THE PERFECT KILL (18 page)

“Michael, it’s me, Leonie…can you hear me?”

She heard his voice croak, “Yes, Leonie.”

She felt his hand squeeze hers faintly.

Moments later, he felt her tears dropping onto his face.

Creasy had phoned the night before. Being the height of the tourist season, all flights for the next few days were fully booked. George Zammit had phoned the chairman of Air Malta and arranged to get him on the ten a.m. flight.

George picked him up from the airport. As they drove the fifteen minutes to St. Luke’s, he brought him up to date. Creasy listened in silence, then as they drove through the hospital gates, he asked a single question.

“How long before he’s on his feet and fully mobile?”

“The doctors say he’ll have to stay in hospital for at least two weeks, and then recover at home for several more weeks…but recover he will. Fully.”

They pulled up at the entrance and as Creasy was about to get out of the car the policeman’s hand gripped him by the arm. In a low voice, he said simply, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Creasy answered. “You can’t be everywhere. Will you have problems over this?”

“No, we’ve kept the lid on it. The press got nothing. The Commissioner told the Minister that I’d cleared it with him to have Michael at St. Elmo…it was a friendly lie.”

“Did the Commissioner bollock you?”

George’s smile was rueful. “Just a little, but I told him that one day Michael would be the best man in my squad.”

“He’s a good guy that,” Creasy muttered and climbed out of the car.

Two weeks later, Creasy crossed over from Gozo with the jeep and drove to the hospital to pick Michael up.

For the last ten days Michael had been in a general ward on the third floor. Creasy had to ask directions to find it. He had not been to see his adopted son during the entire two weeks. He found the ward and went in. There were a dozen beds in it, all occupied except one. Michael was sitting in a wheelchair next to it. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. There was a small plastic bag at his feet. Creasy walked over and asked, “Are you OK?”

Michael smiled. “Yes, I’m ready to get out of here. The people are nice but the food is lousy…I’d rather eat black snake every day.”

Creasy did not return the smile. Curtly, he said, “Let’s go then.”

Michael reached out above the bed to press a button saying,

“They told me to ring for a porter when you arrived.”

“You can’t walk?” Creasy asked.

“Yes, but…”

“But what?”

“But they told me to ring for a porter to take me down to the car.”

Creasy leaned forward and said in a low, hard voice, “Listen to me. They carried you in here on a stretcher because you were dumb enough to get in front of a loaded gun. Now when you leave this place, you walk out of here. Not like some fucking cripple in a wheelchair. Otherwise stay here until you can walk.”

Michael looked up at him and then dropping his hand from the bell, he pushed himself to his feet, picked up his bag and walked out the door.

Creasy followed him.

On the drive back to Cirkewwa they were both silent until they reached St Paul’s Bay. Then Michael glanced at the older man and said, “You’re mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“Yes you are. That’s not fair.”

Creasy was staring straight ahead at the road.

“I told you back at the hospital,” he said. “It’s dumb to get in front of a loaded gun.”

They drove out of St Paul’s Bay in silence, then Michael said, “So you must have been dumb quite a few times yourself.”

Another silence until they had reached Melieha and then Michael said with bitterness, “You didn’t come to see me. Not once. You didn’t let Leonie come. She wanted to come every day to bring me food. You didn’t let Stella Zammit come to see me. She came once, just after they put me onto solid foods. She said she would bring me a Lampuki pie, and later on, rabbit stew…but she never came. It’s not difficult to guess you told her not to. Why?”

Creasy pulled the jeep over into a lay-by. He switched off the ignition and sat with his hands on the steering-wheel. He sat for a long while without saying a word. Finally Michael said, “The food at the hospital was worse than at the orphanage.”

“But you survived.”

“Yes, but I was sick. I damn nearly died. Why was it necessary?”

“Why was it necessary for us to go to Comino and eat off the land when we could have walked a mile to the hotel and eaten great food in a Swiss-run restaurant?”

Michael’s face showed his surprise.

“But I was sick,” he insisted. “The doctor told me it was a miracle I lived through it.”

Creasy shook his head.

