No Remorse Part 24

65.

A section of wall began to roll back on the rail towards where Mac was standing.

"There's a truck inside!" Schmidt yelled over on the radio, between breaths. "Get clear! They're getting ready to drive it out."

Mac edged along the retaining wall, taking care to stay clear of the electrified fence, stepping over the rollers as the door opened. It seemed apparent that if they had gone to the trouble to hide a truck inside a camouflaged bunker, it had to contain something important. Captive kids, maybe. Were Sophia and Danni in there? "We've got to stop that truck," he said into the radio.

A voice yelled from inside the bunker. "Go, Sadiq! We'll join you on the road!"

"Okay, Ziad!"

The truck started up and gray smoke belched out of the bunker. Diesel fumes gouged inside Mac's nasal pa.s.sages and he suppressed the urge to sneeze. The front of the truck emerged slowly and the driver grated the gears as he eased the truck out onto the muddy ground. As it pa.s.sed beneath, Mac dropped the short distance onto the cargo compartment and grabbed the front edge. The truck turned sharply left onto the track. His legs slid across, almost swinging off the edge as he ignored the pain spiking through his fingers and clung on to the front seam. He glanced back into the bunker. It was empty. Branches beside the track sc.r.a.ped the topside of the truck and Mac buried his face into his armpit to stop being scratched and blinded.

Jog's vehicle appeared ahead, blocking the track. Jog's head was resting against the driver's window, as if he was asleep, or dead. The truck stopped and the driver tooted the horn.

"Don't move, Jog." Mac said. "Stay in the car. I've got it."

The car stayed put. Jog didn't move.

There was a pause, as the men in the truck considered what action to take. The horn sounded again, more insistent. Mac pulled out the Glock and slid forward. If there was a pa.s.senger, it was more likely he'd be the one to get out.

n.o.body got out.

The driver reversed a few metres and revved the engine. He was going to ram Jog's car.

The pa.s.senger door opened. A man emerged, looking around, pistol in his hand. He stepped down, but got no further. Mac shot him in the back of the head. Pulling himself forward, Mac dangled upside down into the cabin and fired twice at the driver, who was riding the clutch. The truck lurched forward, then stopped, throwing Mac onto the wet ground, thumping the air from his lungs. He lay there, gasping for breath, as Scotty and Jog came up and stood over him.

Scotty shook his head. "This is no time for slacking off, lad."

He mouthed a suitable response.

Scotty and Schmidt rolled the two bodies into the gully while Jog went to check the cargo compartment. Then Schmidt found a cloth and began to clean up the blood so he could drive the truck.

"It's locked," Jog said. "Could be anything in there- drugs, even a bomb. We need to get out of here, mon ami, before those other guys come out."

Mac got to his feet. "Who the f.u.c.k are they, I wonder? Why are they after Khalid? Jog, you guys drive the truck. Scotty and I need to go back in there. We've gotta get Khalid to get Sophia released."

Scotty frowned. "I think we should wait, lad."

"Take my car," Jog said. "I'll let the other guys know that you'll meet them at the start of the lane."

Mac and Scotty climbed into the car and reversed along the track while Schmidt edged the truck forward. He followed the truck along the lane past the house, heading towards the freeway.

As they neared the beginning of the lane there was a bright flash, followed by an ear-shattering BOOM!

"What was that?" Mac yelled. He slammed on the brakes.

He and Scotty jumped out of the car as a fireball roiled skywards from the house, morphing into a mushroom cloud that floated in slow motion into the night sky. The fiery core of the explosion cast an eerie red light on the pieces of house and furniture beginning to rain down.

Scotty thumped the roof of the car. "Come on, Mac, we'd better move, before we get impaled by a flying missile. There's naught left of the place. Khalid is oh so f.u.c.ked."

Mac slumped at the wheel. He drove off slowly, feeling totally gutted.

66.

"You must have been followed. Please hurry, Highness," Jing-Ho said, crawling in front of Khalid along a narrow tunnel.

"Y'Allah! My father warned me of this!" Khalid kept his eyes closed and tried to breathe steadily. He could scarcely control his arms and legs, and Seth had to help him along the stuffy, confined s.p.a.ce. "They're Israelis. They're after father's treasure. Now tell me what else you have to give me, before we all get killed."

"I have nothing more to give you, Highness. The key I returned to you fits a safe deposit box at the BNP Paribas Bank, opposite the Riston Hotel."

"What?" Khalid yelled. "Tell me, old man, how would I have found this out if you were dead?" His anger was that much greater because of his anxiety in the confined s.p.a.ce. He checked that the key was still in his pocket and took it out, grasping it tightly. It took his mind off the oppressive tunnel.

"I not dead. Prince Abu-Bakr, he have contingency if I die."

