by Zoe Sharp
“I think you’ll find that was Yoda,” I said. His voice hadn’t altered, but I felt my shoulders ease a fraction. “Listen, Parker, things have got a little wacky here. I need to talk it through with someone.”
“Someone?”
“You.”
He made a noise that might have been a grunt, if such a noise wasn’t beneath him. “You wouldn’t need to explain anything if you’d given me the opportunity to come with you.”
I sighed. “That would have made things a lot worse, trust me.”
“Trust, huh? When it comes to trust, maybe you should consider the fact that I haven’t turned you in…yet.”
“I realise that, and I’m grateful,” I said meekly. “Are you still in Geneva?”
“No,” he said shortly. “OK, Charlie. Whatever it is you want to run by me, shoot.”
I ignored the flutter of unease and told him, about my arrival at the chateau, about the reaction of the Kincaids, and Orosco, and then about Schade’s attempt to kill me this morning.
“You sure it was a deliberate miss? You’re not exactly easy to pin down.”
I swallowed. “I’m sure.”
“Maybe you overestimate his skill.”
“I don’t think so.” Besides anything else, Kincaid would employ the best he could afford. And he could certainly afford the best.
“OK, let’s say you’re right about that. What does it mean?”
“That’s what I’ve been struggling to work out.”
“What it boils down to are two questions—why did he take a shot at you in the first place, and then why did he miss?”
“He could have been told to scare me off.”
“If they just wanted you out of there, why not simply fire you?”
“OK,” I allowed. “In that case, I can only imagine that he was ordered to dispose of me.”
“By whom?” Parker asked. “From what you told me in Italy, it’s Orosco who has motive to want you silenced. You know he came to some arrangement with the Syrians to snatch Helena off of Ugoccione’s island. What else has he been up to behind Kincaid’s back?”
“Yeah, I would have said Orosco was the more likely candidate, but…”
“But what?”
“The day I got back and gave them my story—”
“As a matter of interest, did you leave me out of it?”
“Not entirely. I had to tell them something. Enough to be plausible, but not enough to make them suspicious. That was the theory, anyway.”
He didn’t pass comment. “Go on.”
“Kincaid seemed to shift from scepticism to acceptance like flipping a switch. One moment he was giving me the third degree, and the next he was all smiles and welcome.”
“And you think he came to a decision then—that it was not worth arguing anymore because he was just going to have Schade take you out?”
“Maybe…yeah.”
I heard him let out a breath and say, not without reluctance, “It could be worse than that, of course.”
“Worse, how?”
“It could be that both Kincaid and Orosco want you dead, and Schade was offering you some kind of professional courtesy.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said sourly. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”
“Hey, you want tea and sympathy, you should have called your mother.”
“You’ve met my mother, Parker. How likely do you think it is I’d get either from her?”
“OK. You make a fair point.”
“I get more of a motherly attitude from Mo Heedles and—” I began, then stopped abruptly.
“What is it?”
“Mo…” I said, remembering the brief conversation we’d had over breakfast. “She tried to tell me not to go with Schade. Not in so many words but maybe, with hindsight, she was trying to warn me.”
“So, Helena Kincaid seems glad to see you, Mo Heedles tries to forewarn you, and Schade lets you get out from under. That about the size of it?”
“I’d say so, yes.”
“Then it sounds as though you’ve made at least as many friends as enemies, Charlie. Go with your gut.”
A sudden rustle in the undergrowth nearby had me freezing in place. I murmured, “Wait one.”
Parker fell silent without needing to be told again. I eased myself out of my hiding place just far enough to squint between the brambles.
About four or five metres away, truffling through the undergrowth, was a wild boar. The sight of it sent my heart rate climbing. It was about the size of a Labrador, shaped like a pig but with the coat of a bear and protruding yellow fangs either side of its snout. As I emerged, the beast started, swinging a massive head in my direction.
For a second or two, we stared at each other. Then the boar turned away and went back to nosing through the leaf litter.
I let out my breath and sank back out of sight.
“Still there?”
“Yeah,” Parker said. “Everything OK?”
“I think so. I may have just met the only pacifist wild boar in France. Or perhaps I just don’t look very threatening.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” He paused, but I refused to rise to that one. “Look, if you need me, call me, OK?”
“OK,” I agreed, but we both knew I couldn’t ask him to step in again—not if I wanted to retain any credibility with Kincaid. Parker must have known that because he sighed.
“So, am I going to ever get my car back again?”
“I’ll do my best to return it unscathed, but I can’t make any promises.”
“Then, I guess…that will have to do.” There was a long silence at the other end of the line, then he said, “You know I don’t give a damn about the car, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “Yeah, I know.”
55
It wasn’t until two hours after my phone call with Parker that things started to happen. By then, the light was beginning to drop rapidly into dusk, the shadows lengthening as if the day was changing shape, elongating its way into evening. A trio of dusty old Land Rovers drove around from the side of the castle and pulled up alongside the drawbridge. The middle vehicle had a double horse trailer behind it.
