'She's right,' Levy put in. 'What's important here is disposing of this Fortuna boat and its cargo with a minimum of fuss, right?'
'So?'
'So we make it a small-scale operation. With Dillon to call on, the three of us Anya, Moshe, me can handle it in Al Shariz. The right equipment, and we can blow the damn boat to hell.'
'He's right,' Gideon Cohen said. 'No adverse publicity. No air strikes.'
'I like it,' the general said. 'Get on with it.'
Ferguson said, 'Fine, Gideon. I'll send over Dillon. Also an American colleague, Blake Johnson, who works directly for the President. You'll find him most useful. I'll put Dillon on.'
A moment later, Dillon said in bad Hebrew, 'How are you, you lying dog?'
'Dillon, we seem to have business together.'
They switched into English. 'I'm not sure how we'll do this,' Dillon said. 'If we're to blow this Fortuna out of the water, we'll need mines, Semtex, some scuba equipment.'
'We'll take care of it. We'll keep it low-key. Myself, Levy, my sister. With you and this American, that's five. We don't want to draw attention, although things have changed since you operated in Beirut, my friend. It's not quite the war zone it used to be. People are trying to build up the infrastructure again, tourism and so on.'
'Where would Fox stay. Beirut?'
'No, there's an old Moorish palace in Al Shariz which has been refurbished as a hotel. I'd say he'll be there. It's called the Golden House.'
'No good for us, then.'
'No problem. We'll come up on a motor yacht, like tourists. You and your friends can stay on board.'
'We can't exactly sit in the bar at the Golden House, though. We don't want Fox to know it's us. It'd be much better if he thought it was an Israeli job.'
'Do you recall my sister Anya?'
'How could I forget? She played a lady of the night better than a lady of the night.'
'Enough to ensnare this Fox.'
Dillon laughed. 'Enough to ensnare friend Fox.'
'You and Johnson, Levy and myself, we'll stay on our boat, the Pamir, well out of the way. Anya can squeeze what she can out of the guy. We'll send the Fortuna down when we're ready.'
'You Israelis are such morally committed people,' Dillon said. 'But you'll sink that boat, crew and all, without a flicker.'
'Not even half a flicker,' Cohen said. 'See you soon.' Dillon hung up, and Ferguson said, 'So, here we go again.' Hannah Bernstein said, 'What about me, Sir?'
'Not this one, Superintendent. Dillon and Blake, plus our friends from Mossad, are enough. What I'd like you to do is get a little more basic with friend Regan as regards the bunker in County Louth.' He turned to Roper. 'I'm sure the Major here will be more than willing to help.'
'A pleasure, Sir,' Roper said.
'Sorry, Hannah, I'll have to love you and leave you.' Dillon turned to Blake and smiled, a strange excitement there. 'Here we go, old buddy, back to the war zone again.'
9
LEBANON
AL SHARIZ
Brendan Murphy leaned over the rail of the small coastal freighter, the Fortuna, and watched the distant lights of Syria. The ship was Italian-registered and had definitely seen better days, but under its battered exterior the essential bits, the engines, were in excellent condition. They'd left the Black Sea two days earlier and had made good time.
The man who approached him, wearing a seaman's reefer coat, held a cup of coffee in one hand, which he passed to him. His name was Dermot Kelly and he had unfashionably Irish blond hair and a hard, pocked face. He lit a cigarette.
'Jesus, Brendan, they're all fugging Arabs, this crew. If I light up in the saloon, they glare at me. Lucky I brought a bottle on board.'
'Fundamentalists,' Murphy said. 'Army of God, this lot. They're just waiting for death in the service of Allah, so they can go to Paradise and have eternal pleasure and all those women.'
'They must be crazy.'
'Why? You mean we're Catholics and we're right, and they're Muslims and they're wrong? Come off it, Dermot.'
An Arab, in a reefer coat the same as Kelly's, came down a ladder from the bridge. He was the captain and his name was Abdul Sawar.
'How's it going?' Brendan demanded.
'Excellent. We'll be on time.'
'Well, that's good.'
Sawar said, 'Any problems?'
'Well, I miss bacon and eggs for breakfast,' Kelly told him.
'We do our best, Mr Kelly, but some things are not possible.'
'Well, you'd probably have a problem in reverse in Dublin,' Kelly told him.
'Exactly.'
Sawar went back up the ladder, and Murphy said, 'Don't stir the pot, Dermot. You can't expect good Irish bacon on an Italian boat crewed by Arabic fundamentalists off the coast of Syria.'
'All right, so I'll just think of the money.'
'The gold, Dermot, the gold. Speaking of which, we'll check it out.'
He led the way to the stern of the ship, and went down a companionway to a rear saloon. There were two cargo boxes wrapped in sacking.
Dermot lit a cigarette. 'They look like shire to me.' 'Five million in gold, Brendan.'
'How do we know?'
'Because Saddam wants another cargo next month, so he won't screw around with this one.'
'Do you think it's all going to work?'
