Edge of Danger

Dillon said, 'Don't screw me around, Patrick. Bell wouldn't be over here with you lot if you weren't up to something big.'

Costello said, 'Go on, stuff yourself.'

'Oh, I like that,' Harry Salter said. 'I mean, that's elegant. Don't you think that's elegant, Billy?'

'No. Actually, Harry, I think it's rude and stupid and self-destructive.'

'You've been reading those books on philosophy again.'

Dillon said, 'It's a waste of time. I thought there might be some sweet reason here, and obviously there isn't.' He went and picked up a length of chain by the stern rail and handed it to one of the divers. He said in Arabic, 'Round his ankles and over.'

Costello cried out as they put him down and started with the chain. 'Here, what's going on?'

'You're going down,' Dillon told him. 'You can join Kelly and the two Arabs who tried to finish me and Billy off.'

'You wouldn't.'

Hal Stone got up. 'For God's sake, Dillon, you can't do this.' His part in the good policeman/bad policeman routine was impeccable.

'Well, I'm tired of being Mr Nice Guy, Professor. Killing, bombing, you name it, he's done it. He can go for the deep six and who cares.'

He nodded at the two divers. They upended Costello and put him over the stern rail. He screamed in mortal fear and his head went into the sea.

Harry Salter said, 'Pull the bugger back. Maybe he's learned sense.'

Costello lay on the deck, sobbing. Dillon squatted beside him. 'So what's it about, Patrick?'

'I'll tell you, I swear it,' Costello said. 'There's this bunch of Arab leaders called the Council of Elders, and tomorrow morning, they're going to this place called the Holy Wells and we take them out.'

'Dear God in heaven,' Hal Stone said.

'Where?' Dillon asked.

'Rama. It's called Rama.'

Dillon removed his chain, Costello still sobbing. 'Put him in the hold,' Dillon said in Arabic to the divers.

'What did you say? What did you say? Oh God, you're going to kill me,' Costello said, turned and hurled himself over the rail.

He surfaced on the pale yellow stern light and Dillon said, 'Billy.'

Billy took careful aim and shot him in the back of the head.

'Was that strictly necessary?' Hal Stone asked.

'It was if we want the fact that we know what they're up to to stay private,' Harry Salter told him.

Bell and Kate Rashid waited while Tommy Brosnan and Jack O'Hara went looking for Costello. They came back with no result, and Bell was furious.

'The bastard. I'll cut his balls off. He can't resist skirt. Probably holed up in some whorehouse and drunk.'

'What do we do?' Kate asked.

'We can manage. I'll kick his arse later, but right now let's get moving.'

Ben Carver ran the air taxi firm at the airport. He was fifty, an ex-RAF squadron leader with a DFC from the Gulf War. He was tending to overweight these days. His boys were loading the Golden Eagle. Bell and his men and Kate Rashid approached.

'I heard you lost a plane, Carver,' Kate said. 'A private charter.'

'Yes, a Mister Dillon,' Carver said. 'It crashed in the Empty Quarter, but Colonel Villiers and the Hazar Scouts found them.'

'Well, that's good. I hope you have insurance.'

'Absolutely, Lady Kate.' 'Let's get going then.'

Fifteen minutes later, the Golden Eagle took off, climbed to five thousand and headed for Shabwa.

Dillon caught Villiers on his coded mobile. 'I've got bad news – really bad news – as to why they're here.'

'Tell me.'

Which Dillon did.

Afterwards, Villiers said, 'Have you told Ferguson?'

'No. He should be on his way out here by now.'

'Dillon, I'm a hundred and fifty miles to the south of that road to the Holy Wells and I've split my command, sent Bronsby east. We each have fifty men. I'll never make it.'

'All right. So warn the Council of Elders to turn back.'

'Dillon, it won't happen. They're obviously doing the whole thing on the quiet. These are very old-fashioned people. I tried to speak to the advisers earlier, a routine call, and the mobile phone was out.'

