Bad Company (11 page)

“You’re a great comfort.”

“Watch your back, my friend. Isn’t that what they say in Belfast?”

He went and she turned, went up to the altar and knelt in prayer. Behind her, Marco Rossi tiptoed out.

The Baron was using the Rashid house in South Audley Street not far from Park Lane. He sat by the fire in the Georgian living room and listened intently. When Marco was finished, the old man took a deep breath.

“Get me a brandy, Marco. We always suspected this, but it’s still a shock.”

Marco went and got the drink, gave it to him and offered a cigarette from a silver case. “So what do you want me to do?”

“Nothing yet. We’ll see what the Prime Minister has to say tomorrow.”

“And then?”

“Marco, you didn’t meet Kate Rashid. It was just before you came into my life, and our business dealings, of their very nature, had to be private, but one thing is a fact. I am only sitting here now because of her. I can only pay her back in one way. What she failed to achieve, I will achieve for her.”

Marco looked taken aback. “What? You don’t mean – Cazalet?”

“Oh, I have something in mind for the President, all right, but we’ll take it slowly. Ferguson and Dillon come first. Yes, first we’ll deal with them. I’m sure you’ll be up for that, Marco, won’t you?”

At Downing Street the following morning, the Baron and Marco Rossi were admitted and shown to the Cabinet Room, where they found Ferguson and Blake Johnson waiting, standing on either side of the Prime Minister, who sat in his usual center chair.

“Baron,” he said. “Please be seated. This won’t take long.”

The Baron sat and Rossi stood behind him. “I appreciate your frankness. What is the problem, Prime Minister?”

“Berger International was already giving us problems. Your dealings with Iraq, for example, are not acceptable.”

“It’s a free market.”

“Not when it comes to arms-dealing. Now we hear of your connection with Rashid and your control over the oil market. It won’t do, not in the context of terrorism, and the Middle East and Southern Arabia. To be frank, my government will place every obstacle we can think of in your way.”

“Excellent.” The Baron stood up. “So now we know where we stand. Good morning, Prime Minister,” and he walked out, followed by Rossi.

The Prime Minister turned to Ferguson. “Keep an eye on him, General. I don’t trust that man one bit.”

Outside Number Ten, the Baron was still sitting in his Rolls-Royce, the door open, Rossi standing beside it, as Ferguson approached.

“Was there something else, Baron?”

“Don’t bother with your disposal team, General, I’m not Rupert Dauncey.”

“Oh, dear, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ferguson said.

“Don’t bother. I know everything.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means that I am declaring
Jihad
on you in memory of my dear friend Kate Rashid. Tell that to Dillon, and the rest of your friends.”

Rossi joined him, closed the door and they drove away.

“Well, to quote our hostile friend, at least now we know where we stand, Charles.” Blake shook hands. “I’ll see you.”

Ferguson went to his Daimler, the chauffeur standing beside it. Dillon was waiting in the rear and Ferguson joined him. He punched a number on his mobile. It was answered instantly.

“Who is this?”

“Roper, this is Ferguson. Get yourself down to the Dark Man and bring the file you’ve prepared on von Berger. We’ve got problems.”

“Will Sean be with you?”

“Yes.”

“On my way.”

As they drove off, Dillon said, “Well?”

“Oh, the Prime Minister put the boot in hard. No kind of government cooperation. They’ll place all sorts of obstacles in the Baron’s way.”

“And how did he take it?”

“He’s just declared
Jihad
on all of us in memory of Kate Rashid – and he told me he wasn’t a candidate for the disposal team.”

“That’s interesting.”

“He knows, Dillon, God knows how. So I think it’s time we had a council of war.”

“Well, that makes sense.” Dillon lit a cigarette. “Quite like old times.”

As they progressed through the usual bad London traffic, Dillon thought about von Berger and what he would entail. The Daimler turned along a narrow lane between warehouse developments and came out on a wharf beside the Thames. They parked outside
The Dark Man,
Salter’s pub, its painted sign showing a sinister individual in a dark cloak.

