The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  The wall curved around the marina, sheltering the yachts from the rough water, and at the far end was a lighthouse, its beam already flashing out to sea, guiding the fishing boats home. A black Labrador, its fur shining wet, walked over and sniffed at Cramer’s boots, wagging its tail. Cramer patted it on the head absent-mindedly. He turned to walk back along the wall to the harbour. A solitary car was parked in the yacht club. There were three men sitting in it, an old man and two who couldn’t have been much more than teenagers. ‘It’s started,’ he said to the dog. The dog growled as if he understood, and Cramer smiled. An old man and two kids. There’d be more on the way, guaranteed.

  The uniformed cop pushed back his wooden chair and stretched out his long legs. He yawned and turned to watch a pretty black nurse walk down the corridor. Her hips swayed sexily and as she turned a corner she looked over her shoulder and grinned. The cop grinned back. A cup of cold coffee sat untouched by the side of his chair, next to the afternoon edition of the Baltimore Sun.

  The cop stood up and arched his back. He didn’t enjoy sitting for long periods, especially in the corridor of a crowded hospital. He hated hospitals. When his turn came to die, he hoped it would be out in the street or between the sheets with a hot blonde, not in some antiseptic white-painted room with tubes running into his veins and a stinking bedpan on the floor. He shuddered involuntarily. This was no time to be thinking about death.

  The elevator doors at the end of the corridor hissed open and a young doctor in a white coat stepped out. He was tall with a shock of black hair that kept falling over his eyes as he walked towards the uniformed cop. He was carrying a small stainless steel tray covered with a white cloth. The cop nodded a greeting, and the doctor made to go past. The cop held up a hand to stop him. ‘Whoa there, partner,’ he said.

  The doctor frowned. He was wearing wire-framed spectacles and he squinted as if he wasn’t used to them. ‘I have to take a blood sample,’ he said impatiently. The cop studied the plastic-covered identification badge pinned to the top pocket of the doctor’s white coat. The small colour photograph matched the man’s face. John Theobald, MD. Cardiovascular Department. ‘I haven’t seen you before,’ said the cop.

  ‘That’s not really my problem, is it?’ said the doctor. ‘Now are you going to let me get to my patient, or not?’

  ‘He’s not your patient, though, is he?’ asked the cop. He tapped the clipboard he was carrying. ‘Your name isn’t on the list of approved medical personnel.’ He gingerly lifted the cloth and peered under it. On the tray lay a disposable syringe, a couple of cotton wool balls and a small bottle of antiseptic.

  ‘I’ve been on vacation,’ the doctor explained. ‘This is my first day back.’

  ‘Today’s Tuesday,’ said the cop, dropping the cloth back over the tray.

  ‘What do you mean?’ The doctor was irritated.

  ‘I mean, wouldn’t Monday normally be your first day back?’

  ‘I missed my flight. Look, what is this? What’s going on here?’ His voice rose angrily.

  The cop held up a hand as if he were stopping traffic. ‘Doc, I’m just doing my job. That man in there is a very important witness in a federal case …’

  ‘That man is a patient, a patient who has just undergone major heart surgery, and there are tests that I have to do on him to check that the operation went smoothly,’ interrupted the doctor. ‘Now, get the hell out of my way. If you’re that worried, why don’t you come in with me?’

  The cop held the doctor’s look for a few seconds, then he nodded slowly. He opened the door and followed the doctor inside. A heart monitor beeped quietly. The only other sound in the room was the patient’s ragged breathing. The cop kept his hand on his holster as the doctor put the tray down on the bedside table. The doctor snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, pulled back the cloth and wiped antiseptic along the patient’s left arm, then quickly withdrew a sample of blood and pressed a small plaster over the puncture.

  ‘Satisfied?’ said the doctor, putting the blood-filled syringe on the tray and carrying it to the door. The cop moved out of the doctor’s way and held the door open for him.

  ‘Doc, I’m just doing my job.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the doctor. ‘You and the Gestapo.’ He looked as if he were going to say something else, but then just shook his head and walked out.