'You mean we sit here and let them drive up through one of the worst deserts in the world to their deaths?'

'I'll go like hell, but through that terrain, fifteen miles an hour is tops. I'll call in Bronsby for support.'

'That's not good enough.' Dillon thought about it. 'What if we fly to that airstrip at Shabwa?'

'It's surrounded by Rashid Bedu at the moment.'

And Dillon saw it then. 'Leave it. I'll call you back.'

Hal Stone called Ben Carver. 'I heard you'd gone up-country, so you're back?'

'Obviously.'

Stone said, 'I want a flight to a position east of Shabwa, to drop two men by parachute, a thousand-foot job.'

'You must be mad.'

'Ten thousand sterling.'

Carver hesitated and there was silence. Stone looked at Dillon, who nodded. 'All right, Ben, fifteen thousand. Come on, just a one-hour flight, drop them and come back.'

Greed, as usual, ruled the day. Carver said, 'Okay, I'll do it.'

Dillon took the phone. 'Carver? Dillon here. We might need you later to pick up Major General Ferguson from Haman military airfield and take him up-country.'

'Now, look,' Carver said.

'Twenty thousand,' Dillon told him. 'How about that?'

Carver took in a deep breath. 'I've heard of Ferguson.'

'Well, you would. He runs things for the Prime Minister.'

'So it's all kosher?'

'It's just like being back in the RAF, so have the plane ready and two 'chutes.'

Dillon went to the rail where Billy and Harry were having coffee.

'So what gives?' Harry asked.

'This is me and Billy,' Dillon told him.

Billy said, 'Come on, Dillon, what are we into now.-'

'I've spoken to Villiers. He's split his command. He'll drive hard through the night, but it's a hell of a way to cover at fifteen miles an hour. Besides that, that airstrip at Shabwa is in Rashid hands. The Council of Elders seem to have a security blackout, according to Villiers.'

Hal Stone said, 'So they'll simply drive through the night to certain death some time tomorrow morning.'

'That's not the way I see it.' Dillon turned to Billy. 'In Cornwall last year, you did brilliantly. Jumped from six hundred feet without any training. Somebody should have given you wings.'

'Here, come off it, Dillon,' Harry said. 'You're talking about jumping from a plane up there? The two of you trying to screw things up until Villiers and his cowboys get there? Am I right?'

'Harry, it's what I'm doing. Billy's a free spirit, and Billy and I share a love of philosophy.'

'What in the hell is that supposed to mean?'

'Plato. Remember him, Billy?'

And Billy Salter, London gangster, four times in prison, a killer in his time, smiled the coldest smile possible. 'Sure, I remember: "The life which is unexamined is not worth living". Which means to me: the life not put to the test. Time to put ourselves to the test, Sean.'

'Good man yourself. I'll fly up with Carver in his Golden Eagle, just like Cornwall, Billy, except it's headfirst at one thousand feet in this case. Some say I'm mad, Billy, unhinged, you might say. I've done bad things in my life, but the Rashids have done worse and I'm going to stop them.'

'No, you've got it wrong, Dillon,' Billy said. 'We are going to stop them.'

'Billy, you're mad, too,' Harry told him.

'What else do I do? Go home to Wapping? Chase birds, get so frustrated I finally do one job too many and pull five years?' Billy smiled. 'I'd rather go down for something worthwhile.'

Harry Salter was astonished. 'What can I say?'

'Nothing,' Dillon said. 'Just come along for the ride.'

In London, Charles Ferguson was clearing his desk when the doorbell rang, and Kim showed Blake Johnson in.

'Good to see you, Blake.'

'The President wanted me here. This latest news has shocked him greatly.'

'You realize, Blake, that Hazar is neutral. The border with the Empty Quarter is disputed territory. You could have a war there, butcher the Council of Elders, do what you like and be totally untouchable by any other country.'