The main bar was very Victorian: mirrors, mahogany bars behind, porcelain beer pumps. Dora, the barmaid, sat on a stool reading
The London Evening Standard.

The afternoon trade was light except for four men in the corner booth, and a fifth alongside. Harry Salter, his nephew Billy, his minders, Joe Baxter and Sam Hall, and Major Roper in his wheelchair.

Harry Salter looked up, saw Dillon first. “You little Irish bastard. And you, General. What’s going on?”

“Oh, a great deal, Harry.” Ferguson squeezed in. “We’ve got trouble and it affects all of us. How are you, Roper?”

The man in the state-of-the-art wheelchair smiled. He wore a reefer coat, his hair down to his shoulders, and his face was a taut mass of the scar tissue associated with burns. A Royal Engineers’ bomb disposal expert, decorated with the George Cross, his extraordinary career had been terminated by what he called a “silly little bomb” in a family car in Belfast.

He’d survived and discovered a whole new career in computers. Now, if you wanted to find out anything in cyberspace, it was Roper you called.

“I’m fine, General.”

“And you have the file?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Excellent.”

“Here, what goes on?” Harry Salter asked.

Ferguson said, “You see to the drinks, Dillon, and I’ll fill them in.”

Afterward, Harry Salter said, “So we’re back with Kate Rashid. She was going to knock us all off, and now
this
geezer has taken over.”

Dillon, standing at the bar, was joined by Billy, who said, “What do you think, Dillon?”

“I think he’s serious business, Billy.”

“Well, we’ve handled serious business before.”

“Yes, and it got you a bullet through your neck, eighteen stitches in your face and two bullets through the pelvis.”

“Dillon, I’m fit now. I work with a personal trainer every day.”

“Billy, you jumped out of an airplane for me at four hundred feet, twice. It’s over, that kind of thing.”

“So, I’m still good on the street.”

“We’ll see, younger brother.”

Behind them, Ferguson had finished. Harry Salter said, “A right bastard, this one. Just as bad as her.”

“So it would appear. What do you think, Roper?”

“Well, the coming together of Rashid and Berger does make them one of the most powerful corporations in the world. It’s the apotheosis of capitalism – if that doesn’t sound too Marxist.”

Ferguson nodded. “It’s like a bad novel, the whole thing.” He turned to Harry Salter. “I’ve had a trying morning, Harry. Could I have your famous shepherd’s pie and an indifferent red wine? I’m in need of comfort.”

AT THE RASHID house in South Audley Street the Baron sat in the drawing room with Marco.

“So what’s our game plan?” Marco asked.

“Let’s start by taking some action against the small fry, these gangsters, the Salters.”

“I’ll work something out. I have Newton and Cook keeping Dillon’s place under surveillance.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Just to keep an eye on him, see where he goes, what contacts he makes. I’ve given Newton the addresses of those involved on a regular basis with him, also computer photos.”

“Where did you get those?”

“From the computer right here in the study. There’s a mass of information there – details of various schemes and operations Kate Rashid has put into play.”

“Business?”

“Of a sort.”

“I’ll leave it all to you, for the moment, Marco. With the merger of the two companies, I have enough on my hands. Just keep me informed.”

“Of course, Father,” Marco said and went out.

The next morning, the “council of war” had moved to Roper’s apartment in Regency Square. It was on the ground floor, with its own entrance and a slope to aid wheelchair users. Roper insisted on looking after himself and had had the apartment, from bathroom to kitchen, specially designed to take care of his problems.

His sitting room had been turned into a state-of-the-art computer laboratory, including some highly classified equipment, which was there mainly because it suited Charles Ferguson. Over the years since his disaster in Belfast, Roper had become a legend in the world of computers. He had broken every kind of system from Moscow to Washington and he had proved his worth to Ferguson and the Prime Minister on more than one occasion.

On that morning, Sean Dillon arrived first in his Mini Cooper, parked and pressed the doorbell. The voice box crackled and Roper said, “Who is it?”

“Sean, you idiot, let me in.”

The door swung open and he went through into the sitting room and found Roper in his wheelchair at the bank of computers. He crossed to a sideboard, found a bottle of Irish whiskey and poured one.

