The Camelot Code (36 page)

Chris Wilkins honks his car horn as he approaches the hideout, knowing that forgetting to do so could result in a face full of lead.

Tess opens up. A Glock 29 dangles from her right hand; an assault rifle is only a grab away. From his face, she knows something is eating him. ‘Everything okay?’

He takes one long look at the girls. They’re still bound, gagged and hooded but are now separated. One is sat in a chair, her feet tied to the legs and her hands to the back. The other – the injured one – is on the floor, her legs raised and hand bandaged.

‘In the back.’ He nods to the kitchen.

Tess bolts the door and follows him into the adjoining room.

He lets out an anguished sigh. ‘He wants us to free one of the girls.’

‘He what?’

‘The cut one. Says we have to take her to a hospital as far away as possible and leave her there with instructions to call her mom’s cell phone straight away.’

She shrugs. ‘We can get her to call from anywhere. It doesn’t have to be a hospital.’

‘I didn’t tell it right. She
has
to call from the hospital, so her mother can check she’s there.’

‘Okay. I get it. Smart bitch.’

‘Where’s the best medical centre?’

Tess shrugs. ‘No real idea. I’ll look online. There’ll probably be ones at Oakland and San Ramon.’

‘Have a look east. Find something as far away from here as I could make in an hour.’ He nods at the girl. ‘How is she?’

‘No real trouble. Bled like a haemophiliac after you cut her fingertip off with that carver and she’s been whimpering like a kitten ever since.’

He goes to the fridge and pulls a beer. ‘You want one?’

She takes a bottle and pops the cap. ‘I don’t like this. Don’t like it one bit. You let the other side call the shots and it leads to trouble. Especially if the other side’s a Fed.’

Sandra Donovan makes sure the door to her office is shut. It’s a precaution she always takes when she’s about to receive a call as important as the one being put through.

The director of the FBI wants to talk privately to her.

The light on her desk phone flashes. She snatches up the receiver, ‘Yes, sir.’

Peter Lansley’s noted as the kind of boss who likes to warm up a conversation. That’s before he drops a bucket of ice down your pants. So she’s not surprised to hear him start with small talk. ‘How are you, Sandra? I’ve not seen you since the VICAP conference in Quantico.’

‘I’m very fine, sir. Thank you for asking.’

‘Good presentation that day – you certainly got some of the old timers thinking. I’m calling you about the Fallon case; there’s something I need to tell you off the record.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘In a moment you’ll receive a call from a man who will give you two code words: Tole and Mac. That’s Tango, Oscar, Lima, Echo. And Mike, Alpha, Charlie.’

‘I’ve got it, sir.’

‘Good. Because after that, this man will give you some information and believe me, you’ll be able to trust it. He’s a platinum-quality source. The intel we’ve had from him has never once been wrong.
Never
, Sandra.’

She notes his emphasis. ‘This information, does it come from our side of the line or the other side, sir?’

There’s a hint of laughter in his voice. ‘Our side, Sandra. Very much our side. I told the caller that you could be trusted to deal directly with him. Don’t let me down.’

‘I won’t, sir.’

The line goes dead. Donovan returns the receiver to its cradle and wonders what the hell anyone outside her team or Bob Beam’s squad can tell her about the kidnapping of Mitzi Fallon’s kids.

She doesn’t have to wait long.

Her secretary buzzes through. ‘I have a man on the phone. He says Director Lansley will have spoken to you and you’ll be expecting this call.’

Her eyes widen in anticipation. ‘Put him through, Sylvia. Put him through.’

As Owain’s helicopter sifts air over Cardigan he thinks how, centuries ago, this had been the starting and stopping point for hundreds of ships and thousands of sailors. It supported a booming shipbuilding industry, a thriving trade in wool export and a buoyant local community.

Not any more.

Once the river silted up, the big boats stopped coming and economic rot set in. Nowadays it’s a small town with a population of less than five thousand. Tourists tend to be either of the history or religious variety. They visit the eleventh-century castle or St Mary’s, the twelfth-century church that houses the Catholic national shrine of Wales, a statue of the Blessed Virgin known as Our Lady of the Taper and Our Lady of Cardigan.

