A Devil Is Waiting - Jack Higgins [47]
“I’m all right,” she said as he reached her. “A dull thud was all I heard. I dropped down instinctively.”
“He was probably using a Carswell.” He pulled her close, for a moment holding her tight, and she smiled. “At least we now know for certain that we are being targeted.”
“What was he doing when you saw him?”
“He just rose up as if he’d been crouching beside the car. Could he have been messing about with the brakes again?”
“I’ll take a look. Do you have a light?”
“There’s a spotlight in the cloakroom.”
She gave it to him, and followed as he went down the steps to the Alfa, got on his knees, and found the cake tin.
“Oh, dear,” he said, and straightened. “I’ve got a strong feeling that if I ask you to go away, you’ll refuse.”
“Yes, I damn well will, if it’s what I think it is. What are you going to do?”
“Well, I’m trying to be logical. If whatever is in the cake tin that’s attached to this car was remote-controlled, we’d have been blown to bits by now. He’d have already activated it while he was running away.”
She said calmly, “Which would leave pencil timers. Fifteen-minute, thirty, one-hour?”
“I’d say thirty to give him ample time to be elsewhere.”
“That would seem reasonable.”
“Let’s hope so. I’d just like to say I love you.”
“I know you do.” She smiled gravely. “You’d better get on with it, then.”
He handed her the spotlight, got on his back, reached up, gripped the box in both hands, and pulled so hard that it came away from the lid. He eased back, got up, staring down at the red-ringed pencil timers, pulled them out quickly, and tossed them into the birdbath beside the steps.
“You must live right, Sara Gideon. They were fifteens—fifteen bloody minutes. We should have been dead by now, and, somewhere, the bastard who concocted this very special cake is kicking himself because he’s been waiting for the sound of an explosion that hasn’t come.”
“I suppose you’ll have to report in? Ferguson will go ballistic.”
“I’ll call Roper now,” he said as they went up the steps.
There was a meow, and Samson slipped out of the darkness, wound himself around her right ankle. She reached for him, and he faded into the night again.
“He saved our lives,” Sara said. “It’s as simple as that.” She turned and smiled at him as they went into the hall. “Thank you for your dying declaration. Naturally, I’ll hold you to it.”
“Somehow I thought you would.”
Henri had found Kelly in Grosvenor Square with no problem, then scrambled into the Citroën, breathless from his running.
“Is it done?” Kelly demanded as he switched on and drove round the square past the Eisenhower statue.
“If you mean did I plant the bomb, yes. We should hear the explosion any moment, so pull over.”
They sat waiting, Henri checking his watch until, with a certain despair in his voice, he said, “I put in three pencils, the extras just to make sure in case of a malfunction. Fifteen minutes. They should have heard the explosion all over Mayfair by now. Let’s get going—I’m beginning to feel cursed.”
“But what went wrong?” Kelly asked as he drove away.
“I’d just placed the bomb under the Alfa when Holley appeared. There was an exchange of fire, silenced shots, I ran for it. I can only conclude he suspected a device and found it just in time to remove the pencils.” He didn’t mention the cat—it would have been too embarrassing.
“Well, Rashid won’t be pleased.”
“We don’t tell Rashid we tried again and failed. It’s beginning to smack of burlesque.”
“If you think so,” Kelly said. “What do you want to do now?”
“Well, at this particular moment, getting drunk sounds like a very attractive idea.”
Dillon happened to be at Holland Park when Roper received the news, so they all came together to Sara Gideon’s house. Tony Doyle recovered the box’s lid from the Alfa’s chassis, and they were now sitting