The Killing Ground

On the other hand, he omitted to mention that an ankle holster was the mark of the true professional.

For the moment, she was content and quite thrilled, and gradually, her head went back and she dozed.

CHARLES FERGUSON’S COUSIN, Professor Hal Stone, a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Hoxley Professor of Marine Archaeology, had what was common to most academics in his profession: an almost total lack of money with which to conduct any kind of significant research.

At Hazar, a diving operation on a World War II freighter had disclosed beneath it a Phoenician trading ship of Ha

The phone call from Ferguson had sent the good professor into a frenzy of delight. When he wasn’t there, he employed his Arab foreman, a man named Selim, as caretaker. He phoned him with the news that he would be arriving and packed hurriedly.

He hadn’t felt so cheerful in a long time and it wasn’t only because of the prospect of diving. His dark secret was that as a young man, he had worked for the Secret Security Services, and was well aware of the kind of thing Ferguson and his minions got up to. To be involved delighted him.

“Transport provided?” he asked Ferguson.

“Of course. We’ve got a Gulfstream these days. The boys will have to get rid of the RAF rondels. We’ll call it…a United Nations Ocean Survey. That sounds good.”

“Absolutely. So… the reason your people are going there. What is it this time?”

“Come by my flat and I’ll fill you in.”

Stone hung up and checked himself in the wardrobe mirror. The man who looked out at him was in his sixties, ta

“That’s better,” he said. “Not exactly Indiana Jones, but not bad. Here we go again then.”

He opened the door to his rooms, got a bag in each hand and left.

ROPER HAD HAD A FEW PROBLEMS ru

“The photos of Hussein Rashid are a real bonus,” Ferguson said.

“What do you think of the girl?” Roper asked.

“Typical of these cases, making the girl dress in that way. What about you?”

Roper poured a whiskey. “She has a calm sort of face, a face that doesn’t give a great deal away.”

“I’m not sure it resembles the father to any great degree.”

At that moment, Caspar Rashid hurried in with Sergeant Doyle. “What’s all this about photos?”

“Here they are,” Roper told him. “Fresh in from our contact in Kuwait.”

Caspar examined them carefully, shuffling the photos several times.

Finally, he said, “It’s amazing to actually have photos taken such a short time ago.”

“How do you think she looks?” Ferguson asked.

“I don’t know, I really don’t. I know I might sound strange saying this, but it’s the clothes she’s wearing. They change her personality so much, or so it seems. Can my wife see these?”

“Good heavens, yes. It’s a real stroke of luck getting such excellent photos of Hussein and his merry men.”

Caspar examined a couple of them more closely. “You know, I barely recognize him. It’s been several years, and then there were those six months in that American prison. I recall him as a very nice boy when young.”

Dillon, who had come in quietly and was looking at the photos, said, “People change and circumstances change them even more. His mother and father killed in a bombing raid, that six months in jail. It must have seemed cruel and heartless.” He helped himself to a shot of Roper’s whiskey. “God knows, I had enough experience in Ireland during the Troubles to see how people can change fundamentally.”

“Well, you would know, Sean,” Roper said. “This Hussein, though, he’s no ordinary one. Judging by his score, he’s almost as good as you.”

There was a heavy silence, for there was not much left for anyone else to say.

SARA, ENGROSSED WITH HER MAP READING and following the red line, saw the palm trees and the buildings that were St. Anthony’s Hospice before anybody else. She pointed and called out, and Jasmine and the boys stood up and crowded to the windows to see. Hussein went down lower and lower to no more than two thousand feet.

He circled. There was a parapet, several monks on it in black hats and black robes. They waved. Hussein waggled his wings and turned south.

It was perhaps ten minutes later that their luck ran out. Quite suddenly, smoke, black and oily, started to come out of the port engine. Jasmine saw it first and cried out and there was a general disturbance, but no sign of flames, just that heavy black plume of smoke.

Sara, who’d dozed off again, came awake with a start to hear him say, “Calm down, all of you.”

He switched off the engine and turned on the extinguisher for the port engine. Spray mingled with the smoke, but there were still no flames. “I think I know what it is. The oil seals have gone, leaking oil over the hot engine and creating all that black smoke. Everybody fasten their seat belts and we’ll go down.” He said to Sara, “Follow Grant’s line on the map. We must be close to the oasis at Fuad and Saint Anthony’s Well.”

He went down fast, the black plume of smoke flaring out from the wing, and Sara said calmly, “Over there on the right,” and she pointed through the windscreen.

“Good girl.”

They went down lower and lower until they were only a few hundred feet above the sand, and the oasis seemed to be coming toward them fast. Sara saw a clump of palm trees, a small, flat-roofed building to go with it, the clearly defined line of the road marked by the feet of countless travelers over the centuries.

There was a large pool of water, six horses drinking from it, Bedouins in robes beside a cooking fire gazing up, hands raised to shade their eyes from the sun.

Of further interest was a man in black robes, his wrists tied above him as he hung from a pole beside the house.

Hussein dropped the Hawk down on the road and rolled to a halt some distance from the oasis. He said to his three men, “Out you go. Rifles at the ready.”

One of the men by the pool was holding a riding whip. He turned as if ignoring them and slashed it across the monk’s back. The monk’s robe had slipped from his shoulders and they were already bloody.

Sara said, “They can’t do that, he’s a priest.”

“Calm yourself.” Hussein reached for his phone, which rang as his men disembarked, and discovered it was the Broker. “Good,” Hussein said. “I was hoping you’d be available.” He explained the situation with the plane and detailed their position.

“I’ll contact the airport at Hazar and arrange a recovery,” said the Broker. “Probably by helicopter. I’ll call you back when I know more.”

Hussein said, “Let’s get moving, ladies.” He smiled at Sara. “Pass me my jacket, will you?”