The Killing Ground Read online

  “Oh, there must be a lot in the telephone directory.”

  “An interesting place,” Dillon said.

  “In the old days it was quite thriving, with the ships and so on, but when they went, the life went out of everything. They’ve pulled down all the properties up there. We’re like an oasis. Another six months and that’s it. We were a lodging house for years.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Greta said. “Do you get any customers?”

  “Now and then, but there are days when there’s nobody. Still, the Council have promised me a place in an old folks’ home.”

  There really wasn’t much to say. “We won’t hold you up anymore.” Dillon smiled, and he and Greta went back across the bridge, down to the car and drove away.

  “Back to Holland Park, quick as you like.”

  “So you’re going to trace them, are you?” she asked.

  “No, Greta, if things work out, I hope to dispose of them. A few old IRA hands who’ve met a bad end, and Scotland Yard will close the files with quiet satisfaction.”

  “But Volkov will get the message.”

  “And the Broker, which means al-Qaeda and Army of God. Greta, we’ve gone beyond negotiation. In the world of tomorrow that’s emerged in the last few years, we fight fire with fire or go under. You may think that strange coming from a man who was once an IRA enforcer, but that’s the way it is.”

  “I don’t think it’s strange-I think it’s ironic, that’s all.”

  “Excellent, so keep driving and I’ll fill Roper in.”

  * * * *

  BY THE TIME they got back to Holland Park, it was just after five o’clock. Roper had called in Billy, Levin and Chomsky. Greta said to Roper, “I’ve got this thing with the Rashids. I’ll call in later.”

  Dillon said, “Number one, I don’t want you on board, Chomsky. You did your bit in Dublin and proved your worth. You go down to the Dark Man. They may need an extra gun.”

  “You’re the boss.” Chomsky shrugged.

  Dillon said to Roper, “You’ve thoroughly briefed them on this?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Dillon faced Levin and Billy. “There are four good men, with years of experience with the IRA, the revolutionary movement that invented revolutionary movements. The object is to kill all four. To the authorities, the explanation will be some sort of IRA feud, old scores being settled and who gives a damn. I’ve just been to the bar on Canal Street. You go up by the canal, cross a Victorian iron bridge and the pub is almost the only building standing in a demolition area. They’ve no idea we’re on to them and it will be dark when we get there.”

  “And bleeding raining again,” Billy said. “Are you tooled up, Igor?”

  “Thanks to Sergeant Henderson.” He took a silenced Walther from his pocket. “Just like you, Dillon.”

  “Okay, my car. Let’s do it,” Billy said and led the way out.

  * * * *

  WHEN MAGGIE GRADY unlocked and opened the door at six, it was dark, but she’d switched the light on overhead and Kelly and Nolan stood there smiling at her.

  “Mother Mary, is it yourself, Patrick?”

  “And no other.” He kissed her on the cheek. “I’ve brought a pal- Jimmy Nolan. We thought we’d have a drink with you. I’ve a couple of boys working with me at the moment. They’ll be along presently.”

  The little bar was neat and tidy, a coal fire in the grate, old Victorian iron tables and chairs scattered round the room. Bottles stood ranged against a mirror behind the bar.

  She got over her shock soon enough, even excelled herself by joining them in an Irish whiskey, just the one. In the middle of a story from Kelly, the outer door opened and Burke and Cohan entered.

  “We’ve found you at last, praise be to God, and a grand sight it is with the fire and all.” The drink flowed and even old Maggie was tempted to another.

  Burke said, “So this is the good woman who looked after you when you were on the run?”

  “A queen among women,” Kelly told him. “A lodging house as well as a pub it was then. Sailors ashore from ships in the Pool. You’ve never seen anything like it. Every nationality on God’s earth. Indians, blacks, lascars, and if you dressed the right way you got swallowed up by them.”

  He looked at his watch. “Damn me, it’s seven already. We’ll have to get moving.” He gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek.“God bless you, my darling. Here’s one man who’ll never forget you.”

  They were laughing as they went out and she closed the door, tired and sad, and, making a sudden decision, she shot the bolt, crossed the bar, turned the light out and went upstairs very slowly, for she was old and past things now, that was the truth of it.

  Outside, there was not just darkness in the decaying street, for a single lamp hung from a bracket on the far side of the canal. The group started down to the bridge and rain was falling, glistening in the yellow light.

  Dillon and Billy came up the steps side by side, each with a Walther in his hand. “Who the hell are you?” Kelly cried.

  Dillon’s hand swung up, he shot Kelly between the eyes, the sound of his silenced weapon only a dull thud, knocking him back against Nolan, who was struggling to get his gun out, and pushed Kelly’s corpse violently away from him, so that it went over the rail into the swirling waters of the canal and was instantly swept away.

  Nolan almost got his gun out, but Billy was faster, shooting him in the left shoulder, turning him round and then shattering his spine with a second. Nolan fell across the bridge rail and hung there.

  Burke went straight down on one knee, avoiding a return shot from Billy, and shot him in the chest. Behind him, Cohan turned to run back to the pub and Igor Levin stood up from behind a pile of bricks and shot him in the head. Burke, with nowhere else to go, vaulted over the rail into the canal, went under, came to the surface and was instantly gripped by the current, but Levin, running fast, fired several times, driving him under the water.

  When he turned to rejoin the others, Billy and Dillon were carrying Cohan between them to throw him in the canal. The current swept him away into darkness.

  “All the way down to the Pool and the Thames, and maybe even the open sea,” Dillon said.

  Billy had opened his raincoat and was feeling inside his shirt.

