Diamondhead (58 page)
Authors: Patrick Robinson
Tags: #Suspense, #Fiction, #Political, #Thrillers, #Weapons industry, #War & Military, #Assassination, #Iraq War; 2003-
CNN, the rival twenty-four-hour American news station, was too busy criticizing the Republican president for everything he had ever done to find time for the big story in Europe. They caught on just before 10:00 P.M., by which time Fox was up and charging.
They had a top-class foreign editor, an ex-Fleet Street newsman in London, brought on board by the laser-eyed Aussie media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his henchmen. His name was Norman Dixon, and he knew how to update a hot story like a mongoose knows how to nail a swaying cobra.
“The only new angle we’ll get at this time of night in Paris is the security,” he snapped. “The new heightened security on Foche. It has to be immense. Get Eddie in Paris and tell him to get me something. Anything—just a line to say the entire French security forces went on high alert in the small hours of the morning.”
“But Norman,” offered a girl reporter who looked like she’d just jumped off the front page of
Vogue,
“they’ll all be asleep.”
Vogue,
“they’ll all be asleep.”
“ASLEEP!”
yelled the fabled Dixon. “With some black-bearded psychopath on the loose, trying to put a bullet straight between the eyes of the next president of France? And if they are asleep, wake ’em up. Just get Eddie on the case.”
yelled the fabled Dixon. “With some black-bearded psychopath on the loose, trying to put a bullet straight between the eyes of the next president of France? And if they are asleep, wake ’em up. Just get Eddie on the case.”
Thirty minutes later, Fox News staffer Eddie Laxton came through from his apartment in Montmartre after speaking to a wide-awake duty officer at the Prefecture de Police, an officer he knew by sight.
“Yes, of course there has been a substantial security increase. And it will continue until this killer is apprehended.”
“Will it come into operation today?”
“Of course. Monsieur Foche is speaking in Saint-Nazaire today, and there will be an extra thousand men on duty all through the town and shipyards.”
“A thousand! Christ! Who made that decision?”
“Who the hell knows, Eddie? But it came from high up. It was a political decision, not the police.”
“Could it have been the president himself?”
“Shouldn’t be surprised. Anyway, it’s done. There are guys swarming to Saint-Nazaire from all over the country.”
“Armed?”
“Damned right they’re armed.”
The opening sentence from the Fox newscaster on the 10:00 P.M. bulletin was:
The president of France stepped in last night and ordered a massive security cordon around the Gaullist leader Henri Foche, whose two bodyguards were savagely murdered on a beach in northern France this morning.
The rest was pretty well rock-solid Étienne Brix, to whom the network gave full credit for the world exclusive in France’s most important newspaper. Norman Dixon wanted to give him a job.
The president of France stepped in last night and ordered a massive security cordon around the Gaullist leader Henri Foche, whose two bodyguards were savagely murdered on a beach in northern France this morning.
The rest was pretty well rock-solid Étienne Brix, to whom the network gave full credit for the world exclusive in France’s most important newspaper. Norman Dixon wanted to give him a job.
Almost four hundred miles to the northeast of the Fox newsroom, Jane Remson almost jumped out of her chair. Harry was on the phone, and she rushed out into the hall and urgently advised him to come and watch the newscast.
Harry wound up his call, but by the time he reached the study, the newscaster was winding it up with political background on Henri Foche. He ended the story by saying, “The question is, can Foche survive until the election with this dangerous assassin on the loose?” The anchor was instantly on the wrong end of a growled reprimand from Norman Dixon, who told him, “Never end a newscast with a question. You’re not here to ask questions. You’re here to answer them. Just give them the news.”
As reprimands go that was mild. A lot milder than the one Jane Remson was about to issue to her husband.
“What’s going on?” asked Harry, as he came into the study.
“Going on! Oh, nothing much, except your personal assassin is currently being hunted by the entire security forces of France, having just murdered Henri Foche’s two bodyguards.”
“Is Foche still alive?” asked Harry.
“Yes, thank God.”
“Have they caught the murderer? Or named him?”
“No, they haven’t done either.”
“Then it’s not that bad, right?”
“Harry, I respect our pact that the subject is never to be mentioned. And for a few weeks I have pretended it wasn’t happening. But we both know it is happening. And now half the world knows it’s happening. So there’s not much point in the pretense anymore, is there?”
Harry Remson did not reply. He walked across the room and poured himself a drink. And then he turned to face his wife. “Jane,” he said, “you’ve got me on the hop right now, because you saw the broadcast and I didn’t. Can you just tell me what was said?”
“Oh, that’s easy. Someone in England stole a big fishing boat and crossed the English Channel into France. It seems the coast guard was waiting for him, plus two of Henri Foche’s bodyguards. They were both found dead on the beach, and there is now a nationwide manhunt for the killer, who police suspect may be after Foche himself.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Harry. “Any clues about the killer?”
“Yes. He’s apparently a big guy, well over six feet tall, with long, curly black hair and a black beard. They think he’s Swiss.”
“Sounds just like Mack Bedford, right?”
“Well, we can only assume he’s hired someone else to carry out the deed itself. But it does not in any way lessen the obvious danger to ourselves. And the dreadful position you have put us in.”
“Jane, I can assure you, Foche has a lot more enemies than just us. Some people believe he owns the factory that makes that banned missile, the Diamondhead, the one that keeps burning our boys to death in Iraq.”
