Silva and Itchy had watched the men clamber up the side of the ravine and edge up a gully towards the house. At one point she’d thought the older man would fall; he appeared frozen against the sheer rock face and through the binoculars she could see he’d closed his eyes and was clinging on for dear life. Eventually he began moving upwards and the pair crested the cliff top and crawled into the olive grove where they crouched behind a low wall.
Now, though, everything had gone pear-shaped.
‘Fuck,’ Itchy said. While Silva was looking through the scope at the veranda, Itchy was concentrating on the two men. ‘They’ve been made.’
Silva pulled her eye from the scope and picked up the binoculars again. The two men were getting to their feet at the behest of a man with a smooth face and a wispy beard. The man from the photograph Lona had given her. Taher. He cradled a machine gun and jabbed it at the men as he marched them up to the veranda. Then he hit the older man in the face.
‘We could take him,’ Itchy said. ‘Give them a chance to escape.’
Before Silva could think on that, Karen Hope walked out from the farmhouse. The billowing white sun awning flapped back and forth, obscuring the view every few seconds.
‘It’s Hope!’ Silva slipped back down into a firing position and eased her right eye up to the scope. ‘Tell me what’s happening!’
‘Taher’s got some twine and he’s tying the men’s hands behind their backs. Whatever their stupid plan was it hasn’t worked.’
‘Perhaps they’ve got backup.’ Silva’s other eye glanced at the sky, hoping to see a smudge of distorted air and hear the chop chop chop of a helicopter. There was nothing.
‘We’re the only backup.’
‘What the hell were they playing at?’
‘Soldiers.’ Itchy rolled on his side and glanced at Silva. ‘Only you don’t, do you? Play at it?’
‘No.’
Now Taher was waving his gun at the two men, forcing them over to the edge of the veranda. They both knelt, the older man falling on his face before Taher pulled him up. Karen Hope advanced into view. She held a pistol with both hands and took up a position behind the old guy, raising the weapon to the man’s head. Through the scope Silva could see Hope’s arm muscles tense.
‘Silva!’ Itchy shouted, and Silva was aware of him scrabbling for his own pistol, useless at this range. ‘We’ve got to do something!’
And then, for the briefest moment, the world dissolved away and Silva was gone, floating somewhere above the ravine and the house as if she was viewing an aerial photograph. As if she was in the heavens looking down. As if she was God.
Ever since Fairchild had come up with the plan to kill Karen Hope, Silva had wondered if she’d be able to pull the trigger when the moment came. In Positano she’d been so close, but circumstances had intervened. Here, they’d waited and waited. Still she’d been unsure. Now, though, there was no time to ponder or prevaricate. Whether her mother approved or not, whether Karen Hope deserved death or not, was irrelevant. The decision had been made for her. There was a second, perhaps two, and then the old man would die. The only person who could prevent that was Rebecca da Silva.
She was back on the ground, the hard rock under her body, the rifle in her hands. There was no time for composure, for steadying her breathing, for recalculating the ballistics in her head, for making a final adjustment to the scope. There was only time to move the rifle a fraction so Karen Hope was lined up in the reticle. If she missed, likely she’d hit the old man and he’d die anyway.
Which meant she couldn’t miss.
‘Silva!’ This time Itchy’s voice came distorted, as if in slow motion. ‘Now!’
Hope stepped forward, both arms outstretched, the gun pushed hard against the old man’s head. There was a look of utter determination on her face, and in that instant Silva realised this woman craved absolute power like a drug.
Silva touched the trigger.
The bullet took approximately half a second to reach Karen Hope. In that time she’d moved slightly and, although Silva couldn’t see it, Hope’s forefinger had already begun to squeeze the trigger on her own gun.
The bullet hit Hope just below her right eye. It exited through the back of her head, a spray of blood and brain matter splattering outwards. The head jerked back in a delayed response, the body arcing forward, the arms flying upwards, the effect like a crash test dummy flung from a moving car. Then came a double crack as the echo from Silva’s gun came back along with the bang from Hope’s pistol.
‘Shot,’ Itchy said in the same pan-flat manner he used when they were on the practice range. He reached out and patted Silva’s back. ‘Now the other one.’
Taher was moving fast towards the door to the house as Silva reloaded. She fired again but the shot smashed into the stone lintel and he was gone.
‘Shit,’ Silva said.
‘Don’t sweat it, we’ll get another chance.’
Silva reloaded and raised her head. The two men had fallen over the edge of the veranda and into the olive grove. They were invisible beneath the trees.
‘Are they alive?’ Silva said.
‘I don’t know,’ Itchy said. ‘But Taher’s going for the pick-up.’
Silva moved the rifle to the left. Taher had raced through the house and emerged at the other side. He clambered into the truck. She had a split second to act while the vehicle was stationary, because hitting a moving target with a rifle was next to impossible – something for the movies, not real life. Taher was in the vehicle now, but his head was partially obscured by the door pillar. Silva squeezed the trigger and a moment later the glass on the driver-side door crazed in a spiderweb pattern. Inside, Taher jerked sideways, but even as he did so the vehicle was moving forward, the back wheels spinning in the dry dirt. The pick-up slewed round in the yard and shot towards the gates to the complex, causing an explosion of wood as the bull bars smashed through. Then the truck was away and heading down the track, weaving back and forth, dust rising.
‘Last chance,’ Itchy said. ‘But take your time.’
Silva already had the rifle aimed down the track way ahead of Taher, anticipating the moment when the vehicle would crest a small rise and she could get a shot in through the rear window. She couldn’t see Taher’s head because he was hunched down, but that wouldn’t matter; the bullet would pass through the seat. Just a couple more seconds and—
And then she could see nothing. The dust had risen to obscure the track.
