by Wilbur Smith
‘The sooner the quicker,’ Hector told him. ‘Every day increases the risk exponentially. Excuse me for a few minutes. I have to speak to a friend.’ He checked his wristwatch. Houston was six hours behind.
He had Ronald Bunter’s private number on his phone.
‘Bunter here.’ The unmistakable old maid’s voice broke his train of thought.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Bunter. It’s Hector Cross.’
‘It’s good to hear from you, Mr Cross. How can I help you?’
Hector told him, and Bunter listened silently until he had finished. Then he asked quietly, ‘What other options are there for safeguarding Catherine, Mr Cross?’
‘There are no other options, Mr Bunter. You know what they did to Catherine’s mother.’
‘I must speak to my fellow trustees. I’ll call you back before close of business today, Mr Cross.’
‘Thank you, Mr Bunter.’
He broke the connection and glanced across at Paddy. ‘Okay, what else have you got to tell me? You have that look on your face. You are holding an ace in the hole.’
‘We are almost at Number Eleven,’ Paddy demurred. ‘It’ll keep until we get there.’
‘Very well,’ Hector agreed reluctantly. ‘Your usual suite is ready for you two. But first I’ll take you to say hello to Catherine. Then I’ll give you half an hour to primp and preen. Hazel made it a rule of the house that gentlemen dress for dinner.’
‘I see no gentlemen around here,’ said Nastiya.
‘Don’t encourage her,’ Paddy said sadly. ‘Russian jokes are like Russian snipers; well camouflaged and difficult to see.’
*
When Nastiya laid eyes on Catherine for the first time a strange transformation came over her. She seemed to melt like a glittering sheet of titanium steel in the glow of an electric furnace. She took Catherine in her arms and spoke to her in Russian. Catherine’s milky blue eyes rolled around in their sockets short-sightedly as she tried to locate the source of these extraordinarily barbaric sounds. Then Nastiya looked up at Paddy accusingly.
‘Why don’t you give me one of these?’
‘Be fair!’ Paddy responded indignantly. ‘I’m trying my best, aren’t I?’ When he could drag Nastiya away from the nursery, Paddy led her up to their suite.
An hour later when they came downstairs again to Hector’s den, Paddy was wearing black tie and decorations, and Nastiya had her blonde hair up and her décolleté down.
‘My God, Paddy! You know how to pick them.’ Hector looked at her with exaggerated awe. ‘You’ve got a very fine-looking lady, there.’ Nastiya blew him a kiss. Hector had a vodka and lime juice ready for Nastiya and a large Jameson whiskey for Paddy.
‘Okay,’ he told them. ‘Sit. Drink. Then talk.’
Paddy took a sip from his glass and exhaled noisily. ‘You’ll no’ find anything to match that, this side of Dublin,’ he said in his broadest brogue.
‘Tell me something more interesting.’
‘Tariq has come up with a lead on somebody we missed when we thinned out Tippoo Tip’s brood.’
Hector sat up straight in his high-backed chair and set his own glass aside. ‘I’m listening,’ he said quietly.
‘As we agreed, I sent Tariq back into Puntland. It’s his homeland and he blends in. He has family and friends there. He travelled by bus. First he went down to the old pirate base at Gandanga Bay. He found it completely deserted.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me.’ Hector gave a grim smile. ‘We worked it over pretty thoroughly.’
‘Scorched earth,’ Paddy agreed. ‘After that, Tariq returned to Tippoo Tip’s stronghold at the Oasis of the Miracle where you rescued Cayla from the Beast. There were a few survivors living in the ruins. One of them had been a concubine of the Khan. Tariq says she is an ancient crone, blind as a bat and starving. Tariq fed her and jollied her along. Her name was Almas and although she couldn’t remember what she had eaten for breakfast she could remember everything from twenty years ago with absolute clarity. She knew the Tippoo Tip family tree by heart, back for two centuries. She claimed that she had borne the Khan twins: a boy and a girl. She told Tariq that her son was Kamal, who commanded the Khan’s fleet of pirate attack boats. That’s the same likely lad you shot dead on board the Golden Goose.’
