THE PERFECT KILL (21 page)

The Senator made a note on his pad. “And the second thing?” he asked.

“Well, since he’s got so many agents to squander, he could send a few to Detroit and monitor the movements of the Moretti soldiers. I’m sure the FBi’s already doing that but they could intensify it. Not too much because we don’t want them to know that we’re waiting for them. But it would be useful to know if any significant number of them suddenly leave Detroit. They would use at least ten men for the snatch.”

The Senator made another note, looked at his watch and said, “Will do. Now I have to get to a meeting.”

Michael’s recovery had been very swift. After three weeks, Creasy took him to the hospital in Malta for a final check-up. Dr. Grech was faintly astonished by the young man’s progress. Afterwards, Creasy took Michael down to Fort St. Elmo to resume his training.

While they were away, Leonie took Laura to lunch in the garden restaurant of the Ta Cenc Hotel. They sat at a table under a huge carob tree and ate Italian food and drank a bottle of Italian wine. After the main course Leonie began to ask questions and Laura answered them. She told the younger woman what she knew of Creasy but explained that the only person who really knew him well was her son-in-law Guido who had been with him in the Legion and fought with him in various wars around the world before Guido had married her eldest daughter Julia and they had gone off to live in Naples and run a pensione until Julia had been killed in a car crash. Guido still ran the pensione and visited Gozo frequently. After Loccurbie he had come to Gozo to stay with Creasy. He and Creasy hardly seemed to talk, but they had such a mental empathy that Laura believed no two men could be closer.

Leonie learned that Creasy had met Nadia after coming to Gozo to recover from gunshot wounds he had received while trying to defend a young Italian girl from kidnappers. The girl had been killed by the kidnappers. After recovering Creasy had gone back to Italy and wiped out the entire Mafia family responsible on a road of vengeance that stretched from Milan in the north to Palermo in Sicily.

Again he arrived back in Gozo, this time secretly. Again he had been terribly wounded and Laura and Nadia had nursed him back to health while Nadia grew pregnant.

“He must have loved her very much,” Leonie said wistfully.

“I’m sure he did,” Laura answered. “But he never showed much or said much.”

“But she knew he loved her?”

Laura nodded. “Oh yes. He would have died for her.” She looked up at the younger woman and said very quietly, “And maybe he will.”

Creasy stood beside George Zammit, on a raised platform behind the animated firing range in the bowels of Fort St. Elmo.

Several members of the antiterrorist squad were standing on either side of them. They were all watching Michael below. He held an Uzi submachine-gun in his right hand. He raised his left hand. George reached behind and pressed a button on the wall.

Immediately, targets in the form of male figures in camouflage uniform began to appear on the sides of the walls and rising from the floor. Occasionally the figure of a woman or a child appeared. Creasy did not look at the targets. His gaze was intent upon Michael, who had dropped to one knee and was firing short bursts. He watched as one magazine was emptied and a second one quickly inserted. When that magazine was empty, Michael took it out, checked the breech, then turned to look at the green monitor at the back right hand corner. Creasy, George and all the other men were also watching it. In digital figures, it showed sixty-five per cent.

“Not bad,” George remarked. “It will take him two or three weeks to get back to his previous best, which was seventy-three.”

Michael laid the SMG and the two empty magazines on a metal table and walked up the stairs to them. He looked at Creasy who said, “That was very good, Michael.”

The young man shook his head woefully. “I’ve done much better. Also I hit one woman. I just lost my rhythm.”

“You were very good,” Creasy said again. “But you need to work on your magazine change. It needs to be much faster. It’s the time when you’re most exposed.”

A member of the squad grinned and said, “I’ve heard those words before.”

Creasy smiled at him and said, “Shut up, Grazio. The only thing you know how to change in a hurry is a condom.”

They all laughed and Michael asked Creasy, “Have you ever used this range?”

George said, “He designed it, Michael, five years ago, and taught us how to use it and much else as well.”

He turned to Creasy. “You want to have a go?”

“Yes,” Creasy answered. “And later I’d like to have a session on the handgun range.”

