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‘Not at all,’ Makeev said. ‘A strange one this, believe me.’ He turned to Rashid. ‘You have your portable phone?’
‘Yes, Colonel.’
‘Good. Get after him. Stick to him like glue. When he settles, phone me. We’ll be at the Avenue Victor Hugo.’
Rashid didn’t say a word, simply went. Aroun took out his wallet and extracted a thousand-franc note which he placed on the bar. He said to the barman who was looking totally bewildered, ‘We’re very grateful,’ then turned and followed Makeev out.
As he slid behind the wheel of the black Mercedes saloon, he said to the Russian, ‘He never even hesitated back there.’
‘A remarkable man, Sean Dillon,’ Makeev said as they drove away. ‘He first picked up a gun for the IRA in nineteen seventy-one. Twenty years, Michael, twenty years and he hasn’t seen the inside of a cell once. He was involved in the Mountbatten business. Then he became too hot for his own people to handle so he moved to Europe. As I told you, he’s worked for everyone. The PLO, the Red Brigade in Germany in the old days. The Basque national movement, ETA. He killed a Spanish general for them.’
‘And the KGB?’
‘But of course. He’s worked for us on many occasions. We always use the best and Sean Dillon is exactly that. He speaks English and Irish, not that that bothers you, fluent French and German, reasonable Arabic, Italian and Russian.’
‘And no one has ever caught him in twenty years. How could anyone be that lucky?’
‘Because he has the most extraordinary gift for acting, my friend. A genius, you might say. As a young boy his father took him from Belfast to London to live, where he was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He even worked for the National Theatre when he was nineteen or twenty. I have never known anyone who can change personality and appearance so much just by body language. Make-up seldom enters into it, although I admit that it helps when he wants. He’s a legend that the security services of most countries keep quiet about because they can’t put a face to him so they don’t know what they’re looking for.’
‘What about the British? After all, they must be the experts where the IRA are concerned.’
‘No, not even the British. As I said, he’s never been arrested, not once, and unlike many of his IRA friends, he never courted media publicity. I doubt if there’s a photo of him anywhere except for the odd boyhood snap.’
‘What about when he was an actor?’
‘Perhaps, but that was twenty years ago, Michael.’
‘And you think he might undertake this business if I offer him enough money?’
‘No, money alone has never been enough for this man. It always has to be the job itself where Dillon is concerned. How can I put it? How interesting it is. This is a man to whom acting was everything. What we are offering him is a new part. The theatre of the street perhaps, but still acting.’ He smiled as the Mercedes joined the traffic moving around the Arc de Triomphe. ‘Let’s wait and see. Wait until we hear from Rashid.’
At that moment, Captain Ali Rashid was by the Seine at the end of a small pier jutting out into the river. The rain was falling very heavily, still plenty of sleet in it. The floodlights were on at Notre Dame and the effect was of something seen partially through a net curtain. He watched Dillon turn along the narrow pier to the building on stilts at the far end, waited until he went in and followed him.
The place was quite old and built of wood, barges and boats of various kinds moored all around. The sign over the door said Le Chat Noir. He peered through the window cautiously. There was a bar and several tables just like the other place. The only difference was that people were eating. There was even a man sitting on a stool against the wall playing an accordion. All very Parisian. Dillon was standing at the bar speaking to a young woman.
Rashid moved back, walked to the end of the pier, paused by the rail in the shelter of a small terrace and dialled the number of Aroun’s house in the Avenue Victor Hugo on his portable phone.
There was a slight click as the Walther was cocked and Dillon rammed the muzzle rather painfully into his right ear. ‘Now then, son, a few answers,’ he demanded. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Rashid,’ the young man said. ‘Ali Rashid.’
‘What are you then? PLO?’
‘No, Mr Dillon. I’m a captain in the Iraqi Army, assigned to protect Mr Aroun.’
‘And Makeev and the KGB?’
‘Let’s just say he’s on our side.’
‘The way things are going in the Gulf you need somebody on your side, my old son.’ There was the faint sound of a voice from the portable phone. ‘Go on, answer him.’
Makeev said, ‘Rashid, where is he?’
‘Right here, outside a café on the river near Notre Dame,’ Rashid told him. ‘With the muzzle of his Walther well into my ear.’
‘Put him on,’ Makeev ordered.
Rashid handed the phone to Dillon who said, ‘Now then, you old sod.’
‘A million, Sean. Pounds if you prefer that currency.’
‘And what would I have to be doing for all that money?’
‘The job of a lifetime. Let Rashid bring you round here and we’ll discuss it.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Dillon said. ‘I think what I’d really like is for you to get your arse into gear and come and pick us up yourself.’
‘Of course,’ Makeev said. ‘Where are you?’
‘The Left Bank opposite Notre Dame. A little pub on a pier called Le Chat Noir. We’ll be waiting.’
He slipped the Walther into his pocket and handed the phone to Rashid who said, ‘He’s coming then?’
‘Of course he is.’ Dillon smiled. ‘Now let’s you and me go inside and have ourselves a drink in comfort.’
In the sitting room on the first floor of the house in the Avenue Victor Hugo overlooking the Bois de Boulogne, Josef Makeev put down the phone and moved to the couch where his overcoat was.
