Khan hissed through closed teeth and thumped his hand gently on the table in a tapping rhythm. “Why do we suffer such fools?”
It wasn’t a question that needed answering. De Leon knew that their operation depended upon loyalty, efficiency, dedication and security. With any one of these jeopardised, the whole plan could collapse, taking them all with it. Unfortunately it was sometimes necessary to enlist the help of people who were, to put it bluntly, mercenaries; loyal only to themselves and the money they were receiving. Sweeting Maclean fell easily into this category.
Suddenly Khan stirred as though he had come to a decision. “Nothing changes,” he declared. “Marsh still believes we have the girl, which I assume we do, so he’ll still co-operate. We’ll send Malik; he can dispose of Maclean and bring the girl back here.” He stood up. “Contact Romulus, find out where they are and let Malik know.”
He turned as if he was about to leave the bridge, then stopped.
“By the way, it was a successful dive. Thank you Captain. We will debrief once Batista and Zienkovitch have finished decompressing.”
With that he walked out of the cabin and left Captain de Leon with the task of arranging the demise of one Sweeting Maclean.
*
Francesini stared at the clock in his office; it was four o’clock in the morning. Less than an hour earlier he had called James Starling and told him about the recent turn of events. Starling was not too pleased at being woken at such an early hour to be told that their operation was going belly-up. He told Francesini to meet him at C.I.A. headquarters before flying out to Freeport.
He was smoking a cigar; something he rarely did at such an early hour in the morning, but he had given in to a degree of fatalism, and broke one of his own rules. It was something he usually abhorred in his agents or anyone who worked for his department; giving in to maudlin self-pity. The curl of blue smoke drifted up from the cigar without a sign of tremor, which pleased Francesini because there were times when he thought he was going to break out in a cold sweat over the prospect of conceding defeat in this case.
What bugged Francesini most was that he wasn’t in complete control of all the elements involved in the kidnapping of Helen Walsh, Marsh’s disappearance and the unfathomable actions of Hakeem Khan. Much of his investigation relied on what he considered to be provincial policing in the form of the Freeport Constabulary.
There was a sharp knock on the door and Admiral Starling walked in. There was no preamble. He shut the door and sat down opposite Francesini.
“OK Remo, what do you have for me?”
Francesini began as best he could by outlining the events following the kidnapping, despite Admiral Starling knowing most of them anyway, and brought him up to date with the local police department tailing and losing Sweeting Maclean, and then the subsequent discovery that Maclean had access to a safe house. It beggared belief in Francesini’s opinion that the Bahamian authorities had no knowledge of this bolt hole.
“Inspector Bain had planned to lay siege to the safe-house until he could negotiate something with this Maclean guy,” he told Starling. “Then all hell broke loose and Inspector Bain gets wounded and another of his officers gets killed.” He put the cigar to his mouth and drew in a lungful of smoke. Blowing it out steadily, he looked across the desk at Starling. “This Maclean guy sounds dangerous.”
“Anybody with a machine gun can be dangerous, Remo,” Starling reminded him. “But it takes brains to be really dangerous and that’s the domain of the man at the top.”
“Khan?”
Starling shrugged. “If we could positively link him with Maclean, then, yes. But why are they holding Greg Walsh’s widow?”
“It must be leverage,” Francesini suggested. “They have Marsh on board the Taliba so perhaps they need something from him.”
“Like what?” Starling asked. “He’s not a nuclear scientist, he’s an engineer; and engineers they do not need.”
“He’s an underwater specialist: an oceanographer,” Francesini replied lightly. “That’s what Khan is involved in; has been all his working life. Like Marsh, in fact. Perhaps Marsh is working for Khan. And perhaps he really was involved in the murder Greg Walsh.”
Starling’s eyebrows collapsed into an unbroken line. “I think you’re being frivolous now, Remo.”
Francesini accepted the put down remark from his boss. “I’m sorry sir; I guess I’m getting apprehensive. There are too many unanswered questions to which I don’t have the answers.”
