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  The sirens of the patrol cars blotted out the screaming of the Minister’s wife as she lay over the body. They’d been diverted there just ninety seconds before with the brief message, ‘Man shot in Belgrave Square.’ The two constables were still mentally tuned to the traffic blockages at the Knightsbridge underpass as they spilled out into the street. George Davies, twenty-two years old and only three years in the Metropolitan police, was first out. He saw the woman, the body of the man under her, and the brain tissue on the steps. The sight stopped him in mid-stride as he felt nausea rising into his mouth. Frank Smith, twice his age, screamed, ‘Don’t stop, move,’ ran past him to the huddle on the steps, and pulled the Minister’s wife from her husband’s body. ‘Give him air,’ he yelled, before he took in the wrecked skull, the human debris on the flagstones and the woman’s housecoat. Smith sucked in the air, mumbled inaudibly, and turned on his knees to the pale-faced Davies ten paces behind him. ‘Ambulance, reinforcements, tell ’em it’s big, and move it fast.’ When Smith looked again at the Minister’s wife he recognized her. ‘It’s Mrs Danby?’ he whispered. It was a statement, but he put the question into it. She nodded. ‘Your husband?’ She nodded again. She was silent now and the children had edged close to her.

  Smith took the scene in. ‘Get them inside, Ma’am.’ It was an instruction, and they obeyed, slowly and numbly going through the door and off the street.

  Smith got up off his knees and lumbered back to the squad car.

  ‘Davies, don’t let anyone near him. Get a description.’

  On the radio he put out a staccato message: ‘Tango George, in Belgrave Square. Henry Danby has been shot. He’s dead, from all I can see. Ambulance and reinforcement already requested.’

  The street was beginning to fill. The Ministry driver of the Austin Princess had recovered from the initial shock and was able to move the car into a parking-meter bay. Two more police cars pulled up, lights flashing, uniformed and CID men jumping clear before they’d stopped. The ambulance was sounding the warning of its approach on the half-mile journey from St George’s Hospital at Hyde Park Corner. The Special Patrol Group Land-Rover, on standby at Scotland Yard, blocked the south side of the square. One of its constables stood beside it, his black, short-barrelled Smith & Wesson .38 calibre in his hand.

  ‘You can put that away,’ said his colleague, ‘we’re light years too bloody late.’

  At Oxford Circus the man debated quickly whether to break his journey, head for the Gents and take the magazine off his Kalashnikov. He decided against it, and ran for the escalator to bring him up from the Victoria Line to the level of the Central Line. He thought there would be time to worry about the gun later. Now distance concerned him. His mind was still racing, unable to take in the violence of the scene behind him. His only reaction was that there had been something terribly simple about it all, that for all the work and preparation that had gone into it the killing should have been harder. He remembered the woman over the body, the children and the dog on the pavement, the old woman he had avoided on the pavement outside the house. But none of them registered: his only compulsion now was to get clear of the city.

  The first reports of the shooting reached the Commissioner’s desk a mile away at Scotland Yard at 9.25. He was slipping out of his coat after the chauffeured drive from Epsom when his aide came in with the first flashes. The Commissioner looked up sharply, noting there had been no knock on his door, before the young officer was in front of him, thrusting a piece of paper at him. As he read the message he saw it was torn at the bottom, ripped off a teleprinter. He said, ‘Get me CI, Special Branch and SPG, here in five minutes.’ He went over to his desk, pressed the intercom button, announced sharply, ‘Prime Minister, please,’ and flicked the switch back.

  When the yellow light flashed in the centre of the console the Commissioner straightened a little in his seat, subconsciously adjusted his tie, and picked up his phone. A voice remote, Etonian and clipped, said on the line, ‘Hello, Commissioner, we’re just raking him up, won’t be a second.’ Then another click. ‘Yes, right, you’ve found me. Good morning, Commissioner, what can I do for you?’

  The Commissioner took it slowly. First reports, much regret, your colleague Henry Danby, dead on arrival in hospital. Seems on first impression the work of an assassin, very major police activity, but few other details available. He spoke quietly into the phone and was heard out in silence. When he finished the voice at the end of the line, in the first-floor office overlooking Downing Street and the Foreign Office arch, said ‘Nothing else?’ ‘No, sir. It’s early, though.’ ‘You’ll shout if you want help – army, air force, intelligence, anything you need?’

