A Conflict of Interests (31 page)

"That comes later. Right now, I want to talk to Raschid."

Urquhart said, "Well, okay," and passed the phone to Jalud. For a moment it looked as though the Libyan would refuse to speak to Patterson, but finally he capitulated and grunted a terse hello into the mouthpiece.

"It's good to hear you again," Patterson said.

"Is it?"

"I'll be even more happy to see your face."

"What?"

"You're coming part of the way," Patterson said coldly. "When the plane stops, you get out and walk forward until you meet up with me. I'll give you my rucksack containing the down payment and then we'll split. Of course, if you don't trust Urquhart to deliver the rest of the material, you'll have to get right back in again."

"You're mad."

"No, just cautious," Patterson said, and hung up.

Coghill placed the eavesdropper on the table. They had reached the crunch point and he still wasn't sure how to play it. As though to pressure him, Stanton leaned through the window to ask if there had been a last-minute change of plan.

"Not really," Coghill said. "But we do have a problem."

"Oh yes?" Stanton eyed him thoughtfully. "Like what?"

"Like who's going to stay behind."

"I don't see any problem there. Patterson's dangerous; we're armed, you aren't."

"It's not that simple," Caroline said firmly. "In the first place, one of you will have to make room for me, because I'm the case officer."

"Don't tell me you're pulling rank," Stanton said, mocking her.

"If I have to." She paused, then said, "I'm quite sure the director general will back me up."

Stanton gave it a lot of thought, rubbing his jaw continually. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders and said he'd take her word for it.

"Good. Now, in the second place, this is a joint operation with the police."

"Nobody's told me," Stanton said, interrupting her. "And I'm not about to believe it on your say-so."

"You don't have to. Any moment now, this phone will ring and you'll have all the proof you need."

"You're having me on." Stanton rubbed his jaw again. "Aren't you?

"Why don't you wait and see?" Caroline invited him sweetly.

The phone rang at eight minutes past nine. Answering it, she listened intently, then requested the caller to repeat everything he'd just said and walked the phone over to Stanton. By the time he'd finished talking to the DI5 contact at Scotland Yard, Coghill knew he was home and dry.

"Newmarket, then zero three nine degrees; eleven minutes later you'll see two orange-colored winking lights." Vaudrey repeated the essential instructions Urquhart had received, slammed the phone down and backed out of the booth in the lobby of The Bell Hotel. He had picked a dozen potential sites off the map and had dispatched the backup team to check out the seven located south and west of Thetford while he and Zellick tackled the remainder. At 2015, both parties had rendezvoused at The Bell to compare notes and, as a result, had discovered that every damned one could be used as a landing strip in an emergency. He just hoped this latest information would give him a better steer.

Vaudrey crossed the lobby in a few strides and entered the residents' lounge where Zellick was occupying the only writing desk in the room, a pile of neatly folded one-inch-to-one-mile ordnance survey maps in front of him. Leaning across him, Vaudrey found the one he wanted, located Newmarket, and converting the bearing from magnetic to grid, plotted it on the map. Eleven minutes' flying time was roughly the equivalent of twenty-six miles on the ground and, subtending the angle, he drew a line which stretched most of the way to the top right-hand corner.

"What does that leave us with?" Zellick asked.

"Moorfields Farm, Deane Cottage and Linton House."

"They're all in the group we looked at."

Vaudrey nodded. "From a distance and without any precise information to go on." He paused to draw two large lozenges on the map, one embracing Moorfields Farm and Deane Cottage, the other, Linton House. "This time around we'll be looking for a couple of flashing beacons."

"So which is our lozenge, Nick?"

"The nearest one, starting with Moorfields Farm."

Vaudrey glanced at his wristwatch, realized that, on his instructions, the duty officer would have already passed the details of the flight plan on to Scotland Yard, and hurriedly stuffed the maps into his briefcase. Then he left the lounge to brief the backup team who were waiting for him in the parking lot behind the hotel.

Patterson measured the bearing with his protractor, converted it from grid to magnetic and compared the answer with the figure he'd previously written on a scrap of paper. It was a pointless exercise, considering the Piper Cherokee had been airborne for the past fifteen minutes, but it was indicative of the tension he was under that he felt compelled to check his calculations for the umpteenth time.

