Black Horn (2 page)

The Senator took some paces in silence and then answered. "His wife and
daughter had also been on Pan Am 103. He wanted vengeance. He came to me for
half the money necessary and for my contacts with the FBI and the government
departments. Like you, I had already decided to hire some mercenaries ... I had
already paid a lot of seed money to one guy in particular. Creasy fingered him
for a con man and got most of my money back... and later on killed the guy."

"Tell me more," she said with an urgency in her voice.

Grainger said, "Well, the first thing I did was check with the FBI. As you know, I
sit on the relevant House Committee, and the Director tends to kiss my ass.
They had a file on Creasy. He joined the Marines at seventeen and was kicked
out two years later for striking a senior officer. He then went to Europe and
joined the French Foreign Legion and became a paratrooper. He fought and was
captured in Vietnam and had a damn bad time. He survived to go and fight in the
Algerian War of Independence. After that, his unit was disbanded and he was
kicked out. Together with a close friend, he became a mercenary, first in
Africa, then the Middle East, then Asia. He ended his mercenary career in what
was then Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe. Like I said, he knows that country well."

He stopped abruptly as she flicked on the hand-brake to the wheelchair. Opposite
them was a wooden bench. The Doberman flopped down alongside it. She gestured
at the bench and said, "Please, Jim ... I want to look at you while you
talk."

He
moved around the chair and sat down a few feet away from her.

"Do
you want a drink?" he asked. "Something cool ... or a scotch?"

Her
smile was more of a grimace.

"I
save the scotch until late evening...then I drink at least half a bottle. It
helps the pain and it helps me to sleep. What did Creasy do after Rhodesia
became Zimbabwe?"

"I
don't know the whole story, but apparently he drank a lot, and kind of wandered
around aimlessly. Then he got a job in Italy as a bodyguard to the daughter of
an industrialist. Something went badly wrong and he ended up having a
full-scale war with a Mafia family. After that he married, settled down with
his wife and had a daughter... until they were both killed over
Lockerbie." The Senator's face had turned very sombre. He was looking down
at the grass between his knees. Slowly he raised his head and looked at the old
woman and went on, "Gloria, I understand you and how you feel even though
Harriet and I had no children. Because when Harriet died, I had nothing left at
all. But Creasy came along and satisfied my vengeance and somehow after that I
felt better."

She was
abruptly all business. "He works alone?"

He
shook his head.

"Creasy
is now in his early fifties and as fit as any man could be at that age. But
with the Lockerbie thing, he adopted a young orphan boy called Michael and
trained him in his own image. They act as a team. Creasy can also call on any
number of weird and wonderful guys from his past...I've met some of them...
They saved my life. Believe me, they're the best."

Gloria
was a tough and shrewd old woman who would never buy even an orange without
examining it very carefully. "What has he done since?" she asked.

"I
don't know the details," Grainger answered. "But some years ago, he
and Michael wiped out a white slave ring in Europe. As a result, Creasy ended
up with a sort of adopted daughter. She's seventeen now."

The old
woman leaned forward and said, "How come?"

The
Senator shrugged.

"It
seems that Creasy and Michael rescued her from the slave ring when she was only
thirteen. She had run away from home after being sexually and mentally abused
by her stepfather. The white slavers had forced her on to heroin. While Creasy
went after them, Michael took her away and helped her go cold turkey. When the
whole thing was over, Creasy decided there was no way he could send her back to
where she came from. Don't ask me how, but he arranged adoption papers."

"Does
she work with him and Michael?"

"No.
At first, she wanted to. She wanted Creasy to train her as he had trained
Michael, but a couple of years later, she had a kind of delayed reaction
trauma. When she came out of it, she decided she wanted nothing to do with
weapons or violence. I went to visit with them last summer, by which time her
ambition was to become a doctor. She's very bright and, because of her
experiences, much older than her years. I've arranged to get her into college
here in Denver, and she'll stay with me during her studies ... In fact, she's
due to arrive next week."

