by Jack Higgins
Levin put his mobile away and, standing at the counter of the small bar, Chomsky ordered two vodka shots. He raised his glass. “To a nice girl called Mary O’Toole, who did the right thing.”
“And thank God for it,” Levin said.
They moved out into the entrance and found Magee, the chief pilot, standing under the canopy out of the rain, smoking a cigarette and chatting to a young pilot named Murphy. They stopped their conversation.
“Have you sorted it out yet?” Magee asked Levin.
“Three passengers-destination, Farley Field, in Kent, just outside London. It’s all fixed up. We’re expected.”
“I don’t know that one. Check it on the screen, Murphy.”
Murphy returned in a few moments. “It’s there, all right, and classified restricted.”
“Did you send our names?” Chomsky said, the efficient sergeant taking over. “Look again, I’ll come with you.”And it was there on the screen. Captain Igor Levin and Sergeant Ivan Chomsky.
Magee looked. “My God, you must have some pull for a place like that. I think I’ll do the flight myself. You can come with me,” he told Murphy. “A couple of nights in London will do us good. We’ll take the King Air.” He turned to Levin, “Turbo prop, but it gets you there nearly as fast as the jet and the seats are bigger. What about the other passenger?”
“A lady. She’ll be here soon.”
“Is she on the classified list?”
“Thanks for reminding me. Are you?”
“As we both served in the RAF, I expect so.”
Roper answered at once. Levin said, “The girl, Mary O’Toole. I’ve decided to get her out of here fast in case of any trouble from Flynn, so we’ll give her a lift. Will that be okay?”
“Certainly. I was talking to Harry. He says he really owes you one. If you hadn’t come up with the story, he could have had Jimmy Nolan and Patrick Kelly visiting with maybe a bomb and certainly guns.”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t been for the girl. If he wants to do anyone a favor, he can help her get a job.”
“Yes, that makes sense. I’ll see you at Holland Park.”
“You mean I can’t stay at the Dorchester anymore?”
“Look on it as a debriefing. Anyway, the safe house is a bit like a hotel these days.”
A little later, Mary was delivered in her taxi. She had only one small suitcase and a handbag. She was excited. “I’m traveling light.”
“Any sign of Flynn?” Levin asked.
“Not when I left.”
“Let Ivan have your passport. He’ll put your details through.”
She went off with Chomsky, leaving her case by the door. Murphy picked it up. “That’s women for you. There could be a bomb in there. They never learn.”
“No, they never do,” Levin said with some irony, took Mary’s case from him and went to join them.
Magee was finishing some sort of documentation at the desk and suddenly they were all together. “Okay, folks, follow Murphy. I’m right behind.”
They went out to the runway, and the King Air was there in the rain. Murphy got a couple of golfing umbrellas from a stand by the door and they walked under their shelter together toward the plane. Levin was smiling, and so was Chomsky when he glanced at him. It was behind them, what had been. What was ahead was a new chapter, and that could mean anything.
* * * *
CALLED BY TWO of his collectors, as he thought of them, to Riley’s Bar, Michael Flynn was confronted by the bodies of Riley and Popov and couldn’t believe what he saw. Riley was a creature of almost Dickensian evil. He had murdered many times, both men and women, available to whoever was capable of paying him; a butcher, allowed to exist by the IRA in the hard times because of how useful he was. Even his presence had terrified people, and here he was with two bullets in him. His collectors were a couple on the same level as Riley. “Can’t believe it, Mr. Flynn. Riley murdered. I never thought I’d see the day.”
Flynn would hardly have described Riley’s death in quite that way. “He’s finally dead and that’s it. Get him in the body bag.”
“And the other? His papers are here. Funny name.” One of them handed over Popov’s empty wallet.
Flynn said, “I’ve told you before. Keep the cash, but not credit cards or any identity stuff. I’ll dispose of those.”
The man gave them to him. “It’s lucky we had another body bag in the van.”
“Where will you put them?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t want to know that, Mr. Flynn.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” He took a bulging envelope from his pocket, stuffed with euros.
