The rain still poured down, the thunder crashed and the lightning flashed, like some great overture to the fireworks to come. The motorcyclists and the escort cars peeled off as soon as the convoy entered the Gardens. Watching from above. Skinner and Maggie Rose could follow the Jaguar’s headlights as they cut a path through the dark to the entrance to the Ross Theatre. Expertly, the PM’s driver swung the car round, and reversed it up to stop a few feet in front of four empty seats, two of them with massive sentinels positioned behind them.

Martin and Mackie, in heavy anoraks and flat caps, jumped out and scanned the audience. Then Martin leaned back into the car and spoke softly. The Prime Minister stepped out first, and then the Secretary of State for Scotland, each in heavy rainwear. Their arrival in the darkness went unseen by the great majority of the audience, but they were greeted by a round of polite applause nonetheless, led by the Concert’s guest conductor, Daniel Greenspan, standing well back on his spot-lit rostrum, only just out of the pounding rain.
The Prime Minister was ramrod straight, and smiled widely around him as he walked the few steps to his seat. Behind him, Ballantyne, glum and nervous, hurried to sit down under the cover provided by Mario McGuire. Martin took the seat immediately beside the PM, while Mackie flanked the Secretary of State. Each detective kept a hand inside his jacket, on the butt of his pistol. Greenspan turned to face the orchestra and raised his baton.

Skinner felt Maggie Rose jump slightly beside him, in involuntary alarm, as the first firework. launched from the wide area around the foot of the Castle rock, exploded in synchronicity with the first bars of Aaron Copland’s 'Outdoor’ overture.
'Get used to it, Maggie. Keep looking around, and keep your fingers crossed that’s all you’ll see or hear.’
For some while it seemed as if Skinner’s hope against hope would be fulfilled.
As the Concert unfolded, the unamplified music boomed up towards them on their battlement. Different shapes, colours and patterns of light burst all around them, as the pyrotechnics lit the night sky, in uncanny harmony with the music. Skinner concentrated his view to the left, and Rose kept hers to the right. From time to time, flashes from the fireworks were channelled through the night-glasses and blinded them, but as the hour’s duration of the concert wore on, they were able, between them, to keep under observation the whole of the area surrounding the Gardens and the theatre. They could see nothing untoward, only the enthusiastic crowds down in the Street, as they jumped and clapped with each new wonder of light in the dark sky.

At last, the programme reached its climax, Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks.
'They’re nearly at the end now,’ Skinner called out above the noise to his two companions. 'So far, so….’
He was cut short by the sound of an explosion, carrying clearly through a lull in the music, and a momentary break in the fireworks. It came from their left. Skinner swept his glasses along Princes Street to the Caledonian Hotel, but saw nothing untoward. Carrying on, he scanned along Castle Terrace. Saltire Court and the Traverse Theatre seemed undisturbed, and from what he could see of the Usher Hall and the Sheraton, they too looked undamaged. But beyond them, beyond the Royal Lyceum, in Lothian Road, to the left of the high top of Capital House, he saw a billowing cloud of smoke and dust rising and shining in the floodlights which illuminated the front ofthe building which had been home to the Film Festival.

His radio was in his hand in a second. 'Major incident, Filmhouse,’ he barked into the open line. 'All emergency services required now. Every second officer in Princes Street go to the
scene, immediately.’
Just as he finished issuing the order, he heard the tail-end of a second blast, this time sounding from the right. Again Skinner swung round, searching through the glasses, but
something took him instinctively to the Balmoral. The hotel’s foyer was out of his line of sight, but his eye was caught at once by the shattered windows in its side. Then he saw the smoke of the bomb as it spread outwards in a mushroom from the front of the huge, square stone building.
'Jesus Christ, there’s been another.’
The radio mike was in his hand once more. 'Second explosion, Balmoral Hotel. Emergency services respond again. Headquarters, let’s get every policeman in Edinburgh into this area!’
He was still issuing his orders when Maggie Rose grabbed his arm. 'Sir, what’s that over there, on the Mound?’

He followed her finger pointing into the night, until his glasses found the stationary lorry. It was big and flat-backed, and it seemed to have been pulled right up on to the pavement, just at the point where the curving section of the Mound straightened to run down towards Princes Street, past the National Gallery. The lorry’s cab was empty, but its curtain side, facing the Gardens, had been pulled open, and four figures stood on its platform. Skinner could see them clearly – and could see clearly what they were doing.
Two of them clasped bulky, box-like objects to their shoulders, while the others were braced against them, to hold them steady.
'Andy!’ he roared into the radio. 'Get them into the car, now, they’ve got missiles! In the car! In the car! In the car!’ And as he spoke he saw the launchers fire, simultaneously. He followed the path of the squat fly-by-wire projectiles as each homed in on its target.
'Down! Down! Everybody down.’ He screamed into the radio, and into the darkness of the Garden Theatre.

The Prime Minister experienced a sudden sensation of flight. One second, having forgotten, temporarily, his anger over Ballantyne’s ridiculous bravado, he was enjoying Handel’s finest work. The next he was in mid-air, seized bodily by Andy Martin, lifted clear of his seat, and borne at speed across the short distance to the Jaguar. Then its rear door was wrenched open and he found himself thrown across the back seat. An instant later, Ballantyne landed heavily on top of him, hurled there by Brian Mackie. Then Mackie himself dived in to cover them both with his large body. Martin, his pistol drawn, slammed the door shut behind them,
slapped the side of the Jaguar, and dived to the ground as it roared off.

He looked up, back towards the audience, and could spot McGuire and Mcllhenney. Obviously they, too, had been alerted by Skinner’s voice in their earpieces, since, arms outspread, they were gathering in as many of the people around them as they could
and forcing them down between the seats. On stage, the orchestra played on in triumph, as oblivious to the two explosions as were all but a few members of the audience.
Overhead the fireworks crashed and sparkled, at their luminescent climax.

There is no mistaking a Sidewinder missile for a firework. Skinner watched, struck dumb by the horror, as one of them smashed right into the middle rows of the audience and exploded.
He saw that, at the moment of impact, several people, noticing the sudden commotion in the front row, had stood up trying, vainly, to catch a view in the dark. By a small mercy, the other Sidewinder flashed across the front of the stage, exactly where the Jaguar had stood bare seconds before, over a figure lying face-down in the tarmac, and then off to explode in the trees beyond the theatre’s iron gate.

Maggie Rose screamed out loud, and kept on screaming, until Skinner gripped her by the shoulders and shook her hard. Even without night-glasses. Major Ancram could see the flashes of the missile strikes, and needed no telling what had happened.
'Mr Skinner, I’m calling out the garrison. I’ll have to get every man down there.’
'Yes, Major,’ said Skinner, recovering his power of speech.
'Fast as you can, too. Let’s get down there.’
And then, suddenly, he changed his mind. 'No!’ he said loudly, and the Major, who had been heading away to gather his soldiers, stopped in his tracks and turned to stare in surprise.
'There’s something else,’ said Skinner, vehemently. 'I said that they want to get us tear-arsing around. That’s what they’ve got now, in spades. But what happens next?’
He stood for perhaps twenty seconds, thinking hard, while Rose and Major Ancram stared at him. Then, decisions made, he looked again at the soldier. 'Major, OK, you get your men down there on the double, but leave half-a-dozen up here with me.

Maggie, you go on down with him, and do what you can.’
She nodded silently, determined to be as tough as anyone in Skinner’s command, and ashamed of her earlier weakness.
'Major, how many men have you got?’
'Just now, three hundred.’
“Good. When you get down there, I want you to put armed men on guard around the National Gallery, and at the big bank branches at the Mound, St Andrew’s Square, George Street and
the West End. I’ll tell you why later. For now, get going, and send that half-dozen men to me.’

A germ of a notion was festering in Skinner’s mind, one so bizarre that he thought that it surely had to be fantasy, and yet it was there and he could not totally dismiss it as a possibility. An afterthought struck him and he called after the disappearing Ancram. 'Major, see if one of your men can find me a whistle!’

Andy Martin picked himself up from the wet tarmac, without even a thought of dusting himself off. When he heard Skinner’s first alert, he had jerked bolt upright in his seat, and a voice inside him had screamed silently. For a second he had almost sprinted from the Prime Minister’s side, off through the Gardens and into the night, to Lothian Road, the Filmhouse and Julia. But then the second alert had come, and Skinner’s frantic command. He had acted instinctively, and had ensured that the Jaguar and its passengers had made it to safety. Now he looked around him, and listened carefully. On the stage a percussionist was banging away, either lost in the score or refusing to believe what had happened. Daniel Greenspan stood in his spotlight, his baton by his side, staring into the darkness.

Martin re-holstered his pistol and took out his radio. He switched channels to call the operations room at Fettes. 'Find whoever can arrange it, and get as much light as we can in here. For a start, have someone turn on the lights in Princes Street. And get me any news you can of Filmhouse.’ A second later, he found that his first instruction had been anticipated by the stage manager of the Ross Theatre. Above the stage a row of floodlights flickered into life, illuminating the audience. Martin moved forward fearfully, into a world of death
and desolation, unable to block out the fear that it might be the same where his Julia was.

There was carnage indeed in the Ross Theatre, and yet he soon saw it might have been worse. He looked around first for McGuire and Mcllhenney, and to his great relief spotted them both, still huge in their jackets and helmets, shepherding uninjured spectators away from the scene. And then Adam Arrow was by his side. 'God, Andy, I’ve never seen anything like this. What do you hear on that radio of yours?’ Once again the accent had vanished. Three attacks one after the other. First Filmhousc, then the Balmoral – both bombs, from the sound of it – then here. We were attacked by missiles fired from the Mound. One missed. The other hit over there by the looks of it.’
'Sidewinders, I imagine. In that case we were lucky.’
'Not all of us, though.’

They had reached the heart of the missile’s devastation. Neither could be sure how many had died, but a circle of twelve metal seats lay tangled and bloody under the floodlights, with broken bodies twisted among them. Around this immediate circle, perhaps two dozen people sat stunned and disbelieving. Some were bleeding, and several held their ears as if deafened. The silence was that of a mourning parlour. It had a power of its own, one which seemed almost to hold at bay the growing clamour from Princes Street, and the howling of sirens as police, fire crews and ambulances raced to their different destinations.

The soldier and the detective began to direct the men at their disposal to the care of the casualties, to render first-aid to those who were bleeding, and to confirm, as far as they were able, that none of the walking wounded was seriously hurt. When he was satisfied that everyone was in good hands, Martin called across to McGuire. 'Mario, you’re in charge here now. I’ve got to check out Filmhouse.’
As he sprinted into the night, he glanced up at the Half-Moon Battery. Standing at its edge, framed in light, he caught sight of a silhouette unmistakable even in its overcoat.
'Thank Christ for the boss tonight,’ he muttered sincerely. 'But what’s he doing up there still?’

The corporal looked puzzled as he handed Skinner the whistle. Skinner took it from him with a curt nod.
'Right, you all know me?’
'Sir!’ said the corporal, speaking for all six men. ; 'Major Ancram will have told you that you are know under my command. What I want you to do is this: throw a guard around the Crown Square – that’s the Great Hall, the Queen Anne Barracks, the War Memorial, and the Royal Palace. All the areas below will be empty by now, but there’s nothing there that anyone
would be after. What you must guard against is anyone or anything that shouldn’t be there. The chances are that nothing unusual will happen, but if it does . . .’
He paused to let his words sink in, then went on. 'If any of you sees anything, and you don’t know for sure it’s friendly, don’t ask I for its name, shoot it. If it turns out to be the regimental mascot, or the RSM’s tart, well, that’ll be too bad, but they can both be replaced. Right, Corporal, get your men spread out.’ He held up the whistle. 'I know it’s old-fashioned, but if I need you, I’ll blow this thing. If you hear it, regroup here, by the One O’clock Gun. If
any of you need me, chances are I’ll have heard you shoot!’

But Skinner was wrong.
He was standing by the gun, training his night-glasses on the National Art Gallery, looking for any sign of intruders. For he suddenly felt acutely aware that the building was currently
housing an international exhibition of the life’s work of Rembrandt. It had been brought to the Edinburgh Festival under the sponsorship of a major insurance company, and it was worth, conservatively, over a hundred million pounds.
'Forget the banks. That’s only money,’ he said softly to the night, his thoughts gathering speed. 'Anybody with the resources to fund what we’ve just seen doesn’t need money. But what if he wants something else, something unique, just for himself, and will go to any lengths, any cost? There’s only one other collection in Edinburgh as valuable as that exhibition, and we’re up here guarding that.’

Then he heard the strange sound in the dark, and knew at once, with his detective’s instinct, that the National Gallery was not the target – and that his germ of an idea had been right all along. The Royal Regalia of Scotland are not nearly as famous as their English counterparts in the Tower of London, and they have been admired by far fewer tourists over the years. Indeed, most Scots do not even know they art there. Since the Union of the Kingdoms
almost five hundred years ago, only King Charles II, then an exile and outlawed by Cromwell, has been crowned in Scotland. Thus the Honours of Scotland – as they are sometimes called – are, in main, older than the Crown Jewels of England. They are also, in
their own way, beyond price. Therefore they are guarded in the most effective manner possible, by the army itself, in the heart of the garrisoned citadel of Edinburgh, which stands impregnable on its rock – unless, in some dire emergency, that garrison were to be flushed out. Without waiting to discover exactly what that sound in the dark had been, but sensing its meaning anyway. Skinner grabbed his radio and spoke urgently into the open channel.
'Get some back-up here to the Castle. They’re after the Crown Jewels! “

He stumbled over the body in the dark. The soldier lay face-down, near the Portcullis Gate, at the foot of the Lang Stairs. Skinner turned him over. The heavy clouds reflected the amber light of the city back down to earth, and in that dim glow Skinner could see that the man had been stabbed in the throat. The gurgling sound heard earlier must have been his death rattle, or a last attempt to raise the alarm. The man had dropped his rifle. Skinner spotted the short, fully automatic weapon lying on the ground. He picked it up without further thought, thankful for his practice sessions with this same firearm on the St Leonards rifle range.