The old
woman was nodding thoughtfully.

Grainger
said, "She'll be company for me, and bring a bit of youthful spirit into
this house."

It was
as though Gloria Manners had not heard the words. She was deep in thought. She
lifted her head and asked, "Where does this man Creasy live?"

"He
lives on an island in the Mediterranean ... in a house on a hill."

"How
do you contact him?"

"By
phone. If you like, I'll phone him tonight."

Very slowly, she nodded and said, "Please do that, Jim."

Tommy
Mo Lau Wong reached forward and delicately picked up a strip of raw beef. He
dropped it into the simmering water that formed a moat around the copper stove.
Seconds later, his four lieutenants followed suit.

They
were sitting in a private room of a small, exclusive restaurant in the
Tsimshatsui district of Hong Kong. The restaurant specialised in Mongolian
hot-pot, which meant cooking a variety of raw meats in boiling water, eating
them, and then drinking the resultant soup.

Tommy
Mo had the face of a cherub and the eyes of a great white shark. He always
spoke in a sibilant whisper, but his lieutenants always heard him, even from a
distance. He started laughing to himself. It began as a quiet chuckle and ended
in a spate of coughing. The others waited patiently. He looked up, his shark's
eyes glittering with mirth.

"Can
you believe that fool, Kwok Ling?" He sneered as he pronounced the name.
"Thought himself the best doctor in Hong Kong or the whole of China. Just
because he was trained in Europe and America, he took an arrogance above
himself." He leaned forward, as though imparting a great conspiracy. The
others also dutifully leaned forward. "He sent me papers with a trusted
messenger. Scientific medical papers to show that rhino horn contains a
cancer-causing agent." He giggled again and the others giggled with him.
"Imagine," he said, "the good doctor explained that any old man
purchasing rhino horn in order to revitalise his sex life was condemning
himself to die of cancer. He sent this to me, perhaps in the hope that I would
stop selling it. That I might feel guilty about a bunch of sex-starved old men
dying of cancer... sex-starved old men who would pay a thousand times more for
my powder than they would pay for gold... The fool sent his message to me...
the head of 14K." They all laughed.

Father
Manuel Zerafa glanced at the girl at his left. She was in her mid-teens, but
already very much a woman. Long straight sun-bleached hair, a golden face with
high cheekbones, a straight nose and a wide full mouth. She glanced back at him
demurely. Had she winked? Or was he mistaken? No, he was sure she had winked,
just in that split second that he had first glanced at her. She had winked at
Michael, sitting opposite her. That wink meant she held the ace of trumps and
she was signalling such to her partner. The priest looked across the table at
Creasy who was his partner.

"She
has the ace," he said.

"Maybe,"
Creasy answered thoughtfully. "But she could be bluffing." Almost
imperceptibly, the big scarred man brushed at the left side of his chest, as if
to scare away a fly. The priest picked up the signal. Creasy was telling him
that he held the queen of trumps.

They
were playing a game of cards unique to the island of Gozo. It was called bixla
and was much loved by the fishermen and farmers, who would play it for hours on
end in the local bars during winter. The essence was to cheat by secretly
signalling your partner what cards you held. With people who had played so many
hours together and who watched each other like hawks, these signals became
bluffs, double-bluffs and even triple-bluffs. The game was never played for
money but with great humour and the slamming down of a card when a particular
piece of chicanery had worked well.

The priest looked at Michael, who gazed back innocently. A man in his twenties.
Jet-black hair and sharp-featured. Tall and as slim to be almost thin, but with
a frame like steel wire.

"Maybe Michael has it," the priest said to Creasy.

Michael laughed and showed two of his three cards to the priest. One was the jack of
spades and the other the four of diamonds. His third card was laid flat on the
table as if taunting the priest.

Gruffly, Creasy said, "It's a sure bet that Juliet has it. Play your king."

The priest played the king. Juliet dropped a nothing card. Creasy cursed and
discarded his queen and Michael stood up and slammed down the ace with a cry of triumph.

