28

SCAMARCIO KEPT STARING AT Woodman and Jake, but Barkat started to notice, so he turned to look at one of the other hostages — the balding man in his mid-fifties with dark sweat patches under the arms of his once pristine shirt. Barkat glanced away again, preoccupied, and Scamarcio immediately returned his gaze to the Americans, willing one of them to look up. But they didn’t. He could feel Barkat’s eyes on him again, so he bent down and started pulling off his right shoe. He was almost afraid to see what had happened to his heel. It was now giving him as much pain as his jaw, which seemed crazy.

The back of his sock was wet with blood, and he decided not to remove it for fear of infection. He pulled on the shoe again, and could clearly feel something biting into his skin. He removed the shoe a second time, took off the sock, and examined the bruised and bloodied skin. It looked nasty, but it would have to wait.

He glanced up at the Americans, but they were still staring into nothing, looking like they’d given up. Jesus, thought Scamarcio, show some initiative. He went to put his shoe back on, but as he did so, his finger caught against something in the lining. There was a thick lump the width of a 50-cent coin inside the canvas where it covered his heel — that’s what had been causing him all this trouble.

He looked to see what Barkat was doing and, satisfied he wasn’t being observed, examined the shoe under the table. There was a small round protrusion sitting just above the stitching at the back. The blue stitches looked as if they had been opened, and then neatly resewn, but the new stitches formed a darker, thicker line when he compared them with those of the left shoe. He checked Barkat again — he was talking to the smallest, youngest-looking of the three terrorists. Scamarcio felt his left shoe — there was no lump under the canvas.

He thought back. What could have happened to his shoes in the last twenty-four hours? He was pretty sure that lump hadn’t been there when he’d left his flat yesterday morning, and his shoes had only started to bother him in the past day, really. His mind suddenly flashed on his bare feet on the floor of the room where the British had questioned him. They’d brought back his shirt and jacket, but had claimed to have forgotten the shoes. They’d handed them over just before he left. You sly fuckers, he thought. Then, in the next instant he tapped his heel. ‘Hey,’ he whispered. ‘If you’re listening, tell NCOS that they’ll need to stand by for entry. We’re going to try something from the inside.’

‘Why are you muttering?’ yelled Barkat from across the room.

‘Like I told you, I’m losing my mind,’ shouted Scamarcio, hoping Woodman would finally glance round. He did. Scamarcio stared at him, unblinking. Woodman just stared back, perplexed.

Scamarcio sank back into a bored silence and noticed a paper napkin dispenser on the table in front of him. He pulled out a few sheets and began making origami birds, trying not to think about Fiammetta, trying not to worry about the baby, trying not to wonder if it had ever existed. How would he feel if she was pregnant? He knew it was too dangerous to allow his mind to go there. He couldn’t be railroaded by emotion; he had to stay sharp.

After he’d observed a dense column of ants cross the floor beneath his table and then return fifteen times with tiny crumbs of bread on their backs, after he’d counted over twelve different configurations in the chimes from a nearby church, and watched as the small strips of daylight surrounding the black flag on the window dimmed to almost nothing, Scamarcio finally used up the last serviette, and finished with the birds. Fifty swans now covered his table, miniature and pristine, but destined never to take flight.

‘Fifteen minutes left until the deadline,’ announced Barkat. He looked back at his phone, nonchalant, as if he was simply counting down the minutes until his favourite show was due on TV.

It was now or never. ‘Give me your rifle!’ yelled Scamarcio.

Barkat just shook his head, irritated, as if he really did believe Scamarcio was mad.

‘Give me your gun!’

‘Shut up, cretin!’

Scamarcio suddenly started bashing his head against the table, like a guy possessed. Birds scattered onto the floor in all directions. The four terrorists all turned to look at him. He heard murmurs among the hostages, then shouts. ‘Stop it!’ Barkat was screaming. ‘Stop it, you moron!’

‘We need to kill him,’ said one of the terrorists. ‘Now, Barkat!’

Scamarcio heard triggers being released, breath being held. Please, someone have some initiative, he prayed.

‘Aaaaaaaaaargh.’ There was an almighty roar, like in a rugby haka, and Scamarcio looked up to see the cameraman, Jake, swinging a fist into the side of Barkat’s face. The blow sent him crashing into the wall. One of the other terrorists turned and ran at him, but Woodman and his presenter, along with a young male hostage, managed to wrestle him to the ground. Scamarcio caught the glint of something metallic in Woodman’s hand.

Jake was still striking Barkat, again and again, until he slid to the floor, where Jake began kicking him while he was prone. But Barkat wasn’t their only problem.

A third terrorist was aiming his rifle at Jake, and, with a sick feeling, Scamarcio knew he wouldn’t be able to get there in time. The young hostage apparently realised the same thing and threw himself on the terrorist as if he was trying to ride piggyback. The other hostages were now all up off the floor and helping pull at the terrorist’s legs and arms, dragging him down. He landed with a crash.

Barkat was writhing on the ground, blood gushing from a wound in the side of his head.

Scamarcio turned and saw that Woodman and the second terrorist were now locked in hand-to-hand combat, the blade in Woodman’s hand grinding slowly back and forth between them. Scamarcio suddenly realised that, with his other hand, the terrorist was reaching for a small pistol at his belt. He dove at him, wrenched the gun from his hand, and shot the man in the head, splattering Woodman and his assistant, Clare, with blood and brain matter.

Clare just blinked a few times and wiped her face with her sleeve. She seemed preoccupied with what was happening to her right. Scamarcio followed her gaze, and saw that the third terrorist was on the floor, the hostages all piled on top of him. We can’t kill them all, thought Scamarcio. We need answers. But then a gunshot exploded, and he turned to see Jake sprawled on his back, blood seeping from his chest.

Barkat was attempting to sit up, his rifle shaky. Scamarcio ran over and tried to punch him in the jaw, but missed. His vision was too blurry from blood — whose, he wasn’t sure. He swung at Barkat a second time, this time connecting, and Barkat’s head fell back and slammed into the floor. His eyes closed, and his mouth drooped open, and Scamarcio knew that he’d be out for more than a few minutes.

Scamarcio tried to breathe, tried to think. The hostages to his right were still wrestling with the third terrorist. Where was the fourth one? Scamarcio hadn’t seen him in any of this.

‘If you can hear me, send in NCOS. But hold fire,’ he shouted, thinking there was no way they’d make him out above the din. But, whether by coincidence or design, just seconds later the glass door shattered, and a troop of snipers crashed in through the barricade of furniture. They resembled a black swarm, their green NiteSites pulsing like fireflies. The commander took a quick look at the scene and yelled, ‘Vests?’

But before Scamarcio could reply, there was a bang, and one of the snipers started spinning and twitching. Scamarcio traced the direction of the fire and spotted the fourth terrorist, barricaded behind some tables at the back of the café. He was shooting wildly, panic taking hold. The SWAT team had their weapons trained on him in seconds, and he swirled and jerked like a manic marionette as their bullets took him down.

‘No vests,’ shouted Scamarcio.

‘Contain the suspect,’ barked the commander through his mike.

The hostages parted as the snipers took over. The fourth terrorist was rolled onto his chest, and his arms bound with thick black wire. While this was being done, two other snipers were checking for a suicide vest. The procedure was being repeated on each of the other terrorists.

‘Any more?’ shouted the commander.

‘Just them,’ said Scamarcio, exhaustion hitting him like a freight train. ‘It’s just them, now.’