Khalid considered this. Jing-Ho was right. "Yes. Of course he would. So, where does this tunnel come out?"

"To outbuilding on property next door. Your father own adjoining property. He build tunnel for escape, like now. And... for little while there was a young girl in other house. Sadly, she die."

Khalid tried to think back. Was there another woman when he had accompanied his father here? He could vaguely recall one particularly pretty girl, but he had thought she was a servant, or a servant's daughter.

"Hurry. When we enter tunnel I press destruct switch. Gas being released into house now. Soon gas explode. Whoever attack us, they die. Come, there is car in garage. Your men will be waiting."

But when they got to the main road there was no truck waiting.

67.

After following the truck for an hour and a half along the A4 towards Reims, Mac and the others arrived at the farm, a few kilometres south of Epemay. Jog had sent Marcel and the other guys home. It was just before daybreak, and Mac was still trying to come to terms with the realization that, with Khalid and his men dead, he had lost the key to finding Sophia. Would the transplant operations continue? Even if they did not, whoever had the girls was hardly likely to release them.

There was a remote possibility that Sophia and Danni were in the truck. But that seemed unlikely. It was more likely they were being held somewhere on Khalid's compound on Andaran. Maybe underground, behind the waterfall, or in the Yubani Resort itself. He needed to get down there again, this time with Scotty, not Tally. He had one more card to play. If he could get the full plans from Mai.

He parked outside the bam where Jog had left the truck. They held their weapons ready as Scotty used a bolt-cutter on the lock and lifted the roller shutter.

"d.a.m.n!" Mac said. It was just a heap of boxes.

Jog jumped up on the deck. "Drugs, perhaps?"

"Just what we need."

Jog found a screwdriver and opened one of the boxes. "Mon Dieu!" He pitched an ingot at Scotty and began to laugh.

"My sweet Lordy!" Scotty ran his fingers over the gold, and tossed it to Schmidt.

Jog opened a second box to verify they were the same. "Around a hundred boxes at a guess."

Schmidt went to throw the ingot to Mac, but he shook his head. He was trying to think. Should he call Mai, just to check she would have the plans with her on Monday? Did her copy include the underground cavern he and Tally had discovered?

Tally. His mind flashed back to the previous night. He went through the evening, step by step. Tally had wanted to get the truth off her chest, so to speak. But she'd told him just as they were getting it on. What sort of bad timing was that, not to mention bad taste? And Wisebaum, who was more interested in stealing Khalid's money than in saving American lives, had ordered her not to. Maybe he had judged her too harshly. Maybe she was just trying to time telling him so he would... Nah, that didn't make sense. She must have known he would react like that.

Maybe she'd told him deliberately, so he would react? Perhaps the men who blew up Khalid's house were CIA guys? No, that didn't make sense either, because now Wisebaum wouldn't get his bonus. Nothing was making sense.

He had to get to London to see Mai and get the plans to Andaran. It was his only chance.

He looked over at Scotty, who was sitting on the tray of the van, his feet dangling, checking something on his phone. "Seventy million pounds worth. Christ, we're rich!" He jumped around, waving his arms.

Jog was studying a slip of paper taken from one of the boxes. "The Central Bank of Iraq. This gold was probably smuggled out before the war."

Scotty was juggling three ingots. "I don't give a Queen's t.i.t where it came from. Finders keepers is one of my fundamental principles of life. You'd agree with that, Mac?"

He shrugged. "Well, we're sure as h.e.l.l not giving it back."

The others laughed.

"That's the spirit, lad!" Scotty clapped him on the back.

According to his contract with ASTA, Mac was required to hand over the gold, which would probably end up in the US Treasury. He'd get a small percentage as a bonus. His thoughts turned to what he might need to fund the rescue of Sophia and Danni. And to the others taken or hurt by Khalid's activities. And to what it might take to stop Khalid.

It was a no-brainer.

"Okay. We use some of it to pay the guys. The rest is to be held over until we've got Sophia and Danni. After that, we can decide how we might best use it."

The others nodded.

"So Jog, how do we convert two thousand bars of gold to cash?"

"Jog fix, mon ami. Just open a bank account in Monaco or Liechtenstein and tell me the number."

68.

Khalid's initial fleeting suspicion had been that Ali and Sadiq might have been behind the theft. For an instant he even suspected Ziad. But he knew his men were loyal, and the television news had shown two bodies being carried to an ambulance, reported as being shot.

It seemed his father was right. The Israelis were after the Saddam treasure, and their men had attacked the house and managed to hijack the truck. They had probably thought they would get their filthy hands on the nuclear canisters. But they had been completely finessed, and now they had revealed their intent. Perhaps, if there were any bombs left after he had taken his revenge on the House of Saud and the Wahhabi mullahs in Mecca, he would look at how he might repay the Jews for their blundering arrogance.

