Codename Omega Page 14

  This was a very much less aristocratic-looking establishment and they found the owner in the middle of mucking out a loose-box.

  ‘Isn’t that funny!’ she exclaimed, when Leo had finished explaining what they wanted. ‘You’re the second lot this week looking for a big grey horse – only the first ones wanted one that could jump not fly!’

  Nick sensed that Leo had suddenly become alert – had she been a horse herself her ears would have pricked up.

  ‘It wasn’t a big, dark man with an American accent, was it?’ she asked. ‘I’ve heard there’s an American company after the same screenplay.’

  ‘Oh no,’ the woman reassured her. ‘This was a little fair chap – Irish by the sound of him.’

  ‘Did you sell him a horse?’ Leo asked.

  ‘Wish I could have done! Unfortunately, the only grey in the stables at the moment is a little Welsh pony mare. No, I sent him over to old Jake Fairbairn at Combe Martin. He had a super grey last time I was there – terrific jumper, too.’

  ‘Could you give us the address?’ Leo asked. ‘He might not have sold it.’

  Jake Fairbairn was a small man with a skin like leather who had obviously lived and breathed horses since the day he was born.

  ‘The grey?’ he said. ‘Sorry, my dear, I sold him just the other day. Chap looking for a horse to send out to Ireland to train for eventing. Mind you, I told him, that horse was really too old for what he wanted. Fine animal, terrific jump in him, but a bit of a devil when he wants to be. Too late to start training him for all the fancy stuff. I tried to persuade him to take that bay gelding over there, but no. He said it had got to be a grey. Apparently, it’s for some old girl who’s got some kind of superstition about grey horses being lucky.’

  ‘Do you have his address?’ Leo asked. ‘Perhaps we could buy the horse off him, if it’s still in the country.’

  Jake obligingly looked out all the paperwork for them. The cheque was signed by Slattery, but the only address was that of his farm in Cork. They thanked the old man and returned to the car.

  ‘Well,’ Nick said, ‘at least we know that Slattery was here four days ago.’

  ‘Buying a grey horse…’ Leo murmured. ‘Didn’t you say the one he brought over from Ireland was a big grey, too?’

  ‘So it was, now you mention it,’ Nick agreed. ‘It begins to look as if he and Reilly wanted that horse for some reason, and when it had to be left behind at Beeston, they had to go looking for a substitute.’

  ‘But why do they want a big grey horse?’ Leo asked.

  ‘As a ringer – a substitute, perhaps? You don’t think they’re planning another Shergar-type job? Intending to snatch a valuable horse to hold to ransom, and leave the ringer in its place to delay the discovery and give them time to get it out of the country.’

  ‘It’s a thought,’ Leo agreed, ‘although I can’t think offhand of a really famous grey horse – nothing with the impact of Shergar.’ They brooded on the problem in silence for a while. Then Nick said,

  ‘I suggest we go and chat it over with Stone. He may have some ideas.’

  ‘Well, we’re not going to do any more good out here,’ Leo agreed.

  They had driven for a couple of miles when they passed a cottage with small white tables set out in the garden under bright sun umbrellas. A notice outside advertised ‘Cream Teas.’

  ‘Oh, let’s stop for tea, Nick,’ Leo exclaimed. ‘I haven’t had tea in a place like that since I was a kid!’

  They parked the car and settled themselves at a table. Leo tilted her face to the sun.

  ‘This is nice. Do you know, it’s only been in this last week that I’ve realized it’s summer? It was April when I went undercover in that awful back street in Liverpool, and ever since then I seem to have been cooped up in one stuffy little room after another – except for that expedition to Wales, which was hardly a picnic!’

  Nick ordered tea, and while they waited for it Leo began turning over the pages of a copy of Horse and Hound which she had brought from the car.

  ‘Geronimo!’ The exclamation, coming from such an elegant and sophisticated source, turned the heads of several people at nearby tables

  ‘What?’ Nick asked.

  Leo was staring at the magazine, wide-eyed. After a moment, she pursed her lips in a soundless whistle, folded back the page and passed it to him.

