[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
don't even know the name of the welding shop foreman. All I
know is that Sven was well-liked and that yesterday's verdict
hasn't changed attitudes towards me. I don't think I'm in any
position just yet to ask ten men to work flat out on a crash
project at the drop of a hat."
Walker nodded. "I can understand how it must be for you.
But right now I don't think our personal feeling matter. There
are eight people in that courtroom whose lives are in the hands
of four dangerous maniacs. I can't make you co-operate but I
can promise you that this factory will find trading in this town
bloody well impossible in the future if you don't. You tell that
to your welding shop."
Rosemary picked up the drawing. It was little more than a
rough sketch but it contained all the information and
measurements that an experienced gang of welders would need.
"All right then," she said. "I'll offer treble time. When do
you want it by?"
"Midnight at the latest."
"How will you collect it? It'll be far too big to move by road.'
"By skycrane - a helicopter."
Rather than waste time going back for more keys, the two
policemen broke the lock on the door to Martin and Carrie's
flatlet. They found a suitable photograph of Martin and drove
back to headquarters; their wailing siren cleared a passage
through the home-going traffic.
At the same time, another two policemen called at the home
of the shorthand writer and asked the girl's desperately worried
mother for a portrait photograph of her daughter.
In that hour similar scenes were repeated at the homes of all
the hostages.
"Come on," the shorthand writer urged Russell Mace. "Now
it's your turn."
The four terrorists regarded the girl with hostility. She had
given a first impression of being shy and retiring. Now she was
relentlessly badgering them to talk when they didn't want to
talk.
"I've got nothing to say," Russell Mace muttered moodily.
"What the hell has my life got to do with you anyway? Why all
these questions?"
"Please be quiet, Miss Symons," said Sinclair.
The girl turned on Sinclair. "Why should I? I've had to listen
day in and day out to judges and counsels asking lots of boring
old questions in this court -- now it's my turn."
Sinclair glared at the defiant girl.
Page 140
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Polder laughed. "The revolutionary spirit is spreading- Answer
her questions, Russell."
"Okay," he said at length. "But the hostages stay with us."
The chief constable replaced his receiver. No aircraft had
been arranged. Not agreeing to Polder's request concerning the
specific type of aircraft was deliberate; one hundred per cent
co-operation might arouse his suspicions. At least Polder was
now convinced an aircraft would be at Manchester, even if it
wasn't the right one.
Polder had no such convictions. He walked back into the courtroom
and thoughtfully surveyed the group of hostages. They
were playing Scrabble with letter tiles made out of paper from
Sinclair's notebook. Polder looked round the courtroom -- there
were too many of those little green doors for his liking. He
turned his attention to the 400 square feet of frosted glass
skylight panels in the centre of the ceiling. None of them could be
opened. Polder felt certain that if the police did move, it would
come during the transfer to the minibus.
Captain Kirk and Sergeant Christie visited the factory at 9:00pm
and were delighted with the progress that was being made.
The curious steel structure taking shape in the factory's car park
resembled a miniature oil-drilling platform. It consisted
of a rectangular lattice of steel tubing that measured twenty
five feet along each side. The corners were supported fifteen
feet off the ground by four legs which, like the main framework,
were fabricated from steel tubing. A continuous display of
vivid blue flashes illuminated the watching soldiers' faces. The
air was filled with the hiss and crackle of arc-welding flux.
As the two men were talking to Rosemary Richards, a lorry
rolled into the car park. Corporal Macintyre and his team of
four soldiers jumped down from the truck and saluted Kirk.
"You've got them, Macintyre?"
"Yes, sir," said the corporal crisply. "Come and see. The
ground staff helped. In fact we couldn't've managed without
them."
On the back of the lorry were ten staring football stadium
floodlights. Each one of the steel-cased cyclopian monsters was
over four feet in diameter and was capable of unleashing fifteen
thousand watts of searing white light from its tungsten halogen
filaments; a murderous intensity which, at five feet, could
scorch a man's retinas to vapour and boil his brains in his
skull.
Before he could blink.
Polder looked at Sinclair speculatively. "Have you ever sentenced
anyone to death, Judge?"
Sinclair concentrated on the homemade Scrabble board; pointedly
ignoring the remark.
Page 141
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Well?"
"No."
"Do you wish you had?"
Sinclair slowly raised his great head and gazed across the
courtroom at Polder sitting arrogantly in the judge's high-backed
chair.
"I was a circuit judge at the time, and favoured the abolition
of capital punishment for murder. An attitude which I now
regret."
Polder grinned. "Someone could be passing a sentence of
death on you at this very moment."
Sinclair didn't respond.
Polder's expression hardened. "If the police do try anything
silly, you will be the first one I will kill - even if it's the
last thing
I do." Polder opened his revolver, turned it towards the hostages
and pointed it to the top chamber. "That's your bullet,
Judge. It's worth one penny of your lousey currency. How does
it feel to have your life measured against --"
The telephone rang three times and stopped.
"That's the supper," said Neil Tysack.
Virginia stood up and began unbuttoning her dress.
"My turn," she said to the shorthand writer.
Polder snapped the gun shut and pointed it at Martin.
"Contemplate your boyfriend's fate if you don't return."
"I'll be back," said Virginia, folding her dress. She gave it to
Martin and approached the high desk. She looked up at Polder
without showing any sign of the fear she felt.
"I want to be present when the police kill you."
Lance-Corporal Bennett and Corporal Hopkins, lying on thin
mattresses on the dance hall, were a hundred per cent efficient
when it came to shooting at Angela Mace's face. Now they were
at the end of their thirty minute session training to aim at her
voice.
Attached to the side of their respective rifles was the long,
super-sensitive, pick-up tube of a dynamic 'gun' microphone --
a device which picks up only those sounds originating from the
source it is pointing at; all other extraneous noises are
discarded.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]