After visiting the BNP branch and retrieving two USB flash drives and four token tags from his father's safe deposit box, he had retreated to his suite at the Riston and sent the women away for the day so he could concentrate on securing his inheritance. Not only was there the threat of the Israelis, but the police would wish to speak with him once they traced the limousine and the ident.i.ties of Sadiq and Ali. He needed time to think. And the sooner he could leave Paris, the better.

The USB sticks contained identical files, one being a backup. Khalid's heart pounded as he stared at his inheritance listed on the spreadsheet. Over six hundred million dollars in numbered accounts in Panama, Antigua, Vanuatu and the Bahamas. Shopping malls in London and the Emirates; a share portfolio in a Delaware-based trust; units in a Geneva-based investment trust; diamonds hidden in Freetown, Sierra Leone; and the gold in Paris. Almost one billion US dollars in cash and a.s.sets, even more than his father's note had promised. He smiled, and tapped a fingernail against his teeth as he pondered how he could outwit his enemies to get control of these a.s.sets. One thing was for certain-he needed to act quickly.

By rights he should be furious at the theft of the gold. But as he stared at the list of his father's a.s.sets, of his a.s.sets, he felt an uncanny urge to laugh. What was $80 million in gold but small change, compared to this?

He knew just how he would celebrate. He would host a spectacular wedding with Sheriti, inviting celebrities from around the world to the resort on Andaran. The most expensive wedding ever. Famous singers and rock bands would entertain the guests-perhaps Elton John? And Brad and Angelina might attend, once they were told about his work with orphans.

First, though, he needed to secure the funds in his own accounts, so they would be safely in his control.

Logging onto the hotel internet, and using the token tags from the safe deposit box, he completed transfers amounting to almost $120 million from the accounts his father had left him. Eighty million dollars went to investment accounts managed by his accountant, Ahmed Nezar, and the rest he transferred to a Caymans account that Ahmed didn't know about. He would never trust one man with all his money. He called Ahmed.

"Ahmed, brother, there are rumours of disruption in Saudi oil supplies in the near future. I want you to invest fifty percent of my cash in oil futures, and twenty-five percent in gold futures."

"But Highness, these are high risk strategies. I could not recommend them," Ahmed said.

"Just do it, brother."

Khalid rang off and brought up the other file on the USB. It contained an inventory of the two containers of Saddam's treasure that Ibrahim and Masoud had recovered from the desert. It read like a cache of n.a.z.i war booty. Khalid stopped breathing as he scrolled down the list, which included $500 million in negotiable US bearer bonds, 207 million euros, six tonnes of gold, three tonnes of platinum; as well as thousands of diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds; and eight crates of paintings, including two Monets, a Pica.s.so, a Van Gogh, and sketches by da Vinci. There were thousands of artefacts dating from the Babylonian Empire, including two missing Dead Sea scrolls, thousands of cylinder seals, a.s.syrian ivory sculptures, and black stone sculptures from the Acadian civilization of 2200 BCE.

Some of the items had been stolen from the Iraq National Museum. There was no shortage of private buyers willing to buy such items, even if they could never be publicly displayed. His friend Bogdan Brazhlov used stolen paintings as collateral in some drug deals.

Scrolling down the list it occurred to him that, with the Saddam treasure, he would become possibly the wealthiest, most powerful Arab outside Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

And there it was at the bottom of the list. What the Israelis were desperate to obtain. Five canisters of highly enriched uranium taken from decommissioned Soviet nuclear weapons. Perfect for dirty bombs that could contaminate a city for centuries.

We are traders; let the market decide, his father had said. His father had wanted to sell the nuclear material to Al Qaeda. And perhaps Khalid would. But not until he had used what he needed to achieve the fall of the Saudi regime.

He would soon have a place in history unparalleled by anyone in the twenty-first century. After he was dead, a confession would be released on video. He would acknowledge his part, and the world would remember him as the one who had initiated the downfall of Saudi Arabia by the destruction of Mecca.

He put one USB stick in his pocket and locked the other in the safe.

Seth knocked and opened the door, as Khalid was shutting down his computer. "Highness, Sheik Bulari has arrived downstairs for your meeting. And Sergei is wanting to check your computer."

"What?" He frowned and crossed his arms, a flash of anger making his face and neck feel flushed. He had just completed his internet transfers of millions of dollars of his father's funds, thinking Sergei had given him the all clear. "Is there a problem? Sergei has already checked it."

"I don't know. He just told me that he wants to check something else on your machine."

Khalid grunted. He put on his Ferragamo loafers and Brioni jacket. "Take it and hurry back. I must not keep Sheik Bulari waiting. He is a very influential potential new member of the Hunnafite Brotherhood."