by Wilbur Smith
‘Jesus!’ he said. ‘There is blood all over the place.’ He straightened up and looked at Hector. ‘Okay! Follow me, sir.’
‘Let your mate ride in the back with my wife. He can cushion her head from being thrown about.’
‘Peter, you heard the man,’ the sergeant snapped, and the younger man scrambled into the back seat of the Rover.
Gently Hector helped him settle Hazel’s head onto his lap. Then he shouted to the sergeant, ‘All set. Let’s go.’ The patrol car raced away with its siren howling and Hector’s Range Rover close on its tail.
There was an ambulance parked outside the main doors to the emergency room at the hospital, but the sergeant gave it a blast with the siren and it moved off the stand hurriedly as Hector drove up. The sergeant jumped out and ran into the building. He came back almost at once leading a white-coated orderly pushing a theatre trolley. Hector helped the orderly lift Hazel’s limp body onto the trolley and cover her with a sheet.
‘Go with your wife, sir,’ the sergeant told him. ‘I’ll wait here to take your statement later. You will have to tell us how this happened.’
‘Thank you, officer.’ Hector turned and followed the trolley into the entrance. A young female doctor accosted him.
‘What happened to this lady?’
‘She was shot in the head. There is a bullet in her brain.’
‘Take the patient to X-ray,’ the doctor snapped at the orderly. ‘Tell them, I want front and side plates of the head.’ Then she glanced at Hector. ‘Are you related to the patient?’
‘She is my wife.’
‘You’re in the best place, sir. The consulting neurosurgeon from London is here today. I will ask him to come to examine your wife as soon as he can.’
‘Can I stay with her?’
‘I am afraid I have to ask you to wait until she has been to X-ray and until the neurosurgeon has examined her.’
‘I understand,’ Hector said. ‘You will be able to find me outside with the police. They want to take a statement from me.’
Hector spent the next half-hour with the police sergeant sitting in the front seat of the police car. The officer’s name was Evan Evans. Hector gave him directions to the scene, and a brief description of the nature of the attack.
‘I was trying to defend my wife from the assailants,’ Hector explained, but he was careful not to give too many details. As far as the law was concerned he had committed a double murder. He had to have time to think his cover story through. ‘I drove my Range Rover into their motorcycle and I think both the riders were injured. I did not have time to attend to them. I was most anxious to get my wife under proper medical care.’
‘I can understand that, sir. I will phone my headquarters immediately and have them send a vehicle to the scene. I am afraid they will have to impound your wife’s car for a full forensic examination.’ Hector nodded his understanding, and the sergeant went on, ‘I know you will want to be with your wife now, but we shall require a full written and signed statement from you as soon as possible.’
‘You have my home address and my mobile phone number.’ Hector opened the car door. ‘I will be available any time you need me. Thank you, Sergeant Evans. When my wife recovers, a great deal of the credit for that will go to you.’
As he walked back into the hospital the young doctor hurried to meet him.
‘Mr Cross, the neurosurgeon has examined your wife and her X-ray plates. He would like to speak to you. He is still with Mrs Cross. Come with me, please.’
The neurosurgeon was in a screened examination cubicle bending over Hazel’s supine figure, which was still on the trolley. He straightened up as Hector entered the cubicle and came to meet him. He was a handsome middle-aged man. He had the self-assured air of one both intelligent and highly competent; a master of his craft.
‘I am Trevor Irving, Mr…?’
‘Cross. Hector Cross. How is my wife, Mr Irving?’ Hector cut across the pleasantries.
‘The bullet has not exited.’ Irving was just as business-like. ‘It’s lying in an extremely delicate position, and there is bleeding. It must be removed, and at once.’ He pointed to the backlit X-ray plate on the scanner beside Hazel’s bed. The dark shadow of the tiny round-nosed projectile stood out boldly against the soft billows of brain tissue that surrounded it.
‘I understand.’ Hector averted his eyes. He didn’t want to look at that terrible harbinger of her death.
‘There is a complication in that your wife is pregnant. How far along is she?’
‘Forty weeks. She was examined by her gynaecologist this morning.’
