Jack Morgan 02 - Private London (24 page)

If Hannah heard me, then she didn’t register it. ‘And all the time there was someone else.’

‘Maybe not.’

I moved to the telephone console and requested a video conference with Sci. After a few moments of blank screen, the dull grey disappeared in a flurry of pixelation to be replaced with the image of Doctor Science sitting in his office.

‘What can I do for you, Dan?’ he asked.

‘Annabelle Weston had a relationship with Jesus Ferdinand …’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Can you check your records and see if he has any surviving relatives?’

‘Sure.’

His hands flashed over his computer keyboards with expert speed.

After a few moments the Doctor turned back to us. ‘His father died some years back and …’ He turned his monitor so we could see it and pressed some keys. A woman’s face filled the screen.

She was in her thirties and had almond-shaped eyes made enormous with kohl in a heart-shaped face. Her skin was the colour of caramel. She wore a scarf that draped loosely around her neck and framed her face.

She was beautiful.

‘His sister – Mary Angela Al-Massri.’

The Doctor clicked on some more keys and the picture was replaced with biographical data. ‘She’s living in England and she’s married to a member of the Palestinian General Delegation to the UK.’

Chapter 100

SCI’S HANDS FLEW over his keyboard once more. ‘I just mailed you the data.’

‘Thanks, Sci.’

‘De nada. We’re here twenty-four seven till we get the scientist home.’

A monkey scampered into view and jumped onto his lap. He patted its head affectionately.

He clicked on the keyboard and the screen went blank again. That’s another thing about the Americans that I like. They just hang up on you. No need for goodbyes. There’s a job to be done. Get on with it.

I pulled up the data he had sent. Mary Angela certainly was a striking woman.

‘“Sister of her heart”, Mary Angela said. Her brother was Annabelle’s heart. It was him she loved.’

I scrolled through the data on the screen. ‘The delegation’s based in Hampstead.’

‘Is it an embassy?’ asked Sam.

I shook my head. ‘Kind of. But Palestine isn’t an independent state. So it has the same kind of functions but without any real clout. It basically represents the interests of the PLO and the PNA.’

‘No diplomatic immunity,’ said Del Rio, getting to the heart of the matter.

‘So what do we do?’ asked Suzy.

I scrolled through the data. ‘Mary Angela’s husband – Youssef Saad Al-Massri – he’s a translator working for the delegation.’

‘Translator?’

‘Officially, anyway. Who knows? Could be Hamas.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Del Rio.

‘Go on,’ I prompted him.

‘The way this whole thing has been conducted. Opportunistic. Reactive. Shifting goalposts as the situation changed.’

‘Yes?’

‘If Hamas are behind this or Palestine Islamic Jihad, or the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade or any of those other groups – then do you really think Hannah would still be sitting here?’ said Del Rio.

I looked across at Hannah, still shell-shocked, closed in on herself, her arms wrapped around her body, and realised that Del Rio had a point. She’d never have been found. Certainly not alive.

‘So we’re not dealing with one of the mainstream outfits?’

Del Rio shook his head.

‘Which is good, right?’ asked Lucy, speaking for the first time.

I looked at her and forced a half-smile, remembering what had happened when freelancers operating out of their area of expertise had kidnapped the girl and her mother before, and lied.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s good.’

Maybe it was. Maybe there was still time.

I turned back to the monitor and scrolled through the data. ‘Mary Angela’s husband lives out of the city.’

‘Where?’

‘Moor Park. West of London – a small estate between Northwood and Rickmansworth. One of the richest concentrations of real estate in the country.’ The translation game clearly paid more than I would have guessed. ‘They don’t know we’re onto them yet. But they must be figuring it’s a matter of time so I suggest we take the house in Moor Park.’

‘What about the delegation building?’ asked Sam.

‘I don’t see it. Like Del Rio says, this is most likely a freelance op. I’ll call Brad Dexter, though, get a team of boys to stake it out. Check anyone leaving.’

I snatched up the keys up from the table. ‘If he’s not in Moor Park we’ll come back and go in. They don’t have immunity, remember. Not from the law and definitely not from us.’

‘Hang on, sir,’ said Lucy.

‘What?’

