Skinner's Festival (25 page)

SEVENTY-ONE

The Prime Minister experienced a sudden sensation of flight. One second, having forgotten, temporarily, his anger over Ballantyne’s ridiculous bravado, he was enjoying Handel’s finest work. The next he was in mid-air, seized bodily by Andy Martin, lifted clear of his seat, and borne at speed across the short distance to the Jaguar. Then its rear door was wrenched open and he found himself thrown across the back seat. An instant later, Ballantyne landed heavily on top of him, hurled there by Brian Mackie. Then Mackie himself dived in to cover them both with his large body. Martin, his pistol drawn, slammed the door shut behind them,
slapped the side of the Jaguar, and dived to the ground as it roared off.

He looked up, back towards the audience, and could spot McGuire and Mcllhenney. Obviously they, too, had been alerted by Skinner’s voice in their earpieces, since, arms outspread, they were gathering in as many of the people around them as they could
and forcing them down between the seats. On stage, the orchestra played on in triumph, as oblivious to the two explosions as were all but a few members of the audience.
Overhead the fireworks crashed and sparkled, at their luminescent climax.

SEVENTY-TWO

There is no mistaking a Sidewinder missile for a firework. Skinner watched, struck dumb by the horror, as one of them smashed right into the middle rows of the audience and exploded.
He saw that, at the moment of impact, several people, noticing the sudden commotion in the front row, had stood up trying, vainly, to catch a view in the dark. By a small mercy, the other Sidewinder flashed across the front of the stage, exactly where the Jaguar had stood bare seconds before, over a figure lying face-down in the tarmac, and then off to explode in the trees beyond the theatre’s iron gate.

Maggie Rose screamed out loud, and kept on screaming, until Skinner gripped her by the shoulders and shook her hard. Even without night-glasses. Major Ancram could see the flashes of the missile strikes, and needed no telling what had happened.
'Mr Skinner, I’m calling out the garrison. I’ll have to get every man down there.’
'Yes, Major,’ said Skinner, recovering his power of speech.
'Fast as you can, too. Let’s get down there.’
And then, suddenly, he changed his mind. 'No!’ he said loudly, and the Major, who had been heading away to gather his soldiers, stopped in his tracks and turned to stare in surprise.
'There’s something else,’ said Skinner, vehemently. 'I said that they want to get us tear-arsing around. That’s what they’ve got now, in spades. But what happens next?’
He stood for perhaps twenty seconds, thinking hard, while Rose and Major Ancram stared at him. Then, decisions made, he looked again at the soldier. 'Major, OK, you get your men down there on the double, but leave half-a-dozen up here with me.

Maggie, you go on down with him, and do what you can.’
She nodded silently, determined to be as tough as anyone in Skinner’s command, and ashamed of her earlier weakness.
'Major, how many men have you got?’
'Just now, three hundred.’
“Good. When you get down there, I want you to put armed men on guard around the National Gallery, and at the big bank branches at the Mound, St Andrew’s Square, George Street and
the West End. I’ll tell you why later. For now, get going, and send that half-dozen men to me.’

A germ of a notion was festering in Skinner’s mind, one so bizarre that he thought that it surely had to be fantasy, and yet it was there and he could not totally dismiss it as a possibility. An afterthought struck him and he called after the disappearing Ancram. 'Major, see if one of your men can find me a whistle!’

SEVENTY-THREE

Andy Martin picked himself up from the wet tarmac, without even a thought of dusting himself off. When he heard Skinner’s first alert, he had jerked bolt upright in his seat, and a voice inside him had screamed silently. For a second he had almost sprinted from the Prime Minister’s side, off through the Gardens and into the night, to Lothian Road, the Filmhouse and Julia. But then the second alert had come, and Skinner’s frantic command. He had acted instinctively, and had ensured that the Jaguar and its passengers had made it to safety. Now he looked around him, and listened carefully. On the stage a percussionist was banging away, either lost in the score or refusing to believe what had happened. Daniel Greenspan stood in his spotlight, his baton by his side, staring into the darkness.

Martin re-holstered his pistol and took out his radio. He switched channels to call the operations room at Fettes. 'Find whoever can arrange it, and get as much light as we can in here. For a start, have someone turn on the lights in Princes Street. And get me any news you can of Filmhouse.’ A second later, he found that his first instruction had been anticipated by the stage manager of the Ross Theatre. Above the stage a row of floodlights flickered into life, illuminating the audience. Martin moved forward fearfully, into a world of death
and desolation, unable to block out the fear that it might be the same where his Julia was.

There was carnage indeed in the Ross Theatre, and yet he soon saw it might have been worse. He looked around first for McGuire and Mcllhenney, and to his great relief spotted them both, still huge in their jackets and helmets, shepherding uninjured spectators away from the scene. And then Adam Arrow was by his side. 'God, Andy, I’ve never seen anything like this. What do you hear on that radio of yours?’ Once again the accent had vanished. Three attacks one after the other. First Filmhousc, then the Balmoral – both bombs, from the sound of it – then here. We were attacked by missiles fired from the Mound. One missed. The other hit over there by the looks of it.’
'Sidewinders, I imagine. In that case we were lucky.’
'Not all of us, though.’

