Free The Hit List by Chris Ryan Page A

At 7pm the principal would be attending a drinks party followed by dinner at a private house from where a car would be collecting him and driving him home.
    At 10am precisely a dark green Rover swept to the kerbside and the principal climbed out. Slater recognised Salman Rushdie immediately from the many newspaper portraits that had been published over the years. Today, the novelist was swathed in a long belted overcoat and wearing a Parisian beret.
    'Mr Rushdie, I'm Neil Slater.'
    Was it Lord Rushdie? Had he read somewhere that the writer had been made a life peer? Had he made a fool of himself with his first word?
    But Rushdie still seemed to be smiling his oblique smile. 'I think we might start with some coffee,' he said. 'Just to fortify ourselves.'
    Slater looked around. No obvious assassin had presented himself. There were no cloaked anarchists carrying bombs, no wild-eyed sword-wielding dervishes. He led Rushdie up the hotel steps, into the large, ornate foyer, and thence to the dining room. Again, the place looked safe enough.
    'Why don't you sit here?' said Rushdie, pointing Slater to a window seat facing the door.
    Slater sat down. From the security viewpoint the position was a sensible one.
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    [^occurred to me recently,' the novelist continued, : people were to stop reading my books, I could ito the bodyguarding business myself. I've ably as much experience as anyone.' . sorry it's been necessary,' said Slater, idie nodded. The too. Me too. Now, how do t take your coffee?'
    sr had never guarded a celebrity before. With Regiment he'd been assigned occasional ;tion duties, but never of a recognisable figure. | he and Rushdie made their way through Harrods i minutes later he realised just how complex his task . to be. A lot of people recognised the novelist, and iy of them stared. Some manoeuvred themselves positions from where they could take a second jk. Whether any of this attention was hostile was lost impossible to determine. Rushdie had insisted r proceeding on foot -- he liked window-shopping, \ told Slater, and he liked to see the faces of strangers se up -- and the best that Slater could do was to erpose himself between Rushdie and anyone who
    it conceivably be an Islamic militant. For more than a decade the novelist had been the ject of a fatwa issued by Iran's supreme leader, the ^atollah Khomeini. This edict urged that Rushdie be led because of supposed blasphemy in one of his ^vels. A year ago, however, a less puritan Iranian Ivernment had announced it intended no harm to shdie, and for a time it had seemed as if he might sume normal life. And then a report had appeared in
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    told, the principal would be shopping for clothes in the SW1 area, and in the afternoon he would be watching a home game at Spurs' White Hart Lane football ground. At 7pm the principal would be attending a drinks party followed by dinner at a private house from where a car would be collecting him and driving him home.
    At 10am precisely a dark green Rover swept to the kerbside and the principal climbed out. Slater recognised Salman Rushdie immediately from the many newspaper portraits that had been published over the years. Today, the novelist was swathed in a long belted overcoat and wearing a Parisian beret.
    'Mr Rushdie, I'm Neil Slater.1
    Was it Lord Rushdie? Had he read somewhere that the writer had been made a life peer? Had he made a fool of himself with his first word?
    But Rushdie still seemed to be smiling his oblique smile. 'I think we might start with some coffee,' he said. 'Just to fortify ourselves.'
    Slater looked around. No obvious assassin had presented himself. There were no cloaked anarchists carrying bombs, no wild-eyed sword-wielding dervishes. He led Rushdie up the hotel steps, into the large, ornate foyer, and thence to the dining room. Again, the place looked safe enough.
    'Why don't you sit here?' said Rushdie, pointing Slater to a window seat facing the door.
    Slater sat down.