Macbeth

Duff hardly heard the bang.

Malcolm staggered back, and the megaphone fell to the ground with a clang.

Duff and Fleance reacted at once, throwing themselves over Malcolm and covering him as he fell to the ground. Duff felt for blood and a pulse.

‘I’m fine,’ Malcolm groaned. ‘I’m fine. Up you get. He hit the megaphone. That was all.’

‘When you said shut him up, I thought you meant permanently,’ Seyton shouted. ‘Now they’ll think we’re weak, sir.’

‘Wrong,’ Macbeth said. ‘Now they know we mean business, but we’re sane. If we’d killed Malcolm we’d have given them an excuse to attack us with the fury of righteousness. Now they’ll still hesitate.’

‘I think they’re going to attack anyway,’ Olafson said. ‘Look, there’s our armoured car. It’s coming towards us.’

‘Well, that’s different. A chief commissioner is allowed to defend himself. Seyton?’

‘Yes?’

‘Let the Gatling girls speak.’

Duff peeped from behind Bertha and followed the lumpen armoured car — known as a Sonderwagen — as it made its way across the square towards the Inverness. Thick, heavy diesel smoke drifted up from the vehicle’s exhaust. German engineering, steel plates and bulletproof glass. Ricardo’s plan followed usual tactics. The six SWAT volunteers would drive up to the entrance in the Sonderwagen, dismount to fire tear-gas canisters through the windows, then break down the doors and storm the building wearing gas masks. The critical point was when they emerged from the armoured car to fire the tear gas. This would take only seconds, but in those seconds they needed covering fire from the others.

Malcolm’s walkie-talkie crackled, and they heard Ricardo’s voice.

‘Covering fire in three... two... one...’

‘Fire!’ Malcolm roared.

It sounded like a drum roll as the weapons fired from the barricade. From an all-too-small drum, Duff thought. And the sound was drowned by a rising howl from the other side.

‘Holy Jesus,’ Caithness whispered.

At first it resembled a shower of rain whipping up dust from the cobbles in front of the Sonderwagen. Then with a cackle it hit the vehicle’s grille, its armour, the windscreen and the roof. The vehicle seemed to sag at the knees and sink.

‘The tyres,’ Fleance said.

The vehicle kept moving, but more slowly, as though it were driving into a hurricane.

‘It’s fine. It’s an armoured car,’ Malcolm said.

The vehicle advanced more and more slowly. And stopped. The side mirrors and bumper fell off.

‘It was an armoured car,’ Duff said.

‘Ricardo?’ Malcolm called on the walkie-talkie. ‘Ricardo? Withdraw!’

No answer.

Now the vehicle seemed to be dancing.

Then the barrage stopped. Silence fell over the square, broken only by a seagull’s lament as it flew over. Smoke, like red vapour, rose from the armoured car.

‘Ricardo! Come in, Ricardo!’

Still no answer. Duff stared at the vehicle, at the wreck. There were no signs of life. And now he knew how it had been. That afternoon in Fife.

‘Ricardo!’

‘They’re dead,’ Duff said. ‘They’re all dead.’

Malcolm sent him a sidelong glance.

Duff ran a hand over his face. ‘What’s the next move?’

‘I don’t know, Duff. That was the move.’

‘The fire engine,’ Fleance said.

The others looked at the young man.

He shrank beneath their collective gaze and for a moment seemed to stagger under the weight of it. But he straightened up and said with a slight quiver of his vocal cords, ‘We have to use the fire engine.’

‘It’s no good,’ Malcolm objected.

‘No, but if we drive it round to the back, to Thrift Street.’ Fleance paused to swallow before continuing. ‘You saw they hit the armoured car with both machine guns, and that must mean they’re not covering their rear.’

‘Because they know we can’t get in there,’ Duff said. ‘There are no doors and no windows, there’s only brick, which you’d need a pneumatic drill or heavy artillery to go through.’

‘Not through,’ Fleance said. His voice was firmer now.

‘Round?’ Duff queried.

Fleance pointed a finger to the sky.

‘Of course!’ Caithness said. ‘The fire engine.’

‘Spit it out. What’s so obvious?’ growled Malcolm, snatching a glance at the mountain.

‘The ladder,’ Duff said. ‘The roof.’

‘They’re moving the fire engine,’ Seyton shouted.

‘Why?’ Macbeth yawned. The boy was sitting on the floor with his legs crossed and eyes closed. Calm and silent, he seemed to have reconciled himself to his fate and was just waiting for the end. Like Macbeth.

‘I don’t know.’

‘What about you, Olafson?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’