The Killing Ground (29 page)

“Darling,” Darcus told him cheerfully, “if you’re Henri Duval, I’m Prince Charles.”

They had started to climb to the dike and Khazid said, in his perfect French, “But I assure you,
mon ami,
I am who I say I am.”

Darcus was impressed. “Well, that’s a showstopper, I must say. You can certainly speak the lingo.” The rain increased in a sudden rush.

“Come on, hurry up or we’ll all get soaked.”

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He started to jog and the fog was clearing now so that they could see the house before they got there. He flung open the front door and led the way in. “Folly Way,” he said. “That’s what they called it when Bernard and I bought it. He was my partner. It was a sea marsh then, creeks gur-gling with water, wonderful plants, lots of bird life. Then a few years ago, after Bernard died, I came back from touring and found it had altered, changed a little bit more. Something to do with sea levels and silting up.

Anyway, welcome to the end of the world.”

“Why do you call it that?” Hussein asked.

“Because every time I go away and return, I think it’s died just a little bit more. But never mind that. Take off your coats and come in the kitchen and I’ll make you a nice breakfast.”

13 THE BREAKFAST WAS REMARKABLE BY ANY STANDARDS.

Darcus poached haddocks, scrambled eggs, sliced onion, found a packet of unleavened bread in his icebox and defrosted it. There was yogurt and fruit in plenty and green tea.

“Cooking’s my passion. I’ve worked as a chef in my day, but I lost my temper with the staff too easily. I expected too much.” He started to gather in the crockery and put it in the dishwasher. “I’ve been in show business all my life since I first saw a circus when I was thirteen. There’s nothing I haven’t tried. Cabaret, theater, film. Having a settled home to come back to was always a problem. That’s why Bernard and I bought this place. I mean, it seemed a good idea at the time. We were in summer cabaret at Bournemouth, that’s a seaside town near here. We went for a drive one Sunday and came across this place, a bloody sight different from what it is now, I can tell you. Folly Way just about sums it up.”

He talked endlessly, much of it amusing, and yet there was a certain malice when he touched on people. “Talent, love,” he said to Hussein, “is a curse. It’s something your fellow actors can never forgive. Of course, some things are beyond teaching. Take you. You’ve got an enormous talent.”

“What for?” Hussein asked.

“For killing people. I mean, it’s not a very easy thing to do. You do it remarkably well. You’re a true revolutionary, dedicated to a cause. Che Guevara—that’s who you most resemble. A romantic hero with balls.

You even look like Che with that beard.”

“Hey, that’s good,” Khazid said. “I mean, I actually think there could be some truth in that.” He said to Darcus, “There are kids in Baghdad who are proud to wear T-shirts with ‘Hammer of God’ on them.”

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“But not his face, love?” Darcus was aghast. “I mean, we couldn’t have that.”

“One day,” Khazid said, “when Iraq is free again, his face will be known to all men.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be the first revolutionary to end up president of his country. Hey, what about George Washington?”

“Exactly,” Khazid said.

Hussein, uncomfortable with all this, said, “Let’s get down to important matters. What about the weaponry?”

“God knows I’ve got enough of that, not that I’ve ever fired a gun in my life. This way, gentlemen.”

He led the way to his study, in the center of the house. The paneled walls of yew were lined with scores of framed photos of the theater, film and television.

“My life in performance, and what a performance. I deserved an Oscar.”

“But what’s this got to do with weaponry?” Hussein asked.

Wellington smiled, and kicked in the bottom of the end paneling, producing a sharp click, and a hidden door moved a couple of inches so you could get your hand in and open it. He pulled it right back and stepped inside and switched on a light, revealing guns and accessories of every kind. “Behold my treasures.” Hussein noted several Walthers, Carswell silencers, Colts, machine pistols such as the very latest model of Uzi, three AKs, a box of hand grenades and even Semtex and a box of pencil fuses, neatly numbered.

“My God,” he said. “You really are going to war.”

“Not me, love. Like I told you, I’ve never fired a gun in my life. You two have a good look and work out what you want. I’ll be in the kitchen doing my chores. Take your time.”

