Vicious Circle (17 page)

Having heard the salutation ‘You old rogue’ from Hector’s lips on so many occasions over the years, Tariq understood that it was one of the highest words of praise in the English language. He beamed with pleasure and returned Hector’s embrace, then he stepped back to let the other members of Cross Bow Security come forward to greet Hector. Hector knew all of them well. He had led some of them deep into Puntland to rescue Hazel’s elder daughter and, in the furnace of combat, strong links had been forged.

Now Dave Imbiss was second in command of Cross Bow under Paddy O’Quinn. Dave gave the illusion of youth and innocence, but he had served two tours of duty in the US Marines and had a row of medal ribbons on his chest to show for it. Back in the early days of Cross Bow, Hector, with his eye for a winner, had picked him out of the pack. Dave was shrewd and tough. What appeared to be puppy fat was in fact hard muscle. Dave had seen men die and had personally sent a number of them off on the long one-way trip. He and Hector owed each other a number of their nine lives. As they shook hands Hector demanded, ‘So is this safe house of yours really safe, Dave?’

‘Iron clad, boss.’

‘Don’t tell me, show me.’

All of them found seats in Dave’s sand-camouflaged Hummer and he drove them out of the airport complex into the open desert with the two trucks carrying the baggage following close behind. The road was four lanes wide, straight and glassy smooth. Like the ethereal city which loomed in the milky haze of distance far ahead, it had been built with the oil that lay far beneath the desert sands; the oil on which Hazel Bannock had staked her fortune and reputation when she stood at the helm of Bannock Oil.

Dave drove fast along the shore of the Gulf. The beach was white as sun-bleached bone and the waters beyond were a startling blend of blues and greens, changing as the seabed dropped away under them. The sky over it all was cloudless and a shade of blue so lustrous that it pained the eye.

The closer they came to Abu Zara City the higher the buildings seemed to climb into the sky; towers of creamy-coloured concrete and glass. Dave Imbiss pointed out one that stood well isolated from the others.

‘There it is! Seascape Mansions, little Catherine’s new fairy castle,’ he told Hector. He turned off the main highway at the next junction.

‘Pull over and park for a minute please, Dave,’ Hector instructed him. There was a pair of binoculars in the tray below the windscreen. ‘May I borrow these?’

‘Help yourself, Heck.’ As soon as the Hummer stopped, Hector stepped out and stretched over the engine compartment, focussing the binoculars on the towering building. He studied the external layout of the structure, and then swept the surroundings. The main building itself was encircled with extensive landscaped gardens; manicured lawns and fountains; stands of date palms and other exotic plants. The perimeter was guarded by a double palisade of razor wire. Beyond these gardens there was a separate complex of utility buildings and servants’ quarters discreetly tucked away in their own gated and guarded compound.

‘It looks okay from here,’ Hector admitted. He climbed back on board the Hummer and they drove down to the main gates of Seascape Mansions. The guards at the checkpoint were courteous but thorough. They even studied Catherine’s baby passport carefully. After they were admitted to the grounds Dave stopped again in the middle of the gardens and they all craned their necks to look up at the building. Dave pointed out to Hector the discreet steel baffles that his workmen had already placed over the windows of the topmost floor. These were designed to deflect any RPG or other explosive device fired from the grounds or the beach below. Hector had warned Dave about the incendiary grenades that the Beast had deployed at Brandon Hall, and he was taking no chances of a repeat performance.

There was another guard posted at the entrance to the underground car park. He checked the registration plates on the Hummer that had been phoned to him from the main gates. They rode up from the basement in the elevator dedicated exclusively to the top floor. When Hector stepped out of the elevator into the lobby of the apartment he saw at once why Prince Mohammed had come up with such an extravagant rental demand, and he realized that it had not been grossly inflated by wishful thinking.

There were a dozen house servants in white robes and scarlet fezzes with dangling black tassels drawn up in a file facing the doors to the elevator. They greeted Hector with respectful obeisance and then disappeared silently into the nether regions of the vast apartment.

‘I know what you are going to ask, boss,’ Dave Imbiss told him. ‘They have all been thoroughly checked and vetted. I personally vouch for every man jack of them.’