They had reached the heart of the missile’s devastation. Neither could be sure how many had died, but a circle of twelve metal seats lay tangled and bloody under the floodlights, with broken bodies twisted among them. Around this immediate circle, perhaps two dozen people sat stunned and disbelieving. Some were bleeding, and several held their ears as if deafened. The silence was that of a mourning parlour. It had a power of its own, one which seemed almost to hold at bay the growing clamour from Princes Street, and the howling of sirens as police, fire crews and ambulances raced to their different destinations.

The soldier and the detective began to direct the men at their disposal to the care of the casualties, to render first-aid to those who were bleeding, and to confirm, as far as they were able, that none of the walking wounded was seriously hurt. When he was satisfied that everyone was in good hands, Martin called across to McGuire. 'Mario, you’re in charge here now. I’ve got to check out Filmhouse.’
As he sprinted into the night, he glanced up at the Half-Moon Battery. Standing at its edge, framed in light, he caught sight of a silhouette unmistakable even in its overcoat.
'Thank Christ for the boss tonight,’ he muttered sincerely. 'But what’s he doing up there still?’

SEVENTY-FOUR

The corporal looked puzzled as he handed Skinner the whistle. Skinner took it from him with a curt nod.
'Right, you all know me?’
'Sir!’ said the corporal, speaking for all six men. ; 'Major Ancram will have told you that you are know under my command. What I want you to do is this: throw a guard around the Crown Square – that’s the Great Hall, the Queen Anne Barracks, the War Memorial, and the Royal Palace. All the areas below will be empty by now, but there’s nothing there that anyone
would be after. What you must guard against is anyone or anything that shouldn’t be there. The chances are that nothing unusual will happen, but if it does . . .’
He paused to let his words sink in, then went on. 'If any of you sees anything, and you don’t know for sure it’s friendly, don’t ask I for its name, shoot it. If it turns out to be the regimental mascot, or the RSM’s tart, well, that’ll be too bad, but they can both be replaced. Right, Corporal, get your men spread out.’ He held up the whistle. 'I know it’s old-fashioned, but if I need you, I’ll blow this thing. If you hear it, regroup here, by the One O’clock Gun. If
any of you need me, chances are I’ll have heard you shoot!’

SEVENTY-FIVE

But Skinner was wrong.
He was standing by the gun, training his night-glasses on the National Art Gallery, looking for any sign of intruders. For he suddenly felt acutely aware that the building was currently
housing an international exhibition of the life’s work of Rembrandt. It had been brought to the Edinburgh Festival under the sponsorship of a major insurance company, and it was worth, conservatively, over a hundred million pounds.
'Forget the banks. That’s only money,’ he said softly to the night, his thoughts gathering speed. 'Anybody with the resources to fund what we’ve just seen doesn’t need money. But what if he wants something else, something unique, just for himself, and will go to any lengths, any cost? There’s only one other collection in Edinburgh as valuable as that exhibition, and we’re up here guarding that.’

Then he heard the strange sound in the dark, and knew at once, with his detective’s instinct, that the National Gallery was not the target – and that his germ of an idea had been right all along. The Royal Regalia of Scotland are not nearly as famous as their English counterparts in the Tower of London, and they have been admired by far fewer tourists over the years. Indeed, most Scots do not even know they art there. Since the Union of the Kingdoms
almost five hundred years ago, only King Charles II, then an exile and outlawed by Cromwell, has been crowned in Scotland. Thus the
Honours of Scotland
– as they are sometimes called – are, in main, older than the Crown Jewels of England. They are also, in
their own way, beyond price. Therefore they are guarded in the most effective manner possible, by the army itself, in the heart of the garrisoned citadel of Edinburgh, which stands impregnable on its rock – unless, in some dire emergency, that garrison were to be flushed out. Without waiting to discover exactly what that sound in the dark had been, but sensing its meaning anyway. Skinner grabbed his radio and spoke urgently into the open channel.
'Get some back-up here to the Castle. They’re after the Crown Jewels! “

SEVENTY-SIX

He stumbled over the body in the dark. The soldier lay face-down, near the Portcullis Gate, at the foot of the Lang Stairs. Skinner turned him over. The heavy clouds reflected the amber light of the city back down to earth, and in that dim glow Skinner could see that the man had been stabbed in the throat. The gurgling sound heard earlier must have been his death rattle, or a last attempt to raise the alarm. The man had dropped his rifle. Skinner spotted the short, fully automatic weapon lying on the ground. He picked it up without further thought, thankful for his practice sessions with this same firearm on the St Leonards rifle range.

Leaving the dead soldier. Skinner hurried back to his rendezvous point by the One O’clock Gun. He hesitated for a moment about blowing the whistle, with the risk of alerting the
intruders, but quickly decided that alerting his own men had priority. So he gave a single sharp blast, and hoped that the raiders would confuse it with the many other varied sounds now floating up to the Castle from the chaos in the city below. Only three of the other soldiers answered his summons, including the corporal. Skinner glanced at him and held up the whistle, a gesture asking whether he should blow it again.
But the NCO shook his head sadly. 'Naw. They’re good lads. They’d have come if they could.’