‘I thought it might be that far advanced,’ Irving said. ‘The foetus will be dangerously distressed by the mother’s surgery. If we lose her, we might lose her child with her.’
‘You have to save my wife at all costs. She is the one who bloody counts.’ Hector’s tone was savage. Irving blinked.
‘They both bloody count, Mr Cross. And don’t you bloody forget that.’ His tone matched Hector’s.
‘I apologize unreservedly, Mr Irving. Of course I did not mean that. My only excuse is that I am distraught.’
Irving recognized in Hector Cross a man who did not back down easily. ‘I am going to do my utmost to save both of them, mother and child. However, we will need your permission for Doctor Naidoo here to immediately remove the child by Caesarean section using a spinal block anaesthetic. Only then can I proceed to remove the bullet.’
He turned to the other physician in the cubicle, who came forward to shake Hector’s hand. He was a young Indian man but there was almost no trace of an accent as he said, ‘The baby is still in very good condition. Caesarean section is a very simple procedure. There is almost no danger involved and neither your wife nor your child will be traumatized.’
‘All right, then. Do it. I’ll sign any piece of paper you need,’ Hector said. He felt as cold as his voice sounded in his own ears.
*
A nurse conducted Hector to a hospital waiting room. There were half a dozen other people there before him. They all looked up expectantly as Hector entered, but then slumped with disappointment and resignation. Hector helped himself to a cup of coffee from the communal urn. He saw his hands were shaking and the cup chattered against the saucer. With an effort he controlled them, and found a seat in a corner of the large room.
He was accustomed to being in complete command of any situation, but now he felt helpless. There was nothing for him to do but wait. And not allow despair to overtake him.
He had not had a chance to think things through since the dreadful moment that the Mercedes van with the masked driver had roared past him on the narrow road. From that moment he had been driven only by adrenalin and the instincts of survival towards himself and his loved ones, Hazel and the infant. This was his first chance to evaluate the situation soberly and calmly.
One thing was certain; he was in a war to the knife. He had to shore up his mental defences and prepare for the next assault from a faceless and hidden enemy. He could only guess whence it would come. All he was really certain of was that it would come.
However, his mind was still playing tricks with him. His despair returned in full force; this feeling of confusion and uncertainty, this overpowering sense of dread. All he was able to concentrate on was the picture in his mind of the trickle of blood running down Hazel’s face and the nothingness in her staring eyes.
He took a gulp from the coffee mug and pressed the fingers of his free hand into his eye sockets until it hurt; trying to rally his resources. It took a while, but at last he had himself under control.
‘Okay. So what have we learned about the nature of the beast?’ he asked himself. He reached into the inside pocket of his suit and found his small moleskin notebook. ‘The van was almost certainly stolen, but I have the registration number.’ He scribbled it down. ‘Next, the driver of the Mercedes. Very little there. Face covered by the mask.’ He replayed the brief sighting in his mind and scanned
it for details. ‘Blue denim work shirt, probably fifteen quid at Primark.’ He paused for a moment, and then went on. ‘Left arm bare. Very dark skin. Good muscle tone. Young and fit.’ He wrote it down in his own personal shorthand. ‘Impression of a wristwatch on his skin, but no watch. Careful bastard, then. Stripping for action. Red tattoo on back of the hand. Heart? Scorpion? Coiled snake? Not sure.’ He paused. ‘Nothing else there. What about the two dearly departed? Police forensics will check their fingerprints and will milk every other detail from their cadavers. Though there is little doubt about their tribal origins. I had a good look at them both, post culling. Those Nilotic features are unmistakable. Thin nose and lips. Prominent front teeth. High cheekbones. Handsome. Tall, lean bodies. Almost certainly Somalis.’ Then he smiled grimly at his own naïvety. ‘Or Maasai, or Ethiopian, or Samburu or any one of the other Nilotic tribes. But Somali still makes the most sense to me. The dynasty of Tippoo Tip, the great warlord. They were the original Beast. They were the ones who hijacked Hazel’s yacht; who kidnapped Cayla; who hacked off her head and sent it to us in a bottle. This is very much their style. I thought that I had culled most of that clan. I thought that I had got them all, but a nest of scorpions breeds up again quickly. Could easily be that some of them escaped us to carry on the blood feud.’
