Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) by Nicholas P Clark Read Free Book Online Page B

they had already slipped through
South
Africa’s notoriously
porous borders then Robert would be sure
to hunt them down no matter how far they travelled. The settling of
such scores in other countries was never a straightforward pursuit, but
even the UK government would understand the need for such a reckoning, given the circumstances.
    Jack stood to one side as the paramedics stretchered Robert
out of
the car
park into the street. For a
brief
moment Jack found himself
completely alone in the car park. The dust thrown up by the blast still
hung heavily in the air and the smell of fuel remained potent. He carefully made his way through the maze of wreckage in the hope that he
might
come across another injured person—perhaps knocked unconscious by the blast—who knew
more about what was going
on than
Robert
pretended not to know. There were no further signs of life. That
Robert was treated last meant that his condition was not as serious as
the
others who were carried to safety
before him—or it could have
meant that his condition was so bad that they
didn’t believe that he
could
be saved—ethics mean that
every injured person had the right
to be treated but pragmatism in incidents such as that mean that the
main
aim was to save as many
someone
who was
quite clearly
other people who might
be saved if their injuries are treated in time
simply
made
sense—except to the seriously injured person and their
loved ones.
    Jack spotted what looked like a metal tube—it was badly scorched
which made proper identification from a distancea little difficult. The
object was suspiciously like something that the Islamic fundamentalists had used in the past as detonators when carrying out those kinds
of attacks. Sometimes the tubes were spent artillery shells, and sometimes they were custom made for a particular attack. Jack took a pen
from his jacket pocket and he bent down to take a closer look at the
object. He carefully probed the metal object with his pen, but after a
careful examination he concluded that it could have been anything.
Jack stood up just as someone entered through the entrance at the front
of the car park. At first the person didn’t see Jack standing at the side of
the car park where he found the metal cylinder. Jack was just about
to call over to the stranger to get him to have a look at the metal
35
     
    people as possible—wasting time on
beyond help at the
expense
of two
    object, but before he had a chance to call out, the man looked over at
Jack, paused for a moment, and then he broke into a sudden sprint as
he fled out into the street from where he came. Jack gave chase quickly
but by the time he got out onto the street, the man had gone.
    Several paramedics were milling around at the front
of the building and Jack hurried over to a paramedic who was closest to the entrance when the man ran off.
“Did you see a man leave the car park?” Jack asked.
    The paramedic paused and then said,
excitedly,
“Yeah, he almost
knocked me down
on the way
out. He ran
off
down the street. I lost
sight
of him in the crowd. Why? Do you think that he has something
to do with the bomb,” the man asked, hopefully.
    “Possibly,” Jack replied.
like that.”
The paramedic grinned.
“My friend, this
entire country is
packed with
men and woman
who are running away from something. There is every possibility that
guy
had simply
gone inside to see what
he could see and when he
saw you he thought that you might
be police,
or something. I really
wouldn’t read too much into it.”
Jack touched the man on the shoulder as he started to walk away.
“You are probably right, but I think that I will let the police know
what happened, just to be safe,” Jack added.
Jack had no intentions
of
calling in with the police to tell them
about the
man. The less the police knew about the
man, the
better.
Jack walked to the other side of the street. His training back in Scotland in the 1970s kicked in—he was told all those years ago to