Payback (34 page)

‘
Weaponry.’

‘
Except for the Burmese, they’re all clean,’ replied the MI5 watcher. ‘We upped the first-leg airport security, and unless they have plastic weaponry, they were all flying clean. The Burmese though have some heavy metal: machine-pistols, AK-47s, DHSK machine guns and RPGs. They must have blackmailed or bribed a very large number of people to get as far as they did. But we X-rayed and then opened their baggage freight from the hold.’

‘
And you seized it at Belize?’

‘
No. In discussion with SAS, we decided to sabotage the equipment and let it through. The guns won’t fire efficiently, and the rocket-propelled grenade launchers should explode on use.’

‘
And your end? What about the locals?’

‘
Barton’s mercenaries have been depleted on some search-party work. His daughter was missing. But she’s been brought back...We still count them three men down though. And there’s still no sign of Bolitho.’ The SAS had an impressively long and respectful dossier on the old vet, and the American’s disappearance was still worrying them, for they suspected that he had gone under cover somewhere. ‘They’re well equipped. Mostly pistols and machine-guns. The Colombian brought an entourage of six men, all known as part of his private army. They unloaded boxes almost certainly containing heavy weaponry. The guards are all staying in a tented village, and one of our men, fluent in Spanish, is mixing with them to try to get them to brag about what they’re packing. We’ve also got one of Barton’s maids on board with us. One that Barton apparently attempted to rape one night. She detests him. We’ll also use her to get them to brag. That apart, we expect the Mexican, Dino, to show up with some flashy weapons. That’s his style. And he’s the craziest, least predictable of them all.’

‘
And your men, your plan...it’s still on track?’ Mitchell asked.

‘
Yes. The firework display cover is proving ideal. Got everything in as planned in the truck. We’ll be ready. And the cavalry’s on stand-by if anything unpredictable goes wrong. Our mother of all fireworks.’

‘
Good. Thank you, Belize, for now.’ He patched next into the SBS headquarters and the ops commander, off Lisbon. ‘Sit-rep please, gentlemen.’

The
SIS Lisbon Station answered first. ‘Positive response back from the Interior Minister following my briefing with the Ambassador. They’re
more
than happy to have our special forces and scientists covertly lead, and will pass control to you tomorrow when SBS is ready to go in. They’re warning the local police to stay away from what they’re being told is a short NATO exercise. And also helpfully suspending the coastal train service from late evening just in case it ran late and got in the way of things.’

‘
Commander?’

‘
Weather reports are fine. Windy, but plenty of cloud cover expected. No moon. And my men familiarised themselves yesterday with the general area, as tourists. Also, I took advantage of our new-found official Portuguese support late yesterday afternoon. With your Station’s help, we got the Lisbon police to make another unscheduled visit to the labs. Saying more investigations were needed around Blacher’s suicide. I tagged along with one of the boffins, and we got to crawl all over the place from the inside too. We’ve never had it so good.’

‘
I don’t want the night guards hurt.’

‘
Understood, sir.’

‘
Finally, the boffin. Having now got in there, was he happy about what needs to happen?’

‘
Affirmative. He wants our men to take samples of the cultures, so that Porton Down can work on antidotes in case any has already been shipped. And then they’ll direct where we put the high-temperature incendiaries. One thing has occurred to me though.’

‘
What?’

‘
There’s going to be a stiff breeze tomorrow, and these types of incendiary are extremely intense. The nearest other buildings are less than thirty yards away. As we’ve got the government on our side now, it might be worth them having some military firefighters on stand-by in case it spreads. It might avoid unnecessary questions later.’

‘
Good idea. Will you arrange that?’ His Station man quickly agreed. ‘Anything else?’

‘
No change on the timing?’

‘
No. As soon as SAS go in—we expect at around 03.00 hours GMT, late evening in Belize—I’ll confirm your order to go.’

‘
Understood.’

Mitchell
took off his headphone, and nodded his satisfaction to his comms team. He did not like coffee, but he had never yet been in an ops room that had managed regular streams of drinkable tea. At least the stuff was weak and watery, and he swallowed half a plastic cup, a sour look on his face. Everything was going
exactly
to plan. And it worried him.

‘
What is it, sir? Something’s bothering you,’ Gaylord asked, also helping himself to a coffee.

‘
Perfection. I’m worried about perfection. It only comes to fools and geniuses,’ Mitchell replied. ‘And I’m neither.’

*

Lydia was enjoying the longest, most indulgent bath of her life. She had washed her hair twice already, and the tub was brimming over with Badedas bubbles. Apart from a few bites and grazes, however, she was fine. In fact she had lost a very welcome half-stone and had not felt fitter in years.

Her
father, waiting for her with Maddie, had engulfed her when they got back, hugging her emotionally to him. His guilt over his own actions risking her life had been haunting him, pushing all his many other concerns aside for the moment. Promising to tell him all after a good soak and rest, she made him vow that Banto would be properly looked after. The native had killed men, and would have to be kept somewhere secure while they decided what to do. This she appreciated. But she did not want him hurt—or to be told later that he had mysteriously died in captivity.

She
had also whispered an assignation to Tom and, now drowsy with the hot water and lack of sleep, she half heard him opening, shutting and locking the door to her cabana. Then she felt his soft kiss on her neck, and his hand as it slipped into the water and drew her to him.

Their
love-making, spiced by abstinence, was even better for her than their first time together. New layers of depth had been added: she growing in confidence, he in tenderness.

