THE PERFECT KILL (20 page)

“Selous Scouts?”

“Yes, they were a crack unit in the Rhodesian army.”

She looked puzzled. “But Creasy is American.”

The priest nodded. “Yes, but at that time, the Rhodesian army recruited other nationals. They were in a desperate situation.”

She thought about that and then asked, “So Creasy was a mercenary?”

“Yes,” he answered. “There were many mercenaries there at the time. You could say it was the last real war in which mercenaries played a part…thank God.”

She thought again, then said, “And yet you became a friend of his.”

The priest smiled. “Oh, yes. A good friend.”

She warmed to him.

“Was it very dangerous?” she asked.

He nodded soberly and then said simply, “Yes. I owe my life to your husband, which is why if he gets drunk tonight, I will drive him home.” He smiled again. “And he will get drunk tonight. It’s rumoured that he engineered Joey into this engagement. Joey will exact his revenge.” He looked across the garden, where the table had been set up with elaborate flower arrangements, a large pink cake and several bottles of champagne. Joey and Maria were moving towards it.

“I have to go to work now,” the priest said, and with a mournful expression shook his head. “It’s a hard life. If I don’t drink at least half a bottle of champagne, both families will be mortally offended.”

The two families gathered behind the table with Joey and Maria in the middle, and the priest between them. She noticed Creasy standing with Paul and Laura. She watched as he beckoned to Michael, who was standing with a group of young men in front of the table. He moved around the table and stood beside Creasy. Leonie began to feel out of it again but then she got her third surprise. Creasy bent over and whispered something to Michael, who nodded and smiled. He came round the table, walked across the garden to her, took her hand and led her into the Schembri family circle.

Father Louis blessed the rings and they were put onto Joey and Maria’s fingers. The cake was cut, champagne corks popped and flash bulbs lit up the occasion.

She was standing next to Creasy and in an awed tone she said, “So you are a mercenary?”

He shook his head. “An ex-mercenary. I quit that business quite a few years ago.”

“Why?” she asked, and promptly received her fourth surprise.

“I don’t like talking about those years,” he answered, “but Laura knows most of it. If you ask her, she’ll tell you.”

“I don’t think so. I once asked a question about you and she wouldn’t answer it.”

“Laura will answer your question.”

Then she got her fifth surprise. She heard him use a word she would not have believed possible.

“I apologise,” he said. “You’ve had a rough time. It wasn’t necessary.”

Before she could even think of a reply, Paul came up and said,

“I noticed that Michael already had two glasses of champagne. Maybe that’s enough.”

“It is,” Creasy said. “He’s still on medication.”

His eyes were searching the crowd for Michael. Leonie put a hand on his arm and said, “I’ll find him and keep an eye on him. Let me know when you want me to take him home.” Then she got her sixth surprise.

“You decide when he’s ready,” Creasy answered.

The signal reached Ahmed Jibril via Colonel Jomah. It had originated from Jomah’s man at the Syrian Embassy in Washington DC. The signal informed him that the attempt to abduct Senator James S. Grainger would take place in about three weeks. It also informed him that because of the importance of the target, the price for the abduction would be five hundred thousand US dollars over and above the seventy-five thousand dollars he had already paid for one month’s recce of the target.

He cursed and then read on. He was to have his interrogator in Denver within five days. A safe house would be arranged. If he wished for the Senator to be eliminated after interrogation, then the price would be increased by a further one hundred thousand dollars. If he wished the Senator to be merely held prisoner, the cost would be fifty thousand dollars a week. An immediate answer was required.

Jibril summoned his chief of staff, Dalkamouni, and they discussed the signal.

They finally agreed that they would wait until after the results of the interrogation before deciding whether to have the Senator eliminated or merely held for a few weeks in the nature of a hostage.

“They’re expensive,” Dalkamouni said. “Maybe we should have tried to send in our own people.”

Jibril shook his head. “We only had one good man in America. To send in more would have taken many months. It took us years to establish our cells in Europe.” He tapped the signal.

“These people are rated the best in America.”

“They’re just criminals,” Dalkamouni remarked. “Their only motive is money.”