  ‘I hope you can swim, sunshine – because I think we’re in out of our depth!’

  Nick looked at the page in question. It was largely taken up by a photograph of a young woman in impeccable riding gear, mounted on a large grey horse. The caption underneath read,

  ‘HRH Princess Anne, Mrs Mark Phillips, on her grey gelding Fidelio, which she will be riding in the 3-day Event Olympic Trial at Gatcombe Park this week.’

  ‘What day is it?’ Leo demanded.

  ‘Friday,’ Nick told her.

  ‘Dressage today; cross-country tomorrow,’ Leo said. ‘And Slattery wanted a horse that could jump…’

  Chapter Nine

  Stone, Nick and Leo were waiting for Pascoe in the hotel room where he had set up his HQ. He came in briskly and settled himself behind the desk.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘It’s on. There was a lot of opposition from various sources, but I managed to persuade them in the end.’

  There was a stir in the room, a movement compounded of excitement and apprehension. All three men looked at Leo.

  Pascoe said, ‘I hope you can handle this, Leonora. I don’t mean the Slattery end of it – that’s part of the job and anyway you’ll have the whole of Triple S to back you up – I mean the rest of it.’

  Leo gave him a small, ironic smile. ‘I guess it’s something I’ve always wanted to have a go at. Now’s my chance.’

  *

  Gatcombe Park was thronged with people – competitors and their friends; horse-boxes carrying some of the finest horses in the world with their attendant grooms; and spectators, some of them aficionados who followed such events from Burghley to Badminton and now to this new course at Gatcombe, others who had simply seized the opportunity to get a closer look at a royal residence. The crowds were much larger than for the dressage competition the day before and those who noticed an increased police presence and tighter security probably put it down to this fact. For most people it was just a minor annoyance that they were kept too far back from the course to get a really close look at the competitors.

  On the crest of some rising ground which gave the most comprehensive view of the course available, Nick stood by a police Range Rover and studied the landscape around him intently through powerful field-glasses. The cross-country course stretched for several miles through the undulating parkland of the estate and it was impossible for anyone to see all of it at once; but the sections which were out of his sight were covered by other Triple S operatives and periodically Nick put down his glasses in order to check with each of them by radio. The competition was already under way, the riders setting off at two-minute intervals, and the leaders were now about half-way round the course. So far there had been no sign of Slattery or Reilly and the rest, and nothing to give rise to any suspicion.

  Above Nick’s head, so high that the clamour of its rotor blades was hardly more than a whisper, a helicopter hung in the air while Stone, sitting beside the pilot, also swept the ground with his glasses, paying particular attention to any activity along the roads which bordered the estate. The whole situation was a security nightmare; miles of open countryside, and a constant flow of people and vehicles in and out of the gates.

  A louder cheer than usual from the crowd around the start drew Nick’s attention. He turned his glasses on the spot and his lips tightened in a small, grim smile as he saw the big grey horse carrying the royal colours canter out onto the course.

  Leo eased her weight forward over the horse’s shoulders and relaxed her hands fractionally on the reins, and felt his stride lengthen as he settled into a steady gallop. The first hurdle, metaphorically speakin
g, was behind her. Under the jockey silks and the peaked helmet with its broad chin strap no one had spotted the substitution. Now she could concentrate on the course itself. Her mouth was dry, but it was not because she was worrying about what Slattery might be planning. Stone and Nick could take care of him. All that mattered to her, at that moment, was getting herself and the horse round the course without damage to either of them – quite apart from the fact that if she fell off too soon her imposture would be revealed and the whole scheme would collapse. She had walked the course that morning with Pascoe and the other two, in the early dawn light after the bomb disposal boys had finished their sweep; and the size of some of the jumps, seen close to, had made the palms of her hands sweat.