Leaving the dead soldier. Skinner hurried back to his rendezvous point by the One O’clock Gun. He hesitated for a moment about blowing the whistle, with the risk of alerting the
intruders, but quickly decided that alerting his own men had priority. So he gave a single sharp blast, and hoped that the raiders would confuse it with the many other varied sounds now floating up to the Castle from the chaos in the city below. Only three of the other soldiers answered his summons, including the corporal. Skinner glanced at him and held up the whistle, a gesture asking whether he should blow it again.
But the NCO shook his head sadly. 'Naw. They’re good lads. They’d have come if they could.’

With twenty-twenty hindsight. Skinner cursed himself for not commandeering twice as many men, then he addressed the remaining three. 'Look lads, we’ve got a raiding party in the
Castle. They’re after the Crown Jewels. I don’t know how many there are, but they must be inside the Palace by now. I’ve already radioed for back-up, but we can’t wait that long. If they get what they’re after, then get loose out there in the dark, we’ll never catch them.
'Corporal, you take one of these two and go round behind the war Memorial to the main entrance to Crown Square. The other will come with me up the Stairs, and in by the side way. And, again ask no questions. You see it, you shoot it!’

The corporal slapped one of his soldiers on the shoulder, and together the pair headed off up a slight incline to the right, hunched in the dark and their rifles held ready. Skinner led the
remaining man back past the body of his dead colleague and up to the top of the stone staircase, until it opened on to the topmost level of the Castle. Together they raced across the ground behind the Fore Wall and the Half Moon Battery, and flattened themselves against the side of the Scottish National War Memorial.

Slowly, Skinner eased forward to peer round the corner into Crown Square. At the edge of his vision he saw the corporal and his partner sprint into the square, away from the dangerous frame of the narrow entrance, bracing themselves, crouched, against the buildings.
There were two men stationed at the door of the Palace. They were dressed in black, and carried short, ugly guns which Skinner recognised at Uzis. They spotted the two soldiers as soon as they appeared at the far end of the square, and swung their weapons up to firing positions. But too slowly. The corporal and his companion cut them down with bursts of
sustained deadly accurate rifle fire. Skinner saw both men thrown back against the wall of the Jewel Chamber by the impact. Then as the firing stopped, they crumpled slowly, limp and dead, to the ground.

He shouted across the square. 'Corporal, is there any other way out of there?’
'No, sir,’ the man called back. 'Whoever’s in there must come through that door at the foot of the Flag Tower.’
'Right, we wait. Our back-up should be here any minute.’
As he spoke, he heard, from within the building, a sound like the smashing of heavy glass. An alarm bell began to ring, pointlessly.
Skinner left his soldier companion in the lee of the War Memorial, and ran across to the steps of its only entrance. He shielded himself behind its arch, and blessed his luck and foresight as a grenade exploded in the square. He heard shrapnel zing against stone walls, and ricochet off into the night. Then he swung himself out from behind the grey pillar and waited ready for what he knew would happen next.
There were two others, also dressed in black like their dead colleagues. Each carried a holdall in his left hand, and a blazing Uzi in his right. As they burst through the door, they sprayed fire blindly at unseen targets, but this kept the soldiers at the far end of the square pinned down nonetheless. They could not see where their greatest peril waited. Skinner dropped the first intruder with two quick shots. The other swung round towards the side exit from Crown Square, and straight into the path of the waiting soldier, who roared a battle-cry as he emptied his magazine in revenge for his fallen comrades.

In the silence that followed, amid the reek of the gunsmoke, Skinner found time to look inside himself. He was pleased that he had been able to fire without hesitation, pleased too that he had handled the job so unemotionally, without any thought of Barry Macgregor in his mind. Perhaps, he thought, the closet door was locked for good. Maybe he did not need that other guy after all. He held the other men in position for three full minutes, lest there were other intruders still inside the Jewel Chamber. But the next man to enter the square was Captain Adam Arrow, leading his silent troops in full combat array.

Arrow appraised the scene in a second, and realised why Skinner and his trio of soldiers were waiting immobile. At his signal, two men sprinted across the open space and threw stun
grenades through the open door of the Flag Tower, holding their ears against the percussion. Then they rushed inside the building and up the stairs, their guns held in front of them.
A few seconds later they emerged, and waved the all-clear to Arrow.

As Skinner and the soldiers gathered at the doorway, the corporal found a switch, and soon the square was ablaze with light. Weapons at the ready, they approached the four figures
lying crumpled on the flagstones. Three of the raiders were as dead as they could be, but the fourth still showed signs of life.
Skinner radioed for an ambulance.
The two holdalls lay on the ground nearby. The larger of them was streaked with blood. Skinner knelt down and unzipped it and from within he took a sword still sheathed in its bejewelled scabbard. Not just any old sword, this one, but that which had been ceremoniously borne in state before the kings of Scotland.

He held it up by its scabbard for a moment, feeling its weight and its fine balance. Then he handed it over to Arrow and bent to open the other bag, knowing also what he would find there. First, the golden sceptre, finely worked, heavier than it looked. And then Scotland’s ancient pride, the crown itself. It was almost indescribably beautiful. Even in the harsh artificial light its jewels glinted in the delicate gold circlet. Pearls, set in gold, gleamed on the red velvet inner cap, and six more, with four sapphires, formed the cross at its apex.
Skinner held it up by its white ermine surround, for all to see 'There you have it, lads. This is what our Freedom Fighters were really after. Priceless, they call it, but for someone who
wanted it badly enough, not beyond price, it seems.’

Skinner could scarcely believe that so many journalists would turn up sober for a 2:30 am press briefing. Extra seats had been brought in, filling the briefing hall completely. Yet they were all soon occupied, and the side aisles were also packed with correspondents, many standing, others crouching to allow the photographers and television cameramen a clear view of the table at the head of the room, and of the big dark-suited, steel-haired, stubble-chinned man who sat at it – his Chief Constable, in full uniform and clean-shaven, by his side.
Skinner waited as Alan Royston and his uniformed assistants distributed the printed statement which he and Proud Jimmy had dictated together within the last hour. They waited for some
minutes more, to give every man and woman in the room an opportunity to read and understand it fully. When he judged the time was right, Skinner rapped the table with his knuckles to recapture the attention of his audience, and began, slightly hoarsely.

'I’d appreciate it if everyone here could take that statement as read. It’ll save my voice. But I’ll sum up now for television and radio.’ He glanced down the room towards the camera platform. 'In relative terms we have been fortunate tonight. This is no comfort to the families of the nine victims killed by the ground-to-ground missile fired into the Ross Theatre. However, things could have been much worse. There were no other serious casualties, either in the Gardens or due to the other explosions at Filmhouse and at the Balmoral Hotel. The first of these, we know now, was caused by a satchel of explosives placed against a wall in the foyer. It brought down the front of the building, but the rest stood firm. Fortunately all the audience and staff were inside the cinemas at the time, so everyone was brought out safely.
'We believe that the Balmoral bomb, too, was left in a suitcase in the foyer. Again fortunately, the receptionist had gone into her office, and the doorman was outside watching the fireworks. So that area was completely empty when the device went off”.

'We believe that the second missile at the Ross Theatre was aimed at the Prime Minister’s car, but the vehicle moved out of the line of fire just in time, thanks to the speed with which DCI Andy Martin and DI Brian Mackie acted to get the two ministers clear of the scene.’
On impulse, Sir James Proud broke in, pointing towards a stocky, blond, green-eyed man leaning against the wall. 'I’d like to single out Andy Martin for special commendation, but also congratulate all the other members of the team: Brian Mackie, Mario McGuire and Neil Mcllhenney, who placed themselves without hesitation in the line of fire, and not forgetting DS Maggie Rose, but for whose keen eyes we could well have had a dead Prime Minister by now, not to mention her fellow officers and friends.’

As Al Neidermeyer raised a hand. Skinner eyed him without animosity. The American looked back with caution and new respect.
'We’re putting this out live on TNI. Could you just run over the whole picture of what happened tonight?’
Certainly. It’s now clear that the so-called independence campaign was in fact a professionally planned operation to cause chaos and confusion among the police and emergency services, and to steadily stretch us to the point we reached tonight, when we
had to call out every last resource at our disposal, including the garrison from the Castle. We know now that the real objective was theft of the Honours of Scotland, our Royal Regalia. Call it fantastic, call it audacious, but it actually happened, and it almost succeeded.’

'Do you think you’ve got them all. Bob?’ The questioner was the grizzled John Hunter, looking slightly unkempt in the middle of the night, an unaccustomed time for him.
Skinner smiled at the familiar face. 'No, John, we haven’t. We don’t know yet whether the types who planted those bombs and fired the missiles were the same ones who attacked the Castle. Forensic tests should tell us, though. Also we don’t know for sure that there were only four in the raiding party up at the Castle. A long rope ladder was found fastened to the Half Moon Battery dropping down to the lawn below. That was their getaway route so possibly someone was guarding it, then legged it.

“There’s Mary Little Horse, too. We still haven’t traced her. And there’s someone else we haven’t got. That’s the one who set this whole thing up. Somebody who wanted so badly to possess the Scottish Crown Jewels that he or she was ready to provide the necessary finance for an operation as brilliant and as ruthless as this one. There is absolutely no clue as to who that person might be, but we can assume that he or she is extremely rich, and must have some very special interest in Scotland.’
'So what else have you got?’ said Al Neidermeyer.

'Well, we’ve got a wounded man in the Royal, under very special guard. An hour and a half ago we faxed fingerprints from all four intruders to various agencies around the world, but we’ve had no firm response as yet. So we still haven’t identified any of them. However, we think we may have the getaway vehicle. We found a Mercedes saloon with false plates parked in Johnstone Terrace under the Half Moon Battery. Not the driver, though, and
none of the four killed in the raid had car keys on him.
'Within the last hour we’ve learned that an aircraft, a De Havilland Dash, has been sitting in a hangar at Cumbernauld Airport, ever since it was flown in two weeks ago. The hangar rent
was paid up until tomorrow, cash down, by the pilot who flew it in. The copy receipt is made out in the name of Mr Black.

Unfortunately, the airport manager is away on holiday, but we’re trying to trace him to obtain a description, and we’re also tracing the ownership of the plane. My guess is it’ll turn out to have been chartered, for cash.’
'This Mr Black, could he have been one of the men taken tonight?’ asked Neidermeyer,
Skinner shook his head. 'I don’t think so.’
'So Mr Black is still out there?’
Skinner nodded. 'I reckon so. Mind you, I don’t expect him to turn up in person to collect his aeroplane.’

The getaway plane stayed where it was. But something else was picked up instead, something much more precious.
'One thing that niggles me, Andy, is not knowing if any of the bastards are still hanging around here.’
It was just over twelve hours since the press briefing. Skinner and Martin were settled in the DCI’s office in the Special Branch Suite, going through the mountain of paperwork involved in the winding up of the enquiry. Each had snatched a few hours at home, although Andy had spent much of his break consoling Julia after her frightening experience with the Filmhouse explosion. 'If any of them are still here,’ said Martin, 'they’re bloody crazy.
That guy in the Royal’s going to make it. He’s bound to bargain a few years off his sentence in return for telling us everything he knows.’

'Don’t count on it. Those were pros. They’ll have been well paid for this job, and it probably included something extra for keeping shtum if they got caught. And don’t assume that he knows…’
Skinner was interrupted by an internal call on Martin’s extension. Being closer to it, he picked it up. 'Skinner.’
The caller was Ruth. 'Sorry to bother you, sir, but I felt I had to. It’s a Mr Morris, and he says it’s important. It’s about Alex.’
'Put him through.’
Skinner had never met the man, but he recognised the name.
Ben Morris was the director of Alex’s theatre company.
'What can I do for you, Mr Morris?’
The man hesitated. 'Look, I’m sorry to bother you, but do you happen to know where your daughter might be.’
The first faint chill crept into Skinner’s stomach. 'What d’you mean?’ He didn’t realise that he had snapped at the caller, a hard edge suddenly in his voice.

Morris began to splutter. 'Well, it’s just that – well last night her friend Ingo didn’t turn up. Alex didn’t know where he’d got to. We went on with the show, but without the lighting effects. It was a bloody disaster. Alex did her best, but I still felt I had to give the audience half their money back. I called their number this morning to find out where the hell he had been, but I got no reply. So I went round to see them. The landlady said she hadn’t seen or
heard either of them all day. She let me in with a pass-key, but the place was empty. Not a sign. All his clothes, all of his things were gone. Some of Alex’s stuff seemed to be there, but I couldn’t see her handbag – you know, that big one she carries everywhere. So can you help me? Are they with you? I’ve got to know if he’s coming back.’
Skinner replaced the receiver without a word.

Martin watched him anxiously as he sat staring chalk-faced at the wall. His first thought was that his boss had experienced some delayed reaction to the night’s events.
'What’s wrong, Bob?’
The voice which replied was strange, quiet, shaky – unlike anything Martin had heard from him before. 'It’s Alex. She’s been snatched.’
“Eh!’
'That was her director. That guy Ingo didn’t show up last night. Now Alex has disappeared too. Andy, I knew he was wrong! He’s taken her!’
'Steady on, man. She could be anywhere. Maybe he’s just done a moonlight on her, and she’s down at your place now, crying her eyes out to Sarah.’
Skinner shook his head, feeling cold all over.
'No, Andy. Since last night I’ve been wondering whether our Mr Black would have a Plan B. Now I know that he has, and I can guess what it is.’

The letter was delivered only ten minutes later. It had been found on a table in the first-floor coffee lounge of the busy Mount Royal Hotel, but none of the staff could describe the person who had sat there last.
It was addressed:

Assistant Chief Constable Skinner,
Police Headquarters.
Private and Confidential
To be delivered.

The hotel manager had brought it personally to Fettes Avenue. Skinner could not stop his hand from trembling as he slit the envelope. He had recognised at once its style and its size, and the typeface on the address label. He withdrew the familiar single sheet of white paper, and steeled himself to read what he knew would be there.
He read it aloud to Proud, Martin and Arrow, who had all gathered in his office.

