Raul spoke carefully, asking to be put through to Henri Foche. He was told that Monsieur Foche would not be in the office for another hour, but could she tell him what the call was about?
Thus suitably screened, Raul said quietly, “I have some very valuable information for him. And it is of a highly dangerous nature. It is important that I speak to him in person. I will call back in one hour.” Before M. Foche’s assistant had time to ask him for his name and number, Raul rang off.
He called back in one hour and spoke to the same woman, who asked him to hold the line. Two minutes later a voice said, “This is Henri Foche.”
Raul, giving himself his old title from the days when he was respectable, replied, “My name is Col. Raul Declerc, and I am the managing director of a French security corporation in Marseille. I am calling to inform you that we have reason to believe there will be an attempt on your life sometime in the very near future.”
Henri Foche was silent for a moment. And then he said, with the practiced realism of a man not entirely unfamiliar with the dark side of life, “Are you selling, or are you merely a good Gaullist with genuine concerns for my future?”
“I’m selling.”
“I see. Is this because you feel you might be able to prevent this from happening? Or are you just trying to make a fast buck?”
“Monsieur Foche, we have been offered two million U.S. dollars to carry out the killing. And of course we turned it down. I am calling partly out of a sense of decency, and partly because this kind of knowledge is hard-won. We occasionally receive such information, which in this case was costly to us. And we always charge for our services.”
“I see. And why should I believe what you tell me is true? How can I be sure you are not simply making something up? Just a pack of lies designed to defraud me of money?”
“Very well, Monsieur Foche. I’m sorry to have bothered you. Good afternoon to you.”
Raul put down the phone, having deliberately taken no precautions to hide his identity, or that of the phone from which he was calling, a landline on the main Marseille exchange.
Four minutes later his phone rang. He picked it up before the answering machine intervened and said, “Yes, Colonel Declerc speaking.”
“Colonel, did you just call me? This is Henri Foche.”
Raul knew precisely who it was. And he understood the value of the thunderbolt he had just delivered to the Gaullist front-runner: that someone with a very great deal of money was out to assassinate him. He knew Henri Foche could not let that one go by, because this was plainly not a nutcase. This was almost certainly a state-sponsored intention.
“Obviously,” said the politician, “I need to know everything you can tell me.”
“Only if you intend to remain alive,” replied Raul. It was an answer that owed more to the droll, understated men who walk the sinister corridors of his late employers, MI-6, than to the French killers on his payroll.
“Tell me your price.”
“I have two requests, if I am to give you all of my information. First, the sum of one hundred thousand euros. Second, that if there is an attempt on your life, as I believe there will be, you will hire either me or my people to protect you until the threat is removed.”
“I do not have a problem with either of those conditions,” said Henri Foche. “I will either send you a check or wire the money, whichever is the faster. I assume you will not part with information until the money is secure in your account?”
“Not so, Monsieur Foche. Unless I am wrong, we have a deal. We may even have a long-term partnership. And I believe there is a certain urgency to this matter. I fully intend to tell you everything I know right now. Because I believe you are a man of your word. I am happy to take your check. It is in both of our interests to move swiftly.”
“I appreciate that. Please proceed.”
“I received the first call a couple of weeks ago. Character called Morrison, said he was calling from London, but he spoke with an American accent. At first he offered a million dollars for a straightforward assassination, and I kept him on the line while we tried to trace the call. In the end he agreed to two million. He wanted immediate research on you and your movements. He lodged fifty thousand U.S. dollars in cash for expenses with a lawyer in Geneva. We were to collect it.”
“And did you?”
“Er . . . yes. We did. It was supposed to be for research, and I told him some totally innocuous facts—you live in Rennes and have interests in shipyards—nothing he could not have ascertained from any newspaper or magazine. Monsieur Foche, I want you to be in no doubt. This character was not joking.”
“You are certain he was not in France?”
“Yes, I am. We arranged a time for his calls. And he once said something about the time difference, you know, from him to me. He was abroad, very definitely. And he did tell me he was in London. So, if we were undertaking your protection, we would assume the threat would emanate from Great Britain.”
“But he was not British? And you could not trace the call?”
“No, we could not. I’m assuming he was American. But I believe he was calling from London.”
“Any idea how he found you?”
“Yes. He reached us through our office in Central Africa, Kinshasa, in the Congo. He may have had military connections. The only good news was he did not appear to have a shred of information about France. No local knowledge. However, I am afraid the most you can do at this moment is to step up your personal security, and keep us posted if there are any developments. And I must warn you, this Morrison wanted us to move on this right now—you should take immense care not to place yourself in harm’s way.”
“But what can I do?”
“Vary your routes to and from the office. Do not walk alone from your front door to the car. Keep an armed guard in the campaign office all night just in case someone wants to plant an IED in there. Put your present bodyguards on high alert. I am assuming you have ample security in place when you make public appearances?”
