Fire Hawk

by Geoffrey Archer

  Suddenly the phone rang on the desk in the lobby. The elderly security man answered it, then sat up straighter as if the call was from a boss. He growled an acknowledgement in Arabic then replaced the receiver. He got up quickly and came straight up to Hardcastle, avoiding his eye and grabbing his arm.

  ‘Please. Please, sir.’

  He tried to push Hardcastle towards the ground floor accounts office but the tall Englishman wasn’t having it.

  ‘Get your hands off me, my man,’ Hardcastle snapped, shaking him off.

  ‘Please. Please you must come, sahr. There is problem.’ The elderly man turned to Burgess in the hope he’d be more amenable. ‘Please, sahr, we must hurry.’ He kept his eyes down as if afraid of revealing his deception.

  Burgess caught Hardcastle’s eye, pointed up the stairs and mouthed Shenassi. Hardcastle understood the game that was being played.

  ‘All right my friend,’ he said to the doorman as if softening, ‘let’s see what your problem is.’

  ‘Thank you sahr. Thank you.’

  They allowed the old man to usher them into the main accounts office and close the door behind them. He stood next to it, holding the handle.

  ‘So?’ Hardcastle said to him gently, watching the Russians sift through papers unmolested by the accountants. ‘Where’s this problem of yours? You’d better go and ask someone, hadn’t you?’

  After a moment’s embarrassed hesitation, the security man’s face became a picture of discomfort.

  ‘Right,’ Hardcastle said to Burgess.

  They pushed past the guard and back through the door into the lobby just as the man with the grey-flecked hair and blue shirt reached the foot of the stairs. He had a jacket on now and carried a thin see-through folder with a few sheets of paper in it.

  Hardcastle blocked his path.

  ‘Ah, Doctor Shenassi! How nice to see you again,’ he announced, smiling broadly. From the startled reaction he knew Burgess had guessed right. ‘Last time we met was Leeds wasn’t it? You were doing your degree there. When was that now . . . end of the seventies?’

  Shenassi’s jaw dropped, deceived and winded by the bluff. Burgess stood next to Hardcastle, making it impossible for the Haji MD to squeeze past and escape.

  ‘Er, I don’t quite—’

  ‘I’m Andrew Hardcastle. You remember . . . I was lecturing in biology. How very nice to see you again. And I’m sorry we’re putting you to all this trouble. Good of you all to co-operate so well with the UN.’

  ‘I . . . my mother . . .’ he protested feebly.

  ‘Oh yes. Poorly, I hear. So sorry. You’ll be on your way to see her no doubt. Tell you what, we’re having to check all documents, so would you mind?’

  He latched a hand onto Shenassi’s folder, but the doctor wasn’t letting go.

  ‘Only need a quick glance, just to be sure, then we won’t trouble you further.’ He gave a sudden sharp pull which Shenassi had not expected. To Hardcastle’s astonishment the folder was in his hands. He whipped round and headed for the car park. ‘Won’t be a moment.’

  Burgess blocked Shenassi’s panicky attempt to follow.

  ‘It’s good you’re here, Doctor, because I’ve a couple of questions I’d like to ask.’

  ‘Questions, questions. We already answer them.’

  ‘But not satisfactorily, Doctor Shenassi. That’s the problem.’

  ‘I can tell you nothing more.’

  ‘Well, I think you can. You see something happened three weeks ago, which you know about even if most of your staff don’t because they were on vacation.’ He saw Shenassi’s face grow paler. ‘A milling machine? You remember it now? Delivered here at night. Why was that, Doctor Shenassi?’

  ‘I don’t know what you talk about.’

  They were no longer alone in the lobby. Mustafa had appeared with two minders, one of them armed with a camera. Damn, thought Burgess. Should be doing that too.

  Shenassi seemed to stagger, as if about to faint.

  ‘Hey, why don’t we sit down?’ Burgess pointed to the chair abandoned by the security man. He switched on his own Hi-8, set the lens wide and held it at shoulder height. But Shenassi made a dive for the door, babbling in Arabic while scrabbling in one of the side pockets of his jacket as if searching for a cigarette.

  ‘I don’t advise that you leave, sir,’ said Burgess firmly, blocking his path again but realising that if push came to shove there was little he could do to stop him. ‘The UN needs answers about that milling machine, Doctor Shenassi. What was it used for and where is it now?’

