Rough Justice

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2008

Cover photograph © Paul Bowen/Getty Images (helicopter); Don Farrall/Getty Images (lightning)

Jack Higgins asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008124960

Ebook Edition © August 2015 ISBN: 9780007283422

Version: 2017-07-21

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

NANTUCKET THE PRESIDENT

Chapter 1

THE VILLAGE OF BANU KOSOVO

Chapter 2

NANTUCKET LONDON

Chapter 3

THE KREMLIN LONDON

Chapter 4

BELFAST MARCH 1986

Chapter 5

LONDON WASHINGTON

Chapter 6

MOSCOW LONDON BEIRUT

Chapter 7

LONDON STOKELY

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

SCOTLAND IRELAND

Chapter 13

DRUMORE PLACE

Chapter 14

LONDON END GAME

Chapter 15

About the Author

ALSO BY JACK HIGGINS

1

There was no place President Jake Cazalet wanted to be more right now than this Nantucket beach, the sea thundering in to the shore in the strange luminous light of early evening, the wind tasting of salt.

The President had been delivered there by helicopter from the White House only an hour before, and here he was, walking with his favourite Secret Service man, Clancy Smith; his beloved flatcoat retriever, Murchison, dashing in and out of the incoming waves.

Hell need a good hosing, Cazalet said. Silly old boy. Youd think hed have learned by now that the salt is bad for his skin.

Ill see to it, Mr President.

Ill have a cigarette now.

Clancy offered him a Marlboro and flicked his Zippo lighter, which flared in the wind. Cazalet smiled. I know, Clancy, what would the voters think? Its the curse of old soldiers.

Weve all been there, Mr President.

Harper on communications as usual?

Yes. The only other person in the house is Mrs Boulder, cooking dinner.

Amen to that. Cazalet smiled. I love this place, Clancy. Iraq, Afghanistan, our friends in Moscow if we can call them that they could all be on another planet when Im here. He sighed. At least until that damned helicopter picks us up and deposits me back at the White House.

Clancys cellphone rang and he answered, listened for a few moments, then turned to Cazalet. Blake Johnson, Mr President. Hes arrived back from Kosovo sooner than he thought.

Well, thats great. Is he coming down?

By helicopter. And he also ran into General Charles Ferguson, who was passing through Washington on his way to London after some business at the United Nations. He thought you might like to meet with him, so hes bringing him down, too.

Excellent. Cazalet smiled. Its always good to see Ferguson, find out what the Prime Ministers up to. Itd be interesting to get his take on Blakes report, too.

They continued walking. I thought Kosovo was history, Mr President, Clancy said.

Not really. After what the Serbs did to them, they want their independence. The Muslims are in the majority now, Serbs the minority. Its still a problem. The Kosovo Protection Corps the UN set up in 2004 is still operating troops from various countries, a British general coordinating the situation but when you get into the back country, things happen. Thereve been reports of outside influence, rumours of the presence of Russian troops.

And they were always for the Serbs, Clancy pointed out.

Exactly, which is why I decided to send in Blake to scout around and see whats happening. There was the sound of a helicopter in the distance. That must be them. Wed better get back.

Cazalet called to Murchison, turned to the beach house, and Clancy followed.

Blake and Ferguson sat together on one of the leather sofas beside the open fire, the coffee table between them and the President. Clancy served drinks, whisky and branch water for both of them. Cazalet toasted them.

Heres to both of you. Its a real bonus having you here, Charles.

Ferguson said, You look well, Mr President, and you, Clancy.

We get by, Cazalet said. How is the Prime Minister?

I saw him three days ago and he seemed to be coping. Iraq hasnt helped, and Afghanistan is a major problem. Theres combat of the most savage kind there we havent seen its like since the hand-to-hand fighting against the Chinese on the Hook during the Korean War. Most of our infantry and paratroops are nineteen or twenty. Boys, when you think about it. Theyre winning the battles, but perhaps losing the war.

Cazalet nodded, remembering his time in Vietnam. War has always been a young mans game. So, tell me what did the Prime Minister send his private security adviser to the UN for? Can you tell us, or is it for his eyes only?

