Diamondhead (40 page)
Authors: Patrick Robinson
Tags: #Suspense, #Fiction, #Political, #Thrillers, #Weapons industry, #War & Military, #Assassination, #Iraq War; 2003-
Mack Bedford stared at him. Mr. Kumar was dressed in dark-blue pants, with a dark-blue sweater over a white shirt. He wore a green apron and carried a small jeweler’s glass in his left hand. He had eyes that were almost jet black. Mack put him at around forty-five.
“I presume you are here to purchase a firearm, Mr. McArdle,” said the Indian. “And before we even start I must ask you how you intend to pay for it. I take no checks, and I accept no credit cards. I also leave no trails for anyone who might be interested. No rifle or handgun leaves here with any form of identifying marks, which is against the law. However, I am more concerned with the well-being of my clients than foolish English bureaucracy.”
Mack liked what he was hearing. He liked it very much. Liam O’Brien had been a stroke of luck. Kumar was a professional, the definition of which is, in its purest form, a person involved with the total elimination of mistakes. Professionalism has nothing to do with money. Well, not much anyway.
“Mr. Kumar,” said Mack, “I am happy with all that you have said. Of course, I realized you would need to be paid in cash.”
“Then I imagine we have reached the point where you tell me what you need,” said the gunsmith.
“I require a sniper rifle, but I am uncertain precisely what type. Also, I am in a real hurry, so I must accept your recommendation.”
“Range?”
“Around 100 yards, no more than 150.”
“Single-shot bolt action or a five-round feed magazine?”
“Single-shot bolt will be fine. I do not expect to fire more than twice.”
“Silencer?”
“If possible. And a telescopic sight.”
“Six-by-twenty-four 2FM?”
“Perfect.”
“I can give you shot grouping of less than 40 centimeters over 800 meters, 7.62-millimeter caliber with a muzzle velocity of 860 meters per second.”
“That’s outstanding. What kind of rifle will it be?”
“I’m thinking of an Austrian-built SSG-69. A lot of people have tried to build a better sniper rifle, but in my opinion no one’s ever improved it. The British SAS used it for years; some of them still do.”
“Will it take long to get?”
“Mr. McArdle, I am assuming you will want this rifle tailored to your precise measurements, and perhaps shortened, while retaining its accuracy?”
“That is what I need.”
“The time is a matter for you. I can only go so fast with a precision instrument like this.”
At this point Mack Bedford produced his very fine toolbox. “My biggest problem may be that it has to fit in here,” he said.
Mr. Kumar was in no way disturbed. He opened the box and produced a tape measure, swiftly measuring each dimension.
“The SSG-69 is sufficiently long, but it will restrict you to a hardened, cold-forged 13-inch barrel. On a rifle like this, it’s a perfectly adequate length.”
Mack nodded, understanding the language.
“I do have two of those rifles here, and I could probably begin work immediately. Let me measure you right now.” He handed the former SEAL a black rod.
Mack took up his shooting stance, right hand on the spot where the trigger ought to be. The gunsmith measured him down his left arm length, and then measured the distance between his right shoulder and his trigger finger, across the hypotenuse formed by Mack’s elbow and forearm.
“Yes, that ought not to be too much trouble,” he said. “The stock on these rifles is made from some form of cycolac, which I will cut out and remove. That will leave you with an aluminum stock, formed by two struts with a wide, fitted shoulder rest. I presume you favor your left eye?”
“Correct.”
“Well, Mr. McArdle. You may leave the rest to me. I am presuming you will want high-velocity bullets that explode on impact—chrome, slim entry point? Are you intending a head shot?”
“Possibly two, if the rifle’s sufficiently quiet.”
“Your toolbox has ample room. I think we can oblige you in every respect. There will, of course, be no serial numbers on the rifle, which is illegal, but it is the way things like this are done. No one will ever know where you got the rifle, or who made it. Mr. Liam O’Brien liked that very much.”
“And the price?”
“Depends on how soon you want it, whether I need to drop everything for this one job.”
“It’s Monday today. How about Saturday?”
“Saturday! That would be a very great rush. If you want it then, it will cost you thirty thousand pounds. If you will give me another week, it will be twenty-four thousand. Either way, it will be half down now, and the balance when you collect the rifle.”
“Saturday. I will pay you fifteen thousand pounds right now.”
Mr. Kumar looked suitably impressed but not amazed. “You will not regret this, Mr. McArdle. This is a superb sniper rifle and, in the right hands, cannot miss. Also, I will engineer it to screw together very quickly with no room for error.”
“Will it come apart just as easily?”
“No problem. A matter of seconds.”
Mack turned away and dug into his bag, searching for his bundles of English cash. He found them quickly and produced five stacks of fifty-pound notes, neatly bound, sixty in each. He handed them over, and then he made two more requests of Mr. Kumar.
“Could you get me a Draeger rebreathing apparatus?”
“Of course. Direct from Germany. How far do you intend to travel under the water?”
