A Devil Is Waiting - Jack Higgins [49]
“It is a privilege to have been chosen, Uncle.”
He shook Jemal’s hand. “My blessings go with you both, and I await your return anxiously. I shall spend the day in prayer for you.”
They got into the ambulance, Asan at the wheel, for she was a better driver, and as she drove round the circular lawn, she reached out and waved to her uncle. He waved back, and then they were out of the main gate and on their way.
Ali Selim turned to the steps leading up to the front door, which was opened by an Arab in a chauffeur’s uniform. “Are you ready to leave, master?”
“Certainly, Mahmud. Have you brought down my luggage?”
“It’s already in the Mercedes in the rear courtyard. I’ll go and get it.”
“You’ve notified the airfield that I’m ready to leave?”
“I called them the moment I saw the ambulance start down the drive, master. The Hawker will depart as soon as we get there.”
He put up an umbrella, since it had started to rain, and hurried away, and Ali Selim stepped back into the porch. The sooner he was out of England, the better. There was nothing to stay for, certainly not his niece and Jemal. They were the walking dead now. He had no doubt the ambulance would be admitted, and, once inside, when the real plan came into play, the one they knew nothing about, the results would be shattering. Ali Selim’s bomb maker had packed every possible cavity in the ambulance with Semtex, and the electronic timer in the paramedic’s bag, which Jemal had been told was timed to give them thirty minutes to walk away, was actually set for the instant it was turned on. The explosion was bound to be catastrophic, although unfortunate for Asan and Jemal. On the other hand, that was no bad thing. He had, after all, been too open with them concerning the flight to Peshawar and his stay in Amira. There was no advantage in making that public at the moment.
The Mercedes came round the side of the house. Mahmud got out and raised an umbrella and mounted the steps. Ali Selim flicked the stub of the cigarette into a flower bed.
“Fast as you like, Mahmud,” he said as he joined him. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Doyle, Dillon, and Roper pulled up at the Dorchester, where Sara and Holley waited at the top of the steps, sheltering under the canopy from the rain. A doorman held an umbrella for them as they piled in, and Doyle pulled out into the Park Lane traffic.
“Well, the President won’t be impressed with the weather, that’s for sure,” Sara said.
“So they’ll have the canopies out,” Dillon said. “And everybody crowding in a bit, but on the good side, there’s Captain Sara Gideon, with red hair to thank God for, and nicely set off by a scarlet blazer from Valentino, and I adore those navy blue raw-silk jeans. That’s got to be Gucci. You’ll be a sensation, girl dear.”
“Why, Sean, is it your feminine side you’re revealing?”
“Well, I was once an actor,” he told her.
“Yes, we all know that, but you’ll have to spend more time on your lines. The silk jeans are Valentino and the blazer’s by Gucci. Not bad for an alpha male, though.”
Sara turned round to Roper in his wheelchair behind her. “Are you looking forward to meeting the great man?”
“You could say that. He’s certainly a remarkable human being, but with anything as important as this, all I want is for it to be over. All those years with the bombs in Belfast taught me one thing with complete certainty. No matter how well you organize and plan, something unlooked for comes round the next corner and screws everything up. It’s a kind of chaos theory.”
They were into the press of traffic heading to Westminster, vehicles three abreast. As Sara glanced out, looking to the left across Holley, she saw the yellow ambulance ease past, noticed particularly the young girl at the wheel for no better reason than that she was extremely pretty. Asan glanced over briefly, then eased the ambulance forward in the column of vehicles aiming for the entrance to the underground garage at the House of Commons.
Sara frowned, leaning across Holley as the van moved close