Assassin

46

It took no more than a few seconds for Carver to spot what he was looking for: a 25-foot Scorpion RIB with a 90-horsepower Honda engine sitting on its tail. Rigid inflatable boats were the workhorses of the Royal Marines and SBS alike and Carver had spent more hours than he cared to think about sitting in them, going to and from missions and training exercises. When he got off the moped, took off his helmet and got down into the boat, it felt like a kind of homecoming.

Carver had no ignition keys, but he didn't need them. He could get an RIB started with nothing more than his belt buckle.

He began by finding the battery, stored beneath the driver's seat. A red plastic isolator key was inserted in the top. Carver turned it to the 'On' position. Now the boat had power.

Next to the battery was a toolkit. In it Carver found a knife. He used it to cut about four inches off the laces of his All Stars. He relaced his shoes before pulling out the boat's kill-switch, the safety device that shut down the engine if the driver went overboard. Unless the switch was out, the engine would not work. It was held in place by a plastic clip, linked by a lanyard to the driver's life-jacket. If the line was jerked too far, the toggle was pulled, the switch popped back in and the engine died. Carver tied the cut length of lace around the shaft of the kill-switch, ensuring that it stayed out. Perfect.

Moving to the back of the boat, he lowered the engine so that the propeller was in the water. Then he took off the hood and found the starter motor. It was controlled by a solenoid, whose job was to relay power from the battery to the motor. Carver placed his metal belt buckle over the solenoid's terminals. That linked the terminal connected to the battery with the terminal connected to the starter motor. A circuit was formed. The engine spluttered into life.

He'd just hot-wired an RIB.

He made his way round the boat, casting off its lines from the quay. Then he stood at the controls, put the boat into reverse and eased his way back into the dock, swinging the boat round so that its bow was pointed at the bridge.

Beyond the bridge lay Oslo fjord, and beyond that the open sea. Somewhere out there was a Baltic ferry. Carver put the boat into forward gear and increased the speed. Once he had passed under the bridge and gone beyond the lines of pontoons against which all the yachts were moored, he flattened the throttle, felt the boat accelerate up to thirty knots and roared off towards the setting sun. At the Gabelshus Hotel, Ravnsborg's two men were leading Maddy Cross and Thor Larsson down the steps from the hotel entrance, towards their waiting squad car. At Oslo police headquarters, the press officer gave the release one last read-through. Yes, she concluded, it was all exactly as her boss had demanded. She sent it off. Within minutes the bomber Carver's name and face would be on every TV station, every news website, every media outlet in Norway. He would have no hiding place.