‘Never forget him.’ Hector smiled. ‘It took five nine-millimetre rounds to quieten him down.’
‘He was a tough bastard,’ Paddy agreed.
‘Not so tough.’ Nastiya spoke for the first time. ‘He squealed like a baby when I bit his finger off.’
Hector laughed out loud. ‘Which reminds me never to make your wife mad.’
‘Actually, she’s a soft-hearted little thing when you get to know her.’ Paddy looked at Nastiya fondly. ‘However, I digress. According to the old woman who claimed to be Kamal’s mother, Kamal’s twin sister gave birth to a son when she was sixteen years of age. So this child would be the grandson of Tippoo Tip.’
‘Do tell!’ Hector urged him. ‘Did Tariq get his name? What happened to him? Is he still alive?’
‘His name was and is Aazim Muktar Tippoo Tip. He left Africa as a young man of twenty or so and he came here to London to study Islamic Law at the Great Mosque in Regent’s Park.’
‘Is he still here in London? Does his grandmother know?’ Hector demanded.
‘No, she doesn’t know. In fact she knows very little about anything that recent. She lives with the fairies most of the time. She doesn’t know where she is herself, let alone where her grandson is. However, I phoned the London mosque and spoke to one of the mullahs there. He knew Aazim Muktar well. He has become an important cleric, highly regarded across the Middle East; a man with influence and power.’
‘All right, but where can we find him?’
‘Just across the Gulf from Abu Zara. He is now one of the senior mullahs at the Masjid Ibn Baaz Mosque, in Mecca. I sent Tariq to do a recce of the mosque. That’s why it took so long for me to come back to you. Tariq attended prayers there a number of times. He saw Aazim Muktar in the flesh and heard him preach. Apparently the mosque was packed. Aazim Muktar had the congregation eating out of his hand. The faithful come from all over the Middle East to listen to him. Even Tariq was seriously impressed. He says Aazim Muktar is a very holy man.’
‘I am pleased to hear that. So when I have finished with him Aazim Muktar will have a place to go where Allah will welcome him,’ Hector said grimly. ‘How easy will it be to pick him up, Paddy?’
Paddy considered the question and then asked his own. ‘I take it you’re not considering a long-range sniper shot when he leaves the mosque?’
‘Correct,’ Hector agreed. ‘I want to look in his eyes and search his soul. I want him to know who I am and I want him to know what he has to pay for. I want to tell him about Hazel. Then I want him to see the black angel coming for him. I want him to die slowly and I want to hear his screams.’
Even Paddy was shaken by the force of Hector’s anger. It took him a while to consider his reply. ‘I am not saying it’s impossible, but snatching him will have its problems. At least we won’t have to parachute into a desert fortress the way we had to do to get at his grandfather. After one prayer ritual Tariq followed him and his entourage to where he lives in the temple compound only a kilometre or so from the mosque. He could not get close to the building without attracting undue attention to himself. But he says it’s a large building surrounded by a fairly substantial wall. It is a difficult place to approach; many eyes watching. There are armed guards at the gate. On the terms you have stipulated it might not be as easy as I, for one, would have liked.’
Hector picked up his glass and stared into it, swirling the golden whiskey in its depths. Before he could speak the phone in the pouch on his belt played the opening bars of ‘American Pie’.
‘Sorry, I’ll have to take this one.’ He lifted the phone to his ear. ‘Cross speaking! Thanks for calling back, Mr Bunter. Do you have news for me?’
‘I have spoken to my colleagues and we are all agreed that the safe house for Catherine is a legitimate charge to the Trust, together with the costs of all the other security arrangements. Furthermore, at the moment the Trust’s Boeing Business Jet is hangared at Farnborough airport. The crew has been instructed to stand by to fly you and Catherine down to Abu Zara. Obviously the sooner we can get her out of harm’s way the better.’
‘I am very grateful to you and your fellow trustees, Mr Bunter.’
‘We can do no less, Mr Cross. Please feel free to call on us for anything further Catherine may require. Goodbye, sir.’ Hector returned the phone to its pouch.
‘Good man, Bunter,’ he said, and then looked back at Paddy. ‘Thank you, Paddy. You have given me plenty to think about.’ He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘But right this minute I am hungry. Shall we go through to the dining room and see what Chef has got for us?’
