Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [138]
He had to get out now. ‘Brilliant, absolutely brilliant,’ he said. ‘But let me get my notes so I can tell you all about my idea.’
‘Stay and watch the festivities.’ A nod towards the television. Dunne turned the volume up. Hydt said to Bond, ‘We were originally going to detonate the device at ten thirty in England, but since we’ve got confirmation that both classes are in session, I think we can do it now. Besides,’ Hydt confessed, ‘I’m rather eager to see if our device works.’
Before Bond could react, Hydt had dialled a number on his phone. He looked at the screen. ‘Well, the signal’s gone through. We shall see.’
Silent, everyone turned to stare at the television. A recorded item about the royal family was in progress. A few minutes later the screen went blank, then flashed to a stark red-and-black logo.
BREAKING NEWS
The screen went to a smartly dressed South-Asian woman sitting at a desk in the newsroom. Her voice was shaking as she read the story. ‘We’re interrupting this programme to report that there has been an explosion in York. Apparently a car bomb . . . the authorities are saying a car bomb has detonated and destroyed a large part of a university building . . . We’re just learning . . . yes, the building is on the grounds of Yorkshire-Bradford University . . . We have a report that lectures were in progress at the time of the explosion and the rooms nearest the bomb were thought to be full . . . No one has yet claimed responsibility.’
Bond’s breath hissed through his set teeth as he stared at the screen. But Severan Hydt’s eyes shone in triumph. And everyone else in the room applauded as heartily as if their favourite striker had just scored a goal at the World Cup.
58
Five minutes later, a local news crew had arrived and was beaming pictures of the tragedy to the world. The video footage showed a half-destroyed building, smoke, glass and wreckage covering the ground, rescue workers running, dozens of police cars and fire engines pulling up. The crawler said, ‘Massive explosion at university in York.’
In this era we’ve become inured to terrible images on television. Scenes appalling to an eyewitness are somehow tame when observed in two dimensions on the medium that brings us Dr Who and advertisements for Ford Mondeos and M&S fashions.
But this picture of tragedy – a university building in ruins, enveloped by smoke and dust, and people standing about, confused, helpless – was gripping beyond words. It would have been impossible for anybody in the rooms closest to the bomb to survive.
Bond could only stare at the screen.
Hydt did, too, but he, of course, was enraptured. His three partners were chatting among themselves, boisterous, as one might expect of people who had made millions of pounds in a thousandth of a second.
The presenter now reported that the bomb had been loaded with metal shards, like razor blades, which had shot out at thousands of miles per hour. The explosive had ripped apart most of the lecture theatres and the teaching staff’s offices on the ground and first floors.
The presenter reported that a newspaper in Hungary had just found a letter, left in its reception area, from a group of Serbian military officers claiming responsibility. The university, the note stated, was ‘harbouring and giving succour’ to a professor described as ‘a traitor to the Serbian people and his race’.
Hydt said, ‘That was our doing too. We collected some Serbian army letterhead from a rubbish bin. That’s what the statement’s printed on.’ He glanced at Dunne, and Bond understood that the Irishman had incorporated this fillip into the master blueprint.
The man who thinks of everything . . .
Hydt said, ‘Now, we need to plan a celebratory lunch.’
Bond glanced once more at the screen and started to make for the door.
Just then, though, the presenter cocked her head and said, ‘We have a new development in York.’ She sounded confused. She was touching her earpiece, listening. ‘Yorkshire Police Chief Superintendent Phil Pelham is about to make a statement. We’ll go live to him now.’
The