“There’s no such things as miracles…and it’s when you’re sick, when you’re down at your lowest point, that you have to learn to survive.”

Michael digested that and then said, still with bitterness in his voice, “So it was just another lesson…I suppose you’re going to tell me that all life is a lesson.”

Creasy shook his head.

“No, but I’m going to tell you that death is the final lesson.”

He switched on the ignition, glanced into the rear mirror and pulled out into the traffic.

“How come you’re all so old?”

Frank Miller swallowed a piece of steak. “Old?” he asked.

The Senator waved a fork at him. “Yes, anyway relatively old. How old are you?”

Frank Miller was looking puzzled. They were sitting in the elegant dining room of the Senator’s Denver house.

“Forty-four,” Miller answered, “but what’s that got to do with anything?”

“And Maxie and Rene?” Grainger persisted.

Maxie MacDonald was an ex-member of the elite Selous Scouts of the Rhodesian army and subsequently a mercenary.

Rene Callard was a Belgian who had spent fifteen years in the Foreign Legion, before leaving to make some real money as a personal bodyguard. Together with Miller, they kept a twenty-four hour body watch on Senator James Grainger. All three were intelligent, amiable men, as well as being unobtrusive in a difficult situation. They talked when the Senator wanted to talk.

They were silent when he wished to be silent. It had now been three weeks and it had suddenly struck the Senator during this dinner with Miller that they appeared to be a bit old for the job.

“How old are Maxie and Rene?” he asked again.

Miller shrugged and said, “I guess about the same age as me… why?”

The Senator smiled to take away any offence.

“It just seems like a young man’s job,” he said. “I mean all the Secret Service bodyguards I know are in their late twenties or very early thirties.”

Miller’s smile was sardonic. “Sure,” he said, “and no doubt they’re all karate black belts, can run a hundred metres in under ten seconds and can shoot the eye of a fly at fifty paces.”

The Senator nodded. “Something like that.”

Miller chewed on a succulent piece of fillet, swallowed, murmured in approval, looked at the Senator and said, “And yet those guys let a gunman get to within a few feet of President Reagan and fire several shots. He’s lucky to be alive.”

Grainger was curious. “I agree,” he said, “but what makes you guys better?”

Miller noted that the Senator’s wineglass was empty. He reached forward, picked up the bottle of claret and refilled it.

“Thank you, Frank,” the Senator said courteously. “Now answer the question.”

Miller was drinking mineral water. He took a sip and asked, “Senator, how long have you been in Congress?”

“Three terms…that’s eighteen years.”

“During the first term, were you as good at handling a situation as you were in your second term?”

The Senator smiled and shook his head. “Obviously not,” he answered. “A Senator learns by experience, like anyone else.”

“Exactly,” the bodyguard answered, and popped the last piece of steak into his mouth.

Miguel appeared as if by magic and cleared away the plates.

“You want dessert?” the Senator asked.

“No thank you, Senator.”

“Coffee?”

“Thank you, yes.”

The Senator nodded to Miguel who went out with the tray. The Senator continued the conversation.

“But certain jobs need a different expertise. I would think that in your job, expertise is everything.”

Miller shook his head. “Not everything, Senator…far from it.”

He thought for a moment and then said, “Being a bodyguard, with a target under constant threat, is like being in a state of constant combat. Now any general will tell you that no matter how well a soldier is trained for no matter how many years, the first time he ever comes under fire he gets confused. It’s only when he’s been under fire that he knows what he’s doing. No simulated training can replace a real battlefield. That’s one of the reasons why you people lost the Vietnam War. Rotating too many novices in and out for too short a period. By the time they were battle-hardened, they were out and another bunch of well-trained novices were in. Now the whole point, Senator, is that bodyguards in the Secret Service are brilliantly trained, but none of them have been on the battlefield except the guys who were around Reagan…and he got shot.”

“That’s true,” Grainger agreed, “but then they don’t have much chance to be on the battlefield. When it happens, it just happens.”

“Exactly,” Miller said. “By their very nature, they have to be novices.”

Miguel brought a tray with the coffee. After he had left the

Senator asked, “And you are not?”

“Not what?”

“A novice.”

