The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  Lynch laughed softly. ‘Except for Cramer, you mean?’ He was still chuckling when he went back into the kitchen. Twomey was refilling their mugs with steaming tea. ‘It’s on,’ said Lynch, sitting down at the table and picking up his knife and fork.

  ‘What’s your plan?’ asked Twomey.

  ‘We’ll take him on the sea wall. There’ll be nowhere for him to run.’

  ‘You might be seen.’

  Lynch snorted contemptuously. ‘We might be seen, but I doubt there’ll be any witnesses,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, right enough,’ said Twomey, sipping his tea. He put his mug down. ‘I’d like you to do me a favour, Dermott.’ Lynch narrowed his eyes, his fork halfway to his mouth. ‘Not for me, you understand, for the Quinn boys. They’ve been pestering me …’

  Lynch grinned, understanding. ‘And they want to be in on the kill?’ Twomey nodded. ‘Sure, no problem. It’s about time the boys were blooded.’

  Mike Cramer woke to the sound of seagulls screaming. He rolled out of bed and washed in the bathroom before dressing in the same clothes he’d been wearing all week. Before going downstairs he took the Browning from under the stained pillow and slid it down the back of his trousers.

  He made himself a coffee and sat in the old man’s chair as he drank it. There were packets of bread and sausage in the kitchen but neither had been opened. The bottle of Famous Grouse sat half-finished in the hearth and he reached over and poured a slug into his mug. Not quite an Irish coffee, he thought wryly, but close enough. The gun was sticking into the small of his back so he took it out and placed it on his lap. The Belgian-made Browning with its thirteen cartridges in the clip was a good weapon to have in a firefight against multiple opponents. As a rule, Cramer would never get himself into a position where he’d have to fire at more than two targets, but he knew that the situation he was heading for was the exception that proved the rule. A one-off. He field-stripped the gun and checked the firing mechanism, then reassembled it with well-practised movements before draining his mug. Another reason for choosing the Browning was its rugged reliability and the fact that it rarely jammed. In all his years in the SAS he’d never had one fail on him. He stood up, wincing as he did.

  The shoulder holster was hanging on the back of the front door, its supple leather glistening in the sun which filtered through the grimy windows. He eased it on, holstered the Browning, and slipped on his reefer jacket. He had a strong premonition that today was the day. The waiting was over.

  From his vantage point amid the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, Paulie Quinn watched Cramer walk slowly down the road to the harbour, his hands in his pockets. Cramer kept his head bent down as if deep in thought. Paulie wondered what was going through the Sass-man’s mind, whether he knew that today would be his last day on earth. Paulie put his walkie-talkie next to his mouth. ‘He’s on his way,’ he said.

  ‘I see him,’ said Lynch who was sitting with Pat O’Riordan, parked in the yacht club car park.

  Paulie put the walkie-talkie back in his pocket and pressed the binoculars to his eyes. He didn’t want to miss a second. His only regret was that he wouldn’t be closer to the action. He’d much rather have been down on the road with his brother, but Lynch had said someone had to be up on the high ground, and he was the youngest. One day, thought Paulie with a tinge of bitterness, one day he wouldn’t be the youngest any more. He’d show them.

  Cramer noticed the glint out of the corner of his eye, a flash of light from the old church. His heart began to race and he took several deep breaths. He fought the urge to turn his head and to look up the hill as he walked around the bend in the road and saw the harbour stretched out before him.

  Two fishing boats were sailing away from the west pier leaving plumes of dirty grey smoke in their wake. Down on the beach two dark-haired men were throwing a stick for a black Labrador. They were walking slowly along the strip of sand, towards the marina. The dog raced back and forth, its bark whipped away in the wind before it could reach Cramer’s ears. Cramer recognised the dog, but not the men. There were several cars parked next to the yacht club building. Two men sat in one of the cars, not moving. Cramer rolled his head around, trying to loosen the muscles in his neck. He was tensing up, and this wasn’t the time to go stiff.

  ‘Right, let’s get the bastard,’ said Lynch, shoving his walkie-talkie into the glove compartment. He opened the door and went around to the boot. Leaning over his navy blue holdall, he slipped out the Kalashnikov while O’Riordan stood behind him, shielding him from the road. Lynch was wearing a long raincoat, open at the front, and he held the assault rifle inside, pressing it close to his body. ‘Okay,’ he said, stepping away from the car while O’Riordan pulled a handgun from the holdall and slid it into the pocket of his leather bomber jacket.

