Ivory Nation by Andy Maslen (free children's ebooks online txt) 📕

Gabriel watched as the protesters with their bloody banner were briefly visible, yelling their slogans, before a group of men, clearly law enforcement, tackled them to the ground.

‘Idiots!’ Eli said.

‘Maybe they are, dear girl,’ Don said, ‘but look how we treat them. They weren’t allowed to get any closer or spoil the party, I’ll grant you. But there are places in the world, places you and Gabriel have been to, where they’d find themselves staring down the business end of an AK-47 for pulling a stunt like that.’

She grunted, clearly unwilling to cede the point to her boss.

Furey watched the incident in front of the church through her G3K’s telescopic sight. Her heart rate had settled once she realised the protesters were just intent on making a noise. They were well outside the fire zone Skip had laid down and she could already see some of Special Branch’s finest pummelling the protesters into submission.

She hadn’t been out of the army long, but long enough to have forgotten a lesson drummed into her. Stay situationally aware at all times. Watch for the absence of the normal or the presence of the abnormal.

The extraordinary events taking place in the crystal clarity of her scope’s reticle were partly to blame. But whatever the cause, she missed the faint scrape of a boot on the concrete behind her. By the time she registered the presence of her attacker, it was too late.

His knee drove the breath from her body and the knife that swept left to right across her throat ensured she’d never replace it.

4

Together, the men dragged the cop’s body to the far side of the tower. The spotter laid a black ripstop nylon groundsheet over the blood pool, then reached for his binoculars to monitor the procession.

The sniper picked up the police markswoman’s G3K. He ejected the magazine and checked it, then slotted it back into the receiver with a soft click.

He rested the bipod on the parapet and began adjusting the scope. Trying to avoid thinking about his wife and children, or the woman he’d just murdered, he focused on the princess and then moved the crosshairs over to her new husband, walking slowly to the coach and waving to the crowds.

Five-fifty metres. A student’s shot. Back in the day, he could have made it drunk. He could smell the spotter’s aftershave. Knew he would never again be able to endure it.

The princess was first into the coach, her ivory gown arrayed around her like a bubble bath. Beside her, the schvartze was grinning like an idiot, waving to the crowds. Man, you have only a few seconds left of your married life, so make the most of it.

He breathed in and re-centred the cross-hairs on the woman’s forehead. High, unlined. So clear in the precision-ground optics he could see a mole above her right eyebrow. I’m doing this for you, Alina. I’m sorry.

He breathed out. Squeezed his finger on the trigger, taking it to half-pressure. Three-point-seven pounds. Calibrated to his specific requirements by the armourer.

His heart beat once. He prayed for forgiveness.

It beat again. He felt the gold Star of David tremble against his chest. He tightened his finger.

Behind him, he heard the spotter’s boots scrape on the concrete but ignored it, filtering out all sound.

‘Put the rifle down, Dov,’ the spotter said.

He released the trigger.

‘What?’

Pressure from something hard on his skull, just behind his left ear, told him all he needed to know.

‘OK, OK!’ he said, taking both hands off the rifle.

‘Now stand up.’

He turned and his eyes widened. Where he had expected to see one man, two now stood. One aimed a pistol at his chest.

‘I thought you wanted me to kill her,’ he said.

‘Oh, I did. Tell you that, I mean. And as far as the world is concerned, you did.’

‘So you’re saying freedom of speech is another institution we should be proud of, boss?’ Gabriel asked.

‘In one. Personally, I find firebrands of any political persuasion about as welcome as a boil on the bum, as I think you know,’ he said, looking meaningfully at Christine, who chuckled. ‘But you take the rough with the smooth. Let them speak out. Keep them where we can see them, that’s my take on it.’

Gabriel sipped his champagne. The boss was wise. Gabriel had learned more from him than any man except Zhao Xi, his mentor and surrogate father growing up in Hong Kong. He pulled Eli closer and put his arm around her shoulders. He looked sideways at her and smiled.

In the stillness between two heartbeats, when the muscle deep in his chest was momentarily still, and his body existed only as a support system for the digit curled around the short curved length of steel, he fired.

He saw her head explode in a pink spray. Nodded once. Started thinking about extraction and exfiltration.

Eli jolted upright so fast she spilled her drink.

‘Oh, fuck!’ she shouted.

Gabriel stared at the TV screen. The coach had stopped moving. The horses were rearing in their harnesses, forelegs flailing empty air. The soundtrack was screams, shouts and the panicky voice of the BBC’s royal correspondent trying to be heard over the chaos. But it was the scene inside the carriage that held his attention.

The princess sprawled across her husband’s lap. The top of her head was gone. The dress, so recently a virginal white, was now besmirched, its bodice scarlet from throat to waist. Carty was screaming for help, his face spattered with stuff that resembled pink porridge. Two men were climbing into the carriage, one already stripping off his jacket and throwing it over the mess.

Gabriel swallowed, felt his vision closing in to a black pinpoint, and the scene before faded. He was lost to a memory so painful it still caused him to wake screaming in the night, drenched in sweat and trembling so violently Eli was unable to hold him still.

The beach.

Britta.

The shot from behind them.

Her