"Nothing like looking the part," he said softly, examining himself in the mirror. "But what do you really know about birds except the female variety?"
He returned to the Audi, drove around looking and found a book-shop. Within minutes, he was emerging with a suitable item covering the coastal areas of England. It was a magazine type of book with an ill.u.s.trated cover. Good to carry under your arm to let the uninformed know what you were. Pleased with himself, he got back in the Audi and continued his drive toward the coast and Zion.
HE ARRIVED AT ZION in the middle of the afternoon, put the Audi"s top down and had a look round. What he saw was a typical English village: one pub called the Ploughman and another down the street named the Zion Arms, old cottages, a church. He parked the Audi and went into the Zion Arms. Everything you expected from an English country pub was there, from logs burning on the hearth of a stone fireplace, to the beamed ceiling, the mahogany bar, the mirrored shelves and the stout late-middle-aged lady behind it, with rosy cheeks and wearing a floral dress. It seemed too good to be true. There weren"t many people, a party of three, a young couple, talking in low voices, a very ancient-looking man on the wooden settle by the fire, alone, a half-empty pint of beer in front of him.
Selim Bolton he might be, but it was Sam Bolton who approached the bar. In previous adventures for the Brotherhood, he had seldom used an alias. He was himself a university graduate and a middle-ranking executive in a private bank in the City of London. Anyone who wished to query him, even the police, would discover that quickly enough and look elsewhere. He even had a company card with Sam Bolton engraved on it.
Outside the village, he had pulled into a lay-by and looked up Zion in the bird book. He had an extremely good memory, noted Zion Marsh, the fact that it was National Trust and a brief mention that the house was not open to the public.
"Ah, you"d be staying here for the bird-watching?" she said as he placed the book on the counter. "Plenty of people come here for that."
He"d concocted his story in advance. "I work in London in finance. Sometimes you feel trapped, you just want to get away for a few days. I"ve got friends further along the coast, Aldwick Bay, the other side of Bognor Regis. Lovely shingle beaches up there. I"m making my way back to London, taking my time, and I noticed in the book that Zion marshes are a bit special."
"People seem to think so. What will you have?"
"A pint, please."
The old man by the fire emptied his gla.s.s and spoke up. "I was eighty-seven last month and I"ve lived here all my days, mainly working the land farming. When I was a lad, birds were just birds, part of life you took for granted. Now we have the bird-watchers like you, people who take it seriously. Last year we had people turn up in coaches to try and catch sight of some lapwing in the marsh. Supposed to be special. G.o.d knows why."
"I see your point. I don"t take it seriously. I work hard in an office most of the time. I like to get out in the fresh air, but I like to have a reason, so I"ve started on birds. Could I buy you a drink? I see you"ve run dry."
"A pint wouldn"t be a burden. That all right with you, Annie?"
"Shame on you, Seth Harker, you"re an old cadger."
She pulled the pint and Bolton paid her and took the gla.s.ses over."All right if I join you?"
"Why not?"
"Good health." Bolton drank some of his beer. "Do they cause a problem, bird-watchers, on this Zion Marsh?"
"National Trust, that. No, they"re a harmless lot and it"s good for the economy. These days, any kind of tourist is welcome. Creates jobs for people, There"s the caravan site, bed-and-breakfasts."
"All from birds."
Harker chuckled. "That"s a fact, when you think about it."
"I pa.s.sed a stately home when I was approaching the village. I checked in my book and it said visitors weren"t allowed. Zion House it was?"
"Oh, you can"t go there. Owned by the government and has been as long as I can remember. I wasn"t allowed to go into the military in the Second World War, farming, you see, reserved occupation, so I was here right through." He nodded his head. "All sorts of dodgy things went on at Zion House, planes in and out from the runway, a lot of it at night. All highly secret."
"Is that so?"
Seth Harker nodded. "The thing is, the Ministry of Defence still runs it like that. High security, guards in blue uniforms."
"Jobs for the villagers?"
"Oh, no, the guards are all outsiders. The housekeeper, Mrs. Tetley, lives in, and she"s got three young women on staff who help with the catering and other duties. Looking after guests really. Kitty, Ida and Vera. Nice girls, but not from around here. They keep themselves to themselves."
"You said guests. That could mean some kind of hotel?"
"Where the guests never show themselves?" Harker cackled. "And don"t visit in the village."
"Yes, but you must see them arrive? They must visit the pub?"
The bar had emptied and Annie was in the back. Seth Harker was reasonably drunk by now. "Ah, but they always come in by airplane. There"s a concrete runway by the house. That was the way it was in the big war and still the way it is today." His gla.s.s was empty and he looked at Bolton"s. "You"re not drinking."