“Mr Skinner,
'You may know my name already. Let us say that I am simply someone who has undertaken to obtain something special for a client who wants it very badly. Last night I almost succeeded, but your own good fortune prevented me.
'However, I do not give up as easily as you might have hoped. Through the good offices of Ingo Svart, I now hold in my care someone who is very precious to you. I now propose
that we exchange her for that which is just as precious to my client: the items which you prevented us from taking last night.
'I require that you arrange the following. The Regalia will be left, in the same holdalls which my associates carried into the Castle, in the middle of the car park at the Gyle Shopping
Centre, at 11:00 pm tomorrow night. Once the delivery has been made, the car park should be completely cleared. An aeroplane, with a range of at least three thousand miles, will be waiting, fully fuelled, on the runway at Edinburgh Airport. No attempt should be made to follow us at any stage. No personnel, police or military, should come anywhere near. No attempt should be made to hide tracking devices in the holdalls. We have the equipment to detect them. No attempt should be made to track our flight-path. We also carry equipment that can detect radar. 'If any one of these conditions is breached in any way, Miss Skinner will be shot immediately. However, if all are met to the letter, she will be released safely, as soon as we reach our first stopping-off point.
Mr Black’

Skinner placed the letter slowly on his desk. He looked up at Andy Martin with absolute desolation on his face.
'Give that paper to me, Bob,’ said Proud Jimmy gently, but with determination in his voice. 'I’m off to see the Prime Minister.’

'I don’t care whose daughter she is!’
'Secretary of State,’ said Sir James Proud, hissing the words in a tone he had rarely used before in his life. 'If Bob Skinner had heard you say that, I would not guarantee your safety.’ He took a menacing step towards Ballantyne.
'Sir James, please.’ The Prime Minister restrained him with a light touch on the sleeve of his uniform. He turned to face Ballantyne, questioningly, across the drawing room of Number 6
Charlotte Square.
'I only meant that we can’t give in to blackmail, PM,’ said the Secretary of State, now flushed and flustered.
The Prime Minister walked slowly down the long room towards him, his eyes cold behind his spectacles.
'Alan, if you showed such bravery and courage with your own person as you do in putting other people’s lives at risk – mine included – then you would probably make a great Minister. As it is, you’re undoubtedly the biggest mistake I have ever made. Last night I said I wanted you to demit office, on health grounds, after a decent interval. You don’t deserve decency, man. Give me your resignation now, please.’
He turned back to Proud. 'Now, Sir James, how are we going to help Mr Skinner?’

'With respect. Prime Minister, that isn’t really a matter for you,’ a voice interrupted.
There was a fourth man in the long room. Sir Hamish Tebbit, Private Secretary to the Queen, had flown to Edinburgh that morning for a personal briefing on the situation from the Prime
Minister. The tall grey-suited courtier stepped forward from the window. He had been doing his best to make himself inconspicuous while the politicians and the policeman had their
confrontation.
'I would remind you that the Honours of Scotland are the property of the Crown. Therefore their disposal is a matter for the Crown alone. If you will permit me, I will withdraw to another room, one with a telephone, and seek guidance from that highest authority.’

'Andy, son, they’ll kill her, whatever. You know that. This Mr Black won’t leave her alive to identify him. He’ll realise that if he does, it’ll be too easy for me to find him. And when I do find him, I’ll find his paymaster – his bloody client. Oh, believe me, Andy, I’ll find him anyway, but unless we do it by tomorrow night, we’ll be too late to help Alex.’
Sarah had joined them in Skinner’s office. She sat beside Bob, on one of the low, cushioned seats, shocked and red-eyed, sipping coffee.
Martin looked back at Skinner. He had no answer, for he knew the inescapable truth of what Skinner had said.
Bob pushed himself up from the seat, pounding fist into palm in a gesture of pure frustration. 'We don’t know where she is, boys, and we haven’t a clue how to find her. Oh, my lass. My poor, poor lass. Where in God’s name are you?’ As he cried out, he linked his fingers together, and covered his eyes with his hands, Martin and Arrow gazed, helpless and silent, at his back and rounded shoulders. But Sarah rose quietly from her chair and crossed to him, taking him in her arms, cradling his bowed head against hers. They stood like that for a time, motionless. Then, slowly, steadily, Skinner’s shoulders straightened, and his hands left his face. He now stood erect again, and it was almost as if Martin and Arrow were looking at a stranger. The man they saw – Skinner but not Skinner – touched them both, tough as they
were, with sudden alarm. Distress and despair had been put aside and replaced by hope, the light of which gleamed cold and savage in his eyes.

'There’s someone who does know, boys, or who’d better know.
And he’s lying in the Simpson!’ The voice was little more than a whisper.
He eased himself out of Sarah’s arms and started for the door, but Adam Arrow stopped him, and, using all his strength, held him back.
'Bob. Bob. Listen to me. Bob.’
Skinner looked down at him, still with that awful cold look.
“Man,’ said Arrow quietly, making an effort at a reassuring smile, 'if you went near that man just now, the first time he said “No’'’ to you, you’d rip 'is fookin’ head off and piss down his
fookin’ neck. He’s got to be handled gentle if he’s to tell us anything that’ll help Alex. So you stay here with Sarah. Leave him to me I’ll talk to him, reasonable like. You know what I mean. If he does know anything, I’ll get it out of him better than you could.’
His smile would have calmed the wildest beast – which, for a moment, Skinner had seemed to be.

Sir Hamish wasn’t out of the room for long. But he was gone long enough for Alan Ballantyne to scrawl out the briefest of letters of resignation, 'for reasons of health, and in the interests of my family’, on Scottish Office crested notepaper. He handed it to the Prime Minister and, without even the briefest glance at Sir James Proud, stalked out of the room.
Scarcely more than five minutes had elapsed, by the carriage clock on the Adam mantelpiece, before the Queen’s Private Secretary returned from his telephone consultation. To his huge
relief, the Chief Constable noticed that he was smiling in satisfaction.

'Prime Minister,’ the tall grey man said formally. 'Her Majesty has given me some very strict instructions, which should make your course of action quite clear. The demands contained in the letter to Mr Skinner are to be complied with in every detail. Her Majesty has said that, when seen in this context, no treasure is of greater value than a human life.’
He looked at Sir James. 'She has said also. Chief Constable, that knowing Mr Skinner from her many visits to Edinburgh, he and his daughter have her heartfelt sympathy in their predicament. She will pray for Alex’s safe return. Her Majesty said also that she expects Mr Skinner to ensure that, once he has been reunited with his daughter, her kidnappers will not remain for long in possession of the Honours, or indeed of their own liberty.’

Warmly and spontaneously, the Prime Minister shook Sir Hamish by the hand. He turned to Proud, who was standing just behind him.
'There you have it, Chief Constable. Now go and get the girl back – and bag these people while you’re at it.’

Babies made Adam Arrow feel uncomfortable. He would never actually admit that he disliked them. It was only that, having been involved all too often, through his chosen profession, with the other end of the life cycle, they pricked his conscience with the
thought that every one of the villains he had been forced to deal with had been some mother’s son – or occasionally, some mother’s daughter. A conscience was something which Arrow
could not afford, and so it was to maintain his own efficiency what others might call his ruthlessness — that Adam tended to steer clear of any close contact with babies. Thus it was that to him, the everyday sounds in the private wing of the Simpson Memorial Pavilion, in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, were a little disturbing.

Andy Martin had arranged with the general manager, with whom he had frequent professional contact, that the wounded prisoner from the Castle should be housed in a private room in the maternity wing. The reason given was that the Simpson was the last place where any prying journalist would be likely to look. However, Martin’s overriding consideration had been that not even Mr Black or his associates – should they feel the need to tie
off a loose end – would have the idea of searching there, either. None of the hospital staff knew of the wounded man’s presence, other than members of the theatre team who had
operated on him, or were now overseeing his recovery, and these people had been sworn to secrecy. The surgeon was an RAMC major, with a career dedicated to repairing gunshot
wounds. He and his chief nurse had been flown up specially from England.

Near the door of the private room, two men sat on opposite sides of the corridor, casually dressed in jeans and bulky jackets. They were reading magazines, and did not look particularly interested in each other, or in what was going on around them, but when Arrow turned into the corridor he saw to his satisfaction that each man glanced quickly up before – at his brief nod delving back into his magazine.
Arrow rapped the door three times, the agreed signal, and entered. Another two SAS soldiers, also in plain clothes, were on guard inside. One watched the window, the other the door.
Hello, lads. All secure?’
Yes, sir,’ said the man facing the door, in a thick Cornish accent. 'Quiet as a church, it’s been.’
'How’s our pal?’
'He’s doing all right, the doc said.’

They turned to look at the bed. Its frame had been arranged to support the prisoner at an angle, presumably to guard against congestion. He wore no gown, and heavy bandages were wrapped round his chest, and extended down from his shoulder, covering the wounds where Skinner’s two shots had torn through his right lung. The man seemed to be dozing, and Arrow noted the rough edge to his breathing. A tube ran into his nose, and another led
out from beneath the sheets, into an opaque, flexible container which was hung below the level of the mattress. A long needle was taped down in place on the man’s left forearm. It was connected by a third tube to a jar of glucose solution hanging high on a stand beside the bed. :

'Has he had much to say for himself yet?’ asked Arrow, “Nah,’ said the Cornishman. 'We tried talking to him, but he told us to fuck off.’ '
Arrow smiled pleasantly towards the bed. 'Maybe he’ll talk to me. Let’s see, shall we? You lads take a tea break. You can take them two outside, as well. I’ll lock myself in. This must be a fookin’ boring detail. Take 'alf-an-hour, at least. I’ll look after him.’
The two soldiers left the room without protest.
Arrow said nothing for a while. He stood quietly at the side of the bed, looking down at the nameless prisoner. Mid-thirties, he guessed. As he studied the torso more closely, where it showed above the sheets, he noted several marks and disfigurements, including a ragged scar on the left shoulder, crudely treated at some time, from the size of the stitch marks. He guessed that it might be the relic of another bout of gun-play. Both upper arms were garishly tattooed. There was a lavishly endowed naked lady on the right, with the word 'Mother’ scrolled below, and on the left a snake entwined around a dagger, with four characters alongside.

Well-travelled feller, ain’t you?’ Arrow said suddenly. Mercenary, I’d guess. That could be a problem. I hate fookin’ mercenaries. Showing up in other people’s countries and killing 'em, for no reasons other than they like it and 'cos they get paid. Hate 'em, I do. Still I shouldn’t hold that against you. You’re a wounded man, after all. So come on, my friend. Tell me: who are you?’
The pattern of the man’s breathing changed. The closed eyes opened lazily. The laboured voice croaked. 'Go fuck your mother.’
Arrow laughed, out loud. 'She’s dead, pal. And anyway, I’d rather fook yours.’
He sat on the edge of the bed. Idly, he touched the tube which led to the needle in the man’s forearm. He was still smiling. 'OK, that’s the pleasantries over. Now let’s have a nice little
chat. I’ll go first. All you have to do is to listen – for now at least.
“I belong – as my friends who’ve been looking after you belong – to what you might call a closed organisation. No one’s allowed to see us, and when we leave a place, it’s as if we’d never fookin’ been there at all. Only it’s different. That place, I mean. It’s been changed in some way or another. Sometimes a building or two won’t quite be where it was before. Other times, there’s some fooker doesn’t live there anymore, or anywhere else for that matter. Sometimes both. For a closed organisation, we’re quite famous really. You’ll have heard of us, I’m sure.’

He stopped and looked at the bed. Slowly the man nodded.
'In that case you’ll know this, too. When we go into action, we go all the fookin’ way.’
He paused again.
'People never quite believe us. So let me tell you a little story that’ll help. Few years back, there were some trouble in a jail up here in Jockland. Some lads held a warder hostage, and the prison governor, he gets fed up. Decides to teach 'em a lesson, and so he gets authority to send for us. So half a dozen of our lot goes up there in a truck, with plans of the jail – Peterhead, it were called – that they studies on the way.
'It’s after dark when the truck arrives. The plan is for us to go into action straight away. So the truck gets backed right up to the hall where the trouble is, and the first of our lads jumps out, hood on, fookin’ submachine-gun in his hands. And there’s the governor, and he sees our lad. tooled up like. And he all but its himself. “How far are you chaps going to go?” 'e asks,

And you know what our lad says? That’s right, he says, “All the fooking’ way, mate!” And he were right. They would have. Just gone in and wasted all the bad lads. 'Cos no one had told em different. Course they didn’t that time, in t’ end. The governor made 'em leave their guns behind. Gave them pick-axe handles instead. They didn’t half cream the shit out of those bad lads, though.’
Arrow stood up again.
'So that’s my little story. And the moral is, pal, I’m not here to piss about. You’re going to tell me everything you know that I want to hear, or I’m going to go all the fookin’ way wi’ you. You’d better be ready to die, 'cos if you don’t talk to me, you’ll be dead within an hour.’
He looked at the glucose bottle on the stand, just about at his eye level, then continued.

'You see, mate, after your stunt last night didn’t work, the guy who paid you did a really stupid thing. He decides he’s not going to give up, so he snatches the daughter of a friend of mine – and I really hate it when my friends get upset – and he says he’ll kill her unless we give him the swag and a plane out of the country. And that’s really dropped you in it, mate. 'Cos you’re the only bugger we’ve got that’s alive to tell us anything about this fooker – what’s his name. Black? – and where he might be hiding our lass. So this is the deal, mate.’
As he spoke his hands began to fiddle with the connection of the tube to the bottle.
'There’s a way of killin’ someone that works every time. As effective as a firework up the arse, it is, but a lot less messy.
Untraceable, in fact. All you do is take a tube, like this, of stuff that’s goin’ into someone’s bloodstream, and you pinch it tight, like this, to stop the flow. Then you disconnect it – like this, see.’
The prisoner watched, bug-eyed, as he spoke.
'Then you squeeze out some of the stuff at the top – like this, see. Then you lets a little air in instead. Are you watching?’
He needed no reply.
“Then you reconnect the fluid, like this. See? Then you turn on the drip, like this. Then you let the tube go. And the little magic bubble works its way down the tube and up the needle and into the bloodstream, and round, and round, until . . . Embolism, I think they call it. Whatever they call it, it’s fookin’ fatal And that’s all that’s to it.’

The man stared at Arrow’s hand as it held the tube. He had gone rigid on the bed.
Arrow smiled at him. 'No, no. It’s all right. I’m not going to let go – yet. I won’t let go until you make me believe that you really want to die, and that you’re not going to tell me what I need to know to help me find my friend’s lass. But the second I do believe that, I let this tube go, and not long after that, my friend, you will experience very painful and quite inevitable death. Now. Let’s start wi’ your name.’