“Maybe a long way. Two hours.”
“Then you’ll need the Delphin I. It’s their best, state of the art, standard issue, U.S. Navy.”
“Oh, really?” said Mack. “That good?”
“The best. They’ll ship to me FedEx. Be here in two days. But it’s not cheap. Do you want it to be filled and ready to go?”
“Of course.”
“I only ask because some people are nervous walking around with a small tank of compressed oxygen. You’re not going to take it through an airport, are you?”
“Christ, no!” said Mack.
Mr. Kumar smiled. “I will get it for you, and I charge a 20 percent commission on the retail price.”
“It’s a deal.”
“Pay me when you pick up the rifle on Saturday.”
The two men walked back to the staircase and made their way to the front door.
“Are you from India, originally?” asked Mack.
“Oh, yes, but I hardly remember it. My family is from a small town on the north bank of the River Ganges up near the Bangladesh border. Place called Manihari.”
“West Bengal?”
“How could you possibly know that?” replied Mr. Kumar, smiling.
Mack, who like many naval officers had an encyclopedic memory for geographic facts, told him, “Well, I don’t know the exact town, but I know that West Bengal hugs the frontier with Bangladesh, and I know the Ganges floods into the Bay of Bengal.”
“Ha, ha, ha. You’re like Sahib Sherlock of Baker Street. Very good detective.”
Mack wasn’t too sure about Sahib Sherlock, but he found himself chuckling with the tall Bengali.
“And how did you get here?” he asked.
“Oh, my father emigrated here when I was only four. He was a mechanic in the army, and then he started a garage here in Southall. He still has it, and he does not approve of my business. But he drives a small Ford. I have a very large BMW. Big difference. Ha, ha, ha!”
Mack shook the hand of the Indian gunsmith. “There’s usually bigger money for men who take bigger risks. But be careful. What time on Saturday?”
“Come at noon. Ha, ha.”
Raul Declerc sat in his Marseille headquarters, still depressed about the way he’d had the big fish on his line, and then failed to land it. Damn Morrison.
It was the second time in his life that greed had been the downfall of Raul Declerc. The first had caused him to run for his life from the watchdogs of MI-6, who were wondering where the hell their two million pounds had gone. The former Col. Reggie Fortescue had thus been obliged to race from London to Dover and board a cross-Channel ferry to flee the country. He had left with a few hundred thousand pounds, but he was only forty years old, and now lived with the fact that he had brought disgrace upon himself, his family, and his regiment.
He would never return to his native Scotland, and in the intervening three years he had spent his time looking for another big hit to make him a million. The mysterious Morrison had appeared to be that opportunity. And now Morrison had vanished, leaving Colonel Reggie to rue the day he had asked for another million.
He knew it, and Morrison plainly knew it. Greed had yet again been Reggie’s downfall. And now, with his new French identity and his fourth cup of Turkish coffee of the morning, he racked his brain to come up with a salvage plan.
There was only one. He had information, and, in a sense, it was priceless information. At any rate, it was to one person in all of France. He told the secretary to find him a number for the Gaullist Campaign Office in Rennes, Brittany, and then to connect him.
It took five minutes, but the connection was made, and an automatic recorded voice came on his line saying, “Vote for Henri Foche,
pour Bretagne, pour la France.”
Almost immediately another voice, human, female, came on, and confirmed this was indeed Henri Foche’s campaign headquarters, and what could she do to help?
pour Bretagne, pour la France.”
Almost immediately another voice, human, female, came on, and confirmed this was indeed Henri Foche’s campaign headquarters, and what could she do to help?
Raul spoke carefully, asking to be put through to Henri Foche. He was told that Monsieur Foche would not be in the office for another hour, but could she tell him what the call was about?
Thus suitably screened, Raul said quietly, “I have some very valuable information for him. And it is of a highly dangerous nature. It is important that I speak to him in person. I will call back in one hour.” Before M. Foche’s assistant had time to ask him for his name and number, Raul rang off.
He called back in one hour and spoke to the same woman, who asked him to hold the line. Two minutes later a voice said, “This is Henri Foche.”
Raul, giving himself his old title from the days when he was respectable, replied, “My name is Col. Raul Declerc, and I am the managing director of a French security corporation in Marseille. I am calling to inform you that we have reason to believe there will be an attempt on your life sometime in the very near future.”
Henri Foche was silent for a moment. And then he said, with the practiced realism of a man not entirely unfamiliar with the dark side of life, “Are you selling, or are you merely a good Gaullist with genuine concerns for my future?”
“I’m selling.”
“I see. Is this because you feel you might be able to prevent this from happening? Or are you just trying to make a fast buck?”
“Monsieur Foche, we have been offered two million U.S. dollars to carry out the killing. And of course we turned it down. I am calling partly out of a sense of decency, and partly because this kind of knowledge is hard-won. We occasionally receive such information, which in this case was costly to us. And we always charge for our services.”
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