The Killing Ground (28 page)

Saida went to a cupboard, got a bottle out without comment and filled a glass. Khazid held out his for a refill and they toasted each other.

“What do we drink to?” Khazid asked.

“To us, my friend, for in war, the only good to come out of it is com-radeship.” He emptied the glass. “I’ll go up top and see how things are.”

T H E B O A T P L O W E D O N , the waves increasing somewhat, and rain dripped off the stretched awning in the stern and the deck lights were switched on.

“There you are,” Romano said. “Try the wheel.”

He moved out of the way to make room for Hussein, then took the half bottle of brandy out of his pocket and had a huge swallow.

“Jersey to starboard, just coming up, the good old Channel Islands.

Guernsey up there in the distance and beyond that Alderney and north from there ending up with Portland Bill, the English coast and our destination.” He swallowed again. “Dammit, the bottle is empty. I’ll go and get another.”

He went out and Hussein felt the wheel kick with a sense of pleasure. The windscreen wipers were on, and the radio crackled and occasionally voices came through the static with weather details and sometimes ship movements.

He felt relaxed, comfortable, not really thinking of anything in particular and then the sea started becoming very lively, waves bursting over the prow and it was exciting. Romano returned.

“Force five—could make six.” He took out a fresh bottle and got it open. “You’d better go down and get something to eat. I grabbed a sandwich.”

So Hussein went below and found Khazid and Saida eating sand-

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wiches made with unleavened bread and drinking tea. He joined in, suddenly discovering an appetite.

“I think I’ll have another, they’re good.” Khazid took the flick knife from his pocket, sprang the blade, leaned over and spiked a sandwich.

“Very nice. Where did you get it?” Hussein asked.

“Cutlery store by the marina. I felt naked. It’s been a long time since I had a gun in my pocket. This makes me feel better. I’ll go and spell him for a while.”

He went up the companionway, and a few minutes later Romano slipped and fell down the last three or four steps. Hussein went to help him out and Romano struggled and struck out at him, thoroughly drunk. Hussein put his hands up in a placating way. “Get away from me,”

Romano said, and gave the girl a violent shove. “Go and get me another drink.”

He lurched down onto the bench seat. Hussein said, “No booze.

Coffee—lots of coffee.”

He went up the companionway and found Khazid wrestling with the wheel, the boat plunging all over the place. “I’ll take over,” he said, and did so just as there was a scream from below and she called out, “I can’t take it anymore.”

The boat was all over the place, it was very dark, with only white streaks of foam, the deck wet and slippery, as the girl emerged from the companionway, Romano behind, reaching to grab her.

“Come on—let’s be having you.”

“Never—never again,” she said and tried to get away from him, sliding on the wet deck to the stern, and he slid after her, that drunken laugh again and went straight into her, knocking her over the rail. In a strange way, it was the most shocking thing Khazid had ever known in spite of the violent life he had led. One second she was there, the next gone.

Hussein switched off the engine at once and the boat rolled from side

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to side. Khazid managed to throw a life belt over, but to what? A small pool of light from the deck lights and only darkness beyond.

Romano, on his hands and knees, shouted, “Silly bitch.”

Khazid kicked him as hard as he could in the ribs. “You murdering bastard.” Romano managed to get up, scrambled for the companionway, and Khazid put a foot in his backside and Romano slid down the steps.

“I’ll turn the engine on again,” Hussein called Khazid.

“What for—she’s gone.”

He moved along the deck to the stern and Hussein cried out and there was movement behind and he turned and there was Romano swaying drunkenly, an old revolver in his hand.

“See this?” He fired, narrowly missing Khazid. “You stinking wog. Put your hands on me, would you?” He stepped close.

In an instant, Khazid’s hand came out of his pocket, the blade of the flick knife jumped and sheared up under Romano’s chin into the roof of his mouth.

“How does that suit you?” He swung him round and pushed him over the rail. The body was visible for a moment, then gone. At the same time, Hussein switched on the engine and the
Seagull
surged forward.