“True,” Jibril conceded. “But they’re very successful criminals, with a good organisation…anyway, money is always a good motive, as we both know.”

Two days later, Curtis Bennett was shown into Senator James Grainger’s office. Rene Callard, the Belgian, opened the door for him, then closed it behind him and resumed his seat next to the door.

The Senator was seated at a large walnut desk, studying a brief. He looked up and smiled warmly.

“Hi, Curtis. Grab a chair, I’ll be with you in a second.”

He finished the page, jotted some notes on a yellow legal pad, and asked, “So what’s the panic?” He glanced at his watch. “Make it fast, Curtis, I’ve got a committee meeting in ten minutes.”

“I’ll make it very fast,” Bennett said tersely. “The CIA has managed to partly break the code used in signals between the Syrian Foreign Ministry and their Embassies world-wide. You will know that the Syrians actively support several Palestinian and other terrorist organisations. The main one being PFLP-GC which is based in Damascus. They extend help through their own intelligence organisation. The main one is the Syrian Airforce Intelligence Unit, run by Colonel Jomah, who is very close to President Assad. The CIA has been able to identify those signals sent by Colonel Jomah, and also those received by him. His code name is HAWK. He sends a lot of signals to European Syrian Embassies, particularly Bonn, London, Stockholm and Rome. We know that the PFLP-GC has cells in all those cities.”

He lit a cigarette and continued. “Suddenly, last week, a flurry of signals went from the HAWK to the Syrian Embassy here in Washington. That was very unusual. The CIA was working on the signals, we put a watch team on all suspect personnel at the Libyan Embassy here. Four days ago, one of them, coincidentally their airforce attache, had a meeting with a man in Lafayette Park. Some photos were achieved and computer enhanced. This morning we identified the man as one Joe Moretti, from Chicago. He and two other brothers operate the Moretti family specialists in contract killings and abductions. In the past, they’ve worked mainly for South or Central American dictatorships who want to take out embarrassing defectors in this country.” He took a drag on his cigarette, gave the Senator a hard look and said, “Now, Jim, also this morning, the CIA gave us a prelim report on the batch of signals to and from the HAWK. Analysis indicates that the Morettis have been contracted to kill or abduct an important person in this country.”

“Very interesting,” the Senator remarked enigmatically.

Bennett leaned forward, mashed out his cigarette and then said quietly, “Yes it is…because I think that important person is you.”

“Why?”

The FBI man sighed. “Jim, I’m not stupid. First, Harriot is killed on Pan Am 103. The leading suspect for that outrage is considered to be the PFLP-GC, which is closely linked to Syrian Airforce Intelligence and the HAWK. In the meantime, you’ve been messing around with strange people. First a con man on the fringe of the mercenary world and then a dead or alive mercenary who is or was considered one of the most perfect killing machines ever born.”

Bennett sighed again and lit another cigarette. He was obviously agitated, which was certainly not normal. He went on, “Then you hire three bodyguards and ask me to pull off all normal security on you. Naturally, I checked out the three bodyguards.” Apologetically, he said, “That’s my duty, Jim. Both in my job and as your friend.”

The Senator nodded in acquiescence.

Bennett went on. “Now those three guys all turned out to be ex-mercenaries…very hard men indeed…I presume they’re all armed?”

The Senator nodded. “Yes, they are, Curtis…and licensed to be so…as no doubt you would also have checked out.”

The FBI man’s voice took on a hard note. “Yes, I did check. Now hear this. The Moretti family is no ordinary mob family. They are not a huge organisation, like some of the others, but they do have about a dozen soldiers and they’re all highly competent. We know what they do but we’ve never been able to get a grip on them. Not even a slippery one. Now as I read it, you unwittingly hired this con man Joe Rawlings, in an attempt to avenge Harriot’s death.” He smiled grimly. “Coincidentally, Joe Rawlings was found shot dead late last month in a Paris hotel room. A single bullet in the brain. The French police have no clue at all as to who did it. You hire this dead or alive Creasy and since I doubt you will be conned twice in a month, and since the print on the glass I gave you for a present was definitely authentic, my total assumption is that the man is alive and targeted by you at the PFLP-GC. My next assumption is that the PFLP-GC somehow found out about that and now you are their target, via the Moretti family, and that represents a very great threat indeed.”

