Ultimatum

Fifty

19.32

Bolt was sitting in the car waiting for an update on the suspect Shogun’s route from the control room at Scotland Yard when Tina yanked open the driver’s-side door and leaned in, her eyes alight with excitement. ‘I think I know what their target is. Look.’ She grabbed him by the arm and almost pulled him out of the car, pointing up into the distance over the lock-up garages.

Bolt followed her arm to where London’s newest architectural masterpiece, the Shard, stretched up a thousand feet into the sky, barely half a mile distant. It was swathed almost completely in darkness except for a thin strip of light round the observation deck.

‘Isn’t tonight the official opening?’ continued Tina.

‘I don’t know,’ Bolt replied. ‘If it is, surely they’d have cancelled it after everything that’s happened today?’

‘But the lights are on up there and the last I heard the Prime Minister was telling everyone to keep calm and carry on as usual. They’ve got all sorts of dignitaries attending. It’s a great target, Mike. Look at it. The party’s right there on the observation deck. This can’t be a coincidence.’

‘Shit. We need to find out if that Shogun’s still moving. If it is, then it’s unlikely the Shard’s the target.’ But even as he spoke the words, he didn’t believe them.

Clutching the radio to his ear, he immediately re-established contact with the control room at Scotland Yard.

‘Have we got a line on what’s happening with the suspect vehicle, over?’ he asked, staring up at the Shard, wondering how on earth he’d overlooked it as a potential target.

‘Control to Car One,’ said the female controller, ‘we can now confirm that the suspect vehicle went through a camera on the A2198 Long Lane at 19.09, and there have been no further sightings. Over.’

Bolt felt his heart sink. ‘So the Shogun’s stationary? Can you triangulate an approximate location for it, over?’

‘We’re just waiting for Hendon to get back to us with that, over,’ answered the controller, referring to the police Data Centre where all the data from the UK’s vast network of CCTV and ANPR cameras was kept.

‘We need to know urgently if it’s within missile range of the Shard,’ Bolt told her. ‘We believe the Shard may be the terrorists’ target. Can you confirm whether tonight is the opening night party? Over.’

There was a commotion and the sound of raised voices at the other end of the radio as the people in the control room at Scotland Yard processed this new information. In the background, he could hear Commander Ingrams shouting to someone to find out.

Half a minute later, Ingrams’s voice came over the radio. ‘Mike, I can confirm it is the opening-night party tonight. It started at seven. We’re going to warn the owners and get the building evacuated immediately. We’ve also just got confirmation from Hendon that the Shogun’s somewhere in an area of Bermondsey bordered by Long Lane in the north and the New Kent Road in the south. It’s about eight hundred by eight hundred yards.’

‘Jesus. That’s a hell of a wide area to cover.’

‘I know. We’re going to flood it with officers. Hopefully it’ll put the shooter off firing if he sees police everywhere, and we’ve still got twenty minutes until the deadline. We’re going to need you, and the ARV units with you, down there to help right away. We’ll send you the exact coordinates now. Over and out.’

Bolt gestured to let the two ARV drivers know they were on the move, and he and Tina jumped back into Islington nick’s battered Ford Focus.

‘It looks like you were right,’ he told her as he did a rapid three-point turn and drove back out on to Gowland Street in a screech of tyres.

‘That’s only an achievement if we stop him,’ she said as Bolt hurtled down the street, with the ARVs following.