by Robin James
His immediate duty was to let Stephen Parker-Reed know that Carolyn was safe and well. He was aware that the Home Secretary was due to arrive in Lisbon early the following morning, where he had been ordered to make the second drop. That transaction would be Fernandez’s chance to capture Arsenio. But once Parker-Reed knew that his daughter was free, there would be no need for that ransom payment. Therefore, could the major feasibly delay relaying the news until after the drop was made? That was the spread of the horns. Should he take such an unlawful action, he would be subsequently carpeted for sure – Arsenio in custody or no. He would be demoted, possibly reduced to the ranks, or even dismissed from the service. That was the sharpness of the horns.
He agonized for a long time over his gamble: the chance to seize El Asesino, against his career; plus the moral issue of not immediately setting the Home Secretary’s mind at rest. It was tough, the most difficult decision of his life. In the event he did his duty as he knew that General Sir Peter Inge would see it.
He got through to the Home Secretary in London and told him what had happened. But he also turned all his considerable persuasive powers on Parker-Reed. The man was so delighted by the news, so full of relief, that he agreed to go along with what Fernandez proposed.
The cloud cover had thickened, and it was gloomy, humid and threatening to rain when, at nine-fifteen the following morning, Stephen Parker-Reed left the 747 which had just touched down at Lisbon. He was carrying a second flight bag, similar to the first, with a brown-paper parcel inside.
The Home Secretary walked confidently through customs and went directly to the airport bar. He was feeling good for the first time in days; five hours’ uninterrupted, happy sleep had taken years off him. He had no idea where he was to go from there, only that he should wait. He was sitting on a bar stool, sipping coffee and eating a doughnut when he was called, over the tannoy, to a telephone.
It was that woman again, his tormentor. She told him to make his way immediately to the harbour in central Lisbon, at the mouth of the Tagus. There he was to make his way to the Lagoa boatyard and pick up a motor boat which would be waiting for him, hired in his name. In the boat there would be an envelope with further instructions.
The Home Secretary did not go directly to the harbour. He got through to the Agincourt, which was moored in the Tagus estuary, on the northern edge of Lisbon, and told Fernandez exactly what he was to do.
Meanwhile, in a small hotel down near Lisbon docks, Arsenio took over the telephone from his girlfriend and dialled the number of the Miss Molly. Shannon answered the call.
‘Put Joe on the line,’ said Arsenio.
‘He’s having a dip, so he is,’ the Irishman told him.
Arsenio glanced out of the window. It was beginning to drizzle. ‘Lovely morning for it,’ he said. ‘I was just checking that everything’s OK.’
‘Fine and dandy, boss.’
‘I’ll catch up with you later.’
Shannon put the receiver down with his two manacled hands. ‘He’ll kill me for this, so he will,’ he told Shale.
‘No great loss, mate,’ said the sergeant.
The Lagoa boatyard was an unlovely establishment in an even less lovely area. It was almost beneath the enormous – more than two kilometres long – suspension bridge spanning the mouth of the Tagus and joining central Lisbon to the highway going south. The boat hired for Parker-Reed was small, its paintwork peeling, and it looked barely seaworthy. It had an outboard motor and was steered by means of a hand-held rudder. By now, as he stepped down into the boat, the Home Secretary was feeling less than happy about his mission. It was raining, and he had on a thin raincoat, but it was also hot and humid so that with one of his London suits on underneath it, he was sweating.
The boat rocked precariously, then settled down as he sat in it. Under the seat he found an envelope. Inside it was a simple, hand-printed message. ‘Make slowly towards the statue,’ he read. Statue. He looked around. There was only one statue. Across the other side of the river on a hilltop stood the Cristo-Rei, a twenty-eight-metre-high, smaller replica of the famous statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro. He pulled the string on the Mercury motor, surprised that it started first time. Then he was off, passing slowly under the suspension bridge, heavy traffic thundering seventy metres above him, a train rumbling beneath it on one of the underslung pair of railway lines.
Parker-Reed had an electronic tracking device in the top pocket of his jacket, but that was now of little further use to Fernandez. Watching from the dockside, Fernandez could plainly see the Home Secretary as the little boat cut a path through the sluggish waters of the river. There was no sense in him moving from where he was; he had men stationed in various strategic positions on both banks, each of them with receivers picking up the signals coming from Parker-Reed’s tracker. The Agincourt, a kilometre distant, slowly closing in, was tracking the signals too, and she had the motor boat pinpointed in her telescope as large as life.
Tense with an excitement which made him forget about his nagging back, Fernandez wondered vaguely about the lovely-looking lady with coppery, glinting hair who cruised by him at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta, her bare forearm hanging out of the window and getting wet. She parked a couple of hundred metres from him at the dockside, near some steps going down into the water, on either side of which yachts were moored. She was only of passing interest to him; he forgot about her and fixed his attention back on the motor boat; it was getting smaller, but Parker-Reed was still clearly distinguishable.
The Home Secretary was most uncomfortable. The rain was seeping through the shoulders of his mackintosh, apart from which his body was damp with sweat. He was also feeling extremely insecure because there were many large craft moving around him – including one huge passenger liner heading in his direction and several of the Phoenician-style barges with big triangular sails which were typical of the area. No seaman, he was scared of being run down.
