Edge of Danger by Jack Higgins Page A

that, my friend. One thing I’ll promise, I’ll surprise you.’ He turned to his sister.
    Dillon took them to the door and opened it. ‘Try and make him see sense, Kate.’
    ‘My brother always makes perfect sense, Dillon,’ she told him.
    ‘Then we’ll all end up going down the same dark road to hell.’
    ‘An interesting thought,’ Paul Rashid observed, and led the way out.
    The door closed, and Ferguson said, ‘So, we know where we are.’
    ‘Only with him,’ Blake said. ‘But we don’t know the first damn thing about what he intends to do.’
    ‘The ball’s in your court,’ Dillon said to Ferguson.
    Ferguson nodded. ‘Let’s try the simple approach. We won’t get very far trying to listen in to Rashid’s phone calls, and coded mobiles make things even more difficult these days, but we’ll tap them anyway. We can monitor his travel movements. His planes need a slot, passengers have to be declared beforehand. Special Branch can check them out. Meanwhile, we’ll plough through all his friends, all his associates. Maybe we’ll get lucky.’
    ‘Sooner rather than later,’ Blake said. ‘There’s an energy to Rashid that I find disturbing.’
    ‘What will you do?’ Dillon asked.
    ‘I’m going home. There’s a lot I have to talk about with the President. If there’s anything you need me for, though, anything at all, just let me know and I’ll be back.’
    In the car, Paul Rashid pushed the glass divider closed and said to Kate, ‘They’ll be on our case in every possible way.’
    T know. It’ll be next to impossible to get to the Premier now.’
    ‘He was never my alternative, Kate.’
    She was amazed. ‘But Paul, I assumed it must be.’
    ‘Which is what I wanted everyone to think, and they did, except for Dillon, of course.’
    ‘Then who?’
    ‘For you and you alone: it’s the Council of Elders in Hazar, all twelve of them. They’re dragging their feet. They’re afraid of me, and they don’t want me - they distrust my influence with the tribes, and they’re right to. Once I dispose of them and am named the Sultan, I will declare a
    jihad. Then all the great powers will have reason to tremble.’
    ‘How do you intend to do it?’
    ‘They’ll all be together in two weeks. I want you to go down and base yourself in our office in Hazar. I’ll join you later.’
    ‘And how will the job be executed?’
    ‘A suitable bomb, and for that we’ll need Bell’s expertise, and we’ll also need to get you there to talk with him without people knowing. Speak to Kelly. He knows some dodgy people, the kind who do illegal flights in small planes from old RAF airstrips. In and out very quickly. Get it arranged.’
    ‘As you say, brother.’
    And Kelly came up trumps. He produced a place in Surrey called Grover’s Air Taxis, where the proprietor was a shifty-looking middle-aged man in a brown flying jacket and overalls, who met them outside a Second World War Nissen hut, two hangars looming behind.
    ‘Now then, Mick,’ Kelly said. ‘Let’s call this lady Miss Smith and get on with it. As I told you, we need Drumcree. A couple of hours at the most, then back again.’
    ‘No trouble. I can do the old Titan. It’s got twin engines and an airstair door.’
    ‘No problem on the approach?’
    ‘None. I’ll go in under six hundred from a couple of miles out at sea. There’s an old RAF landing strip ten miles out of Drumcree. I’ll use my local contact and have a car left there.’
    ‘Good man, then let’s go.’
    ‘Just a minute. What about my money?’
    Kate opened her briefcase, took out a brown paper envelope, and handed it to him.
    ‘Can we leave now?’
    Grover hesitated, obviously tempted to look into the envelope, then thought better of it.
    ‘All right.’ He turned and led the way to the end hangar, rolled back the door and disclosed the Titan.
    ‘How long will it take?’ Kelly asked.
    ‘Hour and a half, depending on the wind.’
    ‘Fine. Let’s get on with it,’