  Shenassi fell silent as if fear had petrified him. But it wasn’t fear of the UN, Burgess realised suddenly. What Shenassi was scared of were the two officials from his own country’s security service whose faces had darkened alarmingly.

  Abruptly, Mustafa ordered a stop to the filming by his own cameraman and they hustled the doctor outside.

  ‘Now hold it there,’ Burgess protested vainly, trying to follow.

  Mustafa pushed him back with the flat of his hand, his dark eyes angry and confused.

  ‘Now look, I got questions to ask this guy,’ Burgess snapped. ‘You got no right to take him away.’

  Shenassi was being hustled over to Mustafa’s Landcruiser. He put a hand up to his mouth as if holding back vomit.

  ‘Soon,’ Mustafa told Burgess tensely. ‘Soon maybe you can talk with him. Wait here please.’

  As Mustafa hurried away, Hardcastle came bustling over from the UN vehicles.

  ‘Nobbled him, have they?’ the Englishman panted. ‘Not bloody surprised. We’ve cracked it Dean! Bloody cracked it! One of those papers he was carrying – you won’t believe it. A complete list of what they would need to produce ten kilos of anthrax!’

  ‘My God!’

  ‘It’s all there. Growth medium, nutrient, pharmaceutical grade distilled water, sodium hypochlorite for cleaning up afterwards.’

  ‘All that was written down?’ Burgess asked incredulously. ‘The guy’s crazy.’

  ‘No. Not crazy. Just a meticulous scientist who can’t break a lifetime’s habit of making records of his work. And the sooner we talk to him the better.’

  They turned towards the Iraqi Landcruiser.

  ‘Jesus!’ Hardcastle exploded. ‘What are they doing to the bugger?’

  Dr Shenassi lay slumped across the hood of the vehicle as if he’d been beaten senseless. The two minders were trying to lift him to his feet but he buckled in their arms.

  ‘They’ve hit him, the bastards,’ hissed Hardcastle. ‘Come on!’

  They strode across the tarmac.

  ‘Or maybe he was so shit scared he had a heart attack,’ Burgess croaked.

  Mustafa saw their approach.

  ‘No!’ he yelled, holding up a hand.

  The two Iraqis lowered Dr Shenassi to the ground and crouched beside him.

  ‘He’s having convulsions,’ Hardcastle whispered. ‘Bloody hell! Do we have a medic on the team?’

  They quickly thought through the list of those with them.

  ‘No we don’t,’ said Burgess, sadly. ‘Martha would be the one but she’s back at the monitoring centre.’

  Mustafa stood up and hurled himself inside the Landcruiser to get on the radio. He began shouting in Arabic. Shenassi was lying absolutely still now. The second minder who’d been crouched beside him stood up, hands on hips as if totally perplexed by the situation.

  ‘This looks bad,’ Burgess warned. ‘Real bad.’

  ‘Do you think they could be pretending?’ suggested Hardcastle. ‘Wouldn’t put it past them. They’ll try any trick when they’re cornered.’

  ‘Doesn’t look to me like they’re faking it,’ murmured Burgess, ‘but maybe we ought to take a closer look.’

  As they moved in, the security man standing over Shenassi swung round, his face puffy with shock and anger.

  ‘Let me see him,’ Hardcastle said forcefully, crouching down and grabbing Shenassi’s wrist. ‘I’ve had medical train
ing.’

  A first-aid course twenty years ago. He felt for a pulse and couldn’t find one, but he was out of practice.

  ‘He’s turning blue for God’s sake,’ Hardcastle exclaimed. ‘Is somebody calling an ambulance?’

  Shenassi was breathing, but feebly and erratically.

  ‘What happened exactly?’ Burgess asked the security minder.

  ‘He sick,’ the Iraqi answered stonily.

  ‘Yeah I can see that. But pretty sudden, huh?’

  ‘Yes. He just go sick.’

  Hardcastle turned his face up towards them. ‘It could be a heart attack, you know.’ He’d flattened his fingers against Shenassi’s neck and found the carotid artery. ‘Pulse is all over the place.’ He stood up again. There was nothing he could do.

