Cooper looked smug knowing that he was telling Morgan something that he did not know but might have tried to discover himself.
“The Old Colonial Club.”
“Well someone would have had to pull out a few stops for him to become a member of that particular establishment.”
“Havelock. He proposed him somehow, and because of that he, or whoever he’s pretending to be, was allowed to become a member. When he’s there though, he keeps to himself and always has room service bring up meals to his suite.”
Morgan gazed across the desk. He did not like Cooper and the feeling was mutual.
“Are you absolutely sure about this?”
“It’s been confirmed. All expense invoices are paid in full immediately.”
“I see.”
Morgan clasped his hands together contemplatively, as if he were going to pray. “Well, it’s something for the file, isn’t it? But of no importance to us now, since I flushed him out of hiding and persuaded him to work with us on this assignment. That’s why I sanctioned his little jaunt to Delhi. Now, be a good chap and make sure the information is placed on file, will you?”
Morgan dismissed the junior officer and sat for a while, thinking about what he’d just been told and smiling smugly to himself. The question was, what should he do with this information, and after another moment he lifted the phone.
* * *
“Paddy? How are you, mate? Do you know that we haven’t spoken since that little excursion into Uruguay back in 2007? Speaking of which, I hope you’ve still got Mendez safely tucked away somewhere uncomfortable?” Dillon said.
“Last I heard, former El Presidente Mendez was extremely uncomfortable. Apparently he’s taken to ice cold showers three times a day. I’ve absolutely no sympathy. Anyway, what’s so important that makes you contact me?”
“How’s your security clearance rating these days?”
“You know exactly what my rating is. What is it you need to know and what’s the aggro factor if I’m caught?”
“The CIA central computer archives at Langley. You’ll be looking for a classified file, most likely named Hell Fire.”
“Just where did you get that from? If it’s classified I doubt whether I’ll get anywhere near it.”
“Hell Fire is short for The Hell Fire Club, which MI5, MI6 and the CIA are all fully aware of. My guess though is that it’s linked indirectly to various terrorist funding activities, both here in the UK and abroad. I won’t bore you with how I got involved. Suffice to say I’m working, albeit loosely, with MI5 on a matter that concerns a threat to our national security, which I believe is also linked with other agencies around the world. What worries me, though, is that as an outsider, they’ve only told me what they want me to know. Do you think that you could take a peek for me when you’re next able to?”
“I’m attending a NATO conference in a day or two. If I get the opportunity I’ll do my best, but that might not be possible. I don’t rate my chances, mate.”
“Okay. If I give you one single item to look for, would that help?”
“I’d still have to dig around for the main directory file and then find the sub-files that any particular information was stored in. You know what the Americans are like, Jake. Paranoid about this kind of thing, so they bury it deep. There’s never anything bloody simple with you.”
“Okay. What if you could get someone at Langley to do it for you? It would cause less suspicion and they’d most likely be able to find it immediately by being inside the building. For England, Paddy.”
“Bullshit.”
“For the greater good of mankind, then?”
McNamara laughed.
“You don’t change, do you? I’ll give it my best shot for you, Jake. But I can’t promise anything. I suppose you want it yesterday?”
“Sooner, if possible.”
“Life and death, I suppose. I’ll do what I can. Now give me the item.”
When Dillon hung up he had an idea of why Morgan wanted to keep a close watch over him. It was all starting to make sense.
On impulse, he jumped into the Porsche and drove down to Bournemouth. He managed to get out of London before rush hour and before the motorways had started to clog up. By the time he’d arrived in Bournemouth it was just starting to get dark. He parked his car in a side street and walked around the corner to the café where Charlie Hart had sat at a window watching for Rosie Poulter to come out from the old rundown building opposite.
Dillon wondered if he was doing the right thing. The temptation was to cross the almost deserted street and ring the bell. But when it came to it, he found he could not do it and the reason centred round Hart himself. He felt the timing was wrong and convinced himself that he had come down to Dorset merely because he had nothing better to do until the next day. And yet he knew it was likely that some of the answers he sought were behind that door.
With the shops closed and far fewer people about he felt isolated and, for a brief moment, thought this was how Hart must feel most of the time. He continued to sit in the café drinking coffee and realised that his reluctance to call on Rosie Poulter was in some indefinable way an attempt to protect Charlie Hart. It was a ludicrous thought and one he pushed out of his mind as he walked back to the Porsche to drive away. He was so wrapped up with his own thoughts that he’d dropped his guard and his awareness of being followed.
He couldn’t be sure. It had started to rain and as the wipers swished in front of him he looked into the rear-view mirror to see a blurred vision of nothing more than dazzling car headlights. Yet his gut feeling told him that there was someone back there, keeping a safe distance so as not to be spotted. What now worried him was whether he had been followed down from London and had been lax enough to miss them.
