Siege

Fifty-six

ARLEY DALE STARED AT the ops room screens. Three of them were showing close-ups of the Park View Restaurant, where the recently opened blind was giving the whole world a narrow view inside. Behind the piled-up tables and chairs, Arley could clearly see hostages sitting on the bare floor, and a masked gunman moving among them. As she watched, the gunman leaned down, pulled a middle-aged man to his feet, and put a gun to his temple. The man looked pale and terrified as the Sky News camera panned in on him, and Arley felt her mouth go dry.

‘CO19 have a moving target inside the building,’ said Chief Inspector Chris Matthews, speaking from the incident room next door, his voice reverberating loud and clear through the loudspeaker in the incident room. ‘They have a clear shot at him, ma’am. They can take him down now.’

Everyone in the room was looking at Arley. Waiting for her to say something. Rather than leading from the front, Gold and Silver – Commissioner Phillips and Assistant Commissioner Jacobs – were nowhere to be seen. Doubtless keeping their heads down, leaving the hard decision for her. Bastards.

The gunman was leading the hostage towards the window now. On the TV screen Arley could see resignation in the hostage’s demeanour. So could five hundred million other people. He was about to die, and only she could stop it. She could give the order for CO19 to fire and save his life, even if the respite was only temporary. She had that power in her hands.

‘Ma’am?’

She thought of her children, thought of everything she had to lose personally, and knew there was only one decision she could make.

‘Tell them to keep their guns trained, but not to fire,’ she said. ‘We can’t risk the gunmen shooting other hostages as well. I’m sorry.’