We had picked a soft target. The seventeenth green on the West Course. A short par four, surrounded on three sides by trees.
Not long afterwards Suzy thudded to the ground a few yards from me. Less than thirty seconds after that and all three of us were thankfully back on terra firma.
I looked at the damage that we had done to the soft ground and guessed that the greenkeeper would be none too happy come the morning.
I signalled to the others and we headed off. The house was some hundred yards away behind the trees. As we moved into the cover of them no alarm sounded – no sirens, no shouting.
So far, so good.
A movement behind me. I turned too late.
I dropped like a felled tree.
Chapter 102
SOME TIME LATER I came to and tried to move.
I couldn’t. My hands had been tied behind my back to a wooden chair. Suzy and Del Rio sat beside me, similarly trussed.
My head felt like I’d landed on it when I’d dropped from the helicopter. But I was alive and I was conscious. I guess my skull was a bit thicker than Chloe’s, which would be unusual. Female skulls are usually a little thicker than men’s. Maybe whoever had hit me hadn’t been as good as Chloe’s attacker.
We were in the lounge of a very expensively decorated house. There was colour everywhere. Golds and reds and greens. On the expensive rugs that dotted the floor, on the wallpaper that covered the walls, on the drapes that were curled back from the French windows that led out to an extensive lawn, and on the exquisitely upholstered furniture.
I lifted my head and looked across at Suzy and Del Rio, wincing as the pain nailed through the back of my head.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘You were hit with a golf club.’
‘A driver,’ added Suzy. ‘Titleist, I think.’
‘And you guys?’
‘People stepped out with semi-automatic weapons. A few of them. We considered it politic to comply with their instructions.’
‘Hard to argue with an AK-47’
Del Rio nodded. ‘That is a fact.’
‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Not formulated one as such.’
At that moment Harlan Shapiro walked into the room.
Chapter 103
HARLAN SHAPIRO’S MOUTH was bound with duct tape and he held his hands high in the air.
He was followed in by Annabelle Weston holding a gun, and by a woman wearing the full burka.
‘So it was the professor in the drawing room with the revolver all along,’ I said.
‘Sit over there,’ Annabelle said to Harlan, ignoring me and gesturing with her gun to a high-backed red leather chair.
Harlan Shapiro crossed over and sat down. Outside, a large man in black fatigues and with a scarf wrapped round his head walked past the French windows.
Mujahedin as security guards. Nice neighbourhood.
‘And you must be Mary Angela,’ I said, addressing the woman in the burka. ‘Shame to cover yourself up – you have beautiful eyes.’
The woman swept her hand up, removing the part of her garment covering her head, and swinging her lustrous hair behind her. She looked at me and smiled.
‘That’s very courteous of you to say so.’
I must have registered some surprise because her smile deepened. ‘Oh, I only wear it when it suits.’
‘Nice house you have, too. Mister Burka must be paid a pretty penny for his translation skills.’
‘I own the house, Mister Carter,’ said Annabelle Weston.
Of course she did. ‘Please call me Dan,’ I said. ‘I feel we’re bonding, Annabelle.’
‘I am sure you are a very charming man, Dan. You’re handsome, clearly very resourceful, more intelligent than you pretend to be.’ Annabelle shrugged. ‘I don’t know, in another life.’
I didn’t like the sound of that. ‘I quite like this life,’ I said, hoping that my voice was sounding steady.
‘I have no intention of harming you. Nobody needs to get hurt here.’
‘Tell that to the guy who used the back of my head as a tee peg,’ I said.
Annabelle frowned. ‘I’m sorry about that. That wasn’t supposed to happen. One of my team with a personal grudge against you. He has been reprimanded.’
‘Seems to have happened once before. Once too often,’ I said.
‘Again, that was never our intention.’
‘So what is your intention?’ asked Del Rio. I could see his jaw working harder than usual. His hands behind the chair flexing and unflexing, trying to loosen the rope.
‘Like I said. Nobody is going to be hurt as long as you cooperate’
‘So what’s the figure? Five million was just for openers, we get that. So what’s the number?’ Del Rio said.
‘It was never about money.’
‘So what is it about, you mad bitch?’ said Suzy coolly, possibly not helping matters.
‘It’s about justice,’ said Mary Angela Al-Massri.
‘For your brother?’
‘No, Mister Carter. For Palestine.’
‘And your husband thinks this will achieve it?’
‘My husband has nothing to do with this. Right now he is at a conference in Brussels.’
‘So the pair of you figured that you’d solve the problems of Palestine by kidnapping an American millionaire and demanding what for his release? That Israel allow you to set up a nation state just like that?’
‘We have no intention of releasing him. Not yet, at least.’
‘What’s the point, then?’
‘Our homeland for over a thousand years was taken from us to create the state of Israel. A crime in which the governments of both America and the United Kingdom were complicit.’
I noticed the guard pass again. Clearly he had a regular patrol around the grounds of the house.
‘I am familiar with the arguments. Terrorism isn’t the solution.’
The professor snorted derisively. ‘You know nothing about it. People resort to what you call terrorism when they have no other choice. Israel has a nuclear capability and Palestinians have slingshots.’