Starling chuckled. “No, you get apprehensive when the President makes it quite clear he hasn’t forgotten the meeting we had the other day. He wants a personal update from me before the Secretary of State flies out to Dubai for a Middle East conference.”
“When is that?” Francesini’s coughed and cleared his throat. He lifted up his cup and took a mouthful of the coffee which was now quite cold.
“Day after tomorrow.”
Francesini put the cup down. It was contrived to look like the act of a condemned man. “You want my resignation now, sir?”
Starling’s hand came down on the desk like a ton of bricks, startling Francesini.
“I’ve told you once already not to be so damned frivolous!” he bellowed.
“But what the hell sir,” Francesini flung back at him, “these damn politicians go pussyfooting round each other’s conference tables promising détente and all the other crap, glad handing and acting like the best of pals when truth to tell they are dealing with a bunch of mavericks and crooks most of the time and haven’t the guts to tell them.”
“Calm down.”
Francesini calmed down. “I’m sorry sir.”
Starling leaned forward. “That’s the second time you’ve apologised in less than a minute, Remo. When you have to do that to an admiral it could be your career on the line.” Then he leaned back into his leather chair. “But I’ve got more respect for you and I’m not about to take any notice of your outburst because I agree with you anyway. So what we’ve got to do is come up with some ideas and what we intend to do about Mister Khan and finding some way of stopping him. We need facts and balls. You get off to Freeport and come up with the facts. Let me know what you have and I’ll come up with the balls to make the decisions.”
Francesini knew what his boss meant. An illegal strike at Khan would reap all kinds of repercussions spinning down on them from the Whitehouse. But if it meant stopping the madman, Starling was willing to do it. All Francesini had to do was load the gun; Starling would pull the trigger.
*
Marsh sat through the debriefing with as much professional interest as he could muster but managed to feel completely wooden about the whole business. He answered Khan’s questions, responded to Batista’s suggestions and generally behaved as though he was cooperating willingly, and in a professional manner, but there was little he could add to the meeting. One small distraction he had was a germ of an idea that was growing in him, and he flirted with it in the likelihood that it might at least bring some hope and a little encouragement into his current predicament.
He let the mechanics of the debriefing drone on and thought also about the Khan’s plans, convinced now that he knew what the madman was up to. The picture of Greg Walsh’s body being peppered with bullets came into his mind, and then the realisation at the time that Khan was part of some murderous scheme. He could now make educated guesses at Walsh’s involvement in it and wondered why his partner had never shared the secret with him. Perhaps, in some perverse way, it was to protect him and Helen. But despite the reasons for Walsh’s secrecy, the whole aspect of what had gone before and what was likely to come filled him with horror.
He thought about the idea that had germinated in his mind to raise the odds a little. If he could persuade Khan to bring Helen to the Taliba, he believed it might give the police at Freeport a chance to pick up the trail, providing they were actually aware of her kidnap. He was sure that Mac, the technician at the boatyard would have reported Helen’s disa
ppearance by now and the police would be searching for her. It was a long shot but he was willing to try it. Besides, he desperately wanted to see Helen again.
“How many more dives?” he asked suddenly.
Khan was talking to Batista. He stopped and looked at Marsh. “Two. Why?”
“When is the next dive?”
Khan appeared irritated. He glanced at de Leon. “I presume the freighter captain is aware of the change of schedule?”
De Leon concurred. “We should rendezvous with her tomorrow evening.”
“Seventy two hours perhaps,” Khan told Marsh, “weather permitting. Why do you ask?”
Marsh bit the bullet; he had nothing to lose. He stood up slowly, making them all wait. Khan’s eyes followed him, his expression folding into one of deep curiosity.
“Before I dive,” Marsh told Khan, “I want to see Helen Walsh.”
Khan bridled and seemed to grow a few inches. “That is impossible Marsh. And impractical! I can assure you Helen Walsh is in good health and being well looked after.”