Skinner was touched by the Queen’s good wishes. Most of all he was relieved by Proud’s news of her insistence that all steps necessary should be taken to ensure Alex’s safe return.
'I’ll take personal charge of this operation,’ said Proud Jimmy. 'I promise you that no risks will be taken, I’ll put marksmen in hiding around the aeroplane. If I’m completely satisfied that it’s safe for Alex, I’ll open fire. Otherwise I’ll let them take off. We’ll send word to every country within the plane’s operating range to watch out for its landing, and that way we’ll get Alex back as soon as possible.’

Skinner smiled: a tired, drained sort of smile.
Two things. Chief. First, you will need to tie me down to keep me away from this operation. Remember, I’m still head of the anti-terrorist unit Ballantyne set up, until his successor tells me otherwise. Next, if you have men waiting at the airport, they’ll be there all bloody night. Mr Black knows there’s no way I’ll let him get on board that plane with Alex. As soon as they were clear of our air-space, she’d be dead. They’re not going to show up at Edinburgh Airport. That plane’s just another feint. That’s the way our Mr Black works. He sells you a dummy, every time. He’s got something else planned. Well, so have I.’

His jaw tightened, and some of the tiredness left his face.
'Anyway, it might not come to that. Let’s wait to see what our guest in the Simpson has to tell Adam.’
'What makes you think he’ll tell him anything?’
Skinner laughed, quietly. 'You don’t know Adam!’

“Carl Stewart!’
The name broke out of him in a strange, half-strangled squawk, as if the man had been holding his breath in disbelief while he watched the last of Arrow’s preparation for his execution.
'That’s good. Seen the light, have we?’ Arrow’s right thumb and index finger were clamped tight on the clear plastic tube, holding up the flow of the nutrient – and of the deadly bubble.
'Let’s have the rest, then. Nationality: Canadian, I’d guess by the accent. Right?’
The man nodded.
'And you are a fookin’ mercenary, aren’t you? Where’ve you been?’
It came more slowly this time, weakly, as Stewart measured each painful breath.
'I wasn’t always a mercenary. I was a regular in the Gulf. I came out after that. Since then I’ve been in Bosnia, in Africa, inGuatemala – and a few other places.’
'What d’you know of this Mr Black, the fella who paid for the plane you lot were going to catch?’
'He does things for people. Difficult things they need done – or want done.’
'You worked for him before?’
'Twice. Once in the States. Once in South Africa. First time, we busted into a gallery in New York – and stole a painting for a collector.’

'Who?’
'Don’t know. We never know who the customer is – or the client, as Mr Black calls them. And we know better than to ask.
Mr Black wouldn’t like that. And you don’t cross him.’
'So what did you do in South Africa?’
'We started a bit of a Civil War. We killed a black guy, a leader.
Made it look like one tribal group did it. Then we killed some other guys, leaders on the other side – and made it look like the first lot was taking revenge. Once they were all killing each other, we killed some white guys – and all the black guys were blamed at once. Christ, man, we had them all chasing their tails down there.
Just like we’ve had you chasing yours up here. Once the cops were all used up, keeping the sides apart, we hit a diamond mine. We cleared one hundred million dollars in uncut stones. The nearest cops were sixty miles away, caught in the middle of a gun battle.
Mr Black’s a great planner. What makes him so great is he thinks big.’

'So what’s he like?’
'I’ve never met him.’
Arrow’s hand moved on the tube. The man flinched in quick terror.
'Come on, Stewart. You expect me to believe that? You tell me that this fooker walks on water, then you say you’ve never met him.’
“It’s true. None of us have ever seen him. He sends his messages, his orders, through someone else, A woman, her name’s Ariel. She’s European of some sort. We all figure she must be his lady.’
'If you’ve never seen this Mr Black, how d’you know this Ariel isn’t the boss herself.’
'Ariel could never do what someone did to Klaus. That had be Mr Black himself.’
'Who’s Klaus?’
'He was our explosives guy on the New York contract. We were holed up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, up in the Catskills ready to go – when Klaus decided that the money wasn’t good enough. He told Ariel that he was out unless the dough was doubled. He said he wanted to see Mr Black himself, not deal with his whore. Ariel got very steamed up – as she can – but she said OK, she would arrange for Klaus to meet him.’

'So what 'appened?’
'Next morning we all came down to breakfast. Ariel cooked for us all in that place, and she dished it up in this big mess hall. Klaus was there, waiting for us. He was nailed to the timber wall. I mean he was crucified, hands and feet, man. There was a big knife through the middle of his chest, pinning a notice. It said, “A deal is a deal. Anyone else want to meet me?” Wasn’t no Ariel did that to Klaus. The guy was a house. Six feet six. Looked like Hulk
Hogan.

'Mary Little Horse, she was brought in to replace him. A genius with explosives, and pretty good with a knife too. I read in the papers you’ve tied her into this thing. But I never saw Mary here. She did the jobs she was paid to do, but she didn’t know the whole story, or get to see any of my team.
'Mr Black let only me and my guys in on the whole plan. Ariel said he had a very big commission, money no object, from some collector. Each of us was on 200,000 dollars, and if anybody had to do time, there would be an annuity waiting when we were released, so we’d never have to work again. No, Mary just did her thing with the bombs. Then she came up to town and did the singer. Ray helped her get in, but it was mostly her. She went underground after that. Ray, the guy you killed, he stole the special explosive in France.’

Arrow nodded. 'So who was in on last night? Who planted the other bombs?’
'Ariel and Ingo did that.’
'Ingo!’ Arrow’s grip on the tube almost slipped.
'Yeah. Ingemar Svart. He’s our pilot, engineer. An all-round mechanical genius. You need it built, lngo’ll build it. You need it fixed, lngo’ll fix it. You need it to run, lngo’ll run it. You need it screwed, lngo’ll. . .’ For a second, the man laughed, weakly, then coughed with the effort. 'Ingo flies us out of the action, so he tends to be kept out of the shooting. But he has pitched in sometimes. I saw him in Cape Town. He is very good with a gun.’
Stewart looked pleadingly at Arrow. 'So how’m I doing, man?’
Adam shook his bullet head. Somewhere along the corridor a baby was crying, but he put the sound to the back of his mind.
'Not well enough, mate. You still haven’t given me any clue where Mr Black might be keeping our lass. Wi’out that . . . well it’s “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.” So tell me the rest of it. Then we’ll see.’

'A farmhouse. That was where the four of us were holed up, and Dave our driver. He didn’t know the plan – only where and when to be waiting, and where we were going. Dave used to drive Indy cars. We rehearsed there, in the barn. Practised handling the Sidewinders. Looked at videos of the Castle that Ariel had shot. She just walked in there like any tourist with a camera, and cased the place. The videos showed us the tunnel entrance and the way up to the Jewel building.’
'So where’s this farmhouse?’

'The nearest name on the map is some place called Longformacus – if that’s how you say it. East of the City, and south. Way up on the moors, in the middle of nowhere. A shit-track road, way too far for traffic or tourists. Only snakes and sheep up there.’
'Does it have a name?’
'Stocksmoor, it was called. Ariel said Mr Black had rented it for the whole of August and September. So no one else would go up there until weeks after we were clear. If you want to find your friend’s girl, that’s where to head first.’
He stared at Arrow again, a plea in his eye.
Adam smiled at him. Along the corridor, the baby’s crying had stopped. He sat on the bed, still holding the tube pinched tightly,gently, almost, he took Stewart’s right hand in his left.
'A-1, Carl. A-fookin’ one. That’s just what I wanted to hear.’
And then the smile left his face, turning as hard as stone.
'But you know summat. I still hate fookin’ mercenaries.”
Especially them as kills soldiers, like you lot did in the Castle last night!’
He let go of the tube. Now grasping both of Stewart’s hands and holding them vicelike, he stared into his eyes, without mercy or pity, as the man struggled in vain to find the strength and the breath to scream, as the air bubble made its way downwards, and finally out of sight.

'So how’s our man Stewart doing now?’
'Didn’t you hear? He had a relapse, the poor bugger. Must 'ave been just a couple of minutes after I left him. What a shame, eh. Now he won’t collect his pension.’
Skinner eyed him pensively, but decided to ask no more questions.
Their helicopter was flying low over the Lammermuirs, away from the setting evening sun. Skinner and Arrow, Martin and Mackie were crammed around the pilot in the small craft. Another helicopter, larger than their Jet Ranger, followed behind, carrying McGuire, Mcllhenney, Maggie Rose and six SAS men in full combat gear. All of the police officers, including Skinner, carried firearms.

'So there could be as many as five of them?’
'Yes, Bob. That’s if Mr Black’s there too. There’s him, Ariel, Ingo and Dave the Indy car driver.’
'Right,’ said Skinner. 'We’ll assume that they’re all there, and that they’re all armed. Your men have seen photos of Alex, yes?’
'Yes, Bob. Don’t worry, man. They’ll know her.’
'God, they’d better!’ Skinner’s voice betrayed, for just a second, the unbearable tension which gripped him. 'Right, when we get there, we watch for five minutes. Then your guys go in
hard, upper and lower floors, in sync. Her life could be in your hands, Adam. I trust you with it, my friend. With everyone else in there, your usual engagement rules apply. Do what you think best, and I’ll back you.’

Just as he finished speaking, the helicopters banked in to land, some two miles away from the farmhouse called Stocksmoor. The group waited until it was fully dark, and until their eyes had grown accustomed to the night conditions, before beginning to move across the moorland towards where their maps indicated the farm buildings lay. They took bearings with compasses as they went, confident of the accuracy of the Ordnance Survey.

The ground was completely open for the first mile or so covered by a mass of tangled heather, still soaking from the stormy of the night before, which caught at their feet as they moved through the night.
'Christ, Bob,’ said Arrow. 'What do they farm here?’
'Sheep, mate. Sheep and adders. Watch your ankles.’ ,
Eventually the ground began to drop. The clinging heather began to thin out and gave way to grassland and gorse bushes. They found themselves descending into a narrowing valley, with a dark shape at its heart.
Arrow raised his night-glasses. 'Down there.’ His voice was hushed, although they were still more than half a mile from their destination. They moved on.
Three hundred yards from the farm. Arrow drew them all together, police and SAS. He handed Skinner the binoculars.
'Take a look. Bob. Tell us what you see.’
Skinner put the bulky glasses to his eyes, and adjusted the focus wheel.
'There are two buildings. One’s a steading or barn of some sort. Looks half ruined. The house is more of a cottage, two-storey, but the upper rooms are in the attic. There’s a chink of light through the curtains of one of the upstairs rooms. There’s a car in the yard. Looks like a Vitara. I can’t see the registration from here.’

'We’ll call it in for checking when we get closer,’ said Martin.’
'No,’ said Skinner. 'We’re keeping radio silence, and your mobile won’t work up here. It’s a blind spot on the network.’
'Any sign of movement?’ said Arrow.
'No, none.’

'Right,’ said the little soldier. 'My lads approach first. You coppers stay twenty yards behind. Stay quiet and keep your fookin’ heads down. OK, lads, you three.’ He pointed to the men
nearest him. 'On the roof. But not a fookin’ sound, mind. The rest of us, on the ground. Five minutes from now, if nowt’s changed I fire one shot and we go in like shit off a shovel, through the windows, stun grenades first, then us. Now, you all know what Alex looks like? Confirm that everyone, please.’
Six voices each whispered 'Yes’ in the dark.
'Right. Everyone else goes down. No one walks out.’ Arrow turned back to Skinner. 'Right, Bob. Once we’re in, and the shootin’ stops, bring your people in. Better you don’t see what,
we’re up to. But don’t worry about your lass. She’ll be all right wi’ us.’

He gestured to his men, and they moved off towards the house.
Skinner led his group after them at the distance Arrow had specified, keeping low and taking whatever cover they could. Eventually, behind the dilapidated steading, they hid in waiting.
Skinner checked his watch and counted down softly. He felt his heart race.
'Christ, Andy,’ he muttered softly to Martin.
'I know, Bob. I know. But it’ll be all right.’
Seconds later they heard Arrow’s single gunshot. Its echoes still rang round the valley as the sound of shattering glass reached their ears, and the stun grenades exploded.
They waited for more shooting, but there was none.
Skinner waited for a call from Arrow, but none came.
'Come on, people,’ he said grimly. 'Sounds like there’s no one there. Let’s go in.’ They rushed from their cover towards the house. Light was blazing now from all of its windows.
Three of the SAS men stood in the lower hallway of the shabby dwelling. It smelled of damp, but of recent occupancy too. The aroma of ground coffee came from the kitchen, blown through on the night breeze from the shattered window.

Skinner stepped into the room to the right, off the hall. It was deserted. A small television set in the corner was switched on, but the sound had been turned down, either by the departed occupants or by the soldiers.
Martin, still standing in the hall, was the first to realise that none of the SAS soldiers would look at Skinner. A small knot of apprehension grew in the pit of his stomach. He looked up the narrow flight of wooden-banistered stairs.
Adam Arrow stood at the top. His voice was sad, desperately sad, and once again devoid of accent as he called from the upper floor – looking down not at Martin, but beyond him at Skinner, who had stepped back into the hallway.
'Bob. Can you come up, please. We need you here.’

Skinner almost fainted when he saw the body lying on the crumpled bed. Involuntarily, he turned his head away, grasping either side of the doorframe to hold himself steady. But at last he forced himself to look back into the small room, with its damp-stained yellowing wallpaper, its wardrobe, its cracked mirror, and its twin divans.
And on one of them, he saw his Alex, dead.
For it had to be Alex. The girl, stretched out on her back, was tall. Alex’s height. She was tanned all over; Alex’s tan from sunbathing topless in the secluded cottage garden at Gullane, or on the beach in her early summer trips to their holiday home in Spain. Her legs – Alex’s
legs – were long and lithe, unpitted, still those of a girl rather than of a woman. Her small pink, proud nipples, set on young Firm breasts – Alex’s breasts – pointed towards the ceiling.
She was wearing only a pair of cream panties, wet at the crotch, and, grotesquely, a white pillow-case. It was pulled over her head like a hangman’s hood, and it was blood-stained at the front. It reached down to her shoulders, covering completely her hair, face and neck.

