Next in Line (William Warwick, #5)(89)

Before he had time to undress, he heard the night officer advancing along the corridor on his round to check that every prisoner was safely tucked up after lights out.

Miles slipped into bed, pulled the blanket up to his neck and closed his eyes.

There was a gentle tap at the door. The duty officer looked inside and flashed his torch over the bed. ‘Hope you’re feeling better, Mr Faulkner,’ he said, before quickly switching off the torch.

‘A lot better, thank you, officer.’ Miles waited for the door to close before he got back out of bed, took off his clothes and hid four keys under his pillow, before falling asleep.

? ? ?

Superintendent Warwick and DS Adaja sat in an unmarked car in a layby a hundred yards from the prison.

‘Are we going to give him a wake-up call?’ asked Paul when the lights in C block went out.

‘No. We owe him one,’ replied William. ‘But if he hadn’t come back, I would have happily arrested him.’

‘And if he tries it on again?’

‘He won’t need to. But I’d love to see Booth Watson’s face next time he turns up at the bank.’





CHAPTER 32





TWO RIGID INFLATABLE BOATS DRIFTED into the bay. They were only doing two knots, so their engines wouldn’t be heard on a still, windless night as they headed towards the stationary yacht silhouetted in the moonlight. Nasreen Hassan, sitting in the bow of the lead boat, raised her binoculars and focused on the only light coming from Lowlander.

A man sitting on the bridge of the yacht was playing a game of chess against himself to while away the long hours on anchor watch. So powerful were her binoculars that she could see him make his next move: queen to knight four.

Her next move had been planned some weeks ago. Once they knew the dates the target would be going on holiday with her boyfriend, they had begun preparations for their unheralded arrival.

They already knew the yacht Chalabi had hired was anchored in Palma, Mallorca. A small bribe to the assistant harbourmaster was all it took to find out when it would be leaving port. They were even in possession of an architect’s plan of the yacht. They had spent the past two days secreted in a small inlet further up the coast, putting the finishing touches to their plans.

Hassan checked her watch – 03.17 – confident that the only person on board still awake would be the young man on the bridge. Rook to bishop’s four. He removed a knight from the board.

She looked back to check on the tiny flotilla and her nine-man team, each one chosen for their particular area of expertise. Sitting around her in the lead boat were five hired killers, none of whom was on his first mission. They all wore black from head to foot, and their faces were smeared with burnt cork so they wouldn’t be spotted in the moonlight. Each one of them could go thirty-six hours without sleep – not that this part of the operation should take them more than a few minutes. It was disappearing without trace that would take time – and time, or the lack of it, was their only enemy.

Slung loosely over Hassan’s shoulder was a Dragunov sniper rifle that she kept at her side even in bed. She had made her name killing a British soldier in Libya with a single bullet, from six hundred yards away. The other five carried Kalashnikovs, purchased on the open market. One of them had his cocked, the first round in the chamber. He only expected to fire one bullet.

The second boat was piloted by a ‘for hire’ captain with twenty years’ experience of serving various cartels as a drug runner, and his number two, who’d spent more time in jail than on the high seas. Behind them sat the engineer, whose pale, lined complexion suggested years of heaving and sweating deep in the bowels of ships. The final member of the team was a doctor who’d been struck off, although for what Hassan had in mind, they would have been better off with an undertaker.

Every pair of eyes on the two inflatables was fixed on the yacht. The man who’d been chosen to eliminate the chess player would be the first on board, while Hassan and the other four men from the lead boat went below to where the Princess and Chalabi’s other guests would be dreaming; dreams that were about to turn into a nightmare.

Hassan felt her mouth go dry, as it always did before an attack. Their beloved leader had selected her to lead this audacious coup, promising her that if she succeeded, not only would the British be humiliated in the eyes of the world, but her name would become part of the nation’s folklore and inspire many other young women to join their cause. The irony was that she’d been born in Wakefield and recruited while she was at university. Like many converts, Hassan had become more passionate about and dedicated to the cause than any of the hired mercenaries seated around her, who were interested only in how much they would be paid.

When they were within a couple of hundred yards of the target, they slowed down to make sure the low murmur of their engines didn’t alert the chess player on the bridge. Hassan smiled at the thought that one of the attractions of this particular vessel, as the charter agent had helpfully pointed out, was that even a child returning from a swim could clamber aboard without needing assistance.

With a hundred yards to go, they cut the engines altogether and allowed the two inflatables to drift up to the stern of the yacht, so that nine gatecrashers could join the party.

When the lead dinghy touched the edge of the landing deck, the chosen assassin was the first on board. He moved swiftly across the lower deck and up the short flight of steps to the bridge. The chess player looked up after playing his last move and a single bullet entered his forehead. Before he could make a sound, he collapsed onto the ground in a heap beside the wheel. Without a word passing between them, the new captain and his first mate took over.