Marsh walked over to the cabin door. Pausing at the door, he turned and looked directly at Khan. It was dramatic, but he wanted Khan to know that he was serious.
“Khan, your word is not good enough. If there are any assurances to be made, I will be the one to make them. If Helen Walsh and I do not meet before the next scheduled dive, I promise you I will not pilot the Challenger.” Marsh knew instinctively that he held the whip hand for the moment. “You can threaten me if you wish, or threaten Helen, but it will have no effect on my decision. Unless I see her alive, I will not pilot the Challenger.”
He walked out of Khan’s cabin without waiting for a reply. If it was possible to feel like a million dollars at that moment, Marsh did. He took a few, good deep breaths of the cool, ocean air and went aft to his cabin.
*
The presence of Francesini at the police headquarters in Freeport left the police with no doubt now just how serious the Americans viewed the degree of escalation in the Helen Walsh kidnapping, and the presence of police commissioner Henry Cleve gave credence to that realisation. Any officers who might have assumed otherwise were now in no doubt that however serious a crime one considered kidnap to be, there was something else that put this one at the top of the pile.
Henry Cleve was a large, rotund man; Bahamian by birth, black with grey, tight curly hair. He was well over six feet tall and dominated everyone and everything around him. Even Inspector Bain managed to loose stature alongside him. With his arm in a sling from the gunshot wound inflicted on him by Sweeting Maclean, Bain had paled into the position of an interested onlooker.
Cleve’s voice boomed out. “Admiral Starling and I have spoken at length on this,” he was telling Francesini, “and we both understand how difficult it is to do anything about Mister Khan and the Taliba unless he steams into Bahamian territory. To date he has committed no crime, none that we can prove anyway, and your Coast Guard failed to find anything incriminating on him or his ship. And we have nothing to link him with Helen Walsh.”
Francesini knew the business of protocol, international relations and all that ensued, and the difficulty of a C.I.A. operation working smoothly without the knowledge of the local police force, but there were times when it was necessary to involve the local security forces even when he was extremely reluctant to do so. He also understood how corrupt some minor police forces could be and their lack of internal security could jeopardise a complete operation. But for Francesini it was mea culpa and he had no choice but to ask the help of the police commissioner and to feed him as much information as he dared.
“I understand sir, but we consider your cooperation to be of the highest priority. It’s vitally important that we find Helen Walsh and the man who kidnapped her. That way we might be able to link him directly to Hakeem Khan and give us the evidence we need to arrest him.”
Commissioner Cleve turned his attention to Bain who was sitting alongside him. “Inspector Bain is aware of the high priority you have placed on this and he has expressed his wish to continue as officer in charge of this investigation.” He looked back at Francesini, the condescending look barely leaving his face. “And I am quite happy he should do that,” he went on, “but it is appropriate, I think, that he should be informed of all the relevant facts.” He made the point of emphasising the last sentence.
“I’m sure he will be sir,” Francesini answered lamely.
“Admiral Starling has left this to your own judgement, I believe. But I can tell you that I will be favourably disposed to your request for our continuing assistance only if you show good judgement. You do understand, don’t you?”
Touché! Francesini admired the commissioner’s style. Diplomatic gobbledegook and framed in such a way that left Francesini in no doubt who was in charge and that he expected to know as much as the C.I.A.
With that, Cleve stood up and took his leave.
One hour later, Francesini was sitting in Inspector Bain’s office enjoying a coffee and a cigar. He had spoken at length with Starling on the phone to confirm that he would be taking the police Inspector into his complete confidence and assured his boss that he would keep him informed of developments.
“How secure is your intelligence network?” Francesini asked the Inspector.
“What we have is reasonable, but we are usually dealing with drug smugglers.” He considered the importance of the question for a while. “In normal circumstances I could rely on our security, but I cannot regard this as normal.”
Francesini drew heavily on the cigar and drank another mouthful of coffee. Bain had offered him tea before remembering his last attempt at getting the American to drink his own favourite brew.
