Midnight Runner

‘And what would that accomplish?’ Dillon asked.

‘All right. Now, this is top secret and for your ears only, and Whitehall would probably skin me alive for telling you – but for the past couple of years, Kate Rashid’s done…some work for the government. She’s been a secret emissary for the Foreign Office and the Prime Minister.’

‘What?!’ Hannah exclaimed. ‘Oh, I can’t believe this!’

‘Do we get to know who’s at the other end?’ Dillon asked.

‘Saddam Hussein.’

‘Good God,’ Hannah moaned.

‘She knows him well, you see, and he’s a great admirer.’

‘She can’t put a foot wrong, can she?’ Roper commented. ‘So what you’re saying is that she has protectors, that we’d have difficulty getting certain people to think ill of her at the highest levels of government.’

‘Yes. But I damn well do,’ Ferguson said.

‘And you’d like Kate Rashid to know you’re on her case?’

‘Exactly.’ He turned to Hannah Bernstein. ‘You and Dillon, I want you to go to Loch Dhu castle, see what you can stir up.’

‘When, sir?’

‘Right now. Phone Farley Field. Tell Lacey and Parry to get the Gulfstream ready. If I remember right, there’s an old abandoned RAF strip by the Loch. It’s only four hundred and fifty miles, it should take you an hour and a half.’

‘We’d need transport, sir.’

‘Then phone the air-sea rescue base at Oban. Tell them to send an unmarked car. Do it now. Go on, Superintendent, you can use your mobile in the car.’

He almost pushed her out of the room, and Dillon smiled at Roper as he followed. ‘Now you know how we won the war.’

‘Which war?’ Roper asked.

At Farley Field, the small RAF installation used for covert operations, they were greeted by Squadron Leader Lacey and Flight Lieutenant Parry. Both officers were holders of the Air Force Cross, awarded for hazardous operations in various parts of the world on Ferguson’s behalf. Both men wore nondescript blue flying overalls with no rank tabs.

Lacey said, ‘Nice to see you, Sean. Will it be messy?’

‘Probably not – but you never know, do you?’

‘We’re using the Lear, since it doesn’t have RAF roundels, Superintendent. You did say you wanted this business low-key.’

‘Of course. Let’s get moving.’

She went up the ladder, Dillon behind her, and the pilots followed. Lacey went to the cockpit and Parry closed the door. A minute later, they sped down the runway and took off, climbing fast to thirty thousand feet.

‘Why the emphasis on anonymity when Ferguson wants Kate to know it’s us?’ Dillon asked.

‘We’re a covert organization, and we want to keep it that way. A plane with RAF roundels and two officers in uniform could form the basis of a formal complaint if the Countess so desired.’

‘Ah, Kate would never do that. There are rules, even in our business.’

‘You’ve never obeyed a rule in your life.’

He lit a cigarette. ‘The ones that suit me, I do. How are you feeling these days, Hannah?’

The previous year, during the feud with the Rashids, she’d been shot three times by an Arab gunman.

‘Don’t fuss, Dillon. I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘Ah, the hard woman you are.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

Parry had left a couple of newspapers on the seat. She picked up The Times and started to read.

At the same time, other things were happening in the world. In Kosovo, Daniel Quinn entered the village of Leci in a Land Rover owned by the British Household Cavalry Regiment. A trooper stood up behind a mounted machine gun and another drove while Quinn, wearing a combat jacket, sat in the rear beside a corporal of horse – the equivalent of a sergeant in other units – named Varley.

It started to rain. There was smoke in the air, acrid in the damp, from houses still burning. There was no sign of the population.

Varley said, ‘It looks as if that same Albanian flying column’s been here, too.’

‘Could we be in trouble?’

‘Probably not, as long as we fly that.’ Varley nodded to the Union Jack pennant mounted at the side of the engine.

‘I noticed you don’t fly the UN flag or wear their blue berets.’

‘We go our own way. It works better. They don’t think of us as taking sides.’

‘That makes sense.’

He heard the throb of a helicopter overhead, unseen in the mist and rain. It reminded him at once of Vietnam, and it brought back the unmistakable smell that only came from burning flesh, once experienced, never forgotten. It was almost too much for Quinn as a hundred memories, dormant for years, came flooding back.

The driver braked and switched off the engine. It was very silent in the rain, the sound of the helicopter fading.

‘Bodies, Corporal.’

Varley stood and so did Quinn. There were half a dozen of them: a man and a woman and three children, another body face-down some yards away.

‘Looks like a family party, all gunned down together.’ Varley shook his head. ‘Bastards. I’ve seen bad things in my time, but this bloody place beats the lot.’ He turned to the trooper at the machine gun. ‘Cover us while we move them. We can’t very well drive over them.’

‘I’ll help,’ Quinn told him.

He and Varley and the driver got out and approached the bodies, and for Quinn it really was Vietnam all over again, as if nothing had happened in between. He picked up one of the children, a boy who looked about eight, and took him to the side of the street, laying him down against a wall. Behind him, Varley and the trooper followed with a child each.

Quinn felt dreadful, the darkness creeping into him from deep inside, as Varley and the trooper picked up the man between them, carried him to the wall, then returned for the woman.

He took a deep breath and went to the other body, which was dressed in boots, baggy pants, an old combat jacket, and a woollen hat. It had obviously been shot in the back. He turned the body over and recoiled in horror as he looked into the mud-spattered face of a young woman. The eyes were open, fixed in death. She was perhaps twenty-one or two. She could have been his own daughter.