Authors: Patrick Robinson

Tags: #Suspense, #Fiction, #Political, #Thrillers, #Weapons industry, #War & Military, #Assassination, #Iraq War; 2003-

Diamondhead (66 page)

Jane came rushing in and saw him staring at the television screen, transfixed by the account of the death of the Gaullist, the public announcement of the only serious wish for which he had prayed in living memory.

Harry did not speak. Just listened to the trail of havoc that had plainly dogged the soft footsteps of Lt. Cdr. Mack Bedford in France. Neither he nor Jane uttered one word until the opening part of the newscast was complete.

Each of them stood there in their own private space—Harry thanking Christ no one knew who the hell had rubbed out the Gaullist, and glorying in Eddie Laxton’s assessment that there was a pretty good chance they never would. Jane was personally thunderstruck. She had overheard the conversation. She knew as well as anyone that her husband had taken out a contract on this Henri Foche in order to save the shipyard, that a huge sum of money was involved, that Mack Bedford was involved. That whatever foul deeds had taken place in France, they had almost certainly emanated from her little town of Dartford, Maine, courtesy of her own husband.

Jane spoke first. “Harry,” she said, “I think you owe me an explanation, a reasonable account of just how deeply we are both involved in this.”

Harry smiled at her, his normally cheerful face reflecting his personal joy and gratitude. “I think I once told you never to broach the subject again. Henri Foche had many enemies, especially in the military. And while I cannot pretend I am sorry he has died, neither can I shed any light on how it happened.” He walked out onto the terrace, followed by his wife. “Let’s just treat this day as if it were any other,” he said. “The only difference may be that I have an extra glass of that delicious white burgundy with my sandwich.”

The assassin was still asleep, right there in the back seat of the bus, his left arm resting on the leather bag. They had reached the outskirts of Brittany’s former capital city of Nantes, and the bus was much busier than it had been when Mack first boarded.

He awakened at the first stop inside the city limits when several people left and even more boarded. He checked his watch and saw the time was five minutes past eight, which left him twenty-five minutes to catch the last train running from the South Station in Nantes to the city of Bordeaux.

Mack left the bus at the Gare Central Station and walked the remaining half mile to the trains. In a deserted shop doorway he removed his wig, mustache, and spectacles and slipped them into his bag before purchasing a one-way first-class ticket down to the great capital of France’s most illustrious vineyards. It was the first time he had looked like Mack Bedford since he left the United States almost two weeks previously. Unless you count the view that Loire turbot had of him earlier today.

His general policy was to leave no continuity behind him. Just as Gunther Marc Roche had vanished totally three miles beyond Laporte’s garage, so Jeffery Simpson vanished totally before Mack stepped onto the train for the four-hour, 240-mile journey to Bordeaux.

The train was not busy, and he slept most of the way, secure in the knowledge that no one was looking for him. No one in France even knew he existed. No one knew his name. And there sure as hell was no record of him entering the country. He awakened when the train stopped at La Rochelle, the old Atlantic seaport that dates back to the fourteenth century. It was dark now, almost ten thirty, and Mack was asleep again before the train pulled out of the station.

The conductor awakened him by calling out, “Bordeaux—cinq minutes. Gare de Saint Jean—cinq minutes.”

Mack grabbed his bag and hoped to high heaven there was a hotel still open near the train station. He disembarked and was pleasantly surprised at the warmth of the night. There was a porter still on duty, and he cheerfully told Mack he should go to the Hotel California, which was a very short distance away.

The Bordeaux railroad station is not in the most ritzy part of the city, and there was a slightly rowdy gang of unpleasant-looking youths loitering on the street. Mack had to walk past them, and as he did so one of them made a feeble attempt to trip him, and another couple shouted something that sounded threatening.

Mack ignored it and kept walking. Generally speaking, he considered he’d killed quite a sufficient number of people for one day. And that particular section of French youth would never know that this was indeed their luckiest of nights. All of them still had their eyesight, no one’s arm had been snapped in half, their noses were still in place, not having been rammed into their brains, and no one’s throat had been cut.

The hotel was still open, and the peace-loving Mack Bedford walked to the front desk, where the receptionist was listening to the radio. He heard only a short part of the newscast before she turned it down. . . .
The Northwest of France has been brought almost to a standstill following the assassination of Henri Foche. Every major highway north of the Loire has been blockaded by the police. Ferry ports are closed and are not expected to reopen in the morning. All airports are experiencing . . .

“Bonsoir, monsieur,”
said the girl.

“I’m just glad you’re still open,” replied Mack, speaking in an American accent.

The receptionist was bilingual. “We always wait for that late train from La Rochelle. One single room with a bath?”

“Perfect.”

“May I see your passport,
monsieur
?”

Mack handed it over and watched her copy down the number. She glanced up at him, checked the photograph, and said, “Merci, Monsieur O’Grady.”

Mack said he’d pay cash in advance since he was leaving early and would not be using the phone.

“No problem,” said the girl. “That will be two hundred euros.”

Mack gave her four 50-euro bills, and she handed over the key to Room 306. She automatically turned up the radio, and the subject had not varied. Shaking his head, Mack said, “Terrible thing, that murder, eh? Have they caught him yet?”

