“Seize them,” Flackyard suddenly commanded.
The two burly servants moved the short distance from where they had been standing, with lightening speed, and pulled us roughly up from the floor.
“Take them down to the cellar,” he shouted. “Tie them up and make them very uncomfortable. Perhaps I’ll give you six lashes each. Maybe it will teach you to enter my home with a little more respect, and fewer accusations.”
His mouth was a foaming mousse of anger.
I said gently, “You’re an intelligent man of culture, and you know as well as I do that imprisoning us will serve no useful purpose. It will only calm the anger you feel now. You’re not a barbarian.”
Flackyard stretched himself to a regal height. “I will take your message back to those concerned, but I can only do that if we’re allowed to leave here unharmed,” I coaxed. He looked through me for a moment or so and then gradually brought me into close focus.
He said, “And it’s only because of this that you shall leave here unharmed, Mr Dillon.” He was speaking a little more quietly now. I caught the scrawny servant’s eye and he gave a slight twitch of the shoulders that may have been a shrug.
After being released from the grip of the black robed manservants, Flackyard came over and shook my hand gravely. He said, “I apologise for my sudden outburst. It is unforgivable that I lost my temper. Please accept my sincere regrets at such behaviour. Perhaps it would be possible for me to see the message that your London office sent you?”
“The message? I’m afraid not. But you can have a look at this if you like.” I pulled out from my inside jacket pocket the folded piece of paper that I’d used earlier and handed it to Flackyard.
He took it from me and walked away to the other side of the room, unfolding the small square of paper as he went. As he turned to face me, I saw the fire in his eyes flare, but the self-control was securely in place as he came and handed it back, folded once again. Without another word, we were shown out into the brilliant sunshine of Marrakech.
“What was that all about,” asked Fiona.
I handed her the folded piece of paper as we walked back down the narrow side street towards our hire car.
“But — it’s blank?”
Chapter 40
“Delicious,” said Vince, “absolutely melts in your mouth.”
It was perfectly true. The pastries and cakes in the little café were superb and among the some of the best I’ve ever tasted.
“Did DC Stewart get it?” I asked quietly.
“Oh yes,” said Vince. He tapped the leather rucksack on his lap.
“Went like a dream. Just like I said it would. An astonishingly simple thing to get into. The people who make shoddy safes like that really should be locked up. It only took young Stewart forty-five seconds to open it up! But, although this must seem immodest, he did have the benefit of me talking him through the whole process with the bluetooth earpiece I gave him. This obviously made the whole job much easier, and of course we also had the added bonus of being able to use the Black Widow.”
“Black Widow, what’s that?” asked Fiona, leaning forward and lowering her voice to just above a whisper.
Vince lowered his voice conspiratorially. “The Black Widow, my dear, is a real piece of hi-tech gadgetry. Only got it last week through a chap I know in Brighton. Who, thinking about it, is a very strange and definitely unsavoury character with almost white hair and very red eyes, but he does know his stuff.” Vince always got excited when he was talking about gadgets, especially those that were illegal.
“This Fiona.” He held up a black flat box-like object about six inches square, “is the latest professional’s delight, direct from America. It uses X-ray images and magnetic impulse energy to re-align the tumblers, all you have to do is stick it straight onto the front of the safe. The rest, as they say, is history.” He took another fresh seed cake and devoured half of it in one mouthful.
“You did make the call?” I asked.
“Of course I did, I used the public phone in a near by hotel and dialled the boss’s unofficial direct line, like you wanted. LJ picked it up almost immediately as luck would have it. I told him that the meeting had gone as expected with no hitches and that we would be moving to another location imminently. Advised that the target ‘Hudson’ has been approached with success in Marrakech, and should be eliminated from the picture as soon as was physically possible. LJ confirmed that he understood what had to be done and hung up.” He smiled, “Do you think that Hussan will think Hudson means Hussan when he intercepts the call?”
“Only unless he’s more stupid than I think he is.” I replied.
“I know for a fact that his department is in charge of call monitoring. That means every call made from a public telephone is routed through a central computer system.”
“This is programmed to do the work of a thousand people. He’ll get the message alright, but he’ll never be able to trace where the call was made to.”
Vince chuckled in between mouthfuls of honey cake. He’d taken an unreasonable dislike to Hassan and loved the idea of him looking for a non-existent assassin.
“So, how did it go with Flackyard?” asked Vince. “And why are you constantly looking at your watch, Jake? You weren’t followed here, were you?”
“No. Stewart is due to collect you in five minutes,” I said; it was 1.55 p.m.
“Well I’m sure he’ll get here as quickly as he can given the traffic out there.”
“Anyway you won’t get him here any quicker by interrogating the watch every few seconds. Tell me about your chat with our friend the gunrunner. And please have a honey cake. You are absolutely positive that you weren’t followed?”
“Vince for the last time, we weren’t followed.” I took a honey cake and told Vince about our conversation with Flackyard. “But that’s not true,” Vince told me at various places in the narrative.
“How do you know it’s not true? Either you want me to adapt the conversation, for your entertainment or not.” I jested.
“Best liar I know, you are,” said Vince with a friendly grin.
“And so he really is connected at the highest level of Government. But he’s saying that these influential back room Government boys are all fascists.”
“I think that’s only the tip of the iceberg, Vince. It’s not only the British Government who have been infiltrated over many years but the French, Italian and Germans, along with all the others no doubt and I think it’s a lot more sinister than just fascism.”
“So if it’s not just fascism — what is it?” asked Vince, like he hadn’t been running his fat sausage-like fingers through secrets for many years when he was with MI6.
“Look I know this is going to sound a little weird, but it’s something that Flackyard said when I had my cosy fireside chat with him at his house in Dorset. While we were talking he made a throw away comment about belonging to a secret society, I think he said something like the New World Order, or something very similar anyway.”
Vince spoke as he wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, “Jake, let me tell you, that stuff about a New World Order is not fiction, you know. He’s not invented it and seriously, it really does exist. Those who have studied this say it’s a conspiracy that originated from an ancient order started in Bavaria in 1755 called the Illuminati. Both Five and Six know all about these guys. If you want my advice I’d leave well alone if I were you, my friend.”
“Well I’m not you, Vince, and if I want your advice