'Like a Swiss watch. Fox will be on a plane. We'll offload the gold, and take it to the airport at Beirut, where the right officials have been bribed. The plane is routed to Dublin, but it puts down at an old air force base in Louth on the way. We unload our half and Fox carries on, announcing a mid-air change of destination.'
'Where will he go?'
'Supposedly Heathrow, but on the way there, when the plane is in uncontrolled air space, he'll put down on this estate nearby in Cornwall, called Hellsmouth. There's an RAF aerodrome there from the Second World War. The runway's a bit rough, but it can take a plane like the Gulfstream.'
'Sounds good to me, Brendan.'
'And me, Dermot.'
The other man smiled, took a half bottle of Paddy whiskey from his pocket, unscrewed the top, and drank deeply. He passed it across.
'Well, here's to Irish bacon and eggs, soda bread and rain.' He smiled. 'I miss the rain, Brendan. The good Irish rain.'
Gideon Cohen, his sister and Moshe Levy had left a yachting marina on the coast near Haifa in a forty-foot boat of a kind regularly rented by tourists interested in diving. There were stocks of air bottles in the stern, bunks for seven people below, a good kitchen gallery, every convenience.
Cohen's passport was British, in the name of Julian Grant; his sister and Levy had become a Mr and Mrs Frobisher, also British. Their background being impeccable, and Lebanon desperate for tourist money, they'd had no trouble getting the necessary visas, and pushed towards Al Shariz through the late afternoon.
Cohen was at the wheel, Levy lounging beside him, Anya looking out of the half-open window.
'So, let's go over it,' her brother said. 'You and Moshe book into the Golden Palace, and do remember, Moshe, this is my sister you're sharing a suite with.'
'How could I forget, Colonel?'
'Fox is booked in with these two hoods, Falcone and Russo. You make yourself available in the bar, Anya, just in case there's information available.'
'Oh, dear,' she said. 'Here I go again. Stage Six at MGM, playing the whore.'
Her brother smiled, and hugged her with his spare arm as he steered. 'No, the good-looking whore.' He shook his head. 'This is a bad one, little sister. We can't make a mistake.'
'Well, at least we have Dillon.'
He laughed out loud. 'My God, yes, the poor old Fortuna doesn't know what's going to hit it.'
On the plane on the way to Beirut, Dillon said to Blake, 'So, we're interested in establishing an electronics factory, a joint Anglo-American project, jobs for all. Three days in and out.'
'No problems?' Blake asked.
'Certainly not. They're still trying to build up the country again, while surrounded by people who want to cut each other's balls off.'
'So, we join Cohen's boat, look like recreational scuba divers.'
'And send the Fortuna to the bottom. Hammerheads, the lot,' Dillon said.
'And the crew?'
'Murdering fanatics. If they didn't want the risk, they shouldn't have joined.'
'But, Dillon, there's five million pounds in gold on board.'
'Yes, isn't that, as Ferguson would say, delicious? It also goes to the bottom. A fabulous expression of conspicuous consumption.' He waved to Flight Sergeant Madoc. 'Bring me another Bushmills, I'm celebrating imagining how Jack Fox will feel.'
Fox booked into the Golden House, with Falcone and Russo. He had a nice suite on the first floor marble, scattered rugs, all very Moorish. He felt good. The Colosseum was a bad memory, and his lawyers seemed to think they might be able to fix things. Whether they did or not, the gold from the Fortuna was a certainty. Added to that, the cash Murphy owed him in Ireland from Irish-American arms orders would take the pressure right off.
'Everything okay, Signore?' Falcone asked.
'Couldn't be better. Tonight's the night, Aldo. Gold, there's nothing like it. It's still the one commodity you can rely on. You've checked with the harbourmaster?'
'Yes, Signore, the Fortuna is due in at ten. A crew of twelve, all Arab. It left the Black Sea the day before yesterday.' 'Where will they anchor, on the pier?'
'No, it's full. A few hundred yards out in the entrance to the bay.'
'Excellent. I'll have a shower, then dinner. I'll see you later.'
Their plane landed in early evening. Dillon and Johnson booked in as Russel and Gaunt and took a taxi to Al Shariz. On the way, Dillon called Cohen on his mobile.
'Lafayette, we are here. I'm saying that on behalf of Blake.'
'Well, we're here, too. Lower yacht basin. Pamir, Pier Three.'
'See you soon.' Dillon switched off his phone and relayed the information to the driver.
On the Pamir, Cohen looked through a pair of Nightstalker glasses and watched the Fortuna drop anchor. He said to Anya, 'Off you go. All I want to know is what he's up to. It could give us a clue to his movements.'
'Sure,' she said.
'Another thing.' He was strangely awkward. 'Duty is duty, but you're my beloved sister. Don't get close to this one. He's bad news.'
She kissed his cheek. 'Hey, little brother, don't worry.'
She booked into the hotel, changed, then went down to the bar, resplendent in a black mini dress, her dark hair to her shoulders, and looking terrific. She sat at the bar, and Fox, over by the window, Falcone and Russo at the next table, saw her at once. He nodded to Falcone, got up, went to the bar, and sat next to her.