by Wilbur Smith
On that first day she had treated him in an off-handed manner, which made him furious. He was unaccustomed to being spurned. Hated? Yes, but never so casually dismissed.
Now at last he was able to read her own thoughts on that fateful day.
She had described him as all attitude, testosterone and muscles. I pray to God that one day he will forgive me for finding such an obnoxious oaf to be quite cute and very sexy.
*
Six weeks after his arrival in Abu Zara Hector was awoken by the ringing of his iPhone. He rolled over and switched on the bedside light, and then he glanced at the alarm clock. It was ten minutes to four in the morning. He picked up the phone.
‘Cross,’ he spoke into the mouthpiece.
‘It’s me. Yaf!’
Hector sat up quickly. ‘Tell me!’ he said.
‘He is here. But you better come quickly. He is moving about a lot. No telling when he will disappear again.’
‘What is your time in London?’
‘Just before midnight,’ Yaf replied. Hector made a quick calculation.
‘Okay!’ he said. ‘I’ll be there around about eleven a.m. your time tomorrow. Go to my home in the morning and wait for me. I will tell my butler to let you in and my chef will give you a slap-up breakfast.’ He rang off and called Paddy’s apartment. Nastiya’s sleepy voice answered.
‘This can only be Hector Cross!’ she said.
‘Good guess,’ he commended her. ‘Aleutian has shown up in London. Tell that lover boy in bed with you to get his pants on. Tell him to requisition the Bannock Oil G5 for an immediate and urgent to Farnborough. Tell them to rouse the pilots out of bed if needs be. We are going after the murderous bastard.’
Hector left Dave Imbiss at Seascape Mansions to command Catherine’s guards. The rest of them in the G5 took off from Abu Zara at 0843 and touched down at Farnborough five hours later. Hector’s chauffeur drove out onto the tarmac to pick them up. A little over an hour later they parked in the underground garage of No. 11. Yaf Said was waiting in the kitchens where he had struck up a friendship with Cynthia, the chef. She was fattening him up on her famous chocolate pudding and ice cream. He dropped his spoon and rushed up the stairs when he heard Hector’s voice.
Hector introduced him to Paddy and Nastiya, and then called an immediate council of war in the library. At Hector’s invitation Yaf outlined what had taken place in their absence.
‘I had been getting reports about Aleutian for the last couple of weeks; mostly from nightclubs in the central London area. But every time I followed it up it turned out to be a false sighting or the mark had disappeared by the time I reached the scene. Then I scored a positive hit in a place called Fusion Fire. It’s a pretty flash dive, strobe lighting and mirrors, lots of dealers and whores lurking about, but the music is wild. I got up real close to Aleutian at the bar. He was drinking with three other black guys, and I checked out his tattoo. It was the guy you want, no question about it. But his pals were calling him Oscar, not Aleutian.’
‘When was that?’ Hector asked.
‘Friday two weeks ago. I didn’t want to call you right away. It might have been a one-off appearance. I waited for him there for the next four nights. But he didn’t show again. So I put my people into all the clubs in the area. We found him hanging out in two other joints over the next week, and then he popped up at Fusion again, two days in a row. That’s when I called you. My thinking is that he is moving around, changing his digs every day. There is no pattern to his movements. You should stake out all the clubs where he has been spotted recently. He seems to be a creature of habit. I think that’s your best chance of catching up with him.’
‘Makes sense,’ Hector agreed. ‘But what about you, Yaf?’
Yaf looked uncomfortable, and it took him a little time to gather his courage and speak out.
‘I was happy to tell you where you may be able to find this fellow, but I don’t want to be there when you do find him. I gave up all that rough stuff a long time ago when Allah took me under his wing. No offence, Mr Cross. It’s been a great pleasure to meet a man like you, but now I think I should leave you to go about your own business and I’ll go about mine.’
‘Thank you again, Yaf. It’s probably a wise decision you are making. It has also been a pleasure for me to meet you. You reaffirm my faith in the younger generation. If ever I can help you in any way you know where to find me. In the meantime, can I pay you for your time and trouble?’
Yaf held up both hands in alarm. ‘No, please. I didn’t do this for money. I did it for a great and holy man.’