Both Eric and Helena Kincaid walked out, looking their usual smart but casual, accompanied by de Bourdillon. He was dressed either like an eccentric duke or a penniless bohemian. There wasn’t much to choose between the two.
I recognised Chatty Williams as he hopped out of the driver’s seat of the middle Land Rover and opened the doors. The principals climbed in. The convoy pulled onto the driveway, moving slow enough for me to see the front and rear vehicles had two men in each—presumably de Bourdillon’s own security personnel.
Of the occupants I could see, Lopez was the only man I recognised. He was in the front passenger seat of the lead Land Rover. I didn’t spot Schade anywhere. The horse trailer had all its doors closed but I couldn’t think of a reason he’d consent to travel that way.
I cursed under my breath as I thought of the distance to my own transport. Too far to easily make in time to tail them…but I had to give it a go.
I launched out of cover and sprinted for the edge of the wood, keeping to the trees as I headed for the farmyard where I’d hidden Parker’s Mercedes. If they turned left out of the gates they’d drive straight past me and I stood half a chance of picking them up. If they turned right…well, it was worth trying.
As I ran, I caught a last glimpse of the Land Rovers slowing for the end of the drive before they were hidden by the undergrowth. They were travelling at a leisurely speed, but even so, it took me longer than I would have liked to retrieve the Merc.
By the time I reached the road and braked to a halt in the farmyard entrance, there was no sign of the convoy in either direction. The light was in its final throes. Another twenty minutes or so and it would be dark, making any kind of search that much harder.
I sat there with the Merc’s engine ticking over and swore again, more loudly this time. I had no id
ea of where the Kincaids and de Bourdillon were going. The horse trailer could have meant anything or nothing. Two chase cars and five men overall was not excessive, but it wasn’t particularly low-key, either.
And surely, if they were planning any kind of risky excursion, they would not have left behind Kincaid’s personal bodyguard—a man who was also his best security officer?
I put the car into reverse, preparing to hide it again amid the outbuildings and return to my nest in the woods. But as I did so I saw the nose of another vehicle appear from the gateway to the chateau.
I pulled back out of sight quickly, twisting the steering wheel to take the Merc behind a disused cowshed that would shield me from the road. I jumped out, leaving the engine running and the door wide open, and ran to the corner of the building, peering around the crumbling brickwork just far enough to see a big BMW X7 SUV that had moved out onto the road and was heading towards the farmyard. In the front seats were two men. There was still enough ambient light that I had no difficulty putting an ID on either of them.
Darius Orosco and Schade.
I hesitated a moment longer. I was one person with one vehicle—a vehicle known to both men. Using it to tail them, on the almost deserted French roads, was bound to get me spotted, despite the approaching darkness.
I couldn’t guarantee Schade would shoot-to-miss a second time.
But this wasn’t a truckload of AK-47s or RPGs we were talking about. This was chemical weapons with the potential to kill hundreds—thousands, even—with utter disregard for their military or civilian status. This was putting them in the hands of a regime with little compunction about using them and a terrible record on human rights.
I glanced at where the BMW was rapidly disappearing into the distance.
And I followed them anyway.
Schade cruised at a leisurely eighty-five klicks—bang on the speed limit. It made following them a relatively pedestrian exercise.
We drove south and picked up the autoroute, crossing the Bridge in the Clouds at Millau after about an hour. Standing a mile above the valley below, the bridge was a spectacular structure, even in the dark, with each of the seven vertical pylons lit gleaming white, topped by red aircraft warning lights.
I hung back as far as I dared on the road, occasionally varying the distance in the hope they might see my lights and assume they belonged to different vehicles coming and going behind them. Apart from a vague direction, I had no idea where we were heading. I brought up the satnav on the Merc’s dashboard and zoomed out as far as I could. It didn’t help me to guess at a possible destination.
Another hour followed of largely empty roads through sparsely populated countryside. Habitation thickened slightly as we neared the Mediterranean coast. The landscape flattened out into acres of rolling farmland, pale in the moonlight—more crops than livestock. It wasn’t hard to realise why those involved with agriculture carried such sway with the French government.
South of Brignac, progress was slower. We drove through small towns rather than watching the clustering of lights pass from the autoroute. The scenery changed again, becoming more industrial than picturesque. This part of the South of France relied on commerce rather than pure tourism. The Promenade des Anglais in Nice, it was not.
Schade drove without pause or hesitation. Wherever we were going, I got the impression he was familiar with the route. Still, I found it hard to believe he hadn’t spotted me loitering behind him.
The alternative, of course, was that Schade knew full well he was being followed and either didn’t care or was leading me into a trap.
56
In the dark, it was hard to tell when, about two hours after leaving the chateau, we finally hit the Med. The coast west of Montpellier was edged by a series of saltwater lagoons that formed a kind of intra-coastal waterway of linked canals and lakes.
It was the kind of area where I guessed there was a lot of pleasure boating and sport fishing. Where Schade and Orosco were leading me, however, there was little evidence of that.
They headed towards an industrial area and turned off the metalled road onto a hard-packed dirt track, bordered by scrubby grass and piles of hard-core left over from the construction. Either that or the moles around here were a force to be reckoned with. The track had chain-link fencing along one edge with scraps of paper and plastic trapped fluttering in the mesh.