  The first obstacle was approaching – a nice, straightforward post and rails built round a folly in the grounds of the house; big, but not treacherous. She saw Fidelio’s ears go forward and his stride lengthened again. She dropped her weight back into the saddle and tightened the reins until his speed slackened and his body bunched so that the impulsion imparted by the powerful hindquarters was converted into upwards motion. Two strides away from the fence she let him have his head and they soared up and over the obstacle as if the horse had suddenly sprouted wings. Leo caught her breath at the sheer sense of power. Her own horse, Serendipity, was more than adequate for most purposes, but this was like getting out of a family saloon and into a Lamborghini.

  Fidelio was already cantering on strongly towards the next fence and, reassured by his capacity, she was able to think for a moment about the real object of the exercise. If she was right, Slattery intended at some point to substitute the horse he had bought for Fidelio; but perhaps her assumption that he also intended some hostile act against his rider was mistaken. Maybe all he planned to do was to steal the horse out of its stable during the night. If so, she reflected grimly, and the imposture which she had undertaken turned out to be unnecessary, she would be extremely unpopular in several quarters. On the other hand … she thought for a moment how easy it would be to hide a bomb in a drain or under a bush and explode it by remote control; but then, why would he need a substitute horse?

  They were approaching the next jump, a big wall of Gloucestershire stone. Confident now in Fidelio’s ability she let him have his head. As a result he ran at the wall, flattened over the top of it and caught a hind foot on the farther edge. The touch unbalanced him so that he stumbled on landing, pitching Leo forward and to one side so that she was hanging alongside his neck. The horse recovered immediately and galloped on, but for a few frantic moments Leo found herself watching the ground as it hurtled past beneath her while nothing but her own will-power, it seemed, kept her attached to the saddle. Finally, she managed to haul herself upright and regain her stirrups, resolving as she did so that from now on she would concentrate entirely on riding.

  In the helicopter Stone swept the course ahead of her for the hundredth time, checked, went back, refocused his glasses and shouted to the pilot.

  ‘Take us down a couple of hundred feet. I think I may have spotted something.’

  As the machine dropped Stone concentrated on a patch of woodland which clothed the sides of a small valley. Then he lowered his glasses and reached for the radio microphone.

  ‘Delta One to Kappa Two. Come in please.’

  There was no reply. He called again.

  ‘Kappa Two, this is Delta One. Do you read me?’

  Still there was silence from the speaker in his headset.

  Stone tried again.

  ‘Delta Two, this is Delta One. Come in please.’

  Nick answered at once. ‘Delta Two here. Go ahead.’

  ‘I think I’ve spotted a vehicle of some sort in the small copse in the north-eastern quarter. I’ve tried to call Viv, but I can’t raise him. I estimate Omega is within two minutes of that point. Can you investigate?’

  ‘I’m on my way. Delta Two out.’

  Nick was already moving towards the Range Rover and within seconds it was heading down the hill in the direction of the valley.

  Fidelio crested a rise and strode on down the slope. They were past the half-way mark now but he was still full of going. Leo blinked ahead of her. Some of the worst jumps were behind her but there were still plenty to come. The muscles in her back and shoulders were screaming with the strain of balancing herself and controlling the big horse’s raking stride, and her thighs had turned to jelly. Her only thought now was to stay with him until the end of the course. ‘And I thought I was fit!’ she commented inwardly.

  As she looked towards the copse of trees her eye was caught by a sudden glint of light. She searched the spot and saw it again and instantly knew what it was. The sun, which was behind her, was being reflected off the lenses of a pair of binoculars – or the telescopic sight on a rifle. She forgot her aching muscles. Someone there at the edge of the wood was watching her progress. It might be an innocent spectator, of course, but why should anyone choose to watch the event from there, where there was no obstacle to jump? She became aware of a noise and looked up. Stone’s helicopter was dropping steadily out of the sky towards the trees.