‘Was that Rashid?’ Aroun demanded.
‘Yes. He’s with Dillon now at a place on the river. I’m going to get them.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
Makeev pulled on his coat. ‘No need, Michael. You hold the fort. We won’t be long.’
He went out. Aroun took a cigarette from a silver box and lit it, then he turned on the television. He was halfway into the news. There was direct coverage from Baghdad, Tornado fighter bombers of the British Royal Air Force attacking at low level. It made him bitterly angry. He switched off, poured himself a brandy and went and sat by the window.
Michael Aroun was forty years of age and a remarkable man by any standards. Born in Baghdad of a French mother and an Iraqi father who was an army officer, he’d had a maternal grandmother who was American. Through her, his mother had inherited ten million dollars and a number of oil leases in Texas.
She had died the year Aroun had graduated from Harvard Law School leaving everything to her son because his father, retired as a general from the Iraqi Army, was happy to spend his later years at the old family house in Baghdad with his books.
Like most great businessmen, Aroun had no academic training in the field. He knew nothing of financial planning or business administration. His favourite saying, one much quoted, was: When I need a new accountant, I buy a new accountant.
His friendship with Saddam Hussein had been a natural development from the fact that the Iraqi President had been greatly supported in his early days in politics by Aroun’s father, who was also an important member of the Baath Party. It had placed Aroun in a privileged position as regards the development of his country’s oilfields, brought him riches beyond calculation.
After the first billion you stopped counting, another favourite saying. And now he was faced with disaster. Not only the promised riches of the Kuwait oilfields snatched from him, but that portion of his wealth which stemmed from Iraq dried up, finished as a result of the Coalition’s massive airstrikes which had devastated his country since 17 January.
He was no fool. He knew that the game was over; should probably have never started, and that Saddam Hussein’s dream was already finished. As a businessman he played the percentages and that didn’t offer Iraq too much of a chance in the ground war that must eventually come.
He was far from ruined in personal terms. He had oil interests still in the USA and the fact that he was a French as well as an Iraqi citizen gave Washington a problem. Then there was his shipping empire and vast quantities of real estate in various capital cities around the world. But that wasn’t the point. He was angry when he switched on the television and saw what was happening in Baghdad each night for, surprising in one so self-centred, he was a patriot. There was also the fact, infinitely more important, that his father had been killed in a bombing raid on the third night of the air war.
And there was a great secret in his life, for in August, shortly after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi forces, Aroun had been sent for by Saddam Hussein himself. Sitting here by the French window, a glass of brandy in one hand, rain slanting across the terrace, he gazed out across the Bois de Boulogne in the evening light and remembered that meeting.
There was an air-raid practice in progress as he was driven in an army Land Rover through the streets of Baghdad, darkness everywhere. The driver was a young intelligence captain named Rashid who he had met before, one of the new breed, trained by the British at Sandhurst. Aroun gave him an English cigarette and took one himself.
‘What do you think, will they make some sort of move?’
‘The Americans and Brits?’ Rashid was being careful. ‘Who knows? They’re certainly reacting. President Bush seems to be taking a hard line.’
‘No, you’re mistaken,’ Aroun said. ‘I’ve met the man face to face twice now at White House functions. He’s what our American friends call a nice guy. There’s no steel there at all.’
Rashid shrugged. ‘I’m a simple man, Mr Aroun, a soldier, and perhaps I see things simply. Here is a man, a navy combat pilot at twenty, who saw a great deal of active service, who was shot down over the Sea of Japan and survived to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. I would not underestimate such a man.’
Aroun frowned. ‘Come on, my friend, the Americans aren’t going to come halfway round the world with an army to protect one little Arab state.’
‘Isn’t that exactly what the British did in the Falklands War?’ Rashid reminded him. ‘They never expected such a reaction in Argentina. Of course they had Thatcher’s determination behind them, the Brits, I mean.’
‘Damned woman,’ Aroun said and leaned back as they went in through the gate of the presidential palace, feeling suddenly depressed.
He followed Rashid along corridors of marble splendour, the young officer leading the way, a torch in one hand. It was a strange, rather eerie experience, following that small pool of light on the floor, their footfalls echoing. There was a sentry on each side of the ornate door they finally halted before. Rashid opened it and they went in.
Saddam Hussein was alone, sitting in uniform at a large desk, the only light a shaded lamp. He was writing, slowly and carefully, looked up and smiled, putting down his pen.
‘Michael.’ He came round the desk and embraced Aroun like a brother. ‘Your father? He is well?’
‘In excellent health, my President.’
‘Give him my respects. You look well, Michael. Paris suits you.’ He smiled again. ‘Smoke if you want. I know you like to. The doctors have unfortunately had to tell me to cut it out or else.’
He sat down behind the desk again and Aroun sat opposite, aware of Rashid against the wall in the darkness. ‘Paris was fine, but my place is here now in these difficult times.’
Saddam Hussein shook his head. ‘Not true, Michael. I have soldiers in plenty, but few men such as you. You are rich, famous, accepted at the highest levels of society and government anywhere in the world. More than that, because of your beloved mother of blessed memory, you are not just an Iraqi, but also a French citizen. No, Michael, I want you in Paris.’
