Vicious Circle (24 page)

This was one of the pivotal points in his own existence. He could never forget a single detail of it. It had taken place at the Bannock Oil installation here in the Abu Zarian desert. With the other top brass of Bannock Oil he had waited for her arrival in a blustering sandstorm. Her helicopter had appeared out of the looming dun sand clouds. He recalled how when it landed and she appeared in the door of the fuselage he had been unprepared for the jolt of lightning that flashed up his spine. She had been so goddamned magnificent.

On that first day she had treated him in an off-handed manner, which made him furious. He was unaccustomed to being spurned. Hated? Yes, but never so casually dismissed.

Now at last he was able to read her own thoughts on that fateful day.

She had described him as
all attitude, testosterone and muscles. I pray to God that one day he will forgive me for finding such an obnoxious oaf to be quite cute and very sexy.

*

Six weeks after his arrival in Abu Zara Hector was awoken by the ringing of his iPhone. He rolled over and switched on the bedside light, and then he glanced at the alarm clock. It was ten minutes to four in the morning. He picked up the phone.

‘Cross,’ he spoke into the mouthpiece.

‘It’s me. Yaf!’

Hector sat up quickly. ‘Tell me!’ he said.

‘He is here. But you better come quickly. He is moving about a lot. No telling when he will disappear again.’

‘What is your time in London?’

‘Just before midnight,’ Yaf replied. Hector made a quick calculation.

‘Okay!’ he said. ‘I’ll be there around about eleven a.m. your time tomorrow. Go to my home in the morning and wait for me. I will tell my butler to let you in and my chef will give you a slap-up breakfast.’ He rang off and called Paddy’s apartment. Nastiya’s sleepy voice answered.

‘This can only be Hector Cross!’ she said.

‘Good guess,’ he commended her. ‘Aleutian has shown up in London. Tell that lover boy in bed with you to get his pants on. Tell him to requisition the Bannock Oil G5 for an immediate and urgent to Farnborough. Tell them to rouse the pilots out of bed if needs be. We are going after the murderous bastard.’

Hector left Dave Imbiss at Seascape Mansions to command Catherine’s guards. The rest of them in the G5 took off from Abu Zara at 0843 and touched down at Farnborough five hours later. Hector’s chauffeur drove out onto the tarmac to pick them up. A little over an hour later they parked in the underground garage of No. 11. Yaf Said was waiting in the kitchens where he had struck up a friendship with Cynthia, the chef. She was fattening him up on her famous chocolate pudding and ice cream. He dropped his spoon and rushed up the stairs when he heard Hector’s voice.

Hector introduced him to Paddy and Nastiya, and then called an immediate council of war in the library. At Hector’s invitation Yaf outlined what had taken place in their absence.

‘I had been getting reports about Aleutian for the last couple of weeks; mostly from nightclubs in the central London area. But every time I followed it up it turned out to be a false sighting or the mark had disappeared by the time I reached the scene. Then I scored a positive hit in a place called Fusion Fire. It’s a pretty flash dive, strobe lighting and mirrors, lots of dealers and whores lurking about, but the music is wild. I got up real close to Aleutian at the bar. He was drinking with three other black guys, and I checked out his tattoo. It was the guy you want, no question about it. But his pals were calling him Oscar, not Aleutian.’

‘When was that?’ Hector asked.

‘Friday two weeks ago. I didn’t want to call you right away. It might have been a one-off appearance. I waited for him there for the next four nights. But he didn’t show again. So I put my people into all the clubs in the area. We found him hanging out in two other joints over the next week, and then he popped up at Fusion again, two days in a row. That’s when I called you. My thinking is that he is moving around, changing his digs every day. There is no pattern to his movements. You should stake out all the clubs where he has been spotted recently. He seems to be a creature of habit. I think that’s your best chance of catching up with him.’

‘Makes sense,’ Hector agreed. ‘But what about you, Yaf?’

Yaf looked uncomfortable, and it took him a little time to gather his courage and speak out.

‘I was happy to tell you where you may be able to find this fellow, but I don’t want to be there when you do find him. I gave up all that rough stuff a long time ago when Allah took me under his wing. No offence, Mr Cross. It’s been a great pleasure to meet a man like you, but now I think I should leave you to go about your own business and I’ll go about mine.’