  There was no reply from the Commissioner. The Prime Minister went on: ‘I’ll get out of your hair – call me in half an hour. I’ll get one of our people to put it out to the Press Association.’

  The Commissioner smiled to himself bleakly. A press release straight away – the political mind taking stock. He grimaced, putting his phone down as the door opened and the three men he’d summoned came in. They headed critical departments: CI – the élite crime investigation unit; the Special Branch – Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorist and surveillance force; and the Special Patrol Group – the specialist unit trained to deal with major incidents. All were Commanders, but only the head of the SPG was in uniform.

  The Commissioner kept his office spartan and without frills, and the Commanders collected the armless chairs from the sides of the room and brought them towards the desk.

  He spoke first to the Special Patrol Group Commander and asked him abruptly what was known.

  ‘Not much, sir. Happened at 9.07. Danby comes down his front steps regular time, regular everything – he’s waiting for the Ministry car. A man steps into the street on the other side, and lets fly, fires several shots, multiple wounds, and runs for it in the direction of Victoria. Not much good for eye-witnesses at this stage, not much about. There’s a woman on the pavement had a good look at him, but she’s a bit shocked at the moment. We’ve got he’s about five-eight, younger than middle-aged, say thirtyish, and what she calls so far a pinched sort of face, dark hair. Clothes aren’t much good – dark trousers under a biscuit-coloured mac. That’s it.’

  ‘And the gun?’

  ‘Can’t be definite.’ It was the Special Branch man. ‘Seems from what the woman said it’s an AK47, usually called a Kalashnikov. Russians use it, VC in Vietnam, the Aden people, the Black September crowd. It’s Czech-designed, quite old now, but it’s never showed up here before. The IRA have tried to get them into Ulster, but always failed. The Claudia – that fishing boat up to the gills in arms – was running them when intercepted. It’s a classic weapon, semi-automatic or virtually automatic – 400 rounds a minute, if you could get that many up the spout. Muzzle velocity around 2000 feet a second. Effective killing range comfortable at half a mile. The latest version has a folding stock – you could get it into a big briefcase. It’s accurate and doesn’t jam. It’s a hell of a weapon for this sort of thing. Its calibre is fractionally bigger than ours so it fires Iron Curtain ammo, or ours at a pinch. We’ve found four shell cases, but no detail on them yet. It’s got a noise all of its own, a crack that people who’ve heard it say is distinctive. From what the woman said to the people down there it fits with the Kalashnikov.’

  ‘And the conclusion?’

  ‘It’s not an amateur’s weapon. We haven’t traced them coming in here yet. If it is a Kalashnikov we’re not up against second division. If they can get one of these things then they’re big and know what they’re about.’

  That struck the chord. All four stayed quiet for a moment; it was a depressing thought. A professional political assassin on their hands. It went through the Commissioner’s mind before he spoke that a man who troubled to get the ideal gun for the killing, the most popular terrorist weapon in the world, would spend time on the other details of the operation.

  He lit his first cigarette of the day, tw
o hours ahead of the schedule he’d disciplined himself to after his last medical check, and broke the silence.

  ‘He’ll have thought out his escape route. It’ll be good. Where are we, how do we block him?’

  The murder squad chief took it up. ‘Usual, sir, at this stage. Ports, ferries, airports, private strips as soon as we can get men to them. Phone calls ahead to the control towers. I’ve got as many men as possible concentrated on tube stations, and particularly exit points on the outskirts. He went towards Victoria, could be the tube, could be the train. We’re trying to seal it, but that takes a bit . . .’

  He tailed away. He’d said enough. The Commissioner drummed his desktop with the filter of his cigarette. The others waited, anxious now to get the meeting over and get back to their desks, their teams and the reports that were beginning to build.

  The Commissioner reacted, sensing the mood.