‘It’s been on the news. Westway is closed and the North Circular is jammed solid because of it. Traffic heading west is at a standstill out there.’

‘That’s okay, Lucy,’ said Sam. ‘We weren’t going to drive anyway. We’re in a bit of a hurry.’

His face was as impassive as those on the big stone statues you see on Easter Island, but I could hear the amusement in his voice.

Bastard.

Chapter 101

I SAID BEFORE that London is a beautiful city.

And it is. But it’s designed to be viewed from the ground, looking up at the gloriously eclectic mix of Georgian architecture and futuristic high-rise buildings. As it was now, though, it was looking more like a scene from Blade Runner as the helicopter banked and headed west.

Private has its own helicopter pad on the roof of its building. Civilians weren’t supposed to have them in the metropolis. Al-Fayed had notoriously tried for years to get one on the roof of Harrods and had failed. But we were under contract to the police and the military and had special dispensation.

Sam Riddel held a full pilot’s licence, enabling him to fly a number of aircraft including the one we were in. He looked across at me and grinned.

I was assuming that he wouldn’t be able to read my expression. I had blacked my face, as had Suzy and Del Rio behind me. Like them, I was also wearing black military fatigues. It was dark now and the cloud cover ahead thankfully blocked the light of a full moon.

I had decided that a small team was the best option. Stealth rather than a show of force. Get it wrong and we could pay the price. Or Harlan Shapiro would pay the price. And that was not an option. Lucy had come with us to retrieve the rope and Hannah had been left behind at the offices. A couple of security guards with her in case she decided to switch sides again.

I ignored Sam’s taunting grin and kept my gaze fixed ahead. Below me the traffic was as snarled as Lucy had said it would be. Above us the chopper’s rotor blade thwopped and spun, but the ride was incredibly smooth. Thankfully there was very little wind.

In very little time we had made the twenty-six mile journey and were flying over Moor Park.

Normally a helicopter flying over a residential area might have caused some interest. But a huge military base, much of it underground, was half a mile away. HMS Warrior where Western Allied Fleet Command was based. The command centre for the Falklands War and also home to the USAF which had a base there. Helicopters in the air thereabouts were a very common occurrence.

As we flew over the target house I pointed the thermal-image device I was holding at it and put the lens to my eyes. The house went the familiar murky green you get through night-vision goggles, but little dots of colour appeared. Glowing red and indicating the heat signatures of human beings. Live ones, anyway. I counted six. Four moving downstairs and two static ones upstairs. I figured those to be Harlan Shapiro and whoever was guarding him. I hoped that was the case, anyway – it meant he was alive, at least.

The helicopter banked again. I hated when it did that and was sure that Sam did it deliberately. The Palestinian translator’s house was set apart from the others in a small private road that led to Moor Park Golf Course. Famous for hosting the Bob Hope Classic for a number of years, but most notable for the current clubhouse having once been the residence, along with Hampton Court Palace, of one Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, ill-fated adviser to Henry the Eighth and the man who had given his name to the university where Harlan Shapiro had sent his daughter to be safe.

The irony was not lost on me.

Sam manoeuvred the helicopter to a hovering standstill. Lucy opened the door and threw out the long black rope, one end fixed securely inside. At least, I damn well hoped it was securely fixed.

Del Rio checked that his pistol was firm in its holster and went out first, grabbing the rope and sliding down it as easily as if it were a fireman’s pole.

I was next. I clipped the harness ring round the rope, checked it and took a deep breath. I was earning my pay cheque this weekend, no doubt about that. But I had trained to abseil. Just because I didn’t like it didn’t mean I couldn’t do it. I didn’t say ‘Geronimo’. I said something entirely less gleeful and stepped out, dropping down the rope in short sequences. The rope was still some eight feet from the ground when I released fully and dropped.

We had picked a soft target. The seventeenth green on the West Course. A short par four, surrounded on three sides by trees.

Not long afterwards Suzy thudded to the ground a few yards from me. Less than thirty seconds after that and all three of us were thankfully back on terra firma.

I looked at the damage that we had done to the soft ground and guessed that the greenkeeper would be none too happy come the morning.

I signalled to the others and we headed off. The house was some hundred yards away behind the trees. As we moved into the cover of them no alarm sounded – no sirens, no shouting.