Suddenly, dead ahead of Parker-Reed’s boat, the head and shoulders of a man in a black-rubber wetsuit and with a face mask with air tube attached popped out of the water. The diver lifted up his mask long enough to call out, ‘Drop the bag over the side,’ then he submerged.
Finally the Home Secretary knew why he had been told to wrap the money in plastic. He did as he was told and, relieved that his mission was more or less over, turned the boat around.
Arsenio grabbed the handles of the flight bag very firmly. Well below the surface, he began swimming back towards the dockside, where he had arranged that Kirsty would wait for him in the Fiesta.
Aboard the Agincourt, the watchers had seen very clearly what had occurred. The captain had her motors put on full speed ahead. Fernandez had seen the frogman appear, and the bag dropped, too, though not so clearly. His eyes searched the murky water. The man had to come up somewhere, then they’d have him.
Since they had tried to catch him before, in La Sagrada Familia, Arsenio was doubly wary. He felt confident that nobody could follow him now – except for just one way: a tracking device in the parcel. He had already got the parcel out of the bag and abandoned the bag while swimming. Now, as he reached the dockside and surfaced by a moored rowing boat, close to Kirsty, hanging on to the boat with one arm he sliced through the string of the parcel, put it on a wooden seat in the boat and unwrapped it. Should there be a tracker in the parcel, he would find it.
There was no such device beneath the brown paper – but there was no money either. Just bundles of plain white paper.
Fernandez had spotted him. The major was moving cautiously along the dockside towards the Fiesta, his hand on the butt of the Magnum inside his shirt, waiting for Arsenio to get out of the water before making his move. The girl, he realized, was an accomplice; she was still at the wheel of the car, watching Arsenio.
No money, just paper; then he had been tricked. They had rescued Carolyn – there was no other possibility. Arsenio’s eyes fell on the man in the unzipped, thin waterproof jacket who was ambling to
wards Kirsty. He recognized him.
‘Get the hell out of here, Kirsty,’ he shouted, then he was gone, down into the murky depths of the harbour.
Kirsty revved the engine, the wheels slipped on the greasy, wet concrete, and the car began to slither away. Fernandez took aim and shot out both back tyres. The girl brought the car to a skidding halt, leapt out and started to run, as the major was gabbling into his walkie-talkie. Another, armed commando appeared in front of her, pointing his gun.
‘You’re in a certain amount of trouble, young lady,’ Fernandez told Kirsty as he snapped handcuffs on her.
‘All trouble, that’s me,’ she responded with a wry little smile.
Fernandez’s gaze swept over the broad expanse of river. They’d find him, they’d have to. The Agincourt was on the scene, making its way at full throttle into the area. There were men on every bank. They’d get him – either that or Fernandez would dedicate the rest of his life to tracking El Asesino down.
But they did not catch him. Arsenio got clean away.
OTHER AVAILABLE TITLES IN THIS SERIES
MARINE A SBS: Terrorism on the North Sea
MARINE B SBS: The Aegean Campaign
MARINE C SBS: The Florida Run
MARINE D SBS: Windswept
MARINE E SBS: The Hong Kong Gambit
MARINE G SBS: China Seas
MARINE H SBS: The Burma Offensive
MARINE I SBS: Escape From Azerbaijan
MARINE J SBS: The East African Mission
MARINE K SBS: Gold Rush
MARINE L SBS: Raiders From The Sea
OTHER TITLES IN SERIES FROM 22 BOOKS
SOLDIER A SAS: Behind Iraqi Lines
SOLDIER B SAS: Heroes of the South Atlantic
SOLDIER C SAS: Secret War in Arabia
SOLDIER D SAS: The Colombian Cocaine War
SOLDIER E SAS: Sniper Fire in Belfast
SOLDIER F SAS: Guerrillas in the Jungle
SOLDIER G SAS: The Desert Raiders
SOLDIER H SAS: The Headhunters of Borneo
SOLDIER I SAS: Eighteen Years in the Elite Force
SOLDIER J SAS: Counter-insurgency in Aden
SOLDIER K SAS: Mission to Argentina
SOLDIER L SAS: The Embassy Siege
SOLDIER M SAS: Invisible Enemy in Kazakhstan
SOLDIER N SAS: The Gambian Bluff
SOLDIER O SAS: The Bosnian Inferno
SOLDIER P SAS: Night Fighters in France
SOLDIER Q SAS: Kidnap the Emperor!
SOLDIER R SAS: Death on Gibraltar
SOLDIER S SAS: The Samarkand Hijack
SOLDIER T SAS: War on the Streets
SOLDIER U SAS: Bandit Country
SOLDIER V SAS: Into Vietnam
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 1: Valin’s Raiders
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 2: The Korean Contract
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 3: The Vatican Assignment
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 4: Operation Nicaragua
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 5: Action in the Arctic
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 6: The Khmer Hit
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 7: Blue on Blue
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 8: Target the Death-dealer
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 9: The Berlin Alternative
MERCENARY 10: The Blue-eyed Boy
This electronic edition published in 2015 by Osprey Publishing Ltd
First published in Great Britain in 1995 by 22 Books, Invicta House, Sir Thomas Longley Road, Rochester, Kent
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