‘But why, my President?’ Aroun asked.
‘Because one day I may require you to do a service for me and for your country that only you could perform.’
Aroun said, ‘You can rely on me totally, you know that.’
Saddam Hussein got up and paced to the nearest window, opened the shutters and stepped onto the terrace. The all clear sounded mournfully across the city and lights began to appear here and there.
‘I still hope our friends in America and Britain stay in their own backyard, but if not …’ He shrugged. ‘Then we may have to fight them in their own backyard. Remember, Michael, as the Prophet instructs us in the Koran, there is more truth in one sword than ten thousand words.’ He paused and then carried on, still looking out across the city. ‘One sniper in the darkness, Michael, British SAS or Israeli, it doesn’t really matter, but what a coup – the death of Saddam Hussein.’
‘God forbid it,’ Michael Aroun said.
Saddam turned to him. ‘As God wills, Michael, in all things, but you see my point? The same would apply to Bush or the Thatcher woman. The proof that my arm reaches everywhere. The ultimate coup.’ He turned. ‘Would you be capable of arranging such a thing, if necessary?’
Aroun had never felt so excited in his life. ‘I think so, my President. All things are possible, especially when sufficient money is involved. It would be my gift to you.’
‘Good.’ Saddam nodded. ‘You will return to Paris immediately. Captain Rashid will accompany you. He will have details of certain codes we will be using in radio broadcasts, that sort of thing. The day may never come, Michael, but if it does …’ He shrugged. ‘We have friends in the right places.’ He turned to Rashid. ‘That KGB colonel at the Soviet Embassy in Paris?’
‘Colonel Josef Makeev, my President.’
‘Yes,’ Saddam Hussein said to Aroun. ‘Like many of his kind, not happy with the changes now taking place in Moscow. He will assist in any way he can. He’s already expressed his willingness.’ He embraced Aroun, again like a brother. ‘Now go. I have work to do.’
The lights had still not come on in the palace and Aroun had stumbled out into the darkness of the corridor, following the beam of Rashid’s torch.
Since his return to Paris he had got to know Makeev well, keeping their acquaintance, by design, purely on a social level, meeting mainly at various Embassy functions. And Saddam Hussein had been right. The Russian was very definitely on their side, only too willing to do anything that would cause problems for the United States or Great Britain.
The news from home, of course, had been bad. The build-up of such a gigantic army. Who could have expected it? And then in the early hours of 17 January the air war had begun. One bad thing after another and the ground attack still to come.
He poured himself another brandy, remembering his despairing rage at the news of his father’s death. He’d never been religious by inclination, but he’d found a mosque in a Paris side street to pray in. Not that it had done any good. The feeling of impotence was like a living thing inside him and then came the morning when Ali Rashid had rushed into the great ornate sitting room, a notepad in one hand, his face pale and excited.
‘It’s come, Mr Aroun. The signal we’ve been waiting for. I just heard it on the radio transmitter from Baghdad.’
The winds of heaven are blowing. Implement all that is on the table. May God be with you.
Aroun had gazed at it in wonder, his hand trembling as he held the notepad, and his voice was hoarse when he said, ‘The President was right. The day has come.’
‘Exactly,’ Rashid said. ‘Implement all that is on the table. We’re in business. I’ll get in touch with Makeev and arrange a meeting as soon as possible.’
Dillon stood at the French windows and peered out across the Avenue Victor Hugo to the Bois de Boulogne. He was whistling softly to himself, a strange eerie little tune.
‘Now this must be what the house agents call a favoured location.’
‘May I offer you a drink, Mr Dillon?’
‘A glass of champagne wouldn’t come amiss.’
‘Have you a preference?’ Aroun asked.
‘Ah, the man who has everything,’ Dillon said. ‘All right, Krug would be fine, but non-vintage. I prefer the grape mix.’
‘A man of taste, I see.’ Aroun nodded to Rashid who opened a side door and went out.
Dillon, unbuttoning his reefer coat, took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘So, you need my services this old fox tells me.’ He nodded at Makeev who lounged against the fireplace warming himself. ‘The job of a lifetime, he said and for a million pounds. Now what would I have to do for all that?’
Rashid entered quickly with the Krug in a bucket, three glasses on a tray. He put them on the table and started to open the bottle.
Aroun said, ‘I’m not sure, but it would have to be something very special. Something to show the world that Saddam Hussein can strike anywhere.’
‘He needs something, the poor old sod,’ Dillon said cheerfully. ‘Things aren’t going too well.’ As Rashid finished filling three glasses the Irishman added, ‘And what’s your trouble, son? Aren’t you joining us?’
Rashid smiled and Aroun said, ‘In spite of Winchester and Sandhurst, Mr Dillon, Captain Rashid remains a very Muslim Muslim. He does not touch alcohol.’
‘Well, here’s to you.’ Dillon raised his glass. ‘I respect a man with principles.’
‘This would need to be big, Sean, no point in anything small. We’re not talking blowing up five British Army paratroopers in Belfast,’ Makeev said.
