Free Dead Man's Gift 03 - Today by Simon Kernick Page B

Celia.
    ‘You’d better fucking do,’ she snapped back. ‘I want to know what’s going on.’
    Don’t we all, thought Frank, making a left turning and heading for the emergency staircase. Keeping the phone to his ear, even though he’d ended the call, he went through the doors and descended the first flight of steps, slipping into the shadows. The stairwell was empty and he took out the pistol, keeping it down by his side.
    He didn’t have to wait long. Orla might have been a pro hooker but she was an amateur surveillance operative, and she came through the doors quickly, no longer talking on the phone, and was already halfway down the steps before she saw Frank.
    She was a looker, he had to admit. Nice firm tits; a pouty, come-to-bed face; and big blue eyes that suddenly looked very scared as she saw the gun with the suppressor attached in Frank’s hand.
    ‘How did you find me?’ he demanded. ‘Answer truthfully or I’ll shoot you in the gut.’
    She answered without hesitation and even put her hands up. ‘We put a tracking device on your car.’
    ‘Who’s we?’
    ‘The man who rescued me.’
    ‘Scope?’
    She nodded, seemingly surprised that Frank knew who he was.
    ‘Is he here?’
    She nodded again.
    ‘Thanks,’ he said, and shot her once just above the left boob. Then, as she clattered in a heap down the remaining steps, he took a step forward and put one in the back of her head, just to make sure. It was the first time he’d killed someone at close range, and he had to admit it felt very satisfying.
    He considered staying put and waiting for Scope to turn up, which he was pretty sure wouldn’t be long, but decided against it. It was one thing killing a cheap hooker, quite another to take out an ex-soldier with a penchant for violence. Instead, he took a quick look round for any unseen cameras, didn’t spot any and, with a feeling of relief mixed with excitement, hurried down the stairs, knowing he needed to get out of here fast.
    Scope heard about the bomb as he passed a nurse’s station on the second floor. A group of staff members were clustered round a small TV on the wall, staring at the screen, where a reporter was talking from outside the Houses of Parliament as emergency vehicles clustered into shot behind him. He slowed just long enough to read the Breaking News headline along the bottom of the screen which told of an explosion in a select committee hearing.
    So Bale had detonated the bomb from inside the hospital.
    And Tim Horton must have ignored Scope’s advice and been wearing it, otherwise there’d have been no explosion. It seemed his former brother-in-law had had more guts than Scope had given him credit for.
    But with him gone, Scope had to find Max even more urgently, because the kidnappers no longer needed him, and there was no way they were letting him go.
    In the call Scope had received from Orla three minutes earlier, she’d told him that Bale was just about to go down the emergency staircase next to the entrance to the Maternity Ward. He’d told her to wait for him, but as he approached the staircase doors now, dodging past the people coming and going in both directions, he couldn’t see her. He stopped in front of the doors, and looked up and down the corridor without success. She must have followed Bale.
    Scope raced through the doors, hoping to catch Orla up before she got herself spotted, and straight away he saw her lying at the bottom of the steps, a dark pool of blood forming round her head.
    Not even thinking about what evidence he might be leaving behind, he crouched down next to her. Her eyes were closed and her face looked perfectly normal except for the jagged fifty-pence-sized exit wound on her forehead. He felt for a pulse but there was nothing. She was gone.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I really am.’
    Then, knowing there was nothing he could do for her, he jumped to his feet and raced down the stairs, taking them two, three, even four at a time,