I can certainly tell you, Mr President. Im keeping an eye on the Russian Federation. I sat in on two committees also attended by Moscow and Iran. Supposedly, they were trade delegations.

Why am I laughing? Cazalet asked.

I listened, drifted around. Putin was the name on everyones lips.

What would you say hes after? Cazalet raised his hand. No, let me put this in another way. Whats his purpose?

I need hardly tell you, Mr President to make the Russian Federation a power in the world again. And hes using the riches of Russias gas and oil fields, networked throughout Europe as far as Scandinavia and Scotland, to do it.

Blake said, And once Europe signs up, if he wants to bring them to heel, all he has to do is turn off the taps.

There was silence. Cazalet said, He knows he couldnt win anything militarily. One of our Nimitz aircraft carriers alone, plus its battle group, is the equivalent of the present Russian navy.

And we certainly have enough of them, Blake put in.

Ferguson said, He wouldnt be so foolish as to imagine he could take those on and succeed.

So what is he after? Cazalet asked.

A return to the Cold War, Ferguson said. With certain differences. His personal experiences in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq give him considerable insight into the Muslim mind. Extremist Muslims hate America in an almost paranoid way. Putin recognizes that and uses it.

How do you mean? Cazalet asked.

The favourite weapon of the IRA was the bomb, and the influence of the IRA on revolutionary movements throughout the world has been enormous. Only a handful of years ago, they virtually brought London to a standstill, blew up the Baltic Exchange, almost wiped out the entire British Cabinet at Brighton.

Cazalet nodded. So whats your point?

Putin wants disorder, chaos, anarchy, a breakdown in the social order, particularly with countries dealing with America. In instructing his intelligence people to cultivate Muslims, he is actually getting them to do his dirty work for him. The terrorists favourite weapon is the bomb, too, which means increased civilian casualties, which means a growing hatred of all things Muslim. We hate them, they hate us chaos.

There was silence. Cazalet sighed and turned to Clancy. I really could do with another drink. In fact, I think we all could.

As you say, Mr President.

Cazalet said, After that, I could also do with some good news, Blake. Somehow I doubt Im going to get it.

Well, Kosovo could be worse, Mr President, but it also could be better. The United Nations troops are in place, but Bosnia intends to hang in there for as long as possible. The Serbian government in Belgrade has been urging the Serbs in Kosovo to boycott the November elections.

And whats the Muslim opinion on that in Kosovo?

The memory of what the Serbs did in the war, the shocking butchery of the Muslims, will never go away. The Muslims want total independence, nothing less. And there are outside influences at work, which arent helping the situation.

Such as? Cazalet demanded.

Well, when you go out into the boonies, you find villages, market towns that arent exactly twenty-first century, very old-fashioned people, Muslims on the whole. When I travelled to that part of the country, I found interlopers close to the borders. Russians.

There was silence. Cazalet said, What kind of Russians?

Soldiers in uniform, not freebooters.

Can you describe them? Which unit, that sort of thing?

Actually, I can. The ones I met were Siberians. I know that because their commanding officer identified himself as a Captain Igor Zorin of a regiment called the Fifteenth Siberian Storm Guards. I checked them on my laptop, and the unit exists. Its a reconnaissance outfit, special ops, that sort of thing. They were apparently based over the border in Bulgaria, and their mission was to visit a village called Banu that was supposed to be a centre for Muslim extremists crossing the border and creating merry hell in Bulgaria.

Ferguson said, This fellow Zorin, did you find him on the regimental roster?

Oh, yes, he was there all right. But heres the interesting thing just as I was checking him outhe disappeared.

What do you mean?

My screen went blank. He might as well never have existed.

There was a pause. Cazalet said, Something you did, perhaps? You know what computers can be like.

No, Mr President, I swear to you. What happened in Banu was shaping up to be pretty nasty and I witnessed it and they clearly wanted no record of it.

Ferguson nodded. But except for your word in the matter, theres no proof. Accuse the Russian government, theyll simply deny it ever happened. I see the game they are playing.

Rough Justice - Jack Higgins

Rough Justice

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