‘Very well, Yaf. But there must be some charity run by your mosque to which I can make a contribution.’
‘Well, sir, to tell the truth we do get a lot of our funding from the Muslim Youthwork Foundation,’ Yaf replied diffidently. ‘You could make a contribution online. You don’t have to give your name.’
‘I will do that in your name,’ Hector assured him.
‘Thank you, sir. It isn’t necessary, but I assure you that the money will be very well spent.’ Yaf reached into the pocket of his hoodie jacket and brought out a slip of paper. ‘Here’s a list of all the joints where we have spotted Aleutian. He usually shows up in one of them around midnight if he shows up at all, but then he stays until dawn. I hope you find what you are looking for, sir.’
Hector walked with him to the front door and told him, ‘I hope our friendship does not end here, Yaf. Any time you are passing, please drop in. If I am not here then Cynthia, in the kitchen, will always rustle you up a cup of coffee and a bite. I’ll tell her you are always welcome.’
‘That’s kind of you, sir. Goodbye and ma’a salama.’ They shook hands and then Hector watched him straddle his motor scooter and ride away. He knew he would never see him again. Yaf was his own man, too proud to come around begging.
*
‘Okay, the three clubs on Yaf Said’s list are Fusion Fire, the Rabid Dog and the Portals of Paradise, all in the central London area, from Soho to Elephant and Castle. I don’t know any of these joints, do either of you?’ Hector looked at Nastiya first.
‘No, not quite my style,’ she retorted primly.
‘What about you, Paddy?’
‘No, but they sound like a great deal of fun.’
‘Here is how we should go about this. I have checked the location of all three clubs on the internet. They are scattered over quite a large area; a good few miles apart. We will have to split up to cover all three of them. As Yaf has told us, it’s no use starting the search before midnight. We have to go on the late-night shift. If one of us makes a positive ID then he or she calls the team together. We keep Aleutian under observation and follow him when he leaves the club. One of us will be driving the Q-car. At that time of the morning the streets should be pretty much empty. As soon as we get him alone and unobserved we slip him the Hypnos.’
The Hypnos was a tiny self-contained hypodermic syringe which could be palmed in one hand, or concealed in the seam of a jacket sleeve. It was made of a type of PVC which could not be detected by X-ray or any other screening device. The barrel was green in colour. The non-metallic needle was primed by flicking off the protective cover with a thumb. The needle was a mere 2cm in length and needed only to pierce the skin to deliver 2cc of a powerful knock-down drug which almost instantly rendered the subject totally paralysed. It was named for the Greek goddess of sleep.
It was impossible to obtain supplies of these weapons unless, like Dave Imbiss, you had contacts in the Chemical Warfare Division of the US Military.
‘Then as soon as Aleutian goes down we bundle him into the Q-car and bring him back here,’ Hector went on outlining the plan. ‘By the way, the basement is soundproof and there is a room down there where I clean my fishing tackle, but it will make a very good interrogation room. We will have all the right equipment on hand. The walls and the floor are tiled and easy to hose down. If the waterboard does not convince him, we might have to make a bit of a mes
s before Aleutian feels the urge to speak out, and give us the name of his employer. When we have finished with him we pack what’s left of him into an airtight and waterproof fish box and export him to Abu Zara in the G5. If we choose the right takeoff slot there shouldn’t be any worries about customs wanting to look inside the box. At the other end Dave Imbiss will take Aleutian out to one of the oil-exploration teams that are drilling in the new Zara Number Twelve concession. Aleutian goes down the drill hole that presently is at the sixteen-thousand-foot mark, and then he comes up again in the slurry minced into a fine paste by the rotary diamond drill bit.’
He gave them a wolfish grin and went on. ‘I know that it is a fairly sketchy battle plan, but I also know that you two are pretty damn good at improvising according to changing circumstances.’
He checked his wristwatch and stood up. ‘We have an hour to change for dinner. I know Chef has something special lined up for us, but tragically there will be no wine served with it. We want to be bright and razor sharp for later in the evening. After dinner I plan a couple of hours’ shut-eye. Then we will reassemble around eleven p.m. It will take an hour or more to get into our positions. I think Nastiya should go to the Portals of Paradise, for obvious reasons. Paddy will take the Rabid Dog for equally obvious reasons. I will stake out Fusion Fire, for no good reason that I can think of.’
