Rain on the Dead Read online

  “Then ‘sir’ it will be for me also,” Sara said.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing Murchison again,” Ferguson said. “That’s the dog of the house, Sara, a wonderful flat-coated retriever.”

  “Who once saved the President’s life, as I recall,” Dillon said. “Although there’s no official documentation of that.”

  “Too bad he isn’t here tonight,” said Dalton. “Mrs. Boulder has taken him home with her. She gets lonely since her husband died last year, and the President doesn’t mind.”

  He turned off the road at a point where high-wire fencing fronted the trees. He paused, waiting for a ten-foot gate to open slowly between stone pillars, and drove through, pine trees and lots of shrubbery crowding in from both sides. To the left, they could see a terraced conservatory and they continued, circling around to a formal garden that fronted the old Colonial-style house with steps leading up to a pillared entrance, the door standing open, light pouring out, and Jake Cazalet waiting to greet them.

  “Charles, my dear old friend,” he cried. “Marvelous to see you, marvelous to see all of you.”

  Then he rushed down the steps to greet them, arms outstretched.

  After embraces, Ferguson said, “Now, this was all most mysterious. It’s always a pleasure to see you, sir, but why were we summoned?”

  Cazalet said, “Oh, it’s nothing dire. The President wanted to invite you to the Oval Office, but couldn’t because of the publicity such a visit would have caused. He said you were in New York to meet the British ambassador and proposed that we kidnap you for a night so that I could say a heartfelt thanks on his behalf for your handling of the Husseini affair. If Iran had been able to use his work to perfect their nuclear bomb—well, it wouldn’t bear thinking of. All three of you did a remarkable job, and we are in your debt.”

  “Please tell the President how grateful we are,” Ferguson said. “But it’s all in the game these days, and a damn ugly game it is.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Cazalet said. “It’s a complete mess. Jihadists allied to al-Qaeda have infiltrated international terrorism like the plague, linking groups worldwide, each controlled by that anonymous leader always known as the Master, a shadowy figure, a voice on the phone. Backed by millions obtained from oil-rich states in the Middle East. They’re extremely dangerous.”

  “As Captain Gideon can attest to firsthand,” said Ferguson.

  Cazalet turned to Sara, who said, “Dillon and I were targeted by al-Qaeda in London, with orders to dispose of us.”

  “I notice you’re still here,” Cazalet said.

  “You should see her in action, sir,” Dillon told him.

  “So there’s a Master responsible for London?”

  “He also handled affairs in Paris,” Dillon said. “And later in Beirut.”

  “And turned out to be General Ali ben Levi, the commander of the Iranian Army’s Secret Field Police.”

  “He was killed in London, though we weren’t responsible,” Ferguson said. “But we had his body disposed of. We couldn’t see the point of sending the details to the Iranian military, and they’re still looking for him. They had no idea of his al-Qaeda connection.”

  “And I’m sure he has already been replaced,” said Cazalet. “That there’s a new Master out there now. Terrorism has completely changed warfare as we know it. Enemies without uniforms, bombs everywhere.” He shivered. “End of an era. But enough of that for this one night. Tonight, let’s go out on the terrace and have some champagne. Or perhaps you’d prefer a glass of port, Charles?”

  “Now you’re talking, sir,” Ferguson said, and led the way out.

  The dining room opened into the conservatory, where great sliding doors gave access to the terrace with tables and lounging chairs, the garden crowding in, flowering shrubs of every description, tall pines and palm trees that someone had experimented with over many years. The scent of flowers, the sound of grasshoppers chirping in the lights, all combined to create a kind of tropical splendor.

  “Wonderful,” Sara said. “I love the smell of it.”

  Cazalet said, “It’s a bit of a jungle really, but at my age I can do as I please, so I let it run riot. Reminds me of my tours in Vietnam. Come, have something to eat.”

