Diamondhead

by Diamondhead (UK) (retail) (epub)

  Mack, however, understood how thoroughly he had covered his tracks, how no one in the whole of France had the slightest idea who he was. And if Foche’s guards, or the police, should gun him down, right here in this shipyard, as they surely would, given half a chance, who would ever come to claim him? No one. Because no one knew except for Harry, and he’d never come, not if he had any sense. Which would leave him, Lt. Cdr. Mackenzie Bedford, United States Navy, murderer, buried in the yard of some foreign prison. Because no one would come. Except perhaps, down the years, one person. Tommy Bedford. Yes, somehow Tommy would find him, and he would come. Tommy would bring him home.

  “Still, he thought, “the bastards haven’t got me yet.” And once more he tried to sleep, but he dozed only intermittently, right through the six o’clock shift change that he never even noticed, as hundreds of men changed places in the buildings around the yard. Mack was finally awake when, at quarter of seven, the spotlight of the sun streamed rose-pink out of the east, straight into his rear window, the one above the harbor.

  Mack climbed down and used the empty Perrier bottle the only way it could now be used. He shoved it out of sight, under the shelves on the far side of the room. Then he glanced outside and made himself some French breakfast, slicing the salami with his fishing knife and eating it with a slice of cheese on buttered baguette. He had to admit, it was probably the best pillow he had ever tasted. With no radio, no television, no phone, not even the newspaper, Mack felt strangely desolate. For a start he had no idea what had happened to the Red Sox, and of course there was Tommy and Anne. How had things progressed in the Nyon Clinic? Had the operation been completed? Was it a success? How was Tommy? Would he live?

  The questions rattled through his mind, and he knew if he allowed them to continue they would probably drive him nuts, cloud his judgment. So he shut them out, concentrated on his task today, the one that would, in a sense, set him free, set his family free, set Harry free, set the whole goddamned town free.

  Once more he focused his mind, and he stared out at the podium, knowing there was an eight-hour wait before the action. Well, he hoped it would be that long. But as he stared out at the main gate, he sensed that things might move more swiftly than he wished.

  Shortly before nine a black limousine pulled up at the guardhouse. The driver spoke briefly, and the car was waved through and parked on the far side of the podium. Three men climbed out, two of them smartly dressed – suits, jackets and ties. The other was wearing black trainers, casual pants and a black windbreaker. This third man carried a submachine gun, and looked as if he might know how to use it. Mack did not recognize the arrival of Henri Foche’s new head of security, Raul Declerc.

  Neither did he realize the second man out of the limo was Brittany’s chief of police, Pierre Savary. The third man was Detective Inspector Paul Ravel, the policeman who had grilled and prized the truth out of Monsieur Laporte. Savary had considered it politic to invite Paul to the shipyard, since he was the detective in charge of the hunt for the killer of the two men on the beach of Val André. The shipyard at Saint-Nazaire was the most likely place for him to appear.

  Mack watched the three men walk slowly down to the waterside, staring up at the dry-dock, wandering down toward the jetties, deep in conversation. He had a clear suspicion they were talking about him. But he was cocooned in this warehouse room, out of touch with the rest of the world. He wished he could somehow flick on a car radio, just to hear what was going on. But he had no such luxury.

  If he had possessed a radio and tuned to any channel in the entire free world, any channel in Great Britain, even the local FM in Maine, he would have heard the following. Or something very like it:

  A nationwide manhunt is taking place in France, according to the front page of the most important French newspaper, Le Monde. Following the murder of his two personal bodyguards, police fear for the life of Monsieur Henri Foche, who is favored to become the next French president.

  At this moment the search is intensifying around the city of Saint-Nazaire, where Monsieur Foche is to give a major political speech on behalf of the Gaullist Party later this afternoon. On the orders of the French president, an extra one thousand armed security guards have been drafted in.