Still braced in the doorway. Skinner, feeling his heart thundering in his chest, looked desperately at her hands for jewellery, for a wristwatch, for anything strange or new to him,
anything that would let him tell himself, 'No, this is not my daughter.’
But he saw no sign, nothing there to give him that comfort.
Maggie Rose moved past him, towards the body.
'Stop, Sergeant.’
She froze in her tracks at the sound of his voice.
'I have to do this, Maggie.’
Dreadfully slowly, or so it seemed to those who watched, he walked towards the body. Andy Martin was not in the room. He sat at the foot of the stairs, trembling, the knot of fear in his 1
stomach now grown to a grasping, twisting fist.
At last, Bob Skinner reached the dead girl. He leaned over her, then gently, reverently, lifted her shoulders up from the bed and drew the pillow-case away from her head.
As he did so he closed his eyes. It was only with an effort of will that he opened them again – and looked into the face of Mary Little Horse.

The girl’s eyes stared back at him, lifeless. Above them there was a dark, round hole in the centre of her blood-smeared forehead. Later Skinner would feel guilt at his immediate reaction, but in the moment of recognition he knew only a sense of relief deeper than any he had ever experienced in his life. And he gave thanks to whoever was there to hear him, that it was this girl who was dead, and not another.
He gave way suddenly to a great weakness. He felt unmanned, and so, afraid that his frailty might be recognised, he laid Mary Little Horse – a murderess but another father’s daughter
nonetheless – back down on her death-bed, walked from the chamber, head bowed and without a word, and locked himself in the bathroom across the landing.

He sat for a while on the white enamelled edge of the old cast-iron bath and, alone behind the solid oak door of the little room, he wept tears of relief. He was trembling and his heart was still pounding. He had been certain that it was his Alex lying there, and in that short time from his first sight of the body to his discovery that it was not her, he had been swept by a sense of bereavement so profound that, even although it had now been lifted, the shadow of its desolation would remain with him for ever.
He lost all track of time for a while, but eventually he calmed himself and recovered his strength. But with it he found a feeling of new foreboding. His daughter was alive, but now his best chance of recovering her safely had evaporated. Mr Black had outguessed him. Now they would have to risk the Jewels, staking them, and most of all, staking his daughter’s life, on the plan he had devised.

Feeling a sudden pressure in his bladder, he raised the wooden toilet seat and the lid, together, and urinated heavily into the bowl. Finished, he pulled the flush lever, zipped himself, and turned to wash his hands in the white basin. As he turned on the taps, his eye was caught by a piece of white paper folded and Jammed under a plastic shell-shaped soap-dish which sat on a wooden shelf above the basin. Curious, he lifted the pink dish and
picked it up.
The three sheets of paper appeared to have been torn out of a diary. They were folded across the centre. As he opened them out, his earlier foreboding was swept away by his sudden joy at the sight of his daughter’s message, written in pencil on the torn dirty pages, scrawled but still legible.

Hi, Pops,
They let me watch TV today. I saw you, and know what this is about. Ingo says I’m Mr Black’s second chance, so I can guess what my ransom is. He and an American called Dave brought me here during the night. On the way they picked up a girl called Mary. She’d been living rough in a hut near Gifford.
It’s 8:00 pm. A woman called Ariel just turned up, and ' we’re leaving in a hurry. She said Mr Black (?) assumed you’d get someone called Carl to talk. They’ve allowed me a quick pee and a wash first, though. Ingo just killed my room-mate, Mary. He came in as she was changing, pulled a pillow-case over her head, and shot her. He said she was too risky baggage to carry further. I don’t know where we’re going now, but if I see a chance. I’ll leg it. When you catch up with Ingo, Pops, be careful. He’s very dangerous. I’m sorry I got you into this.
Love you.
Alex.

He was smiling as he walked out of the bathroom and down into the hall where Martin, Mackie and Arrow waited, anxious, none of them certain what sort of a man would emerge. He waved the note at Martin. 'Look at this, Andy. It’s from our lass. She’s something else.' Martin took the note and read it, and, as he did, Bob Skinner laughed to himself, and shook his head again in wonderment at his daughter.
He had never been prouder of her. She had just seen murder done, sudden and shocking but she had still had the presence off mind to leave a note, to try to give what assistance she could. Bright, tough, and brave, too. He hoped in the hours to come he could live up to her example.

'If you were there, you’d be putting Alex’s life at risk! There’s no way, love, I’ll let you do that!’
'Bob, that’s an awful thing to say. How could you!’ Sarah wore, for a moment, an expression which was completely new to him: one of pure hurt. Then it melted into one of anger and
frustration. 'Dammit man, I’m a member of your team. You made me one, remember.’
'Well, as of now, you’re off the pitch. I didn’t tell you about last night’s operation until it was over because I knew that, if I had, we’d have had this argument then.’
'But you could need me there! As a doctor. If there is trouble, if there’s shooting, people could get hurt. Alex could get hurt. You could get hurt.’

He put his big hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. She leaned back against the larder cupboard of their kitchen at Fairyhouse Avenue, tears gleaming in her eyes.
He did his best to soothe her. 'Sarah, my darling, I hope with all my heart that, when I catch up with them, these people will decide that they are not on a suicide mission, and will let Alex go. In fact, I’m forcing myself to believe that’s what will happen. If I’m wrong, then yes, there will be shooting. If there is, then believe me, the people on my team are the best – me included. But to give our best, we have to be completely focused on the job. If you were
anywhere near, you’d be a distraction for me, and probably for Andy too. If the shit did start flying we’d have you to worry about as well. All our thoughts have to be focused on protecting Alex, and rescuing her. If you were there to distract us, then, as I say, you would be adding to her danger. Look, wherever we end up, if we need a doctor, we’ll get one quick. If I do decide to take one, it won’t be you; it’ll be an Army medic. But Adam Arrow’s probably as good as anyone. He’d seen action, and dealt with wounded.’

Slightly guiltily, a grin gleamed through her tears. 'Yeah. From what I’ve seen of little Arrow, with a point-four-five round in the ear!’
The tension between them eased. Bob chuckled quietly. He lifted up her chin and made her look ,him in the eye. That’s better. You’re smiling again. That’s how you can help me most, love.’
She hugged him close, and very tight.
'Oh, but, my darling, I’ll be so worried about you. About you both. About you all.’
'I know, honey, but we’ll be all right.’
He was struck by a sudden thought.
'Listen. Wee Julia’ll be in the same boat as you, in her case worrying about Andy. I’ll have him bring her up here, and the two of you can hold each other’s hands like the astronauts’ wives did in Alex’s play, when their men were in orbit.’

She brightened up again. 'Yeah. We can watch videos. Woody Allen rather than Kevin Costner, though.’
'What, not even The Bodyguard?’
'Especially not that!’
'What about Batman? That’d be quite appropriate really for you and Julia?’ ;
She looked at him, puzzled. 'Why?’
'Well, what with Andy’s nickname among the old-timer uniform PCs . . .’
What’s that?’
'Robin the Boy Wonder . . . I’
Her eyes widened. 'So that means yours must be . . .’
'Exactly! That’s why I gave up wearing the black leather coat. Folk thought I was trying to live up to my nickname!’

They laughed together again in the midst of their troubles, and Bob kissed her once more.
'Right I’ll fix that up with Andy. Now I must be off to Fettes.
It’s eight o’clock. All my plans are made. It’s time to brief the troops. Brian’s picking me up and he’ll be outside by now. Next time you see me, Alex will be with me. Believe me.’
As the door closed behind him, the smile on her face dissolved. She leaned back against the larder door once more, tears flowing freely.
'Yes, my love, I do believe you,’ she whispered. 'But will you both still be alive?’

Brian Mackie hefted the sniper’s rifle, with its telescopic sight, to his shoulder, and settled it against him like a new lover, adjusting himself to its shape, making himself comfortable with its feel, and with the lines of its long body.
Skinner looked at the two of them, man and mistress, silhouettes in the little light which invaded the dark of the office. He took in the slender shape of the hand-built gun, and was struck by the contrast with the ugliness of the long silencer which extended its barrel.
Mackie nuzzled his cheek against the walnut stock and waited.

It was 10:58 pm. Outside, the Gyle Centre car park, cleared completely of vehicles as instructed, was illuminated brightly by its floodlights on their pillars, in contrast with the bulky darkness of the two superstores and the other, smaller shops which bounded it on two sides.
'It’s nearly time, Brian,’ said Skinner. 'Any second now.
Remember, our car is a white Mondeo. Theirs might be a Vauxhall Senator.’
He felt the rush of adrenaline pumping him up, readying him for action. Though he was still fearful for Alex, he was glad that the moment had almost come. The last thirty, sleepless hours had been the longest of his life.

The rest of the farmhouse had offered them few new leads. They had found Mary Little Horse’s things, in a rucksack in the wardrobe in the bedroom. The only other signs of the house’s occupants had been their refuse – the tins and discarded food wrappers which someone had thrown into a green wheelie-bin outside the back door – and the coffee pot and stained mugs which had been left on the kitchen table. Eventually Skinner had returned to look again, more professionally and dispassionately this time, at the body of Mary Little Horse.

'Alex wasn’t kidding about Mr Ingo, Andy. The man must be good. Our Mary here was a pro herself.’
'Yes,’ said Martin, 'and she was strong as well, according to poor old Frank Adams. Ingo must have taken her completely by surprise. Pillow-case over her head and bang, before she had time to react. Poetic justice, I suppose.’
'Or dog eat bitch!’
Beside the Vitara in the yard, they found, and photographed a second set of tyre tracks in the setting mud. A tyre-centre manager, called out in the early hours of the morning, had identified them as belonging to the type normally fitted to a 24valve Vauxhall Senator, the flagship saloon of the range

'Vauxhall,’ Skinner had grunted. 'Not exactly a rare model. Still, put the word out to all of our traffic cars, and to all traffic wardens, to look out for Senators. Anybody who sees one carrying a group of two men and two women is to call it in right away. But no one is to approach it. I don’t want them getting nervy while Alex is still in that car. I want these bastards out in the open.’

The memory of his own instructions snapped him back to the present, just as the white Mondeo swept into the deserted car park, heading towards the centre of the pool of light. He had time to spot Maggie Rose in the driver’s seat, before she swung the car around so that its near-side faced the office where Skinner and Mackie were hidden.
As soon as it had drawn to a halt, Neil Mcllhenney jumped from the front passenger seat, and raced round to the boot. He pushed the release button and, as the lid swung up, reached inside
and withdrew the two holdalls, one long, the other squarish, which Skinner had seen before in another place. He wondered whether anyone had bothered to clean off the blood streaks, then found himself hoping that they had not.

Without even glancing around, Mcllhenney – obeying to the letter Skinner’s orders at his briefing earlier that evening — put the holdalls down close together on the ground, right in the centre of the car park. He took three long strides back to the passenger door and jumped in. The door had barely closed behind him before Maggie Rose slammed the car into gear and raced off into the night, heading out of the Centre and turning in the direction the city.
Skinner peered at his watch, holding it up towards the little light that crept in through the open window. It showed almost 11:00 pm. He looked at the second hand as it swept up towards the hour, and waited, hardly daring to breathe.

The Senator was forty-three seconds late. They heard it just before they saw it roaring through the car park entrance and into view. The high floodlights reflected strongly from its brilliant white bodywork, and gave the heavily smoked glass of its windows a mirror-like sheen. Skinner, in his hide, read the number-plate from afar through powerful field-glasses. He struggled to catch a glimpse of the occupants, but the glass was impenetrable under the floodlights, and he was unable even to make out their shadows.

Driven very fast and very smoothly, the car zigzagged for a second or two as it entered the park, before straightening up and making directly for the two holdalls sitting in the centre. Just as it drew close, the driver slammed on the brakes hard, and swung it round and to a halt, tail-first. At it spun. Skinner thought that he could just make out four heads inside, but it was the most fleeting of glimpses, and he could not be certain.
'Ok, Brian. Stay ready.’ In the dark, renewed tension, almost overwhelming, gripped Skinner.
'Sir.’ Mackie’s reply was whispered, but certain.

The Vauxhall was positioned now between their office stakeout and the holdalls. A few seconds passed with no sign of movement. Skinner guessed that the Senator’s occupants were
looking around for any sign of an ambush. Involuntarily he pressed himself back into the shadows. At first he was unable to catch a clear view of the person who climbed out of the car. The only indication of any movement was a very slight drop in the suspension. Then, from his distant viewpoint, through the glasses he saw, under the Vauxhall’s body, a shadow moving on the ground beyond, as the passenger door was opened. Left, then right; two feet in trainers appeared. He swung the field-glasses upward and caught the back of a blond head and broad shoulders, rising well above the level of the car roof.

'It’s Ingo, I think,’ he said to Mackie.
The powerful figure moved over swiftly to the holdalls. For a second or two there was more of him in view, across the bonnet of the Senator – then none at all, as he crouched down,
disappearing from Skinner’s sight completely. Even his feet were hidden by the front wheels.
Some time passed.
'He must be giving those bags a good going over,’ mutter Skinner. 'Just as well we didn’t chance putting a tracking device in there.’
Mackie, who was concentrating all his attention on his view through the telescopic sight, offered no reply.
Only the shadow on the ground told Skinner that the search was on the move. Then suddenly he was in his clear view again, as he came round to the rear of the vehicle, still crouching, with a holdall in each hand – but in the right hand also, a small black object not much larger than a walkie-talkie radio handset. Without putting down his burden he pressed the boot release button with his left thumb. The lid swung up. He placed the bags and the black object carefully inside, and quickly slammed it shut.

As it closed, the man stood up straight, and Skinner caught his first clear sight of him. Even if the view was only in profile, and at a distance, the power of the field-glasses left him in no doubt.
'Ingo, right enough.’
His mind swept back to their last meeting, in his own home, with Ingo as his guest – as his daughter’s guest; as her lover. He remembered the man’s cool arrogance, and Skinner’s own certain belief that he was being sized up by someone with much more to him that met the eye.
As Skinner watched, Ingo swung round, scanning the surrounding buildings one more time, and he was able to look straight into his face. It was cold, intent, ruthless; a face he had seen before, yet never seen in this way. Even without the evidence of Mary Little Horse’s corpse, he would have known at once why Alex had stressed this man’s menace.

For a moment the Swede seemed to halt in the sweep of his gaze. It was as if his and Skinner’s eyes had met. Skinner thought for that second, his heart dropping, that Ingo had spotted him, even from that far away. Then, with relief, he remembered that he was looking through field-glasses. The gaze of inspection continued on past their place of concealment, and round the rest of the adjoining buildings. Then he spun on his heel and ran back to the passenger door, disappearing from sight. The car started to move. Skinner stared after it, numbed by hatred for the man who had abused his daughter and now threatening her life.