The shrine is the focus of the new Pope’s visit, the first to Wales for over thirty years. A cause for national celebration. And Owain’s first port of call.

Rain clouds shroud the break of dawn and temperatures are almost frosty as a limousine picks him up and heads across town. Alongside him is Carrie Auckland, a former MI5 high flyer who has been heading his European VIP protective units for the past five years. The forty-two-year-old is kitted out in a black bomber jacket, matching combat pants and sneakers.

She shifts her wiry, athletic frame and tries to reassure him that everything is going to be fine. ‘Every hour of every day, we check bins, drains, post boxes and vantage points along the papal route. There’s not a house, apartment, store or garage we haven’t turned over. There’s no chance of an attempt on his life.’

‘There’s always a chance, Carrie – that’s why I’m here.’

‘Unnecessarily, I hope.’

‘Me too. Don’t for one moment think my early arrival is a vote of no confidence. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best in the business.’

‘Thank you.’

‘It’s just that the Watch Team insists there will be an attempt on the Holy Father’s life and an extra pair of hands is always useful.’

‘Watch have been wrong before.’ She hands over a manila folder filled with briefing sheets.

‘Many times. And I hope they are today.’

‘The first document is the papal agenda,’ she explains. ‘The second, a list of people who will meet the Holy Father or be close to him. I’ve talked to Vatican security and either you or I will never be more than a few yards away. The third is a profile on the pontiff and his travelling habits. The fourth, an analysis of —’

He cuts her short. ‘Too much, Carrie – just give me the highlights.’

‘Okay. Well, this is the first time a Pope has been in Wales since 1982. He’s visiting Cardigan, Swansea and Cardiff before arriving late in Westminster for Mass in the morning, then a flight to Belgium to bless a further restoration of
The Ghent Altarpiece
.’

‘We’ll talk about Ghent later. Just focus on Cardigan for the moment.’

‘The village is easy for containment. I think between ourselves, the Vatican and security services we’re locked down safe. The church goes back to the twelfth century but it’s been extended, modernized and a place developed for the shrine.’ She points to the folder. ‘The schematics are all in there. You’ll see that it’s a difficult area to cover, so we’ve had to be extra vigilant there.’

‘Good. You seem very well-prepared.’ He relaxes a little. ‘From a security point of view, what are you most worried about?’

She smiles. ‘The unexpected. The nature of life is that something unexpected always happens.’

Sandra Donovan slides two photographs across her desk. One of a man and one of a woman.

Bob Beam picks them up. ‘What are these?’

‘Just sent to me via an untraceable server.’

He smiles. ‘There’s no such thing as untraceable.’

‘Really? Go talk to the tech boys. I just said the same thing to them and they laughed in my face. They’ll bore you rigid with explanations of how these JPEGs got pinged through every IP server in Asia before arriving here.’

He holds up the pictures. ‘And these people are?’

‘Gerry and Susan Stanhope. Paul and Sharron Glass. Steve and Sarah Dopler. Or more familiarly, Chris and Tess Wilkins. According to a trusted source, they’re behind the Fallon kidnapping.’

He stares at the round face of the man and the chiselled cheeks of a blonde woman. ‘We came across the same name when checking out rentals. What’s the source?’

‘I can’t say, but it’s good.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Can’t. It came to me via Lansley.’

His eyes widen. ‘Anything other than pictures to go on?’

Donovan rests her hands on the desk. ‘Apparently, there’s a select group of former soldiers already hunting the Wilkins couple.’

‘Mercenaries?’

‘I don’t know who’s paying or controlling them, just that Lansley says we can trust them. The man who called me supplied a list of all the locations that they’re searching.’

He shrugs. ‘So what am I supposed to do?’

She flips a sheet of paper to him. ‘These are places they say they can’t get to for the next hour. Maybe you can prioritize these addresses as part of your ops?’

‘For the record, I don’t like working on intel I don’t know the provenance of.’

‘Noted.’

He snatches it from her. ‘Eight different locales. Great.’

‘It’s better than we had, Bob.’