‘Thank you again, Yaf. It’s probably a wise decision you are making. It has also been a pleasure for me to meet you. You reaffirm my faith in the younger generation. If ever I can help you in any way you know where to find me. In the meantime, can I pay you for your time and trouble?’

Yaf held up both hands in alarm. ‘No, please. I didn’t do this for money. I did it for a great and holy man.’

‘Very well, Yaf. But there must be some charity run by your mosque to which I can make a contribution.’

‘Well, sir, to tell the truth we do get a lot of our funding from the Muslim Youthwork Foundation,’ Yaf replied diffidently. ‘You could make a contribution online. You don’t have to give your name.’

‘I will do that in your name,’ Hector assured him.

‘Thank you, sir. It isn’t necessary, but I assure you that the money will be very well spent.’ Yaf reached into the pocket of his hoodie jacket and brought out a slip of paper. ‘Here’s a list of all the joints where we have spotted Aleutian. He usually shows up in one of them around midnight if he shows up at all, but then he stays until dawn. I hope you find what you are looking for, sir.’

Hector walked with him to the front door and told him, ‘I hope our friendship does not end here, Yaf. Any time you are passing, please drop in. If I am not here then Cynthia, in the kitchen, will always rustle you up a cup of coffee and a bite. I’ll tell her you are always welcome.’

‘That’s kind of you, sir. Goodbye and
ma’a salama.
’ They shook hands and then Hector watched him straddle his motor scooter and ride away. He knew he would never see him again. Yaf was his own man, too proud to come around begging.

*

‘Okay, the three clubs on Yaf Said’s list are Fusion Fire, the Rabid Dog and the Portals of Paradise, all in the central London area, from Soho to Elephant and Castle. I don’t know any of these joints, do either of you?’ Hector looked at Nastiya first.

‘No, not quite my style,’ she retorted primly.

‘What about you, Paddy?’

‘No, but they sound like a great deal of fun.’

‘Here is how we should go about this. I have checked the location of all three clubs on the internet. They are scattered over quite a large area; a good few miles apart. We will have to split up to cover all three of them. As Yaf has told us, it’s no use starting the search before midnight. We have to go on the late-night shift. If one of us makes a positive ID then he or she calls the team together. We keep Aleutian under observation and follow him when he leaves the club. One of us will be driving the Q-car. At that time of the morning the streets should be pretty much empty. As soon as we get him alone and unobserved we slip him the Hypnos.’

The Hypnos was a tiny self-contained hypodermic syringe which could be palmed in one hand, or concealed in the seam of a jacket sleeve. It was made of a type of PVC which could not be detected by X-ray or any other screening device. The barrel was green in colour. The non-metallic needle was primed by flicking off the protective cover with a thumb. The needle was a mere 2cm in length and needed only to pierce the skin to deliver 2cc of a powerful knock-down drug which almost instantly rendered the subject totally paralysed. It was named for the Greek goddess of sleep.

It was impossible to obtain supplies of these weapons unless, like Dave Imbiss, you had contacts in the Chemical Warfare Division of the US Military.

‘Then as soon as Aleutian goes down we bundle him into the Q-car and bring him back here,’ Hector went on outlining the plan. ‘By the way, the basement is soundproof and there is a room down there where I clean my fishing tackle, but it will make a very good interrogation room. We will have all the right equipment on hand. The walls and the floor are tiled and easy to hose down. If the waterboard does not convince him, we might have to make a bit of a mess before Aleutian feels the urge to speak out, and give us the name of his employer. When we have finished with him we pack what’s left of him into an airtight and waterproof fish box and export him to Abu Zara in the G5. If we choose the right takeoff slot there shouldn’t be any worries about customs wanting to look inside the box. At the other end Dave Imbiss will take Aleutian out to one of the oil-exploration teams that are drilling in the new Zara Number Twelve concession. Aleutian goes down the drill hole that presently is at the sixteen-thousand-foot mark, and then he comes up again in the slurry minced into a fine paste by the rotary diamond drill bit.’

He gave them a wolfish grin and went on. ‘I know that it is a fairly sketchy battle plan, but I also know that you two are pretty damn good at improvising according to changing circumstances.’

