James Follett Sabre

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Lesseps.
It was so simple that he wondered why he hadn't thought
of it before.
It would be a perfect bomb.
165
Part Two
Priming and Planting
Alec heard the detested but faint buzz of a Hovercam. He
stopped hefting suitcases into the car and stared up at the
night sky.
Christine used her key-ring remote control to set the
house alarm systems. She turned to the car, the blazing
intruder lights projecting her shadow across the lawn.
'What's the matter, Alec?'
'Shhh!'
She shushed and waited until Alec relaxed. 'What was it?'
'Hovercam.'
'Here? At night?'
'Infrared.'
'You're hearing things.'
'That's right. One of those bloody aerial bugs.' Alec
remained staring at the sky with his back to the lights.
Christine moved towards the car. She was wearing a
body-hugging travel suit that accentuated her lithe figure, its
conditioner whirring softly on her belt. The water-cooled
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garment was a present to herself - something she had
promised herself for her next visit to the tropics. In a perverse
way she was now looking forward to their trip to the
steaming heat and humidity of Jakarta. Honicker had kept
his word and fixed their appointment with, of all people,
President Sulimann. Christine had read everything she could
lay her hands on about the Indonesian president and was
convinced that he was a man they could do business with.
Sulimann had proved himself a democratic socialist
prepared to wage war on his country's crippling corruption.
'Come on, Alec. We've got a flight to catch.'
169
He turned his attention to the grounds and the encircling
trees. On the advice of the security firm, they had grubbed
out the shrubs, but Christine had vetoed tearing up the
avenue of soaring Queen Elizabeth roses. It was now July;
the double row had reached nearly three metres.
'Someone's watching us,' Alec muttered. 'Now who do we
know who likes Hovercams?'
'You want me to say Shief. But a Hovercam out in the
open like this? The operator would have to be nearby.'
'So?'
'So let's get going.'
Alec decided against an argument. He gave one long hard
stare around, taking in nothing but light and shadows, and
returned to the car.
Ian Hoskyns was a hundred metres away, crouching behind
the roses and cursing the Hovercam. He had hit the recall
button on the remote control unit, but instead of returning,
the damned bug had taken exception to the proximity of the
roses and had overridden his command. It had set itself
down neatly on the lawn where Alec Rose was certain to see
it. It was close enough to the couple for its mike to pick up
their conversation and relay it to his earphone.
'Ian!' a voice barked in his ear. 'Can you talk?' Music and
laughter in the background.
'Hold on a moment, Mr Shief,' Ian whispered, probably
too quietly for his throat mike to register.
There was the double slam of car doors. An engine started
and the car moved off. The security lights timed out when
the car was beyond the range of their infra-red sensors. Ian
waited until the sound of the engine had faded into the
night. Several lights had been left on in various rooms.
Probably on time switches.
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They've gone, Mr Shief. They had some luggage and I
think I heard the woman say something about a plane to
catch.'
The news disturbed Shief. He had spoken to Christine the
previous day and she had said nothing about a pending
170
holiday or business trip. 'In that case, Ian, it would seem
that your job will be even easier, since they're not in the
house.'
Ian acknowledged. He activated the remote control's tiny
monitor screen and saw the building from the Hovercam's
point of view. My God, it had set down close to the house a
chance in a million that Rose hadn't seen it. Thankfully,
the thing was smart enough always to cut its motor on
touchdown, conserving the charge in its lithium-ion cells.
He operated the control that sent it to twenty metres and did
a low pass over the house. A skylight caught his attention.
He steered the Hovercam into a close-up and chanced a
high-res shot using the flash. The control unit's memory
grabbed the image and enhanced it, pumping the picture to
1,024 lines - sharp enough to read a maker's label had there
been one, but Ian recognised the skylight immediately:
bloody Pilkington 15-mill Armorglas in a Boulton and Paul
security frame.
Shit!
A sweep around the house and several more pumped
images of the windows confirmed his fears. From a distance
the frames looked like genuine Victorian sash jobs. Close
up, they turned out to be cunning replicas: hardened steel
subframes dressed up with a PVC coating to look like
timber. Bloody well dressed up too. None of the clinical
sharpness that usually gave away fake wooden window
frames. A self-contained slave radio transmitter on permanent
stand-by would be embedded in each frame. Open or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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