The Sanction

by Mark Sennen

  The kettle whistled out a warning and Silva turned off the hob before slumping down at the saloon table in shock. Milligan was dead, taken out by either Weiss or, more likely, Jawad al Haddad. Her mother had been close friends with Milligan. Not lovers – at least Silva didn’t think so – but confidantes. His death meant another part of her mother’s life was erased for good, another link to the past broken.

  She sat for a few minutes and then got up and peered out of the companionway; she thought about Fairchild and his warning. The estuary was grey and almost still, just a slight movement as the tide began to ebb. Three boats up from hers a rope frapped against the mast and across the water there was a low rumble as a conveyor belt carried aggregate from a large cargo ship to the shore. All of a sudden she felt exposed. The little marina had a high fence and twenty-four-hour security with a guard, but the fence was old and rickety and Freddie likewise.

  She ducked below and slid the hatch shut. She drew the curtains and hunkered down at the table. Fairchild had left her a burner phone, a pay-as-you-go mobile that was untraceable. Silva pulled it out. She was tempted to ring him but then wondered about Itchy. Was he a target? She didn’t want to phone him either in case Weiss was somehow listening in, but she felt responsible and he deserved a warning. She hadn’t unpacked the day before, but now she pulled the pannier bags open and took out all the clothing she’d taken to Italy. She rummaged in a locker for some fresh items and stuffed them in the bags. Then she clambered up through the companionway, slid the hatch shut and locked it, and made for her motorbike.

  Ten minutes later she pulled up outside Itchy’s terraced house. A knock brought him to the door and he hustled Silva inside.

  ‘You hear about the money?’ he said. His mouth widened into a smile. ‘Twenty-five K. Not bad, considering.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve been paid. Twenty-five thousand pounds. It appeared in my bank account overnight.’

  ‘Never mind the money,’ Silva said. She followed Itchy through into the living room and closed the door behind her. ‘Neil Milligan is dead.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The journalist my mum used to work for. He knew about the story, knew about the Hopes. He’s been murdered.’

  ‘Murdered?’

  ‘He was stabbed and it was made to look like a mugging, but that’s just a cover.’ Silva shrugged and let her arms hang loose. She was at a loss. She stared past Itchy. The wall behind him had been stripped of wallpaper but little pieces of the gold-flecked covering remained. Itchy’s house was a refurbishment job and for a moment Silva thought about the ridiculousness of the situation. Here she was worrying about his renovation project when just two days ago she’d been attempting to kill the next president of the United States. ‘My guess is we’re next.’

  ‘Caz.’ Itchy tilted his head and looked at the ceiling. ‘She’s upstairs.’

  ‘Did you tell her anything about the Italy trip?’

  ‘Only that I was going on a security job. Protection. That sort of thing. She doesn’t know where we went, who we met, or any of the details.’

  ‘Good. Is there anywhere she can go for a few days? Not family – they’re too easy to trace – a friend perhaps?’

  ‘She’s got a mate in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Perfect. Tell her something’s come up. She shouldn’t be worried but it might be safer if she went away on a little holiday. Say it’s a treat. Spend some of that money.’

  ‘Shit, Silvi. I hate lying to her.’

  ‘Don’t lie, then. Just don’t tell her the whole truth, right?’

  ‘OK.’ Itchy nodded. ‘And us? I guess we could just bugger off in your boat.’ Itchy made a wavy movement with his hand. ‘Head out to sea?’

  ‘She can do about five knots with a good wind. That’s a hundred and twenty miles a day. I don’t think we’d get far before they caught up with us, do you?’

  ‘We’re not going to just sit here and wait for them, are we?’

  ‘No. Remember Afghanistan? What we did there? If there was an enemy sniper pinning down our unit we didn’t wait to be picked off, did we?’

  ‘No.’ Itchy was moving to the doorway. He’d got the message. ‘We went out into the field and hunted them down.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  * * *

  Hunting the enemy down was all well and good, but Silva had something else to do first.

