Carver

55

Rosconway

The Cabinet office staff had arranged for a St John Ambulance crew to be present at the conference, just in case anyone tripped over a pipe, or was taken ill. Somehow they had survived the blast with their vehicle intact. But Carver only had to take one look at the chalk-white skin and dazed eyes of the amateur volunteers to know that they were too traumatized by the overwhelming violence that they had just witnessed to be of any help. It made little difference: he and Schultz knew enough about basic battlefield medicine to tend to Nikki Wilkins’s immediate needs. They climbed up into the ambulance and commandeered the splints, bandages and morphine shots they needed to stabilize her broken leg and head injury, and reduce the pain of the wounds. Then they carried Wilkins, still unconscious, back to the Audi, laid her out along the rear seat, and strapped her in as best they could.

‘Drive,’ said Carver. ‘Head for Pembroke. There’s got to be a hospital there.’

They were less than a mile down the road, still travelling beneath a pall of smoke that was spreading across the sky as far as the eye could see, before Carver had gone online and found both the location of the South Pembrokeshire Hospital and directions for getting there. He was about to offer Schultz his condolences for Tyrrell’s loss — nothing too overwrought, just a simple acknowledgement that a good man had gone — when the phone rang. It was Grantham. His first words were: ‘You’re alive.’

‘Don’t sound so disappointed,’ Carver replied.

‘You know, for once, I might actually be pleased to hear your voice,’ said Grantham. ‘So what the hell just happened?’

‘Someone stuck a dozen home-made mortar barrel tubes in an old Hiace van, loaded them with explosive shells, and blew the shit out of an entire refinery. And I should have stopped them.’

‘How?’

‘I wasn’t at the refinery when the shells hit. I was at the launch site.’

‘What do you mean? Had you found out what was happening?’

‘No, I’d worked out what might happen. I didn’t think there’d actually be anything there.’

‘Well, that’s as clear as mud.’

‘Sorry…’ It struck Carver that he might not be as out of it as that St John Ambulance crew, but his mind was still reeling as it struggled to process what he had just experienced. It was time he pulled himself together.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Here’s how it was done. The van that contained the mortars was parked inside an old barn, at a deserted farmyard about a kilometre from the refinery. The weapon was set to a timer, along with some kind of incendiary device — petrol by the smell of it. The moment the mortars fired, the van was burned out, removing all trace of the people who’d driven it or worked on the weapon. This was a professional job, straight out of the old IRA manual.’

‘Really? You think there were Paddies involved?’

‘Maybe… but it could just as easily have been one of ours. Anyone who served in Ulster during the Troubles, or even did bomb disposal work on this side of the Irish Sea, would have seen things like this.’

‘But how could they have known about the conference today?’

Carver thought for a moment: no, it was out of the question. ‘They couldn’t,’ he said, definitively. ‘Look, this was a totally last-minute event. No one had any warning. That’s why it was such a dog’s breakfast. The organization, the security, the media coverage — it was all a total joke. But this attack was the exact opposite. It was very carefully calculated. Whoever hit the refinery had every single one of those launcher tubes calibrated to the last millimetre, the last bloody fraction of a degree. Each of those things hit a target. And making the launch tubes, the framework to hold them, all the projectiles… getting hold of the explosives… no, there wasn’t anything last-minute about that. I’d say weeks of preparation, even months, went into this.’

‘So what are you saying — that it was just a bloody coincidence? I’m not buying that.’

‘Why not? Stranger things have happened. But even if it was a coincidence that the attack and the conference were planned for the same place at the same time, I don’t think there was anything remotely coincidental about the time and place of the attack itself. Come on… someone blows the crap out of a massive oil refinery the day after Malachi Zorn’s told the whole world that eco-terrorism is the big new threat… What do you think?’

‘I think it’s a bit bloody adjacent, certainly.’

‘Exactly, so what are the markets doing right now? Let me guess: oil price rocketing, stocks crashing, pound through the floor…’

‘All of that and more,’ Grantham agreed. ‘It’s a total nightmare. The economy was weak to begin with. An event like this could send it over the edge.’

‘Meanwhile Zorn’s cashing in. He’s got to be. The whole thing was a set-up.’

‘Except for Orwell… how do you explain that? Are you seriously saying Zorn deliberately sacrificed his own right-hand man?’

‘I don’t know,’ Carver admitted. ‘He could have done. The amount of money he stands to make, my guess is he’d do just about anything. But you’re right… I don’t have any concrete link between this and Zorn.’