Mary Angela came over and took the gun from the professor, keeping it pointed at Harlan Shapiro. She was clearly the one in charge here. ‘Do you know what Gandhi said of the situation, Mister Carter?’ she asked.
I shrugged, as best I could, given that I was tied up pretty tightly. ‘You say tomato, I say tomato … let’s call the whole thing off?’
Mary Angela didn’t smile. Tough crowd.
‘He said “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. Nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.” And this is not an act of religion. It is an act of peace.’
‘You lost me there, princess,’ I said. ‘Seems to me that’s a gun you are holding, not an olive branch or a banana.’
I wanted to keep her talking. By my reckoning the guard should have passed by again and he hadn’t.
‘The only way peace can be brought about in that part of the Middle East is by parity,’ Annabelle Weston said, the passion sparking in her turquoise eyes.
‘All the Palestinians can do by way of retaliation against the fact that a part of their country has been made a concentration camp is to fire small rockets over the border from Gaza.’
‘And kidnapping Harlan Shapiro does what, exactly?’
Mary Angela looked at me and smiled. I took no comfort from it.
‘It will guide those rockets, Mister Carter.’
Chapter 104
THE PENNY DROPPED.
Jack had told me that Harlan Shapiro had been working on localised missile-guidance systems.
‘And not just over the borders into Israel. Our people have had to resort to the use of suicide bombers to target areas. People prepared to sacrifice themselves to the cause because there was no way of guiding small missiles to a specific target.’
The professor smiled at me. It didn’t make me feel a whole lot better.
‘Hannah’s father here has been developing a system that can track to a mobile phone. It means that the missile can be dialled in. The suicide bomber doesn’t even have to be present.’
She was right. The implications were enormous. Anywhere could be targeted. If you didn’t have to take the explosives through security, you wouldn’t need car bombs and bombers could just, as she said, dial destruction right in.
And it wouldn’t end there. If this technology got into the hands of Al Qaida who knew what could happen? Their aim wasn’t just to drive Israel out of the Middle East, it was to make the whole world Muslim. Jihad didn’t do conference tables.
I looked out of the window. The guard had seemingly grown an inch or two taller. About Sam Riddel’s height.
I needed to create a distraction. I stood up as best I could, my knees bent.
Mary Angela Al-Massri pointed the gun at me. There was no humour in her eyes, no matter how beautiful they were. ‘Just sit down, Mister Carter. Like I said, nobody needs to get hurt here. Trust me – I am well trained.’
Hamas-trained, I was guessing, just like her brother. Which did not bode well.
I hopped backwards and smashed myself into the wall, shattering the chair and loosening the ropes. I stumbled up to my knees.
‘I am quite prepared to shoot you.’
‘Believe her, Dan. You wouldn’t be the first,’ said Annabelle Weston.
The guard came in through the French windows and turned to me.
‘If he moves again, shoot him,’ Mary Angela shouted, her voice ugly now. That’s the thing with some of these peace activists: they are so damn keen on killing people.
I stood up and Sam Riddel tossed me the gun and stood aside. I pointed the gun at an astonished Mary Angela and grinned. ‘Mexican stand-off,’ I said.
She moved closer to put the gun against Harlan Shapiro’s head.
‘He’ll be the first to die,’ she said.
I put a single round in her forehead. Turned out she was wrong about that.
Chapter 105
OUTSIDE I COULD just about feel the cold night air on my face.
I was vaguely aware of uniformed men running past me, weapons raised. United States Air Force by the looks of them. They were shouting but I couldn’t hear them. I was in a bubble.
I was remembering the unblemished beauty of Mary Angela Al-Massri’s face. Her wide, brown, mesmerising eyes. I remembered the sound that the pistol made, and I remembered the beauty of that face I’d wrecked. The life behind it snuffed out in an instant.
And then I leaned against a tree in the garden and threw up.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I dragged my hand across my lips and looked up. It was Del Rio.
‘You okay?’
‘I will be.’
He nodded, working his jaw.
‘Something I need to take care of first,’ I said. ‘Close this case.’
He nodded again. ‘You need some backup?’
I shook my head. ‘Things are going to get complicated here. I need to make a move.’
Del Rio shook his head. ‘It’s all taken care of. We can sort out the details later.’
‘How so?’
‘Jack Morgan has reach.’
I nodded gratefully. It was true.
‘So. Like I said, you need some backup?’
I shook my head again. ‘I’ll be good.’
Del Rio slapped me on the shoulder. ‘You got some, anyway. And your man who don’t handle guns wouldn’t be much use in this, I’m guessing.’
I nodded gratefully. He was guessing right.
Chapter 106
BRENDAN ‘SNAKE’ FERRES lived in the downstairs maisonette of a converted Victorian town house in Lady Margaret Road on the border of Kentish Town and Tufnell Park.
Del Rio and I had parked the car further down the street and we approached on foot. The curtains were drawn at the front of the house but there was some light spilling from a small gap between them. A television was playing loudly.