“We need to know where Maclean disappeared to after your last contact,” Francesini told him. He didn’t want to refer to it as a ‘debacle’, but in his opinion it was nothing short of a bloody catastrophe, particularly considering the loss of a police officer.
Bain nodded and opened a file that lay on the desk in front of him. “We do know that the boat Sweeting Maclean used belonged to Romulus Swain. We’ve sent a sergeant down to the marina, but Swain may be out on charter work. He does a lot of fishing trips for the tourists,” he added unnecessarily. “I’ll check, see if he’s back.”
He picked up the phone and asked for Sergeant Deakin. Francesini watched him speak in short, stabbing sentences to someone.
“Tell him I would like to see him now,” he said and put the phone down.
A couple of minutes later, the sergeant was in his office.
“I spoke to Swain,” Deakin said when asked about the man, “but he wasn’t very cooperative. He said he charters boats out all the time. He’d have to check. He said that often he has clients who just turn up, hand over the cash and take the boat out, no questions asked.”
Francesini curled up inside at the lackadaisical attitude of the police sergeant. But this was the Bahamas and being laid back was almost an act of faith here.
“So what did you do then?” Bain asked.
“Well sir, we left a couple of men there on surveillance. This afternoon two men turned up and took a hired a boat from Swain.”
“And?”
“My men figured they weren’t the usual tourists. Swain went with them. It was late this afternoon and most tourists want their boats early morning. Spot of fishing,” he added unnecessarily.
Francesini wondered if the sergeant was not as dumb as he first thought. “Were your men able to tail them?”
Deakin turned towards him with a surprised look on his face. “They were in a patrol car, so there was no chance. But they contacted Inspector Eustace; he’s the captain of our Freeport gunboat, and asked him to follow Swain, see if he could make contact. They gave the Inspector an estimate of Swain’s heading.” He shrugged and turned back to Bain. “That’s it I’m afraid, sir.”
Bain thanked him and dismissed him. “I’ll contact Inspector Eustace and ask him to get in touch w
ith me immediately he has anything,” he told Francesini.
In the circumstances, it was all they could do, apart from continuing to scour the countryside for Sweeting Maclean and Helen Walsh.
*
Maclean heard the boat before he saw it. He was sitting in the cockpit of the boat he had hired from Swain giving a lot of thought to how best he could turn the present situation to his own advantage. He knew that the woman was valuable to whoever his employers were, but being a man who always had his eye on the chance to improve his situation financially, he could see no reason why he shouldn’t assume control of the whole operation. Maclean’s biggest problem, not that he realised it, was that he was contemplating suicide.
He lifted his head and picked up the Uzi machine gun in one movement, peering over the side of the boat. Seeing nothing yet, he stood up and clambered over the side, jumping on to the small, makeshift landing stage. He kept his shoulders hunched and ran through the undergrowth with his head bowed until he reached a vantage point. From there he could see across the small creek that flowed into the sea.
As the boat came into view he could see Swain at the wheel. The sight of his friend immediately made him relax and he straightened up. He then sauntered down to the small jetty and waited for the boat to nose its way up the creek. He had no idea why Swain had come out to the island, but he had no reason to be concerned. He stood there quite casually, the Uzi hanging comfortably in his hand.
As it drew closer, he could see two other men on board. He frowned and automatically tightened his grip on the Uzi. One of the men was a colossus of a man. He wore a shirt that almost didn’t fit him and three quarter length boat pants. He dwarfed Swain and the other man with them. He recognised neither of them.
Swain put up his hand in a natural gesture and Maclean could see the grin on his face, his white teeth showing clearly in the evening light. He caught the rope that Swain threw over to him and with his free hand, looped it over a wooden stump. He held it fast as Swain jumped ashore with the aft painter.
When the boat was secure, the two strangers stepped ashore. Swain introduced them to Maclean as Mister Malik and Mister Batista.
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