  Officials now believe the killer may be part of an international cartel, possibly linked to al-Qaeda, which plans to murder Monsieur Foche, in response to the arrest of four Muslim extremists in Algiers last month.

  French police believe they will catch the man, who is believed to be a Swiss national. They say he is tall with a black beard and may answer to the name Gunther.

  But Mack did not have a radio. And he knew less than almost anyone in the world about the powerful dragnet that now surrounded him.

  Down on the jetties, Paul Ravel had drifted off to conduct his own thoughtful investigation of the area. Raul was laying out his initial strategy for the shipyard. “Pierre,” he said, “there’s not the slightest use in us deploying highly trained men into the buildings that surround the concourse. It’s too early, and we probably won’t find anything anyway. However, the time scale is important. We could deem a building clean between now and noon, and by 4:30 an assassin could be inside, ready to strike at Henri. Therefore, we should not conduct any full-scale search of the closest buildings until the last minute. We don’t want them clean now. We want them clean at 4:45 this afternoon.”

  “I agree on that,” said Pierre. “And we’ll have buses coming in very soon. Do you have a view about mass deployments as soon as the guys arrive?”

  “I think we should take a half-mile radius from the center of the concourse,” said Raul. “And start working out on the perimeter. Heavy-handed searching, lots of guys, lots of yelling. That way, if we either disturb or discover our man, he’s got two choices, either to run for it, away from the datum, or to move in closer. If he runs, well, we at least saved Henri’s life. If he closes in, gets nearer, we’ll have a hell of a chance of catching him by sheer weight of numbers.”

  “You’ve done this a few times before, my friend,” said Pierre.

  “A couple. Both times with Middle Eastern royalty. But this should be easier, because we are operating on a very concise time frame. And Henri’s not just wandering around the shipyard waiting to get shot.”

  “So you think a mass deployment to the outer areas as soon as the guys start to arrive?”

  “Absolutely,” said Raul. “And then I’ll use my guys as sentries. Two on the main doors of each building that faces right onto the concourse. The police should concentrate on the area around the podium as soon as they start. I mean, get under it, sweep it for explosives, climb all over the fucking thing. Then check the outside walls. I already noticed a man out in the street could climb that wall and pump a bullet straight into the back of Henri’s head.”

  “It’s already a ‘no parking’ area. You want it ‘no walking’ as well.”

  “Absolument!” replied Raul, ever anxious to establish his French credentials, especially to a policeman of any nationality. “And while you’re at it, Pierre, make it ‘no driving’ as well. We don’t want some kind of a ram raid to break out… you know, machine guns from the roof of a van.”

  “Consider it done,” replied Pierre. “I’ll have the entire street cordoned off.” He removed his cell phone from a jacket pocket and murmured instructions into it.

  “Christ, I’m glad you’re here, Raul,” he said. “And remember one thing – this is serious for you, but my whole career, my whole life, is on the line. If we find and eliminate this bastard, the credit’s all yours. You were the first to hear of the plot, you acted quickly in the interest of the French Republic, you told Foche, and when there was trouble, you flew in and took over Henri’s personal security. You’ll be a hero. But if this bastard shoots Henri, they’ll blame me.”

  “In my opinion,” said Raul, “we want to make bloody sure he doesn’t shoot us as well.”

  The French police chief nodded, and just then the first four
buses pulled in, each one carrying fifty armed, uniformed, trained security troops – half-military, half-policemen, but experts in their field. They disembarked in good order, then formed ten lines of twenty men, and stood to attention.

  Pierre spoke briefly to the four commanders, told them of the intended half-mile radius from the concourse center, and instructed them to move out to the perimeters and begin a tough, noisy search. “Lots of shouting and yelling,” he ordered. “We want to unnerve this bastard if he’s in here. You have the full police description of the man, I believe?”

  “Yessir. Big guy, tall, black curly hair, and a black beard. Description corroborated by the British police, French coast guard, Brittany police and garage witness in the town of Val André. Suspect answers to the name Gunther.”