The priest pushed back his chair saying, "Liars! A young pair of liars."
He pointed a stern finger at Michael and said, "Get a cool bottle of the
white wine from the case I gave you for your birthday and bring it out to the
patio with two glasses."

Michael said, "Father, you gave me twelve bottles for my birthday four months ago.
There are four left. Of the eight that have been drunk, you've had at least
six."

"Sounds
right to me," said the priest, and walked out on the patio.

Creasy
looked after him through deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes. Eyes without emotion...
but his ravaged face and body could not easily conceal the scars of anger and
revenge. He rose and followed the priest, his menacing six-foot frame seeming
to shadow him. He had a curious walk, the outsides of his feet making contact
with the ground first.

The old
stone farmhouse stood on the highest part of Gozo, looking out over the island
and across the sea to the small island of Comino and, beyond that, the large
island of Malta. It was a view the priest never tired of. They sat down on
canvas chairs beside the swimming-pool.

Father Zerafa chuckled and remarked, "There is a saying on the island: 'Lead
your life as you would play bixla, and the fruit will fall into your
hands'." He gestured at the beautiful house and the view. "But I
guess the fruit has already fallen into your hands."

Creasy said, "Father, I disagree with the saying. To play bixla well, you have to
cheat. To lead a good life, you have to be honest. To cheat at cards when it is
expected and when there is no wager of any kind is just fine. But from what
I've known and seen, if you cheat in life, it's not fruit that falls into your
hands but a rock on your head."

The priest sighed and said, "You should have been a priest... I shall use it
for my sermon on Sunday."

Michael came out carrying a tray with the wine in an ice-bucket and two glasses. He
poured the wine ceremoniously and then left them. They drank for a while in
silence; two good and old friends who did not require the bond of light conversation.

Finally, the priest remarked, "These past few weeks I see an edge of boredom in
your eyes."

"You see too much, Father. But it's true, I get restless. But since Juliet's been
going off to the clinic and the hospital and learning all that first aid and
stuff, there's not been much to do. Next week, she's off to the States and to
college. Michael and I are thinking of taking a trip to the Far East, to look
up some of my old friends. We might even go into China, now that it's opened
up." He glanced at the priest and said, "You know that in my life I
have travelled so much, but when you travel with young people and show them the
world, you see it again through fresh eyes. I guess we're ready to go"

"When?" the priest asked.

"Oh, in a couple of weeks. We'll stop off in Brussels first and see Blondie and
Maxie and a few others, and then head East from there."

They heard the phone ringing from inside the kitchen and Michael answering it. After
a while, Michael came to the kitchen door and called out, "It's for you,
Creasy... Jim Grainger from Denver."

Creasy grunted in surprise and pushed himself on to his feet.

He returned to his chair and the wine ten minutes later, his face thoughtful.

"A change of plan," he said to the priest. "We leave tomorrow and we go
West not East." He turned to Juliet, who was standing at the open door and
said, "Michael and I are travelling to Denver with you tomorrow."

Chinese
funerals can be very elaborate affairs. Professional wailing women dressed in
white mourning robes; the louder they can wail, the more they are paid. Houses,
furniture, cars and money are made out of brightly coloured paper and then
burned at the temple, so that they pass on to the other world with the
deceased.

Lucy
Kwok Ling Fong did none of this. She simply had her father, mother and brother
cremated. She put the ashes into a single urn and drove with them to an old
building in Causeway Bay, where she paid several thousand dollars to have the
urn placed on a shelf, together with thousands of others.

As she
left the building, a man approached her, a Caucasian. He had short blond hair,
a red, round, perspiring face, and was dressed in a light blue safari suit. He
introduced himself as Chief Inspector Colin Chapman. She recognised the name.
He was the head of the Anti-Triad Department of the Royal Hong Kong Police
Force. He had been away on leave at the time her family had been murdered.

"I
wonder if we could have a talk, Miss Kwok?" He had a broad Yorkshire
accent, which somehow irritated her.