  ‘Doctor coming,’ the minder explained, pointing towards Mustafa shouting into the radio in the Landcruiser.

  Burgess dropped to his knees and bent his head over Shenassi’s face, realising the statistical chances of this being heart failure were remote in the extreme.

  ‘Doctor Shenassi? Can you hear me?’

  The man’s eyes were open, but staring blindly into the air. He gave no sign of responding.

  ‘What happened, Doctor Shenassi, can you tell us? Do you have a chest pain?’

  Again, no response.

  Suddenly Burgess sniffed, frowned and pulled back sharply. He stood up and pulled Hardcastle to one side.

  ‘That’s definitely no heart attack,’ he whispered when they’d got beyond earshot.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Hydrocyanic acid. Cyanide.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Must have had a capsule of the stuff in his pocket and bitten into it a few minutes ago. Inhaled the vapours. The smell on his breath – bitter almonds. Unmistakable.’

  ‘Funny. I didn’t smell anything at all.’

  ‘Only thirty per cent of people can. The ability to smell it is hereditary and I happen to have it.’

  Hardcastle blanched. ‘He took poison? Because of us? Because we caught him out?’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘How appalling.’

  They looked back at the scene by the Landcruiser. Mustafa was now out of the vehicle, standing beside the driver’s door, hands on hips, glaring down at the motionless body of the scientist, his face flushed and baffled. He was totally perplexed, Burgess realised suddenly. Totally and utterly. Mustafa hadn’t the slightest idea what Shenassi had been up to here at the Haji factory. Just like the day before in the desert, when the discovery of the human corpse had come as a complete shock to him. The multi-layered Iraqi state security system with Saddam at its top seemed for some reason to be out of the loop.

  ‘No,’ Burgess announced suddenly.

  ‘What d’you mean, no?’

  ‘It wasn’t because of us he took the cyanide.’

  Hardcastle’s face puckered with puzzlement.

  ‘It was because of them,’ Burgess explained, indicating the security men.

  ‘Scared what Saddam would do to him for letting the cat out of the bag, you mean?’

  ‘No. Not even that,’ Burgess insisted. ‘No, Andrew. What Doctor Shenassi was doing here – my guess is that President Saddam Hussein knew nothing about it. Nothing about it whatsoever.’

  ‘Impossible,’ snapped Hardcastle. ‘You simply don’t know this place, Dean.’

  14

  Mid-morning

  Cyprus

  THE BONDED WAREHOUSE on the outskirts of Limassol hummed with activity. Three large container ships were due into the port that day and the yard had cargoes to be delivered to each of them. Most of the containers in question, both twenty feet and forty feet in length, were piled up in the open. Huge forklifts trundled between the stacks, shifting and shuffling boxes to get at the ones they wanted, then dumping them onto the flatbed trailer trucks which sped out of the yard, belching black exhaust on their way to the port just five minutes away.

  Inside the warehouse – used by customers who requested extra security for their transiting consignments – the floor space to one side that had been left empty except for two solitary containers placed side by side was now occupied by just one. The container from Israel with a destination to the west had already been moved from its space earlier that morning, transported to the docks for loading onto a ship sailing for Algeciras at midday. The administrative documents accompanying it said the box contained printing machines.

  The container from Ilychevsk in Ukraine, which had arrived here yesterday afternoon via Piraeus and was bound for Haifa, sat waiting for the ship that would take it on the final part of its journey. The seal on its door clasps marked with the identifying numbers provided by Odessa customs was firmly in place. Anyone reading the paperwork describing its contents as rotting fruit and vegetable juices might have been forgiven for treating it with the respect due to a smoking bomb.

  The twenty-two workers at the bonded yard were all Greek-Cypriots. To them this was just another day of not too strenuous work under a pleasantly warm late summer sun. None of them was aware of the frenetic activity that had gone on inside the warehouse during the night while they’d been in their beds, work of great technical skill that had been completed just minutes before their arrival for work this morning, work carried out by a gang of men speaking a different language from their own.

  None was aware of that, nor of how pivotal their place of employment was to be in the fulfilment of a plot that was gradually coming together, a plot to commit mass murder.

  15

  13.15 hrs

  Sark, Channel Islands

  POINT ROBERT, THE north-east corner of Sark, was on their starboard beam about a mile distant. As planned, the current had swept Backgammon’s sleek white hull through the Alderney Race at an exhilarating lick. They’d be at the anchorage for lunch.

