Constantine Legacy (Jake Dillon Adventure Series) (17 page)

The email came through just as we got back to
the rented house. On the small laptop screen a flashing
envelope alerted me that there was one new message in
my mailbox. Fiona came in and stood beside me, intrigued
as to who the sender was at four in the morning.

It was from Harry. “How nice of him to write”
said Fiona sarcastically.
The note read:

Sorry to leave without saying my goodbyes
properly, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. I didn’t
know whether you were playing straight or not when you
promised to let me fade. Mr Thomas is jumping around
like a cat on a hot tin roof. You can bet on Fiona’s sweet
ass that he will want to get his hands on my lady of the
sea whom I decided to leave behind and is residing just
around the corner from Round Island.

What I didn’t tell you is that Mr Thomas has one of
the slickest blackmail set-ups of all time and I do mean of
all time. If I mentioned, Constantine’s list, which no one
has been able to locate, listing the names of politicians
and certain high ranking military types who like to do
a little cocaine, hookers and smack, you’ll know I ain’t
kidding.

Keep an eye on the lady for me, Ace. You never
know your luck; you might even get to close the file on
this one – GOOD FISHING! Have a nice life!

The Rumples had completely disappeared into
thin air or were on the run, with every Government
agency in the land looking for them. But who would they
be looking for? As masters of disguise and deception, I
doubted very much whether the Rumples were even in
the UK anymore.

Anything that had to be done had to be done on
our own. I sat down in front of the computer screen.
“What are you doing?” asked Fiona. I looked up
at her, and asked her if she would mind making some
very strong coffee for us both.
I typed the brief report to LJ in London, clicked
the Send key and then put the laptop away. Fiona brought
coffee. I told her I had sent an update of the situation to
LJ, and that she could either continue the chase with me
or was free to take any action she wished in respect of the
drugs operation. I also reminded her that because of the
Partners’ association with the British Government, any
mention of Ferran & Cardini or myself would be denied
emphatically and that all traces of our involvement down
here in Dorset would be erased from all files as a matter
of course. That said, and out of the way, I stood up and
went through to the kitchen.
“You’re not giving me the brush off, that easily.
I’m with you all the way, like I said before, Jake Dillon.
We’re going to finish this together, whether you like it or
not.”
“If that’s what you want. We’ll start by rowing out
to Harry’s boat then,” I stifled a yawn, and was suddenly
feeling really tired.

Fiona brought the dinghy gently alongside the hull
of the Star Dust. I scrambled on to the teak laid deck in
my bare feet – I didn’t want to risk leaving wet footmarks
across it. Fiona stepped agilely onto the ladder, and before
coming aboard, kicked the dinghy away into the channel.

I watched through night vision binoculars, willing
George ‘Thomas’ Ferdinand not to appear until we were
both suitably concealed. Then I walked across the bridge
looking for a place for us both to hide and wait. There
was only the one stowage locker on the far side of the
wheelhouse, which would just about take me. Fiona
wasn’t happy about getting inside the tight space and so
went off below to find her own hiding space.

It was a bit tight for my size, almost coffin-like, but
I jammed the blade of my diver’s knife under the bottom
edge of the fibreglass lid, which gave me some airflow,
but not enough to dispel the smell of damp. We waited.

Half an hour later, something struck the side of the
boat with a dull thud. It wasn’t very seaman like and I
began to wonder whether it was George.

Perhaps Harry had still been playing games and
had lured me into a trap. I flushed with sudden fear at the
thought of this locker really becoming a coffin.

I heard George’s voice shouting at the other person
in the dinghy to keep a tight hold of the rope. The dinghy
was evidently drifting away. A young woman’s voice, a
little hysterical was telling him to take hold of the metal
case. “Don’t drop it in the water, you stupid bitch. The
oars are all over the place; you’re going to lose one of
them.”

George pulled hard on the rope and the small
dinghy slammed into the side of the hull again. The girl
clambered onto the deck and in a West Country accent,
she hurled a string of expletives at George Ferdinand.

