by Robin James
‘You’re supposed to be a crack operator. You are a crack operator. How can you make such a dumb mistake?’
Hantash shrugged. He was not used to being spoken to like this, and it was irritating him. ‘They look alike, don’t they? She was with the boys. How was I to know? Christ.’
Arsenio stalked up on to the bridge, grabbed the binoculars and brought them down. He scanned the area of the Mirabelle, picking up the speedboat. Diana had just come up alongside, her face filled with horror. There were now several men, including Travers Bonnington, in the sea, diving, searching. Arsenio thrust the binoculars into Hantash’s hands. ‘Look,’ he snarled. ‘Look well. There’s no mistaking her, even at this distance. Arsehole.’
The Palestinian fought back his anger, turning it on himself. Arsenio was right: the women might be similar in appearance, but they were nevertheless distinctive. He had been sloppy, totally careless – an attitude which one day might cost him his life. Yet he did not excuse himself, but merely handed the binoculars back, glowering.
Carolyn’s eyes flickered open. She thought for a moment she had been having a bad dream. Then she saw the men standing over her, two in rubber boots, two in scuba gear, one of them unstrapping a scuba jet from his waist – his gaze fixed pruriently on her bare breasts. She covered them with her hands, then tried to say something, but her lips were trembling so much she could produce only unintelligible sounds.
Arsenio meanwhile went back to the bridge and got hold of Kirsty in Barcelona on his mobile phone and asked her to check in Interviú who this young woman was. It took only moments. When he came back down on to the deck, Carolyn was sitting up, forearms folded over her breasts, head in hands. He picked up his denim shirt from where it lay nearby and draped it over her shoulders. He crouched beside her, his head close to hers.
‘It was a mistake,’ he told her. ‘An error. We were after Diana, do you see? Because I have a fool working for me, we got you instead.’
‘Lay off me, Arsenio,’ growled Hantash.
‘Yeah.’
Carolyn, tears mixed with the sea water on her cheeks, turned her face to look at him. She managed to speak, falteringly.
‘You, then . . . you will, you will let me go?’ she mumbled.
‘I’m afraid not, no. You see, I know who you are. You’re Carolyn Parker-Reed. Your dad’s Stephen Parker-Reed, the British Home Secretary. He’s also a multimillionaire – and this is a kidnapping. You’ll have to do in place of Diana, Carolyn.’
She wailed, then buried her head in her hands once again.
‘I’m not going to hurt you. But you’re going to have to be with us for some while. And you’re going to be uncomfortable, but you’ll have to put up with it.’ He nodded at Springer. ‘Get her below.’
Uncomfortable was an understatement. She was too distraught to notice that it was no accident that the big German groped both her breasts when, having pulled her to her feet, he took her by the armpits and lowered her through an open hatch of the hold. The hatch was closed on her and she was in darkness, the slowly rolling and creaking wooden hull slippery beneath her bare feet, the air filled with the stink of stale fish. Folding herself into a foetal ball, Carolyn began to sob.
‘She’s drowned,’ Travers Bonnington pronounced as he pulled himself into the speedboat. ‘We have to face it – the poor girl has drowned.’
Diana was utterly distraught. ‘But how is that possible?’ she protested. ‘She’s an excellent swimmer. She couldn’t just drown.’
Bonnington put an arm around her shoulders. ‘She’s gone, Di.’
‘A shark. God, it must have been a shark.’ Her face was ravaged, tears were streaming down it.
‘There would be signs. Blood. No, something else must have happened. A heart attack.’
‘Then why doesn’t she, why doesn’t she, she . . . float?’
‘It must have been so severe the spasm knocked all the air out of her.’ The American sighed heavily. ‘I’d better get back aboard and call her father.’
11
Stephen Parker-Reed was in excellent spirits. He had just had a most rewarding private meeting with the Prime Minister, who had praised him highly for his recent handling of a most alarming threat by the Metropolitan Police to go on strike, and he was now making arrangements for his planned holiday in the Bahamas.
