State Of Emergency: (Tom Buckingham Thriller 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

show. Instead he shook his head mock-mournfully. ‘No rest for the wicked.’
    It was a line his mother sometimes used, which had always irritated him, but seemed right for filling another discomforting hole in the conversation. But that was enough. Down to business. ‘So, about last night.’
    Rolt groaned like a teenager and glanced at his watch. ‘God, do we have to?’
    Tom fixed him with a look that said, yes, they did. ‘It’s all pretty much sorted. I called the Security Service first. They had the whole area sealed off before the Met arrived. The spooks’ own team will have dealt with the body, and in your new position you’ll be able to see to it that it’s all swept under the carpet. The two who were in the room are being looked after. They’ve been told the consequences if they utter so much as one syllable. The girl didn’t see the face and the boy’s been read the Riot Act.’
    Rolt was visibly relieved. ‘Well, that should be an end to it. Good work.’ He started to collect together some papers on his desk.
    ‘Thanks. All the same, you’ll need to figure out what to say, in case it gets out.’
    Rolt glared. ‘So what if it does? It just confirms everything I’ve been saying. We have to face up to the Islamist threat here in our streets, and we have to act now – and fast.’
    He sounded like one of his own sound bites. Tom had guessed he would assume the obvious. He watched Rolt’s face carefully as he set him straight. ‘He was one of ours.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Fez Randall.’
    He watched Rolt closely as he delivered the bombshell. The look, a mixture of disbelief and disgust, that spread over his face seemed like a lot of Rolt’s expressions, manufactured rather than spontaneous. Had he known this was coming? Could he have known? ‘For God’s sake! The man was my driver only a few months ago.’
    Tom kept his eyes on him. ‘One of the original recruits, number five or six.’
    ‘Who left abruptly three months ago. Packed it all in.’
    ‘Why was that?’
    Rolt shrugged. ‘No idea.’
    Now his face reddened with indignation. ‘And after all I did for him! He was on his way to Hell in a bloody handcart when we picked him up. Would have dropped dead long ago either from drink or drugs if it wasn’t for us. What was his problem?’
    Tom wasn’t surprised by his show of amazement and dismay. Since the day Rolt had received the call inviting him to stand for Parliament, it was as if he had forgotten all about the men on whom his reputation had been built. Sure, he’d done good work by ploughing his fortune into helping servicemen who had fallen foul of civilian life. Many of them owed their rehabilitation to him. But he always assumed they would repay their debt to him by standing with him shoulder to shoulder, no matter where that led.
    ‘Always was a mouthy bastard. That’s why I stopped him driving for me. Bad attitude. And he’d lapsed, you know – couldn’t risk having him behind the wheel.’
    That didn’t fit with what Tom knew. Randall had a reputation for being a man of few words, who kept it all in. As for drink, Invicta had zero tolerance of alcohol. Rolt was passionately teetotal and key to the rehab programme was getting – and staying – dry. He would have to find out if Randall had in fact slipped off the wagon. ‘Was that why he left?’
    ‘How should I know?’
    What had made him so popular with those who he had helped was the structure he provided, an orderly routine around which they could rebuild themselves and take control of their lives outside the forces. In the past he had shown compassion only for those he thought of as ‘his’ men, many of whom had come to Invicta when they had reached rock bottom.
    The most visible enemies Rolt had made were among Britain’s Muslims, whom he had torn into indiscriminately, casting them all as the propagators of terror and death. And yet this would-be assassin had been one of his own, a previously dedicated Invicta