Eternity's Sunrise (A New Doc Palfrey Thriller)

by Richard Creasey

  Giant, white gold pillars rose from the marbled floor, looming over the glass ramps that steered guests from one hospitality level to another. They were ushered by liveried staff past vast bouquets of fresh flowers and elegant palms in golden buckets that stood on marble plinths.

  But it was the guests who caught my eye. Guests or models?

  Their figures knocked me out, as if every body had just eased out of a shiny, city gym and slipped on designer clothes. Were they paid to wear them? The Burg Al Arab was certainly a brand-filled, marketing heaven.

  YellowMan T-shirts and Diesel jeans shared the same space as Armani suits. Christina Dior dresses flirted with Jil Sanders but it was the elegance of the slim bodies covered in black abaya, Gucci handbags swinging at the side, that caught my Western eye.

  “Job done.” Doc on the other hand had been watching the eyes watching us, and the cameras I suspect.

  The elevator that swept us up to the tenth floor was pure seven-star Disney. I should say twentieth floor, as every suite is on two floors. Two hundred and two suites — the Burg Al Arab hotel only has suites — translates into two hundred and two butlers. Ours met us at the front door, the luggage went to the back.

  Immediately the door slammed behind him, Doc spoke as himself. “Any cameras or sound bugs, James?”

  I’d always thought all butlers were called James and now this notion was reinforced.

  “All swept.” James had a delighted look in eyes. He turned them on me. “Hi, Lucille.”

  “One of ours,” Doc explained. “How many bugs, did you find?”

  “Dozens, a professional job. As you’d expect.”

  “Sure there are no more?”

  “Certain”

  And with that Doc tore off his wig and headed for the stairs. “Don’t let any one in.”

  As he spoke a doorbell rang.

  “Fuck!” I hadn’t heard Doc curse before and watched, a bit bewildered, as he hurried up the staircase to the bedroom floor.

  I followed James to the kitchen and watched as he hesitated after glancing at the video camera. An ominous, black shape filled the screen.

  The bell sounded again.

  James, with all the patience of a perfect English butler, opened the back door and kept his weight behind it.

  “Madam?”

  A jet-black niqab folding into a cover-all black abaya moved with devastating speed. James was pushed off balance and the intruder slammed the door. The mesmerizing, black shape was inside.

  “Hello James.”

  “Benadir!”

  Benadir swept off her niqab.

  We hugged.

  “He’s upstairs,” I whispered.

  A last squeeze and Benadir was gone.

  Seconds later they were together in the master bedroom.

  James steered me to mine.

  “This is the small one?” Wide-eyed, I took in the twin double beds, the walk-in wardrobe and the gilt bathroom where even my wash-bag had been unpacked.

  “Good view, too.” James led my gaze outside the man-made luxury, through the floor to ceiling windows to the azure sky. The best view of the Persian Gulf enveloped me.

  “I’ll wake you for dinner.” James seemed to bow his way out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  NPR (National Public Radio)

  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100680821

  Précis:

  In Turkey, trials are under way in a conspiracy plot that reads like a political thriller.

  Sensational confessions, arrests within the military and an alleged plan to overthrow a democratically elected government are the dramatic elements of what some call the most important investigation in the country’s history.

  The trials, which began in October, are considered to be a challenge to Turkey’s military establishment. Turks are riveted by the proceedings, which may shed light on some of the dark chapters in the country's past and determine Turkey’s future.

  Already, the trials have created tensions between Turkey’s Islamist-rooted ruling party and the secular military establishment.

  The name of the organization accused in the conspiracy plot, Ergenekon, is rooted in Turkish mythology: It was a secret place deep in the Altai Mountains where the Turkic people gathered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Dinner was the opening feast for the trustees of the League of Enlightenment. Billionaires to a man. No women.

  I was standing in for Father, who was ostensibly suffering from a mild but incapacitating bout of food poisoning. I was wearing a simple, seductively elegant, free-flowing Donna Karan dress that Benadir had packed for me. Doc and Benadir had come downstairs to the vast ‘sitting room’, to see me off.