Hector had often tried to fathom the tradition of these honour killings. The blood feud was one of the concepts of Sharia law most alien to the Western mind. The aim of the blood feud was neither punishment nor retribution. If it were, then the killing would be of the original perpetrator of the crime, and once that had been achieved the matter would come to an end. It is rather the cleansing of the family honour by the slaying of any member of the offender’s family. Of course, the spilled blood of that victim cries out to the opposite family for purification. Circle without end.
Hector sighed. ‘Time to call up some help here.’ He did not have to ponder that question. There was only one answer: Paddy O’Quinn. Good old Paddy and his merry men.
When Hector and Hazel had first met, Hector had been the owner and operator of Cross Bow Security. Cross Bow’s only client was Bannock Oil, the enormous oil conglomerate that Hazel still headed as CEO. Once the two of them had united, Hazel had wanted Hector close to her at all times. She had persuaded him to take up a position on the board of directors of Bannock Oil, and to sell all his holdings in Cross Bow to Bannock Oil so that he would be free to join her. The price Bannock Oil paid to buy Hector out was substantial but completely fair. It was a sum sufficient to make him financially independent and the master of his own destiny. This was Hazel’s way of ensuring that Hector was a free man, and that they could always be equal partners in their marriage. She did not want him to be subservient to her by reason of her own vast wealth. She knew he was an alpha male and would not, could not, have tolerated any other arrangement for long. It was a gesture so typical of her.
‘Smart as new paint and twice as beautiful!’ His mood lightened for a moment as he thought of her, but almost immediately the dark clouds closed over him again.
Paddy O’Quinn had been Hector’s second in command at Cross Bow. He had helped Hector build up the company from the earliest days. There was no man Hector trusted more. He was solid as a mountain, he was savvy and quick, but over all his other virtues he had the fighting man’s instinct for danger almost as strongly as did Hector himself. Hector took comfort in the fact that Paddy was only a phone call away.
His reverie was interrupted by a hospital nurse who entered the waiting room and called out his name. He jumped to his feet.
‘I am Hector Cross.’
‘Please come with me, Mr Cross.’ As he hurried after her, Hector glanced at his wristwatch. He had been waiting a little over an hour and a half. He caught up with the nurse in the passage.
‘Is everything all right?’ he demanded to know.
‘Yes indeed.’ She smiled at him.
‘My wife?’
‘She is in theatre. Mr Irving is still operating on her. But I have somebody else for you to meet.’ She led him through a labyrinth of passages to a door marked Maternity Observation Room.
When they entered, Hector found that there were chairs arranged along one wall facing a large glass panel that looked into a room beyond. The nurse spoke into a microphone on the table below the window.
‘Hi there, Bonnie! Mr Cross is here.’
To which a disembodied voice replied, ‘Be with you in a sec.’
Hector stood close to the window and minutes later another nurse, in the uniform of a ward sister, entered the observation room on the far side of the glass. She was possibly thirty years of age; young to carry such high rank, Hector thought. She was plump and pretty with a round, jovial face. She carried in her arms a small bundle wrapped in a blue blanket which was embroidered with the initials RHCH in red, Royal Hampshire County Hospital. She came to the opposite side of the window and gave Hector a beaming pink smile. It was contagious and Hector smiled back at her, although it was not indicative of his true feelings.
‘Hello, Mr Cross. My name is Bonnie. May I have the pleasure of introducing you to somebody?’ She opened the blankets to reveal a ruddy and wrinkled little face with tightly closed slits for eyes. ‘Say hello to your daughter.’
‘Good God! She’s got no hair.’ Hector came out with the first thing that sprang to mind, and immediately realized how inane it sounded, even to him.
‘She’s very beautiful!’ said the nurse sternly.
‘In a funny sort of way, I suppose she is.’
