Emma had come to London to kill someone, or, as he’d once heard her refer to it, “to secure a political objective.”
All this passed through Jonathan’s mind in a second.
He began to run, shouting her name. He wasn’t sure why he was doing it. Emma had taken pains to explain why her actions were necessary, and in every case he’d come to share her views. It was a common misperception that aid work is a liberalizing force. In fact, time spent in impoverished countries, caring for the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, had the opposite effect. Jonathan had no tolerance for the corrupt and powerful who furthered their gains at the expense of their countrymen. It didn’t matter what country. He didn’t believe in second chances, either. The fact was that most of the people who ended up on Emma’s list had it coming. But this was different. This time he was involved. This time he knew. To watch and do nothing, to stand still and bear mute witness-it was asking too much. He would not be an accomplice to murder.
“Emma!”
The last Mercedes drove past. Jonathan’s voice was drowned out by squealing tires, the aggressive roar of so many powerful engines. The motorcade shot down the street, only now coming abreast of the gray BMW.
The car.
The parking space conveniently available.
The text message on Emma’s phone was emblazoned on his memory. “Package ready for pickup. ETA 11:15. Parking arranged. LT 52 OCX Vxhl. Meet WS 17:00.”
The BMW was the package. The attack was set for 11:15. It was a Vauxhall car that had vacated the space.
“Emma!”
Finally she turned toward him, and in the instant before the explosion, their eyes met. And as the blast wave hit him and lifted him into the air and threw him with astonishing force through the windshield of a Range Rover parked nearby he registered only the ferocious explosion and inside it the image of Emma’s condemning eyes.
He had never seen her more angry.
18
The first thing Kate noticed was the silence. She didn’t think, Oh, I’m alive. What the hell just happened? She knew that she was alive because her throbbing head told her so, and the sharp ache in her ribs wouldn’t let her forget it. And she knew that it had been a car bomb. She had seen the flash of light, the incendiary star burning to orange, before the blast wave knocked her to the pavement. But she hadn’t expected the silence. It was as if the entire city were holding its breath.
Gradually she became aware of the tinkle of glass falling to earth and the groaning of distressed metal. Her vision cleared. The first thing she saw was a line of burning cars. Every automobile parked within 20 meters of the bomb was on fire. They must have exploded instantaneously, she thought to herself, because she’d heard only the one bang, and then she wondered if maybe she’d been knocked unconscious for a moment or two.
She picked herself off the pavement, aware of an ache in her chest. “Christ,” she mumbled. “We’ve stepped in it this time. Can you believe this, Reg?” She looked over her shoulder for Cleak, but didn’t see him anywhere. “Reg? You all right, then?”
He lay on the ground next to the car. His eyes were open and fixed, as if he were staring at the sky. A piece of metal protruded from his forehead. It was a four-inch bolt.
Kate dropped to her knees, putting a hand to his neck to check for a pulse. There was none.
Nearby, Graves stood with his phone to his ear, speaking entirely too calmly as he instructed his subordinates to get a bomb response team to Victoria Street and Storey’s Gate, and only as an afterthought to “send some ambulances. Plenty of them.” He hung up and looked at her, then at Cleak. “He’s dead. Help me secure the blast scene.”
“You’re hurt.” She pointed to his cheek.
Graves appeared peeved by the comment. He touched his hand to his face, and when it came away bloody he swore, then took a handkerchief and pressed it to the wound. “Get on to SO15,” he said, referring to Special Office 15 of the Metropolitan Police. “Have them issue an evacuation notice for the area.”
Kate rose, her ribs beginning to hurt in earnest. Gingerly she opened her jacket and saw a streak of blood on her blouse. The fabric was torn, and through it she could see a gash. Looking closer, she spotted a hole in her jacket where a bolt or a nail had passed, grazing her. A few centimeters to the right and she’d most probably be dead.
She leaned against the car door, transfixed by the hellish tableau. The bomb had been detonated as the third and last Mercedes had driven by. It appeared that the blast had lifted the automobile into the air and driven it against the wall of the building. The car sat on all four tires, crumpled, ablaze, already a husk. Barely ten meters in front of it, the second Mercedes lay on its side. Two bodies lay half in, half out of the front windscreen. It was also on fire, and the flames darted like snakes’ tongues through hundreds of perforations in the car’s skin.
Nails, thought Kate, glancing at Cleak, feeling the ache of her own wound. They had packed the car like a suicide bomber’s vest.
The lead Mercedes had crashed into a lamppost. She noted that the airbags had deployed and that there was some motion inside. The rear door opened. A man crawled out and fell to the ground, his face bloody.
Closer to her, the chassis of the two SUVs that had provided escort were also riddled with punctures, their tires exploded, windows blown out. All of their doors stood ajar, and big, barrel-chested men in dark suits were tumbling out, several brandishing compact machine guns, and rushing toward the lead Mercedes. Already two bodyguards were pulling a second man out of the rear seat.
Graves ran across the intersection, past the Suburbans, and advanced on the lead sedan. He pushed his way past the bodyguards, calling out his name and identifying himself as a policeman. Kate followed close behind.
“Who was in the motorcade?” Graves asked.
“They wanted me,” said the bloodied man. He lay on the pavement, propped up on an elbow.
Graves knelt down next to him. “What is your name, sir?”
“Ivanov. Interior Minister Ivanov.”
Kate knew the name, if not the face. Ivanov was one of a half-dozen men rumored to be candidates for the Russian presidency. “Stay there,” she counseled him. “An ambulance will be here shortly.”
Ivanov lay down.
The whine of approaching sirens filled the air. In the space of thirty seconds, Kate counted five cars approaching from all directions. Silence no more. Graves broke off from the Russian interior minister and walked toward the second Mercedes. Flames shot from the interior. Inside the inferno, the driver remained strapped in his seat. He had been beheaded by the blast. The two men who had been ejected through the windscreen appeared to be dead, too, as did a body slumped in the rear seat. It was difficult to be certain because of the fire.
There was no question about the sedan having been the target of the blast. The interior seemed to have been obliterated. The chassis was grotesquely bent. There was little left inside it except the remnants of the seats.
“Who was in the other cars?” Graves asked one of the Russian bodyguards.
“Mr. Witte and Mr. Kerensky, Interior Minister Ivanov’s assistants. And Mr. Orlov, our ambassador to Great Britain.”
“What about Mischa?” Kate asked, referencing Russell’s video message.
“No Mischa.”
“Yes,” said Kate. “He was part of the visiting party.”
“No,” replied the bodyguard, more vehemently. “No one named Mischa is traveling with us.”
The first police cars arrived. Officers ran to assist the injured, but Graves signaled for them to come to him. “Get tape around the perimeter. These buildings are being evacuated, and I don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry to muddle the evidence. Once you’re done, you can tend to the injured.”