‘I might be able to help you with that,’ Grantham said. ‘Early this morning, hours before the refinery was hit, someone went to a farmhouse in the middle of Wales, miles from anywhere, and executed four men and a woman. According to the locals, they’d been staying there for the past few days. The police are searching the place now. They’ve found evidence of a bomb-making factory: a couple of kilos of home-made explosives, plus several discarded gas canisters of various sizes, steel girders, welding equipment-’

‘Exactly what you’d need to make the set-up I saw,’ Carver pointed out.

‘Precisely.’

‘But everyone was killed. What good is that?’

‘Not everyone. One of them got away, a woman, name of Deirdre Bull. She tried to make a run for it. Whoever attacked the farmhouse tracked her, shot her, and left her for dead. But she lived. In fact, she’s lying in the intensive care unit at Bronglais General Hospital, Aberystwyth, right now. Oh, and here’s an interesting titbit: when she was rescued she even told the paramedics they had to stop the attack

…’

‘What? She told them about Rosconway?’

‘No such luck. She just mentioned an attack. They thought she meant the one on the farm.’

‘Christ, has she been interviewed yet?’

‘Apparently not. The local coppers have been told she’s not well enough to talk.’

‘Oh, bollocks to that!’

For the first time the hint of a smile entered Grantham’s voice. ‘That’s what I thought, too. Why don’t you get up there, see if you can get in for a word with Ms Bull? Play at being Andy Jenkins, pillar of the MoD, a while longer. I’ll have a word with the local police chief, appeal to his sense of patriotism at a time of national emergency, so you shouldn’t have any trouble from him.’

‘What about the medics?’

‘Oh, just use your natural charm, Carver. How can they resist?’

‘I’d better get going. It’s got to be a two-hour drive to Aberystwyth, minimum.’

‘No need. There’s an airport at Haverfordwest, just the other side of Milford Haven from where you are now. They’ve got a helicopter charter outfit there. Get a chopper, go to the hospital, get Bull to link this to Zorn, and then get back here to London. We need to discuss what to do about Zorn. And speaking of that particular devil, he’s about to make a public statement, live on every TV channel known to mankind. I’d better see what he has to say for himself.’

Carver put away the phone and turned on the car radio, tuning it to Radio 5 Live, and heard the voice of a news reporter saying she was outside the mysterious American billionaire Malachi Zorn’s Surrey mansion, and was expecting him to appear at any moment.

‘Zorn?’ asked Schultz, as they entered the outskirts of Pembroke. ‘Is that the bastard you said was responsible for what just happened?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’d like to tear that fucker limb from fucking limb.’

Carver looked at Schultz. He’d planned on doing the Zorn job alone. But there was a lot to be said for having the massive SBS man on his side. He thought about his plans and the specific ways in which Schultz might improve them. Yes, it could certainly work.

‘Suppose I helped you do that?’ he asked.

‘You taking the piss, boss?’

‘Never been more serious. Listen, no one knows whether you’re dead or alive right now…’

‘Nah, suppose not.’

‘And it’s going to be days before they work out the final casualty lists. So you could just disappear off the grid, couldn’t you?’

‘The CO’s not going to like that. I’m a company sergeant major. I’m supposed to set an example, do my duty, not piss off on private jollies.’

‘Don’t worry about that. The man I was just talking to is a very influential individual. If I ask him to square it for you, trust me, there won’t be a problem.’

Schultz pulled up at a red light and gave Carver a long, searching look. ‘What exactly was it you said you did for a living, boss?’

‘I didn’t say.’

‘But we’re going after this Zorn geezer?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you know a bloke who can just call up Poole, get my CO on the line, and tell him what to do?’

‘Yes.’

The light turned green and Schultz drove away. ‘And what exactly do you want from me?’

‘Drop the girl at the hospital and get me to the airport at Haverfordwest. Then head for London. Give me a number and I’ll call you. We’ll be doing the job tomorrow. We’re going to need someone else, too, someone we can trust. And I mean, absolutely. One word of this gets out-’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve got the right man. He was in the Service, got out about six months ago. Just about to fuck off to Iraq with one of them Yank security companies.’

‘And he’s good?’

‘One of the best.’

‘Then that’ll do me.’

‘And we’re going to take this Zorn bastard out?’

‘Well, Snoopy,’ said Carver, ‘just you wait and see.’

On the radio the presenter was saying, ‘And now let’s cross back, live, to Surrey, where we are about to hear an official statement from the man who predicted a tragedy like today’s, and who was a close personal friend of the late Nicholas Orwell. I can see on my monitor that the statement is about to begin. So this is Malachi Zorn…’