"Well, you know how it is. I"ve got the car, the driving to think of if I carry on back to London. You know what the police are like these days."
"Pity to waste it." Bolton pushed it across and the old man drank deeply. "My cottage is on a small rise overlooking things. Fern End it"s called. You get a good view of the runway from there. I"ve watched people come and go for years. I"ve got a pair of old binoculars. There was a plane in at round about half-eleven this morning. It dropped off two women and a girl and three men. They were picked up by Captain Bosey, head of security, and taken up to the house." He patted the side of his nose with a finger. "Not much I don"t know, I think I could do with the necessary."
He took Bolton"s arm to stand and was surprisingly steady as he crossed the bar and went into the lavatory. Annie came in from the back. "Has he been a nuisance?"
"Certainly not, he"s a real character. Is he fit to get home? He told me about his cottage."
"Oh, he"ll be fine. If he wants a snooze, he can use the room in the back. When he does that, some villager will give him a lift. Can I get you anything else?"
"I"ll be fine, actually. I"ll be off, I think."
"Well, if you decide to stay, we do have four rooms for the night and there"s always the caravan site. I own that as well."
She went into the back again and Seth Harker returned. "Ah, going, are you?" He eased himself down.
"I must."
Harker really did have drink taken. "What we were talking about, security. All b.a.l.l.s really. There"s always a way. Take Zion House, walls, electric wiring, cameras. All for nothing if you could go under."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"In 1943 during the war, there was only a gra.s.s runway and small planes used it on a nightly basis for flights to France. Bad weather of any kind, rain, flooding from the marsh, sometimes made it unusable. So they dug a tunnel that started in the wood, continued it under the wall into the garden."
"What was the idea?"
"A network of clay piping under the gra.s.s from the runway that would drain into the tunnel. By putting the other end in the garden, they had the idea of linking it up with ordinary drains from the house."
"Who told you about this?"
"RAF lads based at Zion House and they also had some Royal engineers. It was done on the quiet, and then some RAF group captain inspected it and said it was a lousy idea and ordered them to just concrete the runway, so planes could land even if it had water on it."
"And the tunnel and drainpipes?"
"They ordered a stop to that work, blocked off the end in the wood with a big manhole cover and used gra.s.s turfs to cover it. It"s a creepy sort of place. There"s a granite pillar there with some lettering that doesn"t make sense. Rubbed away with time."
"Did you ever take a look?"
Harker smiled. " "Course I did, over fifty years ago a bit after the war. It was there all right. Iron rungs to help you down and you had to paddle in water then. G.o.d knows what it would be like now."
"And the garden end?"
"There was another manhole cover there, too, which I couldn"t budge. So what they covered it with, I"ve no idea. I never went down there again, but I always thought it a bit of a laugh over the years with all their security improvements."
"And n.o.body knew about it?"
"It was the war, you see, top secret stamped on everything. Who on earth cared when it was done and who on earth would care after so many years? Any mention of it was lost in RAF files years ago."
"Yes, I can see that." Bolton got up again and held out his hand. "You are a fascinating man, Seth."
"And what would your name be, boy?"
"Bolton-Sam Bolton."
There was a kind of knowing look on Harker"s face, a touch of cunning. "I hope you got what you came for?"
"I met you, didn"t I?"
He went out, and behind him Annie came in with a long tray of gla.s.ses and put them on the bar. "He"s gone, has he? What a nice young man."
"A good listener," Seth said. "I"ll have another pint."
BOLTON FOLLOWED THE ROAD past Zion House, noting the electronic gates at the entrance, and saw a uniformed security guard outside his hut smoking a cigarette. He carried on past, came to a large signboard saying zion marshes and wildfowl protection area. national trust. Beyond it was the car park, the wood parallel to the wall of the house at that point and stretching toward the marsh and the runway.
Late in the afternoon of a gloomy day, the car park was empty and it started to rain, but that suited him. He hurriedly raised the roof of the Audi, opened the back, found the tool kit and pulled out the steel tire lever.
The rain increased as he walked along the edge of the wood, paused to look at the concrete runway. At that point you could see over the wall onto the garden, the terrace at the back of the house with binoculars, of course, through the electric fencing with the warning notices telling the public to keep out. He turned and walked into the wood at what seemed to be the point the old man had meant. And it was there, the granite stone, just as he had been told, slightly tilted to one side.