  ‘We need to visit my dad,’ she said into her helmet microphone as they cruised up the motorway. ‘I want to persuade him to go somewhere safe for a bit.’

  ‘Good luck with that.’ Itchy’s voice crackled back through the earpiece. He’d met Silva’s father. ‘A tenner says he refuses to budge.’

  Silva didn’t reply. Itchy was almost certainly right.

  They arrived at her father’s place a couple of hours later. Silva told Itchy to wait by the bikes and she went up to the front door. Mrs Collins answered with the look of somebody not best pleased to receive visitors.

  ‘You,’ she said. Behind the housekeeper the parquet flooring in the hallway shone like a mirror.

  ‘Yes, me.’ Silva was afraid to step in from the porch. She nodded at the floor. ‘Would you like me to remove my boots?’

  ‘You could go round the house.’ Mrs Collins gestured at the gravel drive. ‘He’s down by the lake, fishing.’

  ‘Fishing?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘Right. Thank you.’

  Silva retreated down the steps and walked round to the back. She found her father sitting on an old director’s chair perched precariously at the end of the wooden jetty. He held a fishing rod in his right hand, and every now and then he swished the rod back and forth, the thick fly line curling behind him before he sent it shooting out over the water. Silva stepped onto the jetty with a deliberately heavy footfall.

  ‘Dad? What are you up to?’

  ‘What does it look like I’m bloody up to? I’m trying to catch something for dinner.’ The response came without any note of surprise, as if her father had been expecting her all along.

  ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Not even a nibble.’ Her father wound in the line and placed the rod down on the jetty. ‘I see Karen Hope’s still alive.’

  ‘Yup. Snafu. That’s me. Failed again. Only this time I don’t think any of it was my fault.’ Silva noted the fishing rod and the green canvas bag. ‘That’s Fairchild’s, isn’t it?’

  ‘He sent it to me.’

  ‘No he didn’t. He’s been here again, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Well, yes, he came by yesterday.’

  ‘I guess he told you what happened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And warned you about Haddad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you heard about Neil Milligan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what the hell are you doing here, Dad?’ Silva stood with her hands on her hips. Her father was fiddling with the fishing line. Untying the fly and placing the hook back in a small tackle box. ‘You obviously didn’t take Fairchild’s warning seriously, but the news about Milligan should have made you realise that Haddad doesn’t mess around.’

  ‘I’m not running away, Rebecca. I’m no coward. If Haddad shows up here we can have it out mano-a-mano.’

  ‘Dad, Haddad’s not going to turn up in person. He is a coward. He’ll send his henchmen and they don’t play by Queensberry Rules.’

  ‘I was in the SAS, remember.’ He snapped the lid of the tackle box shut and put it in the canvas bag, picked up the bag and the rod, and stood. ‘I can take care of myself.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, but what if there’s three of them? Five? Ten?’

  ‘Did Matthew Fairchild ever tell you how I saved his life in Iraq?’

  ‘This isn’t the time for—’

  ‘Rebecca! Listen, will you? This is important!’ The temper was characteristic of her father, but there was a waver to his voice that Silva hadn’t heard before. She paused and nodded. He continued.
‘We were deep in the southern desert, exfilling from a vantage point where we’d been calling in air strikes on Iraqi Scud positions. Our hide had been compromised so we had to make a swift getaway. Fairchild was bringing up the rear when he was hit. I told the rest of the guys to head on and create a diversion while I went back for him. When I got to Fairchild it was obvious he wasn’t going anywhere fast. He’d taken a round in the knee. He told me to leave him a pistol and go, but I wasn’t having it. I got him to play dead and I scrambled up a nearby hill and hid in a gulley. About five minutes later the first of the Iraqis came round the corner. Fairchild stayed still and I allowed the soldiers to get up close. Then I opened fire. There were nine of them and I took out seven, while Fairchild got two. When I got back down to him I realised three of the Iraqis were still alive. According to the Geneva Convention they were now off-limits, but that was utter crap. If we’d left them they might have been able to attract the attention of other nearby patrols. They’d have been able to point out the direction we went.’ Her father paused and there was only the sound of a light wind brushing the rushes, a gentle lapping of little wavelets against the side of the jetty. ‘I shot them, Rebecca, one by one, and that still haunts me to this day.’