There was nothing he could do about it on the way to the apartment in Lilliput, and he was not sure that he wanted to. There were so many loose ends to this assignment that it might be more productive to let something happen to him. He knew that he could easily outrun any other car, even around town, but took no evasive action at all on the way back. When he drove into the parking space at the Salterns apartment building he was less sure about the situation he now found himself in. No car had followed him in and when he went to the entrance he could see no one obviously lurking in the shadows. He went straight up to the apartment, thinking that he was becoming more paranoid by the day. That recent events were starting to take their toll on him mentally and that the thought of taking a long holiday with Issy was looking more attractive than ever.
He felt restless and tense. Sleeping was something he never looked forward to at the best of times – tossing and turning fitfully throughout the small hours until morning came. After showering, he considered ringing Hart again but decided against it. The weather had settled with the break of dawn and he decided to have breakfast outside on the balcony. He then drove into Poole to spend some time making a few necessary purchases before driving back down to Lyme Regis. The drive down to the west Dorset seaside town was uneventful and he managed to park in roughly the same spot as before. He camouflaged his car in the same way and when he was satisfied that it couldn’t be seen from the road or the driveway, slipped on a bulletproof vest under his walking jacket. He looked just like any other innocent hiker right down to the lightweight rucksack on his back.
He kept to the wooded area at the front of the house, staying to the cover of the trees for as long as possible. When he was almost upon the house, he paused for a moment, taking a pair of small binoculars to look for any noticeable movement around the property. Sure that it was safe, he removed the Glock from its holster, made sure the safety was off, replaced it, then moved out of cover to the front porch. He gazed around under the porch – nothing seemed to have changed. The police, having found no bodies, had probably lost interest as nothing ha
d actually been stolen. He rang the bell and turned his back to the door, spinning round only when he heard the bolt slide back and the door open.
A woman faced him, and although he hadn’t really seen her he immediately recognised Harry Conner’s wife, Sheila. It was lucky that she didn’t know him, but she was highly suspicious after recent events.
“Is Harry in?” Dillon asked, casting his gaze over her shoulder to the hallway beyond.
A flicker of recognition touched her eyes as she heard his voice. She started to open her mouth to cry out when Dillon said amiably, “Please don’t scream. I’m really not in the mood for using this today.”
Sheila Conner stared down the silenced barrel, in wide-eyed astonishment, at the Glock pointing at her and Dillon thought that she was going to pass out. Instead she lurched forward with her fist drawn back, ready to hit him. He managed to sidestep the blow as it grazed his cheekbone, and before she had a chance to yell out he’d caught her just behind the ear with the butt of the pistol. Not hard enough to knock her out completely, but merely to stun, giving him enough time to push her back inside the hallway.
Whilst she was still dazed, he spun her round against the wall, and gagged her with the tea towel that she’d had tucked into her apron. He pulled out a length of thin rope from the rucksack and quickly bound her wrists, trailing the rope down to her ankles and doing the same to them, so that both hands and feet were joined together with the same piece of rope. He was just pulling the knots tight when Harry Conner called out, “Who is it, luv?”
The voice came from upstairs which Dillon mounted two at a time, slowing down as he neared the landing. He crouched down behind the balustrade as he saw the faintest shadow moving around in what looked like the master bedroom, just to the left of the stairs on the opposite side of the landing.
“Sheila!”
The alarm in the tone suggested that Conner had already guessed that there was trouble. Dillon remained in a low crouch as he moved cautiously towards the doorway. He could see the shadow recede deeper into the room and he now caught the sound of a telephone keypad being used. He knew what was happening and dashed the remaining few steps, burst into the bedroom where he almost caught a bullet in the head. Stopping dead he threw himself flat on the floor. Conner had the phone in one hand and a gun in the other. He was about to fire again, but Dillon was already rolling and aiming, shouting quickly, “Don’t be a fool, Harry. Think of Sheila.”
Conner hesitated, clearly not comfortable with a gun, saw the steadiness with which Dillon held the Glock, felt the gun waver in his hand, and almost burst into tears from the frustration.
“Drop the gun and kick it towards me, Harry. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Conner dropped the gun, kicked it across the floor towards Dillon and then put down the phone slowly onto the bed. Dillon slipped the pistol into his jacket pocket and stood up.
“You should be proud of Sheila – she almost had me with a perfect right hook.”
He walked over to a chair and sat down.
“I’m afraid that she’s going to have a bit of a bruise just behind her left ear, but otherwise she’ll be fine. I had to restrain and gag her too. Now get downstairs and I’ll be right behind you. No heroics. If you’re sensible no harm will come to either of you.”
Conner went down the stairs with Dillon following and went straight to Sheila as soon as he saw her on the floor. She was already struggling fiercely to get free, didn’t stop for a second even when she caught sight of Dillon who had little trouble in persuading Conner to be sensible and tell him where the security system switch for the garage alarm was. He wasted no more time, gagged and bound Conner, dragged him, and then his wife, into the living room, and tied them together with the last piece of rope from his rucksack.
