The Lucifer Network Read Online Free

peopleI’m close to. A whole bunch. All sealed up. Envelopes addressed. Left with someone I trust in case something happens to me.’ He thumped a fist on the table. ‘And next time they won’t go to one of your bloody lapdogs.’
    They finished their food in silence, heads down like weary bulls. When he’d done, Jackman puffed out his cheeks.
    â€˜You know, I’m beginning to think they’ve sent the wrong man.’
    â€˜Why’s that?’
    â€˜I need to talk with someone who’ll take me seriously.’
    â€˜Oh I’m taking you
very
seriously Harry. Be in no doubt about that. But you haven’t understood what’s possible and what isn’t as far as HMG is concerned.’
    Jackman seemed not to hear. He hovered like an angler pondering how much bait to lay down before the fish could be hooked.
    â€˜This deal I’m talking about . . .’ He was whispering again. ‘I’ll tell you this much. It involved the shipment of something pretty nasty. And I think it was heading for the Islamics.’
    The mention of the ‘I’ word triggered alarm bells for Sam. It was less than three weeks since the car bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
    â€˜What do you mean
think
?’
    â€˜Because I don’t know for sure.’
    â€˜What sort of nasty stuff? Weapons? Biological? Nuclear?’
    Jackman shook his head. He’d achieved his aim. Didn’t need to say more. The man was like a streetwalker, flashing her interesting bits then hiding them again.
    â€˜You say you want to move back to England,’ Sam growled. ‘Why not Venezuela or Monaco? Someplace where they won’t give a shit what you’ve done in the past.’
    â€˜Personal reasons.’
    â€˜You’re not telling me you want to get back with your wife?’ Sam prodded.
    â€˜Which one? I’ve had three. And no, I’m not planning anything like that. Just take it that I want to return to my own country.’
    Sam told himself to cool it. Letting the man rile him wasn’t going to help. ‘Tell me about your ex-wife and daughter. The ones in Ipswich.’
    â€˜Your file’s out of date. It’s Woodbridge. I bought them a place by the river a couple of years back. The estate where they’d been living was going downhill. Anyway, what about them?’
    â€˜You’ve kept in touch?’
    â€˜Stayed friends with all my exes. And Julie – my daughter – she’s just great. You married? Kids?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜I was twenty-one when I met Maeve. Shacked up with her because it was the thing to do in 1970.A nurse. Irish, but with the morals of a Dane. Birth pills in her handbag instead of a rosary. But careless with it. She got pregnant. I agreed to marry her, stupid kid that I was. She was wrong for me. Too placid. And, you know, when it came to the business, the sex stuff – it was something she felt she had to do because everyone else was. Not because she got any pleasure out of it. You know the sort.’
    Happily for Sam he didn’t.
    â€˜So I left her after a couple of years,’ Jackman continued, ‘and came out here. Went back from time to time. Not very often.’ He paused. ‘Little Julie never knew who I was when she was tiny.’
    â€˜Do they know what you do for a living?’
    Jackman squirmed slightly. ‘No. It isn’t always wise being truthful in relationships, don’t you find?’
    Sam ignored his question. ‘So you started off selling black market chemicals. How did you get into guns?’
    â€˜Somebody asked me if I could get them some. One of Mandela’s boys.’
    â€˜And . . .?’
    â€˜And I discovered how easy it was. AK47s could be prised from the Zambian army like peas from a pod. This country’s packed with people wanting to earn a dishonest penny.’
    â€˜And it never concerned you what the guns might be used