Eye of the Cobra (54 page)

This was living.

Life at the sharp end.

The blood ran from his fingernails as he clawed onto the rock. Far from easing, the level of difficulty had intensified and he wondered if it was possible to continue. But there was no possibility of retreat now.

His lips caressed the stone. The smell of lichen was strong, the rock cool against his cheek. He smoothed his way slowly upwards. There was no thought in his mind save the position of his four limbs and the fine balance that kept him pressed to the face.

He felt himself about to fall off, the void beckoning. Then the realisation of why he was doing this came back to him: a vision of finding her, and telling her he loved her more than anyone else in the world.

He clawed on upwards, forcing himself to ignore the closeness of death.

A memory came edging back - pushing itself into his consciousness. A memory of losing the car on the mountain road above Monaco all those years ago, of the terror in his father’s eyes as they plunged over the edge . . .

He hung in the air, Estelle’s face in his mind, the way she had looked as she stared down at his father’s grave . . .

Then the memory of what had happened before the accident - the memory that had eluded him for all those years - came back, frighteningly real.

He screamed out in anger. Why had he not remembered it before?

As they’d left the villa in Monaco that day, he and his father, laughing and joking, Jack Phelps had bumped into them. Phelps had been using his father’s car. He’d said he’d found the steering a little tight and he’d had it looked at - but it was all right now, and he wished them a good drive. The bastard.
  It was Phelps who had murdered his father.

Wyatt drew himself into the face and fought his way up the rock. Another foot, and he found a thin crack that he followed quickly to the top. Two tugs on the rope, and Carlos was ready to follow.

The guilt for his father’s death was gone forever.

But the need for revenge had just begun.

A soft rain was falling, and Aito Shensu looked through it, and up at the slopes of Mount Fuji. This was an annual pilgrimage for him. He had first come to this mountain as a young boy with his mother. So young and innocent then, so filled with ambition. He had achieved far more than his dreams.

He remembered the coffin sliding into the furnace, then looking into the eyes of Charlie Ibuka’s wife. He had wondered if he could go on after that moment.

He walked slowly upwards through the trees. All his life he had trusted his instincts, and now he knew there was some
thing very wrong. He had not been able to contact Mickey Dunstal. He had wanted to speak to him, to tell him that the accidents, the tragedy, were not his fault.

He had made so many sacrifices to be where he was. He had no wife, no children, no grandchildren. He had been married to the business and to karate.

And now there would be no peace for him until the voices that plagued him were silenced.

Mickey Dunstal looked up at the light-fitting on the wall above the bar. Ugly, he thought to himself, definitely ugly. He pushed the glass across the counter.

‘Make it a treble.’

‘You’ve had enough, sir. Go home.’

Mickey raised himself up, shot out his hand and gripped the barman by his shirt-collar.

‘I said make it a treble, man. Didn’t you hear me?’

The barman poured the drink, the bottle shaking in his hand. Then, when his customer had settled down, the barman went to the back and made a discreet phone call.

Mickey felt his world spinning. He kept seeing the car, turning and flying through the air. ‘Fock!’ He didn’t know what time it was, and he didn’t care. The barman had left the bottle in front of him and he noticed that it was empty, as was the rest of the bar.

‘Get me another focking bottle!’

Someone tapped him on the back and he spun round.

‘Don’t you do that,’ he grunted, and then stared aghast at Aito Shensu. The Japanese businessman was clearly the last person he’d expected to see in the Dublin pub.

‘Mickey,’ Aito said, ‘it’s time to go home.’

‘You focking Nip!’ Mickey screamed, flailing his fists. He struck air, and crashed to the ground. Then he was pulled to his feet, his arms held in an iron grip. He had not expected either the strength or the speed.

‘Mickey, we go outside.’

‘Fock off!’

The grip intensified, and the pain shot through him and he vomited.

‘Outside.’

Out in the cold air, he regained his energy.

‘Leave me, get out o’ me life.’

Aito maintained his grip on him.

‘Now we’ll go to the hotel.’

Mickey broke loose and Aito’s left foot shot up, hammering into the side of his head. He crashed to the floor in agony.

‘We’ll go to the hotel.’

He lay in the hot water and looked across at Aito, now in his shirt-sleeves. For the first time he noticed the tight sinew of the muscles and the line of callouses at the edge of the hand.

Mickey touched his own ear. It was tender, and his whole head still rang from the blow he’d received. His neck-muscles screamed.

Aito handed him some tablets and a glass of water.

‘Take these, they will make you feel better.’

Mickey gulped down the tablets and the water, then he sank back into the bath.

‘Why did you come here?’ he asked.

‘We had a contract. You broke it,’ Aito said coolly.

‘I killed your focking driver!’

Aito shook his head.

‘No one blames you. The only person who is against you is yourself. We have a saying in karate: “The hardest battle you fight in life is the battle against yourself.”’

Mickey pulled himself up and held out his hand. They shook.

‘Man to man, Aito.’

‘I am sorry about your head.’

They sat in the viewing-room and watched the videotape for the twentieth time.

Bruce hunched forward. ‘Let’s look further back . . .’ Mickey shuttled the tape in slow motion, then actuated the start button.

In Ibuka’s car there’d been a front-mounted video-camera, a source of additional film material for the sponsors, which was relayed to the broadcast cameras.

‘No, Mickey. Further back.’

