by John Denis
Sabrina’s eyes were on the snout of the gun, and she did not see the knife as its point came up to slit through the front of her brassiere and hook it off her body, leaving a faint line of blood welling on the creamy skin of her naked breasts. Her hands flew to cover them, and Fayeed hooked two fingers in her silken briefs and ripped the wisp of cloth from her groin. She could not suppress the cry of pain and outrage, and now fear, that was the only sound so far to leave her lips.
Sabrina fell backwards and her legs parted. The Arab saw her open and unprotected, and tore off his belt to bare his own body. He spun the knife to lodge it quivering in a floorboard, and dropped the machine-pistol to the ground. He bellowed in his native tongue a cry of victory compounded with lust, knelt on the bed in front of her, spread her legs wide … and slumped sideways over her as McCafferty crashed the butt of his sub machine-gun into the back of his head.
Mac dragged the Arab off the bed and threw him to the floor, and Sabrina reached down for her clothing to hide her shame and humiliation, even greater revulsion flashing from her eyes.
‘That’s not a nice way to look at someone who’s just saved you from a fate worse than death – and most probably death as well,’ McCafferty said. ‘You don’t have to say “Thank you”, but at least you needn’t make me feel you’d rather I was down there on the floor and he was back on the bed having his evil way with you.’
‘In some ways,’ Sabrina spat at him, ‘I’d prefer Achmed to you, if it’s got to happen. He may have been an animal, but it was honest lust from a straightforward lecher. You’re so tricky, Mister, so – polluted, I think I’d rather die than know you’ve touched me.’
Mac sighed. ‘Jesus, this guy really made a mess of my life without knowing the slightest damned thing about me.’
Sabrina pulled the bedclothes up to cover herself, as much against the chill in the air as to cloak her nakedness. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘Who are you talking about.’
McCafferty explained. Unsurprisingly, like Basil Swann and Bert Cooligan, she didn’t believe him. But, again like her two colleagues, she came to be convinced, and was still avidly questioning him when Achmed seized the knife from the floor and struck at the American’s stomach. Sabrina’s warning half-scream alerted him, and he stepped back far enough to let the point of the blade pass through his shirt-front and scrape the skin.
Mac swung the machine-gun again, and Achmed, who had risen to his knees and was lunging forward once more with the knife, felt the gun barrel rake his face. He spat and sprang to his feet, blood leaking from his mouth. He sensed that Mac dared not fire the gun for fear of alerting a guard, and leapt at the American with the knife held high. Mac smashed the gun into the Arab’s wrist and the blade flew across the room.
Mac’s foot shot out and hooked around Achmed’s bare leg. Fayeed swivelled and started to fall, and McCafferty, holding the sub machine-gun now in both hands, looped the sling around the Arab’s neck twisting the gun until the knot was tight. Using the weapon like a straight arm in a Chinese stranglehold, he imprisoned the Arab’s head and rammed his knee into the small of Achmed’s back, the rifle a rigid bar on the Arab’s throat. No other noise came from Achmed Fayeed, pseudo-princeling of Bahrain, and he died in less than a minute, his face suffused, his sight masked by bursting blood vessels, his mouth engorged by the swollen tongue.
FOURTEEN
Slinging the sub machine-gun once more across his back, and partially concealing it with his anorak in case anyone spotted it as American issue, McCafferty escorted Sabrina downstairs under cover of Fayeed’s machine-pistol. He had noticed another jeep in the interior courtyard, loaded with supplies, and three more in the car-park.
The castle seemed empty, but Mac was treading warily in the event that the ringer was still around, for he had not been among the passengers. Neither could he chance meeting a guard who might be on first-name terms with the ringer. When he reached the courtyard, an orderly was packing the last of the supplies on the jeep. He glanced curiously at McCafferty and the girl, but made no comment.
Sabrina whispered, ‘Where is everybody, for God’s sake?’
‘Gone,’ Mac replied tersely. ‘They left in a bus. Where to, I don’t know. I only wish I did. What’s more, I’ve no idea how we’re going to find them.’
‘The boy, Feisal, too,’ Sabrina said, ‘was he with them? I’ve got to know, because he’s ill, and I’m the only one who can treat him.’ Mac confirmed, low-voiced, that Feisal had been on the bus.
