Siege

Thirty-three

SCOPE MIGHT HAVE learned first aid during his days in the military, but he was no doctor, and although the wound didn’t look that serious, he couldn’t tell for certain.

It took him close to five minutes to get through to the emergency services on the hotel room phone. He told the woman on the other end about what was happening in the hotel, keeping out the details of his own involvement, and explained that he was with a woman with a gunshot wound to the leg that needed urgent treatment.

The operator asked him a lot of questions about the injuries, and told him how to stabilize the bleeding.

‘I know all that, and I’ve done everything I can.’

‘Is the patient conscious?’

Scope glanced at the bed where Abby lay on her back, smiling weakly at Ethan, who was crouched next to her, holding her hand and wiping her forehead with a damp cloth, which was what Scope had told him to do, hoping that it might provide him with a distraction and make him feel useful. ‘Yes, she is.’

‘That’s good. Help will be on its way soon.’

‘Help’s already here. I can see it out of the window. What I need to know is when it’s actually going to come in here.’

‘As you can appreciate, the situation is still very unstable, and the paramedics will need clearance from the police.’

Scope didn’t bother asking when that was likely to be. He could tell from the operator’s voice that she wasn’t expecting a change in the situation any time soon. It felt very much like the security forces were preparing themselves for the long haul, which wasn’t good news for either Abby or her son.

‘Remain in your room, try to barricade the door if you can, and wait until help arrives,’ the operator continued. ‘Help will come, I promise. Now, I’m going to put you through to one of my colleagues in the police, who’d like to ask you some questions. Can you hold?’

Scope said he could, hoping that the police officer would have more than platitudes to offer him.

But he didn’t. The cop sounded young, and he asked Scope a lot of questions about what was going on. How the attackers had got in, what their numbers were, that kind of thing. Scope told him the truth. He didn’t know a great deal about what had happened, other than that there appeared to be quite a few gunmen, and that the one he’d heard speaking had what sounded like a Middle Eastern accent. The cop, who sounded way too interested for Scope’s liking and therefore probably had something to do with the intelligence services, then started asking him more personal questions. What was his name? What was he doing in the hotel? Where was he in the building at that moment?

Scope was a good liar. He always had been. His dad had always said he’d have made a great salesman. He told the cop his name was John, that he’d been having a drink in the restaurant upstairs and wasn’t a guest, and that he was hiding in one of the rooms on the second floor. ‘Listen,’ he said at last. ‘If anyone’s looking at the hotel switchboard, they’ll see that someone in this room’s on the phone, so I’m going to hang up now. But you need to get here fast. There are a lot of dead and injured.’

‘We’re going to be with you as soon as we can,’ said the cop with the reassuring calmness that tends to come easily to those who aren’t in the line of fire. ‘In the meantime, stay where you are. And if you’re discovered by any of the gunmen, on no account offer any resistance.’

A bit too late for that, thought Scope, ending the call.

The room’s TV was on Sky News with the volume turned right down, the news ticker running along the bottom of the screen continuing to announce that there’d been a series of terrorist bombs at locations across central London, and now a suspected terrorist attack on the Stanhope Hotel involving a mass hostage-taking by an unknown number of gunmen. A reporter in a trench coat standing in Hyde Park with the Stanhope as a distant backdrop spoke silently into the camera, looking suitably grim-faced. A moment later the camera panned up towards the hotel, focusing on a glass-fronted upper section of the building where the blinds had all been pulled down. The camera panned in closer but it was impossible to see inside, and after a few seconds they cut back to the reporter.

‘When are they going to come and get my mom?’ asked Ethan quietly.

‘Soon,’ said Scope, looking down at the Glock in his hand. Three bullets. That was all he had. Enough for an emergency, nothing else. He knew they were going to have to wait to be rescued. Breaking out would be next to impossible with a young kid and a wounded woman.

‘When’s soon?’

‘As soon as they can get inside. They need to stop the bad men first.’

‘Why don’t you shoot them? You’ve got a gun.’ Ethan looked at him with wide, innocent eyes that pleaded for answers.

‘I haven’t got enough bullets,’ Scope told him, knowing it was best to be honest.

‘It’s going to be OK.’ Abby’s voice was strained, but some strength was returning to it as she reached out and stroked Ethan’s cheek.

Scope pushed the gun into the back of his trousers and went over to the bed. She looked pale and listless, and he could see that she was in a lot of pain.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘I feel numb, and it hurts …’ She stopped, and Scope could tell that she was making an effort to keep things together for Ethan’s sake. ‘But I’m OK. When do you think the police will have us out of here?’

‘I don’t know. It could be a while.’

‘Then I’ve got a bit of a problem. I’m a Type One diabetic, and the insulin’s back in my room.’ She looked apologetic. ‘I forgot about it in all the commotion.’

Scope nodded slowly. ‘When do you need to inject yourself again?’

‘When I next eat. Ideally, it should be about seven thirty, but I could hold on a while after that.’

‘Will the gunshot wound affect the timing?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Scope told her, ‘I’ll go back to your room and get it, but if you’re OK, I’ll leave it a little while until things have calmed down. The terrorists will have discovered the two I killed by now, and they’re not going to be pleased.’

‘Of course.’ She smiled weakly. ‘Thank you for doing this for us.’

‘It’s fine. I’ll make sure you and your son stay safe, I promise.’

But even as he spoke the words he wondered if he wasn’t making a big mistake by playing the Good Samaritan.