you from Chicago to Kansas, and for the time being there’ll probably be some military security at the ranch — firstly to protect you, secondly to catch this bastard. We now think there’s no doubt he was somehow responsible for all three of those aircraft crashes.”
“Do you think Ben might be planning to kill my husband, Daddy?” said Laura.
“Well, we have to work on the theory that he might be thinking along those lines. Dementia can easily enter the mind of a mass murderer…but I don’t think so. Because there’s an edge of hysteria in that type of thinking… murdering husbands in order to run off with their wives. Doesn’t sound like Ben to me. He’s too cold-hearted for that, too reasoned, too clever. In my view he may have wanted some kind of favor from you, but he might have turned very unpredictable if you had refused him help. None of us know where his professionalism ends and his madness begins.
“And we can take no chances. Commander Adnam must for the moment be treated as a rabid dog. Simply because he has been operating on an entirely different wavelength from most of the human race for a very long time. He may be unpredictable now in his actions. Maybe even irrational. But we do not want to assume anything. And the quicker we get you both home, with the girls, and under the personal protection of the President’s national security advisor, the better I shall like it.”
“Have you told Mummy anything?”
“No. And I see no reason to worry her unduly. You can leave that to me.”
They finished their drinks, and Bill and Laura went upstairs briefly to change before dinner. They went into the bedroom that overlooked the loch and the ex — lieutenant commander was quite surprised at his wife’s reaction. She threw her arms around him, and he could feel deep within her an uncontrolled trembling. “He really scares me, darling,” she whispered. “There’s something so absolutely terrible about him. And to think he’s out there somewhere. He found Douglas, and he could find this place. My God, he’s been here before. For all we know he’s out there watching.”
“Ben Adnam is not the kind of man to be scratching around in some field, watching a house like some kind of a pervert,” said Bill. “That’s not him at all. He operates to carefully drawn-up plans. I’d be surprised if he came anywhere near here. I mean, Jesus, your father knows him. So does your mother. This is the last place he’d show up.”
“I suppose not. But if Daddy and Admiral Morgan are worried, then I ought not to take this lightly. I’ll get Angus to start packing up the girls, and my things, while we’re having dinner.”
“Okay, I’ll make my own arrangements. But I’ll tell you one thing — I would not want to be searching for Ben here in Scotland because I’m guessing he’s on his way out of here right now.”
“Why?”
“Well, he now knows you don’t live here. He has played that card and lost. He has a Mr. Anderson who knows him, and he’ll know that a routine phone call from Douglas either to your father, or to you, will stir up a hornet’s nest. In my view he’ll be on his way out of the country instantly.”
“But where will he go?”
“That’s the question, Laura. Maybe back to the Middle East. Maybe to Switzerland to collect money. Maybe South Africa, which he mentioned. But not, I suspect, to America, where he’s the most wanted man in history, having just murdered our saintly Vice President, and a half dozen politicians.”
The farewell dinner at the home of Admiral MacLean was deeply traditional. Annie served Scottish smoked salmon from the Tay, with a bottle of Olivier Leflaive’s superb 1995 Puligny-Montrachet. The thick Angus steak fillets were accompanied by a 199 °Chateaux Lafleur from Pomerol.
“It took a bit of courage to risk steak on a world expert beef-producing rancher from the Great Plains,” said the admiral. “I hope we’ve measured up.”
“Fantastic,” said Bill, swallowing luxuriously. “And this is probably the best glass of wine I’ve ever had.”
“Yes. They all got it right in Bordeaux in 1990,” agreed Sir Iain. “Took five years for it to come right again. By the way, I’m really sorry you all have to go tomorrow, but I think it’s for the best.”
“I agree. And now we got Morgan on the case, I would not be surprised if they picked our man up very soon.”
“I hope before he does any more damage, Bill. I still have it in my mind he somehow took out those two soldiers on St. Kilda. Otherwise, they’d still be there. Imagine that, two lives for a few gallons of fuel. I suppose that’s how you become, in his business…in the end.”
“Guess so. And of course those guys always believe they are in the military, and to kill a couple of enemy soldiers hardly counts.”
“Well, he knows you were in uniform, doesn’t he?” said Laura. “I hope he doesn’t think you hardly count. Because if he does, I’ll hunt him down, and I’ll kill him in cold blood.”
Laura Baldridge did not have even a semblance of a smile on her face when she spoke those words. Her parents both looked quite shocked.
11
Ben guessed that admiral MacLean knew the identity of the mysterious visitor to Galashiels Manor that day. That meant there would be some kind of security in place, and that he should avoid airports in big cities, like Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, and Dublin. His every instinct told him to stay rural, in his unobtrusive car, to travel alone and be seen by as few people as possible.
He studied his little map throughout an excellent dinner of cold smoked trout and roast pheasant. And by 2230 there was no doubt in his mind. The way to Ireland was through West Wales to Fishguard, and into the Emerald Isle via the quiet southeastern Irish port of Rosslare.
He would not need a passport, if he was British, and he resolved to spend some time with a travel agent before leaving Scotland. The one right around the corner from the hotel, in the High Street, he decided, would do just fine.
He slept late the following morning, read the papers downstairs in the hotel lounge, and drank three cups of coffee. Then he checked out, left his bag with the concierge, and asked for his car to be brought up at midday.
Inside the travel agent’s he studied a pile of brochures dealing with travel to and from southern Ireland. He bought himself a single ferry ticket from Fishguard to Rosslare, sailing at 0315. He intended to stay in Ireland for a few days organizing a B-2 multiple entry business visa into the United States, and then to leave via Shannon for Boston, the two closest points on the North Atlantic route.
There was one excellent reason for this. The U.S. immigration authorities have a fully staffed operation in Shannon for checking passengers straight into the U.S.A. Thus passengers go through the American desk in the sprawling Irish airport, their passports are stamped, and the Shannon — Boston flight becomes essentially an internal journey, as if it were Chicago — Boston.
Ben Adnam reasoned he had ten times the chance of slipping through the U.S. desk in Shannon, with a return ticket and a new American business visa, than he ever would in an American port of entry, where the CIA might already be watching every incoming passenger from Scotland and England.
He arranged for and prepaid his Dublin hotel, which he understood was just a short walk from the U.S. Embassy in Ballsbridge. He strolled back to the Balmoral to pick up the Audi, phoned his bank and told them to send his credit cards overnight to the Berkeley Court in Dublin. Then he tipped the doorman, slung his bag on the rear seat, and set off south out of Edinburgh, heading for the long, lonely A7 road that runs down through Galashiels and Hawick, 100 miles to the English border city of Carlisle.
It took him a couple of hours to get to the grim Scottish wool town of Hawick, trailing a line of three trucks in pouring rain for most of the way. Thankfully, Ben watched them peel off in the middle of the town, and was pleased to hit the open road, south of the great cashmere center.
It had stopped raining, and Ben was able to drive fast down the almost empty winding highway as it followed the tortuous course of the Teviot River for mile after mile, through spectacular border valleys and hillsides. South of Langholm, the A7 picks up a new river, the Esk, and again follows its twisting course through the stark border mountains, the grazing fields for cattle and sheep, deep green below the level of the road.
At Longtown the Esk swung away to the west to its long estuary at the head of the Solway Firth. Ben