Beside him, Brian Mackie pulled the trigger without waiting for any order to be given. The soft thud of the silenced rifle broke Skinner’s trance. He trained his binoculars on the Senator as it started to gather pace, and picked out, on the offside rear wing, something that had been not been there before. It was barely distinguishable against the white bodywork, but there it was, a big whitish-grey stain, looking for all the world like a seagull dropping.
'Nailed it, Brian. Good shot, son.’
'No problem, sir.’
Mackie looked over at Skinner as he stood in the shadows, staring after the car as it disappeared into the night.
'So that was Ingo himself, boss.’
'That was Ingo all right. No one else. He didn’t spot us there, but he’s going to see me again before this night is over. Oh by Christ he is!’

There is no way that helicopters can fly quietly. They heard the first whirr of the rotors barely twenty seconds after the Vauxhall Senator had cleared the car park. The Bell Jet Ranger which had taken them to Stocksmoor twenty-four hours earlier came in low, from the south, where it had been hovering out of sight and sound, waiting for the pick-up at a distance. The
pilot swept in low across the car park, touching down as close as he dared to the building from which Skinner and Mackie were emerging.

Skinner sprinted up to the craft, ducking by reflex under the rotors. The door swung open as he reached it, and he saw Andy Martin and Adam Arrow seated inside behind the pilot.
Skinner jumped into the empty front seat, then turned to Mackie. ..
'Brian, did you bring regular ammo for that gun?’
Mackie looked offended. 'Of course, boss “

'Let’s have it, then. You never know, it might come in handy. He took the gun and ammunition from his aide and closed the door. Instantly, the Jet Ranger lifted off. Skinner turned to look at the two men in the seats behind him.
'Right, boys,’ he said grimly, grasping the rifle by its stock and unscrewing the ugly silencer. 'Let’s hunt some bears!’

McGuire was inside the Jetstream parked on the runway at Edinburgh Airport. Alongside him were three of Adam Arrow’s SAS contingent, fully armed and ready for action. The remainder were disguised as airport ground crew, with side-arms tucked inside their work tunics. Mario McGuire carried an H & K carbine rather than a pistol, for its extra accuracy even at close quarters, and its instant stopping power. He had once stood up against an
automatic weapon when armed only with a handgun, and had good reason to be aware of the difference.

The small turbo-prop aeroplane stood on the tarmac in front of the main terminal building, just beyond the Loganair stand. A hundred yards away, twin gates lay open to allow the getaway vehicle access to the aircraft. Skinner had asked for radio silence on the operation in the assumption that Mr Black’s group would be covering all open frequencies. However, McGuire was linked by a short-range two-way radio to Sir James Proud, who was perched high in the airport control tower. He checked his watch, and spoke into the handset. 'It’s 11:04, sir. See anything from up there?’

Up in the tower, the Chief Constable surveyed the wide carriageway which led from the landscaped A8 airport slip-road up to the terminal building. The last shuttle had long since landed, and no tourist flights were allowed to depart from Edinburgh that late in the evening. The road was empty. Proud Jimmy clicked the transmit button on his radio.
'Nothing yet, McGuire. Looks like Mr Skinner’s right. This whole thing was a feint. They’re going somewhere else. Give it to 11:15, then – hold on!’

Even as the Chief spoke, he saw in the distance a car shoot off the roundabout at speed and enter the approach road. Its headlights were full on, and badly adjusted. Even at that distance,
he was blinded for a second.
'There’s a car now. Can’t make out colour or anything else, but it’s travelling. It could be the target. Ready for action on my command. Officer at the terminal approach: route that car
straight on to the tarmac. It’ll be with you in no more than thirty seconds. Acknowledge.’

The uniformed constable on the road at the British Midland terminal raised a hand above his head to indicate that he had heard. Proud had underestimated the car’s speed. Less than twenty seconds later, it took the corner into the terminal straight, headlights still ablaze. The constable stepped into the roadway and flagged the car vigorously towards the open gates, and on to the tarmac. The driver slammed on the brakes and swung the vehicle round and through the opening. The policeman had no time to identify the make of the vehicle. He saw only a white flash as it sped past him.

Above, Proud watched the car as it slowed down to crawl. Even from his high vantage point it was half obscured by the first buildings of the terminal complex. But, as he watched, it cruised slowly towards the Jetstream, which was parked in the open beyond a Loganair ATP.
'Ready, everyone. They may be confused about which plane to take, but they’re getting closer. They’re stopping. OK, wait for it.! Door’s opening. Now go!’
Down on the tarmac, the driver’s door of the white car swung open. A stocky, ginger-haired man got out – and reeled back in surprise as six handguns were trained on him by airport
ground-crew.

“What the fuck!’ he cried reaching so high above his head that for a second it looked as if he would take off.
'What the fuck!’ said Sir James Proud, up in the control tower 'McGuire, get out and see what this is.’
Mario McGuire jumped from the Dash and ran over to the silent group surrounding the white car. The passenger doors had been torn open. There were no other occupants.
'Police,’ snapped McGuire, as he reached the scene. 'Who areyou and what the hell are you doing here?’
The red-haired man continued to reach for the sky. 'Harry Page. Ah’m Harry Page. Look, ah know ah wis speedin’. Ah’m sorry! Ma wife works as a stewardess fur Loganair. Ah’m here tae pick her up. Christ, mister, what is this? Ah’m late enough already. Ah should have been here at ten-fifteen. She’ll bloody murder me, as it is!’

'Remember, pilot, let it get more than two miles away, and we’ve fookin’ lost it.’
'But it is working?’
'Sure, Bob. It’s working like a fookin’ dream. There’s enough irradiated iodine in that paint-splash to give us a good strong signal. Cracking shot by Brian, that were.’
Arrow held a small box on his knee. It was wired into the helicopter’s electrical system. A green glow from its screen reflected on his face.

'We can follow them forever with this, as long as we stay within two miles, and as long as the paint doesn’t get washed off.’
'Can we make visual contact?’ Skinner asked the pilot.
'Yes. But do you want to take the chance, sir? A mile is as close as I’d come, to be sure they won’t see us.’
'No,’ Arrow answered for him. 'Trust our little box, Bob. I’ll wager that’s the only car on the road with a big patch ofradioactive bird-shit on its tail!’
'Ok, Adam.’ Skinner’s voice could only just be heard above the noise of the helicopter’s engine. 'Let’s go with it. What does it tellus?’
'Well, you were right. They’ve by-passed Edinburgh Airport. That were a con all along. I reckon they’ve just gone past the Norton House.’

'Unless they turn off for Ratho, it’s Newbridge roundabout next,’ said Skinner. 'From there they can go anywhere. North over the Forth Bridge, although I don’t think they’ll fancy stopping to pay the tolls; Falkirk and Stirling up the M9; or due West to Glasgow on the M8, and then, as far south as the road goes.’
'How far can they get on a tank of fuel in that thing?’ asked Arrow.
'Hard to say, but the bigger the engine, the bigger the tank.
Even though that’s a three-litre, he should get to Birmingham easy, maybe London at a pinch, without stopping. If he goes south and gets into heavy traffic we’ve got a problem.’
'As long as he’s got that paint on his arse, he’s the one with the problem.’
“Let’s hope so,’ said Skinner. 'Watch that tracker. He should be at Newbridge any second now.’
Arrow bent close to the little screen. The reflected glow turned his face green in the darkness of the cabin. “Here we go. He’s swinging. He’s going left. Yes, he’s off. Its the M8, Bob. He’s off to Glasgow.’

No one came to the door when Maggie Rose rang the bell. The porch of the Skinner bungalow in Fairyhouse Avenue was lit and welcoming, but no one answered.
'Surely they haven’t gone out?’ she said to Neil Mcllhenney.
“Can’t imagine so. But then the boss didn’t tell them we were coming. It was an afterthought of his, this baby-sitting idea.’
'God, Neil, don’t let Sarah hear that. Remember, the party line is that he decided he should expect anything from these characters, with him and Andy out of town, he sent us down here as protection.’
“She’ll never believe that.’
'Maybe not, but she won’t take it out on us. She’s a nice lady, the doctor.’
'Try the bell again.’

They rang again, listening hard to make certain the bell had sounded, and waited for two full minutes more, before deciding to check round the back. They crept softly along the gravel towards the back door, and saw as they went that the garage door was open. Skinner’s car was there, but Sarah’s was gone. The garden was lit from the un-shaded kitchen window and from the back door, which lay slightly ajar.

They had their pistols drawn as they slipped nervously into the house. Moving quickly through the deserted kitchen, they went from room to room on the ground floor, checking each one cautiously. Then they climbed the short flight of stairs to the attic, to satisfy themselves that the three upper rooms were empty also, before returning to the living-room for a second look. They saw that Sarah had prepared for Julia’s arrival. A big oval plate of freshly cut ham and tomato sandwiches, American-sized, sat on the low glass coffee-table between the two sofas. Alongside it were two plates, two china mugs, knives, spoons and paper napkins. Nothing there was out of place.
They went back into the kitchen. The coffee filter was primed and ready, waiting to be switched on. Two glasses, a bottle of Smirnoff Silver and a tin of diet Coca-Cola sat on the work surface beside the tall fridge-freezer. Without touching anything, Mcllhenney crouched down and studied each item closely. One glass was three-quarters full. A few bubbles clung to the side, and a slice of greenish lime floated on the surface. Lipstick traces showed on the rim. He leaned over the glass and sniffed.

'Bacardi and tonic,’ he said. He looked at the other glass. A slice of lemon was wedged at its foot in a finger of a clear liquid. He sniffed that, too, but found no trace of alcohol. He looked again at the bottle. Vodka and Coke in the making, probably. 'So what happened to them?’ he asked Maggie. 'Sarah’s got a drink on the go when Julia arrives, and she comes into the kitchen to mix one for her guest. She gets the ice and lemon from the fridge, drops them in the glass. Takes the Smirnoff and the Coke from the fridge as well. And that’s as far as she gets . . . Then they decide to go to the pictures? Hardly!’

Maggie’s face broke into a sudden, relieved smile.
'Neil, she’s a doctor, isn’t she? Not just with the police, but in a general practice. She’s had an emergency call-out. Rather than leave Julia here, she’s taken her with her. That’s your mystery.’
Mcllhenney looked sceptical. 'Oh aye, and being an ACC’s wife she just runs out the back door and leaves it wide open, with all the lights on.’
Maggie grimaced. 'I see what you mean.’
Then she made a decision.
“Look, let’s wait here anyway, as ordered. But in the meantime let’s try and check her practice. Then we can call in to Brian Mackie, when he gets back to the office.’

Glasgow reflected yellow in the night sky ahead. Closer at hand they saw below them the lights of the Harthill Service Area, as the helicopter continued to track the Vauxhall westward along the M8. They matched its speed, keeping a mile behind it. Occasionally, Skinner fancied he glimpsed tail-lights in the distance. The car was travelling fast, at just over 80 mph, but not so fast as to attract the attention of the motorway patrols.

Skinner checked his watch. The time was 11:23 pm, yet it seemed like an age since the Senator had raced into the Gyle Centre. He hated to be bottled up; it made him feel
claustrophobic. Eventually he could stand the tension inside him no longer. He dug his mobile telephone from the top right pocket of his black leather jacket.
'Pilot, if I use this thing, will it work?’
'Shouldn’t have a problem this close to the ground. We’re right on top of a cell here too. You might find it a bit patchy, but go ahead.’

Skinner peered at the keyboard in the dim cabin light, and keyed in the stored number of Brian Mackie’s direct line. He was answered after a few seconds.
'Brian, it’s me. You made good time getting back. You’ll know by now that we were right about that plane at Edinburgh. We’re heading for Glasgow. I want you to call Willie Haggerty, give him the number of the Senator.’ He dictated the number which he had
memorised. 'Tell Willie I want people at all docks, and I want as many men as he can get under cover at Glasgow Airport.’
The line went faint for a second, then strengthened again. 'You think they’ll go for another plane?’
'Has to be. Could be they’re just going to drive in and hijack one, using Alex as bargaining power. But the way this thing’s been planned, I reckon they’ve got a back-up ready. Needn’t be very big. An 800-mile range will get you to a hell of a lot of places from Glasgow. Especially overnight. Whatever it is, wherever it is, I can’t let them take off with Alex on board. Now give Haggerty the message, and tell him to make sure that nobody moves in without me there to give the orders. I don’t want any of those Glasgow lads playing cowboys with my daughter’s life on the line.’

Suddenly the trace vanished from the monitor. Skinner could not actually see the screen, but he sensed its disappearance from the sudden look of panic which flashed across Arrow’s face.
'Where’s it gone? What’s happened?’ he snapped.
“S’OK, Bob,’ came the calm, steady voice of Andy Martin. Seated next to Arrow, he had detailed maps on his knees and a torch in his hand. 'They’re in the Charing Cross underpass,
beneath that ugly office block that goes over the road. We’ll have them back in a second. Yes, there it is. Still on course for Glasgow Airport. Just going on to the Kingston Bridge now.’

Skinner turned to the pilot. 'How fast can this thing go?’
'Twice as fast as they can. And dead straight, remember.’
'Good. I must be at the airport before they get there. We’ll follow them for a minute of two more, then once we’re absolutely certain that’s where they’re headed, we’ll put the foot down and beat them to it. Suppose they see a chopper there at an airport, they won’t think anything of it.’
Martin broke it. 'Hold on, boss. They seem to be turning off the motorway.’
'Eh! Which way?’

'Hold on. They’re in a sort of a curve. They’re still on the slip-road. I’ll know in a minute. Yes, they’re still heading west. I’d say they’re taking the off-motorway route to the airport, out through Govan. That’s got to be it. It’s one last feint. Tricky sods these.’
'God, Andy, but I hope you’re right. Look, we can’t track them street by street through this. Let’s give them two more minutes, then we commit to Glasgow Airport.’
They hugged the line of the motorway as it headed towards the airport, and, as they did so, the trace from the dye on the Vauxhall Senator stayed to the north on Arrow’s screen, moving much more slowly now, as the car wound through the streets of Govan.

