THE PERFECT KILL (13 page)

The Mercedes pulled up at the entrance to the courtyard. Two men carrying submachine-guns came out, peered into the back, instantly recognised the Colonel and waved the car through. There were more men in the courtyard itself, all heavily armed.

Jibril himself came down the steps of the entrance dressed in an Italian-made business suit. He embraced the Colonel warmly and, taking him by the hand, led him up the steps and through the door.

As soon as they were seated in Jibril’s office the Colonel said, “I have had another communication from my man at the Embassy in Paris.”

Jibril noticed the bad manners. Normally an Arab would never state his business without going through the normal courtesies.

But he did not let the irritation show. He could not afford to offend the Colonel. Instead he gestured to an aide at the door to bring coffee.

“He has more information?” he asked the Colonel.

“Yes, he has the name of the would-be informant.”

“And that name is?”

“Joseph Rawlings.”

Ahmed Jibril had a renowned memory. He closed his eyes for a minute and thought. Then shook his head.

“It means nothing to me.”

The Colonel shrugged.

“It meant nothing to me either, but we have an informant in the French SDECE. He pulled out a file on the man, a very slim file. He’s been a mercenary or has mercenary contacts. He’s American, based mainly in Europe. Now our man at the Embassy set up a meeting with this Rawlings.”

At this moment the aide came back with a tray and the coffee.

The Colonel waited until he had served them and left the room, then went on. “He turned out to be a man of about fifty. Very sure of himself. He said he has the name of a man, a very dangerous man, who has been hired to kill the organiser of the bomb that was planted on Pan Am 103.”

Jibril smiled.

“Colonel, you mean the genius who planted that bomb.”

The Colonel also smiled and dipped his head in acknowledgement. “It was a work of art.”

“What else did the man say?” Jibril asked.

“He said that the project was being financed by a very wealthy American whose wife was on Pan Am 103. This wealthy American hired a man who Rawlings claims is one of the most dangerous individuals on earth.”

“Did he give a name?”

“No. For the name, and for the name of the American financier, he wants one hundred thousand American dollars.”

Jibril thought, then smiled again and said, “But no one can put the finger on me for that bomb.”

“Not yet,” the Colonel agreed. “But we know from our source in SDECE that they have narrowed it down either to you or Abu Nidal.”

The Colonel spread his hands in an eloquent gesture.

“We can assume that this man Rawlings has also approached Abu Nidal through the Algerian Embassy in Paris with the same offer. I expect confirmation of that within a few days.”

Jibril pondered again and asked, “So what do we do?”

The Colonel’s answer came in silky tones.

“Well, Ahmed, you got five million dollars for that job. I suppose you haven’t spent it all yet?”

“Not yet,” He grinned. “I only gave these idiot Libyans fifty thousand each. And they took the risk.”

“So you have two options. Either pay the money or arrange for your organisation or what’s left of it in Europe, to snatch the man in Paris and force the name out of him. I can’t help you there. We’re keeping a low profile at the moment. Incidentally, my man at the Paris Embassy has arranged a meeting with Rawlings in four days’ time to pass on your reply. Naturally we can be a conduit for the money if you decide to pay.”

“I wonder what Abu Nidal would do,” Jibril mused. “If he did get the same offer.”

The Colonel shook his head.

“Nidal would not pay. First because he knows that you arranged it, secondly because he’s out of favour now and therefore short of cash, and third because of his temper. He would not like to be shaken down like that.”

His voice went silky again. “But you are not like that, Ahmed. You are smarter than Nidal, and lately more successful, and therefore richer.”

Jibril was a vain man. His smile was complacent.

“Colonel,” he said, “I would be grateful if, at the next meeting, your man at the Embassy in Paris would make the deal. I will arrange the funds immediately. Yet again, I’m in your debt.”

The phone in the house in Gozo rang at three o’clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday. Leonie answered it on an extension in the kitchen.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Yes, everything is fine.”

“And Michael?”

“He’s fine. Right now he’s in Malta. I pick him up from the six o’clock ferry.”

“Is he behaving himself?”