‘What? To the pit stop?’

‘No, even further.’

‘What is it, Bruce?’ Aito asked.

‘Wait and see.’

The tape played on and Aito and Mickey stared at the screen.

‘Bruce, I dunno what you’re getting at.’

Bruce sat back in his chair and switched on the overhead light.

‘While you were drowning youself in Dublin whisky,’ he said, ‘I was doing some hard thinking. I’ve never, ever known two cars to go wrong in the same way at the same time.’

Aito shrugged.

‘Statistically, it is possible.’

‘No! I survive in this business on detail: everything has to be right. My cars don’t just self-destruct. Why has it never happened before, Mickey? Why?’

‘I focked op.’

‘No. Look at the footage on this tape.’

Mickey slipped the cassette into the recorder and Bruce switched off the light.

The first cut was of Ricardo driving, so was the second.

‘I don’t understand,’ Aito said frankly.

‘What difference do you notice between the two cuts?’

‘Well, in the first he is driving smoothly. In the next he is using the wheel more . . .’

‘The first clip is taken just before the tyre change. The second is taken at the identical bend, one lap later,
after
the tyre change.’

‘He was getting used to the new tyres,’ Aito suggested.

‘Yes. But the new tyres should make it easier in the bends, not harder,’ Bruce expanded. ‘Now let’s look at the next two cuts.’

The footage was of Ibuka driving through the same bend. Mickey sucked in his breath. In the second sequence it was as if the Japanese was imitating Ric
ardo’s movements after his tyre change.

‘These were taken before and after Ibuk
a’s tyre-change.’ Aito frowned.

‘Were the pit crew at fault?’

‘Once maybe, but not twice.’

‘The tyres! The focking tyres!’

Ricardo was sweating heavily. One of his responsibilities, as Phelps’s agent, was the supply of tyres to the Calibre-Shensu team. And he had messed up. He knew what had happened in the ambush - that most of the tyres had gone up with the container.

The Carvalho factory had been quite specific in their instructions. Certain tyres were only for testing - and they had told
Ricardo the order in which the tyres had to be delivered to the pits, and the order in which they had to be used.

He hadn’t checked the wet-weather tyres he’d salvaged from the container against Carvalho’s instructions. Each tyre was carefully numbered, and if he’d seen the list, he’d have known they were for testing only.

Phelps had screamed down the phone at him soon after the race. The bugger-up, Phelps had told him, was his responsibility alone. Then Bruce de Villiers had also found out about the supply of the wrong wet-weather tyres, from watching footage of the accidents on video play back.

Now Ricardo was sitting alone in his car, down a deserted lane near the Calibre-Shensu test circuit. The passenger door opened and Talbot got in beside him. He put his arm around Ricardo’s shoulders and whispered into his ear.

‘Relax, buddy.’

Ricardo felt terrible. Every day was a battle to keep his weight down. Since the coke habit had started, his face had become puffy and his whole body had taken on an almost bloated appearance.

‘You realise now that the accident was entirely your fault?’

Ricardo coughed and tried to free himself from Talbot’s arm - but the grip intensified.

‘Porco Dio!
Are you out of your mind!’

‘You killed Charlie Ibuka. Yes ... it was your incompet
ence in handling the delivery of tyres that killed him.’

Then Talbot whispered something else in his ear, and Ricardo went white.

Bruce de Villiers stared around the huge laboratory, then back at his old school-friend. Dr Max Weiss had a cadaverous face and slow black eyes. His reputation as one of Britain’s top forensic scientists brought him an endless stream of interesting work.

‘What are you looking for, Bruce?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just that something’s not right with this business. I just want you to examine that video footage and then the pieces of the tyre I’ve given you.’

‘Are you suggesting sabotage?’

The black eyes rested on him. Bruce felt unsure of how to reply.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It might be a wild-goose chase.’

The doctor sat down on a high chair and stared at the contents of a test-tube.

‘I don’t believe in chance. You know that. Everything happens for a reason.’ He swept back a lock of his long black hair.

‘Suppose I find evidence of sabotage and someone’s to blame. What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If it’s murder, I’ll have to involve the police - and I know that your team has a lot of problems already.

‘Would you give me a couple of weeks’ grace?’

‘Yes, but that’s all.’

‘Let’s see what turns up, then.’

Wyatt couldn’t quite believe what he was staring at. He felt Carlos’s hand on his shoulder.

‘Jesus! That is for making drugs - why else would someone hide a factory in this place?’

The buildings were all painted the same shade of green as the jungle. So was the landing-strip that stretched off like a giant tennis court over the edge of the cliff.

The Hercules transporter was backed up against one of the buildings and there was a swarm of activity surrounding it. The cargo was being unloaded by men who looked like laboratory technicians.

Carlos sank back into the greenery and drew out his knife.

‘
Vamos
.’

Wyatt nodded.

‘Let’s find Suzie.’

They moved slowly through the foliage till they were behind the longest of the buildings. Big picture-windows ran along its side, and Venetian blinds kept out the sunlight. It looked like the in-house laboratory of a giant pharmaceutical manufacturer.

Carlos focused his binoculars on the interior.

‘I do not believe this. Look . . .’

He handed the binoculars to Wyatt.

‘See the transparent packets at the end of the room?’

‘Yes?’

‘It can only be cocaine. Tons of cocaine.’