  ‘Dad.’ Silva moved forward. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d shown her father anything other than cursory affection, but now she wanted to tell him she loved him and cared for him.

  ‘No!’ Her father held up a hand. He had tears in his eyes. ‘The point is we do what is necessary to help those we care about. Right and wrong don’t come into it.’

  Silva stood a pace away. Was her father saying he loved her, cared about her? ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The best chance for you is if I remain put. When they discover you’re not in Plymouth they’ll come looking here. Let’s see what kind of state they’re in after that.’

  Silva nodded but she wondered if her father had slipped over into fantasy, if this wasn’t some attempt to return to a time when he was younger and fitter and a world of possibilities still lay before him.

  ‘Itchy’s here, Dad.’ Silva changed the subject. Her father had always liked Itchy. ‘We’ll stay over if that’s OK? Be off in the morning.’

  ‘Itchy?’ There was a flicker of annoyance, as if he was cross she hadn’t told him this important news straight away. The emotion of a moment ago was gone. ‘Why ever didn’t you say so, Rebecca?’

  With that her father was off down the pontoon and heading for the house, shouting for Mrs Collins to bring cold beers and some of those dry-roasted peanuts they’d stocked up on at Christmas. It was all Silva could do to trot after him and wonder what it was with father–daughter relationships.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  After a boozy dinner where her father and Itchy vied to tell the tallest army stories, Silva retired to one of the attic guest rooms. She lay on the bed and thought about her promise to Itchy that they’d go on the offensive. Quite how they were going to do so she had no idea. Their only chance of escaping from Haddad’s wrath would be to expose him and his dealings with the Hopes. If she could get the information her mother had discovered out into the media, then public pressure would force governments – UK, US and Saudi – to act.

  She tried to sleep, but the problem wouldn’t go away and her mind was a maelstrom of competing ideas, none of which offered a solution. She wondered how her mother might have approached the problem. As a journalist she’d have gathered evidence and collated it, each piece adding to the case she would make in the story. But did Silva have all the evidence yet?

  Hidden secrets.

  It came to her then. The postcard of Chichester Harbour her mother had left for her.

  She climbed out of bed. Her leather jacket lay over the back of a chair and the postcard was still inside one of the zip pockets. She pulled it out.

  18 August

  Dear Rebecca, remember the beach we used to go to here? West something or other wasn’t it? Those were happy times, good memories, a place with buried treasure and hidden secrets to be passed on from one generation to the next. I so enjoyed the many times we visited. I definitely Hope you did too. Love always and forever, Mum.

  She realised with a start that the eighteenth of August was tomorrow. She reached for her phone and pulled up a map of Chichester Harbour. A satellite image showed a series of deep-water channels penetrating inland, vast mudflats exposed at low tide. She zoomed in. There was an odd spit of sand which curled back from the open sea. Scattered white dots of small boats moored behind the spit. On the main sea-facing beach, a regular line of something Silva reckoned were beach huts.

  Nothing on the screen sprung out at her so she put the phone down and returned to bed where the problem continued to nag her until eventually she drifted off to sleep.

  When she woke it was still dark. She climbed out of bed and went over to the window. In the garden a crescent moon rippled in the waters of the lake. Closer, a shadow moved across the lawn, while to the right another approached the house.

  Silva eased back from the window. In thirty seconds she’d dressed and was inching down the corridor to Itchy’s room. She tapped the door gently and entered.

  ‘Itchy!’ she whispered.