“He certainly is,” Leonie answered. “He brings me tea and toast every morning, washes up the dishes after every meal and studies hard. He’s reading all the books you told him to read. He also does his hundred lengths every morning, even when he’s been out late to the disco.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then Creasy’s amused voice came over.

“Maybe he lost his virginity.”

She laughed. “I think he did. Two weeks ago he was driven home at six in the morning by an English girl.”

“What was she like?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see her, I only heard her.”

Creasy’s voice turned hard. “He brought her into the house?”

“No. As she drove away, I heard him shout thank you. She shouted back, “You’re welcome”.”

“That sounds conclusive.”

Leonie smiled and said, “He could have been thanking her for the lift home.”

“I doubt it.”

“By the way,” she said, “he has to go to the disco on his own now.”

“He doesn’t go with Joey?”

“No, a couple of weeks ago, Joey visited Maria’s house in Nadur and had a drink with her parents. He says get back here quickly and help him finish the house.”

She heard a rarity, Creasy’s laugh. “Tell him it will be five or six days,” he said, “tell him he can have arches instead of beams. Did anyone phone?”

“Yes, a man called Bob Dines. He phoned this morning. Said if you rang to get in touch.”

“Good.”

She went back to preparing the rabbit stew for dinner, humming to herself. She was no longer counting the days until she could leave. She was beginning to enjoy life in Gozo. A few days earlier, she had gone into the supermarket to buy provisions. There were trays of eggs by the checkout counter. As she was helping herself to a dozen, the checkout girl had called to her.

“No, not those, take them from that one over there.” She pointed and winked. “They just came in and they’re fresher.”

Later at the grocer’s, the woman had fussed over her, making sure she got the right vegetables, even bringing potatoes from the back room, which she said were kept for her special customers.

On the Sundays that Creasy had been away she had gone to the Schembris for lunch with Michael. Laura had become a good friend. On the first Sunday, Joey had brought his girlfriend Maria. It was the first time she had been in the Schembri house and she was shy and nervous. So was Joey. She had noticed how Paul and Laura had put her at ease. Paul had told her some of the escapades he and her father had got up to in their youth. He was a good raconteur and soon she was laughing.

Afterwards, he had brought a bible from the bedroom and made her solemnly swear on it that she would not tell her father. On the second Sunday, after lunch, she and Laura had walked down to the farmhouse which Joey and Creasy were rebuilding.

They had looked around the place and chatted. Laura had talked about her two daughters. The elder one, Julia, who had married Creasy’s Italian friend, and had died in a car crash, and Nadia who had died on Pan Am 103.

She had talked easily and without visible emotion but when Leonie had asked her a question about Creasy, Laura had shaken her head and said, “Whatever you want to know about Creasy, you must ask him yourself.” She had smiled to take any offence out of the words. “He has a very private shell and it’s very hard to break through…who knows…maybe…”

Creasy took A late flight from Luxembourg to London and checked into the Gore Hotel just before midnight. There was a message waiting to inform him that Bob Dines would be in the bar at twelve thirty. He took his bag up to his room, tuned the television to Cable News Network, turned the volume high and took a shower while he listened to the news. Twenty minutes later he was in the bar.

The small, sandy-haired man arrived five minutes early. He was always five minutes early. He carried a briefcase. There was a young couple sitting in the corner, holding hands and working hard at being in love. Bob Dines studied them for a moment, and then, content that they were not watchers, said to Creasy, “I’ll have a large whisky and soda…it’s been one of those days and nights.”

Creasy ordered the drink and a Remy Martin for himself.

When the night porter had limped away, Dines said very quietly, “A couple of things may have broken on the Loccurbie case.”

“Like what?” Creasy asked.

“Well, I told you that the policeman Peter Fleming is a damn good detective…and very tenacious. Also the forensic boys, who are working on the reconstruction of Pan Am 103 and its contents, are probably the best in the world and the most meticulous. They’ve now found out which suitcase the bomb was in, and where it was located in the baggage hold. They’ve done that from tiny fragments. The FBI, who have their own experts, were massively impressed. They were able to identify some of the clothes that were in the suitcase. Peter Fleming was able to trace them all the way back to the source, which turned out to be Malta. They were manufactured in a factory in Malta. He even managed to trace the shop from which they were sold. A place in Sliema called Mary’s House. The shopkeeper remembers selling the clothes to an Arab some weeks before the Loccurbie bombing.”