He quickly went round the house, checking that all the other rooms were empty. He found the switch for the alarm behind a small panel by the front door and took his rucksack out to the garage where he used a set of picks to unlock the door at the rear, entered and switched on the light. The van was missing.
He went back into the house feeling uneasy. The Conners were at home, but the white van was missing. So where was the van? He went back into the living room where he found Sheila almost free of the rope bindings. She was becoming tiresome, and Dillon made sure that she knew it as he roughly bound her wrists and ankles again. He undid Harry Conner’s gag and asked him where the van was. Sheila shot a look of warning, but Conner didn’t have the same courage as his wife.
“I let a friend borrow it.”
“When is it due back?”
“I haven’t got a clue. I told him to keep it as long as he wanted. His car is in the garage for work, see?”
Conner was trying his best to put on a show in front of Sheila, knowing he would pay for it later if he didn’t.
Dillon dragged Conner by the feet into the kitchen and closed the door. He pulled out the Glock.
“Now then, Harry. Sheila can’t hear us talking in here. Have you anything to add or do you want your left elbow shattered into a million tiny pieces?”
“I’m telling you the truth. The van has been borrowed.”
Dillon immediately picked up on the shift of emphasis.
“It’s not a friend, is it? So it must be one of Trevelyan’s men. When’s he due back?”
“I haven’t got a clue. Look, when Tommy Trevelyan finds out about this he’ll come after you, mate.”
“I’m not your mate, Harry. And quite frankly, Trevelyan doesn’t frighten me in the least. He’s nothing more than a decrepit old thug whose time on this planet is very limited. Do I make myself clear?”
Conner nodded.
“Good, because I want you to tell him that as well. I’ll be back.”
Dillon left Conner trussed up on the floor in the kitchen and closed the door behind him. He ran back through to the garage, not sure how much time he had. He moved the empty crates away from the trapdoor in the garage floor and went down the steps to the small anti-room. He went straight to the far side and rested his shoulder against the secret door, which moved effortlessly on its pivot hinge as it had done before. He switched on the torch he’d brought with him in the rucksack and shone its beam into the passageway beyond. At the other end he pushed opened the door to the main storage room, but as the torch beam darted and danced over the walls, he sat back on his haunches and cursed out loud. The room was empty.
He went inside to make absolutely sure. Everything had gone and the floor had been freshly painted so that it appeared that nothing had ever been there. Disappointment was an understatement; he had taken the risk of returning for nothing. He backed out of the room, moving quickly along the passageway, closed the heavy concrete slab and went up the steps. He replaced the empty crates over the trapdoor and went back to the house.
As he entered the kitchen, Conner looked up and immediately saw trouble.
“When did they collect it, Harry?”
“Collect what? What are you talking about?”
Dillon squatted in front of Conner and gripped his throat with his free hand.
“The game plan has just changed, Harry. I’m not feeling reasonable anymore and I’m extremely pissed off. Give me one more answer like that and you won’t be capable of giving any answers at all. And then there is Sheila’s well-being to think about, isn’t there? Now, when did they move the gold and all the other stuff?”
Conner was now really scared on two counts.
“Have you any idea what they will do to me?” he blurted out.
“Exactly the same as I’m going to do to you. But the difference is, Harry, I’m here and they’re not. And you’d better not forget that I’m the one who took out the best that Trevelyan could muster. Did they tell you that at least three of the five they sent down here were killed? They’re
most likely fish food by now. Come on, Harry. Get it over with quickly, or I will.”
Fear overcame Conner and he said, “For God’s sake, don’t let Sheila know that I’ve blabbed.”
“She’ll not find out from me, Harry. Now get on with it.”
Harry’s mouth suddenly became as dry as parchment paper and the words came with difficulty.
“They left late last night, about midnight. Three of them, there was, in one of those big panel vans – the sort that tradesmen who fit kitchens and the like use. They took our van as well.”
“Where have they gone to?”
“It doesn’t work like that. I’ve absolutely no idea.”
“Have they taken everything? I mean, it would usually follow that if they had closed down this site for good, then they would have killed you and Sheila before they left.”
If Conner had been frightened before, he was now visibly trembling with genuine fear. Until now he had not considered the possibility, but could see that Dillon was right.
“I’ve no idea where they went. They wouldn’t confide in me. I’m just a caretaker, and that’s what they pay me for each month.”
“But why would they take your van? Wasn’t there room in theirs?”
“Oh, there appeared to be ample room. I don’t know why.”
“Perhaps they left it close by to collect later and didn’t want you to know it was still here, otherwise they would have left it in the garage. Did they mention when they would return it?”
“They just said they’d be back, but didn’t say when.”
Conner was suddenly quiet, contemplating those past events that had now begun to make sense and which only added to his terror.
Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) Page 34
