Sharp Shot by Jack Higgins Page A

Cabinet’s emergency committee known as
COBRA.
    If there was a security matter within the British Isles that the
police, Special Branch, or MI5 didn’t want to handle—or for some reason
couldn’t be seen to be involved with—then Ardman’s group was called in.
    If there was a ‘problem’ overseas that the armed forces or MI6
couldn’t handle, then it went to Ardman.
    He had a small team of carefully chosen operatives, but the power to
call on help from any of the other‘services’ he needed. Some of those
services resented Ardman’s power and remit. But most of them were only too
glad to help—the better Ardman did his job, the more likely he was to
keep it. And when all was said and done, the alternative didn’t bear
thinking about—no one wanted such a powerful agency to be run by anyone
but Hilary Ardman.
    No one apart from terrorists, organised criminals, smugglers and
warlords, anyway.
    Over the years, Ardman had faced down trained gunmen, got the better
of bombers and madmen, argued vehemently with Prime Ministers and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had calmly and efficiently got his own way in
meetings and situations where other senior staff had been looking pale and
feeling sick.
    Now, as he stood in a small, unmarked room in Heathrow’s Terminal 5,
Ardman reflected on some of those meetings and encounters. And he decided
that he had never been as apprehensive as he was at that moment. The
flight had landed, the passengers were disembarking. Shortly, the man
Ardman had sent to sort out a ‘problem’ in South America would be walking
towards him. And Ardman had bad news for him.
    The flight was late as most flights were. John Chance didn’t care. He
had fallen asleep as soon as the wheels left the ground in Rio, and he
didn’t really wake up until they touched the tarmac in London.
    Occasionally, his eyes had flicked open, on a sort of autopilot of
their own. Whenever anyone brushed by or there was a sudden noise, or a
slight change in the air temperature or a bump of turbulence. Whenever the
slightest thing happened that might signify danger, John Chance opened his
eyes, scanned the plane for any problems, and then switched off totally
once more.
    Before boarding the flight, he had been awake for seventy-two hours,
give or take a few minutes. But it had been worth it. He’d done his job,
earned the reluctant thanks of a local army officer, and made the world a
better, safer place. Probably. Now he was going home for a rest.
    Even a couple of years ago, Chance wouldn’t have thought of himself
as a homebody. He wouldn’t have considered settling down, and any thoughts
of a family were right out. But just as circumstances changed quickly in
his professional life, so they’d changed quickly in his personal life too.
Suddenly he had foundhimself a father of teenage twins. It had changed
his perspective. It earned his—initially—reluctant thanks. And it made
John Chance’s world a better place. Definitely.
    So far, it had to be said, his family world had not been a safer
place. His children seemed to have inherited Chance’s own knack of getting
into trouble. Luckily they also seemed to have his knack of getting out of
it again. But maybe that was luck, and Chance knew that you only had to be
unlucky once. He was looking forward to going home, and seeing his
children, and forgetting all about how terrible and unsafe the world could
actually be…
    He watched with tight-lipped amusement as people hurried to stand up
and grab their bags as soon as the plane stopped. For all their
impatience, they might gain a couple of minutes at most. Chance waited
till the people started to move before joining the crush. He only had a
small holdall. A scheduled flight was the quickest and cheapest way for
him to travel, and his other luggage would be sent back by a different,
more secure route.
    A child in front of Chance