A glance at the satnav screen told me we were almost out of land, never mind road. I pulled the Merc between a couple of shipping containers and left it, backed in for a quick getaway if need be. Continuing on foot, I picked my way carefully around the hard-core, careful where I stepped as much against potential injury as noise.
Maybe a hundred metres ahead, Schade swung the SUV in a circle and came to a halt. I ducked out of sight just before his headlights would have swept across me, stayed down until he’d switched them off, along with the engine.
We were in a dead-end yard with a couple of warehouses on one side and the water on the other. I could smell the salt on the breeze, hear the slap of water. After the air-con chill of the Merc’s interior, the night felt muggy and warm. It seemed to clog in my lungs, making me sweat—I was blaming the humidity for that, anyway.
As my eyes adjusted, I took in more detail. Litter and lumps of rusted iron were scattered along the edges of the concrete yard. When people abandoned such crap, I wondered, who did they think would clean it up? Or did they simply not give a damn?
Orosco and Schade made no moves to get out of the big BMW, clearly waiting for someone or something to happen. I brushed the dirt off a lump of stone and perched on it, prepared to wait, also. There were few clouds and we were far enough away from the streetlights for me to be able to see the stars.
Once I’d exhausted the few constellations I could recognise, I passed the time gathering a little pile of detritus at my feet—stainless steel washers, half of a ratchet-strap used for tying down cargo, plastic banding tape, rusty nails, and a dented tin with half an inch of paint set solid in the bottom. Every now and again, I stretched each leg out and tried to ignore the fact my backside had gone numb.
Eventually, there came the rumble of a diesel engine from back out on the road. It gradually gained in volume as it neared, lights sweeping across the piles of rubble and the warehouse walls.
A few minutes later, a big articulated truck crawled along the track and into the yard. The driver swung the rig into a wide slow turn until it was facing the way it had come, and came to a halt with a final hiss of air brakes.
The engine shut down and the cab door opened. As the interior light flicked on, I could see only the driver inside. He climbed down slowly, careful to make no sudden movements. The truck had French registration plates and the container it was hauling carried the name of a national auto parts distributor.
I did not think it likely that the contents entirely matched the label.
Orosco and Schade met the driver halfway. He paused as they approached, glanced from one to the other as if uncertain who to address. Orosco cut a thickset figure in a cashmere overcoat that I’d never be able to afford, even on the salary Kincaid had been paying me. Considering Schade’s entire outfit probably cost less than one of Orosco’s shoes, it should have been obvious which of them was in charge, but Schade had a thoroughly dangerous air about him that the driver couldn’t fail to pick up on.
“Monsieur Kincaid?” I heard the driver ask, glancing between the two of them.
Orosco didn’t answer, just stepped forward. The driver hesitated a second, then shrugged and looked away, not keen to prolong eye contact. A means of demonstrating his see-nothing, hear-nothing attitude, I guessed. Neither Orosco nor Schade offered to shake hands. They both wore gloves they did not take off.
The driver led them straight to the rear. I saw him swing open one of the container doors but had no view of what lay inside. Orosco stayed on the ground with the driver, but Schade climbed up. He spent long enough checking whatever was in the consignment f
or Orosco to start fidgeting.
“There some kinda problem?” Orosco called up to him.
As if deliberately playing on his nerves, it took Schade a moment longer to answer. He jumped down, wiping his hands before he spoke.
“’S’all cool, boss. Just being careful.”
“Well, be careful faster, dammit.”
Even in the dim light, I saw the driver tense as Orosco reached inside his jacket. His unease did not diminish when Orosco pulled out a fat envelope and handed it over. The driver peered inside quickly, at what I assumed were banknotes, but he did not risk the insult of counting them. He looked about to say something, changed his mind at the last moment. Instead, he stuffed the envelope into his pocket, surrendered the truck keys, and walked quickly away.
I kept an eye on the man as he hurried out along the track. If he’d been paying more attention, he might have been able to spot me crouching among the rubble. Indeed, at one point his steps slowed. I froze, but then came the flare of a match, illuminating his face and the hand cupped around a cigarette. After that, I knew his night vision was blown. He walked on, stumbling a little on the uneven ground.
Schade closed up the rear of the truck again and he and Orosco got back into the BMW.
It didn’t take a genius to work out that something very shady was going on. Kincaid appeared to operate mostly above board, but Orosco was clearly no fan of the direction his son-in-law was taking the family business. And I reckoned this indicated where Schade’s real loyalties lay, failed assassination attempt notwithstanding.
The goods might have been delivered in a nondescript wrapper, but to a deserted location in the middle of the night did not smack of anything remotely legal. So, the likelihood was, Kincaid was being deliberately kept out of the loop. The fact the driver had been expecting him, rather than Orosco, seemed to confirm it.
And as Kincaid was still, technically, my employer, I reckoned a little light sabotage was called for.
I got quietly to my feet, stepping over the pile of scrap I’d gathered to pass the time. Then I paused before picking up a handful of the rusty nails.