  “You look sensational. But I can see you’re nervous,” said Doc.

  “Which she should be. Her father’s ill.” Benadir added with a raised eyebrow.

  Doc looked me straight in the eye. “Remember, be careful when you answer any question. Try and think back to before your journey to Alaska. That’s where your head must be. You’ve no knowledge of the details of your father’s role with the League of Enlightenment. You’ve never been to Russia...”

  “Durand knows I was in the mine, he saw me there.”

  And that of course was the point. If Durand was hiding the mine’s purpose and his powers from the trustees, then he’d have to conceal all knowledge of my visit.

  The stark truth was that Z5 was putting me in the firing line and I was going willingly.

  But I was determined not to be outdone by Durand.

  As the elevator reached the 27th floor and the door slid open, I wondered whether I should knock or just enter. Foolish thought. Two minders ushered me in with a bow and an announcement.

  “Miss Lucille Schobinger.”

  Sixteen faces turned towards me and each lit up. Benadir had made sure I looked stunning. Small talk took the floor, as I was introduced to all the trustees one by one.

  “I am so sorry to hear that your father has been laid low, food poisoning I gather.” François Édouard’s tone sounded genuine; my reply wasn’t.

  “Oh I’m sure he’ll be fine in a day or two.” I sounded like a fun-loving daughter who had little time for a father’s sorry stomach. “What a stunning view...”

  As I responded to each trustee’s enquiry my confidence in pulling off the night grew. It needed to. Twenty minutes later I was invited to take my place, by one of ten waiters determined to make sure my every wish was catered for. My chair was one seat from the far end of the lavishly laid table.

  Seventeen men and me.

  And the man sitting next to me, at the very end of the table, was Jean-Pierre Durand. The one person who had yet to greet me.

  “Are you sure your father is not dead?” No glib small talk here.

  I struggled to think of a face saving retort, while roasted foie gras with braised carrots and almond foam was put before us. The chief butler slipped a note to Durand.

  He glanced at it, ignored the butler, but turned to me. “Excuse me a moment.” Durand got up from his chair and briefly addressed the trustees. “I’ll be back shortly.” And then in what appeared to be a polite aside to me, whispered. “Can’t wait to see him in the flesh.” Durand left the Al Areeka Majlis to sixteen trustees and me.

  And his vacated chair was never empty.

  Trustee after trustee sat down to give me their various lectures about the League of Enlightenment and Father’s great role in it. I listened politely, sipping the 1999 Ridge Monte Bello that the waiters poured freely, not truly caring whether their attention was directed at my revealing dress or me.

  Suddenly a chill swept through the Al Areeka Majlis as through the huge doorway strode Jean-Pierre Durand. “I have some tragic news. Our Chairman, Viktor Marcel Schobinger, has died as a result of food poisoning.” Durand’s eyes locked onto mine. “He was, I have been told, asleep at the moment of his untimely demise.”

  I scraped my chair back across
the marbled floor, leapt to my feet and rushed past the shocked trustees.

  “You bastard,” I spat at Durand as I sped past him.

  The doors opened for me but would I be grabbed by Durand’s gang? I didn’t care, what else could I do? The elevator took an agonizing ten seconds to open its gilt doors. Ten more to get to the tenth floor.

  I darted out and charged towards our suite. It was locked and no one came to open it. I dashed to the butler’s door. The door was opened as I reached it. But not by James.

  A coffin was hustled out by two hotel porters. As they turned their backs to me I entered before the door could close.

  There was blood on the coral carpet but before I could react Benadir emerged from the closet covered head to foot in black.

  “Benadir? What’s happened?”

  “They kidnapped Doc but he’s alive.” She sounded shaken.

  “Was he in the coffin?”

  “Yes. A convenient way for them to get him out past the guests.”

  We edged our way out of the door. Looking left, looking right. Seeing no one.

  Inside the elevator Benadir tapped the button for the 27th floor.