They seemed to be an age getting aboard, and then
I heard George walking across the deck to the control
console. There was a click as he switched on the lights
over the controls. If I held my face horizontal, with my
ear pressed tight against the deck, I could just see through
one of the small ventilation grills at the bottom of the
locker lid. My right eye had a narrow range of vision that
included the top half of the person at the controls.

I could see George in profile – the pock marked
face with long sideburns and the small scar around his
ear. The anchor came up with a clattering and the big
diesel inboard motors throbbed into life at the push of
the starter button. George engaged the twin screws and I
felt the water thrash under the hull.

The lights above his head threw his sunken eyes into
two dark, skeletal shadows. His hands moved across the
controls, articulate and smooth, while his eyes watched
the beams, the compass and the rev. counters. This was
the real George, a man that I’d never seen before, a very
capable, professional sailor. From the seat at the controls
he couldn’t see the ship’s clock. Every few moments he
would call to the girl with him, “What time is it?” and
she would tell him.

He moved the throttles as far forward as they
could go and the hull began hammering against the water
like a road worker’s pneumatic hammer. When he was
satisfied with the course, George told the woman to take
the wheel and hold it steady. I heard the click as the
aluminium case was unlocked. I pressed my ear closer
to the wooden deck inside the locker, and this gave me
a slightly wider range of vision. The woman was staring
into the dark while George crouched on the floor over
what looked like some sort of portable sonar equipment,
to which he was connecting headphones and the cable for
what looked like the underwater sounder. Then he stood
up and walked to the stern of the boat, placing the coil
of wire near to the lower dive platform, and his footsteps
came back towards the wheelhouse.

He shouted, “Starboard – keep the bloody line
steady as she goes, will you.” The girl he had brought
aboard was mid twenties and definitely, I thought,
the same person that Fiona had interviewed, firstly at
Flackyard’s club and then for a second time only a few
days ago.

She sat at the wheel, her hands gripping it tightly,
looking straight ahead into the darkness. George was
talking quickly to her about Harry making a run for it.
How the bastard had cleaned out George’s bank account
of nearly three million pounds. George was completely
at a loss as to how Harry could possibly have found out
the details and passwords of the account, gained access
electronically using an Internet Café access point, and
then completely covered his tracks.

There was a click and the girl was bathed in
reflected light as Ferdinand moved the beam of the big
searchlight out across the waves. I felt the boat slow
and the engine pitch drop as George brought the cruiser
about a few degrees, slamming it into the swell. Outside
there was the sound of water sloshing over the edge and
rushing along the teak deck. The boat vibrated again as
Ferdinand pushed the big throttle levers forward as far as
they would go. After two or three minutes he slackened
off the power and turned to port.

He shouted at the girl to use the big searchlight
and to keep her eyes peeled for any rocks just below
the surface of the water. We must be entering a cove, I
thought. These parts of the Dorset coastline abound with
both large and small inlets and coves that have been used
for centuries by smugglers, and are ideal places for putting
ashore without anyone seeing. George had dropped the
sonar over the side, and was now listening through the
headphones intently. His arm came up, flapping about
and he shouted frantically at the girl to go gently around
the cove again, this time in a tight arc.

Becoming more and more panicked by George’s
shouting, the young girl was not only trying to look out
for rocks, but steer the boat as well.

Ferdinand in frustration at her slowness to respond
to his orders hurled at her a string of four letter words
as he snatched the wheel from her and spun it viciously,
knocking her sideways onto the throttle levers in his haste
to get her out of the way.

The large cruiser slid sideways, uncontrolled, the
propellers screaming to get hold of the water as the deck
heeled over towards the dark sea.

