Bad Company by Jack Higgins Read Free Book Online

again.
    Time went by, and people started to die on him. First, Schneider was killed in a stupid accident on the estate when a tractor he was driving turned over, crushing him to death. Strasser went next with lung cancer, ten years later.
    Von Berger went to the funeral with Hoffer. It was 1982 and he was sixty.
    “The grim reaper is spacing things out, Karl, have you noticed?”
    “It had occurred to me, Baron.”
    Hoffer had remarried in middle life: a cousin, a widow from the village. She had died of a heart attack only a year before. He was two years older than von Berger. “So what do we do?”
    “Gird our loins. I’ve been thinking of going into the arms business, and there’s always oil, especially with Russia opening up.”
    “May I ask why you need to do that, Baron?” Hoffer said patiently. “You already have enormous wealth.”
    “My dear Karl, more than even you could imagine. But my life lacks purpose, Karl. There is an emptiness I cannot fill. Maria Rossi made me warm for a while, and then went. This void in me – I must fill it, and work and enterprise are the only way.” He clapped Hoffer on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about me, Karl. I’ll sort it out.”
    The following day, back at the Schloss, he visited the chapel, opened the secret place, and leafed through the Hitler diary. He had read it so many times that he almost knew it by heart. There had never been any occasion to use it and as he replaced it now, he wondered if there ever would be.
    He sat there for a while by the mausoleum, thinking of his wife and son, then took a deep breath and stood up. So, Russian oil fields and armaments. So be it. And he went out.
     
    By 1992, he was seventy, his holdings in Russian oil extensive because of the temporary loss of the Kuwaiti oil fields in the Gulf War and the embargos placed on Iraqi oil. The money simply poured in, and the continuing threat in the Middle East and India and Pakistan made for more and more lucrative deals in the arms business.
    In both Britain and the United States, there was unease at the highest level about his various dealings, but he didn’t care. He was now head of a consortium so staggeringly wealthy that his power was immense.
    In 1997, James Kelly died in New York, but later in the same year, the Baron suffered his greatest blow of all when Karl Hoffer passed away with a heart attack.
    The open coffin was on display in the chapel. Sitting beside it, alone, his hands on the silver handle of the cane he needed to get around these days, he thought of their years together in the war and that last final flight from Berlin.
    “So, it would appear I am the last, old friend. My hip bothers me a great deal these days. You remember our old wartime motto: To the men of the SS, nothing is impossible.” He sighed, then gathered himself together. “So back to work.”
    He limped out, and the chapel door slammed behind him. It was quiet, lit only by the guttering candles. Little did he know that just around the corner, a series of events were waiting that would change his life forever.

London

The Empty Quarter

Iraq

3.
    THE FOLLOWING YEAR was the first time he met Paul Rashid, the Earl of Loch Dhu. The legendary figure behind Rashid Investments, the earl had had an English mother and an Omani general for a father, and had served in the SAS during the Gulf War. The Rashid wealth was well known, as was their grip on the oil fields of Hazar, and also in the Dhofar, for Paul Rashid was Bedu and controlled the vast deserts of the Empty Quarter.
    Berger International had sought oil concessions in the Dhofar, but even the Americans hadn’t been able to break the iron control of the Rashids. The Baron tried a different approach. He arranged an arms deal with Yemen, then asked Rashid Investments to broker it for him, reporting directly to him. In this way he hoped, of course, to get to meet Paul Rashid, and one day he received a message that the chairman would meet him in the Piano