The Terrorists. Dennis Lehane

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СКАЧАТЬ the space for a shoulder holster, which the tailor had taken for granted. But Gunvald Larsson never used a shoulder holster. He carried his pistol in a clip in his belt. Here abroad, of course, he was not armed, but he would be using the suit in Stockholm. There had been a brief dispute and naturally he had had his way. What else? With deep satisfaction he glanced down at his well-tailored legs, sighed contentedly and looked around at his surroundings.

      They were standing on the eighth floor of the hotel, a spot chosen with great care. The motorcade would pass below the balcony and stop at the provincial palace a block away. Gunvald Larsson glanced politely at the plan, but without much enthusiasm, as by now he knew it all by heart. He knew that the harbour had been closed to all traffic that morning and the civilian airport had been closed since the presidential plane had landed.

      Straight ahead lay the harbour and the azure-blue sea. Several large passenger liners and cargo boats were anchored at its outer edges. The only ships moving were a warship, a frigate and a few police boats in the inner harbour. Below them lay the paseo, edged with palms and acacias. Across the street was a rank of taxis, and beyond that a row of colourful horse-drawn cabs. All these had been thoroughly checked.

      Every person in the area, apart from the military and civilian police forming an arm's-length barrier along each side of the paseo, had passed through metal detectors of the kind with which most larger airports were now equipped.

      The civilian police wore green uniforms, while the military police wore blue-grey. The civilian police wore boots, the military police high-top shoes.

      Gunvald Larsson suppressed a sigh. He had done a dummy run along this stretch at the rehearsal that morning. Everything had been in its place except the President himself.

      The motorcade was made up as follows. First, a motorcycle party of fifteen specially trained security police. After that, an equal number of motorcycle police from the regular force, followed by two cars loaded with security men. Then came the presidential car, a black Cadillac with bulletproof blue glass. (During the dummy run, Gunvald Larsson had sat in the back seat as a stand-in, unquestionably an honour.) Next came an open car full of security men, on the American model. And finally, more motorcycle police, followed by the radio reporters' bus and cars full of other authorized journalists. In addition, civilian security men were spread along the road from the airport.

      All the street lamps were decorated with pictures of the President. The route was fairly long, indeed very long, and Gunvald Larsson had had time to become quite bored with that bull-necked head, puffy face and black enamel steel-framed glasses.

      That was the ground protection. The airspace was dominated by army helicopters at three levels, with three choppers in each group. In addition, a division of Starfighters was sweeping back and forth, guarding the upper airspace.

      The entire operation was organized with such perfection that unpleasant surprises ought to be fairly unthinkable.

      The heat at this time of the afternoon was, to put it mildly, oppressive. Gunvald Larsson was sweating, but not excessively. He could not imagine that anything could go wrong. Preparations had been singularly detailed and thorough, and planning had been going on for several months. A special group had been assigned to look for faults in the planning, and a number of corrections had been made. Add to this the fact that every attempted assassination in this country – and there had been quite a few – had failed. The National Commissioner had probably been right when he said that they were the world's greatest experts in their field.

      At a quarter to three in the afternoon, Francisco Bajamonde Cassavetes y Larrinaga glanced at his watch and said, ‘Twenty-one minutes to go, I presume.’

      There had been no need for a Spanish-speaking delegate. The security man spoke the Queen's English as used in the most sophisticated clubs of Belgravia.

      Gunvald Larsson looked at his own chronograph and nodded. At that moment, to be more precise, it was exactly thirteen minutes and thirty-five seconds to three on Wednesday the fifth of June, nineteen hundred and seventy-four.

      Outside the harbour entrance, the frigate was turning to sound the welcoming salute, which was its only real assignment. High above the paseo the eight fighter planes drew white zigzag lines in the bright blue sky.

      Gunvald Larsson looked around. Down the paseo was a huge brick bullring with curved arcades plastered in red and white. In the other direction they were just turning on the multicoloured sprays of a tall fountain; there had been a severe drought all year and the fountains – this was not the only one – were only set going on especially grand occasions.

      Now they could hear the drone of helicopters and the sirens on the motorcycles. Gunvald Larsson checked the time. The motorcade seemed to be ahead of schedule. Then his china-blue gaze swept the harbour and noted that all the police boats were now in action. The harbour installations themselves were much the same as when he had been at sea, only the ships were completely different. Supertankers, container ships, huge ferries on which cars were more important than passengers – they were all unfamiliar to him from his own years at sea.

      Gunvald Larsson was not alone in his observation that the order of events was ahead of the prescribed schedule. Cassavetes y Larrinaga spoke swiftly but calmly into his radio, smiled at his fair-haired guest and looked out over the sparkling fountains, where the first motorbike formation of specially trained security police was already appearing between the lines of green-uniformed police officers.

      Gunvald Larsson shifted his gaze. Immediately below them a cigar-smoking security man was strolling along the middle of the street keeping an eye on the police marksmen posted on the surrounding roofs. Behind the line of policemen was the row of taxicabs with blue lines along their sides, and in front of them an open yellow-and-black horse-drawn carriage. The man on the box was also dressed in yellow and black, and the horse had yellow-and-black plumes in the band round its forehead.

      Behind all this were the palms and acacias and a few lines of curious people. A handful of them carried the only sign approved by the authorities, a picture of that bull-necked head, puffy face and black enamel steel-framed glasses. The President was not a particularly popular visitor.

      The motorcade was moving very quickly. The first of the Security Service cars was already below the balcony. The security expert smiled at Gunvald Larsson, nodded assuringly and began to fold up his papers.

      At that moment, the ground opened, almost directly beneath the bulletproof Cadillac.

      The pressure waves flung both men backwards, but if Gunvald Larsson was nothing else, he was strong. He grabbed the balustrade with both hands and looked upward.

      The roadway had opened like a volcano from which smoking pillars of fire were rising to a height of a hundred and fifty feet. Atop the flaming pillars were diverse objects. The most prominent were the rear section of the bulletproof Cadillac, an overturned black cab with a blue line along its side, half a horse with black-and-yellow plumes in the band round its forehead, a leg in a black boot and green uniform material, and an arm with a long cigar between the fingers.

      Gunvald Larsson ducked as a mass of flammable and nonflammable objects began to rain down on him. He was just thinking about his new suit when something struck him in the chest with great force and hurled him backwards on to the marble tiles of the balcony.

      The roar of the explosion finally faded away, and there were sounds of cries, desperate calls for help, someone weeping and another person screaming hysterical curses, before all human sounds were drowned by the sirens of ambulances and the wail of a fire engine.

      Gunvald Larsson got to his feet, found himself not seriously hurt and looked about to СКАЧАТЬ