"How much longer do I have to stay like this?"

Patterson looked up and swiveled around to face Anthea Deane. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the study, ankles tucked under her rump, hands clasped together on top of her head. The uncomfortable position had a twofold purpose; it was psychologically intimidating and it was impossible for her to make the slightest movement without him noticing it. As a result, he'd been able to plot a course for the Piper Cherokee and brief Urquhart without having to keep an eye on her all the time.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

"I'm getting a cramp in my legs."

"You'd better get up then."

"Thank God," she murmured.

"You can thank him after I've gone," Patterson told her. "Right now, it's a little premature."

He reached for the Luger automatic lying on the desk and tucked the barrel into the waistband of his slacks, the butt facing to the right. Then he picked up the sawed-off shotgun and motioned Anthea to move ahead of him.

"Why the hurry all of a sudden?" she demanded.

"We've got to set things up," he said vaguely.

The plane was still a good ten minutes' flying time from Newmarket, but the thought of sitting around the house doing nothing was slowly driving him nuts. The shotgun pressed into her neck, he steered Anthea down the hall into the kitchen and told her to pick up and carry the rucksack. Then he led her through the back garden into the field beyond to mark the axis of the landing strip with two orange-colored winking lights. Away to the northeast in the direction of Norwich, a flash of sheet lightning lit the dark sky; a few moments later there was a rumble of thunder, a sign that the storm which had been threatening since midafternoon was about to break.

Vaudrey pressed the transmit button on his Pye radio and blew into the mike in a vain attempt to coax it into life. In his haste to get out of the car, he'd dropped the set on the road and now the damned thing had gone all temperamental on him and refused to work. Unable to communicate with anybody, he was in something of a cleft stick. Before proceeding to Deane Cottage, he'd called the backup team at Linton House to inform them there were no signs of unusual activity in the area of Moorfields Farm. If they also drew a blank at their location, they were required to rendezvous with him; their continued absence therefore suggested they'd found something. Should he double back to Linton House or stay where he was? The question was straightforward enough, but for the life of him, Vaudrey couldn't decide which was the right answer.

"Why don't we move through the wood and take a look at Deane Cottage?" Zellick said in a low voice. "We're not achieving anything standing around here."

Vaudrey thought it over, then said, "We'll give them another five minutes."

"Well, okay, it's your show, Nick."

"There's no need to remind me."

Vaudrey moved away and cocked his head on one side, hoping to catch the sound of an approaching vehicle above the continuous rumble of thunder. Finding he couldn't, he started walking toward the bend in the road a hundred yards away. Within a few paces, the twin beams of an oncoming car briefly illuminated the hedgerow ahead, then a Ford Cortina swept around the curve and drew up alongside him.

Responding to a series of frantic hand signals, the driver waited until the rest of the backup team had alighted before he drove forward onto the grass verge and switched off the ignition. By the time he'd gotten out and closed the door quietly behind him, Vaudrey and the others were already deep in the wood and running hard. The steady note of an airplane engine prompted him to follow their example.

Patterson smiled. No doubt about it, that was a plane he could hear above the thunder and it was low and coming their way. Three, maybe four minutes from now and he would be airborne on the way to France. So okay, he was flat broke and didn't have a cent to his name, but what did that matter? There was a man he knew in Alençon who would grubstake him, an old acquaintance from Saigon days when they'd cornered the market in narcotics.

"You hear it?" he asked Anthea.

"Yes." Her voice was low, but there was no mistaking the note of relief.

"Good." Patterson grabbed hold of her elbow with his left hand. "Soon after the Cherokee rolls to a stop, a friend of mine will get out and come toward us. When he does, you and I will go forward to meet him."

"Why do you need me?" she asked.

"As a shield," he told her. "I don't take chances."

"There they are," Urquhart shouted above the roar of the aero engine. "Two orange-colored winking lights."