*
The first course was grilled Fine de Claire oysters on the half-shell, dressed in a heavenly mantle of Tabasco-tinted hollandaise sauce and accompanied by an ice-cold Chablis. Hector had just slipped the first oyster into his mouth and was rolling his eyes with pleasure when his iPhone rang again. He cursed around the oyster.
‘Who the hell rings at a time like this?’ He glanced at the illuminated screen on the phone. ‘It’s my gamekeeper at Brandon Hall. I don’t need to speak to him in the middle of dinner. Excuse me, while I switch off this infernal machine.’
‘Nyet, Hector,’ Nastiya told him. ‘That is not weary vice at a time like this.’ Hector knew she meant ‘not very wise’, and he hesitated. He had learned to respect Nastiya’s advice. She had the warrior’s instinct finely developed. Then he lifted the phone to his ear.
‘Paul, whatever it is, make it short. We are in the middle of dinner,’ he said and Paul Stowe’s voice was so raised and agitated that all of them seated at the dining room table could hear him clearly.
‘Sir, the Hall is on fire. At least four of our people are trapped in the flames.’
‘Oh my God, Paul! What started it?’
‘Incendiary grenades, sir.’ Paul was an old soldier. ‘I would know the smell of burning white phosphorus anywhere. There were two of them in quick succession. I heard the explosions and the next second the whole hall went up like a bonfire.’
‘Which part of the house did they hit?’ Hector demanded.
‘The bedroom wing. It looks like one grenade went in through your study windows below the master bedroom, and the other through the library window under the new nursery area.’
Swiftly Hector digested that information. The attackers must have known the layout of the house. They had made a very focussed attack. Hector had a vivid mental picture of what might have been the consequences if he and Catherine had been sleeping in the Hall this very evening. Thermate in an incendiary grenade burns at 2,200 degrees centigrade. It can melt steel almost instantaneously.
‘Did anyone get a look at the attackers? Do you have any idea who they are?’
‘Two scumbags got into the estate late this evening, probably around about dusk.’ Paul’s voice rang with certainty and outrage.
‘How do you know that, Paul?’
‘I found their car, a new Vauxhall Zafira, where they’d hidden it on the other side of our boundary wall opposite the Corner Stone Drive. I was on my way home when I noticed something that hadn’t been there yesterday, a pile of green branches. Because you had warned me to be on the lookout, I went to take a butcher’s and found the car hidden under the branches. Then I tracked the two thugs from there and found where they had climbed over our wall. It took me almost half an hour to get back to the Hall because I had to circle around to the stone bridge to cross the river. By that time it was dark and I was just crossing the lower meadow when I heard the grenades go off and saw the flames. It was no good trying to track them because it was too dark. Anyway, my first priority was to rescue any of our people who were trapped in the Hall. It’s a racing certainty that those thugs headed straight back to where they left their car. But of course the car won’t start, will it? I took care of that.’
‘How?’ Hector demanded.
‘Well, I had my Leatherman tool with me. So first thing I did when I found it was I pulled all the spark plugs out of the engine and tossed them in the river. The only way they are going to be going anywhere tonight is on foot.’
‘What are you doing now, Paul?’
‘I am trying to save some of those poor devils who are trapped in the fire. But I don’t think there is much hope. The flames are so fierce we can’t even get close. Already the entire roof is starting to collapse.’
‘You’ve done the right thing, Paul. I am coming down to give you a hand. This time of night there won’t be much traffic; I should be there in less than two hours.’ He cut the connection and looked at Paddy.
‘It’s the Beast again,’ Paddy said. ‘No question about it. They read the newspapers, so they know about Catherine and they think she is at Brandon Hall. They are after her.’ He paused and then added, ‘And you also, Hector.’
‘Get changed and let’s go,’ Hector said. They left the remains of the oysters and the wine untouched. They rushed up the main staircase and ran to their bedrooms. Only minutes later all three of them met on the staircase again, dressed in rough clothing. Hector was carrying an Irish fighting club made from blackthorn wood, a shillelagh. He tossed it onto the back seat when they reached the Rover in the underground garage.
