He had retired to the first floor living room with its uninterrupted view of the water, and was sitting in one of the cream leather reclining chairs that faced the panoramic wall of glass. The plasma screen was awash with vivid colours. A documentary about the global effects of a major American bank going to the wall was on and, at about the same time, Dillon was visiting Havelock. He wasn’t watching or listening to the commentary, because it wasn’t going to have any effect on his personal life – not with his wealth running into many tens of millions. He gazed through night vision binoculars at Brownsea Island, a large brandy on the occasional table next to him.
His thoughts had turned to Jake Dillon, whom he believed he was beginning to know in spite of the very real fact that they hardly knew each other at all. Dillon, he felt sure would understand. The Trevelyans of this world were, what the Americans call, trailer-trash, and as for people like Latimer: he only despised them. They only ever took, never gave anything back. So much had changed; values had fallen to an all-time low. Fighting to survive he had always understood. To make money for money’s sake was something he had never comprehended, even though he’d made far more than he would ever need in his lifetime. But was it enough? Would it be enough to protect him should the need ever arise? That was the question that always came back to haunt him and only time would be able to give him the answer.
He leant back in the reclining chair, savouring the fine spirit from the large brandy balloon glass. He reflected and always struggled with the finer points of morality; his mind became argumentative and then his thinking process collapsed in an exhausted and agitated state, leaving him confused and angry with himself. He knew part of the reason for this and those reasons were sound, and he did not have to excuse them. There were other factors too, over which he had no control and which he had been forced to fight for survival. But he had always come through. Yet it now seemed to be starting all over again. Admittedly it was on a very different playing field, with different people, and he wondered if he had the strength left to fight it. He had wondered that virtually all his life.
* * *
Dillon had stayed the night at The Old Colonial Club. Waking early, he decided against breakfast, instead leaving quietly by one of the staff exits and went straight to the nearest tube station. In a toilet cubicle he reverted back to the blonde wig and moustache and from there went to the north-London home of an old friend and retired journalist. He didn’t recognise Dillon at first, but Jack Logan was extremely pleased to see his old friend. Dillon spent most of the day with him, sifting and reading through his handwritten notes and some of the old saved newspaper cuttings of the Brinks Mat robbery at Heathrow in 1983. Jack Logan had worked for The Times newspaper; he’d covered the story for them and, what had started out as a bit of a scoop for him, eventually ended up as a life-changing obsession, even to this day. But he was pleased to be of help, even though Dillon admitted to him that he didn’t know what it was he was exactly looking for.
At around 4.00 p.m., Dillon thanked Logan for his time and hospitality, caught a cab to the nearest tube station and made his way back into the city. He found a seat on his own by an exit door. At the next stop, a large smiley-faced middle-aged woman came and sat herself down beside him and promptly started to tuck into a chocolate bar and two bags of crisps. Dillon’s thoughts drifted and mulled over the assignment; at each stop the odd whiff of cheese and onion crisps wafted pass him as the doors opened. He was still not a hundred percent certain about where his enquiries were leading him. Was the notion of the gold bars in Dorset being part of the Brinks Mat robbery at Heathrow merely something he had conjured up in his own mind? He didn’t have time to answer the question. He was jolted back to reality as a stop approached and the large woman sitting next to him struggled to get herself onto her feet and out through the exit door as quickly as possible. Dillon got off at the next stop and went straight to the rest room to remove the disguise and to change out of the tweed jacket and corduroy trousers into something else. From there he went straight back to The Old Colonial Club.
Meanwhile, Vince had been trawling every public register and database in the forlorn hope of finding more information about Rosie Poulter. For this he was using a piece of software that he’d written during his social engineering days. This hacker’s software was able to be left to its own devices; accessing databases easily through firewalls, entering side and back doors, or any other weak point of entry, any Government or agency computer and search for whatever it could find. After eight hours it had only collected what they already knew.
Issy had been working all morning on case notes for one of her clients, sending everything back to her office over the Internet. In the afternoon she’d had a call from one of her friends and had gone out for a late lunch, returning to the apartment at around 6.30 p.m.
She entered the apartment. Someone closed the door behind her and someone else placed a gloved hand over her mouth. She had almost passed out with shock, but they had held her upright and dragged her into the living room. The man behind her whispered in her ear, “My friend will remove his hand if you promise not to scream. Nod if you agree. If you make any sound it will be your last. Do I make myself clear?”
Issy, weak at the knees and feeling a little nauseous, nodded slowly.
“That’s good. Now go and sit down in that chair over there and keep your hands where we can see them. And keep very quiet and still.”
Issy eased herself into the armchair and placed her hands on her lap as she was told. She couldn’t help the trembling or make the feeling that she was going to be sick, go away.
