Billy took a step toward him, and Dillon said, "Leave it."
Sergeant Parker appeared through the French windows, wearing a dark blue blazer and flannel slacks. He put his right hand inside the blazer and stood, silent and watchful.
"Nothing to say?" Makeev asked.
"Your hair fascinates me," Dillon said. "Shaved off like that, the two of you look like a couple of convicts on the run. Now, the SAS at Hereford, England, grow their hair long because they don"t know from one day to the next when they might have to go undercover. But then, they"re the best. You can"t be expected to compare."
"Why, you little s.h.i.t," Makeev said in Russian, leaned down to grab Dillon by the shirtfront and was promptly head-b.u.t.ted. He staggered back, and Billy put out a foot and tripped him, following it up with a kick in the ribs.
"Nice one," Billy said.
As Zorin picked his friend up, Greta jumped to her feet, furious. "Go to my cottage and wait for me. Now!" she added fiercely.
"Billy, you just can"t get good help these days," Dillon said.
"I don"t know what the world"s coming to." Billy was smiling, but Greta wasn"t.
"d.a.m.n you to h.e.l.l, Dillon," and she turned and followed the other two down to the cottage area.
People had settled again, unfazed by a minor affray in a city where bombs and violence were part of their daily lives.
Parker said, "What in the h.e.l.l was all that supposed to be about?"
"That, ould son, is the opposition, but I"ll fill you in down at our cottage. Time to move out, Billy, not that we actually unpacked."
"It"s all go with you."
As they went down the steps from the terrace, Dillon"s Codex Four went. It was Sharif. "Mr. Dillon, Selim arrived a short while ago at the farm."
"We"re on our way. Don"t forget, half an hour and then call her."
"As we arranged."
Sharif switched off his mobile and stood there in the orange grove, aware of the smell, the lights of Ramalla Village over to his left, the farm beside the Tigris below, and felt strangely sad. Had he done the right thing? Who knew? It was in the hands of Allah now.
In their cottage, Dillon brought Parker up to speed and opened the hardware bag. He produced two Colt.25 semiautomatics in ankle holsters and gave one to Billy.
"A woman"s gun," Parker said.
"Not with hollow-point cartridges. Put a Walther in your waistband behind your back, Billy." He smiled at Parker. "If anybody searching finds it, they think that"s it."
"My G.o.d, what is this, the third Gulf War?"
So Dillon told him.
Afterward, Parker said, "I knew it was big when Robson briefed me, but this is something else."
"A totally black operation. That"s the way we work. You can sign the Official Secrets Act later."
"Unless you"d prefer not to," Billy said.
"Get stuffed. Like I said, it"s got a bit boring lately."
Dillon took an Uzi machine pistol from the bag. "There are two of these in here, so with your Browning, I"d say we"re ready to rock and roll."
"Just one thing," Parker said. "Does all this mean you don"t trust Sharif?"
"No - what it means is I don"t trust anybody. So we take the hardware bag, leave anything else, leave the lights on and the radio."
"And leave the bill at reception," Billy said.
"Naturally."
"I parked round the back. Ford station wagon."
"Then, as they say in the movies, let"s get the show on the road," Dillon told him.
And some ten minutes later, Greta Novikova was in the middle of telling Zorin and Makeev exactly what she thought of them when her mobile went. It was Sharif.
"He"s at Ramalla. Arrived a short while ago."
"Excellent. Zorin and Makeev are with me now."
"Do you want me to join you?"
"No, meet us there."
"Do you still intend to dispose of them?"
"Of course, that"s the whole point of the exercise. Does it give you a problem?"
"Not at all."
"I"ll see you later."
Sharif switched off his mobile, looked over at the farm beside the river for a moment, then walked down through the orange trees toward it.
Zorin drove, Makeev beside him, in a Jeep Cherokee, Greta sitting in the back. Makeev was checking out an AK-47 with a folding stock.
"This should do the job," he said, laughing, and punched Zorin on the shoulder. "An easy one, this. Not like hunting that Iraqi general in Basra."
