A Devil Is Waiting - Jack Higgins [70]
He said into his mobile, “You must have seen what happened, Omar. Stay where you are. Be prepared for a quick exit.” He turned to Ibrahim. “Bring the jeep out of the barn. We’ll leave at once.”
He stayed on the porch, watching the Raptor approaching in the distance, the remains of the other one sending a towering column of black smoke into the sky, and smiled slightly. Defeat was for this occasion only. There would be other times.
He turned inside the house, found his briefcase and laptop, put them into a bag, and went out to the backyard, where Ibrahim had already driven the jeep out of the barn and was waiting behind the wheel. Ali Selim climbed in and they drove away.
As they bumped along a track, scattering sheep to one side, Ibrahim said, “A bad business, master.”
“Life often is—you should have learned that by now. I’m not finished with Ferguson and his people. There will be other days.”
“So where next?” Ibrahim asked as slush that the windscreen wipers were unable to clear obscured his vision.
“A place where the sun shines on a regular basis would be a change. Arabia, or Oman—or, I know, Rubat, where our good friend Owen Rashid’s uncle is Sultan. Would you like that?”
Ibrahim, who was driving one-handed and reaching out through an open window in an attempt to clear the slush with his hand, said, “I would prefer it to this, master.”
“Excellent. That’s where we shall go. It fits into my plans perfectly,” Selim told him, and they topped the hill and started their descent to the Raptor waiting in the hollow below.
Greg Slay flew over the rooftops a couple of times, Hamza loosing off a machine-gun burst or two into the air to show that they still meant business, but only Dillon, Holley, and Sara appeared, waving up at them. Slay put the Raptor down and Hamza stood behind the machine gun, an intimidating figure, as Dillon and Holley walked backward, one on each side of Sara, weapons ready for trouble.
Slay sat in his seat at the controls, waiting for them to arrive, decided to switch off, which he did. The silence was eerie, only the rush of the rain, and nothing stirred until there was the blast of engines breaking into life, the inimitable clatter that could only be from a helicopter. Slay hurriedly switched on again, and Sara picked up her skirt and started for the Raptor, Holley and Dillon running with her. She slowed, limping badly. It was very pronounced now, and there was pain on her face.
“God dammit,” she said when they got to the Raptor, where Hamza was reaching out to her.
Behind her, the third Raptor rose into view on the other side of the hill, but immediately swung away to the left. She watched with the others. The engine note deepened as it flew away to the west as fast as possible and was swallowed up by the mist.
“Are you okay?” Holley asked with concern.
“Just the damn leg, love.” She managed a smile. “It could be a lot worse. That firefight—I thought we were finished.” She reached up and grasped Hamza’s hand. “Until you decided to intervene. What happened here, and where’s Wali Hussein?”
“His body’s somewhere close by. We’re in a different spot than when you left. You’ll notice Major Miller feeling sorry for himself in the corner. Wali shot him, so Slay shot Wali dead and threw him out.”
She turned to look up at Slay in the pilot’s seat. He shrugged. “I didn’t have much choice. He suddenly turned angry with all of us and produced a shooter from up here somewhere. That was what started heating things up.”
Harry Miller said, “Sara, would you mind checking the medical unit for morphine? After all, I have been shot in the shoulder.” He winced with pain. “And may I suggest to you, Captain Slay, that we get the hell out of here?”
Hamza said, “I suspect Ferguson is the kind of man who prefers bad news sooner rather than later.”
“You’re quite right.”
Miller pulled out his Codex with a bloodstained left hand and called Ferguson, who