Retribution by Ian Barclay Read Free Book Online Page B

pointed upward. “Tom Tower, over the main gate, was begun by Cardinal Wolsey, who founded Christ Church in 1525,
     and finished in the next century by Sir Christopher Wren. Its seven-ton bell, known as Great Tom, tolls a hundred and one
     times at 9:05 P.M . This was curfew time for the hundred and one original students, and the custom has been kept on. No doubt it tolls at five
     minutes past the hour to accommodate the objection of a student who pointed out that Oxford is five minutes west of the Greenwich
     meridian, east of London.”
    The law professors politely tittered at this distinction.
    Inside the briefcase the last few seconds of the six minutes set on the digital timer’s liquid crystal display flicked backward
     to four zeros. The automatic switches connected the battery to the fuse circuits. The fuse ignited the plastic explosive.
     The charge blew the three-inch steel nails packed tightly around it through the disintegrating briefcase leather. The stone
     wall behind the charge directed its force into the quad.
    The nails passed through the bodies of the nearest law professors without stopping.

CHAPTER

5
    Dartley first became aware of the Oxford attack that afternoon on a London street. The early editions of the evening papers
     carried it in banner headlines, and he saw more about it on the television news. No mention of the Ostend Concordance or that
     the attackers might be Arab. A Northern Ireland clergyman on a visit to Oxford was certain this was the work of the Provisional
     IRA.
    Six of the thirteen law professors had died within an hour of the explosion, cut to pieces by steel nails. Four others and
     their guide were badly injured, with two not expected to survive. The chief constable said that he had nothing further to
     say to the press at this, stage, but that the police had received important information and that arrests were imminent.
    Having taken an early train to Oxford next morning, Dartley avoided the main gate of Christ Church and spent some hours prowling
     student hangouts andbookstores close to that college. It was as if an unwritten pact had been made among the students not to speak of the incident
     and return to normal life immediately. Dartley reflected that on an American campus students would be compering to tell TV
     cameras how traumatized their lives were by the bombing. Here it was cold politeness and sealed lips.
    In a little lunch place he spotted a student who was almost certainly an Arab. The young man was alone, sitting at a small
     table at which there was one other chair.
    “Do you mind if I sit here?” Dartley asked, settling himself in the vacant chair.
    The student looked up from his food, a greasy mess of brown meat, gravy, potatoes, and soggy cabbage. He looked more than
     startled, maybe a bit frightened. His eyes flickered to several empty tables that Dartley might have taken. His eyes met the
     American’s cold, green killer’s eyes for a moment and he said, “No, I do not mind.”
    Dartley made no attempt to politely ease into conversation. “Yesterday’s incident: may be rough on you.”
    The student looked down at his food. “Why?”
    “Palestinians did it.”
    He looked up angrily. “I am not Palestinian. I am from Kuwait. If you know anything, you will know that we jail terrorists,
     not help them.”
    Dartley nodded and continued staring at the student. “Are you an American newspaperman?” the student asked.
    “Sometimes I claim I am, but no one believes me.”
    “Oh. Very well, I will not ask who you are.”
    “Nor I you,” Dartley said agreeably, adding, “if we get along.”
    The student was made angry again by this veiled threat. “I have a status in this country. My government sent me to Christ
     Church—”
    “You could be found in the river in a burlap bag,” Dartley told him in a low, serious voice.
    There was a certain earnest note of conviction in the American’s voice which made the Kuwaiti sit very still.
    Dartley