Coghill leaned forward, saw the flashing beacons and beyond them, the white tracing tape that arrowed the runway. As the Cherokee dropped lower and skimmed the treetops, he instinctively reached into his pocket for the 9mm Browning automatic Stanton had given him. Then, just as he thought they were going straight in, Urquhart opened the throttle and hauled back on the stick. Banking hard to port, he made a tight 180-degree turn that left Coghill's stomach somewhere on the floor and came in on the second approach, throttling back as he did so.

The ground rose swiftly to meet them, the Cherokee touched down, lifted off again, then came down to earth with a solid bump. Engine blipping, they taxied past the hazard warning signs and gradually rolled to a halt.

"I guess we've arrived, old sport," Urquhart said unnecessarily.

Coghill eased the safety catch forward on the automatic, reached for the door and in that same instant, felt a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"For God's sake, be careful, Tom," Caroline said in an anxious voice. "Don't take any risks."

"You can say that again," Stanton growled. "The last thing we need is a dead copper."

"That's what I like about you," Coghill told him drily. "You're a real little ray of sunshine."

Coghill pushed the door open, stepped down and, skirting the wingtip, slowly began to move forward, his right arm close to his side, the wrist crooked behind him to conceal the Browning. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten; he counted the paces silently, eyes probing the darkness. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen; another clap of thunder and the first raindrops. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen…

"Over here, Raschid."

Although the Cherokee was still ticking over, its engine beat was low enough for Coghill to hear the voice and veer toward it. A few yards farther on, he spotted two blurred figures, one a good head taller than the other. Drawing nearer, he saw that the smaller figure was a woman and realized that Patterson was using her as a shield. They were just twenty feet apart when another and much louder voice with a nasal accent called out to Patterson and said, "This is the police, Orville. Stay right where you are."

Both Coghill and Patterson stopped dead, but the woman had the presence of mind to hurl herself forward. As she hugged the ground, Coghill saw a stab of flame a split second before he heard the boom of a shotgun; then something very solid thumped into his chest. Legs buckling under him, he sank down onto his knees and toppled over on his left side, the blood rapidly spreading across his shirt front. Somehow he managed to hold on to the Browning and when the shotgun boomed again, he raised the automatic, aimed it at Patterson and squeezed the trigger. He went on squeezing it until the darkness closed in on him and he was no longer conscious of anything.

The darkness had closed in on Patterson too, except that in his case it happened to be permanent. Caught in the crossfire from the backup team, he lay face down in the grass, four bullet wounds in his stomach, the back of his skull blown away.

The thunder was still around, a low continuous drumbeat, which Coghill thought was very odd, because he was almost sure he could see the round yellow orb of the moon through a break in the clouds above his head. It also felt as if he were floating up to meet it, his body weightless in space, his mind befuddled from lack of oxygen. Then a stab of pain lanced his chest and brought him back to reality.

"Where the hell am I?" The words came out in a harsh whisper and in a voice he hardly recognized.

"It's all right, Tom, we're nearly there."

A soft hand squeezed his and presently the mist cleared long enough for him to see a face smiling down at him.

"Caroline?"

"Yes, it's me." She squeezed his hand again as if to give him the strength to hang on.

"Don't leave me," he croaked.

"I won't," she promised.

He'd wanted to know where they were taking him in the ambulance, but that no longer seemed important. She was there; that was all that mattered to him.

Four-thirty. Vaudrey stretched his arms above his head and yawned. Outside, the first gray light of dawn would be creeping over the rooftops of London, the air fresh from the overnight rain, unlike the cigar-laden atmosphere in the basement of Leconfield House. The acrid smoke made his eyes smart and his head was throbbing, but there were still another four video cassettes awaiting his attention and he was determined to go on to the bitter end.

Vaudrey supposed he ought to congratulate himself on having had the foresight to pass the results of the phone tap to the DI5 contact at Scotland Yard. That, plus a full and not entirely accurate account of Jalud's involvement, had preempted any possibility of an official Home Office inquiry regarding his role in the whole affair. But it wasn't enough; somehow he had to find a means of restoring his tarnished reputation before word of the fiasco at Deane Cottage reached the ears of the director general. If ever it did, he would have Zellick to thank for that. He couldn't prove anything, of course, but he was damned sure Walter had known exactly what he was doing when he'd called out to Patterson, and was banking on his intervention to precipitate a fire fight.