It was bad timing on my part that I had chosen
that moment to emerge.
The locker lid flew open and I tumbled out,
sprawling across the deck with the life jackets that I
had been lying on. My face struck one of the uprights
supporting the chart table, my arm-twisted behind me,
and I heard my automatic pistol slide forward out of its
holster. George got control and the deck came level.
“Get to your feet,” George said, his voice menacing.
I wasn’t to keen to stand up just yet, especially if it meant
that I was going to be knocked straight down again. On
the other hand he could have just kicked the hell out of
me or shot me with the ancient looking Smith & Wesson
he held in his right hand, if he’d wanted to.
“Listen, George, I don’t want to fight you,” I said.
“I’m not going to fight you, Mr Dillon. I’m going
to kill you.” He didn’t say it like a cold-blooded killer but
like a man who, although completely mad, talks like any
other calm, educated and mentally stable person.
“In that case, George, you will be making a serious
mistake,” I replied. But it was no use; I had read this
man’s army personnel file. He had fitted into civilian life
so badly, building up resentment and rage against people
in positions of power, so that he was a bubbling cauldron
of violent behaviour just simmering under the surface,
and waiting to erupt.
The girl was back at the wheel, and the boat was
drifting with the swell, the engines at idle. George faced
me across the bridge. “I was going to make it quick
and clean by shooting you, Mr Dillon. Followed by a
dignified burial at sea, of course. But I’ve decided to make
an exception in your case.”
“Especially as you have taken it upon yourself to
destroy my lucrative little venture down here in Dorset.
For that, I am going to take great pleasure in destroying
you – blow by blow.”
He moved slowly, ensuring he kept his balance. His
eyes stared into mine, sizing me up, judging my probable
actions. We faced each other no more than an arm length
apart. He brought his hands slowly and easily upwards
in front of him, fists clenched. He widened his stance and
turned his shoulders very slightly.
It confirmed what I had suspected. George was a
street brawler; his stance was that of a boxer, one hand
and one foot slightly advanced.
Rivulets of seawater caught in the light meandered
across the deck under George’s feet. I brought my left arm
up in front of me in a basic block, sweeping it across to
the left, deflecting George’s right fisted punch. I watched
his eyes, he was deciding whether I was going to be a
pushover. He came at me with a short left hook in the
ribs, followed with a jab at my face.
His fist scraped my cheek, but my body was wide
open. I ignored the pain in my side, bringing my left
leg around in an arc, and the top part of my foot made
contact just behind his knee.
His leg buckled with the blow. As he went down
on one knee, he spun round in an attempt to kick my feet
out from under me.
I stepped back quickly out of his reach. It was the
correct counter but he was slow, far too slow. A man off
balance thinks of nothing but getting balanced again;
aggression disappears. He lunged forward, knees slightly
bent, body forward, eyes keeping constant contact with
mine.
My left hand blocked and gripped his right forearm
as he came in for another punch, and my right fist made
contact with his stomach, just under the ribcage. George
doubled over, my knee smashed into his nose, bone
crunched and splintered, and blood began instantly
pouring onto the teak deck.
Still holding onto George’s right arm, I stepped
around and behind him twisting the outstretched limb up
at an angle. I heard a sharp intake of breath as I applied
upward pressure to the point of dislocating or breaking
George’s arm.
The girl turned and looked over her shoulder, her
eyes like belisha beacons as Fiona Price came crashing
through the open salon doorway. She moved like a cat,
low and crouching until she was out in the open. Then
she stood up and fired her pistol into the air.
Even at that instant George did not allow the pain
to influence him. He still tried to struggle out of the hold I
had him in. He was a tough man, this George Ferdinand.
He fell away as I released him and sat on the floor holding
what was left of his nose.
He said, “You know I could easily throw you over
the side – and no one could ask any questions?”
“Of course you could, George, but there is just the
possibility that I’ll break your neck while you’re trying or
the lady over there will shoot you.”
“We’ve got no power on that side.” the young girl
pointed to the starboard side. The cable from the sonar