They stood on the other side of the room, giving her time to recover, and then one of them said, “This shouldn’t take up more than a brief moment of your time, Miss Linley. We just want to know where Jake Dillon is. Tell us and we’ll leave.”
The words were spoken quietly, but with an edge to them.
Issy was trying to muster up her courage. She could see that these men were roughnecks, but did not speak as she would expect a hardened criminal to do. She had been so frightened that she had hardly taken any notice of them, but now she was taking in everything about them. She raised her hand up to her mouth as if she was about to be sick.
One was slightly shorter than the other and had cropped dark hair, but there was a basic likeness. They were both wearing well-cut suits that could have been purchased from any high-street tailor. The one who had so far done all the talking spoke quietly but with a badly disguised northern accent. It was blatantly obvious that they worked out and that there was no way she could deal with them physically. She guessed they were in their mid to late thirties. During this quick appraisal she realised that even if she did scream she doubted whether anyone would hear. There were five apartments in the building and none of the other residents ever returned home until well after 7.30 p.m.
“Do not underestimate us, Miss Linley. If you lie, I’ll know. And the consequences to you will be extremely severe, I assure you.”
It was the one who had grabbed hold of her as she’d come through the front door who spoke.
Her eyes roamed from one to the other and it was then she saw the butt of a pistol protruding from under one of the jackets. Her heart missed a beat.
“Why should I lie? After all, I can’t lie about something I don’t know, now can I?”
Her voice was shaky. But she knew it would be foolhardy to mess with them.
“I really don’t know where he is.”
“That’s the wrong answer, and being difficult is not going to help you. We know that you’re the most likely person he’d tell. So it follows that you must know where Dillon is.”
“How quaint. If I did know, do you really think I’d tell you or be cooped up like this? I would most definitely be with him.”
They quickly exchanged glances. The taller one said:
�
��Miss Linley, we’re trying to help him, he’s in serious danger.”
“Oh really? It’s you who should be helped. Breaking in and scaring the living daylights out of me. Why couldn’t you wait outside like normal civilized people? Never heard of a phone?”
“In our experience, you wouldn’t have responded to a normal request.”
“Well I’m bloody well not responding to this except to tell you to leave at once. I don’t know where Jake is and, if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. You must be out of your minds to think that I would.”
“We really don’t want to hurt you, Miss Linley.”
“But you’re going to anyway. It must be simply terrible for you, you sadistic thugs.”
Issy had fully recovered now, her strength of character had returned and she was now really glad that Dillon had not told her where he was. He’d anticipated something like this to happen and she now fully understood his worst fears without rancour. Jake was Jake and she knew what she had entered into. She also understood why Tatiana had given him an ultimatum; their relationship or the job. She knew that he still felt the pain, but he was a realist, and so was she.
“If you won’t talk to us here, Miss Linley, then you’ll have to come with us.”
“Over my dead body.”
“That can be arranged,” said the man who had so far left the talking entirely to his northern friend. He pulled out a pistol and quickly attached a silencer to it. Waving it towards the open doorway he continued, “You can walk out to our car, quietly. Or, we will drug you and carry you out.”
“Oh my God, I don’t believe this is actually happening to me. This is quite insufferable. And don’t you think you’re being just a little bit melodramatic? I’m not leaving this flat and that’s final.”
“These situations are always difficult, and we don’t much care for the methods either. But they do get the job done, Miss Linley. Old fashioned they might be, but tried and tested they are. Now what’s it to be? Walk out of here in a dignified manner. Or would you prefer the needle? However, I must tell you that if you decide not to be sensible I cannot guarantee your well-being. You see, my friend over there has a liking for the more mature women. Unfortunately for you, he also has a sexual inadequacy complex. You see, he is only able to perform when his victim is in an unconscious state.” His eyes shifted slyly sideways.
Issy picked up a vase and hurled it towards them but it missed by a mile and was a futile gesture anyway.
“It would seem that my little warning hasn’t had the desired effect. The needle it is then,” said the man with the badly disguised northern accent.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dillon spent the following morning running to ground a Detective Sergeant he knew in the Metropolitan Police, who managed to wangle access to the original Brinks Mat robbery files. Dillon was in the archive room for most of the afternoon and after three and half hours felt weary from going through the mountains of records, witness statements, and masses of intelligence that had been gathered over the years. He eventually emerged into the sunshine and headed straight to the nearest pub for a drink and a meal before heading back to The Old Colonial Club. He took his time because there was nothing more he could do until the next morning. He wanted a lot more information than he already had before returning to Dorset.
Eventually, he arrived at the club at around 9.00 p.m, tired and in need of a long hot bath. He phoned Issy, and it was Issy’s friend, Grace, who answered the phone and told him that Issy wasn’t in. Did she know where she’d gone, or what time she was coming back? As far as Grace knew she should have been there when she’d got home; they were supposed to have been going out to dinner that evening. Dillon apologised for disturbing her evening and then said he’d call round. He dressed and left the club.