W A L T H E R S , S I L E N C E R S , C O L T . 2 5 S in ankle holsters. “The usual,” Khazid said. “Tools of the assassin’s trade.”

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“You’re being dramatic,” Hussein told him. “They do the job, and in unfortunate circumstances, they’re easy to get rid of. The jobs ahead of us won’t lend themselves to a sniper.”

“A grenade perhaps?”

“Pointless. No need for it. It’s two individuals we want, not passersby.”

“Okay if I take an Uzi, with folding stock, if it fits in my flight bag?”

Hussein, exasperated, said, “Have it your way. Check the weapons here at the study table. Ammunition, of course, but you needn’t overdo it. We could always call on Khan in London for more.”

A T H O L L A N D P A R K , Dillon was finishing an early breakfast when Roper called him on the intercom and asked him to come up to the computer room.

“What have you got?” Dillon demanded.

“My contact in the Spanish Secret Service has been in touch. A floatplane stolen in Khufra has turned up dumped in Majorca. Even more interesting, his informant in the police at Khufra tells of a Citation jet the other night dropping two men and taking off again. It seems there was some sort of shootout.”

“Then they stole the floatplane. Hussein’s an expert pilot. It has to be him. But who’s the other man?”

“He left Baghdad with three men. Hamid and Hassim, whom you and Billy shot, and a man named Khazid. And before you ask, let me put those security photos from Kuwait up, but they’re not good, nothing on Khazid.”

“Have we got anything on this Khazid at all?”

“Hussein’s third cousin, and another Rashid. A highly experienced foot soldier. Some sort of cousin to Sara, I suppose, and something in common with her.”

“What would that be?”

“Another half-and-half. His mother was French.”

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“Was?”

“Got killed in the first Gulf War with his father, fleeing from Kuwait on the Highway of Death in a car.”

“So—what does it mean?” Dillon said.

“Hang on, there’s more. International airport at Palma, flights to all sorts of destinations. The Spanish have been rather clever. The police checked around the cove where the floatplane came in and it was heard landing. If you then calculate how long it would take to make the airport, we could say about noon, and for men desperate to get the hell out of there, that narrows the time of departure.”

“Which meant the Spanish didn’t have to painstakingly work their way through the tapes for hours.”

“Well, see for yourself.” Roper brought it up on screen, Hussein walking through security, pausing to take off his sunglasses briefly while his boarding ticket was being checked. The man behind him was obviously Khazid, because they were talking, but his face was half-turned away.

“You have the plane?”

“It was one of those low-price efforts, crammed with tourists. There were some empty seats for what was a return journey. They’ve gone to Rennes in France.”

“A staging post to England?”

“Absolutely. Brittany means the Channel Islands, and once on Jersey, it’s British soil. Daily planes to Britain and the South Coast. That’s only conjecture, mind you, but I’d say he’s on his way, and we know what that means.”

Dillon sat there thinking about it. “Right, we pass the word round to everybody. Use all the press contacts to keep his photo going and the line that he could be in the UK.”

“Yes, but the reality is on that word ‘could.’ We’re at a dead stop here, waiting for something to turn up.”

“The only thing that’s going to turn up is Hussein with Khazid. You know it and I know it and we know what the target is going to be. The Rashids in Gulf Road, Hampstead.”

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“So what do you suggest?”

“It’s up to Ferguson to decide that. Maybe have them here at the safe house,” Dillon told him.

“Dr. Rashid won’t like that.”

“It could be she hasn’t got much choice in the matter. You’d better speak to Ferguson.”

B Y T H E T I M E F E R G U S O N had arrived in the Daimler, Roper had called in Billy and Greta, Igor Levin and Chomsky. They all listened gravely as Roper explained the situation.

When he was finished, there were looks. He added, “Of course, this is just a ‘maybe’ situation, we can’t be sure of anything.”

Billy said, “Only of one thing. The bastard’s on his way. I know that and I think everybody else here knows that. The question is, what do we do about it?”