“I don’t care how many enemies he has. Nothing alters the fact that you have somehow taken out a contract on the next president of France, and it’s just a matter of time before the assassin is caught. They’re on to him before he’s started.”
“Are they?”
“Of course they are. There’s a thousand men in the shipyards in Saint-Nazaire, looking for him. Foche is apparently speaking there tomorrow.”
“But they haven’t caught him yet?”
“Not yet. But no one can evade that many armed security guards in a controlled space. The odds against him are a thousand to one. And when they catch him, it will all come out—Mack’s involvement, your involvement, and in the end mine. We’ll all be in court within a month, charged with either murder, conspiracy to commit murder, or maybe just conspiracy. None of it is very appealing, and all of it is utterly, stupidly unnecessary . . . jeopardizing our entire lives.”
Harry stared at his beautiful, angry wife. “If the hit man, whoever he is, gets Foche before the guards get him, Remsons Shipbuilding is back in business. I spoke to Senator Rossow today, and he’s been in contact with Foche’s rival, Jules Barnier. Not only did Rossow assure me the order for the French frigates would continue to come here, but Barnier himself is considering buying a small holiday cottage with a dock somewhere on the Maine coast. He’s a big sailor, and he’s bored with the Med.”
“Not as bored as we’ll be in some prison cell,” said Jane.
Mack Bedford surveyed his new world headquarters. At the front of the room there were two windows that looked directly out onto the shipyard concourse. On the rear wall directly opposite there were two more dust-covered windows that looked out directly over the harbor. The other two walls were lined with wide floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves, with inch-wide gaps between the struts like decking.
The room was probably 12 feet high, and behind the top two shelves on the door wall there was a high window, smaller than the others. The first thing Mack did was to see which windows opened and which ones he might have to force. All four of the lower sash windows were stiff with dust and neglect. But they all gave way before Mack’s upward onslaught, and they all opened. He closed them all slowly, attracting no attention from the dark shipyard below. And there was one thing he knew—this was a perfect spot to strike at Henri Foche, but it was almost certain the room would be “swept” by the security forces sometime in the coming hours. If that happened, he would at first try to hide among the shelves, or even retreat farther up the building, maybe even to the roof. But if push came to shove, he may need to go into combat. And that would change the rules, because it would almost certainly mean he would need to evacuate and regroup.
Mack walked back to the front window and stared down at the podium. One hundred and twenty-one yards from the base of the building. And now he was six floors above that point, and the rooms were 12 feet high. Five times 12, plus 3 feet for the window ledge. That was 63 feet, 21 yards.
“The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides,” he muttered. “Okay Pythag, old buddy, let’s hit it.”
He squared 121 and came up with 14,641. Then he squared 21 and came up with 441. He added them together for 15,082, and hit the square route button, which revealed a number a fraction short of 123 yards—the precise distance from the window ledge to the lectern.
The telescopic sight on the rifle was set for his last shot of some 600 yards, straight at the red lights high on the Brixham crane. This required adjustment, and he preferred to do it now, at night, overlooking the podium, rather than in broad daylight.
He pulled on his driver’s gloves and opened the metal toolbox. He removed each precious part of the rifle and smoothly screwed them together. Then he opened the window very softly about two feet and stared across the concourse. Mack stood back from the window for the adjustment, and gazed through the telescopic sight, which was, as he knew it would be, slightly blurred. Quietly, in that darkened warehouse room, deep in the Saint-Nazaire shipyard, he turned the small black precision-engineered wheel that brought the podium into focus.
Finally, he held the rifle more firmly and, for the final adjustment, aimed it directly at the microphone. The chromium stem that held it glinted in one of the concourse yard lights. There was hardly a sound as Mack brought it into acutely sharp focus. No sound at all, except for three infinitesimal clicks on the wheel, as Mack Bedford softly signed Henri Foche’s death warrant.
CHAPTER
12
12
Shortly after midnight Mack clicked the lock on the door. Thus far he had
made sure the sixth floor was open like all the rest, but now he wanted to sleep a while, and the lock would buy him time if anyone tried to come in. He folded away the rifle in case he had to move real fast, and took the toolbox with him as he climbed up to the top shelf and tried, unsuccessfully, to get comfortable on the decking.
made sure the sixth floor was open like all the rest, but now he wanted to sleep a while, and the lock would buy him time if anyone tried to come in. He folded away the rifle in case he had to move real fast, and took the toolbox with him as he climbed up to the top shelf and tried, unsuccessfully, to get comfortable on the decking.
In the end he went down and collected his food package and rearranged the produce, broke the baguette in half, placed the salami strategically against the Perrier bottle, and created without question the worst pillow in the entire history of sleeping.
But he had not closed his eyes for forty-eight hours, not since the hotel in Brixham. Mack could have slept, if necessary, on a carousel. It took him about twelve seconds to crash into a deep slumber, high up there on the warehouse shelves, his head propped gently on the Genoa salami.
Unsurprisingly, his dreams were vivid, but the one that crowded into his subconscious every night of his life was not discouraged by the rock-hard shelves. And again Mack watched helplessly as the Diamondhead missile ripped into his tanks, and once more he saw Billy-Ray and Charlie burning alive. The screams echoed though his mind, and he heard again the roar of that blue chemical flame from hell, and he could not get to his guys, and he awakened with sweat and tears streaming down his face. He was literally gasping for breath. But before he assembled his scattered thoughts, he once more saw, stark before him, the face, which to him at least, represented pure evil. The face of Henri Foche.
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