Joe Dempsey stood at a window, less than four hundred yards away. His view from here was every bit as good as Joshua’s. His mood was not.
For half his life Dempsey had been employed to identify and neutralise threats. To expect the unexpected. The unthinkable. Eighteen years of that would affect any man and Dempsey was no exception. He saw danger everywhere. Dempsey sometimes wondered if this was thanks to his training, or if it was just paranoia. But such doubts did not worry him today. Today the threat was very real.
‘It’s not looking any better down there, I take it?’
A soft voice with a distinct Edinburgh lilt interrupted Dempsey’s thoughts. He turned towards the speaker.
Callum McGregor sat at the only table in the room. The director of the Department of Domestic Security was a colossus of a man. Six foot six and 270 lb. He over-crowded his empty desk.
Dempsey walked towards the director without a word. Dempsey was a big man himself, but he moved lightly. He pulled a chair to the other side of the desk and sat without waiting for permission.
He looked McGregor in the eye.
‘It won’t get better, Callum. We can’t control a space this big and this public.’
Dempsey’s voice was harsher than McGregor’s. It was less refined, more intense. This was to be expected. McGregor’s was the voice of a diplomat. Dempsey was the diplomat’s threat.
‘You know you’re preaching to the choir, Joe. But it changes nothing. We’ll do the best we can with what we have.’
‘What we have isn’t enough.’
Dempsey’s reply was blunt but not insubordinate. McGregor was the senior of the two, but mutual respect cut through rank. He continued.
‘It’s not just numbers. There are seven different agencies out there, Callum. All working independently from one another. Christ knows why we need that many. If we’d kept it to a single agency this thing could be properly coordinated.’
‘The Americans were never going to pass President Knowles’ protection to us, Joe. That one was a given even before the threat against Thompson.’
McGregor was telling Dempsey nothing new.
‘And we weren’t letting them do it alone. No way we risk losing either of the ultra VIPs – president or ex-president – on British soil. Which means too many chefs in the kitchen already, even before our individual agencies start squabbling to be here. All things considered, this isn’t the mess it could be.’
Dempsey leaned back in his chair. It irritated him when McGregor was right. Which the director usually was. But knowing the ‘why’ did not make the facts any easier to swallow. An event this public, with US presidents past and present in attendance? Even without the British politicians on hand – and they would be on hand, thanks to the publicity it would bring – it was nothing short of a nightmare.
If there is a terrorist attack today, Dempsey thought, it’ll take a miracle to stop it.
The thought was banished as his earpiece flickered into life.
‘POTUS has left the Music Room. Bamboo to move in nine minutes. On my mark. Three, two, one, mark.’
The United States Secret Service had been protecting its presidents for over a century. And its former ones, too. In that time they had honed their techniques to perfection. Four short sentences were all it took to put every agent on notice.
The countdown had begun.
Dempsey synchronised his watch as the voice in his ear declared ‘mark’. McGregor did the same. Between them the two men had seen more action than the average infantry platoon. They had run covert missions from one side of the world to the other. Today’s assignment was a walk in the park in comparison. But still Dempsey’s instincts were screaming.
Dempsey got to his feet. His ramrod-straight military bearing took full advantage of his six feet two inches. That height, combined with a powerful physique discernible even under his suit, made him an intimidating presence. His dark, piercing eyes, set deep in a face that carried the damage of a life lived dangerously, completed the picture. He was not an unattractive man. Far from it. But when it suited him, Joe Dempsey could be terrifying.
Those dark eyes now met McGregor’s, and no words were needed. The concern on the director’s face said enough.
Perhaps Dempsey was not the only one with a bad feeling after all.