  The cop bared his teeth at the back of the departing doctor and slowly closed the door. He walked over to the bed and looked down at the patient. The man’s eyes flickered open as if he was aware that he was being watched. The electronic beep quickened. ‘Am I going to be all right?’ the patient rasped.

  ‘Peachy keen,’ said the cop, removing his gun from his glistening black holster. From the inside pocket of his leather jacket he took out a bulbous silencer and carefully screwed it into the barrel of the gun. ‘Just peachy keen.’ He pointed the weapon at the man’s face and fired once, then as his body went into spasm he fired a second shot into the newly-repaired heart.

  Aidan Twomey was brewing a pot of tea when the doorbell rang. He put the kettle back on the stove and walked through the hallway. He could make out four figures through the rippled glass of the front door. He opened it and took a step backwards. ‘My God, talk about a face from the past,’ he said.

  The broad-shouldered man at the front of the group was grinning widely. He was in his late forties, a decade younger than Twomey, with black, curly hair and a bushy beard. ‘Aidan, you old rascal. How’ve you been?’ said the visitor. The two men embraced. Aidan Twomey and Dermott Lynch had done time together in the cells of Long Kesh – Twomey for being in possession of an Armalite rifle, Lynch for assaulting a soldier at a checkpoint – and during their imprisonment it was Twomey who had shown Lynch how to brew the perfect cup of tea. In return, the younger man had taught Twomey how to manufacture explosives from fertiliser and engine oil. ‘I thought you’d retired, and here you are bringing us a Sass-man,’ chuckled Lynch. He introduced his three companions, hard-faced men with tough bodies. They were all carrying sports holdalls, like a football team geared up for an away match. There were two large nondescript cars parked on the roadside.

  Twomey took them through to the sitting room and then brought out the teapot. Lynch shook his head in amazement. ‘Your timing was always damn near perfect,’ he said.

  Twomey nodded at the cabinet by the window. ‘Get the cups out, will you, Dermott? And there’s a bottle of Jameson’s there too.’

  ‘Who’s watching your man?’ asked Lynch, pouring out generous measures of whiskey.

  ‘Two wee boys. Davie and Paulie Quinn.’

  ‘Aye, I knew their old man,’ said Lynch. ‘How are they shaping up?’

  ‘They’ve been watching the cottage all day, one of them phones in every hour.’

  Lynch pointed to one of the sports bags the men had carried in. ‘We’ve walkie-talkies in there, there’ll be no more need for phoning,’ he said.

  ‘Jesus, I hope you’ve brought more than walkie-talkies with yer,’ said Twomey.

  Lynch laughed heartily. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs now, would you?’ He leaned over and opened the bag by his feet. Inside was a Kalashnikov with a folding metal stock, disassembled into its component parts. He swiftly reassembled it and slotted in the curved magazine. He grinned. ‘Now, show me the Sass-man.’

  The telephone rang and Twomey went over to answer it. ‘It’s Davie,’ he said, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Do you want a word?’

  Lynch shook his head. ‘Where’s Cramer?’ he asked.

  Twomey relayed the question to Davie. ‘He’s on the harbour wall again,’ Twomey said to Lynch, holding his hand over the mouthpiece.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Just standing there. That’s all he does. He walks and he stands looking out to sea.’

  ‘You think he’s waiting for something?’

  Twomey shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  Lynch nodded. ‘Tell Davie we’l
l meet him in front of St Mary’s Abbey.’

  Twomey sat in the passenger seat next to Lynch as they drove to the ruins of the parish church which overlooked the harbour, reminiscing about the old days. It was still raining and the windscreen wipers flicked from side to side as they climbed the hill to the church. They found Davie standing with his arms folded across his chest, stamping his feet for warmth. He hadn’t dressed for the outdoors. Lynch motioned for him to get into the back of the car, next to Pat O’Riordan, a stocky farmer from Ballymena who was responsible for the deaths of three British soldiers. Davie recognised O’Riordan and his eyes widened as he realised the calibre of the men who’d driven down from Belfast. He was in illustrious company.

  ‘Where’s your car?’ asked Lynch, twisting around in his seat.

  ‘My brother’s got it,’ shivered Davie. ‘He’s parked on the west pier, across from the Sass-man.’ Water dripped off his hair and onto his pullover. He flicked his wet hair out of his eyes.