I T W A S I T S O W N W O R L D in the wheelhouse, rain dashing against the windscreen, foul weather indeed, and so it had been for an hour since the madness that had cost two lives. It was after midnight when Khazid came up from the galley with an old-fashioned swinging can. The wind howled as the door opened and closed again.

Hanging on to the wheel, Hussein didn’t even turn. “Coffee?” Khazid poured half a cup and Hussein managed to grab it for long enough to get it down.

“Another?”

“I think so.”

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Khazid poured, then took one for himself. “Good,” he said. “Damn good. I needed that.”

“You didn’t reach for the scotch then?”

“Yes, that, too. I was in shock. I’ve killed before, as nobody knows better than you, but not that way.”

“No need to feel guilty. If you hadn’t bought that knife in Saint-Denis, you’d have been over the rail yourself with a bullet in you. The way he treated that girl was an affront to Allah.”

“So what do we do?”

“Why, carry on. Don’t worry. As I told Romano, I may know nothing about boats, but as an aircraft pilot I can navigate, read charts and plot a course soundly enough to find Portland Bill and Peel Strand.”

“Even in this weather?”

“I’ve already checked the weather reports on the radio. It will mod-erate the closer we get. There will be fog in the morning, but we’ll cope with that as it comes.”

“Anything else? Do you want some sandwiches? Saida left a stockpile in the fridge.”

“I’ll have some when I come down, which I will now, because I must contact the Broker. You can take over here for a while.”

They changed places and he went out.

T H E B R O K E R S A I D , “For God’s sake, isn’t it possible to control that boy?”

“What he did was totally justified,” Hussein told him. “George Romano was a foul man and the world is well rid of him, so no apologies are necessary.”

There was not only steel in his voice, but a calm indifference that gave the Broker pause for thought.

“Can you cope?”

“With the boat? Of course I can. There will be considerable fog in the

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vicinity when we get to Peel Strand. I’ll take advantage of the concealment it offers to sink the
Seagull.”

“Is that necessary?”

“I would imagine someone informing the coast guard after a while if it was just left there at anchor. We have a perfectly good inflatable with an outboard motor, so we’ll get inshore, no problem.”

“Have you any idea when you’ll be in?”

“About four o’clock, something like that. Dawn will be coming up.

Romano had an Admiralty chart of the area in the wheelhouse. There is the Strand, some shingle beach indicated, fading into saltings. Wellington lives in the old marsh warden’s cottage.”

“Good. I’ll contact him, tell him to meet you.”

“What will you say? That there was an accident?”

“I think not. I’ll say Romano turned back close to shore because he was afraid of running aground in the fog.”

“And the inflatable?”

“He told me to say that he could keep it.”

“I’m sure Darcus will be pleased. It would seem the panic button has been of use.”

“So it would appear,” the Broker said.

“What about Professor Khan? When can I contact him?”

“Whenever you consider it appropriate. It’s up to you.”

Hussein went back to the wheelhouse. Khazid seemed happy enough, hands still firmly on the wheel. “How did it go?”

Hussein told him what the Broker had said and filled him in on what he had been told earlier at the café in Saint-Denis.

“So not only have the Salters dealt with the Russian Mafia in London, but these IRA mercenaries have been stamped on. Six of them taken out. This is beginning to sound like serious business,” Khazid commented.

“We’ve handled serious business before.” Hussein smiled. “I’m going to go and lie on a bunk for an hour. Wake me.” He went below.

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D A R C U S W E L L I N G T O N , at Folly Way on Peel Strand, came awake with an angry moan and scrabbled for the bedside telephone, knocking over a half-empty cup of cold coffee. He sat up in his tumbled bed and reached for the light.

“Who in the hell is it?”

The answer galvanized him into action and he swung his legs to the floor, an old-fashioned nightshirt riding over his knees.

“Your visitors are arriving soon,” the Broker told him. “A rotten morning, I think you’ll find. It would be a nice thought if you took a walk down to the Strand about four-thirty and extended the hand of welcome. And, remember, these are special people.”