  “I wouldn’t put your life savings on that last one,” advised Pierre. “It was almost certainly a false name.”

  “But he is Swiss, sir?”

  “Maybe,” replied Pierre. “Start the deployment. Anyone you find with a firearm, you may shoot on sight.”

  “Yessir.”

  Thirty minutes later, in a minibus direct from the airport, Raul’s five ex-French Foreign Legion combat troops arrived in company with the two former SAS veterans, both from South Wales, both ex-paras, mid­thirties. They were deployed in three groups, with one man detailed to comb the area around the podium, a kind of frontline storm trooper, to back up the French police if things got really rough. It was Raul’s opinion that if someone was trying to shoot Henri Foche, there was a 50 per cent chance they would get as close in as possible. A suicide assassin was not out of the question, particularly if al-Qaeda was connected.

  At two the eight-hour shift changed again. The men who had begun work at six began to stream out of the yard. Mack was having his lunch at the time, and there was not a huge variation in the menu, just a slight adjustment in placing the excellent cheese slices right on the buttered baguette and then adding the salami, which he again sliced with his fishing knife. On reflection he slightly preferred this to the direct hit of salami on baguette that he had engineered for his breakfast. He leaned on the wall beside the window, chewing thoughtfully and watching the long lines beginning to form at the main gate.

  There were two police cruisers parked at the entrance, and the incoming workers were being shepherded through a line of six guards, all of whom were checking the IDs of the men who built the ships. No one could remember being asked for ID at Saint-Nazaire Maritime, not in living memory.

  Mack, who was of course still out of contact with the world, could not make up his mind whether they were on to him, aware of his possible presence in the shipyard, or whether this was mere routine, the usual procedure for a major political speech.

  Monsieur Foche would not be the first politician to address this particular workforce. The only difference was that for years, the other speeches had been decidedly left-wing, urging the workers to rise up against the establishment that exploited them.

  Mack decided it was obvious the police knew of both his existence and his intent. Which did not unduly worry him, because he had always intended to leave a very definite, but false, trail to set them in search of a killer who did not exist. A big bearded killer named Gunther. If, however, the police had somehow found the unmarked Peugeot, they must by now have guessed he was either in the shipyard or, at least, trying to get in.

  Again he watched the workers clearing the security system, and wondered how long it would be before the police conducted their inevitable search of this warehouse, and whether he could hide, and whether the guards would just take a cursory look around the empty sixth-floor storage area in which he now resided. He considered the possibility of discovery by one, two or even three guards as “a kinda pain in the ass,” but not terminal.

  By two thirty, ten busloads of security guards were in the shipyard. The other ten were deployed around the city, especially along the wharves beyond Saint-Nazaire Maritime, both east and west. They hunted in packs of four, rampaging through boatyards, marine stores, parking lots, shops and private residences, asking questions, probing like Nazi SS men in Belgium, seeking out the bearded killer.

  In the shipyard, the dragnet tightened by the hour as squads of guards, directed by Pierre and Raul, closed in on the concourse, clearing out buildings and leaving small platoons of guards in each one. Mack watched them from on high, passing the time counting the active security operators in their bright-yellow jackets, the afternoon sun glinting off their rifles.

  * * *

  Shortly after two thirty the accompanying police convoy that would travel to Saint-Nazaire with Henri Foche was assembled outside the elegant townhouse in the most expensive part of Rennes. There were four armed officers positioned in the tree-lined front driveway, one on the front door, and one inside the hallway. Four of them would ride shotgun on police motorbikes that were parked on the street, blue lights flashing. The street was temporarily cordoned off. The Foche Mercedes-Benz was flanked front and rear by police cruisers, each of which contained four armed officers, including the driver. They waited with engines running, blue lights flashing. To the casual bystander it looked like a psychedelic nightclub had escaped into the daylight.