“I do. But I would like to place you on standby to move in if there is a definite threat.”
“Always at your service,” replied Raul Declerc. “For Brittany and for France.”
The irony was lost on Monsieur Henri Foche.
Mack Bedford was more or less confined to barracks. For hours on end he waited alone in his hotel room, planning, going over his strategy, reading the newspapers, studying maps and charts, sleeping, doing one hundred push-ups on the floor every four hours. He was always wearing his Jeffery Simpson disguise—the Jeffery Simpson who was still in Ireland, that is.
He used only room service for meals, and was always in the bathroom when the waiter came in and placed the dishes on the table. Mack went to no public places in the hotel, he made no phone calls, and he never asked the doorman to fetch the Ford Fiesta from the parking garage.
The days passed with agonizing monotony, and Saturday, when it came, was gloomy and overcast. He ordered a power breakfast—scrambled eggs, bacon, a couple of sausages, mushrooms, and toast—because he was uncertain when he would eat again.
He packed his bag, and at eleven thirty in the morning went down to settle his hotel bill. There were room service charges but little else. Mack handed over another sixty pounds and asked the doorman to bring the car to the front entrance.
He took a quick look at his map, and memorized the route to Southall. He did not return to the M4 motorway but drove a half mile south and picked up the old A4, a busy two-lane road that skirts London Airport. Ten minutes later he was in Prenjit Kumar’s drive. It was raining steadily.
The same Indian showed him down to the basement workrooms where the gunsmith awaited him. And there, laid out on the dark-red baize of the first workstation, glinting in the bright overhead light, was the SSG-69. Mr. Kumar was looking at the spot where the telescopic sight fits. He had a jeweler’s glass in his right eye, like a monocle, and he was using a tiny file, applying a finishing touch. He stood up to
greet his client, and said deferentially, “Welcome to my humble workshop. I have built you the most superb sniper rifle, pure precision, and as accurate as any rifle you will ever own.”
Mack replied, “And I have brought you another fifteen thousand pounds, plus cash for the Draeger. Has it arrived?”
“Of course it has, Mr. McArdle. In my trade we don’t make empty promises. I’ve had it since Wednesday. And I tested it for you. One of the valves was very stiff, and I fixed it. I also constructed a place in the bottom of the toolbox for the Draeger to fit. No problem.”
“Is the rifle ready to test?”
“Of course. And that we will do first. Then, if you are happy, we will take it apart a few times just to get familiar with the procedure.”
He handed Mack the rifle, which was light and beautifully balanced. The stock looked strange, like a skeleton with its two struts and angled shoulder rest. The former SEAL took up his firing stance, and the rifle felt like a part of his right arm, comfortable, secure, made-to-measure.
They walked into a different room, and there before them was a long, well-lit tunnel about forty yards from end to end. There was a regular target about eighteen inches square in the distance and a high wooden bench to lean on in the firing area.
Mr. Kumar told Mack there was a bullet in the breech plus five more in the magazine. But he could already see he was selling the rifle to an expert. Mack prepared to fire, leaned forward, and stared through the telescopic sight, until the crosshairs dissected the bull’s-eye. He was motionless as he squeezed the trigger, and there was the faintest dull pop as the silenced SSG-69 sent the practice bullet away at a speed of a half mile per second.
Mack pulled back the bolt, loaded the breech, and fired again. And again. Then he straightened up and said, “Better take a look at the grouping.”
Mr. Kumar wound in the target on rope pulleys, and handed it to Mack. There was only one hole, right in the center of the bull’s-eye.
“Very nice, Mr. McArdle, very nice indeed,” said the gunsmith, smiling. “Perhaps you have used such a rifle before.”
“Perhaps I have,” said Mack. “But I’ve never used a better one than this.”
“You would like to take three more shots?”
“I will. But I’d find it tough to improve on the first three.”
Again he fired, a little quicker this time, and when the new target was pulled in there was the slightest variation on the right side of the hole in the bull’s-eye.
“I wouldn’t say you’d lost your touch,” grinned Mr. Kumar. “That’s very fine shooting.”
“I varied the second bullet just slightly right, only a fraction just to see the margin of error. It’s a superb job, Mr. Kumar. Outstanding.”
They spent the next hour testing the assembly of the rifle. Taking it apart and then putting it together, screwing the wide chrome bolt of the aluminum stock into the area behind the trigger, then sliding the telescopic sights, Russian made, into the tight metallic grooves Prenjit Kumar had engineered. The screw-in barrel, cut down to thirteen inches, had an attachment for the silencer, and when dismantled, the rifle could be placed easily in the toolbox on specially built velvet-covered racks with safety clips to stop it from moving. Precious jewels have been transported with less delicacy, and Mack stared down at the stored sections of the weapon, snug in the very fine toolbox, bright against the black velvet, above the Draeger. In a separate section, the six chrome bullets were set in a line, each one capable of blasting a hole the size of a melon in Henri Foche’s head.