had probably wrapped itself around the screw. I retrieved
my automatic, motioning George down towards the dive
platform.
“Fiona, cover the girl while I attend to our friend
here.”
I tied George to the steps with the rope from a life
buoy and went back up to the bridge. I told the girl to
head back towards Poole Harbour and Sandbanks, using
only the port motor. It would be a slow journey and the
wind had got up, coming at us with the dawn sun. This
floating gin palace was definitely not the type of boat to
be in at sea with only one propeller.
“You’ve got nothing on me,” Ferdinand shouted.
“When we hand you over to the police, or
perhaps those gentle souls from drugs, you might think
differently.”
“There’s nothing linking me to Harry Caplin or
anyone else, so dream on, Dillon, and another thing, the
authorities won’t be holding me for too long when we get
back. Once I’ve phoned my lawyer,” said George, with a
twisted sneer, his eyes flitting in all directions and beads
of nervous sweat all over his face.
“Who’s to say that you will get a phone call,
George?” I said. “It’s like this, certain parties that I know
want to question you about your involvement with the
distribution of class A drugs across the country. I’ve no
doubt they will also want to know where and from whom
you obtained the list that enables you to blackmail some
of the countries most influential and wealthy people.”
The wind howled all around us. George was getting
the full force of it where I’d tied him up. The girl sat at
the wheel keeping close to the coast as we made our way
back to the harbour.
“Save your fantasies for your report,” said
Ferdinand. “You have no interest in drugs.”
“No? So what am I interested in, then.”
“Your only interest is in Constantine’s list, the one
I would have retrieved from that cove had you not gate
crashed the party.”
“Well done George, that’s exactly right,” I told
him. “My brief has always been to locate the list and then
to destroy it. But my colleague up there is most definitely
wanting to talk to you about the drugs.”
Fiona looked down at me quizzically at the mention
of drugs.
“It’s not there,” he said, “it’s gone, you’ll never
find it, not now – not never.”
“But you admit that it has been your source of
blackmailing inspiration?”
“Of course, it contains the names of some of the
most powerful people in this country. It’s not everyday
you get the opportunity to screw those filthy rich bastards,
is it now? But, I really can’t recall much of it,” he added
for good measure.
“Let me help you remember,” I said. “I’ll tell you
one name that was on it.”
I named Hawkworth. Ferdinand said nothing. “The
man that you served under in the army and whom with
your friend Jasper Lockhart you decided to blackmail.”
“You know about Lockhart,” George’s eyes filled
with hate, and he flared his nostrils in a primitive show
of anger. “Leave him out of it. He’s all right; he was just
trying to help me. He’s not involved in…” George stopped
talking and looked out to sea.
“He’s not involved, eh?” I said, but didn’t push it
any further.
I sat down under the canopy on the lower deck,
just above the dive platform. The nagging pain in my
side told me that at least one rib was possibly fractured,
maybe two.
George sat slumped on the deck, his hands tied
together to the steps. His nose had started to bleed again
and both eyes had started to swell. Just to add to his
discomfort.
“Did your friend Flackyard give you the list or did
you steal it from him?” I asked out of the blue.
George slowly looked up at me through swollen
eyes before speaking.
“No,” he said quietly, “Robert Flackyard is the
most honourable man I know.”
“Look, George,” I said, “I rarely interrupt
people when they’re talking; especially when they are
misinterpretting ‘honour’ and inventing lies and halftruths, because, in fact,
they
are far more interesting than
the actual truth. However, for you I’ll make an exception;
either you start telling the truth or I’m going to drop you
over the side with your hands still tied together.”
“What do you or your kind know about honour?”
he said tersely.
“Honour,” I said, “Sure and of course you do;
you, Caplin, Hawkworth and Flackyard. An honourable
bunch of thugs. Look, Ferlind” – it was the first time I
had used his real name – “you’re just trying to break one
leg off of a centipede. Behind me is another, just like me,
and behind him another. I’m a pussycat compared with
some of the others who are going to descend on you in
any part of the world you go. All that my boss and those
in Whitehall want back is a report stating the assignment
is ‘closed’ written in bold letters across the front of the