  They walked across the car park, the wind pulling at their hair and whipping up ripples in the puddles at their feet. Ahead of them, Cramer had stepped onto the sea wall and was walking out to the lighthouse.

  Davie Quinn was sitting on a wooden bench in front of the public toilets, a newspaper on his lap. He stood up, holding the folded newspaper so tightly that his knuckles went white. He nodded at Lynch and began to walk along the road.

  Cramer stood at the far end of the sea wall, staring out to sea. He moved his head slowly to his left and saw that the two men were closer now. Half a mile away. The dog was running in circles around them, but they’d stopped playing with it. The two big men had left their car and were walking purposefully across the car park. And the boy, the boy was walking down the road holding the badly concealed gun as if he feared it would break if he dropped it. Five, he thought. Five plus the one on the hill make six.

  He wiped his face with his hands and yawned. It wasn’t from tiredness, he knew. It was the tension. He pulled a packet of chewing gum from his pocket and unwrapped a stick. The wind blew the green wrapper from his fingers as he slipped the gum into his mouth, and he turned to watch it whirl through the air. He frowned as he saw the lone figure standing on the sea wall where it met the road. How had he missed one?

  ‘Where the fuck did he come from?’ hissed Lynch. He put a restraining hand on O’Riordan’s shoulder. ‘Hold a while, Pat. Let’s see what that guy’s up to.’ Lynch looked across at the Quinn boy who was standing on the pavement, unsure of what to do. Lynch motioned with his head for Davie to go back to the bench.

  ‘Maybe he’s just out for a walk,’ said O’Riordan hesitantly.

  ‘Yeah. Maybe.’

  The man was in his fifties, perhaps older, wearing a green Barbour, a cap and green Wellington boots. He walked with a stick, though it seemed to Lynch that it was for effect rather than because the man was unsteady on his feet. He strolled briskly along the sea wall, swinging the walking stick as if it were a military cane.

  From where they were standing, Lynch couldn’t see Fitzäpatrick and McVeigh on the beach. He just hoped they’d have the sense to hold back.

  Cramer didn’t look around as the man in the Barbour jacket joined him at the edge of the sea wall. ‘Nice day for it,’ said the man amicably.

  Cramer’s upper lip curled back, but still he didn’t turn to face the visitor. ‘Nice day for what?’

  ‘For whatever it is you’re doing.’ He tapped the ground with his stick. ‘Just what the hell are you doing, Sergeant Cramer?’

  ‘The only one with a rank these days is you, Colonel.’

  The Colonel tapped his stick again. He turned around so that his back was to the sea. ‘I count five,’ he said. ‘Do you think five will be enough?’

  ‘Six,’ said Cramer. ‘There’s one up on the hill.’

  The Colonel acknowledged the correction with the merest hint of a smile. ‘They must really hate you to do this, you know? The Unionists are bound to claim it’s a breach of the ceasefire.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Cramer.

  ‘Unless they’re planning to remove all the evidence. If there’s no body, I suppose there’d be no proof that it ever
happened. Not now you’re no longer with the regiment. It’s not as if you’d be missed, is it?’

  ‘Thanks, Colonel,’ said Cramer bitterly.

  ‘Do you know who they are?’

  Cramer shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He noticed for the first time that the Colonel was wearing a blue tie covered with small winged daggers. Cramer smiled. Only the Colonel would go up against a team of IRA hitmen wearing the regimental tie of the Special Air Service.

  ‘Dermott Lynch’s running the show. He’s got Pat O’Riordan with him. Down on the beach you’ve got Gerry Fitzpatrick and Fergus McVeigh. We couldn’t identify the youngster.’

  ‘Lynch’s good.’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s good. And he’s got a personal interest in you, of course. We’d love to get hold of O’Riordan, too. But the rest are strictly second division.’

  The Colonel looked at his watch, then turned back to face the sea again.

  ‘What do you want, Colonel?’

  ‘A chat. You’ve got time for a chat, haven’t you?’