‘Damn it!’ Silva fired anyway, but the odds were minuscule and when the dust cleared the vehicle was gone.
When the shot cracked off Holm thought the report would be the final thing he’d hear, his last conscious thought. Death seemed to take a long time coming though, and in the seconds remaining he considered his lot. He hadn’t been a bad man. In fact, on balance, he’d done more good than evil. He regretted the way he’d treated his wife and was sorry he hadn’t spent more time with his daughters. Some extra R & R with Billie Cornish would have been nice too, but she deserved happiness and it looked as if she’d found it. The one big regret he had was involving Farakh Javed in this mess. He was gay, he had annoying habits like slurping his coffee and cutting his fingernails, and was generally a right pain in the backside, but the lad, in a way, was the son Holm had never had.
Holm turned his head, surprised he was still lucid. There was no pain, no feeling at all. He reasoned the bullet must have destroyed his nervous system. And yet if that was the case, how come he was staring at Javed and thinking all these crazy thoughts?
‘Boss!’
Javed moved sideways and bowled into Holm, knocking him over the edge of the veranda. They fell six feet onto hard earth, the landing knocking all the air out of Holm. Now he did feel pain. A sharp jolt up the side of his arm, his eyes blurring as he spun from consciousness for a second. He jerked his head. That hurt too, but not from a bullet. His forehead had collided with the trunk of a thousand-year-old olive tree.
‘What the…?’ Holm was back in the land of the living. He might not make one thousand years, but he reckoned he’d be good for a few more. ‘What happened?’
‘Sniper,’ Javed said, sounding impressed. ‘Took out Karen Hope. Bam!’
‘Taher?’
‘I heard a vehicle so I reckon he’s gone.’
‘Let’s get up there.’ Holm struggled to his knees and tried to pull his hands from the twine Taher had tightened round his wrists. It was impossible.
‘We should stay out of sight.’ Javed was kneeling too, straining against his bounds. ‘There’s a gunman out there somewhere.’
‘If he was aiming at us, we’d be hit by now. He was either after Taher or Hope.’ Holm paused and craned his neck to try and see onto the veranda. ‘Is she dead?’
‘If she isn’t then I think it’s still unlikely she’ll be running for president. I saw half her brain hit the wall of the house. I don’t think the bit remaining is going to be good for much.’
‘It’s not a joking matter, Farakh. You’re talking about the woman who was going to be the leader of the free world.’
‘And who was about to put a hole in our heads.’
‘Yes, there is that.’ Holm was struggling to come to terms with Karen Hope holding a gun. Well that part wasn’t surprising; her family owned an arms company after all. But the future president of the US standing alongside one of the world’s most notorious terrorists, about to help him commit murder? That was a little difficult to understand.
‘Boss?’ Javed’s hands came from behind his back, the twine somehow severed. ‘Your turn.’
Holm stared at the boy, wondering what miracle he had summoned and from where. Then he spotted the shiny object in Javed’s hands. His nail clippers.
With their bonds removed, they made their way up from the olive grove back to the veranda. Holm stood over the body of Karen Hope. Bits of flesh and bone had splattered across the ground and there was a mark on the wall of the farmhouse where a stone had exploded.
‘High-powered rifle,’ Javed said. ‘They were out there on that ridge. When Karen Hope came out… boom!’
‘Don’t.’ Holm stepped back from the body, aware of a sticky residue on his shoes. He gazed down at what was now no more than a cadaver of a woman. Hope. So much of it gone. All that promise unfulfilled. And yet she’d been about to blow his head off. What was that about? However Holm tried to spin what he’d seen and heard, the end result didn’t make sense. He turned to Javed. ‘Come on, let’s check inside and then we’ll call Palmer. After him, Huxtable, although what the hell she’s going to make of this, I have no idea.’
‘Karen Hope tried to kill us, she got whacked and Taher got away with a load of weapons.’ Javed came over and stood alongside Holm. He contemplated the body and shook his head. ‘Good luck with that, sir.’
Inside the house was cool. Narrow corridors led between thick stone walls to airy rooms with rustic furniture. The large kitchen was well equipped and stocked with food. A dining hall had seating for twenty, and at one end of the building was a bunk house.
‘Do you think this place is a training camp?’ Javed said as they edged down yet another corridor.
‘No idea.’ Holm pushed through a curtain and out into a central courtyard. He leaned on a wall, feeling deflated. All this way and all this effort and the main prize had eluded them.
‘We’ve disrupted the supply chain,’ Javed said, sensing Holm’s despair. ‘Whatever that boat was up to it won’t be doing it any more.’
‘You’re right.’ Holm brightened. ‘Let’s check upstairs and then we’ll work out what the hell to do.’
Holm let Javed lead the way and they went back inside and took a narrow spiral staircase to the upper floor. A corridor ran down one side and had windows every few steps, each offering a view over the vast olive plantation. Javed paused at one of the windows.
‘Sir.’ He pointed outside as Holm joined him. ‘One man drove in the van and another chauffeured Karen Hope. They both left in the van. Taher escaped in the pick-up and presumably Hope was going to drive the yellow SUV out of here. Which leaves me wondering, whose vehicle is that?’
Holm peered down. A Jeep Wrangler was parked in the shade of a couple of olive trees, hidden from anywhere but the upstairs of the farmhouse. He turned from the window as footsteps tapped on the wooden flooring. A tall figure stood silhouetted at the end of the corridor.
‘It’s mine.’ The figure was in shadow but Holm would recognise the stick-thin man anywhere. ‘Hello, Stephen.’
‘Hello, Harry.’