file. Those individuals named in that list can then get on
with their sordid little lives, without the fear of being
blackmailed. Try and be a bit sensible. I may even tell the
authorities what a helpful chap you’ve been. You never
know, they may even cut a deal with you.”
“What do you want to know?” he said.
“I don’t know what’s missing until I hear it, if there
is anything you don’t want to tell me just miss it out!”
“How very cunning,” said George, “the gaps tell
you more than the story in between.”
“Something like that,” I said, “I’m really the Chief
Constable travelling undercover with a wire taped to
my chest, or it could just be George, that you are a little
paranoid!”
Getting up, stiff from sitting on the deck my ribs
ached from where Ferdinand had whacked me. I walked
to the main cabin, leaving Fiona to watch both the girl and
George while I poured him a large brandy from Harry’s
well-stocked drinks cabinet. I released Ferdinand’s left
hand from the steps but left his right securely tied to the
handrail, just in case he decided to jump overboard on
his own. He sipped at the big glass of brandy I had given
him, lost in deep thought.
He said, “Bosnia? Do you remember the news
footage, the images that came out of the Kosovo conflict?
Dying and wounded babies, animals and children,
hundreds of dead bodies everywhere, riddled with bullets
or torn apart by landmines?” He lit a cigarette, taking a
hard pull of smoke into his lungs.
“Frightened, I was so bloody frightened. People
like you don’t understand...”
“...do you?” he said. He wanted a reply.
I said, “As long as you don’t say it’s because of my
lack of imagination.”
He went on staring out to sea and smoking. George
Ferdinand nodded.
For a moment I thought he was going to smile.
“Yes, I was there. There are times you’re so
frightened of something that you have to make it happen
sooner. I was merely someone who wanted to come to
terms with my trauma. Men I had known from the army
had volunteered to fight as unpaid mercenaries with the
Kosovo Liberation Army.”
“So I went to join Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbian
force as a highly paid mercenary, just to be different.
They posted me to a small elite unit inside Kosovo which
was carrying out assassinations against their own Serbian
police officials and Albanian collaborators. Why? I hear
you ask. Very simple really. To discredit the Kosovar
Albanians, who at the time were part of a peaceful
movement. Caplin thought I was working with the
Liberation Army.”
“He liked it that way so I never disillusioned him.”
“How long were you with the Serbs?” I said.
“Long enough. It was just like an exercise really,
we’d be told which police official or collaborator to hit.
All we had to do was follow him around, see where he
went, plant a bomb somewhere convenient and using a
remote detonator, execute him. Bombing was always the
preferred method, as it always gained maximum shock
horror reactions. It made it a nice impersonal fight for
me. No close up view of who you were hitting. No one
trying to hit you. The best bit was being paid thousands
of pounds by the Serbs to actually go out and kill Serbs.
Ironic is what I’d call it, bloody ironic.”
I could see that in some perverse way the
destruction and carnage that Ferdinand had experienced
in Kosovo had never left him, and probably never would.
How he really did believe in his own twisted mind, that
working for the Serbs in Bosnia was nothing more than
an exercise.
“When I came back to England, I didn’t really
know what the hell I was doing, except getting drunk
and doing a little coke more often than not.”
“Anyway, after a while I got introduced to a local
East End lad who operated a string of lap dancing clubs
in Soho and was heavily into dealing drugs. It wasn’t long
before I had a flat and a flash car. He told me that in
return for the lifestyle, I would be contacted when the
occasional ‘special job’ had to be done, otherwise my
time was my own.”
Ferdinand looked at me and shrugged.
“And you fell for this guy’s bullshit?” I said.
“I fell for it,” said Ferdinand.
“Then you met Jasper Lockhart?”
George didn’t fall into the trap; he walked into it
slowly and deliberately. He looked at me and said, “Yes,
I saw him soon after I’d started. He told you?”
I tried a simple lie. “No, I guessed,” I said, “when
I saw you in London. It was when I met Jasper Lockhart
at that lap dancing club.”
“That was you, was it?” said Ferdinand. “Yes, I
sometimes go back there to see some of the girls. Purely
for pleasure, you understand.”
I knew he was lying. He had obviously been there
delivering a consignment of drugs that afternoon, but I
said nothing.