Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (46 page)

Deeley raised his hands again. The crowd was not as quick to take
their cue from him on that
finally
brought themselves
that it took for them to respond to his signal was clearly a source of
irritation to him andJack felt that it wouldn’t take much more for him to
lose all control and reveal his true nature to the crowd. He had the
appearance
of a supply teacher
on the verge of
cracking under the
pressure of an unruly class.

“I would urge all
of you to reserve judgement to until after you
have listened to the individual
proposals.
the proposals in the adult fashion that I
be willing to listen to your concerns. People, I would like to remind
you of just how many
of you have set aside differences in the name of
cooperation. Do not let your fears stand in the way
of a great shared
future. Now please, enjoy the hospitality. I will speak to all
of you as
the evening progresses.
Our hosts have guaranteed the safety
of this
place until tomorrow night, should we need it.”

Jack smiled to himself. Their
hosts
couldn’t guarantee anything.
Deeley walked away and the crowd turned to
one another for some
hot
debate. Jack watched
her. She was just as
he remembered
her.
There wasn’t any fear
on her face,
or in her voice. Strong and brave;
brilliant and in mortal danger. She was just how he remembered. She
was clearly running interference in an effort to breed discontent and
bring down the network, but if that was obvious to Jack then it would
be obvious to Deeley as well.

Jack turned as best he could and he started to make his way back
to the bathroom. Once again Jack found himself in the slightly
embarrassing position of not having a plan. He needed to get to her, to save
her, but he had no idea what that rescue would look like. With a room
full
of ruthless killers to get
past the
odds this time were simply too
high. The only
option
open to him was to do something about those
long odds. He needed to get her on her own and then to safety. When he
got to the trapdoor Jack
placed an
ear
on top
of it and he listened
intently for any signs of life in the bathroom. There was nothing. Jack
opened the trapdoor and he began to lower himself
down onto the

occasion.
After a few tense moments they

After you have considered
have suggested, then I will
toilet seat.
As his feet came down to rest
on the seat Jack made eye
contact with the man sitting on the toilet in the stall next to him. The
man had a worried
expression
on his face. Jack smiled
down at the
man.

“Sorry about this,” Jack said.
“I’m carrying
out a security sweep.
You know? Deeley’s
orders. The
man is security
on the brain.
Don’t
mind me.”

morphed to a look of anger. Jack unlocked the door to his cubicle and he
stepped outside. He couldn’t take the chance that the man in the toilet
would
not
say
something,
He waited.
When
the
man
eventually
opened the door to his cubicle he was
met with a fast
moving right
hook from Jack. The man fell back onto the toilet. He was out cold.

He
moved
quickly to the toilet
block
door.
Carefully
he
opened
the door just a crack and he checked the corridor. Two guards were
standing
outside the doors to the room where Deeley
had addressed
his
organisation. One of them was smoking a cigarette. There had to
be a way to get
past the guards without
causing a
commotion. He
needed to find that way and quickly as it would only
be a
matter of
time before someone else came in to use the toilet. The guy in the cubicle wouldn’t stay out cold forever.

Jack almost found himself in awe of the network that was effortlessly
transporting the weapons across the continent. At least he would have
been in awe of it had it not been for the fact that the very
ease with
which the weapons were being moved frightened him to his very core.
He never showed her that he was genuinely worried, but
Alexa was
clever and highly intuitive and Jack was not as inscrutable as he may
have liked to think. He had given himself to her wholeheartedly and
that openness came at a price—she could see into his soul.

As the days passed and the nuclear weapons stayed ahead of them,
always
out
of reach, Jack grew
more and
more apprehensive. The
thought of thousands of innocent people being destroyed in the name
of
pointless ideology
frightened
him;
but
the thought
that
Alexa was
heading towards that
destruction utterly terrified him. He was
not
afraid for himself, but if she was to get hurt,
or killed, then he would
want to be dead too. He was hers, mind, body and soul and his protective instincts told him to take her as far away from Israel as he could,
and quickly. There was no way that she would even consider such a

move and so he saved them both from an argument by not bringing it
up.

With each town that they passed through they picked up a little
more information. Never
once did her smile falter. Never
once did she
lose her cool. For her the mission would
only
end when she had the
weapons
under
her
control,
or when those weapons
killed
her.
One
name kept
coming up time and time again as she
questioned people
along the way;
The Base
—it was a translation of an Arabic term, and
it was an organisation that Jack had never heard of before. The group
was based out
of
Afghanistan or the mountains
of Pakistan and even
the Israelis were finding it hard to gain information
on them. They
were very secretive and utterly ruthless.

“How
did they
become so influential so
quickly?” Jack asked, as
they sat in the heat
of an early eighties Ford Cortina on the Jordanian
side of the border, waiting for the border guards to get to them.

“Money,” Alexa said, simply.
Jack smiled.
“Come
on, there has to be more to it than that. If it was
only a

matter
of
money then
America would have bought into groups like
that a long time ago.”
It was
Alexa’s turn to smile.
“What’s so funny?” Jack asked.
“America has been buying its way into those kinds
of groups for
years. They pretty much funded the Mujahideen in their fight against
the Russians. Many
of their
operatives, including the leader
of The
Base, have been trained in terror tactics by the CIA.”
“I
don’t understand. Surely that would make them the good guys?
Why are they getting involved with any
of this? The communists are
still in power in Afghanistan, even though the Russians have left. You
would think they had enough to be getting on with in their own country without getting involved in this carry on,” Jack mused.
“America was their great ally until the CIA pulled all funding. That
left a hole
of several hundred million dollars a year for them to fill.
That’s where the new leader came in. He is the son of a wealthy Saudi
industrialist. He has used his own money and money from billionaires
all
over the Middle East to make up for the cash that
America withdrew. This guy is no goat herder; he was educated in the West and he
is very well connected. He even managed to buy weapons from the