  Twomey handed Lynch a pair of powerful binoculars. ‘That’s your man down there, on the sea wall,’ he said.

  Lynch focused the binoculars, using the steering wheel to steady his hands. ‘That’s him, right enough,’ said Lynch.

  ‘You know him?’ Davie blurted out, then fell silent, embarrassed by his outburst.

  ‘Aye, lad, I’ve met Sergeant Cramer before.’

  ‘What do you want to do, Dermott?’ asked Twomey.

  ‘We wait,’ he replied, the binoculars still pressed to his eyes. ‘We wait and we watch.’

  ‘You think it’s a set-up?’

  ‘Look at him, Aidan. Standing there as bold as brass. He’s like a baited trap, and we’re the rats. We’re not going to do anything until we’re sure he’s alone.’ He handed the binoculars to Twomey and turned back to Davie. ‘What’s he been doing?’

  Davie rubbed his hands together. ‘He walks along the beach, he walks up and down the harbour wall. According to the lad in the shop he buys some food: bread, milk, just the basics. Doesn’t seem to eat much, he’s more of a drinker. Famous Grouse. He buys a bottle a day from the pub.’

  ‘Is there a telephone in the cottage?’

  Davie shook his head.

  ‘Has he spoken to anyone, any strangers?’

  Another shake of the head.

  ‘Visitors?’

  ‘Not according to the neighbours. He keeps himself to himself, but he seems friendly enough to the locals. He’s made no secret of who he is.’

  ‘Good lad, you’ve done well.’ Davie smiled with pride as Lynch turned the key in the ignition. ‘Let’s take a run by his cottage while he’s down there,’ he said. ‘Show me the way.’

  Thomas McCormack stared at the ripples on the surface of the river. ‘What do you think, Joe? Think he’ll take it?’

  Joseph Connolly grinned. ‘It’s all in the wrist, Thomas. Give it a go.’

  McCormack drew back his arm and sent his fly arcing through the air. It settled on the water but the trout below defiantly refused to bite. Connolly chuckled to himself. ‘He’s a cunning old bastard, right enough.’

  McCormack wound in his line again. The two men had been standing thigh deep in the fast flowing water for the best part of thirty minutes, and neither had caught a thing, never mind the huge trout that was said to inhabit the shady spot beneath the riverside oak. ‘Go on, let’s see your best shot,’ said McCormack. He pushed his horn-rimmed spectacles further up his nose. The glasses and his greying hair gave him a scholarly, almost schoolmasterly, appearance, belying his role as a member of the IRA Army Executive, a man who regularly made life or death decisions. It had been an impassioned speech by McCormack which had resulted in a massive car bomb, causing millions of pounds worth of damage to London’s financial centre, and it had been McCormack’s idea to bring in the American sniper with a high powered rifle who’d killed half a dozen members of the security forces with long distance shots across the border.

  Connolly was one of the hardliners in the Army Council, and one of the harshest critics of the 1994 ceasefire and the peace process that had followed. Connolly’s mistrust of the British Government bordered on the paranoid, and he had taken a lot of persuading before agreeing to back Gerry Adams’s peace initiative.

  McCormack watched as Connolly cast his fly, a smooth, fluid action that McCormack had to admire. Connolly had been fly-fishing for more than half a century and McCormack was a relative newcomer, but even if he fished for another hundred years he didn’t think he’d ever be as good as the old man. ‘Come on, you bugger, isn’t that the loveliest, tastiest fly you’ve ever seen?’ Connolly whispered to the unseen quarry. McCormack held his breath, certain that this time the fish would take the bait, but the glossy blue fly sat untouched on the surface. ‘It’s not my day, sure enough,’ growled Connolly as he wound in his line.

  McCormack pulled a pewter hip flask from the inside pocket of his waxed cotton jacket, unscrewed the top and offered it to his companion. Connolly’s liver-spotted hand trembled slightly as he took the flask, but McCormack pretended not to notice. Connolly had just turned seventy, and while his mind was still razor sharp, he was rumoured to have developed Parkinson’s disease. It wasn’t as if the man was an invalid, and McCormack had noticed that there were no shakes when Connolly was concentrating on fishing. McCormack hoped that the rumours were wrong and that the trembling was nothing more than a symptom of old age, like the thinning white hair, the liver spots and the hearing aid tucked behind his right ear. The old man drank from the flask, handed it back and began to tie another fly onto his line. ‘This Cramer,’ he said without looking up. ‘What do you think?’