“Paddy? Okay, well, it’s not Bushmills, but you’re improving.”

“I’m on a pension, Dillon. The Ministry of Defence being as parsimonious as it is, I have to watch my pennies.”

“You could always sell your medals. The Military Cross would do okay, but the George Cross would make a fortune.”

“You’re always so amusing.” Roper tried a smile, always difficult with that ravaged, burned face.

“Don’t start feeling sorry for yourself. Ferguson said you had found something?”

“Yes, but let’s wait for them.” The front doorbell went and he pressed the remote control. “Here they are.”

A moment later, Ferguson appeared, and with him a woman in her late thirties, with red hair, wearing an Armani trouser suit. She looked like some high-level business executive, but she was Ferguson’s assistant, Detective Superintendent Hannah Bernstein, on loan to him from Special Branch. She had an M.A. in psychology from Oxford, but she had killed more than once in the line of duty.

“Ah, Dillon,” the general said, “we can get straight on with it. What have you got for us, Major?”

“You wanted me to have a look at von Berger in general, the way he’s been able to take over Rashid? Well, I discovered something interesting. A couple of years ago, he hiked two billion into Rashid for their oil exploration in Hazar and the Empty Quarter.”

There was silence. Hannah said, “Where on earth would he get that sort of money?”

“Swiss banks. And it made me smell a rather large rat.”

It was Dillon who said, “Let me guess. We’re into Nazi gold.”

“And not only that,” said Roper. “I got this story from an Israeli intelligence source. Von Berger was in Baghdad to see Saddam on some arms deal – and he was attacked by a mob in the old city. They were going to lynch him, when Kate Rashid came on the scene with a few Bedus, pistol in hand, and saved his life.”

“I can see it now,” Dillon said.

“Not being able to sleep at two-thirty in the morning, as often happens,” Roper went on, “I decided to go back even further on von Berger. You know that story that he left Berlin in a Storch that happened to be there as a backup in case von Greim’s Arado had problems? He told American and British intelligence that it was simply opportunistic. He knew it was waiting in Goebbels’s garage and commandeered it.”

“Only you don’t buy it,” Dillon put in.

“Not for a moment. It was all too convenient. So I decided to access the Führer Bunker on my computer. I worked through the Records Office, the accounts of his interrogations, then I got into the University of Berlin’s stuff on the Bunker, all the people there, those who died, those who faded away, those who rushed into the night in a mostly vain attempt to escape the Russians. Von Berger’s escape was obviously logged.”

“Where is this getting us?” Hannah asked.

“They’ve kept their records updated. Would you like to know how many people who were in the Führer Bunker in 1945 are still in the land of the living now?”

Ferguson said, “Other than eighty-year-old Max von Berger?”

“Yes. How would you like Sara Hesser, an SS auxiliary, who was used by the Führer as a relief secretary for his last six months in the Bunker? She was twenty-two years old in April 1945. That makes her seventy-nine now.”

“Jesus,” Dillon said.

Ferguson said, “You’re obviously leading up to something.”

“Yes, you could say that. In the final debacle, when everyone fled the Bunker, by some miracle she was one of those who got through the underground tunnels and finally reached the West. She was in the hands of British intelligence in Munich, interrogated and released. In 1945, she met a British captain called George Grant, who was serving in the army of occupation. He married her two years later.”

“And what happened?” Hannah demanded.

“She came to England. He was a lawyer. They never had children. According to her interrogation reports, she’d been gang-raped by Russian soldiers.”

“My God,” Hannah said. “And now?”

“Her husband died of cancer five years ago. She lives at twenty-three Brick Lane, that’s in Wapping by the Thames. You can extract anything from these things.” He tapped the computer. “It’s a three-storied terrace house that she and her husband owned for forty-five years. The way London property has gone these days, it’s worth nine hundred thousand.”

“I think that deserves another drink.” Dillon went to the Paddy bottle.

Ferguson said, “You’re telling us that we have a woman who was a secretary to Hitler in the last few months of the war?”