The gra.s.s was long all around. He started prodding into it with the tire lever, bending over, moving backward, reaching to the left and then the right, persevering as the rain increased, and then it came, the clang of metal on metal.
He knelt there in the pouring rain, secure in his waterproof clothes, and hacked away at the gra.s.s and soil beneath, holding the tire lever in both hands, and gradually a patch tore away. He scrabbled with his hands, and there it was, a portion of a cast-iron manhole cover. He managed to reach a part of the circular edge, forced the tire lever in, hoping to lift it. It was hopeless. It needed the right tools, but that wasn"t his problem. He looked around him. A crowded thicket of bushes and undergrowth pushed in and the trees were close. It was certainly private enough.
He went back through the rain, immensely cheered by the way things had turned out, and his extraordinary good fortune in meeting Seth Harker. He got in the Audi and called Ali Ha.s.sim on his mobile. There was an instant answer, for Ali was entertaining Hussein and Khazid in the back room of the shop.
"Where are you?"
"Zion, of course. I"m coming back. I"ll see you in about three hours."
"But why aren"t you staying overnight?"
"Because I"ve finished the task you"ve given me. Zion House has a purpose. I believe it to be a high-security safe house. People only arrive by plane. They have their own personal runway. They received a plane at eleven-thirty this morning with two women pa.s.sengers, a young girl and three men. I haven"t the slightest idea who they are, but I suspect you do."
"This is incredible," Ali told him.
"No, but the fact that in spite of all their security, I"ve found a way in-that"s incredible."
"If that is so, truly Allah is on our side."
"I thought you"d say that." Bolton drove away fast.
At the shop, Ali turned to face Hussein and Khazid and told them everything.
Chapter 15.
AT THE DARK MAN, HARRY AND BILLY SAT IN THEIR USUAL booth, Roper beside him in his wheelchair, Joe Baxter and Sam Hall leaning against the wall and talking in low voices. Sergeant Doyle, who had brought Roper down in the People Traveller, was sitting in it outside, reading a book as usual. They all looked troubled. Harry had just swallowed a large scotch and called to Ruby, who was tending the bar with Mary O"Toole. "We"ll have another, love, me and the Major."
"All right, Harry." She poured the drinks. "I"ve not seen this before, the black rage. He frightens me in a way."
"Did he know this Professor Stone well?"
"According to Billy, they worked quite closely with him when the outfit had some sort of bad time in Hazar two or three years ago."
"Ruby, what"s keeping you?" Mary picked up the tray. "I"ll take it for you." Harry accepted it in silence, staring into s.p.a.ce, his face like a frozen mask. Ferguson had phoned Billy and told him that the surgeon, a Professor Vaughan at the hospital in Cambridge, unhappy with Hal Stone"s condition, was holding back on the operation.
Billy shook his head in a kind of controlled fury. "I wonder where those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are now?" Roper swallowed his scotch. "Well, only they would know that." Harry seemed to come alive. "Yes, but they must have some plan. I mean, this Hussein is a clever b.u.g.g.e.r. He wouldn"t do anything without backup."
"You"re right," Roper said. "He wouldn"t have dared come to England without knowing there were extremist organizations who would back him to the hilt."
"Well, we all know that," Harry said. "Fanatics who get away with preaching terror everywhere from television to the London streets."
Billy said, "Yeah, but there"s their human rights to consider. We know what they are but can"t do anything about it."
"Well, I b.l.o.o.d.y well can." Harry turned to Roper. "This guy with the funny name, Professor Dreq Khan and his Army of G.o.d thing?"
"He"s untouchable. Covers his back constantly."
"b.l.o.o.d.y disgraceful," Harry said.
"It"s likely Greta speaks Arabic," Roper said. "So she heard enough of the conversation at the hospital to know those two men at Caspar"s house were under orders from Khan to get up to no good. After things went sour, he did a quick flit to Brussels in his role as chairman of a committee involved with racial harmony. He"s just come back."
"Then why hasn"t he been nicked?" Harry demanded.
"His work with the UN gives him diplomatic immunity. We know he"s guilty as sin, but proving it legally is another thing. Even if Ferguson descended, it would be laughed out of court, and with Khan"s UN status, he"d probably be allowed to do a runner anyway," Roper told him.
"Well, I"m not happy about that, and I think I"d like to discuss it with him. I presume you"ve got an address?"
"The Army of G.o.d is a registered organization," Roper told him. "It"s in the phone book."
"I was thinking of something a little more private than that."
Roper smiled. "I should say, are you sure you want to do this, but you know what, Harry? Khan is a very bad man. Like you, I"ve had enough."