Assassin

49

Carver had sent a single text message while he was chasing after the ferry. It went to a number he hadn't used in years. Chances were it wasn't even in use any more, but if it was, its owner might just clear his name.

He'd been doing some thinking, too, going over the events of the past few weeks, doing the old Sherlock Holmes trick: eliminating the impossible until what he was left with, however improbable, had to be the truth. The conclusion he'd come to was improbable all right. It damn near broke his heart. But he knew he was right, and he knew, too, that he'd been terribly wrong before. He just hoped he'd get a chance to put things right and repair the damage his stupidity had caused. First, though, he had to get away.

The lights of the ferry were clearly visible no more than half a mile away when another thought entered into his mind – one repressed during his desperate flight from the city: the memory of Tyzack talking about a killing that would put him in a different league, something bigger than Carver had even attempted. Carver had ignored him out of pride and ego, and now he realized that his arrogance had blinded him. It had been an act of unforgivable folly. If he'd satisfied Tyzack's longing to boast he would have known for sure what he was planning to do. Now he'd have to work it out for himself.

There were two ways Tyzack might, in theory, outdo him: by the sheer number of people he killed, or by the significance of a single victim. But Tyzack was not a terrorist, motivated by religion or ideology. He killed because he was paid to take out individual targets: any other victims were simply collateral damage. Many had died at the King Haakon Hotel, but Carver would have bet everything he had that there was only one real target. Even he had just been a distraction.

That left significance: Tyzack hitting someone so powerful, or so famous that – in his mind at least – it trumped anyone Carver had taken out. In theory, that might apply to any number of politicians, religious leaders, celebrities or monarchs. In practice, however, there was only ever one target whose elimination could guarantee an assassin the sort of perverse immortality Tyzack craved: the President of the United States.

The terrible realization struck Carver that having once subjected Lincoln Roberts to a fake attack, he might now have exposed him to a real one. A man he admired, whom he had worked to make safe, could now be in mortal danger. But what could he do about it? Carver was a man on the run, with nothing but his guts to go on. No warning he gave was ever going to be taken seriously. Yet somehow he had to make himself heard.

He'd come up behind the stern of the ferry now. Her name, Queen of Jutland, was painted across the full width of the vessel over the raised vehicle-loading ramps, and was lit by the glow from eight large portholes that ran above the lettering.

Carver slowed his engine to the pace of the ferry. He looked up at the massive hull, which loomed over his RIB like an elephant over a mouse as it rose straight up as high as a ten-storey building into the evening sky. The ferry filled Carver's entire field of vision. The noise of its engines, the buzz of his outboard motor and the rushing of water and wind all but deafened him. He just had to ignore the clamour and concentrate, searching for a way in.

Flanking the entrance through which cars and trucks rolled on and off, two massive metal buttresses protruded backwards, on either side of the stern. The buttresses curved up to the main bulk of the hull like gentle slopes at the foot of a sheer cliff. Above the top of the buttresses, where they joined the stern of the main hull, were two recessed winches, from which mooring ropes were run when the ship was in port.

Directly above them a rectangular opening had been cut into the hull, about three times wider than it was high. It was unglassed. Three similar openings ran down the flank of the ferry, creating a small promenade deck where passengers could take the air or smoke a cigarette. Carver hoped to God that at this time on a damp, chilly June evening they'd all be in the bars and restaurants, getting hammered like any normal human being.

On the way from Oslo, Carver had cut a short length of rope from the RIB's lines and placed it by the boat's controls. Next, he'd taken the anchor chain out of its storage chest, undone the shackle that fixed it to the boat, and carried it amidships so that it now lay piled behind him on the deck between the two seats.

Carver steered the RIB over the ship's wake until it was alongside the buttresses, as close as he could get to the stern opening. He tied one end of the rope to the steering wheel and turned the wheel so that the boat was virtually on the same course as the ferry, but turning slightly in towards the hull. Then he tied the other end of the rope to the chromed steel windscreen-frame, locking the steering wheel in place.

The RIB was nuzzling up against the ferry, but it would only stay in position for a matter of seconds, so Carver had to move fast. He grabbed the anchor chain and then clambered up on to the seats till he was standing astride the boat, one foot on each seat, leaning backwards so that his calves were resting against the seat-backs, taking the strain as the RIB bucked and lurched against the seething waters at the stern of the ferry.

He gripped the chain so his right hand was just below the anchor and a short length of chain hung between that and his left hand. Then, slowly at first, but with increasing momentum, he began to rotate his right arm, gradually paying out the chain, raising it above his head until it was swinging through the air like a lasso above the boat. Carver felt the cut in his back open up again under the strain of the movement, but ignored it. He gave a final, mighty heave and hurled the anchor at the opening.