Dillon had only ever met Grace once before, but remembered that she worked for a prominent firm of stockbrokers in the city, had the figure of a catwalk model and a wicked sense of humour which she put on hold when Dillon arrived. She knew something wasn’t quite right when Issy had asked her if she could stay for a few days – that Dillon’s work meant that he sometimes moved in murky waters and that it was far safer not to ask any questions. Now she was as worried as Dillon.
Dillon casually glanced around the room for anything odd.
“Have you checked around to see whether anything is out of place?”
“That’s the oddest thing. I’m pretty sure the place was in a bit of a muddle this morning when I left. But when I arrived home it was as if professional cleaners had been in.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m pretty sure. I can tell you that this place very rarely looks as good as this.”
“But was everything as you’d expect it to be? Was anything missing or out of place?”
Grace looked worried. “Wait a minute. Do I understand you right? You’re thinking that someone has been in here and then taken her off against her will?”
“It could be, and there are reasons why it’s a possibility. Forgive me for not telling you. It would do you more harm than good if you knew. I admit that it’s something I thought could possibly happen, but never in a million years thought would actually happen.”
Grace had spotted something, saying, “There’s one thing obviously different in this room. A small vase is usually over there on the side table by that chair, but I can’t see it anywhere. Of course it might have been placed somewhere else, but it’s not a very big room, as you can see.”
“Have you got a torch?”
When Grace produced one he went to the front door and closely examined the area around the lock barrel as well as the lock itself. What he found didn’t surprise him – there were scratches around it, some of them deep.
“I’d guess that they picked the lock and and were waiting for her,” he said mostly for his own benefit.
Grace clutched her arms round herself. “That gives me the creeps. What if they decide to come back?”
Dillon gave her his best reassuring smile. “I very much doubt whether they would risk that. And to be honest with you, Grace, it was Issy they were after. Would you mind if I used your phone?”
Dillon rang Havelock disregarding any chance that his phone was tapped or that Grace was listening over his shoulder.
“I think they’ve got Issy,” he blurted out immediately. “I also think that MI5 did it, and if those bastards are listening in they’d better give her back now or I’m going to light a fire under their can and then watch them jump out one by one. Dunstan, use your bloody authority and do something your end.”
“And if it’s not the security service?”
Dillon had thought it through.
“It is. They have better tabs on all Ferran & Cardini field officers and their friends than Hart and Trevelyan put together. They know all about this assignment and for reasons that none of us know about. They want me to hand myself in to them for a little chat and to pull back from the investigation. The fact is, Dunstan, they don’t like playing second best to us mainly because that’s what they are.”
“The others are looking for you too, Jake,” Havelock said quietly. He fully appreciated how Dillon was feeling.
“You don’t have to remind me, Dunstan. Maybe there’s a way I can find out. Do your best.”
He hung up and turning back to Grace, said, “It’s really not as bad as it sounds. But if it’s okay with you, I’d like to phone you each day just in case Issy turns up here.”
“Can’t I call you?”
“No, it would be too dangerous for you. It’ll be best if I contact you.”
Shrewdly Grace said, “It didn’t do Issy any good not having your number, did it?”
Dillon went through to the front door, started to open it, turned and said, “That was a low blow, Grace, but point taken. If I hear any
thing myself I’ll let you know immediately. Thanks for your help.”
Sitting in the Porsche, he used his mobile phone to call Charlie Hart who answered almost at once. He had long since accepted that as Hart used his phone so freely that he must feel confident with the security setup.
“It’s Jake Dillon. I need an honest answer to a simple question.”
“I was just thinking of you. How, had we met under different circumstances, we might not have ended up as enemies.”
“Possibly. But it was you who made us enemies. I would have happily backed off, but you wouldn’t accept my word of honour. It’s too late now. They’ve taken Isabel Linley. I want her back.”
“Isabel?”
“Someone has kidnapped her. Obviously to push me into a corner. Do you know anything about it?”
“Would you expect me to tell you if I did?”
“Yes. I think you would. In exchange for me.”
“I really cannot recall ever using a woman as hostage. I didn’t know she was in the firing line. I really can’t help you, Jake.”
“Would you know if Trevelyan had ordered it?”
“I suppose I could flatly deny knowing anyone of that name, but that would be insulting you, wouldn’t it? I am being truthful with you, Jake, when I tell you that I do not know anything about your friend being abducted against her will. It changes nothing between us, of course.”
“But would Trevelyan do it without your knowledge?” Dillon persisted.
“You’re a very persistent fellow and I really do not know why I’m even talking to you. He might do it without my knowledge, but I would have expected to hear almost immediately afterwards. If it was done to flush you out into the open, I most certainly would have been informed. I repeat, I know nothing of this.”
Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) Page 26