The Senator looked at him quizzically and then glanced at his watch.

Bennett sighed in exasperation, then stood up, placed his palms on the desk and leaned forward. Harshly, he said, “Jim, face up to it. The threat is very serious. So you have three hard type bodyguards, but three is not enough…also they’re in their mid-forties and that seems a bit old to me.”

The Senator smiled slightly and said, “I’m very satisfied with them.”

Bennett leaned forward even further, and said, “Well, frankly, I’m not. Just before I came here I reported my thesis to the Director. He’s ordered that you have a full team, twenty-four hour cover. That’s twelve highly trained men. Young men. They’re already on assignment. It’ll be a nuisance, Jim, but it has to be.”

Grainger shook his head. “I appreciate your concern, Curtis, but I definitely don’t want them. Tell the Director to pull them off.”

Bennett shook his head. “I can’t do that. I told him you’d object and he told me to tell you that it’s his sworn duty to protect every congressman in this country. So that’s it, Jim.” He straightened up and looked at his watch. “You have two minutes to make that meeting, in your usual punctual way.”

The Senator looked up at him, then reached forward and punched a button on his phone console.

“June,” he said, “get me the White House. I’d like to speak to the President, if he’s available. If not I’ll speak to his Personal Secretary.”

A minute later, he was arranging a meeting with the President for later that evening. Bennett looked on incredulously.

“You think he’ll intervene?” he said.

“I know he will,” the Senator replied. He smiled slightly. “He needs me.”

Curtis Bennett opened the door and walked out in disgust and frustration. At the door to the outer office he turned and looked at the man sitting beside the Senator’s door. The man looked back, an unblinking stare.

Bennett went out, closing the door behind him, not exactly slamming it but closing it hard.

In his office, the Senator punched a button on his phone console again.

“June,” he said. “Please phone the committee room and tell them I’m going to be late. About ten or fifteen minutes. Apologise for me. And please ask the gentleman sitting outside my door to come in.”

Callard entered the room and closed the door behind him. His eyes swept the room twice and then centred on the Senator’s face.

“Where’s Frank?” the Senator asked.

“Nearby.”

“Can you find him?”

The Belgian reached into his jacket pocket, took out a small black metal box and pressed a button on it twice. Five seconds later, it gave an answering bleep.

“He’ll be here in a couple of minutes at the most,” Callard said.

Frank Miller was there in less than a minute. His eyes swept the room. His right hand hovered near the opening of his loosely fitted jacket.

“What is it, Mr. Grainger?”

The Senator gestured at the chairs in front of his desk.

“Sit down, both of you. Something’s come up.”

Miller shook his head and spoke in French to the Belgian, who immediately left the room.

As he sat down, he said to the Senator, “If one of us is inside, one of us must always be outside. What’s happened?”

Grainger quickly briefed him on Bennett’s information. The Australian listened intently and then said, “Good.”

“Good!”

“Yes, in a situation like this all information is good. The more information we have the better we can prepare.”

Grainger did not look anxious, but he did look thoughtful. Finally he said, “Bennett told me they have about twelve soldiers. You only have three.”

Frank smiled and shook his head.

“No, we are five, Senator. Two more arrived late last week.”

The Senator looked surprised. “But I haven’t seen them.”

“No, and you won’t. They’re outside men…weapons men.”

Grainger asked, “Creasy sent them?”

“Yes, and they’re both bloody good.” He smiled. “And you’ll be pleased to hear that both of them are in their mid-thirties.”

Grainger smiled back and asked, “Does this change the routine?”

“No. Are you sure you can get the Fed cover pulled off?”

“Pretty sure. I’m seeing the President at seven o’clock…I’ll let you know.”

The Australian was thinking. “As a matter of fact, there are a couple of things your friend Curtis Bennett can do to help. I know a lot about the Mafia in Italy, a hell of a lot, but not in this country. It would help if Bennett could pull the file on this Moretti family. Everything the FBI has got, especially photos of the Morettis themselves and as many of the soldiers as possible.”