‘Very interesting,’ the Senator remarked enigmatically.
Bennett leaned forward, mashed out his cigarette and then said quietly, ‘Yes it is . . . because I think that important person is you.’
‘Why?’
The FBI man sighed. ‘Jim, I’m not stupid. First, Harriet is killed on Pan Am 103. The leading suspect for that outrage is considered to be the PFLP-GC, which is closely linked to Syrian Airforce Intelligence and the HAWK. In the meantime, you’ve been messing around with strange people. First a con man on the fringe of the mercenary world and then a dead or alive mercenary who is or was considered one of the most perfect killing machines ever born.’
Bennett sighed again and lit another cigarette. He was obviously agitated, which was certainly not normal. He went on, ‘Then you hire three bodyguards and ask me to pull off all normal security on you. Naturally, I checked out the three bodyguards.’ Apologetically, he said. ‘That’s my duty, Jim. Both in my job and as your friend.’
The Senator nodded in acquiescence.
Bennett went on. ‘Now those three guys all turned out to be ex-mercenaries . . . very hard men indeed . . . I presume they’re all armed?’
The Senator nodded. ‘Yes, they are, Curtis . . . and licensed to be so . . . as no doubt you would also have checked out.’
The FBI man’s voice took on a hard note. ‘Yes, I did check. Now hear this. The Moretti family is no ordinary mob family. They are not a huge organisation, like some of the others, but they do have about a dozen ‘soldiers’ and they’re all highly competent. We know what they do but we’ve never been able to get a grip on them. Not even a slippery one. Now as I read it, you unwittingly hired this con man Joe Rawlings, in an attempt to avenge Harriet’s death.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Coincidentally, Joe Rawlings was found shot dead late last month in a Paris hotel room. A single bullet in the brain. The French police have no clue at all as to who did it. You hire this dead or alive Creasy and since I doubt you will be conned twice in a month, and since the print on the glass I gave you for a present was definitely authentic, my total assumption is that the man is alive and targeted by you at the PFLP-GC. My next assumption is that the PFLP-GC somehow found out about that and now you are their target, via the Moretti family, and that represents a very great threat indeed.’
The Senator looked at him quizzically and then glanced at his watch.
Bennett sighed in exasperation, then stood up, placed his palms on the desk and leaned forward. Harshly, he said, ‘Jim, face up to it. The threat is very serious. So you have three hard type bodyguards, but three is not enough . . . also they’re in their mid-forties and that seems a bit old to me.’
The Senator smiled slightly and said, ‘I’m very satisfied with them.’
Bennett leaned forward even further, and said, ‘Well, frankly, I’m not. Just before I came here I reported my thesis to the Director. He’s ordered that you have a full team, twenty-four hour cover. That’s twelve highly trained men. Young men. They’re already on assignment. It’ll be a nuisance, Jim, but it has to be.’
Grainger shook his head.
‘I appreciate your concern, Curtis, but I definitely don’t want them. Tell the Director to pull them off.’
Bennett shook his head, ‘I can’t do that. I told him you’d object and he told me to tell you that it’s his sworn duty to protect every congressman in this country. So that’s it, Jim.’ He straightened up and looked at his watch. ‘You have two minutes to make that meeting, in your usual punctual way.’
The Senator looked up at him, then reached forward and punched a button on his phone console.
‘June,’ he said, ‘get me the White House. I’d like to speak to the President, if he’s available. If not I’ll speak to his Personal Secretary.’
A minute later, he was arranging a meeting with the President for later that evening. Bennett looked on incredulously.
‘You think he’ll intervene?’ he said.
‘I know he will,’ the Senator replied. He smiled slightly. ‘He needs me.’
Curtis Bennett opened the door and walked out in disgust and frustration. At the door to the outer office he turned and looked at the man sitting beside the Senator’s door. The man looked back, an unblinking stare.
Bennett went out, closing the door behind him, not exactly slamming it but closing it hard.
In his office, the Senator punched a button on his phone console again.
‘June,’ he said. ‘Please phone the committee room and tell them I’m going to be late. About ten or fifteen minutes. Apologise for me. And please ask the gentleman sitting outside my door to come in.’
Callard entered the room and closed the door behind him. His eyes swept the room twice and then centred on the Senator’s face.
‘Where’s Frank?’ the Senator asked.
‘Nearby.’
‘Can you find him?’
The Belgian reached into his jacket pocket, took out a small black metal box and pressed a button on it twice. Five seconds later, it gave an answering bleep.
‘He’ll be here in a couple of minutes at the most,’ Callard said.
Frank Miller was there in less than a minute. His eyes swept the room. His right hand hovered near the opening of his loosely fitted jacket.
‘What is it, Mr Grainger?’
The Senator gestured at the chairs in front of his desk.
‘Sit down, both of you. Something’s come up.’
Miller shook his head and spoke in French to the Belgian, who immediately left the room.
As he sat down, he said to the Senator, ‘If one of us is inside, one of us must always be outside. What’s happened?’
Grainger quickly briefed him on Bennett’s information. The Australian listened intently and then said, ‘Good.’
‘Good!’
