still seconded her to the team.’
‘Temporarily yes, but only while she’s dealing with Fox.’ Bolt didn’t like having to justify his actions to members of his team – it set a bad precedent – but he knew what a sensitive issue this was.
Omar nodded slowly, clearly still not liking the situation. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he asked. ‘With all this stuff going on, it seems a bit of a waste of time trawling through bank statements and phone records for the thousandth time.’ He was currently looking into the backgrounds of all the ex-soldiers who’d worked for the security company Fox had run for some years prior to the Stanhope siege. It had been a long and time-consuming task, and Bolt knew Omar was bored stiff by it.
Ordinarily he’d have told him to persevere with it. After all, it was what detective work was all about. But this wasn’t an ordinary day. ‘Help Nikki with Jetmir Brozi, can you? I need everything you can find on him, and I need it ASAP.’
He went back up to his office, grabbing his fourth coffee of the day en route. Like Omar, he felt frustrated. He wanted to be out there hunting down the terrorists, but their only suspect was dead, and no use to anyone. In the meantime, they just had to wait for the next attack. This was the weakness of living in a multicultural democracy like Britain, where people could come and go as they pleased. You were exposed and vulnerable. The Stanhope siege and the bomb blasts earlier this morning had shown that a handful of men could bring a city of ten million people to a standstill, and effectively hold it to ransom.
He took a sip from his coffee and looked out of the window. The sun was shining, and the clouds were beginning to thin and break up. It looked like it was going to turn into a fine winter’s day. Sirens still blared in the distance, their sound only just audible through the glass. Outside, innocent people were being killed, and there was nothing that he or his colleagues could do about it.
The sound of one of the three mobile phones he carried stirred Bolt from his thoughts. At first he didn’t recognize the ringtone – a loud pealing of church bells – then he remembered the contact he’d assigned it to, and he frowned as he picked up the phone.
‘We need to meet,’ said Jones. ‘Urgently.’
Seventeen
11.50
HEATHROW’S TERMINAL 5 offered the kind of welcome to the UK that gave tourist chiefs sleepless nights. The queue started almost as soon as you were in the building – thousands of people shuffling along in a thick unruly line, as if the arrival here of the planes that had been carrying them had been completely and utterly unexpected. Young Asian staff with funky haircuts and big badges on their shirts claiming they were ‘Here to Help’ barked orders like prison guards as they shepherded the passengers down the escalators, before wedging them like cattle on to the shuttle trains, which then deposited them a few minutes later at the back of an even bigger and more chaotic queue in the cavernous Arrivals Hall.
Luckily for Voorhess, he wasn’t in a hurry. The man next to him, a bald-headed Australian in a tailored suit, was. He kept repeating what a disgrace it was being treated like this, and that this was the last time he would travel through Heathrow. A couple of other passengers murmured in agreement, others talked in hushed tones about the bombs in London that morning, but Voorhess just looked ahead, an amiable expression on his face. He was being paid for his time here. There was no point getting distressed.
It took close to an hour from leaving the plane to finally reach Passport Control. It amused him to see that of the dozen or so officials manning the desks, all but one of them was Asian. It was, he thought, more like arriving in New Delhi than London.
The only white passport officer, a severe-looking lady with a turned-down mouth and beady eyes, inspected Voorhess’s Irish passport. The document
‘Temporarily yes, but only while she’s dealing with Fox.’ Bolt didn’t like having to justify his actions to members of his team – it set a bad precedent – but he knew what a sensitive issue this was.
Omar nodded slowly, clearly still not liking the situation. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he asked. ‘With all this stuff going on, it seems a bit of a waste of time trawling through bank statements and phone records for the thousandth time.’ He was currently looking into the backgrounds of all the ex-soldiers who’d worked for the security company Fox had run for some years prior to the Stanhope siege. It had been a long and time-consuming task, and Bolt knew Omar was bored stiff by it.
Ordinarily he’d have told him to persevere with it. After all, it was what detective work was all about. But this wasn’t an ordinary day. ‘Help Nikki with Jetmir Brozi, can you? I need everything you can find on him, and I need it ASAP.’
He went back up to his office, grabbing his fourth coffee of the day en route. Like Omar, he felt frustrated. He wanted to be out there hunting down the terrorists, but their only suspect was dead, and no use to anyone. In the meantime, they just had to wait for the next attack. This was the weakness of living in a multicultural democracy like Britain, where people could come and go as they pleased. You were exposed and vulnerable. The Stanhope siege and the bomb blasts earlier this morning had shown that a handful of men could bring a city of ten million people to a standstill, and effectively hold it to ransom.
He took a sip from his coffee and looked out of the window. The sun was shining, and the clouds were beginning to thin and break up. It looked like it was going to turn into a fine winter’s day. Sirens still blared in the distance, their sound only just audible through the glass. Outside, innocent people were being killed, and there was nothing that he or his colleagues could do about it.
The sound of one of the three mobile phones he carried stirred Bolt from his thoughts. At first he didn’t recognize the ringtone – a loud pealing of church bells – then he remembered the contact he’d assigned it to, and he frowned as he picked up the phone.
‘We need to meet,’ said Jones. ‘Urgently.’
Seventeen
11.50
HEATHROW’S TERMINAL 5 offered the kind of welcome to the UK that gave tourist chiefs sleepless nights. The queue started almost as soon as you were in the building – thousands of people shuffling along in a thick unruly line, as if the arrival here of the planes that had been carrying them had been completely and utterly unexpected. Young Asian staff with funky haircuts and big badges on their shirts claiming they were ‘Here to Help’ barked orders like prison guards as they shepherded the passengers down the escalators, before wedging them like cattle on to the shuttle trains, which then deposited them a few minutes later at the back of an even bigger and more chaotic queue in the cavernous Arrivals Hall.
Luckily for Voorhess, he wasn’t in a hurry. The man next to him, a bald-headed Australian in a tailored suit, was. He kept repeating what a disgrace it was being treated like this, and that this was the last time he would travel through Heathrow. A couple of other passengers murmured in agreement, others talked in hushed tones about the bombs in London that morning, but Voorhess just looked ahead, an amiable expression on his face. He was being paid for his time here. There was no point getting distressed.
It took close to an hour from leaving the plane to finally reach Passport Control. It amused him to see that of the dozen or so officials manning the desks, all but one of them was Asian. It was, he thought, more like arriving in New Delhi than London.
The only white passport officer, a severe-looking lady with a turned-down mouth and beady eyes, inspected Voorhess’s Irish passport. The document
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