He scrapes back the chair, stands and waves the paper at her as he heads for the door. ‘This is going to end badly. Remember I said that.’

‘Make sure it doesn’t and —’

He slams the door.

‘—
don’t
slam the door!’

The sixty-seven-mile journey takes Chris Wilkins an hour and forty minutes.

He drives west into Danville, south to Dublin and then east through Tracy and north up towards Stockton.

About a mile away from the town’s General Hospital, he pulls off the freeway, takes a left and parks near the Chinese Cemetery. He puts a hand across the top of the passenger seat, turns and looks into the back of the Toyota where Amber is tied up beneath a blanket. She hasn’t been given any painkillers or sedatives for more than three hours because he needs her to be lucid when she gets into the emergency room. The lack of drugs means she’s distressed and is moaning so much he wants to clip her.

‘We’re about there. I’ll have you in a hospital in a few minutes. Remember, you get them to call your mom right away. Not after treatment – right away.’

Before restarting the engine, he uses a new burner to call London. ‘The girl will be inside San Joaquin Hospital in Stockton within ten minutes. Call me when she’s connected with the mom, then I’m gone.’

‘I understand,’ says Marchetti.

‘You’d better. And don’t go forgetting that extra risk equals extra payment.’

‘Don’t worry about your money.’

Chris kills the call and dials Tess. ‘I’m there and about to go in.’

‘Good luck, baby. Love you.’

‘Love you too, sweetcheeks.’ He hangs up, checks the time and his gun. Three hours from now, he’ll be catching a flight to Vegas from Stockton airport. Either that or he’ll be running for his life, because once Amber’s made the call to her mother, he’s going to kill her. Then he’ll call Tess and she’ll kill the other one.

After that, they’ll both be gone.

So far gone, it’ll be like they never existed.

It’s so long since Gareth Madoc has eaten, his stomach sounds like a damaged washing machine. He unwraps the sandwich his secretary has brought him. It’s his favourite pastrami with mustard on rye and it’s an inch from his mouth when his desk phone rings.

‘Hell and damnation.’ He drops the food back on its greaseproof paper and picks up the call. ‘Madoc.’

‘Don’t sound so crabby; it’s Steffani.’

‘The pick-ups all worked out?’

‘Yeah, even better than that. I owe you one.’

‘You owe me
several
and don’t you forget. Spill the details.’

‘Bin al-Shibh’s face was a picture. Never saw it coming. He was in a private hangar at JFK about to board a Lear. We had him boxed like a dog.’

‘Any shooting?’

‘No. Came without a tear. We have him at CTU under interrogation. Mousavi and Tabrizi are a different story.’

‘More troublesome, I guess.’

‘You guess right. Tabrizi is a fit boy. We took him at the house your people had been sitting on, but he fought like crazy. Had to break his face and some ribs before he gave up. Mousavi we took down in a cheap diner over the east side, when he went to the men’s room. Can you believe this – he had one hand on a concealed gun even while taking a leak.’

‘It’s what you call being tooled up.’

‘Ha freakin’ ha. My agent wasn’t laughing – the fucker shot him in the foot
and
pissed all over him.’

‘He okay?’

‘Yeah, the injury’s the kind that’ll fade but the story won’t.’

‘What about Malek Hussan?’

‘Made us on the street and ran for it. After fifty yards, he had to stop and give up. Poor fuck nearly wheezed himself into a heart attack.’

‘Korshidi?’

‘Just this minute swept him up. He’s playing it smart, alleging discrimination against him and his mosque. He’ll change his tune when we run him the tape he made of al-Shibh.’

‘Now you’ve got him, I’m going to take his daughter out of circulation; she was one of our main sources.’ As an afterthought he adds, ‘Maybe we’ll scoop up her mother too. Can you help with a safe house if necessary?’

‘Least I can do. We’ve got a place in Greenwich. It’ll be good for a day or so.’

‘Thanks. I guess none of them have given up the location of the planned explosion?’

Steffani laughs. ‘That’s the second guess you’ve got right. I’ll call you if anyone sings, but don’t hold your breath, buddy.’