Part 15 (1/2)

'Hubway? But why today?'

'Peterson brought the opening forward to this morning. Late morning luckily.'

Gibson sank back into his pillows. 'Do we have anyone there?'

'No. Just the local security are involved, though the Americans may have someone. But I doubt we could get there in time, the ceremony starts in a couple of hours.'

'I think I'll sit this one out.'

Harry stood up and wandered to the door. He spared a glance for the television on its bracket in the corner of the room angled towards the bed, and peered through the porthole window of the private room. His view outside was of a sterile, pale green corridor. 'Wait a minute, though. The Doctor's down there, working on the CD thing.' He turned back to Gibson.

'Mind if I use your phone?'

'Be my guest,' Gibson said, waving a bandaged hand towards the telephone sitting next to the television remote control on the bedside cabinet.

132.

The sound of the telephone echoed slightly. It sat on an empty desk next to a local area network cable which lay in the s.p.a.ce where a personal workstation had stood an hour before.

The room was empty, a LAN server went about its business quietly in one corner, the desks in the bays along the walls were empty and silent. Except for the phone.

In an attic room on the next floor, the Doctor frowned with concentration and decided things could not get much more complicated. The telephone which could have told him different continued to ring in the silence and the emptiness.

133.

0A.

Take-over Bid H The main gate into the Hubway grounds had a barrier across it. There was a small booth in the middle of the driveway. On the exit side a barrier opened automatically to let vehicles out. On the entry side things were more complicated.

The maroon van was first. Sarah could see the driver leaning slightly out of the window and speaking into what she guessed was an intercom. After a few moments what she could see of the driver's head disappeared back inside the van, and the barrier slowly pivoted upwards. It stayed upright to allow both the van and the minibus through, then with a grinding of gears in need of oil it sank back into place.

Through the side window Sarah could see several cameras mounted on poles like lampposts swivel to track their progress.

They followed signs to Goods In Goods In which took them off the main drive and round to the back of the sprawling complex. Sarah got a good look at the Hubway buildings as they drove round. which took them off the main drive and round to the back of the sprawling complex. Sarah got a good look at the Hubway buildings as they drove round.

The van seemed deliberately to take the long route, past the front of the house and then doubling round to the back of the large main house.

The house itself was early eighteenth century, and typical of Queen Anne architecture. It was red brick with wide strips of pale stone running vertically down the structure and round the top. At either end, a side wing jutted forward slightly, so that the main facade of the house was recessed. A stone porch supported by pillars framed the main entrance in the middle of the frontage. The windows, like the chimney stacks, were large and square.

As they drove round, Sarah could see off to the right a tall new building of gla.s.s and concrete which looked totally at 134 odds with the house. It looked even more incongruous for being between the house and the outbuildings. There were several blocks stables and barns further round. The pale gravelled drive swung off towards them from the front of the house. As they drove down the right side of the house, Sarah could glimpse a large car park behind the nearest outbuilding and the new block. There were a few cars grouped together at the end closest to the main house and Sarah guessed there was a path from the car park.

The van and minibus drew up at the back of the house. The drive was wide enough for them to park and leave room for other vehicles to pa.s.s. A uniformed security guard was standing by the back door and greeted Stabfield, asking him to sign on a clipboard. Then he counted out security badges which Stabfield took.

As they got off the minibus, Stabfield handed everyone a badge. They were credit-card sized plastic with Visitor Visitor and a number printed across the green front. On the back was a magnetic strip. Each badge was within a transparent plastic holder which had a clip attached. Sarah clipped hers to the waistband of her skirt and followed the others into the house. and a number printed across the green front. On the back was a magnetic strip. Each badge was within a transparent plastic holder which had a clip attached. Sarah clipped hers to the waistband of her skirt and followed the others into the house.

The door led directly into the kitchens. As she entered, Sarah glanced back. Stabfield was watching her. And behind him, the driver of the van was opening the back doors and preparing to unload the crates inside. It was Martin Carlson.

Harry kept the BMW at a steady ninety down the M4. He could sort out any problems with speed cameras later, but he hoped he was not stopped by a police car. Every time another car overtook him he felt a slight relief, at least they would stop that car before they pulled him in.

The countryside sped past in blurred near-silence. Harry missed his old MG. It had been rather more noisy, of course, but it had been fun to drive. Driving the new car was boring, especially down a motorway. No different from thousands of other cars in the fast lane; no character. He had always regretted taking the company car and parting with his own. At the time it had seemed logical and financially sound. Now it seemed like he had sold an old friend.

135.

