‘Mr Richter,’ he said as soon as he saw the Englishman, ‘we meet again.’ He didn’t sound or look surprised.
‘Hullo, Inspector. I’ve got a present for you.’ Richter led the way back towards the helicopter. ‘We’re in a hurry, so I’ll keep this short. We found the aircraft that Aristides had been diving on, and—’
‘How do you know it was the right aircraft?’ Lavat interrupted.
‘Because of what we found there and what happened after we found it. It was a Learjet, and there were three bodies inside it. There was pretty much nothing else visible after about a quarter of a century at the bottom of the Mediterranean, but fortunately my diving partner spotted some explosive charges inside.’
‘Old ones?’
Richter stopped as he reached the Merlin. ‘No, brand new. They blew a minute or so after we reached the surface, so there’ll be nothing at all left of the wreck now.’ The door of the helicopter was open, and Richter pointed inside. ‘We picked up this guy floating in the water right above the aircraft wreckage. He wasn’t killed by the explosion. He was shot through the back of the head. I’m guessing he was the diver who planted the charges.’
Lavat peered curiously into the helicopter. ‘I presume he was what the Americans would call an expendable asset – just like my police officer,’ he said bitterly.
Richter nodded. ‘He might have been a local man hired for the job, or maybe some low-level operative flown in especially to perform the demolition. Either way, if you can identify him you might get a lead to the other people involved. Unfortunately,’ Richter added, ‘you certainly won’t be able to use a photofit picture – the bullet that killed him came out pretty much through his nose, and it took most of his face with it.’
Ten minutes later, leaving the unidentified corpse zipped inside a body bag and awaiting road transport to the mortuary at Irakleio, the Merlin lifted into the air for a short transit over the mountains back to the
‘Are you OK?’ Stein asked, as he swung the hired Ford around another of the seemingly endless bends on the road between Chora Sfakia and Vryses. They’d covered about half the distance up to the main road running along the north coast of the island, and were now just outside Petres.
Krywald didn’t look at all well. His skin still possessed the greenish pallor that Stein had noticed in the boat, assuming it was just seasickness, and his eyes were bloodshot.
‘Yeah,’ Krywald muttered. ‘Just being in that goddamn boat half the day and then on this fucking road, it’s enough to make anyone feel sick.’
‘You want to stop for a while?’
The other man shook his head. ‘No, let’s get back to the hotel, collect the rest of our stuff and get the hell out of here.’
‘OK.’ Stein changed down and accelerated past a pair of goats that were apparently also heading for Petres. ‘But if you feel you wanna throw up, give me a call ahead of time, will you?’
Krywald nodded, then sneezed. Two minutes later he sneezed again.
As soon as the marshaller had waved in the deck crew to begin lashing the Merlin to the tie-downs on the deck, Richter climbed out of the aircraft. He waved a brief acknowledgement to David Crane and Mike O’Reilly, who had agreed to sort out the diving equipment for him. He then hurried across the Flight Deck to the island and let himself in through its steel watertight door, still carrying his mesh bag containing the pistol and the diving officer’s waterproof board bearing the registration number of the Learjet, and climbed swiftly up the stairs to Flyco.
Wings was sitting in his usual seat, watching as Roger Black supervised the shut-down of Spook Two, and he turned as Richter entered Flyco. He glanced at the bag in Richter’s hand and stood up. ‘Success?’ he asked. ‘You found what you were looking for?’
Richter smiled briefly. ‘I’m not entirely sure. We found the wrecked aircraft and I took a note of its registration number, but we didn’t find a lot else, because somebody contrived to blow up the wreckage before we had a chance to do a proper survey. I recovered a pistol from the aircraft cabin, and the chopper then picked up a dead body as well. That’s the short version, but Mike O’Reilly can give you chapter and verse, because he saw everything from the comfort of the Merlin while Crane and I were being tossed around after the explosion.
‘With your permission, sir, I’d like to signal my section in London to start tracing action on the aircraft remains and the pistol, and then I’ll probably have to return to Crete at fairly short notice. Whoever placed those charges – or rather ordered them to be placed – is almost certainly still somewhere on Crete, and I’m planning on locating him before this ship leaves the area. Crane and I could very easily have died in that explosion, so I’ve got a score to settle.’
John Westwood pushed through the double swing doors leading into the hospital reception area. He attracted the immediate attention of the harassed receptionist by the simple tactic of pushing his way to the head of a line of people and pulling out his CIA identification. Six minutes later he was following George Grant, a short, overweight African-American, down a long white-painted corridor.
As Dr Grant halted beside a large window set in the left-hand wall and simply pointed through it, Westwood peered into the room beyond and saw a slight, grey-haired figure lying motionless on a bed. Pipes and wires connected his inert body to an array of monitoring equipment and machines whose purpose Westwood could only guess at.
‘Mr Butcher is comatose,’ Grant explained. ‘That means he’s deeply unconscious almost all the time. He enjoys very occasional and invariably short periods of partial lucidity, but the prognosis is terminal and he will certainly die within months, perhaps even within days.’
‘What exactly is wrong with him?’
Grant glanced appraisingly at Westwood. ‘As I thought I had explained, Mr Westwood, I cannot divulge any detailed medical information except to members of Mr Butcher’s immediate family.’
‘Actually, Doctor,’ Westwood produced his CIA identification, ‘I think you can. There’s a possibility that Mr Butcher knows information that can be classified of national importance. I require to know what is wrong with him – the exact prognosis. If necessary I can obtain a warrant, which will compel you to disclose any and all information relating to Henry Butcher, but that would take time, so I would far rather you assisted the Agency without my having to resort to legal compulsion.’
‘No need for the big guns, Mr Westwood,’ Grant replied, studying the folder Westwood was holding out to him. ‘Now I know who you are, I’m perfectly happy to help in any way I can. I don’t suppose you want the full medical diagnosis, so in summary what Mr Butcher is suffering from is a rare form of cancer that primarily affects the central nervous system. He’s in the terminal stages of that disease now.’
‘How long has he got?’
Grant shook his ample shoulders. ‘God knows,’ he said, ‘and I do mean that literally: only God knows. If I had to provide a forecast I would say anything from six weeks to three months, but that really is just a guess. He’s breathing by himself, his heart is in reasonably good condition and we’re feeding him intravenously. Eventually the cancer will take him, but until it does he’s likely to endure.’
Westwood nodded and looked again at the still figure lying on the other side of the glass. ‘What about his family? Do they come to visit him?’
‘His wife is dead, and as far as I know he’s had no visitors at all since he became my patient about five months ago.’ Grant glanced at the information contained on a clipboard he’d taken from the slot in the door. ‘His next of kin is listed as his brother, but I’ve never seen him here.’
For a few moments Westwood debated arranging to have a police officer or a junior agent stationed outside Henry Butcher’s door, but after another glance through the partition he decided that would be a complete waste of time. ‘You mentioned some periods of partial lucidity,’ he said. ‘Are these frequent?’
Grant shook his head. ‘If you’re hoping to question him I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. The last time he showed any signs of consciousness was over three weeks ago, and he was barely aware that he was in a hospital.
