“But you soon got the idea,” I supplemented, “you told Hawkworth to arrange a supply line of raw opium so that your little partnership with Caplin would flourish.”
“It wasn’t hard to guess, I suppose.” Ferdinand nodded.
I said, “What did Flackyard do with the money?”
There was no reply. I said, “Has it gone to finance extreme right wing movements? Has it gone to finance present-day fascist groups – is he part of an organisation they call the New World Order?”
Ferdinand closed his eyes, “Yes,” he said. “I’m still a believer in the cause.”
“Robert Flackyard is a great man, but like many that are truly great he has some childish weaknesses that will most certainly bring him down off that pedestal one day. Of that you can be sure.” His eyes were still closed.
The girl’s voice from the wheelhouse sounded above the beat of the sea.
We were rounding Old Harry Rocks.
“I’ll come up.” As I said it there was a thump like a heavy hammer being swung against the hull.
“A piece of flotsam,” Ferdinand shouted up at me. The girl had brought the throttle back to half speed. Again there was a thump and a third immediately after. The girl coughed and then slumped, falling sideways off the stool. I caught her. She was limp as she slid to the floor. The front of my shirt was soaked in blood.
Ferdinand, Fiona and I all stayed motionless; Ferdinand still tied to the boat and the girl at my feet.
As we processed the possibilities through our brains. I was thinking of Flackyard, but Ferdinand had a more practical slant. He knew the person concerned.
“It’s Harry Caplin,” he said. The boat purred gently towards the shore.
“Where?” I said.
“Firing his hunting rifle from the cliff-top if I know him,” said Ferdinand.
There were two more thumps and now listening for it, I heard the gun crack a long way away. The deck was slippery with the girl’s blood.
Ferdinand had broken out in a sweat, and his eyes were nervous, flitting around trying to see the invisible sniper. “If we go up to the wheelhouse we get shot. If we stay down here the boat heaves itself on to the rocks around the point at Old Harry, and we will drown.” The cruiser lurched against the swell.
“Can we get to the rudder control without going across the deck?”
“It would take too long, in this sort of sea we have to do something quick.”
Without the girl at the helm the boat was slopping and slipping beam-on to the sea. It was a big fibreglass and plywood craft. I imagined it hitting the rocks and changing to shredded wheat at one swipe. The girl had regained consciousness, crying out with the searing pain from her punctured lung.
Fiona knelt down and took off her jacket. She covered the girls upper body and then said to me.
“Jake, throw me over that life jacket. I want to prop her head up into a more comfortable position.”
Ferdinand had clambered up the steps from the dive platform and was screaming at me to untie him.
This done, he snaked his way towards the saloon on his belly, reappearing a few seconds later with the oneinch thick; round aluminium tabletop from the main cabin in his arms. How he had managed to lift it with so much brandy inside him, I have no idea. But he had summoned the strength to heave it up the four steps without getting his head shot off, letting it thump heavily onto the floor of wheelhouse and then staying low using it as a shield to get onto the bridge. He rolled it forward and I heard a great echoing clang as one of Harry Caplin’s bullets glanced off the metal. Ferdinand was lying full-length on the deck by now, with the lowest part of the boat’s wheel in his hand. He spun it round and the boat began to respond.
Through the port windscreen I could see the lethal looking rocks. They were very close, and after each great wave the water ran off the bared and jagged fangs in great rivers that ended their journey back into the sea, creating foaming spume everywhere.
The boat was well into the turn now. I shouted to Ferdinand to come back down; but he yelled, “Do you want to go round and round in a bloody circle?”
He stayed where he was. Again there was a slam of metal hitting metal. The large piece of flat table top came thumping down steps to where I was crouched.
As soon as we were round far enough Ferdinand jammed a pole hook into the wheel. He began to crawl back, but he had left it too late. The change of course that had reprieved the cruiser, sentenced George to almost certain death. With nothing left to protect or shield him, Caplin pumped four rounds into him in quick succession; but with those Zeiss x 8 telescopic sights, one would have done the job.