He went down the steps to the range. All the young men moved forward to the rail and watched as he picked up the Uzi, stripped it down and reassembled it. All in a matter of seconds. He inserted a magazine and put a spare into the left hand pocket of his jeans. It protruded to his waist. He walked over to the black cross painted on the floor and raised his left hand. George punched the button.

Michael was to recall later that what followed was like a ballet dance. The targets appeared for only two seconds. Creasy dropped into a crouch. Michael never even saw the magazine change. He saw the used one bounce off the concrete floor, but the flow of fire was almost uninterrupted. Creasy walked back to the metal table, unsnapping the second magazine. He laid it on the table, checked the SMG and turned to look at the monitor. The digital figures showed ninety-six per cent. There was total silence on the platform. Targets were still moving in and out and up and down on the range. One of the newer recruits muttered, “I don’t believe it”

“Believe it,” Grazio said. “I’ve seen him hit ninety-eight.”

Senator Grainger and Frank Miller were just finishing dinner when the phone rang. Miguel was pouring coffee. The Senator asked him to answer the call and said, “If it’s Bob Holden, I’m not here.”

Miguel went to the sideboard and picked up the phone. He listened for a moment and then started talking rapidly in Spanish.

It was a language that Grainger understood well. He cocked an ear, listened and then stood up. Miguel put the phone down and turned, his face very agitated.

“It’s my mother,” he said. “She’s had a heart attack. Her condition is not good. That was my brother.”

Immediately, the Senator went to the telephone, picked it up and punched a number. After a pause he said into it, “Francis, Jim. I want a seat on the first available plane to Mexico City…no, not for me, it’s for Miguel. His mother had a heart attack…yes I’ll wait.” He cupped the mouthpiece of the phone and said to Miguel, “You’ll be at your mother’s bedside in a matter of hours…even if I have to charter a plane.”

Miguel wiped a hand over his face and muttered, “Thank you, sir. But what about you?”

“Don’t worry about it,” the Senator said. “I’ll get someone temporary from the agency. Stay as long as you need to.”

Miguel started to say something. The Senator held up his hand and said, “Wait a minute.” He listened into the phone and then looked at his watch and said, “He’ll be there, with a few minutes to spare but make sure that plane doesn’t leave without him. Phone Harry Robson if you need to and use my name. Get five thousand dollars from the safe in my office and give it to Miguel at the airport.”

He cradled the phone and said to Miguel, “Go and pack, there’s a flight to Dallas in forty-five minutes which connects with a flight to Mexico City. You’ll be there within four to five hours.”

Miguel started to mutter his thanks. The Senator waved them aside and said, “Get going.”

Miguel hurriedly left the room and Grainger asked Miller, “Can one of your guys run him to the airport?”

Miller shook his head. “Not possible. Rene is sleeping and needs his sleep, Maxie is back-up to me.”

“What about the other two guys I’ve never seen?”

Miller waved his hand. “They’re outside somewhere, and they stay out there.”

Grainger picked up the phone again and punched in a number. When it was answered, he said, “Hi Gloria, it’s Jim. I’ve got an emergency. Miguel just had a call from Mexico City that his mother had a heart attack. I’ve booked him on a flight which leaves in about forty minutes. I can’t take him myself and a taxi will take too long to get here. Are any of your kids around?” He listened for a moment and then said, “Good, thanks. He’ll be ready in ten minutes…Francis will be waiting for him at the airport.”

He cradled the phone and said to Miller, “Sometimes it’s useful to have good neighbours.”

After Miguel left in the passenger seat of a Mercedes 500, the Senator went into the kitchen to brew more coffee. Miller followed him, as always.

“I feel like a Siamese twin,” the Senator remarked.

“You are,” Miller answered.

A thought struck the Senator. “You know we could have all taken him to the airport. You, me and Maxie.”

Miller shook his head. He held a finger to his lips. There was a notepad and a pencil hanging on the wall next to the fridge.

Miller went over, took it off the wall and gestured at a chair by the kitchen table. Puzzled, the Senator sat down. Miller sat opposite him. He wrote rapidly on the pad and then pushed it across the table. The Senator read: “It may be a set-up. They could be waiting between here and the airport.”