The interior décor of the apartment had been designed by a celebrated Italian studio. There were twelve bedroom suites, two dining rooms with their own kitchens, three lounges, a lavishly equipped gymnasium, two playrooms and a cinema. In addition, Dave Imbiss explained, there was accommodation for up to twenty-five servants provided in the separate gated compound.

Catherine had her own large nursery with an attendant nursemaid as her neighbour on either side, poised to rush to do her bidding at the first wail. On the roof there was a helipad, a swimming pool and a sun garden and entertainment area with bar and barbecue. There was a view across the bay to the centre of Abu Zara City. In the other direction lay the open waters of the Gulf with the white triangles of dhow sails scattered like daisy blossoms on the blue expanse.

‘If we must pig it, then I suppose this sty will just about do.’ Hector gave his opinion and called an immediate council of war in the cinema.

*

Hector set out his plan of action for Paddy and Nastiya, Dave Imbiss and Tariq. This was on a need-to-know basis; only those directly involved were briefed, not even the other senior and trusted Cross Bow operatives were involved.

The first stage of the operation was for Hector and Tariq in the guise of pilgrims to fly into Mecca on one of the many commercial flights. Tariq had already made the reservations, posing as an individual with no connection to Bannock Oil. He paid with Saudi riyals so he had left no credit-card traces. The two of them would fly directly from Dubai to Jeddah and from there take a public bus up to the sacred city itself. They were approaching the Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah, the high season of pilgrimage. During that period Mecca would be packed with hundreds of thousands of worshippers. Hector and Tariq would be swallowed up by the multitudes; hidden in plain sight.

Tariq had also taken the precaution of booking accommodation in one of the cheapest caravanserai in the city, where for under $20 a night they would be sharing a common dormitory with other pilgrims. The Beast would never suspect that Hector Cross would be holed up in a flea circus of that order.

These plans left Hector a little under three months to prepare himself before they left Abu Zara for the journey to Mecca. He knew his Arabic had become slightly stilted and rusty and would not convince a shrewd interrogator. The tanned skin of his face and arms had faded and the use of make-up would not withstand close scrutiny.

More importantly, his physical condition had deteriorated a little and he knew he was no longer battle fit. It was essential that he toughened himself up. Dave Imbiss and Tariq had planned to help him correct all these deficiencies.

Hector spent one night in the heady and rarefied luxury of Seascape Mansions. The next morning he kissed Catherine goodbye and he and Tariq went to join the labour force of a Saudi Arabian building contractor whose company was erecting yet another skyscraper on the Abu Zara beachfront.

The Abu Zara government had frowned upon the formation of trade unions in the emirate. The Emir in particular wished to dictate his own terms, and not to be beholden to his employees. With this example from on high, the foremen of Khidash Construction were not overly concerned with the rights of their labourers, human or otherwise.

The accommodation was primitive, the work brutal: sixteen to eighteen hours a day for seven days a week in the broiling sun, lugging sacks of concrete or crushed stone aggregate hundreds of feet up steep scaffolding, or working with pick and shovel in the deep foundations until their muscles burned and Hector’s face and arms turned a dark bronze from the sun. Their fellow workers were the dregs of humanity. Their social graces were totally devoid of couth. Their turn of phrase was colourful and colloquial. Hector soon regained his lost fluency. Stoically he endured three weeks on the Khidash site before he and Tariq moved a hundred miles south into the desert to the main Bannock Oil installation. Here they spent three or four hours a day on the firing range, honing their marksmanship with pistol and rifle.

With his contacts in the US military and his genius for weapons procurement, Dave Imbiss had located an M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System. Hector had pulled rank as a director to send the Bannock Oil jet to pick it up from the main US Marine base in Afghanistan. After only a few hours’ practice Hector was able to set up a line of half a dozen yellow tennis balls atop a sand dune. Hector reckoned that a tennis ball was a little smaller than a human brain, a fair target. From a measured range of three hundred and fifty metres he could explode every single one of the balls with six successive rapid-fire shots.