Fiona shouted something from the other side of the wheelhouse, but with the howling wind, and sea spray now coming through the smashed windscreens, her words were drowned out. All I got was her mouth moving and her right arm waving frantically up and down.
In my crouched position, I had no way of knowing if Harry Caplin was still up on the cliff top. But I soon got my answer as I cautiously went to stand up.
Caplin fired two rounds in quick succession. Both only just missed me, whizzing past my head and ending their journey in the main control console.
The bastards trying to kill us all, I thought, as the instruments disintegrated as the bullets smashed through the flimsy plastic.
I flattened myself against the wet deck and crawled towards Fiona and the unconscious girl. As I got nearer to them, another round slammed into the bulkhead just above me.
“He’s trying to disable the Star Dust and kill us into the bargain.” Fiona shouted.
“I know, just stay down!” I replied.
Fiona came closer to where I was spread-eagled on my stomach.
“Jake, have you got your mobile phone on you?”
“Yes, why?”
“Give it to me. Quickly.” Fiona said.
I handed the phone to her and she immediately started to dial a number.
“Who are you calling?”
The local police. I’m going to ask them to put up a helicopter. It’ll be the only chance we have of getting to that psychopath Caplin up on the cliff top.
If they’re quick enough they’ll catch the bastard red handed.
The next moment. We could hear the thrashing of rotor blades almost above us.
“Surely the police can’t have got here that fast.” I said.
“It’s not the police, look.” Fiona pointed to the stern of the boat. It was Harry Caplin at the controls of his own helicopter. He dropped down and hovered about twenty feet above the ocean. Knowing that we could see him, he looked straight toward Fiona and me. The boat’s radio crackled, and then Harry’s voice came over the loud speaker.
“You should’ve listened to the little lady, Ace. Letting me go was a big mistake. Anyways, I’ve got to go now, before the boys in blue arrive. Like I said before, Ace. You have a nice life, now.”
He then mock-saluted us before banking the helicopter to the right and rising up into the air. A minute later the police helicopter arrived on the scene.
As we limped back to the shallow water of Studland Bay, Fiona came and stood by my side, she put her hand on my shoulder. Nothing needed to be said. But, we both knew what I’d done by letting Caplin go.
“Your time will come, Harry. Make no mistake about that.” I said quietly to myself.
Chapter 32
A dozen spent 7mm-cartridge shells on the clifftop were the only trace of Harry Caplin by the time we had anchored the Star Dust just off Studland beach. The weather had dragged the cloud base and the barometer reading well down.
I used my mobile phone to call an ambulance, and LJ in London. The girl needed a paramedic quickly. LJ, answered immediately, and I proceeded to give him a brief update of the situation in Dorset. He told me to stay put, and that he would arrange for a local contact to pick me up within the hour. I broke the connection. This would just give me enough time to make my way along the coastal path to Old Harry. When I reached the to
p of the slope that led up to the cliff-top, I looked back down at the cruiser using my binoculars, the girl was still where I’d laid her with eyes unseeing and her mind in neutral; she was holding George Ferdinand’s hand very tightly. She wouldn’t let go.
Fiona stayed on the boat and liased with the police. She took the death of George Thomas Ferlind in her stride and wrote it into her report smoothly enough to allow me to escape entanglement and any awkward questions.
After what George had told me, a lot of the unrelated ends began to tie themselves together. Not all of them did, of course, but that was too much to expect. There would always be those inexplicable actions by unpredictable people, but the motives began to show. I knew, for instance, what we would find up at Flackyard’s house, but I went anyway.