The Senator looked up in astonishment and drew a breath to say something. Again Miller put a finger to his lips and pointed to the pad. Angrily, Grainger tore the top sheet off, picked up the pencil and scribbled something. He pushed it across to the Australian, who read: “Miguel has been with me and my wife for eight years. I would trust him with my life.”

Miller picked up the pencil and wrote one line underneath that. He pushed it over and the Senator read: “I would not. Let’s go and talk in the garden.”

They walked out by the pool and Grainger said sarcastically, “Can I talk now?”

Quietly Miller answered, “Yes, Senator, but in a low voice please.”

“What the hell is all this about?”

Miller was standing close to him. He said, “I don’t like unexpected things to happen. If the Morettis have been keeping a watch over you, and it’s a good bet they have, they will know that you only have one servant and don’t keep a permanent driver in the evenings. They will know that you have three bodyguards and that you always move with two of them while the other one rests. They could also have found out the fastest way to get from Denver to Mexico City including the timing of the flights and so that telephone call could have been timed exactly so that you might decide personally to rush him to the airport…Senator, when it comes to planning an ambush the timing is everything. Their timing would have been accurate to within five minutes.”

“But it was his brother who phoned him.”

“That’s what he told you.”

Grainger thought that over and said, “You think his mother might not have had a heart attack?”

“It’s possible,” Miller answered. “And I have to check out every possibility…now if it was a set-up, it’s certain that Miguel would have planted bugs in the house. That’s why we’re talking in the garden. When we go back inside we just hold a normal conversation. If we find any bugs, we don’t remove them, otherwise they’ll be alerted.”

He took a small black metal box from his pocket and pressed a button on it twice. Maxie loomed out of the clump of trees at the bottom of the garden. The Doberman was at his heels. Miller walked forward and held a whispered conversation. Maxie nodded. They both walked back to the Senator. Miller said to him, “I assume you have Miguel’s address in Mexico City?”

“Of course.”

Miller jerked a thumb towards the Rhodesian and said, “Maxie has a Spanish friend, an ex-mercenary who married a Mexican woman and retired there. He lives in a small town about fifty miles outside Mexico City. They keep in touch. Maxie will phone him from outside the house and give him Miguel’s address and whatever other details you have. By tomorrow evening, we’ll know whether Miguel’s mother had a heart attack.”

It took Miller and Maxie three hours to uncover all the bugs. The two mainline telephones and the six in the extensions were easy. It was the back-up bugs that proved more elusive. Each was hidden within three metres of all the phones and would have picked up conversations in any of the main rooms, together with one side of a telephone conversation, if the bugs in the phone had been neutralised.

They were out by the pool again just after midnight. Callard joined them.

“I can’t believe Miguel could have planted those bugs,” the Senator said in a quiet voice.

“He didn’t,” Miller answered. “They were set by an expert, but someone had to let the expert in, while we were away in Washington. It could only have been Miguel.”

“Maybe they broke in,” Grainger persisted.

Again Miller shook his head. “They would have had to kill the Doberman for a start and that would have left evidence. Also, your alarm system is damn good, internally and externally.”

“It is,” Grainger admitted ruefully. “I had it upgraded after I came back one night and found Creasy sitting at my bar having a drink.”

Miller smiled and asked, “What did he do about the Doberman and Miguel?”

“He put them both to sleep with darts.”

Maxie grinned. “He learnt that in Rhodesia,” he said. “That technique was perfected when they built the Kariba Dam and flooded a huge area of the Zambezi valley. They rescued tens of thousands of stranded animals by darting them. Creasy used to go and help the Game Rangers, when he was on leave from the army.”

“So what do we do about it?” Grainger asked.

“Nothing at all,” Miller answered. “We’ll leave them in place, but just be careful what you say in the house or on the phone. It gives us a major advantage.”

“How so?”

Miller picked his words carefully.

“An ambush or a “snatch” is a war situation. There are the attackers and the defenders. There are two critical factors as far as the defenders are concerned. To know where it’s going to happen and when it’s going to happen.”

“But how will we know?” the Senator asked.