“Move the Rashids from Hampstead, that’s essential, right out of town and away from everything while we hunt him down.”

“Molly won’t like that,” Greta said. “Through everything, she’s stuck to the idea that her work is of prime importance. She won’t want to leave it.”

“I think she’ll have to,” Ferguson told her.

There was a silence, then Greta said, “One thing I still wonder about. What exactly does Hussein intend? To kidnap the girl and take her back?”

“How would he do that?” Levin asked.

“Exactly!”

Billy said, “Maybe he wants to knock off Caspar for his part in saving her?”

“Which would still leave him with the Sara problem.”

Roper said, “Perhaps he doesn’t know himself. We don’t need to go into his background, you all know it. The deaths in his extended family

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alone would be a sufficient cause for revenge to many people and it’s certainly enough to make him a driven man.”

“And one of the world’s most successful assassins,” Levin put in.

There was another silence, and it was Billy, a gangster and streetwise since his youth, who said, “It might be a lot simpler than we think.

Maybe he’s just striking out, hasn’t thought it through.”

“God help us if that’s what it is,” Ferguson said. “If he doesn’t know himself, what chance do we have?”

“None,” Dillon said and turned to Ferguson. “What did you mean when you said the Rashids should be moved from Hampstead and away from everything?”

“We have a country house called Zion House in West Sussex and close to the coast and marshland. It was donated to the Ministry of Defence in the Second World War and used to train SOE agents. Over the years it’s been used by the Ministry for training purposes, but at the moment it’s in a caretaker situation, watched over by half a dozen uniformed security men, all ex–military police run by Captain Bosey.”

Dillon said, “This marshland, what would be the situation there?”

“It’s owned by the National Trust. The bird life is unique. Curlew, redshank and brant geese from Siberia, that sort of thing.”

“Are bird-watchers a problem?”

“Zion House has unique features. High-security fencing on top of the wall, and if you tried to get over that, you’d fry.”

“Sounds a bit harsh.”

“Warning signs everywhere, security cameras. We can’t do more.

There’s never been a problem with any attempts at unlawful entry in the twenty or more years that I’ve been responsible for it.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dillon said. “Anything else?”

“There’s a concrete airstrip there at the side of the marsh from SOE

days. We could fly the Rashids down from Farley, and any of you lot.”

“It would certainly clear the decks,” Dillon said. “Who would you send?”

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“Greta has good contacts with the family. If Levin and Sergeant Chomsky went with her for starters, that would make it a Russian affair.”

There were nods all round. “Sounds good to me,” Dillon said. “Let’s get moving, and sort it with the Rashids.”

“You and Greta come with me, the rest stay. Roper in charge.” Ferguson led the way out.

T H E Y S A T I N the sitting room at Gulf Road with Caspar, Molly and Sara, and Ferguson explained patiently what the situation was. Greta stood by the window.

“So what is it you’re trying to tell us?” Molly Rashid demanded. “That Hussein is here in England?”

“We believe very strongly that he’s on his way,” Ferguson said. “Hazar to Algeria, stealing the floatplane to Majorca, then Rennes in Brittany.

Look at it on the map and it speaks for itself.”

She sounded desperate. “He’d be mad to come, and what for?”

Sara stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go into the garden. Whatever you decide suits me. Zion House sounds fun.”

“This does concern you, darling,” Caspar said.

“Not really,” Sara said calmly. “Hussein won’t do anything to harm me.” She went out and Greta followed.

Molly Rashid started again. “I think you have to realize, General, we’re trying to live as normal a life as possible for Sara’s sake.”

Dillon got up. “Your decision. I’ll just go out on the terrace for a smoke. It’s up to you, General.”

Sara was moving slowly around the garden. Across the road, a sweeper in yellow had noted the arrival of Ferguson’s Daimler and its occupants and managed a shot with a special camera donated by Khan.

Dillon lit a cigarette and approached Sara and Greta. “Hello, Mr. Dillon, what do you want?” Sara asked.

“I’m interested in what you said about Hussein. How can you be so certain? He’s a very violent man.”

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