The Home Secretary, a man as lean as the hatstand which stood in the corner of his office, with a sunken, ascetic face and a bald head fringed with a slight smudge of thin grey hair, allowed himself a rare indulgence for a working day; he produced a bottle of Glenfiddich malt whisky, and a heavy, cut-lead-crystal tumbler from a drawer in his antique desk, poured himself a respectable measure, admired its colour for a moment, sniffed it, then took a generous sip. The malt slipped down his throat as smoothly as honey, to hit his stomach warmly in just the right spot. Leaning back in his leather-padded swivel chair, he peered through his first-floor sash window. Raindrops were trickling down it; it had been drizzly for days. Well, he would very shortly, like his daughter on Travers Bonnington’s boat off the north of Spain, be soaking up the sunshine. How he was looking forward to a well-deserved rest.
It was curious that he should have been thinking of his daughter and their American friend at the very moment when his secretary put Bonnington through to him on the telephone. When the brief, awful conversation was over, Parker-Reed was a shattered man.
For long minutes, his grief was so overwhelming that he could do nothing but cry; he did not even touch his whisky. Then, making a massive effort to pull himself together, he drained the malt in one, splashed more into the glass, and told his secretary to put him through to a close friend of his, Royal Navy Admiral of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald, GCB. His daughter’s life having come to a most tragic finish, the least he could do was to ensure divers made a thorough search for her body so that she could be brought home for a decent Christian burial.
The Type-23 frigate Argyll was the closest vessel of HM Fleet to the coast of La Coruña at that particular time. She was on exercise off the southernmost Spanish province to the north of Portugal, Pontevedra. At full speed she would reach the Mirabelle in little over three hours.
* * *
Arsenio, having worked out one plan of action as far as a ransom demand for the Princess of Wales was concerned, was now obliged to adapt this for the daughter of the Home Secretary. But he was in no hurry to put it into operation. Certainly, he should let several hours go by before revealing that Carolyn was a kidnap victim and not drowned – enough time, that was, for the police to assume she had been taken a great distance from the site of the undersea abduction.
He had made the young woman as comfortable as possible by supplying her with a blanket to lie on and the jeans and thin sweater he had thought to bring along for his royal target. Nevertheless, the rolling of the drifter – they were in a swell which had been having almost no effect on the massive Mirabelle – combined with the sickly, suffocating stale-fish smell in the unventilated hold, was making her feel queazy. She had no watch; she guessed, after three hours, that she had been a prisoner in that stinking place – into which barely enough light filtered for her to see her hand in front of her face – for twice as long. The terror had left her. She had rationalized that this swarthy, bearded man, who was clearly the boss, was being as kind as he could to her, that he was only after money which her father would surely come up with, that there was nothing for it but to steel herself for a lengthy ordeal.
Carolyn was vomiting in a corner of the hold when El Asesino spotted HMS Argyll closing in on the Mirabelle. The fishing boat had drifted to over three kilometres away from the yacht by then, but Arsenio’s glasses were powerful enough, even at that distance, to make out that a Royal Navy frigate had appeared on the scene, and that frogmen were going over its side. He was impressed; if such was the power of the Home Secretary, then such would be his capacity to come up with the ransom money. Arsenio had decided that while the nice, round figure of £1
0,000,000 for a personage as important as HRH the Princess of Wales was about right, perhaps that sum was overambitious and would complicate the matter as far as her friend was concerned.
Even as he was watching the divers go about their abortive task, he decided on five million instead. He could, of course, have the divers called off by making one simple telephone call. But no, he told himself, it was too soon to play his hand and in any case it amused him that his action was causing so much activity. His anger had subsided, yet he remained intensely irritated that he had not pulled off the kidnap of the century.
Stephen Parker-Reed took a private jet at his disposal down to La Coruña, where he was picked up by Bonnington’s helicopter and flown to the Mirabelle. He was on board by five in the afternoon, to be greeted by the depressing news that his daughter’s body had not been found and that it was doubtful that it would be.
Arsenio observed the departure and return of the chopper with great interest. When he saw a single passenger emerge, he guessed correctly who that tall, thin and stooping figure had to be, finding it ironic that he should have kidnapped the daughter of the very man ultimately responsible for the maintenance of law and order in Great Britain. Arsenio’s spirits were beginning to pick up; receiving £5,000,000 from such a personage was going to prove almost as satisfying as extracting £10,000,000 from the royal family itself.
Six hours had elapsed since the snatch. Time enough. He would put the Home Secretary out of his misery. Before even leaving Barcelona on his search for the Mirabelle, Arsenio had checked out the yacht’s telephone number via the London shipping directories. He called Kirsty, at home in Las Ramblas awaiting her first instructions on her contribution to the cause.