"You"ve worked for the Americans?" Greta asked.
"Good G.o.d, no. It was an honor killing. He"d raped somebody"s wife in the Saddam days. The family wanted revenge."
"We hunted him down in a sewer," Zorin said. "The family wanted his manhood, but this fool got him with a stick grenade."
"So there wasn"t much left of his manhood." Makeev laughed uproariously. "Not that you"d know much of that kind of thing sitting behind a GRU desk."
It occurred to her then that they were both on something and it wasn"t drink. She was wearing a black crepe trouser suit, a purse in her lap. She put a hand inside and found what she sought, a Makarov. She fingered it, not nervous, just ready. She had killed on occasion, but these fools didn"t know that.
"Oh, I don"t know. There were sewers in Kabul. I was twenty-two years of age when the Mujahidin finally chased us out in ninety-two."
They had stopped laughing. "You were in Afghanistan?" Makeev sounded incredulous.
"Chechnya was worse. Now, they they really were sewers." Zorin swerved to avoid a line of donkeys with produce for tomorrow"s market, his headlights picking them out. really were sewers." Zorin swerved to avoid a line of donkeys with produce for tomorrow"s market, his headlights picking them out.
"Careful," she said severely. "We want to get there in one piece."
She took out a cigarette, lit it and sat back.
The run to Ramalla was smooth and took no more than fifty minutes. Dillon examined the map in the light of a flashlight as they got closer.
"I"d say pull in on the edge of the orange grove on the hill. That"s not much more than a hundred yards away. You"ll stay with the station wagon," he told Parker.
"And miss all the fun?"
"No, ride shotgun. I never take anything for granted, and there are night gla.s.ses in the bag." He lit a cigarette. "I"ve never trusted anyone or anything in my life. That"s why I"m here."
Later, moving off the main road, Parker switched off the engine and coasted some distance down through the orange grove and halted. The farm lay below, a light in the windows. There were two or three boats pa.s.sing down the Tigris toward Baghdad. It was extraordinarily peaceful.
"They came to Ramalla," Dillon said. "Very biblical."
"I"m not much on the Bible," Billy said.
"Well, I have the Irish att.i.tude. There"s nothing can happen in life that hasn"t already happened in the Bible." He took two pairs of night gla.s.ses from the bag and gave one to Parker. "Take a look."
When he did himself, the house was plainly visible, with what looked like a barn on each side, one of them damaged, part of the roof gone. There was a parked Land Rover.
"That"s the war for you," Dillon said and pa.s.sed the gla.s.ses to Billy. "Notice the license plate on the Land Rover. It"s Kuwaiti."
Billy pa.s.sed them back. "So how do we do this?"
"We"ll go down on foot. You take the Uzi and leave the other for the sergeant." He turned to Parker. "You"ve got the gla.s.ses. Monitor us."
"What for, exactly?"
"Who knows? Just do it. Come on, Billy," and he got out of the station wagon and started down the hill, Billy following.
They reached the damaged end of the farmhouse. Half the roof was gone, what had been double barn doors missing. It was dark inside, but Dillon took a chance and flicked on a small flashlight, revealing some rusting farm machinery. He switched off. "Not much here."
There was a sudden rattling on the part of the roof left intact and rain fell in an absolute downpour. "Christ," Billy said. "I thought this was Iraq."
"It rains in Iraq, Billy. Sometimes it rains like h.e.l.l in Iraq."
He led the way along the front of the farmhouse and past the Land Rover. There were shutters at the windows, half closed, and Dillon peered in, Billy at his shoulder. They saw a living room with a large table, on which stood an oil lamp. There were chairs, a wooden sideboard, a fire of logs on a stone hearth. A radio was playing music softly, but there was no sign of anyone.
"We"ll try the other barn," Dillon whispered and moved on.
There was a narrow window on each side of the barn door, and Dillon peered inside. "Well, there"s your man, Billy. Take a look."
