yet. Too many police around.
Sean knows he'll be spotted, knows they'll get him. He's thinking of... of creating a diversion. Yes, that's it, a diversion!' Jordan's eyes blazed open.
'Oh, fuck! Now he's primed it!'
'Primed!' Darcy snapped at the two officers, who at once turned away and began speaking into walkie-talkies. Up on the roof of a building, Harry caught the glint of metal as a marksman took his position behind a parapet.
'Primed, yes ... " Jordan's eyes were squeezed tightly shut again, and sweat rivered his face. 'And he's set the timer for ... just one and a half minutes!'
'God!' Darcy was trembling; he looked like he might make a run for it, which told him - and Harry Keogh - a lot.
Trevor,' the Necroscope spoke softly. 'With only ninety seconds left, Sean has to be on the move. Which way's he heading?'
But Darcy Clarke babbled, 'Oh, I can tell you that!'
And Harry continued to speak to Jordan: 'Has he still got the bomb?'
'Yes!'Jordan's gasped answer, as he squeezed his temples more yet. 'But he knows he must get rid of it, and now!
Jesus, fifteen pounds of semtex!'
'Christ!' Darcy suddenly yelped. 'Let me in the car. I've got to get out of here!' He made to scramble for his car, tripped and went sprawling across the back of the police vehicle.
And it happened. A tal thin man with a pale, badly pock-marked face, wearing a loosely flapping overcoat and carrying a sausage-shaped holdall, came at a run down the middle of the road. Jordan looked up, saw him, yelped: 'Sean!' And the recognition was mutual. Not that Milligan recognized Trevor Jordan, but seeing the squad car, the senior policemen, and three civilians all grouped on the traffic island - and all staring at him - he did know that he'd been made.
The right-hand side of his coat went back and the snout of an ugly, short-barrelled machine-pistol swung into view.
Harry sensed hasty movement on a roof, the re-alignment of a weapon; Milligan sensed it, too, and the gun in his hand swept up, his thin lips drew back, and both he and his machine-pistol snarled their abuse! Bullets chewed the high parapet of the building, causing the marksman up there to duck down out of sight. And over the chatter of Milligan's gun, Harry heard Jordan cry out:
'Getaway! He's looking for the getaway car!'
Milligan was maybe forty feet away, pointing his gun here, there, everywhere, trying to choose a main target. A secondary crowd of people had come bursting out of a large store onto the street, but they weren't a threat to the IRA man. On the other hand, the sausage-shaped holdall in his hand was definitely a threat to them. And it was rapidly becoming one to Sean Miligan, too.
As the Necroscope glanced again at his watch and saw that there was something less than a minute to go, two things happened. Darcy Clarke had finally got into his car, started the motor, and was making to drive away. His car had just lurched off the traffic island onto the street when a second car, low, dark, fast and mean, came careening through a traffic barrier in a tangle of twisted metal. The two vehicles collided; Darcy's car was thrown back onto the traffic island and the rogue car glanced off, smashed through a pair of bollards, mounted the kerb and nose-dived through a store window. Scan Milligan wouldn't be making his getaway after al.
He knew it, and it was time to apply the crazed logic of the total terrorist. The sniper on the roof couldn't get off a shot at Sean because of the people on the street; Sean had to get rid of his holdall in the next twenty seconds and then make one hell of a run for it, but first he had to get these people out of his fucking way and he couldn't shoot them all. He aimed his gun at the parapet hiding the sniper, pulled the trigger and stitched the wall of the building with a tracery of bullets. Then, as the milling people scrambled for cover, Sean chose his target. Not so difficult, for there was only one target after all: the City Centre itself, and what could only be a bunch of top-ranking officials and police officers.
By now he should have been shot dead, and he knew that, too. Which meant there were no armed policemen on the ground in the immediate vicinity. So maybe he stood a slight