Christopher Jones - The Jackal's Share

“I did,” said Webster.

“What’d he say?”

“A discreet tail to Cornwall. Then counter-surveillance on the house.”

“How many men?”

“Four. Two shifts of two.”

“Hard work. Is that going on Qazai’s bill?”

“Damn right.”

Hammer laughed. “We making a turn on that?”

“Go into the kitchen. Do you want tea?”

“Water.”

Webster had expected a cooler greeting than this; in truth, he was surprised that Hammer had even agreed to see him. But he appeared to be at his most energetic, and whether that was his recent run or the sheer exhilaration he felt when a situation became particularly intricate and unpleasant, it didn’t matter. Perhaps he felt that Webster had suffered enough. Regardless, Webster felt a great relief at the sight of him, because he would help: see something Webster hadn’t, turn the situation around, dream up some stratagem. That was what he did. But more than that, it was good to be with someone who understood.

As Webster ran the tap Hammer shrugged a slim backpack off his shoulders, unzipped it and took from it a book which he passed to Webster.

“No better book about rediscovering your mojo.”

It was a copy of The Fight by Norman Mailer, an old paperback. From the front cover Muhammad Ali stared out, bare-chested, his face full of mischief and defiance, his hand just curling into a fist; on the back a short account of what he was about to face in the ring: “Foreman’s genius employed silence, serenity and cunning. He had never been defeated.”

“Thank you.”

Hammer took his water and nodded. “Read it. There was no way Ali was meant to win that fight. He was a mess.”

Webster looked at the energy in Ali’s eyes, the certainty that lived there, and found it hard to imagine he had ever felt quite this defeated. “I will. But at least he knew who he was fighting.”

Hammer took a long drink of water. “Tell me exactly what you know about him.”

“Let’s go in the garden.”

The sun was high in the sky and the garden table in full sun. Hammer sat down, stretched his legs out and held his face to the light, his eyes shut, and listened to Webster repeat much of what he had said on the phone the night before: the history of the debt, the extent of it, the very little that Qazai seemed to know about Rad.

“And Kamila?”

“She’s found a bit. Actually she’s done well. Rad lost them on the way back from the airport but she got the car. A rental, from a local firm. Paid for with an Amex in the name of Mohamed Ganem, who also provided a Dubai driving license. The same Amex was used to pay for two rooms at the Novotel in Marrakech. She has the names of the four men who stayed there. Or at least the names they were using.”

“Passports?”

“Not yet.”

“So is he Rad or Chiba or Ganem?”

“All of them. None of them. Rad is the name he gave Qazai. Ganem’s an operational name, I’m guessing. Chiba’s a red herring. Christ knows who he is.” He paused. “I’ve spent the past hour searching every database we have. There’s a company in Dubai registered to Mohamed Ganem, but it’s not an uncommon name. Otherwise nothing. And then…”

“What?” said Hammer.

Webster hesitated. “Dean’s working on it.”

“Of course.”

“You don’t mind?”

“No. It’s the lesser evil. It wasn’t before.” He shrugged. “You’ve given him the Amex? Checked the flights to London?”

Webster nodded.

“Who’s checking the hotels?”

“Dieter.”

“On a Sunday? Very loyal.”

Hammer got up to get more water. He went inside, ran the tap for a few seconds and came back drinking from the long glass. “Does Fletcher know anything?”

“No, but he says his friends might.”

“Ah,” said Hammer. “His friends.”

“They’re real. I was going to meet one of them before… before Marrakech came up.”

“Oh, they’re real. It’s just that what they know and what they want to tell us are two different things.” He thought for a moment. “Any word on Senechal?”

Webster shook his head. “Nothing. No one of that name is in any hospital in Marrakech.”

“That’s not nothing.”

“Maybe.”

“What about the morgues?”

“Driss seems to think that no foreigners have been taken in since Friday.”

“I don’t understand you sometimes. That’s good news.”

“Perhaps. I’d prefer just to know. Every time I close my eyes I see his face.”

Webster put his hands behind his head and stretched, forgetting for a moment the pain in his side. “So. What do we do?”

Hammer sighed. “Do you think they’re here?”

“I’d be surprised if they weren’t.”

“OK. If we find them? We could call the police and tell them they have terrorists on their doorstep.”

“Is that the best you can do?”

“Perhaps they have weapons with them.”

“True. Perhaps they don’t.”

“True.”

“So then what?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ve got a week. Less than a week.”

“I know,” said Hammer. “Plenty of time.”

ON MONDAY MORNING WEBSTERwoke long past dawn to hear planes softly droning overhead. Hammer had left him with his favorite painkillers, some American concoction that he swore would work better than any feeble London drugs, and after several hours of bullying Dean Oliver to work as fast as he could he had taken them early and fallen into a deep, dense sleep that didn’t want to let him go.

The first thing he was conscious of was that empty space next to him; he sensed it without opening his eyes. Somehow he sensed, too, before he remembered it, that the house was empty. Lying there now, his head fogged from the drugs, Webster felt his world unbalanced around him, all its delicate symmetry wrecked, and saw himself sliding through it, giddy and out of control.

He opened his eyes and forced himself up, stiff from the pain. A faint nausea lay at the back of his throat; his head hurt; his eyelids barely wanted to open. It occurred to him that if someone was slowly poisoning him this is how it would feel.

No swimming for four weeks, the doctor had said, but he couldn’t help but think that to immerse himself in the cold green waters of the pond—still better the sea—would heal him instantly of this sluggishness, this confusion that was in some ways the hardest thing of all to bear. Even without these painkillers, he had been slow ever since his return from Marrakech, as if his mind, just as it needed to be at its sharpest, had recoiled from the impossibility of its task. If he could just be in the water, the answers might come. Must surely come.

IN THE EAST THEREwas a burst of sun over the city, but the heath was under clouds that were dark and laden with rain, and a strong northerly wind was ruffling the trees that hung heavily down to the edges of the pond. The air was sharp and for the first time in weeks, as he stepped out in his trunks, Webster felt cold. There were only three swimmers, each in their own world, swimming lengths. He watched them for a moment and then, instead of diving from the platform as he usually did, lowered himself slowly into the water from the ladder, the chill pinching its way up his body, and launched himself with great delicacy into a slow, stately breaststroke. This was how his parents swam, he thought, with dry hair.

Gently he dived under the surface, letting the cold find its way into his head and his thoughts, opening his eyes and seeing nothing but the murky dark green. All the pain washed away, and emptying his mind he hung in the water for as long as he could, floating toward the surface like a corpse.