Scimitar SL-2 Read Free

pleas to know what was going on—since his captors plainly had the wrong man—he was told softly and firmly, Keep quiet, Dr. Landon, we wish only to talk to you and then you will be set free.
    The first part was accurate. Almost. The second part was a lie. Lava Landon already knew far too much.
     
    Back at the scene of the crimes, two ambulances were transporting the bodies of the murdered officers to St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, and a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals van was loading the carcass of Roger into a box, while the police were desperately looking for witnesses.
    But no one had heard gunshots. No one had actually seen either policeman being attacked. No, it was impossible to identify the exact type of four-wheel-drive wagon that may have contained the criminals. No one had seen its license plate.
    Someone thought it had driven off with no lights. Someone thought it turned right, down Exhibition Road. Someone else thought it turned left. No one could cast a single ray of light on the physical appearance of its occupants.
    It was the most brutal slaying of police officers in London for nearly half a century, since the night when gangsters gunned down three policemen in Shepherd’s Bush, a couple of miles to the west of the Albert Hall.
    But at that time, the police had been pretty sure who had committed the crime within about five minutes of the shooting. This time they did not have the remotest idea. They had no clues, no witnesses, and absolutely no motives to work on. And of course, they had no notion whatsoever that a celebrity kidnap victim was being held in the back of the getaway vehicle.
     
    The interrogation of Professor Landon began at one o’clock in the morning. The black bag had been removed from his head, his wrists were unbound, and he was given coffee at a large dining room tablein a white room with no windows. Flanking the door were two Middle Eastern–looking guards wearing blue jeans, black boots, and short brown leather jackets. Both were holding AK-47s.
    Before him sat a broad-shouldered English army-officer type, more formally dressed, no longer wearing sunglasses. He too was Middle Eastern in appearance, but his voice and tone could have been honed nowhere else on earth but a leading English public school.
    The discussion was about volcanoes.
     
    How many genuine eruptions have occurred in the world in recent years?
    Probably a hundred since 2002, maybe a few more.
    Can you name some?
    Certainly…Montserrat in the West Indies…Karangetang, Indonesia…San Cristobal, Nicaragua…Tangkubanparahu in Java…at least three on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Siberia…Fuego in Guatemala…Stromboli in Italy…Kavachi Seamount, Solomon Islands…Chiginagak Island, Alaska…
    How many in the past twelve months?
    You mean serious ones, or just rumblings?
    How many explosions?
    Well, Colima in Mexico…Etna in Sicily…Fuego, Guatemala…the one in the Solomon Islands, and all three of the big ones on Kamchatka…plus Killauea in Hawaii…Maman in Papua New Guinea…always the Soufriere Hill in Montserrat…with a bit of a shout from Mount St. Helens in Washington State. Also some dire rumblings in the Canary Islands—the most serious of all.
    Because of the tsunami?
    Absolutely.
     
    By 7 A.M. Professor Landon was growing anxious. One hour from now, he was due in his office in the splendid white-pillared Benfield Greig building on Gower Street near Euston Square.As the senior professor in London University’s Department of Geological Sciences, his absence from his second-floor lecture room was sure to be noticed. But the questions continued, and he had little choice but to answer them.
     
    What would it take to explode an active rumbling volcano? A big bomb? Maybe a couple of cruise missiles straight down the crater?
    Well, the magma is very close to the surface in the Montserrat volcano on the western side of the island. I should think you could bring that one forward