Table of Contents
Jenny twisted in her seat and studied the pavilion anxiously, half-expecting a swarm of people to suddenly emerge from it and charge them down, hell-bent on pulling them out of the car and ripping their throats out.
My God, doesnt this feel just like that... Like one of those crazy zombie movies?
This whole situation was like some post-apocalyptic scenario; the glimmering firelight from the bonfire, the debris and detritus strewn across the tarmac, the flickering torchlight and the frantically scrabbling crowd inside the building, the noise, the chaos.
Paul drove across the car-park towards the exit leading on to the slip-road that led out to the motorway and headed south once more.
She watched the service station in the wing mirror until it disappeared from view.
My God, this is how it is after only four days.
Alex Scarrow lives a nomadic existence with his wife Frances and his son Jacob, their current home being Norwich. He spent the first 10 years out of college in the music industry chasing record deals and the next 12 years in the computer games business. His previous novel - A Thousand Suns - is also available from Orion paperbacks. Visit his website at www.scarrow.co.uk.
By Alex Scarrow
A Thousand Suns
Last Light
Last Light
ALEX SCARROW
Orion
www.orionbooks.co.uk
For my son Jacob, smart, imaginative... and maybe one day, competition. I love you man.
For Jacobs eyes only:
VQ BMJJN RJXB GR ZWB BDWCB RNBADC
FADNSRMPR
OQXL CGN JRMP NO RWZTDUZWC
Acknowledgements
Theres a small list of people that deserve a mention for the help they gave me in putting together this book. Theres no particular order in which I want to do this, so Ill dive right on in.
Robin Carter for extensive proofing and valuable comments. Yes... his name does appear in the book as you, dear reader, will soon see. Obviously for legal reasons, I need to say something about this being utterly coincidental and any resemblance... blah, blah, blah. A damn good character name that. I also want to thank Andy Canty for his proof reading and comments as well, and again... thats another Christian name that has turned up in the book! Funny old world.
My thanks also go out to someone I cant name for security reasons, who gave me some useful on the streets details of life in Iraq. He knows Im thanking him anonymously like this, and thats how it needs to be.
I want to thank my wife, Frances, for reading the first draft. I must extend my apologies for making her cry with the second draft. Her comments were many and varied; youll never truly know how valuable her feedback is. Dad, Tony, and brother, Simon, thanks you two for your encouragement. Additional thanks go to Jerry Stutters for some background military details.
Finally, a thank you to my editor, Jon Wood, and agent, Eugenie Furniss, for working with me on this and helping me to finesse the story and take it up to the next level.
December 1999
Room 204
She stared at the door of room 204.
Like every other door along the corridor, it was a rich dark wood with the room number and handle in gold plate.
A bloody expensive hotel, thats what Dad had said.
Enjoy it guys... well probably never stay in another as expensive as this one.
Hed made a joke to Mum about sneaking out the bathrobes and selling them at some place called eee-bay.
The corridor was silent; leaving the lift her footsteps were hushed by the thick carpet - not even the muted noise of quiet conversations or a TV on low, coming from any of the rooms, the doors were so thick and heavy.
Now it was decision time... and she knew this would happen on the way up from the foyer, where shed left Mum waiting impatiently. She knew she was going to forget the number in the lift going up - way too busy thinking about what she was going to buy with the spends Dad had given her for the trip.
204? It is 204 isnt it?... Or was it 202?
Leona wondered if Dads business was all done now, or if he was still waiting for his mystery visitor. Hed been a little nervous and jumpy when he had shoo-ed her and Mum out to go window-shopping; snappy, tense, just like Leona remembered being on her first day at big school earlier that year.
Nervous - exactly like that.
Mum was pretty sure he must have finished his meeting by now. Since hed bundled them out a couple of hours ago, theyd both visited a big department store glistening with Christmas displays, and grabbed a coffee and a Danish in a bustling coffee shop that overlooked the busy streets surrounding Times Square. And Dad had assured them his very important business meeting would be over quickly.
Leona hoped maybe he would be able to join them; to come back down with her now that the work part of their family trip to New York was over. It wasnt the same without him. But either way she really needed to pick up that beanie-bag of hers with all her spends in. There were just too many things shed seen in the last two hours that she desperately needed to buy.
She decided it was room 204 they were staying in, not 202, after all. She placed her hand on the old-fashioned brass door-handle. She noticed a flicker of light through the keyhole beneath.
Dad nervously pacing the room? Or maybe his meeting had started already? She was about to hunker down and spy through the keyhole to be sure she wasnt going to interrupt his business, but her grasp of the door-handle was heavy enough that, with a click, the latch disengaged and the door swung in heavily.
The three men stared at her, their conversation frozen in time. They stood at the end of the emperor-sized bed; three men, old men, very smart men, looking down at her. She noticed a fourth, younger, dark-haired man standing to one side, a deferential distance away from the others. He broke the moment, starting to move swiftly towards her, his hand reaching into a pocket.
No, whispered one of the three. That stopped him dead, although his hand remained inside his smart jacket.
The one who spoke turned towards Leona, stooping down slightly. I think youve come into the wrong room my dear, he said, his voice pleasant and disarming, like a doting grandfather.
He smiled warmly at her, I think your room is next door.
Im really s-sorry, Leona replied awkwardly, taking a contrite step backwards out of the room and into the corridor, pulling the door after her.
The door closed gently with a click of the latch and there was a long silence before one of the two older men who had remained silent, turned to the others.
She saw all three of us. We were seen together.
A pause.
Is this going to pose a problem?
Dont worry. She doesnt know who we are. She doesnt know why were here.
Our anonymity is everything... as it has always been, since
Shes a little girl. A few years from now, the only thing shell remember will be whatever she got for Christmas and the Millennium Eve fireworks. Not three boring old men in a room.
The Present
Monday
CHAPTER 1
8.05 a.m. GMT BBC, Shepherds Bush, London
Hes lost some weight, said Cameron.
