we know the targets?’
‘No. It was a revealing speech, but not in that kind of way. I had Hemmings watch and he thinks the main target is likely to be a religious leader.’
The men disappear into the pub but the Merc stays on double yellow lines, its hazard lights flashing.
‘We’ve been over this. I’m not willing to approach the Vatican with a view to cancellation unless you can give me more specific intel.’
‘I can’t do that. Not at the moment.’ On his desk monitor, Madoc sees al-Shibh thank Korshidi and prepare to leave the house where they’ve been filming. ‘Our new friend is on the move, so I’m going to have to go. Before you dismiss the risk completely, please look at the recording and make your own mind up.’
‘Okay, I will.’ Owain watches the Mercedes pull away from the kerb and head down the street towards London Bridge. ‘I’ll find time in the next hour.’ He glances at his watch. It’s even later than he thought. ‘The Pope is already in Wales, but his first public appearance isn’t until the morning. If he’s in danger, that’s when any attack will come.’
139
Mitzi ignores the big blonde with the gun and gets in the face of the wiry brunette by the row of basins. ‘You ain’t getting anything. Not until Amber’s at a hospital being treated. Only when I know that, when I can call her and talk to her, do you get what you want.’
The brunette scowls. ‘We’re not here to negotiate.’ She nods to the blonde guarding the door.
Mitzi feels the persuasive jab of a gun in her side. She smashes her left heel into the big woman’s right knee, hooks a hand around the back of her neck and slams her head into the edge of a sink. There’s a sickening thunk of skull bone on ceramic and Mitzi knows she’s unconscious by the time she hits the floor.
The brunette thinks of grabbing the spilled gun.
‘Go ahead,’ says Mitzi. ‘If I needed a weapon I’d have brought one.’
The bathroom door opens and two men appear. They’re unmistakably ‘muscle’.
‘She’s got a fractured skull.’ Mitzi nods to the comatose woman. ‘I heard it pop. Best get her to a hospital before the brain bleed’s too bad.’
The brunette turns cardiac-red. She grabs the gun and points it with shaking hands. ‘Now give me the stick, you fucking bitch.’
‘Calm down, honey.’ Mitzi raises her hands. ‘Things are already screwed here. You’ve gotta get some focus.’
‘Give me the fucking stick!’ She pushes the gun towards her.
‘You want it, lady — you’re going to have to pick it outta my poop.’
The brunette looks lost.
‘I swallowed it.’
One of the guys smiles, steps forward and grabs her hands. He loops a plastic tie around her wrists and pulls it skin-nipping tight.
Mitzi goes with the flow.
The other muscle drapes his sweatshirt over her hands to conceal the cuffs, then bends over the injured blonde. ‘She’s totally out of it. I’ll do what I can and follow in a minute. Take the mouthy bitch to the water and don’t wait for me.’