“
Oh, non, monsieur.
There is nothing else on this channel, and I’ve been listening the whole evening. Some people are saying he is a big Swiss man with a black beard. A couple of people say they saw him in the shipyard. But a policeman was speaking just before you came in— he said they have been able to confirm nothing. They have no idea who he is, or where he is.”

Mack fought back a grin of pure delight. He nodded gravely, saying, “A bad business, a very bad business.” And he walked over to the elevator, assuaging his conscience with one thought—what did Marcel, Raymond, Raul, and the three dead guards have in common? Every one of them had been trying to kill him, would have killed him. “Self-defense, Your Honor,” he murmured.

He did not even consider Henri Foche. That had been a military mission, nothing personal, just the elimination of an enemy, an illegal combatant, who had effectively opened fire and killed members of the U.S. armed forces serving in Iraq.

That night he slept the sleep of the just. But he awakened early and flicked on the television, tuning to the satellite channel, BBC World, out of London. The first words he heard were, “It’s been a long night, but we will be staying with the main story throughout the day.” Then the anchor started again with the same lead item Mack had heard on the receptionist’s radio the previous night, about Northwest France being paralyzed while the police combed town, country, seaport, and highway for the mystery assassin who had cut down Henri Foche at the age of forty-eight.

There had been no update for eight hours. Mack Bedford was delighted. Norman Dixon would have fired someone. All Mack could do was to thank his lucky stars that nothing had happened. He fell only slightly short of actively congratulating himself when the newscaster mentioned that police had appealed publicly for any information leading to the arrest of the alleged Gunther Marc Roche, the bearded Swiss boat thief, who remained their number-one suspect.

Throughout the night they had been inundated with phone calls and e-mails from members of the public who had definitely seen the man, from Paris to Cherbourg, on to Saint-Nazaire and all stations in between. They’d seen him driving, walking, running, robbing, hiding, kidnapping, and fighting, in places as diverse as seedy late-night bars to the crypt of a cathedral, from the main street of Rennes to a pole-dancing club in Paris.

“No wonder I’m still tired,” said Mack to the empty room. He switched off the television and opened the door to his room. There on the corridor carpet was today’s
Le Monde
, Étienne’s headline blazed across the width of the front page: HENRI FOCHE SLAIN BY ASSASSIN’S BULLETS.

“That was a hell of a rifle,” he muttered. “Pity I had to leave it at the bottom of the goddamned harbor.”

He shaved and dressed, and decided to find some breakfast at the airport, which the hotel guidebook told him was out at Merignac, seven miles west of the city, thirty euros away.

He handed back his key, checked there was no further money owing on his bill, and asked the doorman to call him a taxi. It arrived almost immediately, and Patrick Sean O’Grady of Herbert Park Road, Dublin, climbed aboard.

The city was busy in the morning rush hour, and it took a half hour. Life was not much quicker at the ticket desk, either. They did run a direct flight to Dublin but not until noon, which was neatly in time for Mack to miss the only two daytime flights Aer Lingus ran from Ireland to Boston.

Not having any choice, he purchased a first-class ticket in cash from Bordeaux to Dublin. He showed the girl his passport, and she replied, “Thank you, Mr. O’Grady. Enjoy the flight.”

Then he wandered off to the restaurant and ordered an omelet with toast and coffee, his first hot meal since the night before last, the grilled fish in the workmen’s café near the shipyard.

On the arrivals board he had noticed an aircraft was in from London at 10:00 A.M., and he wondered if it had brought the morning newspapers to France. For some reason there were no English publications in the rack at the airport store, but there was a copy of
USA Today
, the entire front page of which was dedicated to the assassination of Henri Foche. In a black box in the center of the page was a short list of French airports in the Northwest where long delays could be expected while police searched for the killer—Rennes, Saint-Malo, Quimper, Lorient, Caen, Cherbourg, Nantes, Saint-Nazaire, Tours, Le Mans, Rouen, and Paris.

Inside the newspaper, on page 4, crushed by the events at Saint-Nazaire, was a story on which most U.S. publications would normally have splashed—

SIX MORE U.S. SPECIAL FORCES BURNED ALIVE BY DIAMONDHEAD MISSILE UNITED STATES DEMANDS ANSWERS FROM FRENCH GOVERNMENT

Mack Bedford was horrified. The attack from some lunatic group of insurgents had been launched from the wreckage of an apartment block in the northern suburbs of Baghdad. Of the six men who died, four of them had been SEALs, guys he almost certainly knew. SEAL Team 10, Coronado.

The missile had blasted out of a downstairs window, crashed straight through the fuselage of the tank, and incinerated all the occupants. If that thing hit, no one had a chance, and its heat-seeking guidance system was so powerful, the bastard never missed. At least that was how it seemed to Mack.

There was a statement from the United Nations Security Council expressing its “intense displeasure,” deploring the use of the missile, and issuing formal reprimands to both the Islamic Republic of Iran and to all Shiite Muslim militia leaders in the Middle East.

“As if anyone gives a shit,” murmured Mack. “There’s only one effective way to deal with these fucking savages, and that’s well documented in the navy’s record of my court-martial.”

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