‘I imagine there are a few dolly-birds from your flaming past who could supply us with ample reasons,’ Nastiya suggested.
Hector went up to his dressing room and opened the secret door behind the fireplace. From one of the open shelves he took down the box which contained his pistol, already in its shoulder holster. He pulled on a pair of surgical rubber gloves and wiped the weapon down carefully to remove his own fingerprints. Then he reloaded the magazine with the special ammunition that Dave had supplied. Finally, he wiped the pistol down a second time, just to be sure it was clean. He had calculated the odds for and against carrying the weapon tonight. It was a serious offence if the authorities found it on him, but he might be taking an even greater risk to go up against someone of the calibre of Aleutian with just his bare hands.
*
They dropped Nastiya at the Portals of Paradise a few minutes after midnight. The entrance was discreetly set in a narrow mews. There was a small crowd of excited young people grouped around the door. A pair of large and aggressive doormen barred their entrance to the premises, while an urbane door manager in dinner jacket and black tie made his selection of those he deemed worthy to enter such hallowed premises.
Hector parked the Q-car at the entrance to the mews, and he and Paddy watched Nastiya alight and head towards the club entrance.
The door manager spotted Nastiya as soon as she entered the mews. She was wearing a crimson sheath that clung to all her protuberances, and six-inch stiletto heels that put the fine muscles in her calves under tension. Her appearance stilled the clamour of the throng at the entrance to the club pleading to be allowed in. Their ranks parted and they watched in awed silence as she passed through. The door manager rushed forward to greet her and took her arm with an unctuous smile of welcome. He escorted her to the entrance, handed her over the threshold and told the girl at the box office, ‘The lady is a guest of the house. Make sure she gets the best available table.’
Watching from the back seat of the Q-car, Paddy O’Quinn worried, ‘I hope she is going to be all right. There is some queasy-making trash in that mob.’
Hector burst out laughing. ‘You have to be kidding, Paddy. The only person I feel sorry for is any bloke who tries to mess with that lady of yours.’
He started the engine and drove on another two miles to the Rabid Dog.
‘Okay, Paddy, this is your kennel. Keep your legs crossed and don’t take any rubber cheques.’ He watched Paddy slip the doorman a ten-pound note and disappear through the dark curtains that covered the entrance.
It was another mile back to the Fusion Fire. The club extended over two levels. Its façade was all floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows facing the road. Through the windows he could see that the interiors were brightly lit by revolving towers of myriad-colour strobe lights. The ceilings were clad with mirrored tiles that reflected the flashing lights and the figures of the dancers on the floors below. The dancers were packed as tightly as shoals of glittering tropical fish, driven by the booming pulse of the music into a savage frenzy.
He drove past slowly, parked on the next corner and walked back to the entrance of the club. He was wearing dark aviator glasses and a gold brocade Nehru jacket with cut-out sleeves that Nastiya had chosen for him. They had deliberately chosen outlandish costume to make themselves appear kinky and effete. Nobody would think they were storm-troopers and take fright. Hector paid a hundred pounds for a VIP table.
He sat at the table and looked around the huge room. He recognized it immediately as the background to one of the videos that Vicky Vusamazulu had shot of Aleutian on her iPhone. That gave him encouragement. If Aleutian had hung out here before, there was a stronger possibility that he might return here again.
Within twenty minutes he had five different young ladies approach him one after the other, to offer everything from a fifty-pound under-the-table blow job to a five-hundred-pound all-nighter. All of which he declined with thanks.
By five twenty in the morning the crowds on the dance floor had thinned, and there was still no sign of anyone who even vaguely resembled Aleutian. So he went down to the Q-car and drove to the Rabid Dog to pick up Paddy.
‘How did it go, old son?’ he asked as Paddy climbed into the seat beside him.
‘If I had smoked, sniffed and swallowed everything I was offered tonight I would be flying higher than the morning star up there.’
