Free The Killing Ground by Jack Higgins Page B

explain yourselves. Your body count is beginning to rival Tombstone’s.”
    After Dillon sketched in the events, he said, “After all, General, you did say we could use the Gulfstream in an emergency.”
    “Yes, but I hadn’t envisaged this.”
    “And it all started with you,” Billy said. “Last time you saw us, you suggested we go to Heathrow and haunt passport control.”
    “Which is where we came up with Caspar Rashid.” Dillon cut in.

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J A C K H I G G I N S
    “All right, all right.” Ferguson was getting testy as they coasted through London toward Holland Park. “I’m the first to admit he could be very useful for us.”
    “Have you told him we failed to get Sara?”
    “Not yet. I thought his wife should be considered, too. She’s operating now, but Major Novikova will tell her, and then bring her to us.
    Eleven o’clock should be about right.”
    “Great,” Billy said. “Time for a full English breakfast.”
    “We don’t have a cook,” Dillon reminded him.
    “Who says so?” Ferguson frowned. “All I had to do was telephone the Civil Service pool. A Mrs. Hall appeared almost straightaway, answers to Maggie. She’s from Jamaica, though—I’m not sure about the full English breakfast.”
    “For God’s sake, General, they probably invented it.” That was Billy.
    “ S O T H E Y F A I L E D ? ” At the hospital, Molly Rashid was very pale, no color in her face at all, and weary suddenly in a way she hadn’t been before. Greta noticed that at once and the hands were shaking.
    “You need a drink,” she said.
    “No.” Molly ran a hand through her hair. “I’ve got another operation this afternoon.”
    “I don’t think so. Your right hand is shaking like a leaf. You couldn’t possibly operate in your present condition.”
    Molly covered her face with both hands. “What am I going to do?”
    Greta got a glass, took a bottle of vodka from the fridge. She almost filled the glass. “Come on, take it straight down. It numbs the brain.”
    Molly hesitated, then did as she was told. She gagged, staggered to the sink. For a moment, it was as if she was going to be sick, but she took a couple of deep breaths and pulled herself together.
    “My God, that hit the spot.” She turned and smiled wanly. “We’d better go and face it, I suppose.”
    “Yes,” Greta said, “I suppose we should.”

T H E K I L L I N G G R O U N D
    71
    “ W H A T D O Y O U M E A N you failed?” Rashid said, as he turned from the window to Dillon.
    “We simply couldn’t get anywhere near her.”
    “Oh, dear, you couldn’t get anywhere near her. My father will be pleased.”
    “Mr. Rashid, your father is dead.”
    Rashid was stricken, aged visibly, took a step, stumbled, reached for a chair and grabbed hold of it to steady himself.
    “I think you’d better sit down,” Dillon said.
    Which Rashid did. “How did he die? Was it you?”
    “No, I’d nothing to do with it. He was killed going out of the main gate of his villa with his chauffeur. Car bomb. The word is that it was a Sunni operation.”
    “Were there any other casualties?”
    “Yes, four men intent on killing us.”
    He seemed to come alive again, not that it lasted. “Since they obviously didn’t succeed, I assume you managed to kill them.”
    “That’s correct. Your wife has been informed . . . Major Novikova went to give her the sad news and bring her back here for a conference.”
    “A conference?” He said it slowly, as if he was finding it difficult to speak at all or to understand. He plucked at words, reaching in a futile way and running his fingers through his hair. And then he took an enormous deep breath, took out a cigarette, lit it and inhaled deeply.
    “That’s better, I think. Let’s get to it and see if there’s some way of sorting this out.”
    T H E Y S A T I N the committee room, Ferguson at the head of the table, Rashid and Molly close together, holding hands. Greta was pouring coffee. Dillon and Billy stood