They made their way across the drawbridge, passing what seemed to be the only three remaining guards. One, who had been leaning against an entrance pillar, came upright and alert when he saw McCafferty. ‘Back so soon?’ he inquired in thick, heavily-accented English.
‘Orders,’ Mac said. The guard’s round, pockmarked face took on a puzzled expression, and he murmured something in Serbo-Croat to one of the others. Then he fixed his eyes on Mac again and said, carefully, ‘Orders from where? Mister Smith left long before you did.’
McCafferty glanced at the car-park and saw only two jeeps: the ringer must have used one to join the main party at wherever it was the hostages had been taken. He plucked the communicator from his belt and sneered, ‘There are other ways of receiving orders than having somebody shout them at you, dummy. If you want to know, I was sent back to get her—’ indicating Sabrina.
‘Isn’t the Arab looking after her?’ the guerilla asked with a suggestive leer.
Mac grinned. ‘He was. Now he’s recovering.’
The guard laughed and translated for his friends. McCafferty said he had been told by Smith to bring Sabrina in immediately. Achmed and the other sentries were to wait a further half-hour, and follow in the last jeep.
‘And the supply-truck?’ the guerilla inquired, waving his machine-gun towards the internal yard.
‘It’s to go as soon as it’s ready,’ Mac ordered.
‘To the caves?’
‘Where else?’
Mac prodded Sabrina towards the nearest jeep, and she drove it out of the car-park on to the road. ‘Caves?’ she mused.
‘Seems like it. Anyway, it’s the only clue we have. What we must do now is get behind the supply-truck and follow it, and we’ve got only this one vehicle. As I need it myself, I don’t quite see how we’re going to manage.’
They rounded a bend in the road and Mac could see in the distance the red and white cross-bar of the road barrier. A guerilla lounged indolently beside the weighted end.
‘Damn it,’ McCafferty cursed, ‘I was afraid of this. We have to pick up Bert Cooligan at some stage, and I wanted everyone from the castle to think we’d gone straight to the caves.’
‘What will you do?’
‘What I have to.’
He motioned to her to stop by the barrier, and got out of the jeep just as the sentry started to press down on the leaded fulcrum. ‘Speak English?’ Mac asked the guerilla.
‘A little,’ the man replied unsurely.
Mac pointed at the guard’s chest, and then in the direction of the castle. ‘You – go back there,’ he instructed.
The Yugoslav nodded cheerfully, slung his rifle, and turned to leave. As he did so, McCafferty threw an arm around his throat and drove Achmed Fayeed’s knife into his back. The sentry slumped to the ground without a cry, and Mac dragged him to the downward slope and rolled the body into a patch of undergrowth.
‘Now what?’ Sabrina asked. McCafferty ditched the knife and said, ‘I’ve just remembered that we do have more than one vehicle.’
‘That’s right,’ Sabrina put in excitedly, ‘Bert got away on a motor-cycle.’
Mac nodded. ‘You take the jeep and follow the supply-truck, and I’ll recover the bike and use it to link up with Philpott.’
‘Why not the other way round?’ she returned. ‘I’d be less noticeable on the bike, with a crash-helmet, and Mr Philpott would have a more comfortable ride in the jeep.’
McCafferty shook his head wonder
ingly and replied, ‘I might have known it. I suppose you were the High School scramble champion?’
Sabrina winked at him. ‘Not quite, but I made him teach me how to ride.’
They squared the ground where Mac thought the motorcycle might be, and Sabrina found it. ‘It’s in one piece,’ she shouted triumphantly, hauling it upright and jumping on the starter. ‘And what’s more it works.’ They wheeled the Honda back up to the road, and concealed it and themselves behind a clump of trees. Presently the sound of an approaching vehicle caught their ears. Sabrina mounted the Honda, with Mac holding it upright, and started the engine.
The jeep, its swaying load tied down with ropes, passed them. Sabrina counted to ten, opened the throttle, and roared out on to the road. She had McCafferty’s communicator in her belt, and banked on Bert Cooligan staying on high ground to receive her message when she had located Smith’s new hideout. She had not, though, been able to find a crash-helmet.