  McCormack smiled. The canny old bastard had read his mind. ‘It’s not a set-up,’ he said, slowly. ‘He’s on his own. Whatever he’s up to, he’s not with the SAS any more.’

  ‘Could be Five.’

  ‘Nah. British Intelligence wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole. Cramer was finished some time ago. He’s too well known here, and he’d be bugger all use anywhere else. Besides, if Five were using him, why would they put him in Howth?’

  Connolly shrugged as he concentrated on his knot. ‘You tell me, Thomas. You’re the one who won’t let sleeping dogs lie.’

  McCormack sensed admonition in the older man’s voice and realised that he’d have to tread carefully. ‘This is a murdering dog that deserves to be put down, Joe. Peace process or no peace process.’

  ‘No argument here,’ said Connolly, straightening up and looking him in the eye. ‘I just don’t want it to backfire on you, that’s all.’ He paused. ‘There’s no doubt that it’s Cramer?’

  ‘None. Dermott saw him five years ago, up close.’

  ‘Close? How close?’

  ‘We had Cramer in a farmhouse with another undercover Sass-man. Cramer’s partner died while he was being questioned, Cramer was lucky to get away with his life. Dermott was one of the team guarding him.’

  ‘Does Cramer know Dermott?’ asked Connolly.

  ‘Dermott says no. Cramer was hooded or blindfolded most of the time.’

  Connolly fixed McCormack with a beady stare. ‘Dermott’s got a personal interest, hasn’t he?’

  McCormack nodded. ‘Aye. But that’s not what this is about.’

  ‘And Cramer’s quite alone?’

  ‘No question of it. Dermott’s had him under twenty-four hour surveillance for the past three days. No one’s gone near Cramer, he’s made no telephone calls, and there are no other strangers in the village.’

  ‘Do you think he’s cracked? Had some sort of breakdown?’

  ‘It’s possible. He’s certainly not behaving rationally.’

  ‘Why not bring him in?’ asked Connolly.

  ‘Because there’s nothing we need from him. Other than to be an example of what we do to our enemies.’

  A plopping sound at the far side of the river caught Connolly’s attention. He shaded his eyes with his hand but couldn’t see anything. ‘Aye, the bastard deserves a
bullet, right enough,’ he said.

  ‘So I have the Army Council’s permission?’

  Connolly smiled tightly. ‘Let’s just say there won’t be any tears shed. But we won’t be claiming responsibility, not officially. Politically it’s too sensitive; you know how things are at the moment. But Cramer’s been the death of too many of our people for us to leave him be.’ Connolly licked his lips and they glistened wetly. ‘When?’ he asked.

  McCormack drained the flask and slipped it back into his pocket. ‘Tomorrow morning. Early.’

  Connolly put a hand on McCormack’s shoulder. ‘Just be careful, Thomas. If anything goes wrong …’ He left the sentence hanging, and McCormack nodded. He understood. There must be no mistakes.

  Dermott Lynch was tucking into sausage and chips in Aidan Twomey’s spotless kitchen when the telephone rang. Twomey answered it in the hall and a few seconds later he appeared at the kitchen door. ‘It’s Thomas,’ he said.

  Lynch nodded and put down his knife and fork. ‘This’ll be it,’ he said. He took a mouthful of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He picked up the receiver. ‘Aye, Thomas.’

  ‘It’s a runner,’ said McCormack. ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Lynch.

  ‘You’re sure he’s alone?’

  ‘Dead sure.’

  ‘And he suspects nothing?’

  ‘He’s not even looking over his shoulder.’

  ‘Where are you going to do it?’

  ‘The sea wall. Every morning first thing he takes a walk. Stands near the lighthouse looking out over the sea like a fisherman’s wife.’

  ‘Be careful, Dermott.’

  ‘He’s a sitting duck.’

  ‘Just mind what I say. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.’