Private London - James Patterson [79]
The helicopter banked again. I hated when it did that and was sure that Sam did it deliberately. The Palestinian translator’s house was set apart from the others in a small private road that led to Moor Park Golf Course. Famous for hosting the Bob Hope Classic for a number of years, but most notable for the current clubhouse having once been the residence, along with Hampton Court Palace, of one Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, ill-fated adviser to Henry the Eighth and the man who had given his name to the university where Harlan Shapiro had sent his daughter to be safe.
The irony was not lost on me.
Sam manoeuvred the helicopter to a hovering standstill. Lucy opened the door and threw out the long black rope, one end fixed securely inside. At least, I damn well hoped it was securely fixed.
Del Rio checked that his pistol was firm in its holster and went out first, grabbing the rope and sliding down it as easily as if it were a fireman’s pole.
I was next. I clipped the harness ring round the rope, checked it and took a deep breath. I was earning my pay cheque this weekend, no doubt about that. But I had trained to abseil. Just because I didn’t like it didn’t mean I couldn’t do it. I didn’t say ‘Geronimo’. I said something entirely less gleeful and stepped out, dropping down the rope in short sequences. The rope was still some eight feet from the ground when I released fully and dropped.
We had picked a soft target. The seventeenth green on the West Course. A short par four, surrounded on three sides by trees.
Not long afterwards Suzy thudded to the ground a few yards from me. Less than thirty seconds after that and all three of us were thankfully back on terra firma.
I looked at the damage that we had done to the soft ground and guessed that the greenkeeper would be none too happy come the morning.
I signalled to the others and we headed off. The house was some hundred yards away behind the trees. As we moved into the cover of them no alarm sounded – no sirens, no shouting.
So far, so good.
A movement behind me. I turned too late.
I dropped like a felled tree.
Chapter 102
SOME TIME LATER I came to and tried to move.
I couldn’t. My hands had been tied behind my back to a wooden chair. Suzy and Del Rio sat beside me, similarly trussed.
My head felt like I’d landed on it when I’d dropped from the helicopter. But I was alive and I was conscious. I guess my skull was a bit thicker than Chloe’s, which would be unusual. Female skulls are usually a little thicker than men’s. Maybe whoever had hit me hadn’t been as good as Chloe’s attacker.
We were in the lounge of a very expensively decorated house. There was colour everywhere. Golds and reds and greens. On the expensive rugs that dotted the floor, on the wallpaper that covered the walls, on the drapes that were curled back from the French windows that led out to an extensive lawn, and on the exquisitely upholstered furniture.
I lifted my head and looked across at Suzy and Del Rio, wincing as the pain nailed through the back of my head.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘You were hit with a golf club.’
‘A driver,’ added Suzy. ‘Titleist, I think.’
‘And you guys?’
‘People stepped out with semi-automatic weapons. A few of them. We considered it politic to comply with their instructions.’
‘Hard to argue with an AK-47’
Del Rio nodded. ‘That is a fact.’
‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Not formulated one as such.’
At that moment Harlan Shapiro walked into the room.
Chapter 103
HARLAN SHAPIRO’S MOUTH was bound with duct tape and he held his hands high in the air.
He was followed in by Annabelle Weston holding a gun, and by a woman wearing the full burka.
‘So it was the professor in the drawing room with the revolver all along,’ I said.
‘Sit over there,’ Annabelle said to Harlan, ignoring me and gesturing