‘
Who’d have thought this?’ he asked later, as she lay protected in his arms on the vast bed.

‘
What?’ She looked up at him dreamily.

‘
This. That you and me could stop fighting long enough...for this finally to happen.’

‘
We’ve never really fought...’

‘
Not fight-fight. But we certainly sparred. All the time. I mean, we were,
are
, strong individuals. It goes with the territory in our jobs. And over the years, let’s be honest, we’ve fenced with each other. It was fun, but...hard work. No way to spend your life.’

She
sat up. Those words ‘spend your life’ sounded as if they were about to ring either warning bells or wedding bells. She could not decide which. ‘You’re right. Perhaps we’re just a little older. And wiser,’ she ventured, looking curiously at him.

Each
knew that the signals they were sending the other were leading to something serious. It was no casual word-play this time. Perhaps it was the raw intensity of what they were going through—the kidnap, her father’s terrible crimes, Mitchell, and the SAS raid the next evening. It all seemed to have put their fledgling love affair on a kind of war footing. Life and death dramas were throwing up black and white choices that had always before been grey. Or perhaps it was more simple than that. Perhaps this really was what it felt like to find someone with whom you wanted to spend your life.

Tom
wanted to kiss her and propose right then. The moment was right, he knew—for each of them. It should happen exactly like this...But thanks to James Barton, there was some messy baggage he had to clear up first.

He
did kiss her, but then broke the spell when he said, ‘If we’re getting serious about this thing, there’s something you need to know.’

She
stiffened in his arms, and then sat up, drawing the sheet around her. He looked uncomfortable, and it was obvious she was not going to like whatever it was. ‘If you’re about to tell me you’re married, HIV positive, or are my estranged brother, I need a drink first,’ she said, steeling herself. ‘You want?’

He
nodded, asking for a bourbon. Slipping on a dressing gown made her feel slightly less vulnerable, and having fixed the drinks, she passed him the glass, sat on a bedside chair and stitched on her trader’s face. ‘OK, buster. Shoot.’

Taking
a gulp for confidence, he launched in. ‘James has more or less attempted to bully me—into marrying you.’

‘
What! He knows about us?’ She was shocked.

‘
Just let me get all this out. There’s a lot to tell. Then ask me all you need. Deal?’

She
nodded sulkily.

‘
All right then. So here it is...I’ve told you I’ve been helping out your Security Service people. MI6. Spying on him.’ Her poker expression did not change. ‘I’m not proud of that. But when I realised why he needed that £15 million of Temple money—for the biological weapons work—and when I realised the funds he had me managing was all stinking drugs money...I had to help. Maddie and you came to the same conclusion by a different route. That’s true, isn’t it?’

Pushing
her hands through her hair, she frowned. ‘Go on. You said you wanted to get it all out.’

‘
Sure. Well, what happened was this. They needed me to get even closer to him on the illegal businesses he always kept away from me. So I threatened to quit, telling him I wanted a share of the
real
action. I called his bluff. These people needed fast results. And it was then that he made me the offer...a kind of bribe. He said he really could
use
my help on the drugs syndicate, the Aruba Mutual Alliance. That I could definitely earn big bucks that way—as his right-hand guy. But only if he could really trust me. Only if I became family. He’d trust a son-in-law in a way he couldn’t trust some outside consultant...even me.’

‘
He offered you
money
—to marry me?’

‘
Yes—but it was just his warped mind at work again. Acting like some medieval despot. Thinking that money, fear, can make everything he wants happen.’

‘
And what did you say?’ She was suddenly angry and afraid. Had she really misjudged Tom?

‘
I wanted to tell him to go to hell! But remember what this thing’s all about. We’re all trying to stop him. And there’s so much at stake. More than even you or either of us yet know. So in the end all I said was I didn’t need his money to want to marry you. But, yes—before you ask—I
did
leave him with the impression that I’d agreed.’

She
got up and paced by the window. ‘And what now?’ she asked irritably. ‘Do we tell everyone? An announcement in
Tatler
? Throw an engagement party? I mean, if a job’s worth doing...Or have the two of you already set the date of the wedding?’

‘
That’s not fair,’ he said, hurt, getting up to go to her. ‘I don’t deserve that.’

‘
None of it’s
fair
!’ she snapped.

‘
I was about to ask you about the future right then. To ask how you want this thing to go. But I needed to get this baggage with your goddamnn father out.’ He tried to hold her, but she shook him off and, turning, hands on hips, she confronted him.

‘
Where you want exactly
what
thing to go? We screw a few times and, what—we’re suddenly Barbie and Ken? Get a life. And get the hell out of mine!’ She knew she was being unreasonable, but her nerves were raw.

Breathing
deeply to calm himself, he kissed her on the cheek, wet now with silent tears. ‘That sounded like the old in-your-face Lydia. But better in my face than in my past. Try and get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

She
heard the door close quietly before throwing herself on the bed.

*

Life without James held almost as many terrors for her as life with him.

Despite
her lawyer’s easy confidence, Maddie knew that nothing could be taken for granted in a divorce. Not custody of the twins. Not the money. And not even her reputation. And even when it was over, what then? Should she return home a failure to her elderly, strait-laced parents in Philadelphia? Might she be awarded the Manor? She would keep her title, and finishing off all the work she had begun there would be her first-choice option. Perhaps Lydia—in whose name it remained in trust—would spend more time there. If she and Tom really were an item, it would be wonderful to have them both there with her. They could have James’s wing to themselves...