‘Yes, in a situation like this all information is good. The more information we have the better we can prepare.’
Grainger did not look anxious, but he did look thoughtful. Finally he said, ‘Bennett told me they have about twelve ‘soldiers’. You only have three.’
Frank smiled and shook his head.
‘No, we are five, Senator. Two more arrived late last week.’
The Senator looked surprised. ‘But I haven’t seen them.’
‘No, and you won’t. They’re outside men . . . weapons men.’
Grainger asked, ‘Creasy sent them?’
‘Yes, and they’re both bloody good.’ He smiled. ‘And you’ll be pleased to hear that both of them are in their mid-thirties.’
Grainger smiled back and asked, ‘Does this change the routine?’
‘No. Are you sure you can get the Fed cover pulled off?’
‘Pretty sure. I’m seeing the President at seven o’clock . . . I’ll let you know.’
The Australian was thinking. ‘As a matter of fact, there are a couple of things your friend Curtis Bennett can do to help. I know a lot about the Mafia in Italy, a hell of a lot, but not in this country. It would help if Bennett could pull the file on this Moretti family. Everything the FBI has got, especially photos of the Morettis themselves and as many of the ‘soldiers’ as possible.’
The Senator made a note on his pad. ‘And the second thing?’ he asked.
‘Well, since he’s got so many agents to squander, he could send a few to Detroit and monitor the movements of the Moretti ‘soldiers’. I’m sure the FBI’s already doing that but they could intensify it. Not too much because we don’t want them to know that we’re waiting for them. But it would be useful to know if any significant number of them suddenly leaves Detroit. They would use at least ten men for the snatch.’
The Senator made another note, looked at his watch and said, ‘Will do. Now I have to get to a meeting.’
Chapter 33
MICHAEL’S RECOVERY HAD been very swift. After three weeks, Creasy took him to the hospital in Malta for a final check-up. Dr Grech was faintly astonished by the young man’s progress. Afterwards,
Creasy took Michael down to Fort St Elmo to resume his training.
While they were away, Leonie took Laura to lunch in the garden restaurant of the Ta Cenc Hotel. They sat at a table under a huge carob tree and ate Italian food and drank a bottle of Italian wine. After the main course Leonie began to ask questions and Laura answered them. She told the younger woman what she knew of Creasy but explained that the only person who really knew him well was her son-in-law Guido who had been with him in the Legion and fought with him in various wars around the world before Guido had married her eldest daughter Julia and they had gone off to live in Naples and run a pensione until Julia had been killed in a car crash. Guido still ran the pensione and visited Gozo frequently. After Lockerbie he had come to Gozo to stay with Creasy. He and Creasy hardly seemed to talk, but they had such a mental empathy that Laura believed no two men could be closer.
Leonie learned that Creasy had met Nadia after coming to Gozo to recover from gunshot wounds he had received while trying to defend a young Italian girl from kidnappers.
The girl had been killed by the kidnappers. After recovering Creasy had gone back to Italy and wiped out the entire Mafia family responsible on a road of vengeance that stretched from Milan in the north to Palermo in Sicily.
Again he arrived back in Gozo, this time secretly. Again he had been terribly wounded and Laura and Nadia had nursed him back to health while Nadia grew pregnant
‘He must have loved her very much,’ Leonie said wistfully.
‘I’m sure he did,’ Laura answered. ‘But he never showed much or said much.’
‘But she knew he loved her?’
Laura nodded. ‘Oh yes. He would have died for her.’ She looked up at the younger woman and said very quietly, ‘And maybe he will.’
Creasy stood beside George Zammit, on a raised platform behind the animated firing range in the bowels of Fort St Elmo. Several members of the anti-terrorist squad were standing on either side of them. They were all watching Michael below. He held an Uzi submachine-gun in his right hand. He raised his left hand. George reached behind and pressed a button on the wall. Immediately, targets in the form of male figures in camouflage uniform began to appear on the sides of the walls and rising from the floor. Occasionally the figure of a woman or a child appeared. Creasy did not look at the targets. His gaze was intent upon Michael, who had dropped to one knee and was firing short bursts. He watched as one magazine was emptied and a second one quickly inserted. When that magazine was empty, Michael took it out, checked the breech, then turned to look at the green monitor at the back right hand corner. Creasy, George and all the other men were also watching it. In digital figures, it showed sixty-five per cent.
‘Not bad,’ George remarked. ‘It will take him two or three weeks to get back to his previous best, which was seventy-three.’
Michael laid the SMG and the two empty magazines on a metal table and walked up the stairs to them. He looked at Creasy who said, ‘That was very good, Michael.’
The young man shook his head woefully. ‘I’ve done much better. Also I hit one woman. I just lost my rhythm.’
‘You were very good,’ Creasy said again. ‘But you need to work on your magazine change. It needs to be much faster. It’s the time when you’re most exposed.’
A member of the squad grinned and said, ‘I’ve heard those words before.’
Creasy smiled at him and said, ‘Shut up, Grazio. The only thing you know how to change in a hurry is a condom.’
They all laughed and Michael asked Creasy, ‘Have you ever used this range?’
George said, ‘He designed it, Michael, five years ago, and taught us how to use it and much else as well.’