Miller shook his head. “No, I’ve been on the battlefield most of my adult life, so have Maxie and Rene.”

“Have you killed a lot of people?”

Immediately Miller answered, “I can’t remember.”

The Senator smiled. “That’s what Creasy said. Do all you guys say that?”

Miller shook his head. “Only the non-bullshitters.”

“Have you known Creasy long?” the Senator asked.

Miller’s eyes narrowed in thought. Finally, he said, “About eighteen years.”

The Senator leaned forward and asked quietly, “Is he as good as I hear?”

“What do you hear?”

“That he’s death on a cold night.”

“Senator, that about sums it up.” He looked at his watch and then drained the last of his coffee. He said, “Maxie will relieve me in five minutes. Now listen to me, all this stuff about age. Are you worried about your situation?”

The Senator smiled and shook his head. “No, Frank, not at all.”

“Then you should be.”

His blunt Australian accent forced the Senator’s head up.

“You have to understand,” Miller went on. “I don’t know all the details, but Creasy told me that Ahmed Jibril wants to either talk to you or have someone talk to you. That would be unpleasant and ultimately fatal. I know a great deal about Ahmed Jibril. He’s ruthless and he has a great deal of money behind him. Enough money to hire people in this country…top people, to try to snatch you. So, you should be worried.”

“Even with you and your two side-kicks to protect me?”

The Australian nodded firmly. “Yes. You yourself have to be totally aware and observant. You’re a highly intelligent man, Senator. If you see or hear anything out of the ordinary you must let me know immediately, or Maxie, or Rene. Creasy would not have put us on this job if he wasn’t pretty sure that something will happen. The only thing in our favour is that Jibril wants to talk to you, not just kill you. If he wanted to kill you, it would be ten times harder to protect you. In fact you’d have to go into total hiding until Creasy has done what he’s going to do.”

“Do you know what he’s going to do?”

Miller shook his head. “No, but it’s not too difficult to guess, and if my guess is right, I wouldn’t want to be Ahmed Jibril on a cold night, a hot night, or any damned night at all.”

He stood up and walked to the door, opened it a crack and peered through. Then he opened it fully. Maxie MacDonald walked into the room, nodded at Grainger and said, “Good evening, Senator.”

“Hi, Maxie. Do you feel like some coffee?”

“No thanks, Senator, I just had some in the kitchen.”

He turned to Miller. “Frank, during the last two hours, a blue Pontiac has twice passed outside at cruising speed. Two men in it.”

“Did you get the plans?”

“Yes, we checked them out through Curtis Bennett’s office. It was rented from Denver airport this morning for just two days in the name of a company in Los Angeles. Paid in cash. The company is not registered.”

“It could be the first recce,” Miller muttered, deep in thought.

He turned to Grainger. “What time do we leave for Washington tomorrow?”

“I figure early evening,” Grainger answered. “I have to be on Capitol Hill early the next morning and I want to get some work done first”

“It’s obvious that you’re a wealthy man,” the Australian said.

“Can you tell me how wealthy?”

In the strangely open way that Americans have when discussing personal money, the Senator answered simply, “About a hundred and twenty million.”

Miller’s face showed no expression. “In that case, Senator, when we fly between Denver and Washington or anywhere else, we do so by private jet, always using different charter companies on a random basis and at short notice.”

The Senator stood up, his face serious. “I’ll arrange it,” he said.

“But not through your offices either here or in Washington,” Miller said. “You must have lots of friends in business here in Denver.”

“Plenty,” the Senator answered. “And not just in Denver.”

“Good. Then arrange the charters through them, always a different one. Your name’s not to be mentioned. I’m going to bed now. Goodnight, Senator.”

“Goodnight, Frank.”

Grainger moved round the table, saying to Maxie, with a smile, “I’m going to have a Cognac in the bar, Maxie. Will you join me for one of your usual high-octane orange juices?”

Maxie smiled back and said, “It will be more than a pleasure, Senator.”

The row erupted the morning after Michael returned from hospital. It was short but very bitter. Leonie had served the two men breakfast. When they finished, Creasy looked at Michael and said, “Go and put your swimsuit on and get in the pool.”