  ‘Huh?’ Itchy stirred beneath the duvet. ‘Wassup?’

  ‘Don’t put the light on. We’ve got company. Two. Outside.’

  ‘Shit.’ Itchy slipped from the bed. There was a rustle as he dressed. ‘They armed?’

  ‘No idea, but wouldn’t you be?’

  ‘Yes, but we’re not.’

  ‘No.’ Silva considered the situation. There were two men about to break into the house. If they’d been sent by Haddad then likely they were highly trained, had weapons and were prepared to kill. ‘Go and wake Mrs Collins and tell her to stay in her room. We don’t want her wandering around.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’ll see to my father. Try and get him up here. Perhaps we can barricade the stairs.’

  As she spoke a tinkling of glass came from the hallway, the creak of a door.

  ‘They’re in,’ Silva said. ‘Go!’

  She ran out into the corridor and moved towards the stairwell. A grand staircase spiralled round to the first floor and then on down to the ground floor. Moonlight shone through the front door and reflected on the polished flooring. The sheen was disturbed as two figures passed along the hallway. They disappeared out of sight, heading, Silva suspected, for the stairs.

  She was about to go back and find Itchy when there was an explosion of noise. A loud bang followed by the phut phut phut of a silenced pistol. Then another bang.

  ‘Dad!’ Silva screamed. She reached the lower floor and ran along the corridor to her father’s room. There was a smell of cordite, and as she entered the room she tripped on someone lying prone in the doorway. She stumbled, turned and knelt. ‘Oh my God! Are you hurt?’

  ‘I expect he’s dead.’ Her father’s voice came from the far side of the room at the same time as Itchy bounded in and flicked on the light switch. ‘I went for a killing shot and I’d be surprised if I missed.’

  Silva looked at the body. She put a hand out to feel for a pulse at the man’s neck then realised it would be a wasted effort. His jacket lay open and blood inked out in a circle across his shirt. She raised her head. Her father sat on the floor half hidden behind an armchair. There was a pistol in his lap.

  ‘Dad,’ Silva said.

  ‘Browning HP,’ her father said. ‘Nice to see it still does the job. Better than the German crap he’s using.’

  Silva turned back to the man on the floor. His right hand clutched a Glock pistol. ‘Austrian, Dad, not German.’

  ‘Same difference.’

  ‘Silvi!’ Itchy tapped her on the shoulder. He made a jabbing motion into the corridor at the same time as there was a clatter from the far end. ‘The other one’s out there.’

  She reached for the Glock and then spun into the corridor. At the end, on the right, a door
stood open. She nodded at Itchy and then crept down towards the door, both hands holding the weapon. Itchy kept to the right and when he reached the door he looked back at Silva. Then he reached in for the light switch.

  The room was her father’s study. A leather-topped desk with a high-backed chair. Bookcases. At the floor-to-ceiling window, heavy velvet curtains that rippled in the non-existent breeze.

  Silva fired at the same time as something cracked into the wall beside her head. She threw herself across the corridor and fired through the opening again. After the sharp retorts came the smashing of glass, and she moved forward and into the room, covering the window. As she edged in she felt a waft of cold air from outside. She inched towards the window. The glass was gone and the window had been opened onto the small balcony. She took another step and then Itchy shoved her to one side as a shot echoed from the garden below.

  ‘The light,’ Itchy said. ‘You’re silhouetted like a cut-out on the range.’

  He moved back across the room and turned the switch off. Silva peered through the window again. A swathe of white illuminated the lawn for a moment and then there was the sound of wheels spitting gravel and an engine revving hard before fading into the still night.

  ‘They’re gone,’ Silva said.

  ‘Whoever they are.’

  ‘Right.’ She handed the Glock to Itchy and walked back to her father’s room, Itchy following. She looked down at the body on the floor. The man’s face seemed familiar, and he certainly wasn’t a Saudi. She cocked her head and moved round the body to view the face from a different angle.