  “We’re going up?” Panic surged through me but, although I couldn’t see her face, Benadir’s gloved, right hand folded into my left and gave a reassuring squeeze.

  No minders were in front of the open doors of Al Areeka Majlis.

  “They’ve all gone. That’s impossible!” It evidently wasn’t, but I had no time to think as I hurried behind Benadir to the panorama windows that overlooked the dark waters of the Persian Gulf.

  A giant Chinook helicopter, painted white like a private jet, eased itself through the air, briefly eclipsing the moon as it headed off into the darkness, away from the glittering lights of Dubai’s extraordinary, man-made landscape.

  “No surprises there.” Benadir’s voice sounded deflated, as she shook her hooded head.

  “Benadir, where – ”

  “Doc set himself up. He knew Durand would have him kidnapped.”

  The silhouette of a second helicopter flickered into sight.

  “That’ll be Ozzi.”

  “Are we going to chase -”

  “No.” Benadir interjected a second time. “This place is full of informers.”

  Benadir’s bag and mine were packed and waiting by the time we reached the helipad and Ozzi launched us majestically into the air, circling one of the world’s most bizarre wonderlands before heading for Dubai International Airport.

  “Where are we going?”

  Benadir, her niqab in her hands, her face strained, but still wearing an encouraging smile, sighed and looked me in the eyes. She spoke gently. “Back to Geneva to bury your Father.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  This was the first time Doc had set himself up to be kidnapped, gambling his captors would consider him worth more alive than dead. And he was hating it.

  He’d been beaten and put into the coffin by Durand’s thugs at the Burg Al Arab Hotel and he knew there’d be a lot more violence to come.

  The coffin, super-sized to cater for the most portly of Burg Al Arab Hotel’s potential customers, had been thrown onto a motor launch. Doc had heard and felt the hull slamming on the choppy waters of the Persian Gulf.

  And then silence. Hours of silence. A pitch-black, claustrophobic, silence that was shattered abruptly by the high-speed whining of an electric drill just inches from his throbbing head.

  Twelve screws were undone before the coffin lid was thrown open. Light burst in. Doc’s hand shot up to shield his eyes. He could just make out two thugs.

  “The boss said to take the left leg off.”

  Despite all the horrors, Doc laughed.

  And that provided a beat of gulped silence for him to speak into.

  “How about some water? Before you cut off my left leg?”

  The thugs stared at him in confused disbelief.

  Doc gripped both sides of the coffin, yanked himself up and with the style of an Olympic gymnast, swung himself at the thugs.

  It took Doc just three minutes to render his opponents unconscious. He bundled both of them into the large coffin that had once been his and slammed the lid shut. He then used the electric drill handle to hammer four of the twelve screws back in place. Two each side. No need for a death sentence, Doc just needed time.

  He turned to lock the operating theatre door, threw the key into the waste bin and glanced at the mirror above the hand basin. What a sight. Doc doused his head with water and cleaned the blood off his face and skull with a wet towel.

  He straightened his hair and went to the door. The carpeted, subtly lit, lower crew deck corridor was not deserted. A waiter glanced at him before entering a cabin.

  Doc followed.

  Less than a minute later Doc walked back into the corridor, buttoning the waiter’s tunic.

  At the crew’s elevator Doc pressed the lift button and examined the yacht’s floor plan maps while he waited. Twelve floors, no less. Some yacht.

  The elevator took him to the visitors’ deck.

  There sixteen trustees of the League of Enlightenment, attended by half a dozen waiters, were in the middle of a hot-tempered debate. The target of their anger was Jean-Pierre Durand.

  Doc slid into place beside one of the other waiters and gave a nervous ‘my first day’ smile. He swivelled his eyes to take in the surroundings, careful not to move his head and attract unwanted attention. A couple of Fadeyka Semyonov’s armed guards were standing behind him. He took in the contrast of this enormous space. Inside, the hot-tempered meeting of Trustees of the League of Enlightenment was cooled by air conditioning. Outside, four grand dining tables decorated with flowers were open to the night sky, quarter moon and a billion stars.