“With Hussein’s face in all the papers, they would be.”

“Don’t start moaning. I’ll be in touch.”

He clicked off and Wellington sat there for a moment breathing deeply. His head was bald, his face sagged, but over sixty years in show business had to stand for something. He got up and drew the curtains.

Although there were undeniable signs of early dawn, the fog crouched at the window as if trying to get in at him.

“Dear God almighty.”

He went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, stood looking at it and changed his mind and returned to the bedroom, where he removed his nightshirt and dressed in a denim shirt, brown corduroy trousers and buttoned up a sweater with a shawl collar. His dressing table provided a plentiful supply of makeup and he sat down, rubbing cream into his face, a little rouge to his cheeks and lined his eyes. It undeniably worked in a theatrical kind of way, one had to admit that. Finally he picked up the auburn wig that curled discreetly and eased it over his bald pate. Satisfied, he stood up and made his way out, through a rather charming, old-fashioned sitting room to the kitchen.

Like the other rooms, it had beamed ceilings, but everything else was

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state of the art, a kind of temple to a person who adored cooking. He turned on the kettle, humming to himself, got a bowl of muesli, milk from the fridge and ate without any obvious enjoyment, and when the kettle boiled, he made green tea and went and peered out for another look at the fog.

He checked his watch and saw it was just after four. “Oh, well,” he said softly. “I suppose I’d better make a move.”

He went out to the hall, procured a pair of rubber boots from the cloakroom and sat down to pull them on and reached for a heavy anorak with a hood and he left.

The fog swirled, there was a drizzle of fine rain, and there was the pond and the special smell you only got from saltings and he followed a track along a dike, passing through a bleak landscape of silted-up sea creeks and mudflats. Climate change, the difference in sea levels, had each had its effect on what had been a rather special place. Even the birds seemed to be hiding from it. He reached a very ancient, decaying seawall of stone, beach pilings beyond it, the shingle dipping down, disappearing into the fog, and the noise of the approaching engine was loud.

“Hello—over here!” he called.

H U S S E I N H A D T A K E N A D V A N T A G E of the boat’s depth sounder as he took the
Seagull
in. A hundred feet seemed appropriate. He switched off the engine.

“Pull the inflatable round from the stern, untie her and get in.”

“What about you?” Khazid said.

Hussein was removing the engine hatch. “I’ll operate the sea cocks.”

He disappeared into the cramped engine room, found what he needed almost straightaway, did what was necessary and scrambled out.

He joined Khazid in the inflatable and drifted away with a push.

They continued drifting and sat there watching the boat settling in the 234

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water. Hussein found his cigarettes, lit one and passed it to Khazid, then lit one for himself. The sea was swirling across the
Seagull
’s deck, the boat settled much more and then completely disappeared.

“It’s supposed to be sad to see a ship of any kind sinking,” Khazid said.

“Why would that be?” Hussein pressed the starter button on the outboard and the engine kicked into life.

“It’s like someone dying.”

“Is that so?”

A small wind curled across the water, not much, but enough to stir the fog. There was a vague suggestion of land and then the sound of Darcus Wellington calling to them. Hussein throttled back the engine, they drifted in.

“Where’s Romano and the
Seagull
?” Darcus asked.

“He didn’t fancy his chances much in this fog,” Hussein said. “It’s an absolute pea-souper all over the bay and he started worrying about the boat. In the end he decided we must come in the inflatable. He said you could keep it.”

“Did he now? Well, that’s nice of him. I’ll walk along the beach about fifty yards. There’s what’s left of an old stone jetty. You can disembark without having to wade, pull the thing ashore for me.”

A matter of minutes and it was done, the inflatable ashore and the two Iraqis standing beside it.

“Darcus Wellington, that’s me, and you’ll be the Hammer of God, according to the newspapers. Who’s your friend?”

“My name is Henri Duval,” Khazid said.