They drove on to the Portals of Paradise and when Nastiya appeared she looked as though she had spent the time in a beauty salon.
‘No luck, Queen of my Heart?’ Paddy enquired anxiously.
‘I could have made a fortune. One dear old man of about ninety offered me ten thousand pounds for just a look and no touch.’
‘You should have taken the offer,’ Paddy told her, and she gave him a level stare through eyes that were as frosty blue as a tundra sky. When they got back to No. 11 all three of them slept until noon.
The next night was a repetition of the first. Only the clientele in the clubs had changed.
On the third night Hector strolled into the bedlam of Fusion Fire a little after midnight. It was Saturday night and it was shoulder to shoulder on the dance floor. The volume of the music numbed the senses. The huge mirrored light balls suspended from the ceiling bounced in time to the pounding feet of the dancers below.
So as to blend into the scenery, Hector was wearing a black satin Spanish bolero jacket over a frilled white shirt and a black string tie. His toreador sequinned pants were skin tight. Once again this costume had been assembled for him by Nastiya. He seated himself at his usual table and a girl in a mini-skirt with a pretty pixie face and pouting lips, who he had never seen before, immediately plumped herself down on his lap.
‘You are so gorgeous I want to marry you,’ she told him. ‘You are rich, aren’t you?’
‘I am a multimillionaire,’ he told her gravely.
‘Oh my God!’ she said breathlessly. ‘I swear to God that you’ve just made me come.’
He found her really quite amusing. He laughed and glanced over her shoulder and looked straight at the dark sullen face that he remembered so well from Victoria Vusamazulu’s videos.
Aleutian was standing on the far side of the dance floor, at the top of the stairs that led down to the entrance lobby. He was with a girl who was looking up at him but her face was turned away from Hector. Aleutian was looking down at her patronizingly. Although the crowd swirled around the pair he stood a full head above any of them. This was how Hector had picked him out so readily. He stared at him for a few seconds only, making utterly certain he had the right man, but even that was too long.
If you stare intently at a wild animal in the jungle it will often sense your gaze and react to it. Aleutian was just that, a savage predator in his own domain. His eyes flashed up from the girl’s face and his gaze locked with Hector’s. He recognized Hector instantly. He whirled and darted away down the staircase.
Hector jumped to his feet, dumping the girl from his lap in a heap at his feet. He jumped over her and ran onto the dance floor and fought his way through the dancers to the head of the stairs down which Aleutian had disappeared.
The stairs were almost as crowded as the dance floor. When Hector reached the entrance door and burst through it into the street there was no sign of him. Hector checked the blind instinct to rush through the dark streets searching at random.
He thought of the girl Aleutian had been with. Perhaps he could find her. Perhaps she could point him to where Aleutian was holing up. He abandoned that idea in the same instant as it came to him. Fusion Fire was overflowing with dollies like her. He had not even seen her face. He would never recognize her in the pack. Anyway, she was probably a hooker that Aleutian had picked up this very same evening.
How did Aleutian get here? Car? Taxi? If so, he is already long gone. He was thinking furiously. Underground? Yes, of course!
He knew from his online research that the north bank entrance to Blackfriars station was perhaps four hundred yards from where he now stood. He started to run. He raced to the first corner and saw the entrance to the station at the end of the block ahead. The street was almost deserted at this hour. There was only a handful of late-night revellers making their way homeward. One of these was Aleutian. He was sprinting away from Hector towards the tube station. As Hector started in pursuit Aleutian reached the entrance and disappeared like a jack rabbit into its warren. Hector followed him into the entrance. He went down the stairs three at a time with his footsteps echoing in an empty tunnel. He reached the T-junction at the bottom. The left-hand tunnel was signposted Richmond and the right was signed Upminster. He had no way of telling which one Aleutian had chosen. At random, he started down the right-hand tunnel and then he heard a train rumbling in on the Richmond line. He spun around and raced in that direction. He came out on the landing and looked down on the platform. The train was already standing stationary and the doors were open. There was a small crowd of late-night commuters and revellers climbing aboard. Hector saw at once that his hunch had been good. Aleutian was pushing his way through the other passengers. Hector watched him clamber into one of the carriages.