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"This is excellent, Miss Campion. I am most grateful."
Louise pushed a strand of hair away from her face so she could look at
her watch.
9:22.
She had eight minutes to get Keller over to the window.
At 9:22 Howard Mitchell dropped the hammer he had been using to nail
pieces of timber across his broken window and raced into the
living-room to answer the telephone. It stopped ringing just as he
picked up the receiver. It started again as he was halfway up the
stairs.
He answered it in his bedroom. "Hello?"
He could hear breathing over the line.
"Mr Mitchell?" said a man's voice.
"Yes. Who is this?"
The line went dead.
Mitchell frowned to himself and replaced the handset. He went into the
bathroom for a quick shower and shave before returning to Maggie with
the keys to his boat.
The telephone rang for the third time as he was returning his electric
razor to its case. As before, he took the call on his bedroom
extension. It was his secretary, wondering why he had not put in an
appearance at the office.
"It's nearly half past nine, Mr Mitchell," she said reproachfully.
"You said yesterday you wanted to make an early start..."
Mitchell cut her short. He said he had changed his plans and wanted to
spend the morning on his boat. Urgent calls could be referred to him
via the boat's cell phone
He drove away from the house a few minutes later with the boat keys
digging into his hip.
Simpson walked thoughtfully away from the public telephone box.
Obviously Reagan had failed in his mission. The Howard Mitchell
problem would have to be shelved. If the CIA did find out about the
power station... Well, it was a problem the Prime Minister could sort
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out.
"I suppose," said Keller, finishing the first sandwich, "that we'll
have to eat the corned beef first because it has the shortest storage
life?"
"I suppose so," said Louise.
Six minutes.
Keller saw her look at her wrist. He smiled. "I wonder what being
cooped up in here will do to us?"
She realized that his eyes were fixed on her. It took a supreme effort
of will-power to resist the automatic impulse to close the partly open
blouse and so reveal her embarrassment.
"I
don't know," she replied.
Keller continued eating in silence.
"May I sit down?" she asked.
He looked surprised. "I'm sorry. I should have said." He waved his
hand round the control room. "I didn't think you would want to stay.
Be my guest."
Always perfect manners, she thought. It was hard to believe the man
was unbalanced. But then, he had fooled everyone- even the shrewd Hugh
Patterson. She wandered to the windows overlooking the river and sat
down.
Five minutes.
Keller seemed to have lost interest now that she was some distance
away. General Pyne and Patterson emerged at the far end of the apron
to check the first of the IRIS detectors that guarded the power
station's waterfront. Each one was mounted on an aluminium pedestal
about two-me tres high. The pedestal bases were weighted with a lead
plate.
Louise pursed her lips and blew a stream of air up her face so that it
ruffled her hair. "Ye gods, it's hot."
Keller started on the second sandwich.
"It certainly is," he said noncommittally.
Four minutes.
She fanned herself with her hand, and pumped her blouse.
She stretched her legs and repeated the gesture- enjoying the brief
surges of air against her hot skin. She was careful to pull the
material out far enough so that Keller would have a glimpse of her
body. The behaviour was alien to her nature. It reminded her of her
girlhood when she had discovered the sexual powers that girls could
exercise over boys. She closed her eyes. Those days were now far
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away. There had been Clive when she was in her late teens.
The halcyon days with him had ended and the memories had begun when he
had misjudged an approach, and his Tornado jet fighter had become an
incandescent ball of fire in some thick trees at Biggen Hill R.A.F
base.
"Yes, indeed, Miss Campion. Very hot." The refined, polite voice was
immediately behind her.
She opened her eyes and turned slightly. Keller was standing over her
staring down. His Sterling was drooping towards her pelvis. A feeling
of nausea rose like a poisonous vine in her throat and blossomed into a
smile. She glanced casually out of the window. Pyne and Patterson
were checking the third detector.
Patterson disguised a glance up at the window in a general survey of
the power station.
"What are they doing?" asked Keller lightly.
"Checking the IRIS detectors, I suppose."
"They checked them last night."
"I think they have to be reset each day because of the heat."
Three minutes.
Patterson paused to tie a shoelace while Pyne moved on ahead.
"Odd." said Keller casually.
"General Pyne likes to be careful," Louise replied, hoping her voice
was calm.
"I wasn't thinking of that."
Two minutes.
"You look frightened, Miss Campion." The voice was flat with a
disinterested tone. He rested his hand gently on her shoulders so that
his fingers were resting near the top of her arm.
She tried not to shiver, and dared not look up to see if he was looking
at her or at the two men below. The sun was glinting on her watch face
making it impossible to read the time. She tilted her head slightly
towards Keller's hand.
One minute.
The movement was a mistake; Keller thought it was one of affection.
His fingers tensed and moved down to the start of the soft skin below
her collarbone.
Patterson straightened from tying his shoelace. Pyne was thirty me
tres from him, walking along the top of the concrete capped pilings and
the water five me tres below.
Thirty seconds.
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She was certain Keller must be aware of her increased pulse rate
beneath his fingertips.
"Can you remember the type of shoes Patterson wears?"
said Keller. His voice was soft and gentle, but his nails were now
sinking into her flesh like the claws of a mechanical grab.
Twenty seconds.
Pyne was looking down at the water, waiting for Patterson to catch up
with him.
"I've worked for him for five years now," said Keller.
"He wears nothing but expensive elastic-sided shoes."
She risked a quick glance up at Keller. He was no longer interested in
her but watching the two men intently. He suddenly released his grip
on her shoulder, swung his Sterling up by the webbing strap and grasped
the magazine. For a wild moment, as his attention was fixed on the
scene below, she considered trying to snatch the weapon from him.
There was a metallic click as his finger released the crude
safety-catch.
Then Pyne was running as Keller stepped nearer the window.
"Stop!" screamed Patterson, his alarmed yell carrying plainly into the
control room. "For Christ's sake, Pyne! Stop, you bloody idiot!"
But Pyne didn't stop. He raced along the pilings with Patterson
running after him. Patterson stopped chasing Pyne and raised his
submachine-gun. His next shout was drowned by the sound of breaking
glass as Keller slammed the open frame of his Sterling against the
control room window.
"Stop him!" Keller screamed at Patterson through the jagged hole. "I
can't do it at this range!"
Patterson looked quickly up at the broken window and took careful aim
at Pyne. He fired a long burst which used two-thirds of the ammunition
in the magazine. The impact seemed to spin Pyne round; he teetered on
the edge of the pilings before falling out of sight to the water.
Patterson ran to the edge and poured a stream of fire into the river.
Two minutes later Keller stood panting beside him at the water's
edge.
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