“It was supposed to be one, Mr. Flynn. Riley was extra.”
“So I’ll give you extra next time. Now get on with it,” and Flynn left them.
He found his car and drove away. It was unfortunate for Popov, but God alone knew what had happened to the man Levin. He’d have him checked out. He was annoyed with himself that his first attempt to do Volkov a good turn had ended in failure, but there was no need to tell the Russian for the moment.
* * * *
AT THE GREEN TINKER at about two-thirty, the snug was down to old Bert Fahy behind the bar and two aging men enjoying a beer. Nolan and Kelly had been making calls, and the result was two cars turning up outside and four men entering the snug, one after the other.
They were all from Kilburn, the Irish quarter for over a hundred and fifty years, which is why its inhabitants were known as London Irish and hard men. Hard and wild where Danny Delaney and Sol Flanagan were concerned. They were the same age, twenty-five, wearing loose, flashy suits in the Italian style, their hair just a little too long. In both cases, drugs were a priority, and they had a mad, dangerous look to them and a history mainly involving armed robbery.
Jack Burke and Tim Cohan were very different, members of the IRA since their youth, veterans of that long struggle of what the Irish had always called the Troubles. Both were in their late forties, hard, calm faces giving little away. It was the first time they’d met as a group and there was a hint of contempt in the way the older men looked at the younger. One thing was certain. The days of the IRA holding London in thrall were over, there was no disguising that by brave talk.
Danny Delaney said, “Jimmy Nolan told me he was bringing you in on this. Burke and Cohan.” He laughed, the slightly nervous giggle of somebody who was on something. “Sounds like undertakers.”
Flanagan said, “I heard you were with the crew who knocked off that Muslim travel agency in Trenchard Street the other week. These Pakis have real cash in those places.”
Delaney said, “I heard twenty grand.”
The two older men didn’t say a word and Bert Fahy spoke up as the two aging men left their beers and made for the door. “What’s it to be, gents?”
“Let’s just make it Bushmills whiskey all round, large ones,” Delaney said. “If we’re talking business, I like to keep a clear head.” He put a line of coke on the bar in an abstracted way, whistling cheerfully, and sniffed it and drank the glass of Bushmills that Fahy offered him.
“Now that’s what I call good stuff, man. Go on, have a go.”
Flanagan did, also pausing to down his whiskey. “That’s so great, man, let’s do it again.”
Burke looked on with obvious disapproval. “Rots the inside of your nose, I hear.”
“If you indulge enough,” Cohan observed.
Delaney was really on a roll. “Your travel agency. Reminds me of that Paki store we turned over the other week in Bayswater. Big bastard with a beard. Wouldn’t open the safe. Young girl was serving, one of those things on her face with only the eyes showing. I pulled it off, the veil. Real good-looker. I mean, I’d have given her one if I’d had time.” He took a pistol from his pocket, a silencer on the end. “Put her over the counter and shot her in her right bum cheek. She never even screamed.”
“That was shock, you see,” Flanagan said.
“But he got th
e safe open bloody quick after that,” Delaney said. “And there was only eight hundred quid in it. Must have been to the bank. I’d have given him one, too, only we had to get moving.”
Burke turned to Cohan. “The great days are behind us indeed, Tim, if this is what we’ve come down to.”
“So it would appear.”
“You wouldn’t know how to have a laugh if you saw one,” Delaney told him.
“And you wouldn’t know how to handle serious business if it hit you in the face, sunshine.”
Delaney giggled again. “Last of the old brigade, a sort of Dad’s Army of the Provisional IRA.”
Burke grabbed him by the lapels. “Don’t take the piss out of the IRA, boy. I did a stretch at Long Kesh, the Maze Prison itself. In five minutes you’d have been on your knees in the shower room begging. And I’ve got one of these, too.”
He produced a silenced pistol from his pocket and held it up. Delaney pulled away, higher than ever. “But is it as big as mine?”
The door to the office opened and Nolan appeared. “Cut it out. Get in here.”
Kelly was sitting on one end of the desk. On the wall behind was the material Flynn had sent on the computer. A row of photos, an information sheet under each one.