He checked his wristwatch and stood up. ‘We have an hour to change for dinner. I know Chef has something special lined up for us, but tragically there will be no wine served with it. We want to be bright and razor sharp for later in the evening. After dinner I plan a couple of hours’ shut-eye. Then we will reassemble around eleven p.m. It will take an hour or more to get into our positions. I think Nastiya should go to the Portals of Paradise, for obvious reasons. Paddy will take the Rabid Dog for equally obvious reasons. I will stake out Fusion Fire, for no good reason that I can think of.’

‘I imagine there are a few dolly-birds from your flaming past who could supply us with ample reasons,’ Nastiya suggested.

Hector went up to his dressing room and opened the secret door behind the fireplace. From one of the open shelves he took down the box which contained his pistol, already in its shoulder holster. He pulled on a pair of surgical rubber gloves and wiped the weapon down carefully to remove his own fingerprints. Then he reloaded the magazine with the special ammunition that Dave had supplied. Finally, he wiped the pistol down a second time, just to be sure it was clean. He had calculated the odds for and against carrying the weapon tonight. It was a serious offence if the authorities found it on him, but he might be taking an even greater risk to go up against someone of the calibre of Aleutian with just his bare hands.

*

They dropped Nastiya at the Portals of Paradise a few minutes after midnight. The entrance was discreetly set in a narrow mews. There was a small crowd of excited young people grouped around the door. A pair of large and aggressive doormen barred their entrance to the premises, while an urbane door manager in dinner jacket and black tie made his selection of those he deemed worthy to enter such hallowed premises.

Hector parked the Q-car at the entrance to the mews, and he and Paddy watched Nastiya alight and head towards the club entrance.

The door manager spotted Nastiya as soon as she entered the mews. She was wearing a crimson sheath that clung to all her protuberances, and six-inch stiletto heels that put the fine muscles in her calves under tension. Her appearance stilled the clamour of the throng at the entrance to the club pleading to be allowed in. Their ranks parted and they watched in awed silence as she passed through. The door manager rushed forward to greet her and took her arm with an unctuous smile of welcome. He escorted her to the entrance, handed her over the threshold and told the girl at the box office, ‘The lady is a guest of the house. Make sure she gets the best available table.’

Watching from the back seat of the Q-car, Paddy O’Quinn worried, ‘I hope she is going to be all right. There is some queasy-making trash in that mob.’

Hector burst out laughing. ‘You have to be kidding, Paddy. The only person I feel sorry for is any bloke who tries to mess with that lady of yours.’

He started the engine and drove on another two miles to the Rabid Dog.

‘Okay, Paddy, this is your kennel. Keep your legs crossed and don’t take any rubber cheques.’ He watched Paddy slip the doorman a ten-pound note and disappear through the dark curtains that covered the entrance.

It was another mile back to the Fusion Fire. The club extended over two levels. Its façade was all floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows facing the road. Through the windows he could see that the interiors were brightly lit by revolving towers of myriad-colour strobe lights. The ceilings were clad with mirrored tiles that reflected the flashing lights and the figures of the dancers on the floors below. The dancers were packed as tightly as shoals of glittering tropical fish, driven by the booming pulse of the music into a savage frenzy.

He drove past slowly, parked on the next corner and walked back to the entrance of the club. He was wearing dark aviator glasses and a gold brocade Nehru jacket with cut-out sleeves that Nastiya had chosen for him. They had deliberately chosen outlandish costume to make themselves appear kinky and effete. Nobody would think they were storm-troopers and take fright. Hector paid a hundred pounds for a VIP table.

He sat at the table and looked around the huge room. He recognized it immediately as the background to one of the videos that Vicky Vusamazulu had shot of Aleutian on her iPhone. That gave him encouragement. If Aleutian had hung out here before, there was a stronger possibility that he might return here again.

Within twenty minutes he had five different young ladies approach him one after the other, to offer everything from a fifty-pound under-the-table blow job to a five-hundred-pound all-nighter. All of which he declined with thanks.

By five twenty in the morning the crowds on the dance floor had thinned, and there was still no sign of anyone who even vaguely resembled Aleutian. So he went down to the Q-car and drove to the Rabid Dog to pick up Paddy.