Siege

Eighty-six

CAT HEARD THE shots as she was drinking the contents of a bottle of water in the satellite kitchen next to the ballroom. Beside her, Wolf was on the phone talking loudly to the negotiator. ‘We have waited hours for the British government to come back to us on our demands, and all you have done is send SAS men sneaking round the rear of the building, shooting at us, rather than trying to negotiate in good faith.’

There was a second burst of gunfire from high up in the hotel, faint but definitely distinguishable in the silence, and Wolf stopped talking and cocked his head.

‘I thought you said there was no attack!’ he shouted down the phone. ‘What is all that shooting?’ Then his face broke into a frown. ‘What do you mean it’s not you?’

The noise of more shooting tore down the staircase, and Cat glanced over at the TV on the worktop. It was showing live news footage of the Park View Restaurant on the ninth floor. A number of the blinds had been pulled up and people were pouring through the open French windows that led out on to the roof terrace. The two men supposed to be guarding them, Dragon and Tiger, were nowhere to be seen.

When Wolf saw what was happening on the TV, his face darkened. ‘Keep your people back!’ he shouted at the negotiator. ‘Do you understand?’ Then he slammed down the phone and turned to Cat. ‘What’s going on up there?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said coldly. ‘But we have to stop them. It’ll be the work of the bastard who killed my brother.’ Even as she spoke the words, she felt a rush of frustration and anger that made her face flush, and her grip on the pistol tightened. She had to find him.

Wolf shook his head angrily. ‘It doesn’t matter now. They’ll be sending the SAS in again. We need to get out of here.’

‘How? We’re half an hour early. The bombs won’t blow, and we’ll be caught. This wasn’t part of the plan.’

‘We have to try.’

Cat was annoyed by his weakness. ‘Be a man, Wolf. It’s time for us to make a last stand. Let’s go up there and fight.’

‘I am a man,’ he said indignantly. ‘But the plan was to escape.’

‘Mine wasn’t. I never expected to leave alive, and I’m surprised you did. We must kill as many of the enemy as possible. For our country. For our leader. For our religion.’ She lifted her pistol in a defiant gesture, and patted the pockets of her jacket. ‘We have the weapons. Let us make them pay.’