“Malta,” Creasy muttered. “That’s close to home.”

“Yes,” Dines replied. “And it’s significant because we have known, and the BND have known, for some time that the PFLP-GC have had a cell there for years. Under Mintoff, Malta was very friendly with Libya. Libyans don’t even need a visa to visit Malta. So it’s been a natural staging post for groups like the PFLP-GC. They get help from the Libyan cells there.”

“Do they still have a cell there?” Creasy asked.

“Yes, a passive one and we think we know where the Front is.”

He tapped his briefcase, “I have a report in here. Read it later and then destroy it. The thing is that it points more and more to the PFLP-GC and Ahmed Jibril.”

“Yes it does,” Creasy said thoughtfully. “You said you had a couple of things.”

The small man nodded.

“Yes, the other thing concerns the Syrian Airforce Intelligence. They’re the most powerful arm of the Syrian Intelligence Community. Very closely linked to President Assad himself. We know they work closely with the PFLP-GC in Europe. Use them for their dirty work. Several of their agents have been identified by ourselves, the BND and the SDECE. They generally work out of the Syrian Embassies. They’re all under round-the-clock surveillance. The one in Paris, the trade attache by the name of Merwad Kwikas, has recently had two meetings in a Paris bistro with an American. The first meeting was six days ago. It was only a conversation. The second meeting was four days later, when Kwikas gave the American a package and then the American gave Kwikas an envelope.”

“Do you know who the American is?”

“Yes,” Dines replied, “and so do you. We were able to photograph the first meeting but not the second.”

He spun the combination locks on his briefcase, opened it and took out a photograph. He passed it to Creasy, who looked at it and then muttered: “Joe Rawlings. I gave that bastard Tap City Money. Do you know where he is now?”

“Yes, from the first meeting he’s been under surveillance. Between the first meeting and the second meeting, he was staying in a seedy hotel at the wrong end of Montparnasse. Immediately after the second meeting, he checked out and moved into the Plaza Athenee.”

“Yes, the bastard would,” Creasy said bitterly. “Is he still under surveillance?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any way to pull it off for a few hours, perhaps tomorrow night?”

Bob Dines shook his head.

“It’s being handled by our Paris station. I can’t interfere, especially if, while the surveillance was called off, Joseph Rawlings happens to sadly die.”

Creasy went up to his room and phoned Brussels; the call was answered by Raoul.

“Put Blondie on the phone.”

“Is that you?”

“It’s me.”

“Thanks for the arms you did, that prick needed it.”

“It made my day.”

A minute after, Blondie was on the line.

“Now I need Nicole,” Creasy said. “I need her in Paris and I need her tomorrow.”

“It got that serious?” Blondie said in wonderment.

“No. Nothing gets that serious. I need her to pull a man. She should have clothes with her that give her elegance, in which she could walk into any hotel or restaurant in Paris and be thought of as Society. She should be prepared to take a risk. Tell her that.”

“And where should she go?”

“She will be booked into a hotel called the Plaza Athenee. She is to check in with a false name and a false passport. The Corkscrew will supply the latter. She should have a booking early the next morning on Iberian Airlines 422 to Barcelona. She should lie low there for three days before flying back to Brussels. She will take a taxi from Paris airport, check in and wait for me in her room. Order what she needs from room service and just wait. I will contact her tomorrow evening. Please arrange the airline tickets and give her three thousand dollars in cash. I’ll settle with you later.”

“She’ll be there.”

Joe Rawlings walked into the bar at the Plaza Athenee at eight o’clock. He was a man who understood luxury and enjoyed it when he could. His programme for the evening was mapped out. He would have a couple of drinks in the bar first, then have dinner at La Poupoule, then move on to the Crazy Horse for the late show, to raise the stimulation, then go on to Babette’s and select the most delectable whore in the place.