McCafferty rejoined Cooligan up the mountain and gave him the details of the plan. They decided that when the coast was clear, Bert should return to the castle and await Sabrina’s contact from there. He armed the agent with the dead sentry’s rifle.
‘Has Sabrina got a gun, too?’ Cooligan asked, his voice worried.
Mac hesitated, then nodded. ‘The Arab, Achmed, tried to rape her. I managed to stop him, but I had to kill him. She’s got his machine-pistol. In any case, I’ve more guns back in the valley for when I pick up Philpott. We’ll be a regular little army, huh?’
Cooligan grinned and wished McCafferty luck as he left to take the jeep down the hill into the village. The Secret Service agent squatted on his haunches holding the rifle, butt first, on the ground before him, and saw the still-tenanted castle bathed in the amber glow of the late afternoon sun. He settled down to wait.
The track straggled off the mountain to the town of Knin, where four major roads converged. Sabrina kept the guards’ jeep in clear sight until the terrain flattened out on the coastal plain of Hrvatska. She thought the jeep might be bound for the resort of Sibenik, but from Knin it diverted on to a minor road heading for Benkovac and the coast, and then threaded through a maze of tracks until it reached a spot which she judged must be twenty to twenty-five kilometres from the castle, and about ten inland. What was more, she was back in hill country again, though it was no match for the Dinaric Alps.
She had now to exercise greater care, for they had the road more or less to themselves. Luckily it was as winding as the castle track had been, so she was able to lurk out of sight around bends, and then sprint to catch up with the receding jeep. The sun was only a blazing segment to the west, and Sabrina mentally crossed her fingers that they would find the caves before the light failed.
The jeep started to slow down, so Sabrina eased the Honda off the track into the shelter of a scattering of boulders. The jeep swung right and began climbing the rock-strewn hillside. Sabrina switched her gaze to higher ground, and saw a barred gate fronting a vast concrete abutment set into the flank of the hill. The jeep stopped at the gate, and an armed guerilla materialised to check the visitor. Behind the concrete slab she could just pick out the dark mouth of a cave.
Sabrina propped the Honda against a rock and scaled the hill at an oblique angle to take her above the cave entrance. Leaning out perilously far, she saw that the concrete deck was wide and deep enough to take the minibus and several more vehicles, while still leaving a large unfilled space. She shifted her position, and craned her neck even further to look into the cave itself. A battered signpost, uprooted and reclining forlornly against the entrance wall, bore a skull and crossbones and the German warning, ‘Achtung!’ alongside a device that suggested explosives. A wartime ammunition dump? she wondered. It would have made an ideal site. She spotted the points of stalactites hanging from the vaulted roof of the cavern, but could make out nothing beyond that, though the space was well lit by electricity supplied from a generator humming away in the background.
Sabrina grimaced, and pulled back. She needed to know more of the geography of the caves and, if possible, the exact location of the captives.
Carefully, for the sentry was still at his post, she climbed on up the hill until she reached the crest. She could see now that the caves must extend further than she had imagined – and that they were divided by a natural break.
The cavern which formed the entrance to the caves opened out on to a deep gorge over an unseen but audible river. A narrow bridge spanned the gorge, and the pathway at the other side disappeared into the mouth of yet another cave. The suspension-bridge was railed, but appeared none too safe. Sabrina grinned: she was sure she had located the hostages’ hiding-place, for Smith would not neglect such a splendid opportunity to make either escape or rescue as difficult as possible.
She activated her two-way communicator, and within a few seconds was talking earnestly to Bert Cooligan at Castle Windischgraetz …
When the minibus arrived at the caves, Smith himself had unlocked the gate. The hostages were shooed unceremoniously off the bus, Feisal holding tightly to Zeidan’s hand as the crippled sheikh was loaded into his wheelchair. A chatter of engine noise from above announced the arrival of Dunkels in the Kamov helicopter. One of Smith’s guerillas activated the generator and pressed a switch to flood the gloomy cavern with light. The multi-hued limestone formations from ceiling and floor brought a gasp of admiration from Feisal.
