Your loving and dutiful wife Tabitha.’
‘Ok leave the stuff beside Hall and then take up with the shovel.’
Gerry continued digging for another few minutes, then she dropped the shovel and stood up with her hands clutching her aching side. ‘I don’t think we’re going to find anything else,’ she said.
‘Keep digging,’ he insisted.
‘I really don’t see there’s any point. If anything was…’
‘Keep digging you piece of shit,’ he snarled or I’ll blow your fucking brains out and bury you in this hole.’
‘I think she’s right Neil,’ another voice spoke, ‘you’re not gonna find anything.’ Gerry looked up towards the section of the wall over which she had clambered.
‘Hey is that you Colonel?’ Samms asked, just as Gerry identified the speaker.
‘Jasper White,’ she muttered.
White swung his legs over the top of the wall and jumped down into the garden. He glanced at Vincent Parker’s corpse and then knelt down beside Dan Hall. ‘How you doing son?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been… better,’ Dan gasped out.
‘We need to get him to a hospital,’ said Gerry.
‘Quit whining, would you?’ said Samms, ‘you don’t really believe you two are leaving here do you?’
‘Shut up Neil,’ said White. ‘Well Gerry, it seems like the search for the Gilgamesh document ends here. The only remaining question is to tie up a few loose ends.’
‘I say we finish them off here,’ said Samms, leave them for the Iraqis to find.’
‘Give me your gun Neil,’ White ordered.
‘You gonna do it yourself? Sure, here you go.’ He handed it over to White, who gave the weapon a quick but thorough check. ‘Glock GL23, standard FBI issue,’ he said. ‘And that one I can see tucked into your belt; could you lend me that one too?’ White asked. Samms complied.
‘Sig Sauer P250,’ he murmured.
Gerry shuddered as she watched him give the second gun an inspection before tucking it into his belt. Then he looked up at her.
‘Would you go sit down… next to Hall, if you don’t mind?’
Gerry backed slowly away trying to keep her eyes fixed on his rather than at the gun he had waved casually towards her. She sat down next to Dan and felt him reach for her. She felt a ridiculous moment of embarrassment as she clutched his hand. ‘Oh shit he’s going to kill me!’ her mind sang out, ‘and he’s going to kill Dan I’m going to die here, why did I come here at all I don’t want to die I want to live and I want Dan to live!’ She saw White glance at Samms and then back at her. ‘Oh god he’s going to do it now!’ She gripped Dan’s hand tighter. ‘I should have stayed in prison not gone on this useless bloody trip. I’m sorry Dan, oh shit.’ She closed her eyes and moaned very quietly.
‘Now Gerry, what you wanted to do was find out who killed your guy Philip all those years ago, right?’ White asked.
It took several seconds for her terrified mind to process the question. Maybe he wasn’t going to kill her yet. Maybe she would live for a few more minutes. She opened her eyes and stared at him warily, wondering where he would go with this question. She swallowed hard and managed to answer fairly normally. ‘Yes I do, and I also want to know who it was that put me in prison.’
‘And I guess that you hold me at least partly responsible for that?’
‘It wasn’t me who killed Dean Furness’ said Gerry, she shook her head. ‘I didn’t do it.’
‘Ok well I reckon the two people who killed Philip Barrett are already dead,’ said White, ‘and you killed them.’
Gerry managed to think more clearly. ‘Oh, do you mean… Carson and Parker?’ she said.
‘Yeah, that’s what I figured. But when it comes to Dean Furness, I don’t reckon it was you who killed him.’
‘No it wasn’t.’
‘Who do you reckon it was then?’ he asked.
‘I wish…’
‘Neil, who do you reckon it was?’ White turned round and aimed the gun at Neil Samms.
‘I really have no idea…’
‘You shot Dean Furness when he went to Gerry’s apartment.’
‘No I didn’t.’
‘Oh come on Neill, if I was gonna kill you for it I would have it done it years back when I found out,’ he said with a smile, ‘After all you were only acting under orders, weren’t you. I just want Gerry here to know who it was.’
‘Oh well yeah ok, it was me.’ He gave a small grin, revealing his gold tooth. ‘I was ordered by General Bruckner.’
The Glock gave a sharp crack. Samms gave an anguished gasp, staggered back and grabbed hold of his upper arm.
‘Hey Colonel, you shot me!’
‘Yeah, and I’m going to kill you Samms, I’m fed up with your stupid grin.’ He dropped his aim and shot Samms through the knee. He gave a surprisingly high-pitched screech and collapsed to the ground.
‘You’re gonna die Samms, for killing Dean Furness,’ said White. He picked up the shovel and inspected the bloody blade, then looked at Gerry. ‘Do you want to finish him off?’ he asked, offering the shovel towards her. She stared at him, transfixed. She felt Dan’s grip tightening on her hand and briefly shook her head. White made as if to hit Samms with the shovel and he cried out again, and then he began a pitiful moaning which got louder as White slowly aimed the pistol towards his head and then stopped when White pulled the trigger. He looked at the corpse for a moment and then turned to Gerry.
‘You’d better show me where your car is parked; you need to get Dan to a hospital.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Gerry stared at Rashid’s garden gate remembering how she had helped Jasper White drag Vince Parker’s corpse alongside Neil Samms. White had then told her to drive off. She had looked back and seen him pouring petrol over the corpses and as she had climbed into the car next to Dan she had heard the whuffing noise as he had set them alight. Now she opened the car door and climbed out carefully while holding her hand briefly to her painful ribs. The doctor who had tended her bullet wound had assured her the gash was clean and given her what he hoped was a broad spectrum antibiotic injection and some tablets, but admitted that he did not know if the drugs were genuine or not. He had urged her to take Dan to the American base where he would be assured of good treatment and Dan had insisted he should go there too. Gerry had argued with him for a while but the doctor had said he could operate but he had no anaesthetics and if she really wanted Dan to live she should stop wasting time.
She sighed and walked over to the gate and pressed the bell push, just in case Rashid had been foolish enough to return already. There was no sound of an inner door being opened, and no response when she banged on the door with her fist either. She looked up and by the light of the moon she noted the strands of barbed wire across the top of the gateway lintel. She returned to her car and then drove it up next to the gate. She pulled out a rear seat cushion and stood on the roof and put the cushion on top of the wire. She climbed over the gate and jumped down the other side, wincing as the landing jarred her ribs.
Then she had a sudden sense that she was not alone. She turned around slowly and was confronted by a woman wrapped up in a gown with a shawl over her head and her arms folded in front of her.
‘I think you must be Sandra, or Gerry,’ the woman spoke to her in good but heavily accented English. ‘I am Tabitha Hamsin. You had better come inside.’ Gerry followed her into the house. ‘Come into the kitchen,’ said Tabitha. ‘It’s not so comfortable but I find women always talk to one another most openly in the kitchen, don’t you agree?’