  Sam wore shorts to let the sun and salt air dry the scabs on his legs. The pleasures of the day had flaked away the stresses of the past weeks like dry onion skins.

  Nat was proving perfectly adequate at the tasks of a crew. The white-knuckle ride of the race had even brought a smile to his lips. He’d managed the helm while Sam moved forward to take in a reef when the wind got up a mile south of Alderney.

  ‘Beer, skipper?’

  Nat emerged at the head of the companionway steps clutching two cans.

  ‘About bloody time,’ Sam grinned, reaching for one of them.

  He ripped it open and drank a good draught. Then he gave a routine glance all round the horizon to check no other boats were close to them. He felt a pang of guilt suddenly. The foam-flecked sea, the clear azure sky – this was too perfect. He felt he hadn’t earned it yet. Still that feeling of unfinished business to attend to and he was neglecting it.

  Nat leaned back against the side of the cockpit, watching a couple of small fishing boats work the submerged rocks to their left.

  ‘That’s what I should have been,’ he murmured. ‘A bloody fisherman.’

  ‘Hard life,’ Sam cautioned.

  ‘Never! Not those fellers. Deep-sea trawlermen yes, but those little boats just pop out when they feel like it. Bloody sight easier than playing God with people’s lives like I did.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Sam frowned, wondering if there was a side to Gibbon he didn’t know about.

  ‘It’s what a writer does, chum. Creates people then destroys them. I’ve fathered more human beings than Atatürk.’

  Sam smiled. It was a harmless conceit. He knew so little about this man, but that was the way he wanted it to be.

  He was beginning to feel hungry. He’d bought a bag of supplies before leaving home yesterday. Bread, cheese and tomatoes. The high cliffs of Sark were drawing closer. They’d be in the bay before long and could drop anchor. He noticed suddenly that Gibbon was scrutinising him.

  ‘You certainly know your way around on a boat,’ Nat conceded grudgingly. ‘Sailed all your life have you?’

  A flock of gannets s
wooped across their bows and dived, profiting from the fishermen’s work.

  ‘I was brought up in Portsmouth. My dad was in submarines. They had dinghies at the base at Gosport. When he came home from a patrol he would always take me out. He loved to sail. I think it was being cooped up in metal tubes for so long.’

  ‘Still alive, is he?’

  ‘No. Died when I was eleven.’

  Gibbon puffed out through pursed lips. ‘Never know how long you’re going to get, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  And for Sam, death had come frighteningly close in recent days.

  ‘But you went on sailing. After?’

  ‘Yes. His mates in the Navy, you know – others with kids – they sort of took me on. Because they knew I was keen. And I think they felt sorry for me being stuck at home with a mother who never went out.’

  He stopped himself there. He’d revealed enough. Didn’t want to encourage more questions.

  A short while later they rounded the headland that provided shelter from the northerlies for the cove known as Terrible Bay.

  ‘I think we’ll have that jib furled,’ Sam announced.

  ‘Right-ho, cap’n.’

  Gibbon eased off the sheet and pulled on the furling line while Sam started the engine, tightened the topping lift and turned into wind.

  ‘Happy to gather in the mainsail?’ he asked.

  ‘No probs.’

  ‘Sail ties are in the rack behind the chart table.’

  Nat slid below to get them, then clambered onto the coach-roof to release the halyard. The sail slid smoothly down the mast and Gibbon gathered it in like an old hand.

  ‘Can you handle the anchor?’ Sam shouted when the sail was secure. It was heavy and awkward.

  ‘So long as you tell me when to drop it.’

  He conned the boat round a second headland. Ahead lay a cove guarded by outcrops of rock, where the magically blue water ended some three hundred metres away in a steeply sloping shingle beach.

  The chain clanked as Nat lifted the hook onto its roller. The sea bed was coming up fast as they neared the shore. Eyeing the depth gauge repeater mounted on the cabin bulkhead Sam eased off the power and looked ahead for the paler patches of water which told of a sandy bottom that would be good holding ground. There was one other boat in the bay, a large powerboat made of sleek plastic. On its spacious quarterdeck faces turned from a lunch-table to monitor their approach.