Guards shepherded the captives through the cavern, and once more Sheikh Zeidan was hauled from the wheelchair when they reached the flimsy bridge. Dr Hamady took the first nervous step on to the bridge, clutching the rails and allowing himself to be led over with his eyes closed. Zeidan was next, chaired by two sentries and watched anxiously by Feisal in his wake. Dorani and Arbeid followed, with Fairman and Latimer heading the crocodile of Air Force One crew members.
Smith brought up the rear, but before commencing his crossing he ordered Dunkels to establish radio-contact with the castle. ‘Check with Jagger whether they’ve caught Cooligan yet. If they haven’t, get airborne again and give them a hand. At any event, I want the castle personnel here as soon as they’ve left everything safe. Tell Fayeed to get rid of the girl Carver – any way he pleases.’
Dunkels hurried off, and Smith traversed the gorge to join the hostages, who were perched on an outcrop surrounded on three sides by a drop of a hundred feet, and under the watchful eyes of a pair of guards. Steps cut into the side of the cave descended to the ledge, and Smith negotiated them cautiously to stand before his captives. ‘Not quite the Ritz,’ he apologised, ‘but at least you’re under cover.’
Sheikh Dorani regarded him under beetling brows. ‘When do you propose to release us?’ he demanded.
‘As soon as the ransom is in my possession,’ Smith returned affably.
‘And when will that be?’ Zeidan growled.
Smith consulted his watch. ‘By nightfall,’ he said reflectively. ‘Fifty million dollars in diamonds. The largest ransom in history, I believe.’
‘Kidnappers are notorious not for the size of their unlawful gains but the heinous nature of their crimes,’ Zeidan intoned. ‘If you are remembered at all, Smith, it will be as the common criminal you undoubtedly are.’
Smith turned to face the old Arab, who leaned back in his wheelchair as if it were a golden throne, and regarded his captor with abhorrence. Zeidan knew that of all the hostages, he alone possessed the ability to unsettle Smith’s composure; it was a weapon he used sparingly, and always to great effect. Zeidan gambled that in these infrequent outbursts, when his dignity was affronted, Smith was inclined to tell the truth. That was what the sheikh was seeking now to learn.
Smith’s voice was a silky threat. ‘Would you rather I be remembered as a mass murderer, Your Excellency?’
‘That is your prerogative,’ Zeidan grunted, ‘and could well be your epitaph.’
‘If it is my epitaph, Sheikh Zeidan, I can promise you it will also be yours and that of your grand
son.’
Latimer snapped from the darkening lip of the ledge, ‘You must be certifiable, Smith, if you think you can get away with killing all of us, because that’s what you’ll have to do, and take the ransom as well.’
Smith looked across at him, his good humour and confidence restored. ‘Fortunately for you, Major, I am neither insane nor an instinctual killer. But … if you provoke me too much, any of you, or if you should attempt to escape, you have my promise that you will not leave this place alive.’ He turned and remounted the stone steps, and left silence, doubt and terror behind him …
McCafferty had just been able to make out Sabrina’s Honda in the distance as he spun the wheel of the jeep to take the opposite direction for his appointment with Philpott. He reached the village without meeting another vehicle, recovered his pack from the postman’s daughter, and fortified himself with a few beers to while away the time. He didn’t have long to wait: he saw the helicopter before its engine noise reached him, and made a bet with himself, which he won, that the pilot would land in the same field where he himself had parked the UTVA. Mac saw Philpott stoop unnecessarily as he ran under the rotors, and appreciated how truly alone they were when the helicopter promptly took off again.
Philpott listened to McCafferty’s account, and questioned him closely on key points. When Mac had finished, Philpott said grimly, ‘So we still don’t know exactly where the hostages are, and we can’t find out until we make contact with Cooligan.’
‘That’s the size of it,’ Mac conceded.
‘Or what Sabrina’s doing, or whether she’s in danger.’
‘That, I must admit, is the part that worries me most,’ McCafferty replied.
She was at that moment squirming back down the hillside, mostly on her bottom, to repossess the Honda. She got to it undetected, kicked the motor into life, and was wheeling the machine on to the track to take the same route back to the castle, when she looked up and saw the helicopter bearing down upon her.