Exocet - Jack Higgins [1]
Villiers closed the panel, clambered up on the bench and opened a trap. He pulled himself up on the roof and closed it behind him, crouching in the rain. The wall was only a couple of yards away. He slipped across the barbed wire, grabbed for the branch of a tree, worked his way along it, hand-over-hand, then dropped into the darkness below.
* * *
The police officer on security duties at the Grosvenor Place end of the Palace gardens that morning was thoroughly unhappy with life. Soaked to the skin, wet and miserable, he had paused to shelter under a tree when the Alsatian at his side whined softly.
'What is it, boy?' he demanded, instantly alert, and slipped the lead. 'Seek, boy! Seek!'
The Alsatian departed silently, but Villiers, standing beside a tree twenty or thirty yards away, was already alerted by that first whine and had reached for the aerosol spray he carried in another pouch of his jumpsuit. The dog, specially trained to silent attack, launched itself at him, and his left arm, padded against just such a situation, swung up. The Alsation chewed savagely at the quilted material and Villiers sprayed the aerosol into its face. The animal collapsed without a sound and lay still.
A moment later, the police officer approached cautiously. 'Rex, where are you, boy?'
Villiers' hand rose and fell against the back of the neck in one sharp, practised blow. The police officer groaned and keeled over. Villiers pinioned him, hands behind his back, with his own handcuffs, took the officer's radio receiver from his pocket and slipped it into another pouch of his jumpsuit. Then he started to run across the park through the darkness towards the rear of the Palace.
* * *
Harvey Jackson got out of the truck and opened the door. He reached inside, found a couple of grappling hooks, then bent down over the telephone manhole at his feet and removed it. From the truck he took an inspection lamp on a long lead which he lowered into the darkness, a red warning sign reading DANGER, MEN AT WORK, some canvas screens and an awning. He dropped into the manhole, opened one of the inspection boxes, revealing a bewildering array of multi-coloured leads and switches, and sat back and waited.
Perhaps five minutes later, there was the sound of a car and he stood up and peered over the edge as a police patrol car pulled in at the kerb. The driver leaned out, a grin on his face.
'What a way to earn a living. Serves you right for joining.'
'You, too,' Jackson said.
'Hope you're getting double time, this hour of the bloody morning.'
'That'll be the day.'
The policeman grinned again. 'Watch yourself. If this rain keeps up you'll be swimming in there by breakfast time.'
He drove away and jackson lit a cigarette and sat down again, whistling softly to himself, wondering how Villiers was getting on.
* * *
Villiers, who had found the workmen's ladders still available under the portico, had reached the flat roof over the Ambassador's Entrance with no difficulty. Two of the windows shown on the photograph were still partially open. He worked his way along a ledge, raised the nearest one and slid over the window sill into a small office. He opened the door cautiously and slipped out into a dark corridor.
The Royal Apartments were on the other side of the palace. Completely familiar with the layout from his study of the plans supplied to him, he now moved with considerable rapidity through a maze of corridors, all deserted as he had expected at that time of the morning. Some five minutes later he stood at the end of the corridor leading to the private quarters.
The Queen's apartment was only a few yards away - a dining room leading into a sitting room, the bedroom beyond, he knew that. Further on, around another corner, was a room where the corgis slept. In the page's vestibule opposite, a police constable sat reading a paperback book.
Villiers observed him carefully for a moment, then retreated down the corridor and took out the radio transceiver he had taken