  Yanni and Khalid had reached the house without the slightest trouble, following the beach, passing the occasional barbecue, sometimes a fire. There were lots of other people in the darkness, laughter, guitar music, but there was no one by the Cazalet house.

  They passed it, turning up the left side of the estate through a marshy area with reeds growing high, found a place where the fencing gaped and squeezed into the garden. They could hear conversation and laughter, light through the trees and shrubbery.

  They had taken pills before leaving the cottage and were feeling the effects. “Are you getting high, brother?” Yanni whispered.

  “I’m floating, man,” Khalid told him.

  “Then put on your face.”

  Yanni pulled the ski mask on, and grinned as his brother did the same. “You look like a clown.”

  “So do you,” Khalid told him, and took his Glock out and dropped the shoulder bag to the ground. “Let’s do it,” he said to Yanni, and led the way cautiously.

  —

  On the terrace, they were at the coffee stage, Ferguson and Cazalet sitting down and Dalton pouring it out. Dillon was standing by the open window, enjoying a cigarette. There were three stone steps leading up to the terrace crowded with overgrown shrubbery, and Sara stood there waiting for her coffee. Yanni crouched, watching her admiringly. His brother stood a few feet away in heavy bushes behind the balustrade.

  They could have killed everyone if they’d fired without hesitating, but the drugs had taken full control and they were shaking with excitement, and it was Yanni who made the first move.

  “Let’s go!” he shouted, and took three quick steps up to the terrace. Sara half turned and he hit her sideways in the face, pulled her against him, and rammed the barrel of the Glock into her side. “A present from Osama, with regards from the Master.”

  “Oh God,” she moaned, as if terrified, and closed her eyes, apparently fainting, starting to slide to the floor so that he was losing his grasp.

  Dalton was already drawing his weapon and jumping in front of Cazalet. Khalid stepped out of the bushes and shot him in the chest. In the same moment, Dillon drew the Colt .25 he always carried in a rear belt holder and fired rapidly three times, the hollow-point cartridges tearing Khalid apart, hurling him back into the shrubbery.

  Yanni howled in rage, allowed Sara to slide, and fired once at Dillon, denting the wall. Sara withdrew the flick knife from the sheath she always wore around her right ankle, sprang the blade, and stabbed him under the chin. He dropped his weapon, fell back down the steps, and lay in the middle of rosebushes, kicking as he choked to death.

  There had been surprisingly little sound, just the dull thud of silenced weapons, and Cazalet was already on his knees with Ferguson, examining Dalton, Dillon standing over them, his gun still in his hand. Dalton groaned and Cazalet looked up in relief.

  “Thank God, he was wearing his vest. I’ll leave him to you, Charles, while I raise the alarm.”

  He found Dalton’s cell phone and called in. “This is Cazalet. Empire down. Two intruders down. Request Nightbird Retrieval.”

  He said to the others, “Which means a cover-up job by the CIA. It should be easy enough, since all the weapons were silenced, so the neighbors shouldn’t have any idea what’s been going on, and as you know, the occasional helicopter landing is nothing new here.” He turned to Sara. “I can see why they awarded you a Military Cross in Afghanistan, but your suit will never be the same again. It’s badly bloodstained.”

  “No problem, sir, I have another in my luggage. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go to my room to shower and change.”

/>   “Of course,” he said.

  As she moved out, Dillon murmured, “Are you okay?”

  She held up a bloodstained hand. “As usual, not even shaking.”

  “Just like in the Bible. The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.”

  “Which doesn’t help me in the slightest,” she said, and went out.

  Cazalet eased Dalton onto a chair and gave him some brandy to sip. Dillon poured champagne for himself and Ferguson, who said, “God knows why we’re drinking this, but it’s a pity to waste good stuff.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” Dillon toasted him.

  Cazalet cut in: “Did you two hear what the one she killed said to her?”

  Dillon nodded. “A present from Osama, with regards from the Master.”

  “It appears that al-Qaeda has found us, right here in Nantucket.”