  Cramer shrugged listlessly. ‘I’d rather be on my own, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘But you’re not on your own, are you, Sergeant Cramer? There’s an IRA active service unit armed to the teeth heading your way.’

  ‘You’d best be going then, huh?’

  The Colonel shook his head sadly. ‘This isn’t the way to do it, Joker.’

  The nickname made Cramer smile. It had been a long time since anyone had used it. ‘Do what?’

  ‘You know what.’

  Cramer sighed and hunched his shoulders. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said flatly.

  ‘I know you’re dying.’

  For the first time, Cramer looked across at the Colonel. ‘We’re all dying,’ he said venomously.

  ‘How long?’ asked the Colonel. ‘How long did the doctor give you?’

  ‘If you’re here, you already know.’

  ‘Two months. Three months at the most. The last few weeks will be in intolerable pain. You’ll need to be on a drip, and even that won’t be enough.’

  ‘So you know why I’m here.’

  ‘Because you’re frightened of dying in a hospital bed, screaming in agony. Friendless. Alone.’

  Cramer wrinkled his nose at the image. ‘Thanks for sugar-coating it for me, Colonel.’

  ‘Bowel cancer isn’t a pleasant way to die.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘So you’ve decided to go down fighting. To die like a soldier, in battle.’

  Cramer smiled and drew back his jacket so that the Colonel could see the Browning in the holster. He looked over his shoulder. The men on the beach were still heading in their direction. Lynch and O’Riordan were standing in the car park, talking. ‘You should go, Colonel. This is going to get messy.’

  ‘Hear me out, Joker. This isn’t the way to do it.’

  Cramer’s eyes hardened. ‘With all due respect, Colonel, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’

  The Colonel thrust his square jaw forward. His jaw, and the wide nose which had been broken several times, gave the man a deceptively simple appearance, but Cramer knew that he had an IQ in the high 150s and was one of the top twelve chess-players in the United Kingdom. ‘I can offer you a better way.’

  ‘Yeah, right. What do you want me to do? Swallow my gun? I’ve tried, Colonel. I can’t.’

  The Colonel shook his head. ‘That’s not what I’m offering. I’m offering you a chance to do something worthwhile with your last few weeks.’

  Cramer frowned, then looked away. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Over the last two years there’ve been a series of assassinations around the world. Businessmen, politicians, criminals, all killed by one man. A professional killer who’ll hit anyone if the price is right. He’s never been caught, and we have no idea who he is.’

  ‘We? We as in the SAS?’

  ‘The FBI, Interpol, MI6, the SVR, Mossad.’

  ‘All the good guys, huh?’

  The Colonel ignored the interruption. ‘He likes to get in close, this killer. He always uses a handgun. We’ve dozens of witnesses, but we don’t know what he looks like.’

  Cramer frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Oh, we’ve dozens of descriptions all right. He’s short. He’s tall. He’s thin, he’s overweight, he’s balding, he has a beard, blue eyes, brown eyes, pale skinned, tanned. The only thing we’re sure of is that he’s white and male.’

  ‘A master of disguise,’ said Cramer, smiling at the cliché.

  The Colonel shrugged. ‘He uses contact lenses, he grows facial hair as and when he needs it. He puts on weight, he takes it off. Maybe he even has plastic surgery. There isn’t anything he won’t do to succeed.’

  Cramer turned around slowly. The men in the car park had started walking again. They’d soon be at the sea wall. He looked anxiously at the Colonel, who seemed unfazed by the approaching killers. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘Do you know what a Judas Goat is?’

  Cramer shook his head.

  ‘Say you’re trying to trap a tiger. You can trample through the jungle all you want, you’ll not see a hair of it. You’re in his territory. You’re wasting your time trying to hunt it. So what you do is you take a young goat, a kid, and you tether it in a clearing. Then you sit back and wait. The tiger seeks out the bleating goat, and BANG! One dead tiger.’

  ‘A Judas Goat?’ repeated Cramer. ‘Sounds more like bait to me. That’s what you’re offering me? The chance to be bait?’