Driving very fast along the almost deserted motorway, it took just under an hour and twenty minutes to reach Winchester. As they passed the town, Hector called Paul Stowe again.
‘Fill me in with what’s happening, Paul.’
‘The Fire Brigade have got the fire under control now, but it had just about burned itself out anyway. They have found two bodies. But it’s impossible to tell who they are. They are too badly burnt.’
‘Poor devils! Leave the firemen to their job. We must try and catch those bastards that put the grenades in. If they are trying to walk out they must still be on the road. We are coming through Winchester right now. We will search the road from here to Brandon Hall. But they might not have come this way. They might have gone south towards Southampton. Take one of the Land Rovers and cover that stretch of road. Have a couple of your underkeepers with you and make sure you are carrying shotguns. These are murderous swine we are dealing with.’ Hector cut the connection and spoke over his shoulder to Nastiya on the back seat.
‘There is a spotlight in the locker behind you. Get it out and plug it into the lighter socket next to the ashtray between the seats. Then open the sun roof. If you stand on the seat, even a little short-ass like you will be able to stick your head and shoulders out through the opening. Sweep both sides of the road with the spotlight. It’s fairly open ground from here to the turn-off to Brandon Hall, but they might hide in the trees when they see us coming.’
The road was still deserted as they sped along it. Country folk don’t keep late hours, so they did not see another vehicle for the next five miles. Then they came around a sharp turn through a stretch of woodland and ahead of them the road descended through open fields on both sides. Only two hundred yards ahead, full in the beam of the powerful spotlight that Nastiya was wielding, they picked up a pair of dark masculine figures trudging towards them down the white line in the centre of the road.
The woodland had screened the approaching lights until the Range Rover was close upon them, and now they were taken by surprise. For a few critical seconds they stood frozen as the Range Rover bore down on them.
Their faces were concealed, for they both wore hoodie jackets. Swiftly they recovered their wits, and they turned and ran. They were stupid enough to let themselves get caught out in the open, and dumb enough to run for it and confirm their guilt, but they were smart enough not to stay together. They split up as if by prior agreement. One of them left the road, scrambled over the fence and ran up the gentle slope throug
h a freshly planted field of winter wheat, heading for the dark patch of trees that just showed against the stars near the crest.
The other man went in the opposite direction, over the fence and through the open field down towards what looked like a small stream running parallel to the road at the bottom of the hill.
When Hector reached the spot where they had left the road he slammed on the brakes and flung the door open. As he reached back to the seat behind him where the blackthorn shillelagh lay, he shouted, ‘Paddy, you and Nazzy take the one on your side. I’ll get the other bastard.’
Nastiya wriggled out onto the roof of the Rover, jumped and landed lightly in perfect balance on the verge. She reached the fence before Paddy was out of the side door. She used the slope of the embankment to gather momentum and she ran at the fence. She leapt at it and placed one hand on the top of a fence pole, jack-knifed her body and dropped over the far side. The sprouting wheat in the field was no more than a foot high and didn’t impede her at all. She gained on the fleeing figure as swiftly as a whippet running down a hare. She caught him long before he reached the tree line and while Paddy was still twenty yards behind them.
The man heard her light footsteps rustling the wheat stalks close behind him and he turned at bay. When he saw it was a skinny little girl pursuing him, he reached into his pocket. He brought out a flick knife and snapped open the blade. He dropped into a defensive crouch, and he presented the point of the weapon to her.
‘Come then, bitch,’ he panted at her. ‘I’m going to cut your stinking cunt out of you and stuff it up your arse.’ Nastiya never checked her charge. She went in fast and at the very last instant she dived feet-first under his guard, taking her weight on her shoulders as she hit the ground. Then she rebounded and at the same time shot out both legs with the speed and power of an arrow from a longbow.
Taken by surprise, the man was slow to react. He shouted with pain as Nastiya slammed the soles of her feet into his right wrist. Even above the sound of his agony, the crackle of his carpus bones breaking was sharp and clear. The knife flew from his hand in a high spinning arc. Nastiya used the impetus of her rush to flip back onto her feet. She caught the knife neatly by the handle as it dropped.