So far, so good.

A movement behind me. I turned too late.

I dropped like a felled tree.

Chapter 102

SOME TIME LATER I came to and tried to move.

I couldn’t. My hands had been tied behind my back to a wooden chair. Suzy and Del Rio sat beside me, similarly trussed.

My head felt like I’d landed on it when I’d dropped from the helicopter. But I was alive and I was conscious. I guess my skull was a bit thicker than Chloe’s, which would be unusual. Female skulls are usually a little thicker than men’s. Maybe whoever had hit me hadn’t been as good as Chloe’s attacker.

We were in the lounge of a very expensively decorated house. There was colour everywhere. Golds and reds and greens. On the expensive rugs that dotted the floor, on the wallpaper that covered the walls, on the drapes that were curled back from the French windows that led out to an extensive lawn, and on the exquisitely upholstered furniture.

I lifted my head and looked across at Suzy and Del Rio, wincing as the pain nailed through the back of my head.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘You were hit with a golf club.’

‘A driver,’ added Suzy. ‘Titleist, I think.’

‘And you guys?’

‘People stepped out with semi-automatic weapons. A few of them. We considered it politic to comply with their instructions.’

‘Hard to argue with an AK-47’

Del Rio nodded. ‘That is a fact.’

‘So what’s the plan?’

‘Not formulated one as such.’

At that moment Harlan Shapiro walked into the room.

Chapter 103

HARLAN SHAPIRO’S MOUTH was bound with duct tape and he held his hands high in the air.

He was followed in by Annabelle Weston holding a gun, and by a woman wearing the full burka.

‘So it was the professor in the drawing room with the revolver all along,’ I said.

‘Sit over there,’ Annabelle said to Harlan, ignoring me and gesturing with her gun to a high-backed red leather chair.

Harlan Shapiro crossed over and sat down. Outside, a large man in black fatigues and with a scarf wrapped round his head walked past the French windows.

Mujahedin as security guards. Nice neighbourhood.

‘And you must be Mary Angela,’ I said, addressing the woman in the burka. ‘Shame to cover yourself up – you have beautiful eyes.’

The woman swept her hand up, removing the part of her garment covering her head, and swinging her lustrous hair behind her. She looked at me and smiled.

‘That’s very courteous of you to say so.’

I must have registered some surprise because her smile deepened. ‘Oh, I only wear it when it suits.’

‘Nice house you have, too. Mister Burka must be paid a pretty penny for his translation skills.’

‘I own the house, Mister Carter,’ said Annabelle Weston.

Of course she did. ‘Please call me Dan,’ I said. ‘I feel we’re bonding, Annabelle.’

‘I am sure you are a very charming man, Dan. You’re handsome, clearly very resourceful, more intelligent than you pretend to be.’ Annabelle shrugged. ‘I don’t know, in another life.’

I didn’t like the sound of that. ‘I quite like this life,’ I said, hoping that my voice was sounding steady.

‘I have no intention of harming you. Nobody needs to get hurt here.’

‘Tell that to the guy who used the back of my head as a tee peg,’ I said.

Annabelle frowned. ‘I’m sorry about that. That wasn’t supposed to happen. One of my team with a personal grudge against you. He has been reprimanded.’

‘Seems to have happened once before. Once too often,’ I said.

‘Again, that was never our intention.’

‘So what is your intention?’ asked Del Rio. I could see his jaw working harder than usual. His hands behind the chair flexing and unflexing, trying to loosen the rope.

‘Like I said. Nobody is going to be hurt as long as you cooperate’

‘So what’s the figure? Five million was just for openers, we get that. So what’s the number?’ Del Rio said.

‘It was never about money.’

‘So what is it about, you mad bitch?’ said Suzy coolly, possibly not helping matters.

‘It’s about justice,’ said Mary Angela Al-Massri.

‘For your brother?’

‘No, Mister Carter. For Palestine.’

‘And your husband thinks this will achieve it?’

‘My husband has nothing to do with this. Right now he is at a conference in Brussels.’

‘So the pair of you figured that you’d solve the problems of Palestine by kidnapping an American millionaire and demanding what for his release? That Israel allow you to set up a nation state just like that?’