The M110 SASS, including its miraculously accurate optics, weighed only twenty-five pounds. Once it was broken down into its component parts it could be concealed effectively and carried by two men. Directly across the road from the mosque in Mecca where Aazim Muktar preached was a small public park, about two or three acres in extent. Tariq had reconnoitred an ideal stand in these gardens that overlooked the route the mullah took daily to walk from his home to the mosque and back. Tariq had paced out the range at 210 metres. Even on a moving target, that was a certain head-shot kill for Hector.

Of course, the most difficult part would be to smuggle the SASS into Mecca. Tariq had cultivated a contact in a transport company that, during the season of pilgrimage, carried thousands of tons of cargo every day from Jeddah airport into the city of Mecca. This was mostly in the form of perishable food items. However, Tariq was confident that he could get the sniper rifle through, once it was broken down into its separate parts. It could be labelled as spare parts for heavier machinery such as air conditioning or elevator units. Dave Imbiss was working closely with him on the project. He also had numerous contacts in Saudi Arabia who could be bribed or cajoled into assisting them. All this was merely long-range planning. There was plenty of time to work out a foolproof scheme. The final plan would only emerge after Hector had made the kill decision.

The last thirty days before they set out on the journey to Mecca were spent in the final toughening-up process that Hector had imposed upon himself and Tariq. Dave Imbiss sent one of his karate trainers out to the base. This creature was more machine than human. He took Hector to his limits and then pushed him even further, showing scant concern for either his rank or his status, nor for the fact that Hector was almost twice his age. In the end Hector earned his respect the hard way, teaching the young wolf to walk wide and wary of the leader of the pack.

Each evening, Hector had the helicopter fly the three of them out into the desert, in full battle gear. They parachuted to ground from low altitude and then ran twenty miles back to the base, still in full gear and lugging their parachutes.

In the beginning of the training it was harder for Hector than the two younger men. However, as he returned rapidly to his top form he began to revel in the brutal physical routine. He slept deeply and dreamlessly. The dreadful aching void left by Hazel began to close. At last he could remember her with joy rather than hopeless despair. He knew that he was going to avenge her death, and that maybe she would be able to rest more peaceably once he had accomplished that.

As his body regained its strength so too did his relationship with Tariq strengthen. The two of them were drawn as close as they had been many years ago. They had shared so much and together they had endured so much. They had stood shoulder to shoulder on the battlefield. Each of them had lost a beloved wife to the insensate cruelty of the Beast. Tariq’s wife Daliyah had been burned to death with her infant son in the ashes of their home. Shared tragedy was a strong bond between them.

Hector found that he was able to speak to Tariq about Hazel’s death as he could to nobody else, not even Paddy or Nastiya. Hazel had been with them on the expedition into Puntland to rescue her daughter Cayla from the fortress of Khan Tippoo Tip. Tariq had witnessed her courage and her physical stamina that matched that of even the toughest Cross Bow men. Tariq had developed a deep respect and admiration for Hazel. He wanted to know every detail of the ambush that the Beast had set for her. He listened intently while Hector explained how the attack had been carried out. At the end of Hector’s description Tariq inclined his head gravely and was silent for a while, gazing out across the desert from the top of the dune on which they were resting. Then he coughed, hawked and spat a yellow globule of phlegm. It hit the sand and rolled down the dune like a tiny ball of sand. They watched its progress in silence until it reached the foot of the dune, and then Tariq asked, ‘So, how did they know you were coming?’

The question took Hector by surprise. ‘The two swine on the motorcycle must have followed us when we left Harley Street. They probably called ahead to the masked truck driver,’ he explained.

‘Yes, I understand that; but how did the bikers know that you and Hazel would be with her doctor that morning? Who else knew that she had an appointment with him?’

Hector stared at him for a few seconds and then he swore softly.

‘Shit! You’re right. Nobody knew; except Hazel, her secretary and me.’

‘Can you trust the secretary?’

‘She has worked for Hazel for years. It couldn’t have been her. I would take strychnine on that!’

‘Somebody knew,’ Tariq said firmly. ‘It’s the only explanation for what happened.’