  ‘Right, I take it we all accept Danby was the target because of his work in Northern Ireland, though God knows a less controversial Minister I never met. Like a bloody willow tree. It’s not a nut, because nutters don’t get modern Commie assault rifles to run round Belgrave Square. So look for a top man, in the IRA. Right? I’m putting Charlie in overall control. He’ll co-ordinate. By this afternoon I want the whole thing flooded, get the manpower out. Bank on Belfast, we’ll get something out of there. Good luck.’

  The last was a touch subdued. You couldn’t give a pep talk to the three men he had in the room, yet for the first time since he’d eased himself into the Commissioner’s chair he’d felt something was required of him. Stupid, he thought, as the door closed on the Special Patrol Group Commander.

  His yellow light was flashing again on the telephone console. When he picked up his phone his secretary told him the Prime Minister had called an emergency Cabinet meeting for 2.30, and would require him to deliver a situation report to Ministers at the start of their meeting.

  ‘Get me Assistant Commissioner Crime, Charlie Henderson,’ he said, after he’d scribbled down the message from Downing Street on his memory pad.

  At a quarter to eleven the BBC broke into its television transmissions to schools, and after two seconds of blank screen went to a ‘Newsflash’ caption. It then dissolved to a continuity announcer, who paused, hesitated for a moment, and then, head down on his script, read:

  Here is a newsflash. Just after nine this morning a gunman shot and killed the Secretary of State for the Social Services, Mr Henry Danby. Mr Danby was about to leave his Belgrave Square home when he was fired on by a man apparently on the other side of the street. He was dead on arrival in hospital. Our outside broadcast unit is now outside Mr Danby’s home and we go over there now to our reporter, James Lyons.

  It’s difficult from Belgrave Square to piece together exactly what happened this morning, as Mr Henry Danby, the Social Services Minister, left his home and was ambushed on his front doorstep. The police are at the moment keeping us a hundred yards back from the doorway as they comb the street for clues, particularly the cartridge cases of the murder weapon. But with me here is a lady who was walking her dog just round the corner of the Square when the first shot was fired.

  Q. What did you see?

  A. Well, I was walking the dog, and I heard the bang, the first bang, and I thought that doesn’t sound like a car. And I came round the corner and I saw this man holding this little rifle or gun up to his—

  Q. Could you see the Minister – Mr Danby?

  A. I saw him, he was sort of crouched, this man in his doorway, he was trying to crawl, then came the second shot. I just stood there, and he fired again and again, and the woman—

  Q. Mrs Danby?

  A. The woman in the doorway was screaming. I’ve never heard such a noise, it was dreadful, dreadful . . . I can’t say any more . . . he just ran. The poor man was lying there, bleeding. And the woman just went on screaming . . . it was awful.

  Q. Did you see the man, the gunman?

  A. Well, yes and no, he came past me, but he came fast, he was running.

  Q. What did he look like?

  A. Nothing special, he wasn’t very tall, he was dark.

  Q. How old, would you guess?

  A. Not old, late twenties, but it was very fast.

  Q. And what was he wearing? Could you see?

  A. He had a brown mac on, a sort of fawn colour. I saw it had a tartan lining. I could see that he put the gun inside, in a sort of pouch. He just ran straight past me. I couldn’t move. There’s nothing more.

  They’d told the man that simplicity would see him through. That if they kept it easy, with no frills, they’d get him back. He got off the train at Watford, and began to walk towards the barrier, eyes going 180° in front of him. The detectives he spotted were close to the ticket barrier, not looking down the platform, but intent on the passengers. He walked away from the barrier towards the Gents, went into the graffiti-scrawled cubicle, and took off the coat. He hung it carefully behind a door. He unfastened the shoulder strap, unclipped the magazine from the gun, took off his jacket and put the improvised holster back on. With the jacket over the top, the rifle fitted unseen close to his armpit. It gave him a stockiness that wasn’t his, and showed his jacket as a poor fit; but that was all. Trembling again in his fingers, he walked towards the barrier. The CID men, both local, had been told the Minister had been shot at home in Belgrave Square, they’d been told the man might have got away by Underground, they’d been told he was in a fawn-brown macintosh and was carrying an automatic rifle. They hadn’t been told that, if the killer was on the tube, his ticket might not have been issued at Victoria – could have been bought at another station during the journey. Nor had they been told the Kalashnikov could be folded. They ruled him out in the five yards before he handed over his ticket.