Mack Bedford turned to Mr. Kumar and shook his hand. Then he handed him an envelope containing the fifteen thousand pounds, plus another four hundred for the Draeger. They said their good-byes, and Mack carried the toolbox and his bag to the car.
Before he left, the Bengali reminded him, “You should practice with another dozen bullets at the approximate range from where you intend to fire. There may be a fractional variation, and the new sights should be adjusted. But I can tell you know all this, and I have placed the practice bullets in the toolbox.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kumar,” replied Mack. “And be careful.”
He started the Ford Fiesta and this time made straight for the M4 motorway, the great east-west artery of southern England. Ahead of him lay a two-hundred-mile journey to the southwest, to an area known in England’s more optimistic circles as the Devon Riviera. This spectacular stretch of coastline is supposed to be where the sun shines more often and the rain belts down less often than anywhere else in the country. And there were times when both of these tourist “facts” may have been true. But Mack Bedford doubted whether they applied today.
The spray was flying and the rain stayed heavy when he hit the M4. Even though it was Saturday, there seemed to be as many enormous trucks as ever, sending a tidal wave of flying water, left and right, as they screamed through the grayness of a July afternoon.
Mack, of course, had been on this road before, for many hours, on his journey from the port of Fishguard to Southall. He would, however, remain on it for only a little more than an hour, veering left before the great bridge over the River Severn and heading down the M5 into Somerset and then Devon.
Right now he had a lot on his mind. Four hundred and fifty miles away, Tommy had had the operation at the peerless Nyon Clinic, located a dozen miles from Geneva, along the north shore of the lake. He had told Anne it would be very difficult to make contact since he was due to attend a private meeting with navy pension officials in Norfolk that day. Anne did not believe him, but having been the wife of a SEAL commander for so many years, she knew better than to ask her husband what he was really doing.
Mack had seen pictures of the clinic, which was set in rolling country right on the edge of the lake. The views were marvelous, but above all, this place specialized in children’s diseases and they were confident of their breakthrough in the curing of ALD. The surgeon, Carl Spitzbergen, was the acknowledged world master at the long operation, and Mack could do nothing but hope, his only comfort being that Tommy was in the finest hands.
Out here on the rain-lashed M4 he was doing his level best to uphold his part of the bargain with Harry Remson. But he had to admit one thing: the McArdle-guaranteed Ford Fiesta was also doing its part, tearing along the highway, wipers flashing across the windshield, a tough, powerful little car, about half the size of the Buick but gutsy as hell, the way Mack had hoped.
He broke clear of the airport traffic and aimed the car west, watching the rise of the hills as he raced toward the Berkshire Downs. Out here on the high ground the rain was if anything worse, sweeping diagonally across the highway, and not letting up until the road swooped downhill, off the Downs and into Wiltshire.
From here it was a straight thirty-mile run across a flat plain of open farmland to the junction with the M5, which veers right around the north side of the port of Bristol. Mack pushed on through the rain, turning southwest, all along the coastline of North Somerset, with the River Severn estuary to his right.
The M5 then ran inland, running north of the Black Down Hills into the heart of Devonshire, and finally ran out of steam just south of Exeter, the most important city in the entire southwest of England, once walled by the Romans, and then conquered by the Normans a thousand years later.
The rain had stopped by the time Mack reached the end of the motorway, and now he ran onto another divided highway, the A380. This took him almost the whole way inland down to his destination, the ancient fishing port of Brixham, which sits in the great shadow of Berry Head, jutting out into the English Channel at the southern tip of Torbay.
Mack ran into the old part of the village, a half mile above the harbor, a little before five o’clock. He drove around for a half hour and finally settled on a small, unobtrusive hotel, with views to the sea. Saturday is traditionally changeover day in this part of the west country, and Mack was in luck.
The hotel was full, but they’d just had a cancellation. Yes, they could give him a s
ingle room with a bath for just one night, but after that they were once again full. Mack accepted and went outside to park his car in the small area at the back of the hotel.
He picked up his workman’s toolbox and his bag, locked the car, and came in to sign the registry. He was still in his Jeffery Simpson disguise, but signed his name Patrick O’Grady. The girl did not ask to see his passport.
He told her he would pay in cash, in advance, and the girl said their front rooms with the sea views were ninety-five pounds per night, plus tax, and that included breakfast, which was served from seven on. Mack gave her two fifty-pound notes and said he may be gone before breakfast, but understood the way things worked.
The girl gave him a key to Room 12 and told him it was on the second floor, straight up the stairs. She very much hoped he would be comfortable and let her know if there was anything else he needed. They did not do dinner, but there were plenty of excellent places in town, easily within walking distance.
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