“Yeah, that was my reaction. On the other hand, if, as seems likely, he shagged you back in the way-back-when, it’s more plausible.” Another pause for chewing. “On the grounds that he’s obviously a nutcase, I mean.”
“Can we leave now?”
“I haven’t had my flapjack yet.” He paused, and sniffed the sandwich. “Has this got cheese in it?”
“Oh God, not again. Turn round.”
Lamb did so, and a moment later felt her peel something from the seat of his trousers. When he turned back, Catherine was holding a flattened disc of what looked like mozzarella. “Always check before you sit down in Roddy’s room. What are your laundry bills like?”
“What’s a laundry bill?”
She left the room ahead of him, and paused on the landing for a moment to look back. Lamb didn’t bother. It was an ordinary room, and nothing much had happened in there. There were worse things to endure than boredom.
From the next landing, they could see Bailey’s comatose body in the hallway. He looked like he might have been asleep, Catherine reflected, if people generally smashed their faces against an anvil before settling down for the night. “He’s only a kid, Jackson,” she said.
“He had a gun. Why d’you call him ‘Bailey’?”
“He had a camera too.”
Lamb thought about that for a moment, then dismissed it. “Well, you’re gonna have to wake him up now. I want to know what Donovan’s really after.”
“Because you don’t think he’s really a nutcase.”
“Well, he’s probably that too. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a hidden agenda.”
She said, “Thanks for coming to get me, Jackson.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“Oh, I knew you would. I just thought there’d be more mayhem involved, that’s all.”
And that was when Roderick Ho drove a bus through the front door.
“They’re Black Arrow,” Traynor said.
Black Arrow, and they were moving down the corridor the way it was done in the movies; one forging ahead a few yards then dropping to a crouch, allowing another to overtake him, and secure the next few yards. Most held nightsticks; some carried what might be guns, but looked too clunky. Tasers, River thought, triggering a sense-memory at the base of his spine. He’d encountered Tasers before.
Louisa said, “Your crew?”
“They wish.” Traynor looked at Douglas. “Where are they? Where is that?”
Douglas, who was still on the floor, shrugged sulkily.
“Christ on a bike,” Traynor muttered. He grabbed Douglas by the collar, hauled him to his feet, and pointed him at the screen. “That. Where are they?”
It took Douglas’s voice a moment or two to catch up with his lips. “That’s C Corridor.”
“A big help. Where’s C Corridor?”
“This side of B,” Douglas explained.
“How far are they from the warehouse room?”
“That’s just after E Corridor.”
Traynor said, “Okay.” Taking his gun from his belt he checked its load, then held it loosely by his side. “Right, change of plan. I’m going that way.” He pointed towards the corridor down which Donovan had disappeared. “Make sure you’re not in our way when we head back.”
“You still have our colleague,” Louisa said.
“She’ll be released at nine come whatever. Unharmed. You think we’re animals?”
“Jury’s still out.”
River’s eyes were on the monitor on which the Black Arrow crew were securing the complex. “You plan to shoot them?”
“I plan to back up my CO.”
“They’re Noddy squad,” River said. “They’ve got sticks and stones.”
“Some of them are ex-forces,” Traynor said. “And they’re not all unarmed. Ever worked private security?”
“Not yet,” Louisa muttered.
“Trust me. The types who do are the kind to squirrel away illegal handguns.”
“What are you really after?”
But Traynor was gone; through the swing doors, and off down the corridor at a trot.
River looked at Douglas. “Do you keep weapons down here?”
“Are you kidding?”
Only sort of, thought River. He looked up at the monitors again. Armed or not, there were plenty of men out there. Probably more than enough to deal with two ex-soldiers.
Probably.
Douglas had thrown the lever that opened the overhead hatch.
“When you get up top,” River said, “Call your boss. Tell him there’s been an incursion. Tell him he needs to sound the alarm.”
“Her,” said Douglas.
“What?”
“My boss is a her.”
“Yeah, right. Whatever.” He looked at Louisa. “What about you?”
“I’m a her too.”
“Funny.” But it was as near as Louisa had come to the attempt in a good while, so River gave her a brief smile before saying, “You going up?”
“Are you?”
“I’m going to hang on here a while. I want to know what’s happening.”
“Yeah, well. So do I.”
Douglas was already halfway up the ladder. They watched as he disappeared through the hatch, then River threw the lever that locked it once more.
A moment later he was on the monitor that displayed the chamber overhead.
On one of the other screens the Black Arrow crew were approaching a set of doors, and making much use of hand signals and pointy fingers.
Watching them, Louisa said, “Remind me whose side we’re on?”
“That’ll be easier to work out once the shooting starts,” River said. “Anyone who’s not aiming at you.”