‘In every possible way she is,’ she corrected him. ‘She weighs exactly six pounds. Isn’t she a clever girl? What are you going to call her?’
‘Catherine Cayla. Her mother chose those names.’ Surely he should feel more than this when he looked at his firstborn child, but instead he thought of Hazel lying somewhere nearby with a bullet in her brain. He was on the verge of tears and he coughed and blinked them back. The last time he had cried openly was at the age of six when his pony had thrown him and he had broken his arm in three places on landing.
Catherine Cayla opened her mouth in a wide yawn which exposed her toothless gums. Hector smiled and this time the smile was genuine. He felt a small flame flare in his heart.
‘She is beautiful,’ he said softly. ‘She’s bloody gorgeous. Just like her mother.’
‘Oh! Look at the little darling,’ said Bonnie. ‘She’s already hungry. I am going to take her for her first feed. Say bye-bye, Daddy.’
‘Bye-bye,’ said Hector dutifully. No one had ever called him Daddy before. He watched the nurse carry his daughter away. For a short while that tiny soul had shone for him like a candle in the darkness of a winter’s night. Now she was gone the arctic cold of despair descended upon him once more. He turned away from the window and went back to the main waiting room.
He sat hunched in a corner chair. The darkness broke over him in waves. He searched his soul for the courage to endure it, and found instead anger.
Anger is a better cure than resignation. He squared his shoulders, and stood up straight. He left the waiting room and went out into the passage. He found the men’s toilet and locked himself in a cubicle and sat on the seat. He took his mobile phone from the leather pouch on his belt. Paddy O’Quinn’s number was in his contact list.
The phone rang three times and then Paddy said, ‘O’Quinn.’
‘Paddy. Where are you?’ Hector spoke into the mouthpiece. His tone was crisp and sharp again.
‘Sweet Jesus! I thought you had dropped off the end of the world, Hector.’ They had not spoken to each other in months.
‘They got Hazel.’
Paddy was stunned into silence. Hector could hear him breathing hoarsely. Then he said, ‘Who? How?’ His voice rang like a sabre being drawn from its scabbard.
‘Four hours ago we ran into an ambush. It’s bad. Hazel took a .22 calibre bullet in her brain. She’s in theatre now. The medico is going for the bullet. We don’t know
yet if she’s going to make it.’
‘She’s a great lady, Heck. You know how I feel.’
‘I know, Paddy.’ They were warriors, they didn’t wail and bleat.
‘She was pregnant, wasn’t she? What about her baby?’ Paddy growled.
‘They saved her. We have a girl. She seems to be doing well.’
‘Thank God for that, at least.’ Paddy paused and then he asked, ‘Do you have any leads?’
‘I cancelled two of the bastards. They were Somalis, I think.’
‘It has to be the Beast again!’ Paddy said. ‘I thought we had got all of them.’
‘That’s what I thought. We were wrong.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Paddy asked.
‘Find them for me, Paddy. Some of the Tippoo Tip brood must have survived. Find them.’
Hector had built up Cross Bow Security into a formidable operation on the principle that offence was more effective than defence and that good intelligence was the most powerful offensive asset. When Paddy took over from him he had built on those precepts. As one of the directors of Bannock Oil, Hector still had access to the accounts of Cross Bow. He knew just how much Paddy was spending on his intelligence arm. If it had been good before, now it had to be that much better. Hector went on speaking.
‘Is Tariq Hakam still with you?’
‘He is one of my main men.’
‘Send him back into Puntland to search for any survivors of the family of Hadji Sheikh Mohammed Khan Tippoo Tip. Nobody knows that terrain better than Tariq. He was born there.’
‘After what we did to them in Puntland, any of them that got away are almost certainly dispersed across the Middle East.’
‘Wherever they are, just find them. Tariq must draw up a list of every male descendant of Khan Tippoo Tip over the age of fifteen years. Then we will hunt them down; every last one of them.’
‘I hear you, Heck. In the meantime I’ll be pulling for Hazel. If anybody can make it, she is the one. All my money is on her.’
‘Thanks, Paddy.’ Hector broke the contact and went back to the waiting room.