Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) by Andrew Towning Page B

gave her an empty sick feeling deep in the pit of her stomach. Dillon never exaggerated, but he always kept something back. She entered the final digits into her mobile phone, had a brief conversation with her friend Grace, and hung up almost immediately. She felt numb from the toes up, as if she’d left her physical body and was looking back at herself. What she saw was a distressed and fearful reflection.

CHAPTER SIX

    “Come in, Mr. Dillon. I’ve been expecting you.”
    Dillon drove the Porsche Cayman through the gated entrance and pulled up in front of the house. Mrs. Pringle gave him a straight hard-faced look and closed the front door as Dillon went up the sweeping staircase. Hart came and stood at the head of the stairs as he had done the last time the two men had met. Only this time, he was dressed in a dark blue business suit that had a thick chalk stripe running through it, a silk shirt and a deep maroon silk tie.
    “You know the way.” Hart stood aside for Dillon to enter the drawing room, he crossed to the mini-bar and poured them both a large bourbon with ice.
    Dillon had chosen a seat facing the view of the harbour, but was also able to view the door.
    “You must have someone with a lot of technical knowledge researching my background, and a lot of friends in very high places.” He raised his glass. “To you.”
    Hart was smiling quietly as he sat in the chair opposite Dillon.
    “You’re a wise man who has survived a long time in a precarious and often highly dangerous environment. But at the end of the day it’s sometimes better to come second than to not finish at all.”
    “Your riddle has lost me, I’m afraid,” Dillon confessed.
    “I’m sure it hasn’t.”
    “You must have a lot of video footage of me by now. But what’s the point of it all?”
    “And much sound recording as well. It’s been very worthwhile, and makes extremely good viewing. Now what’s on your mind? It’s a long way to drive for a social visit, although I do appreciate you having called first.”
    “The speed at which you operate, Charlie. Faster than any man I can recall. Far too fast for me. In fact, so fast that I certainly can’t keep up and would like to call a truce. This entire thing was never going anywhere and was a monumental waste of my time, anyway.”
    “You’ve driven all this way to tell me something I already knew? Listen, the reason it hasn’t gone anywhere is because there was never anything to find out.”
    Dillon had the strangest feeling, almost like he was standing on the platform of a station waiting for a train that might never arrive. He couldn’t leave because it might turn up, but then if it did turn up, where would it take him?
    “If I’m wasting my time, why all the surveillance and why see me at all?”
    Dillon gazed at Hart who wore the unreadable expression of an experienced and successful card player, barely a twitch of an eye or even a smile. Yet, he managed to convey that whatever Dillon said he could have said it for him. Dillon thought it wasn’t anticipation, but rather the power of knowledge. It was starting to get under his skin and that was something he had never allowed in all the time he’d worked in intelligence.
    “I like my beliefs confirmed. So far, you haven’t said or done anything to contradict or allay those beliefs.”
    “In which case, I suppose that’s my cue to leave,” Dillon said irritably, putting his drink down. “My mistake; I apologise.”
    He was halfway to the door when Hart said, “For heaven’s sake, come back and sit down, Jake. Let’s get rid of all this bullshit. After all, you’ve come here to tell me that you and the firm you work for are willing to drop the investigation into my personal and business affairs, in exchange for me allowing you to get back to a normal unhindered life. Isn’t that about the size of it?”
    Dillon nodded. “Yes. That’s about it. Is there anything wrong with that?”
    “Nothing wrong with that,