Ferguson, Harry Salter, Billy, Dillon and Roper in his wheelchair. There was nothing on Greta Novikova, but Harry’s minders, Joe Baxter and Sam Hall, were represented.
“They look like nothing much to me,” Flanagan said.
“I agree.” Delaney nodded.
Burke said, “I recognize that bastard, Ferguson. Years ago, he was a colonel in Derry when they lifted a bunch of us.”
“Major General now. He’s the prime target, and I can tell you boys there is big money in this for all of us, you have my word on it.”
Cohan said, “How much?”
“A hundred grand, and my client is good for it, believe me.”
“But we’ve got to deliver the goods before we see any of that?” Delaney frowned.
Kelly, who had been silent, said, “So we do. Let’s have some plain speaking, I hate time wasting. If the terms aren’t satisfactory, there’s the door.”
“No need to be so butch,” Delaney said. “We might as well have a go. Nothing else on at the moment.”
Cohan said, “So what are we talking about?”
“The main targets are Harry Salter, and a lot of people will heave a sigh of relief if you manage to kill that one, and Charles Ferguson. The others are minders, back-up people, but Salter and Ferguson go down any way we can.”
“Any suggestions?” Burke asked.
“A bullet in the head is as good as anything.” Cohan nodded. “I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Ferguson in the back if I saw him in the street on a wet night.” He looked at the photos again. “God save us, Sean Dillon himself, the Small Man some called him.”
“Looks like rubbish to me,” Delaney said.
“Chief enforcer in the movement for twenty years. Killed more men than you could imagine, boy.”
Cohan said, “He never got his collar felt once by the Army or the RUC.”
Delaney said, “You knew him then?”
“Only by reputation.”
Nolan cut in. “Have any of you been to the Dark Man, Salter’s pub at Wapping?” Nobody had. “That’s okay then. It’s Friday night so it should be busy. Go down there, mingle, get the feel of the place, the area. It’s on Cable Wharf. The pub is the first place Salter owned. There’s a development next door. It seems he’s turned an old warehouse into luxury apartments. He even keeps a boat along the wharf.”
“Anything else?” Cohan asked.
“Drive past Ferguson ’s pad in Cavendish Place, just to have a look, and Dillon’s at Stable Mews. That’s walking distance from Cavendish Place. Feel it all out, but carefully at this stage. We’ll speak again.”
Delaney said impatiently, “So what’s the point?”
Burke said, “To use the military term, so you’re familiar with the killing ground, stupid, and know what we’re talking about.”
“All the people on the board meet at the Dark Man on a regular basis. I’m betting most of them will be there tonight,” Nolan pointed out.
Kelly said, “And so will we. See that you are. Now away with you.”
“Thank God for that,” Delaney said. “Come on, Sol,” and Flanagan followed him.
Cohan said, “Are those two for real? Is this what we’ve come down to, working with scum?”
“They kill without hesitation,” Nolan told him.
“It’s the only point in their favor.”
“And have to be drugged up to the eyeballs to be able to do it,” Burke said.
Cohan shook his head. “Not Delaney, he’s naturally evil, that one, and born that way.” As he followed Burke out, he paused at the door. “Christ, is this what it was all about? The great days we knew and it comes down to this?”
“Those days have gone,” Nolan said, “and won’t come back ever.”
“Enough bloody nostalgia,” Kelly put in. He opened a drawer in the desk and took out a pistol and silencer and three clips, which he pushed across to Nolan, then took out the same for himself. “We’ll go for a drive, check out Ferguson ’s gaff and Dillon’s.”
Nolan loaded his weapon, a Colt automatic, and Burke and Cohan watched him. “That sounds sensible. Do it like the movies.”
“To hell with that. I remember when we were the movies. The biggest bombing campaign seen in London since the Luftwaffe,” Burke said.
“The bowsers had to virtually wall off the city, the Bank of England, the lot. God, you had to keep your head down at that time.”