I gestured to Del Rio and we made our way around the side of the maisonette into the back garden. The bottom half belonged to the flat above Ferres: it was neat, well ordered. The top part belonged to Ferres and was the opposite. I stepped over an upturned milk crate in the long grass of what should have been his lawn and walked up to the side door that led into his kitchen.
I had the enforcer gripped in both hands. Del Rio positioned himself to the right-hand side of the door and took his weapon from his holster, holding it two-handed.
The door looked flimsy enough to be simply kicked in but I wasn’t taking any chances. I swung the heavy metal ram against the lock.
I stepped back as Del Rio rushed into the house, sweeping his gun from side to side in front of him. I followed behind as he ran forward through the short hallway towards the lounge. I stayed back, dropping the enforcer and taking out the gun I had got from Gary Webster.
A scream rang out from the other room.
Chapter 107
HOLDING THE GUN, I kicked the first door open.
Behind it was an empty bedroom. I waited a moment or two and then did the same with the second door. Another bedroom. No one in it. I let out a sigh of relief, realising I had been holding my breath, and walked into the lounge.
Del Rio was leaning against the wall, working his jaw muscles and pointing his weapon at Laura Skelton who was cowering against the corner of the sofa, her eyes wide with terror.
If any of the neighbours had heard her scream there was no sign of it. Unless someone was calling the police, of course. But if they were it didn’t matter.
I’d already done the same.
I slipped the rucksack off my shoulder and threw it at her.
‘What’s this?’ Her eyes darted back and forth between me and Del Rio.
‘Brendan’s supplier at Chancellors has gone out of business. We thought your boyfriend might like his gear back.’
Laura looked in the bag. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t have to understand, darling,’ said Del Rio. ‘You’re not in the game any more.’
‘Give me your mobile phone,’ I said.
‘I don’t have a mobile.’
‘You want to give him the phone?’ Del Rio raised his pistol slightly. ‘Or you want to be a hero like your fat fuck of a boyfriend?’
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and threw it over to me. I slipped it in my jacket pocket, then bent down and ripped the house phone out of its socket, kicked the junction box off and smashed the connections with my heel.
‘You don’t know what you’re dealing with.’ Laura crossed her arms and a petulant look appeared on her face.
She was an attractive young woman, no denying that. But there was a hardness in her eyes every bit as ugly as the slap mark bruising her cheek. Brendan Ferres was a hero, all right.
‘Where is he, Laura?’ I asked.
‘You want to shoot me, shoot me. But I’m not putting myself between you and Brendan.’
I didn’t blame her. And I didn’t much care. I knew exactly where he was.
‘We’re going to the pub now, Laura. You tip him off that we’re coming and we’ll come back for you and do more than smash your phone in.’
If she was cowed by that remark you couldn’t have told by the smirk on her face.
‘You go up against Brendan Ferres in Ronnie Allen’s pub and you won’t be going anywhere, tough guy! Except in a hearse.’
‘You’ll be glad to know that Chloe Smith is out of intensive care – they reckon she’ll make a full recovery.’
A look flicked through Laura’s eyes then. Sure enough, a flicker of fear.
‘That wasn’t my fault. That wasn’t supposed to happen. How were we supposed to know she was going to turn into some kung-fu bloody madwoman?’
‘You saying she deserved it?’
The look flashed through her eyes again. �
�I’m just saying it wasn’t my fault. Brendan wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone.’
I looked at her coldly. ‘Well, he did. And now he’s going to pay for it.’
‘You got any sense, mister, you’ll walk away from him now and keep on walking.’
I looked over at Del Rio. ‘What do you reckon, Del? We should walk away?’
He worked his jaw muscles a little. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I don’t do walking away.’
I looked at my watch. Just over forty-eight hours since it had begun and it was way past time to finish it.
Chapter 108
I PULLED UP the zipper on my jacket.
‘Why’d you do it, Laura? You’re a bright kid. You’re at a top university.’
‘You got any idea what it costs to go to university nowadays? The sort of debt you leave with?’
‘A lot of people deal with it.’
Anger danced in her eyes. She had the kind of beauty that made it easy for her to get what she wanted in life. Easy for her to justify her actions to herself. She wore her sense of self-entitlement as easily as she wore her designer jeans.
‘Yeah, well, I was dealing with it too,’ she said. ‘A little dealing. A little video work. Then Hannah offered me the big score. Even if her father didn’t ante up – and she didn’t expect him to – then she was going to pay me big time anyway.’
‘Never mind who got hurt along the way.’
‘No one was supposed to get hurt!’ Laura shouted at me. ‘My dad’s a plumber, for chrissake! I didn’t have money like Hannah and Chloe or most of them at college. I didn’t have privilege. All I had was debt. And she had the power to take that away.’
She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t a hard call to make. Besides, you know …’ She shrugged again, collecting herself, a cruel smile curving her lips. ‘It was supposed to be fun.’
I nodded to Del Rio and we walked out the front door. She’d learn soon enough what fun was.
Five minutes later and we watched from the front seats of my car, parked back a bit and across the road from her house.
Laura came out wearing a black parka, with the rucksack slung over her shoulder. She walked away from us without even looking around. Already high on whatever she had sampled from the media student’s stash, no doubt.
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