Midnight Runner

Rupert Dauncey smiled. ‘As does yours, Mr Johnson. And Senator Quinn’s here.’

‘Thank you,’ said Quinn. ‘Nice to see you again, Countess.’

She nodded. ‘Likewise.’

‘Mr President,’ said Blake, ‘may I present Lady Kate Rashid, the Countess of Loch Dhu.’

Cazalet stood and took her hand. ‘We’ve never met, Countess. Will you and Mr Dauncey join us for a drink? A glass of champagne, perhaps?’

‘How could I refuse?’

Blake waved to the waiter and spoke to him. Rupert pulled a chair out, seated her, and turned to Clancy Smith.

‘The last time I saw you, Sergeant Major, we were in very deep shit inside Iraqi lines.’

‘We surely were, Major. I missed you in Bosnia.’

‘A good place to miss anybody.’ Dauncey smiled and moved to stand beside him. ‘But we’re holding things up.’

The waiter poured glasses of Dom Pérignon. Cazalet raised his glass. ‘To you, Lady Kate. Rashid Investments is doing extremely well at the moment, I’m told. I’m particularly impressed with your Hazar results.’

‘Oil, Mr President. Everyone needs oil.’ She smiled. ‘As you know yourself.’

‘Yes, but the Hazar operations have had remarkable results. I wonder why.’

‘You know why. Because I control the Rashid Bedu in both Hazar and the Empty Quarter. Without me, you and the Russians are nothing. They’re the cruellest deserts in the world, you know.’ She turned to Blake and smiled. ‘But Blake knows that. He was there when my brother George was killed.’

‘Yes, I was,’ Blake said. ‘I was also there the night before, when Cornet Bronsby was killed.’ He turned and told the President what he already knew. ‘Bronsby was with the Hazar Scouts. They don’t have a real army down there, just a regiment. The Rashid Bedu did a very thorough job on him with their knives.’ He turned to Kate with a smile, but there was no humour in it. ‘But then at dawn, Sean Dillon took his revenge. It was four of you, as I recall, wasn’t it? At five hundred metres? A hell of a marksman, Sean.’

‘A hell of a bastard,’ Kate Rashid said.

‘Because one of them was your brother George? He should have thought of that before he started murdering people.’

The air hung thick and cold around the table. Then the Countess smiled. ‘Well, murder is something you’d know a lot about, wouldn’t you, Mr Johnson? Not to mention the price one must pay for it. Sometimes a very high price.’ She leaned close to him. ‘Please share that knowledge with your friends, won’t you?’

‘Don’t do it, Kate.’ Blake held her wrist. ‘Whatever it is you’re planning, don’t do it.’

‘Blake, I can do anything I want,’ she said. ‘Rupert?’

He pulled her chair back. She stood. ‘Mr President, an honour.’ She turned and nodded to Dauncey, who said, ‘Gentlemen,’ and followed.

There was silence for a while after she’d gone. Finally, Quinn said, ‘What the hell was all that about?’

‘Just read the files, Daniel,’ Cazalet said. ‘And get to London as soon as you can.’ He gazed after her. ‘Something tells me we may have less time than we thought.’

Kate Rashid and her cousin sat at another corner of the restaurant. ‘Cigarette, Rupert.’

He gave her a Marlboro and flicked a brass lighter made from an AK round.

‘There you go, sweetie.’

She reached for the lighter. ‘Where did you get this, Rupert? I never asked you.’

‘Oh, it’s a Gulf War souvenir. I was ambushed, in a pretty bad situation, and I picked up an Iraqi AK assault rifle. It saved my bacon until help arrived – funnily enough, in the person of Sergeant Major Clancy Smith over there. Afterwards, when I checked, there was one round left in the magazine.’

‘That was close.’

‘It surely was. I pocketed it and had it made into a lighter by a jeweller in Bond Street.’ He took it from her. ‘You know the phrase, Kate? Memento mori?’

‘Of course, Rupert, my darling. Reminder of death.’

‘Exactly.’ He tossed the lighter up and grabbed it again. ‘I should be dead, Kate, three or four times over. I’m not. Why?’ He smiled. ‘I don’t know, but this reminds me.’

‘Do you still go to mass, darling, to confession?’

‘No. But God knows and understands everything, isn’t that what they say, Kate? And he has an infinite capacity for forgiveness.’ He smiled again. ‘If anyone needs that, I do. But then you know that. You probably know everything about me. I should think that it took you all of half an hour after I introduced myself at that reception in London before you had your security people on my case.’

‘Twenty minutes, darling. You were too good to be true. A blessing from Allah, really. I’d lost my mother and my three brothers and then there you were, a Dauncey I never even knew existed – and thank God for it.’

Rupert Dauncey felt emotion welling inside of him. He reached for her hand. ‘You know I’d kill for you, Kate.’

‘I know, darling. You may well have to.’

He smiled and put a cigarette in his mouth. ‘I love you to bits.’

‘But Rupert, women don’t figure on your agenda.’

‘I know, isn’t it a shame? But I still love you.’ He leaned back. ‘So where are we?’

‘Senator Daniel Quinn over there. It’s very interesting how chummy he seems to be with Cazalet. Before when I wanted him dead, it was because his people were finding out too much about my activities. Now, I wonder if he doesn’t have some bigger agenda.’

‘Such as?’

‘I don’t know. But I think it would be interesting to find out…Do you know that he has a daughter, Rupert? Named Helen. She’s a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.’

‘Yes? And?’

‘I want you to cultivate her.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well, you know about my little charitable works, don’t you? I believe in supporting oppressed and minority political groups. People like Act of Class Warfare, the United Anarchist Front, the Army of National Liberation in Beirut. They’re a little wild, but…well meaning.’

‘Well meaning, my backside.’

‘Rupert, how unkind. Well, anyway, the Act of Class Warfare education programme operates from my castle, Loch Dhu, in western Scotland, a rather run-down old thing but nice and remote. It provides adventure courses for young people. Teaches them how to handle themselves. And for some of the older ones…a little more.’

‘Like in Hazar?’