Carver - By Tom Cain Page 0,123

her lips as Novak’s body twitched and her head thrashed from side to side to escape the blistering heat.

‘Stop! Please stop!’ Novak begged, and Alix let go of the nozzle, killing the fire.

There were tears in Novak’s eyes. She was crying in pain, and that was somehow the hardest thing of all for Alix to bear. ‘For God’s sake, just tell me what I need to know,’ she pleaded.

Novak looked at her. ‘Grenade attack. Through windows. Everybody dies.’ And then, as Alix got to her feet, she added, ‘But you’re too late … you’re much too late.’

93

* * *

FOR THE PAST few months, every time Zorn had landed a major investor, he had started buying ‘put’ options on the shares of the corporations they owned or managed, betting that the value of those corporations would go down. He was, essentially, taking a bet on the value of their deaths. And each had a different price on his head.

A faceless chief executive, for example, who had siphoned off billions from a multinational bank, would not be missed for long. There was always another greedy cipher in a suit waiting to take his place. So his company’s shares would be rocked, but not devastated, by his passing. A brilliant entrepreneur, on the other hand, whose vision had transformed a fledgling computer brand into an iconic global technology brand, was a very different matter. Men like that – and they were almost invariably men – were stars. Their customers were also their fans. Remove them, and the companies they had created might not collapse, but they would be shaken to their very foundations. And their share prices would drop like stones.

During his brief shift as a waiter, Zorn had confirmed the presence of several such individuals scattered amidst the guests thronging the Goldsmiths’ Hall. So now he started buying ‘puts’ on their shares, doubling and even trebling the size of his existing positions, looking for options that needed to be exercised at the earliest possible dates. Since the market was rising, no one was interested in options that depended on prices falling within the next week, or less. That made those options dirt cheap. So Zorn was able to make his money go much further, leveraging his cash so that any fall in the market would net him staggering profits. Of course, by the same token, any rise would render his options worthless. But the prices were not going to rise. That he, and he alone, knew for sure.

As he put the last components of his plan in place, Zorn was struck for a moment by the extraordinary reality of what he was doing. An act of mass-murder was about to take place at his request, the second in the space of just four days. It struck him that he was not remotely bothered. He didn’t feel bad about it at all. He wanted people to die. He wanted other children to feel the same way he had done when fate had robbed him of his parents. He wanted to wallow in death.

A few metres away, Braddock shifted his position and reached for the cord that controlled the window blinds.

He looked at Zorn.

‘It’s show time,’ he said. Then he lifted the grenade launcher to his shoulder.

94

* * *

CARVER EMERGED FROM the side entrance to the Goldsmiths’ Hall and had himself patched through to the spotters on the far side of Gresham Street. ‘I assume you’re armed.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you using laser sights?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, do me a favour and switch them on. Then track me. Whoever I talk to, point the sights at them.’

‘Got it.’

Carver crossed Gutter Lane, looking down it as he went. He could see the lights from the party on one side of the narrow street. He could see the Wax Chandlers’ Hall on the other side, so close the two buildings almost seemed in touching distance. He started to get a very bad feeling indeed.

Two security guards in cheap black suits and over-gelled hair were standing on either side of the entrance to the Wax Chandlers’ Hall. Beyond them a short flight of steps led up through an arched portico to the interior of the building.

Carver went up to the nearest guard and produced his Ministry of Defence ID.

‘I need to get into the building,’ he said.

‘No, you don’t,’ said the guard. ‘No one gets in unless they’re on the list. You’re not on the list. You don’t get in.’

He gave a smug, self-satisfied nod, as if delighted by his awesome powers of