When she completely understood the situation, and what she was to do, Kirsty hung up, left the flat and took a taxi to the telephone exchange. While it was impossible that this initial call could be traced, it was almost certain that future ones – whether to the Mirabelle, the Home Office or Parker-Reed’s private house – would be. The man, Arsenio was sure, was not going to part with his money without a struggle, a certain amount of stalling was sure to be involved – it invariably was in kidnap cases – and traces would be put on all calls. Best for Kirsty to get into the habit right away of calling from public telephones.
The ship’s captain took Kirsty’s call. Excitedly, he passed it down from the bridge to the luxurious stateroom, where Parker-Reed, weighed down with his grief, was trying to drown it in Bonnington’s best malt.
‘We have Carolyn,’ Kirsty told him. ‘She’s safe and she’s well.’
The Home Secretary’s face underwent a miraculous transformation. The years it seemed to have put on during the morning faded away. ‘But, but . . . why? How?’ he stuttered.
‘Money, Mr Parker-Reed. She’s been kidnapped and she won’t be harmed in the slightest providing you cooperate.’ Kirsty was rather enjoying her new role. She even sounded rather chirpy on the line.
‘Let me talk to her.’
‘She’s not here. She’s somewhere where she will never be found. Don’t even try to look. Deliver the money when and how you are instructed and you’ll get her back.’ Through the glass window of her booth, Kirsty was watching a teenager having a row with his girlfriend in the bustling exchange. A fat woman was selling flowers from a stall in the corner. Kirsty felt unreal delivering these words while surrounded by normal, everyday life.
‘How much do you want?’ At the other end of the line the Home Secretary did not feel particularly real either. His drowned daughter suddenly wasn’t, his life was not, after all, destroyed – for Carolyn was his life, as his wife had died the year before and there were no other children. Money, at that moment, was his last consideration. His question was put to the faceless female voice as if he were asking the price of a painting.
But when Kirsty told him £5,000,000, the sum suddenly loomed vast before his eyes – great sacks of money, a fortune.
‘You can’t be serious?’
‘You want to see your daughter alive, don’t you, Mr Parker-Reed, now that you know what it was like when you thought she was dead?’ The script had been written for Kirsty by Arsenio.
‘That sort of money in cash is going to take some while to get together.’
‘Of course it is. We know that. We have plenty of time. As long as it takes.’
Parker-Reed sighed heavily. ‘Very well. How . . .?’
Kirsty interrupted him. ‘That’s all for now. Stay on the boat. I’ll be in touch in two hours’ time. By the way, just to impress on you that you’re not dealing with amateurs. Carolyn is in the hands of Arsenio Cruz Conde, El Asesino. I’m sure you’ve heard of him – he’s the one who just sprung himself from Parkhurst.’ She hung up.
Kirsty seriously doubted the wisdom of making that last statement, but Arsenio had insisted. He had, he had told her over the phone when she had protested, nothing to lose. Anyway, the whole world was after him. Let them sit up and take notice. And the knowledge would certainly convince Stephen Parker-Reed to cough up in the shortest possible time.
Operation Diana may have been aborted, but Operation Carolyn was well underway.
12
‘She’s alive, Travers. She’s alive.’ Parker-Reed’s greyish-blue eyes had tears in them.
‘What? But . . . that, that’s wonderful.’ Bonnington frowned. It made no sense. Her death had turned his friend’s head. ‘So where the hell is she then?’
‘I don’t know. She’s been kidnapped.’
‘You’re joking. How is that possible? She vanished from under the sea.’
The Home Secretary’s face creased with worry again. ‘I don’t know. But she’s in the hands of El Asesino. The terrorist.’
‘Jesus. I’ve heard of him, of course.’ Then it was true. Carolyn was alive. Stephen had not gone nuts. ‘Didn’t he just go on the run from one of your prisons?’ he asked.
‘Escape-proof Parkhurst, yes. And just a few days ago. How he set this up so quickly beats me.’
The American thought for a moment. ‘He was after Diana, of course. But how in hell . . .?’
They told Diana the astonishingly good – yet nevertheless frightening – news, then they called the boys to the stateroom and questioned them closely. Surely there must have been a boat nearby when Carolyn disappeared? No, not that they had seen, said the boys. Unless it was on the other side of the Mirabelle. Something under the sea, then? Did they notice a strange shape, perhaps? Nothing.
