The Killing Ground

Sara stood there, saying nothing.“Come,” Hussein said. “We all agree, but we still have a long trip ahead of us. We must eat.”

She nodded, torn in her heart between her feelings for her parents and a stubborn old man who had wronged her terribly yet loved her deeply.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.” She took Hussein’s arm and they walked to the café.

LONDON

DUBLIN

KUWAIT

Chapter 4

AT FARLEY FIELD, AS THE GULFSTREAM TOUCHED DOWN, Dillon looked out and saw Ferguson standing under an umbrella smoking a cigarette.

“What do you think, trouble?” Billy asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. You might be surprised,” Dillon answered.

Parry opened the door and they moved out, followed by Lacey, who said, “Dammit, Sean, we don’t like our time wasted.”

“I’m not sure that’s a correct description. Savage and his wife were blown up in their boat on the Tigris.”

“And four very unpleasant geezers tried to take us out in the bar at Savage’s club. When we left, it looked like the Last Chance Saloon in a bad movie,” Billy pointed out.

“How many?” Lacey said slowly.

“Four,” Dillon told him. “So your time wasn’t wasted-and I suspect we’re about to use your services again.”

“Where to this time?” Lacey said.

“You’ve been there before. Hazar.”

“Christ Almighty,” Parry said.“You nearly left your bones there, Billy.”

“Well, I didn’t, and I’ve no intention of leaving them there this time.” They reached Ferguson, who said, “All right, gentlemen, get in the back of the Daimler and explain yourselves. Your body count is begi

After Dillon sketched in the events, he said, “After all, General, you did say we could use the Gulfstream in an emergency.”

“Yes, but I hadn’t envisaged this.”

“And it all started with you,” Billy said. “Last time you saw us, you suggested we go to Heathrow and haunt passport control.”

“Which is where we came up with Caspar Rashid.” Dillon cut in.

“All right, all right.” Ferguson was getting testy as they coasted through London toward Holland Park. “I’m the first to admit he could be very useful for us.”

“Have you told him we failed to get Sara?”

“Not yet. I thought his wife should be considered, too. She’s operating now, but Major Novikova will tell her, and then bring her to us. Eleven o’clock should be about right.”

“Great,” Billy said. “Time for a full English breakfast.”

“We don’t have a cook,” Dillon reminded him.

“Who says so?” Ferguson frowned. “All I had to do was telephone the Civil Service pool. A Mrs. Hall appeared almost straightaway, answers to Maggie. She’s from Jamaica, though-I’m not sure about the full English breakfast.”

“For God’s sake, General, they probably invented it.” That was Billy.

“SO THEY FAILED?” At the hospital, Molly Rashid was very pale, no color in her face at all, and weary suddenly in a way she hadn’t been before. Greta noticed that at once and the hands were shaking.

“You need a drink,” she said.

“No.” Molly ran a hand through her hair. “I’ve got another operation this afternoon.”

“I don’t think so. Your right hand is shaking like a leaf. You couldn’t possibly operate in your present condition.”

Molly covered her face with both hands. “What am I going to do?”

Greta got a glass, took a bottle of vodka from the fridge. She almost filled the glass. “Come on, take it straight down. It numbs the brain.”

Molly hesitated, then did as she was told. She gagged, staggered to the sink. For a moment, it was as if she was going to be sick, but she took a couple of deep breaths and pulled herself together.

“My God, that hit the spot.” She turned and smiled wanly. “We’d better go and face it, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Greta said, “I suppose we should.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN you failed?” Rashid said, as he turned from the window to Dillon.

“We simply couldn’t get anywhere near her.”

“Oh, dear, you couldn’t get anywhere near her. My father will be pleased.”

“Mr. Rashid, your father is dead.”

Rashid was stricken, aged visibly, took a step, stumbled, reached for a chair and grabbed hold of it to steady himself.

“I think you’d better sit down,” Dillon said.

Which Rashid did. “How did he die? Was it you?”

“No, I’d nothing to do with it. He was killed going out of the main gate of his villa with his chauffeur. Car bomb. The word is that it was a Su

“Were there any other casualties?”

“Yes, four men intent on killing us.”

He seemed to come alive again, not that it lasted. “Since they obviously didn’t succeed, I assume you managed to kill them.”

“That’s correct. Your wife has been informed…Major Novikova went to give her the sad news and bring her back here for a conference.”

“A conference?” He said it slowly, as if he was finding it difficult to speak at all or to understand. He plucked at words, reaching in a futile way and ru

“That’s better, I think. Let’s get to it and see if there’s some way of sorting this out.”

THEY SAT IN the committee room, Ferguson at the head of the table, Rashid and Molly close together, holding hands. Greta was pouring coffee. Dillon and Billy stood together by the window, listening, and Roper, in his chair, was at the far end of the table.

“I’ll come directly to the point,” Ferguson said. “There was a bargain between you and my people.”

“Which was not fulfilled,” Rashid said. “I don’t see my daughter here.”

“That was due to circumstances,” Dillon said. “The body count makes that clear. The point now is what comes next.”

“Comes next?” Rashid asked.

“Of course,” Ferguson told him. “Nothing has changed fundamentally. You want your daughter back, and so do we. And we know her destination, Hazar. It’s a place we’ve all worked in before.”

“You were there yourself recently,” Dillon said. “What for?”

Rashid didn’t reply, his face showing great emotion. It was his wife who intervened.“For God’s sake, Caspar, talk to them. What happened wasn’t their fault. We’re not playing games here. People died. I want my daughter back, so tell them what they need to know to make that happen.”

Caspar sighed. “I was fooled into believing that my uncle Jemal in Hazar would act as a middleman between my father and me.”

“What made you think that?”

“Not what, but who. It was the Broker. He first spoke to me over a year ago when I was being pressured by Army of God fanatics to join their organization. A colleague at the university, Professor Dreq Khan, was the chief mover and shaker behind the Army of God, and at first they seemed harmless, just a charitable organization, but then, on my world travels, I started receiving approaches from a number of extreme groups. When I tried to withdraw from my involvement, Dreq Khan warned me that I would be considered a traitor, that I would be targeted by Muslim extremists. And then came my daughter’s abduction.

“The Broker told me that if I did what they told me, he would arrange for Jemal to act as a go-between with my father, so I felt I had no choice. I mainly acted as a bagman under orders, passing highly technical information on various matters to Khan, who obviously passed it on. Then the Broker told me I should come to Hazar, that they were ready to talk to me, but it was all a lie. They just wanted me to take a look at an old railway that al-Qaeda wanted to update. I was near to despair-and that’s when you found me.”