  —

  The Nightbird was of medium size, black in color, the engine noise remarkably quiet. A dozen men in black overalls got out. The officer in charge, wearing the same black uniform, was calm and efficient.

  “Colonel Sam Caxton, Mr. President. We’ll be treating this as a crime scene, although it’s not a police investigation. If you would, I’d like you all to wait inside and two of my men will record interviews with you, both individually and together, to cover all the bases. We also have a doctor with us, just to check you all out.”

  “We’re at your service, Colonel,” Cazalet said.

  “If you could move in, we’ll get started. It goes without saying that we’re delighted to find you in one piece.”

  He went out, and Cazalet said to Dalton, “How do you feel, Frank?”

  “The vest I’m wearing can stop a forty-four.”

  “You deserve a medal, jumping in front of me like that.”

  “That’s what I’m paid to do, sir.”

  Cazalet clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s all return to the kitchen and have a cup of coffee. It’s going to be a long night.”

  —

  On the Dolphin out at sea, the lights of Nantucket had faded when Kelly entered the wheelhouse with two mugs of tea and gave one to Tod, who was listening to a jazz trio.

  “Sounds good. Who is it?” Kelly asked.

  “No idea. It’s Nantucket local radio. I was waiting to hear if there were any news reports.”

  “What are you going to tell the Master?”

  “I’ll think of something.” He sighed. “Probably better get it over with.”

  “I’d like to hear that,” Kelly said. “Put it on speaker.”

  In a moment, they were connected.

  “This is Tod Flynn.”

  “I’ve been waiting to hear from you. Are you still in Nantucket?”

  “We’re at sea. Couldn’t contact the Chechens, and there didn’t seem to be any sign of action at the Cazalet house. Nothing on local news, either, so I decided the smart thing to do was leave.”

  The Master cut in. “Then I have news for you. Yanni and Khalid are dead, bagged, and waiting to be flown away.”

  Shocked, Tod made an instinctive response. “That’s impossible. How could you know that?”

  “Because I provided backup that even the Chechens did not know about. A woman sympathetic to our cause that I had in place. After I phoned you, I called her. She had seen you casting off to go to sea and smelled a rat, went after the Chechens herself, and was right behind when they entered Cazalet’s jungle of a garden. There was no time to warn them.”

  “So what happened?” Tod asked.

  “The Chechens were butchered. Dillon shot Khalid, and the Gideon woman stabbed Yanni with a knife. When a CIA black unit arrived by helicopter, she slipped away.”

  “A hell of a cool customer,” Tod said.

  “Yes, a remarkable lady—but to business. Admit it, you were doing a runner. You never even attempted to warn those boys.”

  “Okay, we were. We know Dillon from way back in the Troubles. Nobody messes with him, he’s a killing machine and the Gideon woman is the same. If we had tried to find them, we’d be lying dead next to the Chechens.”

  “Nevertheless, that was your charge. You owe me a quarter of a million dollars.”

  Tod said, “We didn’t sign up for any of this. You lied about everything. It wasn’t our fault that things turned out the way they did.”

  “Don’t think you can shirk your responsibility. Everybody is accountable. But you can keep the money.”

  Tod was astonished. “What do you mean?”

  “You and Kelly are men of a mercenary persuasion, as the song goes. Go home to Drumgoole, to your horses and the stud and your aunt Meg—she runs things there, correct? Oh, and you’ll be losing your niece Hannah; she just heard yesterday that she’s been accepted by the Royal College of Music in London.”

  “Damn you, how do you know all this?”

  “I know everything, Tod, I thought you knew that. I just want to make sure you realize that there is nowhere that you—and yours—can go that I can’t touch. Now, I have tickets waiting for you at the airport. When you get home, shave off the beards and it will be as if you never left Ireland, and I’m sure you’ll have plenty of friends to swear you never did. Good luck and try to stay sober. I’ll be in touch soon, and this time you are going to earn the money you have from me.”