  Henri Foche and his wife were finishing their coffee, and Claudette had asked him for the umpteenth time to “call off this crazy trip to this stupid shipyard where a madman is waiting to shoot you, and probably me.”

  “No one is going to murder me in Brittany,” he scowled. “These shipyard people are counting on me. Nothing is going to prevent me from addressing them this afternoon. For them! And for France.”

  Claudette rolled her eyes heavenward. “I just have no idea why you want to do this – deliberately walking into danger, and taking me with you.”

  “First of all,” he replied, “the danger is minimal. Half the security forces in France are swarming through Saint-Nazaire. And in Raul Declerc I have one of the best professional killers in the world. And he works with the French police. I made sure of that. He’s with Pierre in the shipyard right now.”

  “Even Pierre wanted to call it off.”

  “Claudette, my policies must be heard by the workers, the people who look to me. They want to know their jobs are safe, and that I will protect those jobs. We will build France, with our own hands. Pour la France! Toujours pour la France!”

  “Well, since you are obviously planning to get us both killed today, I ought to tell you that little actress you’re seeing in Paris telephoned about two hours ago. I know it was her, even though she put down the phone. Why don’t you send her a condom with Viva la France! inscribed on it?”

  “Shut up about that. I’m not even seeing her. And stop changing the damn subject. This is a big day for me. I must be faithful to the wishes of the voters.”

  “Wow! Faithful! Coming from you, Henri Foche, alley cat. Pour la Bretagne! Pour la France!”

  “Claudette, for the wife of the next French president, you have a low mind.”

  “And for the next French president, you have a low life. And one day, it will catch up with you.”

  Foche just stared at her, incredulous that she could not comprehend his true greatness. He shook his head, at a loss for words at the astronomical level of her dumbness.

  Just then the guard at the door called, “Monsieur Foche, the police think we should leave now. Everyone’s ready when you are.”

  Henri and Claudette both stood up from the table. Foche picked up his jacket, and his wife walked over to the mirror and brushed her hair. Within two minutes they were seated in the back of the Mercedes, with the final two police guards in the front, one driving. The convoy moved slowly through the streets to the southwest side of Rennes and then drove swiftly out to the fast N137 highway that leads down to Nantes and the road along the Loire to Saint-Nazaire.

  Foche was not talkative. There were times when he detested his wife, whom he knew he had treated abominably. But his stature, his ability to allow her to live like
a duchess, must surely have overridden that. She was, after all, a former call girl, and in Henri’s mind that overrode his marriage vows.

  There was a natural law in the universe, he believed, a law that ensured the order of things, and he, Henri, had married a trophy wife, beneath him in every sense. And all he wanted from her was gratitude, and plenty of it. Not insolence and smart-ass remarks. Surely that was not too much to expect?

  The procession sped south. The two lead motorbikes kept their flashing lights going all the way. But the other police vehicles drove without illumination. The plan was that all lights and sirens would go on, blazing and blaring, once the outskirts of Saint-Nazaire were reached. It was an integral part of an overall scheme masterminded by Pierre Savary, designed to unnerve the assassin.

  Foche read his speech and occasionally made pencil marks on the pages. Claudette tried to sleep, even though, in the deepest recesses of her mind, she thought it entirely possible this might be her last day on this earth. Christ, she hated Henri. But she had an ingrained code of loyalty in her soul. And if he wanted to walk into the jaws of death, and he wanted her with him, then she would follow.

  They reached the city of Nantes around four. The police officer in the front seat was on the phone to Raul Declerc, reporting speed and position. Back in the shipyard Raul ordered the final search of the buildings around the concourse to begin.

  He was particularly concerned with the dry-dock, where there were so many workmen, all in blue overalls, all looking the same, all toiling on the hull of a new freighter. There were steelworkers, painters, plumbers and electricians. There were men on the scaffold, dozens more inside the hull. How the hell could he tell if one of them had a hidden firearm right here in the dry-dock, with the intention of attacking the Gaullist leader?