Assassin

85

Carver spent the day just trying to fill the hours. It was a feeling he knew well from his military days, the point when all the plans and preparations have been made and there's nothing to do but wait until it's finally time to go into action. That's when boredom becomes a soldier's biggest enemy.

Grantham had booked him into a nondescript three-star hotel just off Kensington High Street. Carver slept late, piled into a full English breakfast, choosing fried bread rather than toast, then worked off the cholesterol with a run that took him on a massive figure-of-eight through the parks of central London, via Hyde Park Corner and Buckingham Palace. In the afternoon a doctor came round to his room to take a look at the dressings on his back and make sure that the wounds were clean.

The doctor told Carver to take it easy. 'Don't worry, I will,' he replied. And for the next few hours, at least, he kept his word. He watched some cricket on TV and then went to a movie, sitting in the dark, munching popcorn and watching actors fake the things he did for real. Afterwards, he had a couple of pints, ate Chinese for dinner and went to bed early. Grantham was picking him up at five the next morning to drive him down to Bristol, so by ten in the evening he was getting into bed. Carver wasn't prone to anxiety before a big day. He went out like a light. Air Force One was wheels-up from Andrews shortly before midnight, local time. The President conferred briefly with his staff before retiring to his personal quarters, intending to spend most of the six-hour flight asleep. Elsewhere in the aircraft, Tord Bahr did not allow himself that luxury. It was already dawn in England and his people were all getting into place. Earlier in the day, he'd spoken to the Brits' anti-terrorist chief, Manners. It seemed they were taking Carver's warning about this Damon Tyzack guy seriously. Manners assured Bahr that they had the situation covered. He also told Bahr the same thing he'd told Carver. It made no difference what Tyzack was or was not planning to do. They'd already prepared for every conceivable attack scenario.

Bahr had double-checked. He'd been on to Homeland Security, the Feds, the CIA and NSA. None of them had any intelligence whatever about any hit being planned by people-traffickers; nothing about Tyzack, either. The only indication anywhere that Tyzack might be planning something was an unsubstantiated, unreliable claim made by a man who had just suffered extreme physical and psychological abuse. But as much as he hated to admit it, to himself or Carver, Bahr didn't think Carver was the kind of guy who invented allegations for no good reason. There might be something to what he said, despite the lack of any supporting evidence. Either way, it was an uncertainty, and it niggled away at Bahr's mind. He got an hour's sleep, was woken just before landing and felt like shit as he got off the plane and set foot on British soil.