I told the driver to drop me off around the corner, entering through the old rusty gate at the side of the house. Inside the furniture was shrouded and my footfalls echoed and creaked round the bookless shelves. The big chandeliers were also covered to protect them. I went downstairs to the cellars, searching for the sort of room that I knew must be there. At the far end of the wide passageway I found what I was looking for. I studied the square shaped panel on the wall for a moment; it had a digital keypad in the centre and a credit card size slot at the top. I knew from experience that only by entering the correct entry number once and inserting a card that matched would anyone be able to open such a heavy oak door. It was just my bad luck that this type of locking system invariably came with automatic lock-down steel shutters that seal all windows and doors in a matter of seconds.
I turned the polished brass handle anyway. It moved easily in my hand.
Pushing gently, the heavy oak door moved silently on its hinges. It was a cold room, painted white. From the low ceilings hung long fluorescent lights on chains. Under these were lines of stainless steel benches. Walking up and down the lines of benches it soon became apparent that this had been a very well equipped workshop and storage area.
In their haste to leave, Flackyard’s people had not only neglected to activate the alarm systems, but a lot of equipment had been left behind also.
This wasn’t any make shift facility. It was a large air-conditioned strong room of the type that organised crime syndicates build instead of paying corporation tax.
I moved along the benches, looking at the machines and array of electronic calibration equipment. I examined the complex array of ammunition. Some of the bullets looked like sophisticated hollow heads containing, I’d no doubt, various volatile liquids. I didn’t, however, find Mr Robert Flackyard, because he had been gone for some time.
* * * I called LJ from my mobile phone. I advised him that Jasper Lockhart should be kept under surveillance. Use Vince Sharp and his many gadgets, I suggested. LJ protested that he wouldn’t make a very good watcher, but I reminded him that Vince had asked many times for fieldwork of this type and that he was the best in the business at eavesdropping. Anyway, we all have to learn at sometime. “Suppose Lockhart tries to leave the country?” LJ said.
“I doubt if he will, but if he does try, simply call in a favour and get the police to arrest him,” I said patiently.
“On what charge?” LJ asked.
“Try soliciting,” I said, and hung up irritably.
Chapter 33
I stepped into the cool air-conditioned environment of Ferran & Cardini. The lift descended to the department quickly and silently. Tatiana was waiting for me as the doors slid back with a heavy looking briefcase.
It looked like the beginning of a week of hard work; we had a meeting with the various people involved with the new European Network. It went as all initial meetings go; some individuals requiring definitions, and others wanting copies of memos that had long since been put through the shredder.
LJ and I seemed to make a reasonably good team; I turned major objections into minor objections and LJ’s speciality was ironing out the minor objections. As Ferran & Cardini were a commercial profit-making organisation, I thought that the discussions were successful enough but I could see that Clive Bingham-Carter from MI6 was going to cause a few problems for us. He insisted upon all kinds of procedural rigmarole, hoping that LJ would slip up or get annoyed, or both. But LJ had been weaned on this sort of thing. He let Bingham-Carter talk himself to a standstill and then paused a long time before saying, “Oh yes?” as though he wasn’t sure that Bingham-Carter had made his point. Then LJ made his point all over again in careful measured syntax as though speaking to a small child. LJ would rather split a hair on the back of his neck than an infinitive.
* * * Roberts was a new, young and intelligent graduate from Cambridge that the Partners had borrowed from MI5, in my absence. He was a tall, good looking twenty six year old who wore tailored suits, went to see plays in small theatres and was apt to use long words where short ones would do. He was sitting at my desk when I entered my office using my computer terminal. I asked him what he thought he was doing. Flushing with embarrassment he stood up and quickly introduced himself. He apologised profusely for being there and informed me that he had been assigned to work for me, for the time being by Mr Levenson-Jones. I put him to work at a vacant computer terminal in the main office; I still wanted to find out more about Oliver Hawkworth and his business dealings. Hawkworth had the best lawyers to weave an intricate web of companies, within companies, within holding companies. It would be a long task.
On Thursday morning Jasper Lockhart phoned from a public call box. Tats took the call and said that I would meet him at the Kensington address that Lockhart gave her at 9.30pm.