‘Just a second,’ said Parker-Reed when the boys had gone, ‘how could Arsenio have known I was aboard – unless he had been watching?’ He went to a window. The big fleet of fishing boats from several countries had drifted so far they were little more than dots on the horizon. The Argyll, already heading back south, was approaching them. ‘Those fishing boats were much closer to us when I arrived.’
‘They’re drifters. They only use their engines when they’re beginning to slip away from the fish. Are you suggesting that this Arsenio guy is aboard one of them?’
‘Sounds pretty far-fetched, doesn’t it? But he’s somewhere – and he’s got my daughter, damn him. I’d like to speak to the man who took the telephone call first from that woman.’
Captain Bland had a keen memory. ‘Her first words were, "We have Carolyn Parker-Reed", sir,’ he said. ‘Naturally, I was overjoyed.’ He hastily qualified that remark. ‘That she was alive, sir.’
‘And then?’ The Home Secretary asked him.
‘She said she wanted to get directly in touch with yourself, sir. Could I get your number from the yacht’s owner? Of course, I told her that you were aboard.’
Arsenio had worked this little possible give-away out for himself. He was having no further slip-ups.
‘Ah. Well, thank you.’
When the captain had gone, Parker-Reed, back at a window and watching the distant boats – the Argyll was passing them to the south – said, ‘Just the same, she could be out there somewhere. Do you mind if I
use your phone?’
‘You Brits are unbelievable. Of course you can use the goddam phone.’
He got through to Admiral Sir Julian Oswald and told him all that had happened, thanking him for sending the Argyll so promptly. He suggested it might be a good idea if the Royal Navy frigate nosed about a bit among the fishing boats.
It was several seconds before Sir Julian replied. ‘Not on, I’m afraid, old boy. Tensions are pretty high among the fishermen at the moment. There’s been a lot of funny business going on. Accusations of fishing within other people’s territorial waters, illegally large nets – that sort of thing. Almost a repetition of the cod war. A British warship cruising among them right now is liable to cause an international incident.’ He paused. ‘Tell you what, though. I’ll get on to Peter Inge right away. He should be able to help.’
‘Chief of the General Staff of the Army?’
‘That’s the chap. Just the ticket, I should think.’
‘But the Army, Julian?’
‘You’re forgetting the SBS. They’re under Army control, remember? Perfect for what you want. Undercover work, surveillance, and so on. Leave it with me. I’ll get back to you.’
Of course, thought the Home Secretary as he replaced the receiver. The SBS. That wonderful, more or less secret unit. Absolutely perfect. If anybody could sniff out the whereabouts of his daughter – assuming she was at sea at all, and if she were not then the chances of finding her without paying a ransom had to be virtually nil – it was the SBS.
Major Zaki Fernandez had personally taken control of Operation Bosom – so named by himself because its aim was to bust a British drug-smuggling ring thought to be running hashish by boat out of Brest. Bust and Brest. Operation Bosom. He was rather pleased with his code-name. Brest, a port on the most westerly tip of France, was the closest area to La Coruña, where an SBS Offshore Patrol Gunboat was stationed. Christened the Gremlin, the boat was the pride and joy of Major Fernandez’s little fleet. Twenty-six metres long and as sleek as a dolphin, while to all appearances a private yacht, the Gremlin had a reinforced, specially designed hull which enabled her to achieve a speed fast enough to overhaul anything but a Riva-type speedboat. She was equipped with a prow-mounted, retractable 9mm L34A1 Sterling sub-machine-gun. When not needed the gun was housed in an electrically operated compartment below a section of deck, undetectable to the untrained eye as a hatch which slid aside at the touch of a button to allow the Sterling to be put into action. Also – and this was a complete innovation as far as any marine or navy boats were concerned – two submersibles – miniature, two-man submarines, their bodies forged of the lightest of space-age metals – sat side by side like torpedoes in special housings below the water-line, on either side of the nestling machine-gun in the very prow of the Patrol Gunboat. They were especially adapted versions of the more usual Vickers Pisces III, battery-operated submersibles; their housings worked like airlocks, they could be flooded when their crew was aboard, and special portholes opened to enable them to be launched. All other boats equipped with submersibles carried them on their decks and they had to be, somewhat clumsily, lowered over the stern.