  He faded away, the Dolphin plowed on, rain bouncing off the screen. Kelly said, “Is he for real?”

  “Oh, yes, and a barrel of laughs, too. I admire his fine turn of phrase.”

  “Well, he’s going to want something for his quarter of a million bucks, God knows what. Here, you take the helm. I’m going below to try to get a little shut-eye.”

  —

  Sara Gideon lay in bed in a bathrobe, unable to sleep. Outside, the wind howled, rain rattled against the window. There was a knock at the door, which opened and Dillon peered in. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “Ferguson and Cazalet are downstairs and there’s an intermittent flow of information about the two people we knocked off. They’re Chechen brothers, but American, brought into the country as refugees with their grandparents, who have since died. Shouldn’t be long before we know everything about them.”

  “Wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

  “Why?”

  “It was all so wild, weird even. It was as if a piece of foolish nonsense came to an unlooked-for end.”

  “That’s really quite literary,” Dillon told her. “Are you by chance regretting the fact that you had to kill that maniac?”

  “Not at all, he’d have finished us all off. Dammit, Sean, he got a shot off at you that just missed.”

  “And you put the knife in to save my life, girl,” Dillon said. “So bless you for that.”

  “Anything else happening?”

  “Well, Ferguson’s spoken to Roper in London, and I’m sure he’s been put to work. You can feel free to contact him on your mobile if you want.”

  —

  In the Holland Park safe house in London, Major Giles Roper sat in his wheelchair in the computer room, wearing a bathrobe, a towel about his neck, his bomb-ravaged face shining with sweat. He was smoking a cigarette and drinking a glass of whiskey when Sara called.

  “My goodness, love, so you’ve been playing executioner again?”

  “No choice, Giles, not this time. Sean was his usual deadly self.” She shivered. “Seconds, Giles, just seconds. It could have turned out so badly for all of us.”

  “Well, it didn’t, and that’s all that counts.”

  “So who do you think was behind them? You’re the best that I know at squeezing answers out of cyberspace.”

  “I have to agree with you, but these things take time. Besides, you have to remember that what happened tonight in Nantucket didn’t happen. Nobody heard a thing, nobody saw a thing. A
nd if nothing happened, then no one can claim responsibility. I’m certainly not going to go on line saying there’s a rumor that there was an assassination attempt on former president Jake Cazalet. Then everyone would know—and all the wrong sort of people would claim responsibility.”

  “So what can you do?”

  “Just wait and watch, see if anything unusual pops out. You never know. Anyway, get some sleep. I’ll see you when you get back.”

  —

  Dalton had reluctantly gone to sleep on a couch in the sitting room, and Cazalet and Ferguson sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee and turning things over between them.

  “I’m almost flattered that someone feels I’m worth being a target,” Cazalet said.

  “Nonsense, you were a great president. Your death would have made headlines around the world.”

  “Maybe,” Cazalet admitted grudgingly. “Anyway, there was one matter I was asked to raise with you before you leave.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Colonel Declan Rashid. He was an enormous help in the Husseini business, so disgusted at the way Husseini was treated by the Iranian government that he deserted their army and supported your people in everything.”

  “And took a couple of bullets in the back doing it. He’s agreed to work for us when fit again,” Ferguson added.

  “Well, apparently the CIA would like to talk with him. They’re really quite keen on it, though I expect I know your answer. I told them I’d pass it along, but wouldn’t promise anything.”

  “And you were right. You know Rashid’s history. He was a paratrooper at sixteen and, during Iran’s war with Saddam Hussein, made his first jump into action without training. Over the years, he has been wounded many times, and now his doctors, including our own Professor Bellamy, say enough is enough. He needs time to recuperate. The CIA will just have to retire gracefully from the conflict.”

  Cazalet laughed out loud. “That’ll be the day. Anyway, let me just check my office messages. I’ve given Mrs. Boulder the morning off, so when it comes to breakfast, we’ll all have to pitch in.”