  ‘I’m offering you the chance to go up against the most successful assassin in the world, Joker. To the best of our knowledge he’s never failed. Never been caught, and never failed. Wouldn’t that be more of a challenge for you? Those bastards down there might call themselves an IRA active service unit, but we know better, don’t we? They’re psychopathic thugs with guns, that’s all. Sure, you’ll die with a gun in your hand and the blood coursing through your veins, but there’s no honour in being gunned down like a rabid dog. Sheer weight of numbers, that’s the only advantage they’ll have. They’ll just keep firing until you’re dead. You’ll get a couple of them, maybe more, but look at the company you’ll be dying in. Hell’s fucking bells, Joker, you wouldn’t give those bastards the time of day and yet you want to die with them?’

  Paulie Quinn swung the binoculars from side to side, scanning for Fitzpatrick and McVeigh. They flashed across his vision and he panned back slowly until he had them dead centre. They’d stopped on the beach and were watching Cramer and the new arrival. McVeigh scratched his head and Fitzpatrick shrugged. McVeigh said something and Fitzpatrick nodded, then they started to walk, pulling their guns from beneath their bomber jackets. Paulie turned the binoculars onto Lynch and O’Riordan, who were striding towards the sea wall. O’Riordan turned as he walked and motioned with his hand for Davie to follow them.

  Paulie searched for his brother and found him walking quickly along the road, clutching a newspaper. Paulie smiled. His brother looked tense, but he was doing exactly as he’d been told, following behind Lynch and O’Riordan, ready to cut off Cramer’s escape if he should try to get around them. Paulie wondered if Davie would get to shoot the Sass-man. God, he hoped so. He wondered who the man in the Barbour jacket was and why he was so earnestly talking to Cramer. Whoever he was, he was as good as dead. Lynch had obviously decided to take him out as well.

  Cramer said nothing. He stared out to the horizon and took several deep breaths. The Colonel waited for him to speak. ‘Why does he take risks?’ Cramer asked eventually. ‘Why does he always do it close up? There are easier ways to kill. Safer ways.’

  The Colonel nodded. ‘The FBI reckon it’s because he enjoys it. He wants to see his victims as they die. He’s a serial killer, but a serial killer who gets paid for his work. It’s not a question of whether or not he’ll kill again, it’s when. He’ll keep on killing until we stop him, bec
ause he’s not doing it for the money. He’s doing it for the thrill.’

  ‘And you want this guy to try to kill me?’

  The Colonel turned to look at Cramer. He shook his head slowly. ‘No,’ he said softly, his voice barely audible above the sound of the waves crashing against the sea wall. ‘We’re pretty sure that he’ll succeed.’

  Cramer didn’t say anything.

  ‘The man has never left any physical evidence behind,’ the Colonel continued. ‘No fingerprints, no blood or tissue samples, nothing. If we catch him close to you with a gun in his hand, it’s not enough. It’s not even attempted murder, it’s just possession of a weapon and for all we know he might have a licence for it. Even if he points the gun at you, what have we got? Threatening behaviour? Maybe attempted murder. If we’re lucky he’ll go away for five years. No, he has to pull the trigger. Once he’s done that, we’ve got him.’

  Cramer nodded, finally understanding. ‘And if he pulls the trigger, I’m dead?’

  The Colonel nodded. ‘But you’ll have a chance. You’ll be armed; if you see him coming for you you’ll be able to shoot first. It’s a better chance than the Judas Goat gets.’

  ‘He’ll kill me,’ said Cramer flatly.

  ‘But you’ll die with honour. In battle. Against a real professional. Isn’t that a better way to die? Better than being shot by these thugs?’

  Cramer stared out to sea. ‘Is that how you’d like to go, Colonel?’

  ‘If I had the choice, yes.’ The Colonel’s voice was flat and level. ‘It’s your call, Joker.’ If you want it to happen now, I’ll just walk away.’

  The Colonel looked towards the men on the beach. They were about a quarter of a mile away, still walking in their direction. The other two men had reached the end of the sea wall and the youngster was walking down the road behind them, the newspaper held in both hands. ‘You don’t have much time,’ said the Colonel. He tapped his stick on the concrete and the cracks sounded like gunshots.

  Cramer chuckled coldly. ‘That’s the truth,’ he said. He paused. ‘How do you know he’ll come for me?’

  ‘We know who one of his intended victims is going to be. I’ll explain later, but we’re looking for someone to take his place.’ He paused. ‘Well?’