Skinner tapped the pilot on the shoulder to attract his attention.
'How long to the airport?’
'For us, three minutes. For him, by that route, fifteen minimum.’
Skinner was about to commit himself finally to Glasgow Airport, leaving the trace behind, when Martin broke in. 'What the hell’s this? They’re doubling back.’
'What?’
'The trace. It’s turned back on itself.’
'Dear Christ!’ said Skinner, with a sigh of fear and frustration.
'It’s gone again,’ said Martin. 'Pilot, hover. Hold your position.’
Arrow and Martin stared at the screen. Skinner leaned back over the seat for a clear sight, and Arrow turned the tracer set half towards him, to allow him to view. The little cathode screen stayed obstinately blank.

'Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!’ Skinner roared in his rage.
'Where’s the fucker gone?’
Arrow offered a suggestion in hope. 'He could have gone into a garage to fill up.’
'Bollocks! You think this lot’s planning includes running out of petrol in the middle of the night in fucking Govan! They’ll have another car somewhere. The bastards have stashed the Senator and switched. We’ve lost her, boys. We’ve lost her.’
His despair was even greater than that of the night before, for then there had been that other slim possibility. But now . . .
'No!’ The certainty in Martin’s voice banished the darkness gathering in Skinner’s heart.

“The Tunnel. The Clyde Tunnel entrance is down there. Pilot, head north.’
The helicopter banked sharply round and headed away from the bright lights of the motorway, towards the network of orange lines which crisscross the west of Glasgow by night, bisected by the dark slash of the River Clyde.
North they went, but the screen was still dead, even when they had almost reached the river.
'Andy, you sure about this?’
'What other chance is there? They’ll have gone out of range for a bit. We’ll have to catch them up. Look. There they are already!’
'Yeah, you beauty!’ Skinner cried with delight. 'You bastards won’t do that again,’ he growled at the trace, as if, through it, Alex’s kidnappers could hear him. He looked again and saw that the Senator was headed due north. “

'So, now where’re they off to?’ asked Adam Arrow, and the atmosphere at once grew more sober again.
'What does the map say?’ asked Skinner.
'I don’t need the map for that,’ said Martin. 'They’re headed up Crow Road, towards Anniesland Cross. From there they can go in four different directions. It’s anyone’s guess now which one they’ll take.’
'Whatever it is,’ said Skinner, 'we’ve got to guess their destination, and get there before them. Otherwise . . .’ His voice tailed away wearily.

'Let’s see what they do,’ said Martin. 'They could even cut back across the Erskine Bridge and come into the airport from the other side. Anniesland Cross’ll tell us that. They must be there now. The trace has stopped. That’ll be the traffic-lights. Of course they’re so complicated there, it’s always possible the bugger could get lost!’
He stared at the screen. 'There he goes again. West is it? No, he’s going north still. That makes it Bearsden, and Milngavie beyond that. That’s the wrong way for a boat, and it’s away from all the airports. Christ knows where he’s off to. Bob. To lie low for a few days, d’you think?’

Skinner shook his head. 'No, they’ve got what they came for. They won’t let the sun come up on them. Somewhere there’s an aircraft. Any ideas, pilot?’
'No, sir. Not in this direction. I have to warn you, though, if they’ve got a full tank, they’ll outlast us, especially if we’re flying stop-and-start like this.’
Skinner nodded. 'Aye, I figured. Look, my last option is that if we’re going to run out of fuel, we land on the road in front of them and shoot their tyres out. But that’s nightmare stuff. It’s the slimmest of all chances for my daughter.
'How long have we got?’
'No more than half an hour, sir.’
'Jesus.’

'Here, Bob. Hold on a minute. I’ve got it.’
Skinner looked over his shoulder to the rear seat. A sly smile showed on Martin’s face. The green eyes, made even greener by the reflection of the screen caught in his contact lens, seemed to glow brightly in the dark.
“He’s off to Balnaddar.’

'Sorry to bother you, sir, but we’ve got a mystery here.’ Maggie Rose had come through on Mackie’s direct line, not long after he had finished passing Skinner’s message on to Superintendent Haggerty. She explained to him that Sarah and Julia Shahor had vanished, and that there were clear signs that their disappearance had been sudden and unplanned.
'So what have you done about it?’ : 'We’ve checked the doctors’ call-out service. No emergency calls have been put through to Sarah tonight. Then we’ve checked the hospitals. She hasn’t been seen at any of them. We’ve checked with Telecom. No calls to or from this number all evening. We’ve checked with UCI and the other cinemas that take credit-card
bookings. None made by either Sarah or Julia. Oh yes, and we’ve even searched the garden, just in case they saw us and decided to play the fool. All in all, sir, so far not a trace of them.’

Mackie took a few seconds to consider what he had been told.
'OK, Maggie. You’ve done everything right so far. I’ll take things from here. You two stay there and wait for them getting back from the Chinese or whatever carry-out shop they’ve
probably gone to. I’ll have an East Lothian car check out Gullane.’
'You going to let the boss know?’
'No bloody way. He and Andy have enough on their minds, without nonsense like this!’

The airfield was just where Martin had said it would be. It lay a few miles north of Milngavie – 'T’ UK’s least pronounceable town’, as Arrow had dubbed it – on the A81 to Blanefield, and ultimately to Aberfoyle, just where the flatter landscape gives way finally to seemingly endless hills.
Skinner had committed the helicopter as soon as the trace showed that the Senator had taken the fork to Milngavie. Swinging wide round the car, the pilot had outpaced it easily.
Now, the dead screen showed that they were well in front of it, but Skinner was unworried. He knew that there were no other forks or turn-offs on the road for their quarry to take, but if he was wrong, and this was not to be the stopping place, he still had fuel in hand for the gambler’s last throw which he had contemplated earlier.

'What was this place used for, then, Andy?’ he asked as the helicopter hovered low over the strip.
Martin did not answer for a moment, as he watched the searchlight beam follow the entrance road from the A81, sweep along the short grey tarmac runway, and finally pick out the
hangar, the only building in the field.
The University Flying Club used it in my day,’ he said eventually. 'They ran three planes out of here. A few private pilots flew from here as well. Then some of them played silly buggers
and got too close to the Glasgow flight-path, so the CAA had it closed down. After that somebody rented it for a while and ran it as a go-kart track, until mountain-bikes and video games came along and killed that business stone dead. Since then it hasn’t been used at all.

As far as I know, the University still owns it, but they can’t think of anything to do with it. They can’t get planning permission for houses, and so they can’t sell it. The last I heard of
it was when I saw in a graduates’ association circular in the spring that it was going to be used for a charity Bungee-jump.’
'Who’d be likely to know about this place, other than the locals and students?’ Skinner asked.
'Just about any pilot with access to the right charts. It’ll still be marked on them – like for emergencies only.’
As he spoke, the helicopter touched down, facing the hangar.

The pilot switched off the engine and, as the craft settled, raised the beam of the searchlight and played it on the rusting doors. They stood slightly ajar. The policemen, the soldier, and the pilot jumped from the Jet Ranger and walked towards the hangar, their shadows on its doors growing smaller as they neared it. They saw immediately that it was impossible for the doors to be pulled fully shut because of thick grass which had sprouted in their runner. One by one the men squeezed through the gap, although for Arrow, who seemed squatter than ever, it proved a tight fit.

Martin’s torch had a wide beam adjustment. In the broad light it cast, they saw, in the centre of the hangar, its propellers facing the doors, a small twin-engined aircraft. Martin shone the torch into the aeroplane. It had four seats, two in front, two to the rear, with storage space behind. What make is it?’ Skinner asked the pilot.
'Could be some sort of Fokker.’
'Range?’ 'Depends on the load, but if it’s fully tanked up, quite a way: Southern Ireland no sweat, well into France, the Benelux countries, Scandinavia even. And this one is fully tanked up. Look at the way she’s sitting on the suspension.’
'That says it all,’ said Skinner. He reached inside his jacket and took a Browning automatic from its holster. 'Right. We haven’t got all night. We must get that chopper airborne again, now.

Adam, you and I are the reception committee. You in that corner over there, against the wall and beyond the door. I’ll take the other side.’ He turned to Martin and the pilot. 'You two, get the hell out of here, and do what you have to.’ He paused, then a strange look came into his eyes: a look with fear, hope and determination all mixed in.
“Me, I have an appointment with my daughter – and with one or two people who are going to wish they had never met her.’

They heard the Vauxhall Senator’s tyres sizzle on the rough tarmac road, and saw the beam of its headlights swing round as it slowed to a halt, facing diagonally into the hangar. Arrow was almost caught in the sweep of the light as it lanced into the big shed through the gap in the doors. Just in time he jumped back into his corner hiding-place.
They heard a car door open. Then a voice, familiar to Skinner, said, 'Thank you, Dave, this is for you.’

The sound of the gunshot followed less than a second later, then sudden, reflex female reactions. Two women screaming. Skinner thought. Ingo could not have warned Ariel about his plans for Dave.
He tensed himself in the dark, and flicked off the safety-catch of the Browning. He was ready for instant action, but not for what came next.
'All right. Pops. You and your boys better come out now. Don’t want pretty daughter to get hurt.’ Ingo called directly into the hangar.
For once in his life. Skinner was taken completely by surprise.
'Come on. Bob,’ Ingo called again. 'If you’re in there, you step out within three seconds. If you’re not there, well, I don’t need her any more, so I just shoot her now. Just like poor Dave. I didn’t tell him it was only a little plane. Come on out now. Your last chance.’

'OK,’ Skinner roared from the shadows of the hangar. He left his place of concealment, the Browning still in his hand, but pointing to the ground, and stepped through the opening, out into the halogen light, out to face the kidnappers and his daughter. Both the front and back offside doors of the Senator were wide open. Ingo stood beside the car, pressing Alex tight against him. His left hand held one end of a thick leather belt which was looped, through its buckle, around her neck. His right hand Pressed a pistol to her temple.

Cold hard rage swept over Skinner like an Arctic wave. His right fist tightened on the gun. He wanted very badly to kill the man now, and knew that there was nothing left in him, no
shred of restraint to stay his hand. He looked Ingo dead in the eye with such fearsome anger that for a second it penetrated the other man’s coolness and made him flinch, even with his gun held to Alex’s head.
'You will let my daughter go now,’ said Skinner in a hollow voice, 'and then I will deal with you.’
But Ingo held on to his nerve, and Skinner saw that Alex’s had not exaggerated the menace of the man.

'No, no, Bob. Let her go now? You must think I am crazy. Now you – you look a little nuts. If you are still trying to trick me, it will be bad for Alex.’ He pushed the muzzle of his gun harder against the girl’s temple. 'Now where are the rest? Tell them to show themselves.’
Skinner opened his mouth to call out, but then heard a movement behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see Adam Arrow step into the light.

'That’s good. But where’s the other one?’
'Who?’ ;
'This Martin, the one that Alex told me all about. You wouldn’t leave your right-hand man out of something like this.’
'Where do you think he is? I sent him off in the chopper to call up the heavy squad.’
Ingo laughed. 'Then he’ll be too late. We’re fuelled up and ready to go, and no one will ever track me in this thing. I can go too low, too slow for the radar. It will just think I’m a fat bird.
So, come on, let’s get on with it. Your guns on the ground, please.’

Ingo glanced towards Arrow as he threw his pistol on the ground – and in that instant Skinner snapped his Browning up to a firing position, left hand on right wrist. It was pointed directly
between the man’s eyes. As he held his aim. Skinner felt an icy coolness sweep over him, felt the presence of the other man, the man in the closet, as Sarah had described him.
'No, son,’ he said calmly and steadily. 'You don’t understand. It ends here. You just said you weren’t crazy. So work this out. I know for certain that if you take Alex away from here, you’ll kill her just like you killed the girl in the farmhouse, and your driver there. So I will not let you take her away. If she is to die, she will die with me, her father, beside her. But if you do kill her, even if you harm just a single hair on her head, then I will shoot you at that very moment. Believe me, that is my solemn promise. If you’re not crazy, you don’t want to die. So let her go. Now!’ The last word was as soft as a whisper, but it carried the force of a
shout.

Death stood surely before him, and yet Ingo Svart laughed in its face. And in that second Skinner looked at his daughter, and saw only her concern for him, not fear for herself.
'Pops,’ she mouthed silently.
'No, poor old Bob,’ said Ingo, 'it is you who don’t understand your situation. Time for our last surprise, I think.’ He called over his shoulder. 'Ariel!’
The near-side passenger door of the Senator opened, and a woman stepped out slowly. But it was not Ariel – not yet.
It was Sarah.

She looked helplessly at Bob, then shook her head. And then another woman stepped out. Julia. But not Julia – Ariel. The doe-eyes which Skinner had come to know so well were now
hard as flints as they stared across at him. Her smile, previously warm and wide, was cold, tight and controlled. She held a gun to Sarah’s side, and stood pressed close to her.
'So now, I think, you will take your pistol off my brother, and we will see if we can reach some agreement.’ Her voice was as dark as her eyes.

Her accent seemed to have changed too. It was clipped, more European in origin. Her hair, usually flowing, was pulled back into a long heavy pony-tail. She was dressed functionally in jeans and a white short-sleeved top, far removed from either the flowery or the formal styles of the Julia Shahor that he had thought he knew.
'So how did you . . . ?’ he began. But he could guess.
'Don’t blame Andy, Bob. He told me nothing we didn’t know already – until he picked me up tonight. I was just about to leave his place to meet up with Ingemar when he called to tell me of your excellent idea that Sarah and I should look after each other. Then he said that he had to go catch a helicopter. Not a plane, a helicopter. That’s when I knew for sure that you hadn’t bought our escape story, and that you wouldn’t just set an ambush at the airport but would try to trace us to wherever we were heading. We expected you’d probably find some way to track us in the end. I know you’re a very dangerous man, especially where your beloved Alex is concerned. So when Andy said that, I decided we had to take Sarah too, just to make sure.’

A self-satisfied smile crept across her face. 'Did our little surprise give you a scare last night? Sorry about that. but you have really annoyed us. We have been planning this operation for two years. We committed finally when I was offered the Film Festival contract. Imagine, to be running an operation, and to be in on the police security briefings. We planned every detail, down to the last little item, even to “Auntie” staying with me, to give me an excuse
to get away from Filmhouse at odd hours.’

She’s enjoying this, thought Skinner. Keep her talking, boy. Wait for the moment, then take it. By God, you take it. The thought sent a thrill of anticipation running through him.
Ariel went on. 'We ran this type of operation once before in South Africa. It worked so well there, we really didn’t think we’d need a back-up plan this time. But when we did, Alex working in the same show as Ingo was such a gift, and my getting involved with Andy was the icing on the cake. The break in thing at my house was clever, wasn’t it. Poor Ray staged that one for me, and Andy was hooked. That’s Andy’s one weakness, you know. He’s
vulnerable to love. Such a pity, because he turned out to be my one weakness too.’