I was busy all that afternoon. At 8.00 pm I shut down the terminal on my desk and put my laptop into its case. I’d completed a superficial report of the assignment in Dorset, marking the Poseidon file “closed” and submitted it to LJ for initialling. Using his gold fountain pen he initialled each page without comment then gave the file to Zara, but his eyes never left mine.
* * * Exotic cars lined both sides of the cobbled street in that part of Kensington.
Number 21 Charlotte Mews had a pearl blue Jaguar convertible parked outside with two men in short sleeved shirts and jeans leaning up against it drinking cold beer out of bottles. I tapped the heavy lion head doorknocker against its polished brass back plate and an attractive young woman wearing a French maid’s outfit and mask covering her eyes opened the door. “Please, come in – enjoy,” she said. Her voice sounded familiar, although she was attempting a very bad French accent.
“Dancing to the left, booze and smokers straight on and out onto the terrace.” She patted me lightly on the arse before disappearing into the packed room of dancers.
There was a dense scrum of smokers and drinkers around the rear of the house; men with gelled hair sticking up in all directions and girls talking about their latest man and how much he was worth. In the corner there was a serious tequila-drinking contest under way and a man attempting to drink a yard of ale.
I reached the big table at the far end. Behind it was a very large man wearing an ill fitting dinner suit and a foul coloured dickey bow.
He said, “There’s only gin, vodka, beer and what looks like…” He shook the bottle of cream liquid viciously, “… Bailey’s.” He held it up to what light there was, and said. “Bailey’s” again. A girl with a long cigarette holder and wearing a twenties style outfit said, “I really would recommend my surgeon, he’s done wonders for my tits.”
I took my drink and wandered off through a doorway into a small but very well equipped fitted kitchen. A girl wearing a cat suit, complete with long tail and painted whiskers on her face, was eating canapés and talking on her mobile phone. I turned around. The girl who liked her tits was now talking about lipo-suction. Nowhere did I see Jasper Lockhart. It was just as crowded outside on the terrace except for a small octagonal summerhouse at the far end of the walled garden.
Inside were three people all dressed in black. The soft music came from a CD player and the gentle fug of reefe
r smoke drifted around the small dimly lit room. They all turned their heads slowly as I stepped into the open doorway.
One removed its dark glasses. “Jake Dillon, you old rogue, you came after all. Well, don’t just stand there, come in. Shut the bloody door, will you, you’re letting all this wonderfully mellow air get away.”
Jasper Lockhart dismissed his two nubile girl friends, got up and shook my hand vigorously.
“Great to see you, pal,” he said in a slurred voice.
“Great party, don’t you think?” One of them said as they left.
“Fascinating,” I said. He shook his head a couple of times in an attempt to sober up, getting up and throwing open the door to the wooden building he took great lungfulls of fresh air, which seemed to make him feel worse and turned him a strange tint of green. After he had been to the bathroom Jasper Lockhart wanted a word with me. He went out to his car with uncertain steps.
The girl in the French maid’s outfit and mask was holding the shoulders of another girl who was being spectacularly ill into a flowerbed.
Chapter 34
“Do you know what?” said Jasper Lockhart once we were seated in his car.
He was looking around the dashboard and under the seats anxiously. I asked what he was looking for. “Listening bugs, old son,” he said, switching on the radio.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“I’m being followed, that’s what the problem is,” he said.
“Really?” I said.
“Absolutely and without a shadow of a doubt, although I wasn’t sure until today. That’s when I decided to phone you.”
“I don’t know why you phoned me,” I said. “What can I do?” I paused. “It’s gone too far for me to get involved, Jasper.”
“Too far?” said Jasper Lockhart. “What’s gone too far?”
“Look, I don’t really know too much about it,” I said, like I’d said too much already.
Constantine Legacy (Jake Dillon Adventure Series) Page 20