  He walked away from them, panting quietly to himself, his forehead cold with sweat, waiting for the shout behind him, or the heavy hand falling on his shoulder, and felt nothing. He walked out of the station to the car park, where the Avis Cortina waited. He stowed the gun under his driving seat and set off for Heathrow. There’s no way they’ll get you if you stay cool. That was the advice.

  In the late morning traffic the journey took him an hour. He’d anticipated it would, and he found he’d left himself ninety minutes for his flight when he’d left the car in the No. 1 terminal car park. He locked the car, leaving the rifle under his seat with its magazine along with it.

  The police were staked out at all corners of the terminal. The man saw the different groups, reflected in their shoulder markings: Airport Police – AP, T. Division of the Metropolitan – T, and the Special Patrol Group men – CO. He knew the last were armed, which gave him a chilled feeling in his belly. If they shouted and he ran, would they shoot him? . . . He clenched his fist and walked up to the BEA ticket desk.

  ‘The name is Jones . . . you’ve a ticket waiting for me. The one o’clock to Amsterdam, BE 467.’

  The girl behind the counter smiled, nodded, and began to beat out the instructions of the flight into her personal reservations computer. The flight was confirmed, and as she made the ticket out the terminal loudspeakers warned passengers of delays on all flights to Dublin, Cork, Shannon and Belfast. No reason was given. But that’s where all the effort would be, they’d told him. They haven’t the manpower for the lot.

  The man brought out the new British passport supplied for him by his unit quartermaster and walked through immigration control.

  Chapter 2

  Normally the Commissioner travelled alone, with only the elderly driver for company. That afternoon sitting in the front with the driver was an armed detective. The car turned into Downing Street through the crash barriers that had been put into position half an hour after the shooting was reported. The dark, shaded street was empty of Ministerial cars, and sightseers were banned for the day. By the door two constables had established their will on the group of photographers gathered to record all comings and goings, and shepherded them int
o a line stretching from the railings, over the pavement and out into the parking area. The Commissioner was met in the hall, warm with its red carpets and chandeliers, and escorted to the lift. As he passed the small room to the right of the door, he noted the four plain-clothes men sitting there. His order that the Prime Minister’s guard should be doubled had been carried out. Two floors later he was led into the Prime Minister’s study.

  ‘I just wanted to see if there was anything you wanted to say before we get involved in the main scene downstairs.’

  ‘All I can do now, sir, is say what we know, what we’re doing. Not much of the first, a lot of the second.’

  ‘There’ll be a fair amount of questioning about the security round the Minister . . .’

  The Commissioner said nothing. It was an atmosphere he was not happy in; he reflected that in his three years as Commissioner and the country’s top policeman he’d never got into this marble tower before, never got beyond the first-floor reception salons. On the way to Whitehall he had primed himself not to allow the police to become the scapegoat, and after thirty-six years in the Force his inclination was to be back at Scotland Yard hovering on the fifth floor by the control room, irregular as it was, but at least doing something.

  There was little contact, and both acknowledged it. The Prime Minister rose and motioned with his hand to the door. ‘Come on,’ he murmured, ‘let’s go and meet them. Frank Scott of the RUC and General Fairbairn are coming in from Belfast in an hour or so. We’ll hear them after you.’

  The man was striding his way along the vast pier of Schipol Airport, Amsterdam, towards the central transit area. If his connections were working he had fifty-eight minutes till the Aer Lingus 727 took off for Dublin airport. He saw the special airport police with their short-barrelled, lightweight carbines patrolling the entrance to the pier where the El Al jumbo was loading, and had noticed the armoured personnel carriers on the aprons. All the precautions of the anti-hijack programme . . . but nothing to concern him. He went to the Aer Lingus desk, collected the ticket waiting for him, and drifted away to the duty-free lounge. They’d told him not to miss the duty-free lounge; the best in Europe, they’d said. Belgrave Square and the noise and the screaming were far away; for the first time in the day he felt a degree of calm.