With twenty-twenty hindsight. Skinner cursed himself for not commandeering twice as many men, then he addressed the remaining three. 'Look lads, we’ve got a raiding party in the
Castle. They’re after the Crown Jewels. I don’t know how many there are, but they must be inside the Palace by now. I’ve already radioed for back-up, but we can’t wait that long. If they get what they’re after, then get loose out there in the dark, we’ll never catch them.
'Corporal, you take one of these two and go round behind the war Memorial to the main entrance to Crown Square. The other will come with me up the Stairs, and in by the side way. And, again ask no questions. You see it, you shoot it!’

The corporal slapped one of his soldiers on the shoulder, and together the pair headed off up a slight incline to the right, hunched in the dark and their rifles held ready. Skinner led the
remaining man back past the body of his dead colleague and up to the top of the stone staircase, until it opened on to the topmost level of the Castle. Together they raced across the ground behind the Fore Wall and the Half Moon Battery, and flattened themselves against the side of the Scottish National War Memorial.

Slowly, Skinner eased forward to peer round the corner into Crown Square. At the edge of his vision he saw the corporal and his partner sprint into the square, away from the dangerous frame of the narrow entrance, bracing themselves, crouched, against the buildings.
There were two men stationed at the door of the Palace. They were dressed in black, and carried short, ugly guns which Skinner recognised at Uzis. They spotted the two soldiers as soon as they appeared at the far end of the square, and swung their weapons up to firing positions. But too slowly. The corporal and his companion cut them down with bursts of
sustained deadly accurate rifle fire. Skinner saw both men thrown back against the wall of the Jewel Chamber by the impact. Then as the firing stopped, they crumpled slowly, limp and dead, to the ground.

He shouted across the square. 'Corporal, is there any other way out of there?’
'No, sir,’ the man called back. 'Whoever’s in there must come through that door at the foot of the Flag Tower.’
'Right, we wait. Our back-up should be here any minute.’
As he spoke, he heard, from within the building, a sound like the smashing of heavy glass. An alarm bell began to ring, pointlessly.
Skinner left his soldier companion in the lee of the War Memorial, and ran across to the steps of its only entrance. He shielded himself behind its arch, and blessed his luck and foresight as a grenade exploded in the square. He heard shrapnel zing against stone walls, and ricochet off into the night. Then he swung himself out from behind the grey pillar and waited ready for what he knew would happen next.
There were two others, also dressed in black like their dead colleagues. Each carried a holdall in his left hand, and a blazing Uzi in his right. As they burst through the door, they sprayed fire blindly at unseen targets, but this kept the soldiers at the far end of the square pinned down nonetheless. They could not see where their greatest peril waited. Skinner dropped the first intruder with two quick shots. The other swung round towards the side exit from Crown Square, and straight into the path of the waiting soldier, who roared a battle-cry as he emptied his magazine in revenge for his fallen comrades.

In the silence that followed, amid the reek of the gunsmoke, Skinner found time to look inside himself. He was pleased that he had been able to fire without hesitation, pleased too that he had handled the job so unemotionally, without any thought of Barry Macgregor in his mind. Perhaps, he thought, the closet door was locked for good. Maybe he did not need that other guy after all. He held the other men in position for three full minutes, lest there were other intruders still inside the Jewel Chamber. But the next man to enter the square was Captain Adam Arrow, leading his silent troops in full combat array.

Arrow appraised the scene in a second, and realised why Skinner and his trio of soldiers were waiting immobile. At his signal, two men sprinted across the open space and threw stun
grenades through the open door of the Flag Tower, holding their ears against the percussion. Then they rushed inside the building and up the stairs, their guns held in front of them.
A few seconds later they emerged, and waved the all-clear to Arrow.

As Skinner and the soldiers gathered at the doorway, the corporal found a switch, and soon the square was ablaze with light. Weapons at the ready, they approached the four figures
lying crumpled on the flagstones. Three of the raiders were as dead as they could be, but the fourth still showed signs of life.
Skinner radioed for an ambulance.
The two holdalls lay on the ground nearby. The larger of them was streaked with blood. Skinner knelt down and unzipped it and from within he took a sword still sheathed in its bejewelled scabbard. Not just any old sword, this one, but that which had been ceremoniously borne in state before the kings of Scotland.

He held it up by its scabbard for a moment, feeling its weight and its fine balance. Then he handed it over to Arrow and bent to open the other bag, knowing also what he would find there. First, the golden sceptre, finely worked, heavier than it looked. And then Scotland’s ancient pride, the crown itself. It was almost indescribably beautiful. Even in the harsh artificial light its jewels glinted in the delicate gold circlet. Pearls, set in gold, gleamed on the red velvet inner cap, and six more, with four sapphires, formed the cross at its apex.
Skinner held it up by its white ermine surround, for all to see 'There you have it, lads. This is what our Freedom Fighters were really after. Priceless, they call it, but for someone who
wanted it badly enough, not beyond price, it seems.’