  An angry high-pitched Indian voice snapped Doc’s attention back to the room.

  “You talk about a uranium mine in Siberia? Uranium mine?”

  His eyes swung to Gagan Setty.

  “I have personally invested one billion rupees into the League of Enlightenment and I made it clear that that investment should be used to develop a means of tapping solar power and sending it down to an earth station, not a uranium mine!”

  “And who has told you we are not, we are developing an earth station in Siberia.” Jean-Pierre Durand’s voice was calm.

  “Then why is my Siberian Aluminium plant not being supplied with free electricity?” Fadeyka Semyonov’s tone was equally cool. Fadeyka Semyonov was the host to his co-trustees aboard this, one of the biggest yachts in the world that he commissioned after visiting Paul Allen’s L'Octopus. That had sixty crew, space for two helicopters, seven boats, and a submarine that allowed discreet arrivals and departures.

  Fadeyka Semyonov’s yacht was bigger. Russian oligarchs don’t like being bettered.

  “We should not get personal. We have all invested millions of dollars to get a limitless supply of energy to power our industries.” Yori Narita, neat in his distinctly Japanese western suit, was always the diplomat.

  Victor Pereira was not. “And bypass our governments’ unwarranted taxes that go to helping a world that is no longer supportable.”

  François Édouard now spoke. “This is all missing the point. I have reason to believe Mr Durand is misusing my investment. I met with the late Chairman, Mr Victor Schobinger, before his mysterious death.”

  Durand still wasn’t flustered. “There was nothing mysterious about it. He died of a heart attack as I informed the meeting earlier.”

  “His daughter told us he had food poisoning...”

  “Enough!” Fadeyka Semyonov, slammed his giant fist on the dining table, shaking the cutlery and spilling wine from his glass. A blood red stain soaked into the white linen tablecloth. “What is Durand doing in Siberia? That is what I demand to know.”

  Durand addressed the trustees. “Gentlemen, I resent the implication of your questions, which suggest I am not acting honourably. I therefore propose this meeting is suspended and t
ransferred to Siberia where you can see for yourselves exactly how your billions are being spent.”

  A hush fell over the meeting. Durand knew damn well that no one around the table would accept an invitation to the Siberia’s treacherous North East.

  “The man is being insolent. Get him out of my sight.” Fadeyka Semyonov pointed at Durand and his guards grabbed the arms of the League of Enlightenment’s de facto CEO, in a vice-like grip.

  He continued in a commanding tone. “Fellow trustees, we need a new chairman and I put my name forward...”

  Doc didn’t hear Fadeyka Semyonov out as he slipped away to discover what the guards would do with Durand.

  Or more accurately, what Durand would do with the guards.

  With surprising deftness and speed he jettisoned both of them over the railings of the main deck to be swallowed up by passing waters in the black of night, as the yacht sliced its majestic way through the Persian Gulf.

  Durand looked around to see if he had been caught in the act.

  He saw Doc.

  Durand’s lips curled in an ugly smirk. “Ah, Doc Palfrey in disguise again. This time as a penguin.” He spun and sprinted away.

  Doc ran to catch sight of Durand disappearing through the VIP elevator.

  As it descended Doc leapt down the carpeted stairs.

  Right down to the sparkling, humming engine room where one steel, waterproofed bay was given over to Fadeyka Semyonov’s personal submarine.

  Durand waited at the bay’s open steel door; checked Doc had followed before stepping inside and slamming it shut behind him.

  Why did Durand wait for me? Doc’s instincts kicked in.

  He grabbed a ‘Seago Offshore 4 Man Liferaft’, unclicking the quick-release belt and chucking the twenty-five kilo pack over his shoulder. Two steps at a time he bounded back up the stairs, crashing into an engineer who was on his way down.

  “Follow me!” shouted Doc over his shoulder.

  The engineer ignored him.

  He shouldn’t have.