He turned to Creasy. ‘You want to have a go?’
‘Yes,’ Creasy answered. ‘And later I’d like to have a session on the hand-gun range.’
He went down the steps to the range. All the young men moved forward to the rail and watched as he picked up the Uzi, stripped it down and reassembled it. All in a matter of seconds. He inserted a magazine and put a spare into the left hand pocket of his jeans. It protruded to his waist. He walked over to the black cross painted on the floor and raised his left hand. George punched the button.
Michael was to recall later that what followed was like a ballet dance. The targets appeared for only two seconds. Creasy dropped into a crouch. Michael never even saw the magazine change. He saw the used one bounce off the concrete floor, but the flow of fire was almost uninterrupted. Creasy walked back to the metal table, unsnapping the second magazine. He laid it on the table, checked the SMG and turned to look at the monitor. The digital figures showed ninety-six per cent. There was total silence on the platform. Targets were still moving in and out and up and down on the range. One of the newer recruits muttered, ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Believe it,’ Grazio said. ‘I’ve seen him hit ninety-eight’
Chapter 34
SENATOR GRAINGER AND Frank Miller were just finishing dinner when the phone rang. Miguel was pouring coffee. The Senator asked him to answer the call and said, ‘If it’s Bob Holden, I’m nor here.’
Miguel went to the sideboard and picked up the phone. He listened for a moment and then started talking rapidly in Spanish.
It was a language that Grainger understood well. He cocked an ear, listened and then stood up. Miguel put the phone down and turned, his face very agitated.
‘It’s my mother,’ he said. ‘She’s had a heart attack. Her condition is not good. That was my brother.’
Immediately, the Senator went to the telephone, picked it up and punched a number. After a pause he said into it, ‘Francis, Jim. I want a seat on the first available plane to Mexico City . . . no, not for me, it’s for Miguel. His mother had a heart attack . . . yes I’ll wait.’ He cupped the mouthpiece of the phone and said to Miguel, ‘You’ll be at your mother’s bedside in a matter of hours . . . even if I have to charter a plane.’
Miguel wiped a hand over his face and muttered, ‘Thank you, sir. But what about you?’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ the Senator said. ‘I’ll get someone temporary from the agency. Stay as long as you need to.’
Miguel started to say something. The Senator held up his hand and said, ‘Wait a minute.’ He listened into the phone and then looked at his watch and said, ‘He’ll be there, with a few minutes to spare but make sure that plane doesn’t leave without him. Phone Harry Robson if you need to and use my name. Get five thousand dollars from the safe in my office and give it to Miguel at the airport.’
He cradled the phone and said to Miguel, ‘Go and pack, there’s a flight to Dallas in forty-five minutes which connects with a flight to Mexico City. You’ll be there within four to five hours.’
Miguel started to mutter his thanks. The Senator waved them aside and said, ‘Get going.’
Miguel hurriedly left the room and Grainger asked Miller, ‘Can one of your guys run him to the airport?'
Miller shook his head. ‘Not possible. Rene is sleeping and needs his sleep, Maxie is back-up to me.’
‘What about the other two guys I’ve never seen?’
Miller waved his hand. 'They’re outside somewhere, and they stay out there.’
Grainger picked up the phone again and punched in a number. When it was answered, he said, ‘Hi Gloria, it’s Jim. I’ve got an emergency. Miguel just had a call from Mexico City that his mother had a heart attack I’ve booked him on a flight which leaves in about forty minutes. I can’t take him myself and a taxi will take too long to get here. Are any of your kids around?’ He listened for a moment and then said, ‘Good, thanks. He’ll be ready in ten minutes . . . Francis will be waiting for him at the airport.’
He cradled the phone and said to Miller, ‘Sometimes it’s useful to have good neighbours.’
After Miguel left in the passenger seat of a Mercedes 500, the Senator went into the kitchen to brew more coffee. Miller followed him, as always.
‘I feel like a Siamese twin,
’ the Senator remarked.
‘You are,’ Miller answered.
A thought struck the Senator. ‘You know we could have all taken him to the airport. You, me and Maxie.’
Miller shook his head. He held a finger to his lips. There was a notepad and a pencil hanging on the wall next to the fridge. Miller went over, took it off the wall and gestured at a chair by the kitchen table. Puzzled, the Senator sat down. Miller sat opposite him. He wrote rapidly on the pad and then pushed it across the table. The Senator read: It may be a set-up. They could be waiting between here and the airport.’
The Senator looked up in astonishment and drew a breath to say something. Again Miller put a finger to his lips and pointed to the pad. Angrily, Grainger tore the top sheet off, picked up the pencil and scribbled something. He pushed it across to the Australian, who read: ‘Miguel has been with me and my wife for eight years. I would trust him with my life.’
Miller picked up the pencil and wrote one line underneath that. He pushed it over and the Senator read: ‘I would not. Let’s go and talk in the garden.’
They walked out by the pool and Grainger said sarcastically, ‘Can I talk now?’
Quietly Miller answered, ‘Yes, Senator, but in a low voice please.’
The Perfect Kill (A Creasy novel Book 2) Page 17