Edge of Danger

'Bizarre, isn't it?' Dillon said. 'Do you know Stone?'

'Of him. So what are you doing here?' 'I'm diving for him. If you know anything about Hazar, you'll know about the Sultan.'

'Oh, I know everything about it, just as I know everything about you and your friends the Salters. You mix in interesting company, Dillon.'

'Very true, Kate. Harry Salter is legitimate now – mostly – but still one of the most influential villains in London. Billy's killed four times. They're not Chesterfields,' Dillon said.

'Yes, and you're not here to spend your time diving for Hal Stone.'

'Oh, yes, I'll dive for the Professor, and so will Billy.'

'And nothing else?' 'Kate, my love, what could there be?' 'You're on my case, Dillon.' 'Beware the heat of the sun, Kate. It can lead to paranoia.' He finished his beer and got up. 'I'll have to love you and leave you. I can't wait to check out that wreck.'

She went back to the bar. Bell said, 'What's that little shite up to?'

'There's nothing he can do here,' she said. 'Not a damn thing. This is Hazar. The Council of Elders think they control it, but not for much longer. Soon it will be all Rashid. Now let's go to your bungalow and look at the plans.'

In the living room of Bell's cottage, many papers were stacked on a desk, including a large Ordnance Survey map. Bell said, 'There's only one main road up there.'

'To the Holy Wells, yes.' She nodded. 'And next Tuesday, all twelve of the Council of Elders will be there.'

'You still haven't said how you want it done. Ambush or Semtex bomb? We can do either.'

T think the bomb would be more persuasive. I'll arrange to have some of my people take you up there, so you can see for yourself.'

'Excellent. But what about Dillon?'

'Oh, I'll take care of that. You know what they say? Diving is a hazardous occupation.'

The wind blowing in from the sea was warm and somehow perfumed with spices as they left the harbour in an old motorboat crewed by two Arabs.

'Christ, Dillon, you don't half bring us to some strange places,' Harry Salter said.

'Come off it, Harry, you love it. It's the edge of danger, this place. You'll need a shooter in your pocket. As the Professor said, you're up,against the kind of people who'll cut your balls off for a packet of fags.'

'I'd like them to try,' Salter said. 'I haven't had a bit of action for a while. That Sultan looks like something out of an old Sinbad movie.'

Stone laughed. 'You're just about right, Harry, if I can call you that. Its great virtue is that it's big. Lots of cabins on board.'

Dillon breathed deeply of the salt air, and a school of flying fish erupted from the water.

'Jesus, Dillon,' Billy said. 'This is special. I mean, this is the real business.'

They coasted up to the Sultan. Someone threw a line, and they tied up and mounted the ladder one by one.

'The boys will take care of things,' Hal Stone said. 'I'll show you your quarters.'

As it turned out, Billy and his uncle were sharing, and Dillon had a cabin to himself in the stern. He unpacked, then checked out the weaponry bag. He laid out the AK-47S on a table, the Parker-Hale machine pistols, the Brownings with the silencers, his own favoured Walther. There was a kick on the door, it opened and Billy and his uncle came in. 'Are we going to war again?' Billy asked. 'Well, we are in the war zone, Billy.' Dillon shoved two Brownings over. 'Loaded plus spare clips. You need something in your pocket here, especially with Bell and company around.'

'Yes, well, screw them.' Harry Salter hefted a Browning. 'Yes, this will do me nicely.' He put it in his pocket, plus the extra clip. 'Loaded for Bell.'

Billy did the same. 'All right, so we've got the heavy artillery here.'

'Only for when it's necessary.' 'At the moment, all I want is to go down to that wreck.'

'Well, let's go out on deck and we'll see.' There were three Arab divers on deck as Dillon and Billy got ready. Stone was there, and Harry Salter shook his head.

'I don't know, Dillon,' Salter said. 'I mean, it isn't natural, all this diving.'

'You're right.' Dillon was pulling on a blue diving suit. 'The air we breathe is part oxygen and nitrogen. The deeper I go, the more nitrogen is absorbed and that's when trouble starts.'

He clamped a tank to his inflatable and strapped an Orca computer to the line of his air-pressure gauge. He eased on the jacket with the tank, found a net diving bag and a lamp, then spat in his mask and pulled it on. Billy was doing the same. Dillon made the okay signal with his finger and thumb, and went over the rail backwards, followed by Billy.

Way, way below was a great reef, with coral outcrops, sponges, a kind of blue vault. A crowd of barracuda swam by, there were angel and parrot fish, silversides, horse-eyed jacks. It was a total joy, and Dillon jack-knifed and went down, checking his dive computer for its automatic readings on depth, elapsed time underwater and safe time remaining.

And then, there below, was the freighter, still in very reasonable condition. Dillon turned, made the OK sign to Billy and went down.

He led the way in through a torpedo hole on the starboard side, worked his way through a maze of passageways, emerged through another torpedo hole in the stern and paused. He made a sign to

Billy, thumbs down, and jack-knifed again.

There in the detritus on the seabed under the stern, he hovered and scrabbled with gloved hands and, by a miracle, came up trumps straight away. What he pulled out was a small figurine, a religious figure, a woman with large eyes and a swollen belly.

Billy came close and looked, his expression ecstatic, then he went down himself and started to search. Dillon hovered, then Billy came up with some sort of plate. Dillon nodded and they started up.

Back on the boat, they held their finds out for Hal Stone and stripped off their diving gear. The Professor was delighted.

'Dammit, Dillon, this figurine is a major find. The British Museum would go crazy for it.' 'And what about my plate?' Billy demanded. 'It's a temple votive plate, Billy, and an absolute beauty.'

Billy turned to his uncle. 'There you go. I mean, we've brought up stuff the British Museum would give their eye teeth for.'

'And we've only started, Billy,' Dillon said as he lit a cigarette and turned to Stone. 'We've got visitors.'

Colonel Tony Villiers was a tall, saturnine Grenadier Guardsman in his late forties, many of those years with the SAS. He had soldiered from the Falklands to the Gulf War through countless tours in Ireland. Decorated several times, there wasn't much he hadn't seen, and a tour in Bosnia and Kosovo had compounded it. He sat there in a small motor cruiser now, in headcloth and khaki uniform, a young officer with him, and coasted in to the Sultan.

He came up the ladder and Hal Stone greeted him. 'We've met before. I'm Charles Ferguson's cousin.'

'That's a recommendation,' Villiers said. 'And this is Cornet Richard Bronsby, Blues and Royals.'

'So we're still at it,' Hal Stone said. 'Just like the good old colonial days. This is Sean Dillon, by the way, and Billy and Harry Salter.'

'I know about everyone,' Villiers said. 'Charles Ferguson has been very forthcoming.'

A few moments later, sitting in the stern of the Sultan under an awning, Dillon said, 'And just how much has good old Charles told you?'

'Enough to indicate that he doesn't know what the Rashids are up to, which is why he's sent you and your friends, Dillon.'

'You and I have been close in the past but never met, thank Christ,' Dillon said.

Villiers said, 'God help me, but I spent enough time chasing you all over South Armagh.'

'Ah, well,' Dillon said. 'I suppose we're off the same side of the street. Is Cornet Bronsby?'

'He's just learning.'

'Good, then let's have a drink and see what the Rashids are up to.'

They pulled beers out of a cooler, and Villiers said, 'Paul Rashid is an old comrade. We did the Gulf together, he got an MC. He's a first-class soldier.'