  As she entered the wood the sudden change from brilliant sunlight to deep shade unsighted her for a moment. She tried to check Fidelio’s speed, but the big grey was homewards bound and pulling like a train. Then she saw it, twenty yards ahead of them, a rope stretched tight from tree to tree across the path, about eighteen inches from the ground, a certain trap for a horse and rider expecting no such hazard. Leo flung her weight back in the saddle and hauled on the reins, only to feel the grey set his jaw and gallop on. All she could do was drag his head round and aim him for the trees. As they crashed into the undergrowth at the edge of the path a figure rose from a crouching position and leapt for the horse’s head. Fidelio shied violently and Leo slipped her left foot out of the stirrup and kicked out as hard as she could. She felt her toe connect with the man’s jaw and in the same instant recognized Patrick Connor. It was only a glancing blow, but with Fidelio’s mass and speed behind it, it was enough to send him staggering backwards over a fallen branch. The horse crashed on, weaving between the trees and it was then that Leo saw her double – a big grey horse, identical at a superficial glance to Fidelio, mounted by a slight figure in the royal colours. In a moment of revelation she saw why the fair, slim-built Slattery was so essential to the plot.

  Slattery’s horse was already giving him trouble, backing and jerking his head against the restraining bit, but when Fidelio hurtled out of the trees into the clearing where they were waiting he lost control completely. The horse leaped forward, yanking the reins through his fingers, and bolted away down the track. Leo was aware of other figures running and shouting among the trees and of a sudden shattering roar as the helicopter appeared at tree-top level; but her main concern now was to catch up with Slattery. For the first time she really let Fidelio stretch himself and they pounded down the track after the impostor.

  At the bottom of the valley was a small stream and in the middle of this, where the path crossed it, a fence had been built so that each rider had the choice of either descending a steep bank, jumping into the stream and scrambling out up an equally steep bank on the far side, or of making a single leap from the top of one bank to the other. Slattery’s horse saw the jump too late, attempted to stop, skidded down the bank, took off in a desperate bid to clear the fence, caught its forefeet on the top rail and somersaulted into the stream, flinging Slattery out of the saddle to land with a stunning thud on the far bank. Leo, close behind, had only time to set the big grey back on his hocks and prevent him too from sliding head first down the slope. She felt him gather himself for a great leap and as he took off the other horse struggled to its feet and made off down the bed of the stream, leaving Slattery still sprawled on the opposite side. Fidelio cleared the stream and the fence with inches to spare but to ask him to clear Slattery’s body as well was too much. Even so, he might have succeeded if the Irishman had not tried to strugg
le to his feet. The horse’s front hoofs struck the ground just beyond him but as he raised his head one of the powerful hind feet crashed down on his jaw and he dropped back without a sound.

  They were half-way up the opposite slope before Leo was able to bring the horse to a standstill and look back. Slattery lay where he had fallen and from the angle of his neck it was obvious that he was dead. For a moment Leo sat still, feeling the horse’s flanks heaving beneath her. Somewhere nearby she could hear the helicopter, very low. She remembered the running figures among the trees and turned to canter on up the hill to clearer ground, where she could get a better view of the situation.

  *

  The Range Rover was still several hundred yards from the trees when Stone’s voice crackled over the radio.

  ‘There’s something happening down there. I can see people running. Watch out! There’s a truck or something heading your way.’

  An instant later a horse-box appeared from the cover of the trees, its tail-board still lowered and bouncing along the ground and roared away at top speed along a narrow farm track.

  ‘After them!’ Nick shouted to his driver, and the Range Rover swung to the right, bouncing over the uneven pasture land. A figure crouched in the back of it. It was Margaret Donelly.

  As they began to overhaul the box Nick became aware of her and she had a rifle – at her shoulder. At the same moment a bullet clanged into the roof of the Range Rover and ricocheted off. Nick drew his automatic. Seated as he was beside the driver the window was on his left and he knew that, with the two vehicles bumping and swaying as they were, he had no hope of finding his target with a lefthanded shot. He wound down the window and eased the top half of his body through it, bracing himself with one foot against the dashboard. As he did so a second bullet sang past his head, actually nicking the top of his ear. He grasped the gun in both hands and took aim, intending a disabling shot to the shoulder. He squeezed the trigger and saw Donelly jerk upwards and drop the rifle. Then she toppled forwards and at the same moment the horse-box bounced violently, pitching her headfirst onto the ground, where she lay without moving.