Jack Higgins - Midnight Runner

‘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?’

‘Very good, Rupert! Yes. The Army of Arab Liberation Children’s Trust. That’s rather more serious business. Full paramilitary training, run by mercenaries. Some of them are Irish, you know. There are plenty of them around since this whole peace process thing began.’

‘So what do you want from me?’

‘I want you to oversee Loch Dhu, start keeping an eagle eye out, make sure nobody is snooping around. And I want you to keep close contact with Act of Class Warfare.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve got a feeling we’ll be seeing Senator Quinn again, and sooner than we think. Did you know, Rupert, that Act of Class Warfare has branches at most of the major universities now? Filled by the children of the affluent who want to destroy capitalism?’ She chuckled.

‘And what does that have to do with Quinn?’

‘Because, my dear Rupert…Helen Quinn is a member of the Oxford branch.’

In London the following morning, Major Roper appeared at Sean Dillon’s cottage at Stable Mews, a strange young man in a state-of-the-art electric wheelchair. He wore a reefer coat, his hair was down to his shoulders, and his face was a taut mask of the kind of scar tissue that only comes from burns. An important bomb disposal expert with the Royal Engineers, decorated with the George Cross, his extraordinary career had been terminated by what he called ‘a silly little bomb’ in a small family car in Belfast, courtesy of the Provisional IRA.

He’d survived and discovered a whole new career in computers. Now if you wanted to find out anything in cyberspace, no matter how buried, it was Roper you called.

Ferguson and Dillon were there to greet him.

‘Sean, you bastard,’ Roper said cheerfully.

Dillon smiled and helped him over the step. ‘You look well.’

‘Hannah didn’t say much. She sent me a file, though. Are we going to war again?’

‘I’d say it’s a distinct possibility.’

He followed Roper along the corridor and they found Ferguson on the telephone. He replaced it. ‘Major, how goes it?’

‘Fine, General. You’ve got work for me?’

Ferguson nodded. ‘Indeed we have.’

For the next half hour, they went over the whole background of the case, until finally Dillon said, ‘And what we would like you to do first is check out those groups she’s been giving money to. If she’s got an Achilles’ heel, that may be it. I don’t know what we’re looking for, exactly –’ he grinned ‘– but we’ll know when we find it.’

‘You realize,’ Roper said, ‘that if Quinn’s people checked her out a few months ago, she knows it. They’re bound to have left footprints, which means that she’s had time to try to cover her tracks, if she wanted to.’

‘Does that mean you don’t think you’ll find anything?’ Ferguson asked.

Roper’s scar tissue lifted in what passed for a smile. ‘I said she’d try. I didn’t say she’d succeed.’

Roper’s apartment in Regency Square was on the ground floor, with its own entrance and a slope to the door to facilitate his wheelchair. The entire place, including the kitchen and bathroom, which had a specialized shower and toilet system, was designed not only for a handicapped person but for one who, as in this case, was determined to fend for himself. In what should have been a sitting room, there was instead a computer laboratory and workbench, and the equipment there was state-of-the-art, some of it classified, obtained not only because he was a major on the Army reserve list but because Ferguson used his muscle whenever he had to.

Three days after Quinn’s meeting with the President, the front doorbell sounded at ten in the morning. Roper pressed a remote control and a moment later, Ferguson, Dillon, and Hannah Bernstein came in.

‘So, what have you got?’ Ferguson asked Roper.

‘Well, as you said, the Rashid Educational Trust pours money into an incredible variety of causes. The list’s as long as your arm. Most of them appear legit, but not all of them. This Children’s Trust in Beirut, for instance, is definitely Hezbollah. And she’s got other trusts scattered around Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, the Oman. I’m still working on them, but I’d bet you anything some of them are terrorist fronts as well.’

‘What on earth’s she playing at?’ Ferguson said.

‘She’s consolidating her power,’ Dillon said. ‘Establishing links with all the major Arab leaders. Gaining influence through either peace or violence, depending on what suits her particular needs.’

Roper nodded. ‘And don’t forget the size of her oil interests in the Middle East. Rashid Investments controls a third of all production there. She could bring down the whole house of cards if she wanted to.’

‘Christ,’ Ferguson groaned. ‘A third of Middle Eastern oil production.’

Dillon turned back to Roper. ‘What about here at home? She hasn’t made grants to the IRA or the Ulster Freedom Fighters or anything like that?’