“There was a bar called Grady’s in Canal Street. A leftover from the Victorian times. There was a canal running down to the pool with a bridge over it. I stayed there more than once in the great days when I was on the run.” Kelly nodded as if to himself. “Grady died years ago, but a fella told me the other week his wife, Maggie, still runs it. She must be seventy-five if she’s a day.” He turned to Nolan. “Let’s check out Grady’s, for old times’ sake.”
Nolan said, “That’s a great idea. Spend some time there before the Dark Man.”
Kelly turned to Burke and Cohan. “Why not join us, say about six, give the Dark Man the chance to warm up? We’ll have a couple of glasses to start the evening off.”
“And why not?” Cohan said. “We’ll see you there. Come on, Jack.”
Nolan took down a reefer coat from a peg, whistling tunelessly. He loaded his Colt, screwed on the silencer, and Kelly said, “Come on then, Jimmy.”
And Nolan swung to look at him, eyes wild, and from somewhere deep inside, it all burst out. “What in the hell happened to us, Patrick?”
“It’s simple, Jimmy, we lost the war.” Kelly patted him on the shoulder. “Let’s go, old son, and make the best of it.”
They went out to the snug, where Fahy, who had been listening at the door to all the comings and goings, was suddenly busy polishing glasses behind the door.
“We’ll be out for the day,” Nolan said.
“That’s fine, Jimmy. I’ll see to things.”
They went out, and Fahy, his face grave, poured himself a whiskey and filled his pipe.
Chapter 11
IT WAS A LITTLE EARLIER THAT A COUNCIL OF WAR AT Holland Park had examined the situation. “The real threat in all this,” Ferguson said, “is Russian. By taking Flynn on board, Volkov has thrown down the gauntlet.”
“So he must have presidential backing,” Roper said. “I’m sure Putin has felt for some time that something should be done about us, General.” He glanced at Harry. “And anyone who’s on our side.”
“But the thing at the moment is Nolan and Kelly and that contract and what to do about it,” Roper pointed out.
“If we were police, you couldn’t touch them,” Ferguson said, “because they haven’t done anything, but I have implicit faith you’ll find a way of dealing with it. I have a meeting in
one hour with the Prime Minister. I’ll call in later at Holland Park and I’ll greet our friends from Dublin then.”
“I admit I’ve got things to do at the development,” Harry said. “I mean, we can’t let stupid threats interfere with business.”
“I admire your spirit, Harry,” Ferguson said. “But I think we can leave the activities at the Green Tinker to these three.” He and Harry went out. Dillon said, “Where’s Greta?”
“She was going to call in at Gulf Road, see how the Rashids are coping. Hal Stone has hit the highway for Cambridge this morning to the halls of academia,” said Roper. “My God, the students would flock to his lectures if they knew only half of the things that fella gets up to. Do you think Hussein will come?”
“Only time will tell, but now to the matter at hand. Jimmy Nolan and Patrick Kelly, his cousin. They own the Green Tinker pub in Kilburn.
Both active in the movement and not only in Ulster. Nolan was down as a suspect for that mortar attack on John Major’s cabinet during the Gulf War, but we discovered it was someone else.”
Billy looked at Dillon. “And we know who.”
“Still, he was seven years into a fifteen-year prison term when it was all over, so he was released from prison according to the terms of the peace agreement. Kelly got pretty much the same deal. British citizens, born in London, they inherited the Green Tinker from Nolan’s father. Served their time, clean as a whistle, both of them.”
“Like hell they are,” Billy said. “I think Dillon and I will go and check the beer out.”
“Stay calm, Billy.”
“With a couple of guys who’ve accepted a contract on my uncle?”
“Well, leave your Walther at home.”
“Roper, old son, I’d remind you that as an agent of Her Majesty’s Secret Services, I actually have a license for it. We’ll go in my car, Dillon.”
“I thought so.” Billy had just taken delivery of a scarlet Alfa Romeo Spider and was obviously proud of it.
“Very nice,” Dillon told him. “I’m impressed. Now, as to business, I don’t recall these two from my IRA time, so they’re both a blank page to me, except for what Roper had to say.”