Inside, there were stalls for animals, and a large loft with bales of hay and reeds. There was also Selim in a shirt and jeans clearing out a stall with a rake.
Dillon said, "In we go."
He reached for the door handle and a donkey brayed at the back of the barn and several more answered, and that was strange, because at that time of night and in all that rain, why would they not be in the barn? But before he could react, the tailgate of the Land Rover swung open behind him and Sharif got out holding an AK-47. Two men in red-and-black-checked kaffiyehs over their faces got out behind him, also holding AKs. Dillon had started to turn, but the muzzle of Sharif"s gun touched his back.
"I wouldn"t, I really wouldn"t. I have no desire to kill you, or you, Mr. Salter. Please pa.s.s the Uzi over."
"f.u.c.k you," Billy said, but did as he was told.
"You should beware the Wrath of Allah, Mr. Salter."
"Jesus, you"re one of them," Dillon said.
Sharif was searching them, found the two Walthers and pa.s.sed them to his friends. "Actually, I"m not. I don"t care about Al Qa"eda, or Wrath of Allah, or any of them. I"m not even a good Muslim. But I love my country. That"s what"s important to me, and I want you all to go away."
"Including the Russians."
"Especially the Russians. You think I want to see people like Belov getting their hands on our oil, running our country? I think not. Now, let"s go inside and wait for Major Novikova and her friends. It"ll be a nice surprise, I think."
He pulled open the door and Selim stopped raking and turned, startled and then relieved. "Major, you"ve got him."
"So it would seem, me ould son," Dillon told him. "If you"re interested, Ashimov and Belov want you dead. I, on the other hand, can cut you a deal with Ferguson that could ensure your return to the delights of London."
They heard the sound of a car in the distance, and Sharif said, "Get ready to close the door a little." Two more men stood up behind hay bales above in the loft.
"On the other hand," Dillon said to Selim as one of the men pulled on the door, "maybe you want to stay down on the farm?"
All this had been seen by Parker through the night gla.s.ses as he stood by the station wagon. He reached for the Uzi and at the same moment heard the approach of the Cherokee and raised the night gla.s.ses again, tracking the Jeep as it descended from the main road to the farm. It slowed on the final run, and Makeev, clutching an AK, rolled out headfirst and darted through long gra.s.s to the rear of the barn. The Jeep came to a halt behind the Land Rover, Zorin and Greta Novikova got out, and at that moment, the door of the barn swung open and Sharif appeared with his friends. It was enough, and Parker started down the hill at a run.
Greta Novikova said to Sharif, "So you"ve betrayed us?" "I"ve betrayed both sides. I"ve thought it over carefully and decided to become a patriot, which is what my four friends are. I spoke to them and they were happy to oblige."
"I think it would pay you to think again. Josef Belov has a long arm."
"Never mind that. What happened to Makeev?"
And Dillon, speculating, stuck his oar in. "That would be me. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was rude to the lady on the terrace of the hotel, and I broke his nose for him." He smiled amiably. "Or something like that."
In fact, Makeev, at that moment, having gained access to the barn through a rear door, was mounting wooden steps to the entrance to the left, but his progress was awkward, the steps breaking away with some noise. One of the men in the loft appeared, cried out an alarm and fired, hitting Makeev in the chest, and Makeev shot him in return, then fell backward down the stairs.
Down below, Dillon nodded to Billy and they both pulled the Colts from their ankle holsters and confronted Sharif and his men. n.o.body fired. There was a kind of tableau, a frozen moment, the door swinging all the way back in the wind, rain driving in.
Sharif raised his AK. "I"m sorry, Mr. Dillon," and Parker appeared in the doorway and shot him twice.
What happened then was very fast, very quick. Dillon swung, threw himself at Greta, flinging her out of the way. "Get in one of the stalls," he cried, as bullets shredded the floor beside him from the loft. He turned, firing twice, and the man up there came down headfirst.
Billy had dodged into the shelter of a stall and picked off one man carefully, a bullet to the head, and shot the other in the back as he turned to run away.