He had called Hanson as he left the hospital, using the cell phone perched on the pa.s.senger seat and plugged through the car's stereo. Then, to be doubly sure, he had called Inspector Ashby at Special Branch. In response to Hanson's orders, the local police should already be mobilizing, but Harry wanted to be there if things got nasty. He indicated and pulled round a Mondeo which was resolutely doing sixty in the middle lane.

His palms were sweating slightly on the wheel, and the light caught the wrinkles on the backs of his hands.

Preparations in the kitchen seemed to be going well. Sarah had been delegated to arranging sausage rolls on silver trays, interspersed with cheesy-pineapple things on sticks. Some of the crates had indeed contained food and champagne. But most were stacked unopened in the corner, and Sarah had a pretty good idea what was inside those. Johanna was perpetually next to her, the machine gun no longer visible, but Sarah suspected she was still armed. Probably had a pistol tucked into her stockings, Sarah thought as she reached for another tray.

'Someone here called Stabfield?' The security guard who had met them at the door had returned.

Stabfield waved and went up to him. He looked uncomfortable in whites and chef's hat, but the guard seemed not to notice.

'Phone call. You can take it on that one,' the guard said at the same volume as he had called across the room, regardless of the fact Stabfield was less than three feet away. He pointed to a phone attached to the wall.

Having checked Stabfield was getting his message, the guard left the kitchen again. Johanna and Lewis walked over towards Stabfield, keen to discover what the message was.

Sarah took the opportunity to move round the table where she was working.

She had been having vague thoughts about scribbling a warning message and skewering it to the bottom of a pineapple chunk. She had her pen clipped in the side pocket of her skirt, but was stuck for paper. But there was no guarantee she could manage it without being seen, or that anyone would get or appreciate the message in time. Now she had another idea.

136.

Carlson was arranging champagne gla.s.ses on trays at the next work surface. Sarah edged closer to him. 'Martin we've got to stop this,' she whispered.

'Stop what?' His face was blank and expressionless. Perhaps he really did not know.

'I don't know,' Sarah confessed. 'But they've got guns, grenades. There's something going on that I don't understand.'

Carlson leaned towards her, his mouth twisting upwards slightly at the edges as if he were having difficulty smiling. 'Of course you don't understand,' he hissed. 'How could you understand?' His voice seemed to have risen in pitch and sibilance as he advanced on Sarah. 'Your pathetic organic brain couldn't take such concepts on board if its processor was clock-tripled.' A thin tongue whipped out of his mouth with a hiss and Sarah almost gagged on the sudden stench of his breath.

Then suddenly Carlson was back to normal. He turned back to the trays of gla.s.ses, his head swaying slightly from side to side. Sarah reached for the table for support. She was shaking, could feel the fear welling up in her throat and behind her eyes.

She flinched as a hand touched her shoulder.

It was Johanna. 'Now you've got things disambiguated, perhaps you will return your attention to the current objective.'

Sarah shook Johanna's grasp from her shoulder, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and went back to work.

Stabfield had a laptop computer sitting on the kitchen table in front of him. He clicked a b.u.t.ton on the attached mouse and the display switched from a floor plan of Hubway and the outbuildings to a Gantt chart. The chart showed each of the tasks in Stabfield's current project as a colour-coded horizontal bar. Each bar was plotted against an axis showing the time it should start and end, the length of the bar therefore giving a visual indication of the duration of that task. The bars were filled with black up to different points to show percentage of completeness. A single vertical line blinked slowly, it showed the current time. The timenow timenow line edged to the start of another bar as the clock ticked off another minute. Stabfield nodded to the two waitresses standing beside him. line edged to the start of another bar as the clock ticked off another minute. Stabfield nodded to the two waitresses standing beside him.

137.

The waitresses were carrying trays, one of small sandwiches and the other of gla.s.ses of champagne. On Stabfield's unspoken command they left the kitchen by the outside door and started round the back of the house towards the new block.

Stabfield clicked his mouse a few times and a section of the Gantt bar filled in. Another phase of the operation was underway.

Across the room, Marc Lewis watched Stabfield at work on his computer. Lewis hissed with annoyance. He took a small device about the size of a paperback book from his inside jacket pocket. The front was a liquid crystal display screen. He wrote a few words on to the screen with a stylus, watched the hand-written words form into print on the screen, then put the device back in his pocket.

The security control centre was on the ground floor of the new block. A gla.s.sed-in bridge connected the new block to the main house at the first floor level, but the entrance to the ground floor was from the front driveway. The way the four-day roster worked, Lattimer and Simpson had drawn control duty for that Thursday morning.