For a moment Ariel paused, her boasting turned to wistfulness. If it had worked, I was going to stay here, not leave with Ingemar. I could have married Andy. How’s that for funny. But
when I had to let Alex see me last night, I lost that chance.’
Ariel, enough. We have to go.’ For the first time, anxiety showed in Ingo.
She nodded. 'Yes, we must. So here is he deal. Bob. We leave the ladies here. But we take you. Just you. Not your little friend – he’s the soldier Andy mentioned, I imagine – we couldn’t handle you both in that little plane. And we take our prizes here, of course – the Crown, the Sceptre and he Sword. We have a delivery to make to our client.

'You.’ She turned to Arrow. 'Fetch the bags from the car and load them into the plane. Then we take off – and you make sure there is no attempt to stop us. Bob, you take your chance at the other end. Now throw down your gun. Let’s get moving!’

Arrow looked across to Skinner, who nodded to him, and at the same time dropped his Browning on the ground. The little soldier moved past Sarah and Ariel, behind the car, and took the holdalls from the boot. He carried them across to the hangar, shoving its doors further apart with his shoulders, and placed them on one of the two rear seats of the plane.
That’s good,’ said Ariel. 'That’s the most important part. Now, Bob, you get on board, please.’
Skinner shook his head. 'Not till the girls and Adam are free and clear.’
'Oh no, Adam is not going anywhere.’ Barely looking to take aim, she snapped off a single shot. Arrow crumpled and went down.

'So that just leaves the five of us. Now, do you get on that plane or … ?’ She stopped and shrugged her shoulders, impatiently.
'But why bother? It’s much easier if we just kill the lot of you. Ingemar. I’ll shoot the women. You take Skinner – now!’
As she called to her brother, she pushed Sarah away from her and levelled her gun at her chest. The shot was still cracking all around the airfield, even as she fell.

Andy Martin lay on the damp grass. He saw the car’s approaching headlights, and saw it swing to a halt with its beams shining into the hangar. He saw the muzzle-flash and even at that distance, heard the sharp sound as Ingo dispatched the driver. He saw him pull Alex from the car. He saw the eye-to-eye, gun-to-gun stalemate between Skinner and the Swede.
And then he saw Sarah’s head and shoulders emerge from the far side of the car, and saw the profile of the woman who followed, pushing her forward but staying close, holding
something to her side. It was the profile he had come to know so well, in the moonlight
not so long before, but different somehow. The truth came to him in a flash, and his heart sank. He had taken the devil into his bed and into his heart, in the guise and the garb of an angel.

He watched, helpless. Seeing her lips move, he strained to hear what she said, but of course he was too far away. He saw Arrow take the bags from the car and carry them into
the hangar. He started in horror as she shot him down. And then, still through the telescopic sight of the sniper’s rifle which Skinner had taken earlier from Brian Mackie, he saw her
push Sarah away from her, and knew instantly what she was about to do.
Tears flooded his contact lens, but only in the second after he pulled the trigger.

Ariel – who had been Andy’s beloved Julia – twisted like a corkscrew as the heavy rifle bullet tore through her. Ingo looked across in horror as his sister fell. His gun, which
had been swinging towards Skinner, wavered aimlessly for a moment . . . And in that moment Skinner was upon him. Not the affable if inquisitive Skinner whom he had met before as Alex’s Pops. This was another Skinner: the cold, deadly Skinner he had glimpsed a few minutes earlier. The executioner Skinner, with no mercy in his eyes.
He felt his gun hand immobilised as an immensely strong forearm knocked it outwards and upwards. He felt his arm twisted and a hard hand clamping across his throat, setting his jaw at an angle. He felt no more after that, but he heard, crashing through his brain, a terrible thunder as the heel of Skinner’s right hand slammed under his chin, driving it upwards, throwing his head backwards, and breaking his neck. That thunderclap sound was the last living sensation of Ingemar Svart.

Skinner held the dead weight upright with one arm, as he hugged his daughter tight against him with the other. For a few moments, the three figures stood there in some terrible tableau,
until Ingo’s lifeless fingers loosened their grip on the belt around Alex’s neck, and Skinner allowed his body to slip to the ground. He felt Alex’s long slender hands on his face, turning him towards her.
'Pops, Pops, are you all right?’
He blinked, and then smiled at her, as wide a smile of relief and happiness as she had ever seen. As they stood together, Sarah came to them and wrapped her trembling arms around them both.

As Bob embraced them, the women felt a violent trembling run through him, as sudden exhaustion, physical and emotional, overtook him. But quickly he brought it under control.
It’s all right now, girls. It’s all right. It’s all over.’
He led them across into the hangar and towards the plane.
'Now, you two sit in here, and look after the Queen’s Sunday hat, while I get this lot sorted out.’
He held the door open as first Sarah and then Alex stepped up into the small craft. Then he turned to go to look for the fallen Arrow, and found, to his great delight, that the little soldier was sitting upright.

'Fookin marvellous these new flak jackets are. Give us a hand up.’

Laughing with relief. Skinner pulled him to his feet. '
'Don’t know what’s so fookin’ funny. Bob. Takes your fookin’ breath away does a bullet in the chest!’

A few yards away Ariel lay on the ground. Most of her white top had been stained blood-red, but she was still moving. Skinner knelt beside her. As he did, he glanced across the landing strip, in the direction from which the shot had come. The moon had risen, and in its glow he could see Andy Martin coming slowly towards him, a rifle in his hand. His shoulders sagged as he walked like a man with no desire to reach his destination.
Skinner looked down at the woman. Her lips were blood-frothed, and he saw that she was dying. 'Ingo?’ she said faintly.
'No.’
He saw her eyes flood with tears.
'Ariel,’ he asked, 'who is your buyer?’ But he was not surprised when, with the last of her strength, she shook her head.
'Then who is Mr Black?’
'Not so clever after all, eh. Bob,’ she whispered. 'Work it out for yourself.’
A final light of satisfaction shone in her hard eyes. Then it faded, and she was gone.
And in death she was Julia again, soft-eyed gentle Julia.

Skinner unfastened the ribbon which tied her pony-tail, and let her hair fall loose. Then he stood up, as Andy Martin came to his side and stood, looking down with reddened eyes at his lover’s body.

‘I’m sorry, Bob,’ he said very quietly. 'She took me in, hook, line and sinker. I even brought her to your house, and put Sarah in danger.’
'Andy, Andy. She took me in, too. She was Crystal Tipps, remember. I believed her every bit as much. Christ, it was me who told you to take her to Sarah. Andy, man, never blame yourself again. What you did was the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do in your life, and because of that, it was the bravest, too. When I let my gun go, I knew I was putting all our lives in your hands, and I never doubted for one second that you’d come through.’

Then he and Adam Arrow took Andy Martin, now limp and exhausted, and led him away from the bodies of Ariel, who had also been his Julia, and of her brother with whom she had
schemed, stolen, killed and finally died.
'Ah, but, lads,’ said Andy as they walked away, in a voice full of almost unspeakable regret. 'When she was Julia, when she was good … I’ll never find anyone again like the woman she
pretended to be.’
Adam Arrow dug him gently in the side with an elbow.
'Sure you will, Andy. Sure you will. She were only an illusion, remember. She weren’t real. There’s plenty of women who are, though. Why for a start there’s two in that plane over there. Mind you, one’s spoken for, and the other – well 'er father’s a bad fella’ to cross!’

'So our Mr Black didn’t exist after all.’
It was mid-afternoon, only one day and a half after the deaths of Ingemar and Ariel, and the end of all their plots, their projects and their schemes. Bob Skinner and Sir James Proud stood in the back garden of the bungalow at Fairyhouse Avenue. The blazing heat which had marked the first Festival days had gone, but there was still enough warmth in the sun for them to be in shirtsleeves. Each held a drink in his hand: Proud Jimmy’s a gin-and-tonic, Bob’s the usual beer straight from the bottle.
'Well, Jimmy, you could say that in fact he did. He was – well, what would you call him? A trading identity, I suppose. Ariel and Ingo’s joint trade name. And it really was their name, too. Shahor in Hebrew, which she wasn’t, and Svart in Swedish, which he wasn’t either. Both mean “Black”. Interpol have finally tracked them down. Brother and sister they were indeed, but German by birth. And guess what? Their family name was Schwartz.

'Julia’s story to Andy about her parents’ marriage breaking up, and her being sent to Israel, that was a load of balls. Apparently the truth is that the teenage Schwartz kids joined a right-wing action group, one that went in for violent protests of various sorts. The police never caught on to them, but their father found out about it and threw them out. After that happened, they seem to have decided that terrorism had a limited future, not to mention
very poor profit margins, but that the sort of things they had learned could be put to good commercial use, given the right sort of customer – one prepared to put up whatever funding they would need to get what he was after.

'They must have known they were both very young to be credible as the leaders of the sort of operations they were offering to put together. So they seem to have invented “Mr Black” as a
sort of authority, figure, a mystery man in the background, to keep their clients happy that they were dealing with someone really heavy-duty, and to keep even the hardest acts among the hired help well in line. When their bluff was called, they were tough enough – as anyone who crossed them found out.

'Interpol has been trying to get a handle on them for a while. They reckon they’ve been in business for six or seven years. That would have made them early to mid-twenties when they started: in no small way. apparently. They stole a twenty-million-dollar stallion in the States. It’s never been seen since, but some very quick two— and three-year-olds have started showing up in the Gulf States, and in Hong Kong! The Schwartzes disappeared around five years ago, and then Ingemar Svart and Julia Shahor showed up. Each had brand-new degrees – phoney of course, although they were both exceptionally talented. They followed different careers, well apart, but each, according to their passports, was able to do a lot of travelling. The stamps show that they were both in the vicinity of those jobs that Stewart told Adam
Arrow about. They were a roaring success, until, eventually, they showed up here.’

Proud sipped his drink, the ice almost melted. 'Quite a pair. Quite a story. I’m just glad you were able to stop them. So how are Sarah and Alex? Are they getting over it? How are you. For that matter?’
'The girls are OK. A bit shaky still. So are we all, but we’re leaning on each other. We’re a family. We’ll be fine.’
'And Andy? What about him, d’you think?’
'That’s something else again. What a thing he had to do! I told him to take a month off. But all he said was that if I did, then he would, too. I’ll keep an eye on him for a few weeks. Make him take counselling at least. Then, once he’s justified himself to himself, and shown everyone he can carry on regardless, I’ll sort out a sabbatical for him. Maybe we could send him off to do some research on security policing in another country, with another force. Somewhere far away.’

'That’s a good idea,’ said Proud Jimmy. 'I’ll look into some possibilities. Oh, by the way, there’ll be no FAI on Ingo or Ariel. I’ve fixed that with the Crown Office. They did a postmortem on him last night. The old pathologist told me he couldn’t believe his eyes. He said the last injury he’d seen like that was thirty-seven years ago, and that bloke had been hanged. How bloody strong are you. Bob?’
'Strong enough to look after my nearest and dearest. That’s all the strength I’ll ever need.’

'Well, my friend, I hope you never have to call on it again!’
Skinner smiled. 'Go on. Jimmy. Get the girls, and Andy and Adam. Those steaks’ll be barbied by now!’ a Proud Jimmy turned to walk into the house, then stopped.
'Interpol haven’t a -clue about the client, have they?’
'No, not a sniff. You know, I’m beginning to think they might have done it on spec., and that they might not even have had a client. If they were risking their own money, that could explain why they pursued it to the very end. They’d have had cash enough from their earlier jobs to fund the whole operation, and there are enough wealthy weirdos around the world for them to have set up an auction for the Regalia, and pulled an incredible price. That could have been what it was all about. But, chances are we’ll never know!’

Everard Balliol sat in his den. He was a ten percent shareholder in TNI, and as such received daily transcripts of the station’s output, as a matter of course. His jaw was working fiercely as he read the account of the foiling of the Edinburgh Castle raid, and of the failure of the follow-up attempt on the Crown Jewels of Scotland.
'Just as well for those two, they didn’t make it,’ he growled. “Wouldn’t have been no mountain high enough for them.”

Everard Balliol was a vengeful man. It ran in his family. He was also one of the richest in the world, and so had the resources to indulge his whims, in whatever form they developed.
It was that crazy book he had picked up on a hotel stop-over a few years back, when there was nothing else to read. The Lion in the North it was called, by some guy named John Prebble, and that had started him on his crusade. Until then, he’d no idea that he was the descendant of kings. The names had jumped out at him, early in the book, and he had read all night. John Balliol, and then Edward Balliol, Kings of Scotland and allies of the mighty Plantagenets of England, their throne usurped by the brigand Bruce, and so robbed of their birthright. His family’s birthright. His birthright. For the finest genealogists his money could buy had confirmed his instant assumption. He did spring in direct line from the seed of those ancient kings. Royal Scottish blood did flow through his veins.

Everard Balliol’s crusade to restore what he saw as his family’s good name had been his driving force from that time on. He had paid frequent trips to Scotland. He had studied its later history, its laws, its institutions. He could have bought up much of it, but had decided early on that he wanted no part of contemporary Scotland. It had been corrupted, softened, Anglified, and its People had been spread around the globe. So instead, he had considered how to have his personal entitlement of Scotland, and eventually he had decided. If he could not have his kingdom, he would have its crown.

From a hugely wealthy and very unorthodox art collector friend, he had heard already about 'Mr Black’, and the anonymous box number in Geneva. Very special assignments: you want it, you give him enough money, he’ll get it for you. 'His team is good,’ the friend had said..'I know. Look at that painting they got for me. Even if I had been able to buy it at auction, it would have cost fifteen million dollars. Through Mr Black, I got it for eight.’
And so Balliol had contacted the Geneva box number, and Black had sent his messengers: that little woman and her blond brother. He had given them enough money, given it to them two years back, and he had waited. And now it was gone, and nothing to show for it. He slammed his fist on the desk, in his den, in his bungalow, in his fortified compound, in the deeps of Texas. As he read the report again, he fixed on one name – a memorable name.
Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner. – 'Some day, my friend. Some day,’ Everard Balliol said aloud.