  “Are you all right, Billy?” Levin asked.

  “Well, you heard what Ferguson said. Titanium and nylon waistcoat; if you’ve got one, wear it.”

  He produced a damaged round that had stuck in the waistcoat. Levin said, “I’m wearing one, too. General Volkov gave it to me as a present for saving him from an assassin.”

  “Let’s move it,” Dillon said. “ Mission accomplished. Now back to Holland Park.”

  * * * *

  AT THE SAFE HOUSE there was Roper, Ferguson, Levin, helping himself to a whiskey from the Major’s private stock, and Dillon.

  “All four?” Ferguson shook his head. “Remarkable. Reminds me of Ulster in the old days.”

  Roper said, “It was exactly like Ulster in the old days. You did the job like you said you would, Sean.”

  Ferguson turned to Levin. “What can I say about you? Sterling service indeed. You’ve served us well.”

  “I’ll see the right kind of whisper gets through to Flynn and Volkov, just so they get the point,” Roper said. “The Thames is a tidal river and bodies don’t turn up with great regularity if you look at the statistics.”

  “What happens now to Delaney and Flanagan?” Levin asked.

  “Well, I must admit I’d prefer closure,” Ferguson said. “We’ll have to see. They should be rising to the surface at the Dark Man soon, unless they decide not to arrive at all. Billy and Harry, Baxter and Hall and our new friend Sergeant Chomsky should be perfectly capable of dealing with them.”

  “I’d say so,” Dillon agreed.

  “So let’s go and watch them do it.”

  “Why not?” Levin said.

  “Well, if you lot are going, I’m going,” Roper an
nounced. “Doyle can fetch the People Traveller. I’ll be ten minutes.”

  “Excellent. I’ll travel with you. I never have accompanied you in that contraption. You have your own automatic lift, I’ve observed.”

  “We’ll follow in my Mini,” Dillon said. “You can lead the way.”

  He and Levin hurried out through heavy rain and got in the Mini. As they waited, Dillon called Billy. “What’s happening?”

  “The joint, as they say, is jumping. Lots of punters, no aggravation, and so far we haven’t seen a sign of the two ratbags we’re looking for.”

  “Okay. We’ll see you soon. Roper, Ferguson, Levin and I. I’d say we’ll be about twenty minutes.”

  “Maybe the bastards have run out on us,” Billy said, but the story was completely different.

  * * * *

  DELANEY AND FLANAGAN had spent two hours in an establishment called Festival, where the music rocked and regular visits to the toilet were solely for the purpose of drug taking. By six o’clock, they were out of their heads on cocaine, and the amount of vodka they’d taken with it was lethal. They both had reached that state where they viewed the world with a false belief that it was theirs and that anything was possible.

  The car they were in was a Mercedes stolen earlier that day before their visit to the Green Tinker, and Flanagan was driving it with total indifference to everyone else on the road. He scraped three cars, one after another, and narrowly missed a police officer, who raised a hand and then had to jump for his life. Delaney roared with laughter, pulled out his silenced pistol and fired into several shop windows as they passed, then vanished into a warren of back streets leading down to the Thames.

  “This is Wapping, man, I know it is,” Delaney said. “The Dark Man, Cable Wharf. Hah, you punched it in right, man.” He pointed at the satellite navigator. “We’re there.”

  The Dark Man was ablaze with lights, there was music on the night air, cars parked all along the wharf, a few boats tied up and at the end, Harry Salter’s pride and joy, the Linda Jones, down there.

  They swerved into the car park at the side of the wharf just past the pub. “So this is it,” Flanagan said. “So what do we do?” The rain increased suddenly.

  “Shoot the place up, man.” Delaney took a half bottle of vodka from the glove compartment and opened it. “Here’s to us.”

  He swallowed, then passed it to Flanagan to take a pull, and at that moment, the People Traveller arrived. It stopped and the back opened and Ferguson walked round just as Roper was delivered in his wheelchair. At the same moment, the Mini arrived with Dillon and Levin, and paused a little distance away.

  “Christ,” Delaney said. “The guy standing beside the wheelchair. It’s Ferguson.” He pushed open the passenger door, stepped out and fired his silenced pistol wildly at the People Traveller, but Ferguson turned to speak to Roper, leaning. Delaney’s rounds simply hit the vehicle and Ferguson and Roper went down together in a tangle.

  Levin jumped out of the Mini and fired at the Mercedes, but it was a difficult shot with Delaney on the far side of the vehicle hurling himself back inside. Dillon put his foot down and rammed the other car’s rear, and Flanagan, in a blind panic, accelerated along the wharf past the Linda Jones and went straight off the end into the Thames. They watched the back end as it tilted and went down to the bottom. They waited, but nobody appeared.

  “That’s it,” Dillon said. “It’s forty feet deep around here. Put your gun away. Let’s see about Ferguson and Roper.”

  Back at the Dark Man, Harry, Billy and Chomsky were there, with Doyle righting the wheelchair and helping Ferguson up and Roper into the chair.

  “We’re fine,” Ferguson told them. “Whoever it was missed us. What’s happened to them?”

  “Bottom of the Thames.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Ferguson said sarcastically.

  “Chomsky was on the door,” Harry said. “He was aware of the shooting, but with silenced pistols, you couldn’t hear a thing in the saloon bar, just the noise of the cars colliding. That’s brought a few out.”

  Behind them, some of the punters, glasses in hand, were watching. Ruby came out anxiously, Mary with her, and at the same moment not one police car but three pulled in and a young police sergeant came forward. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Salter. We’ve been chasing a Mercedes over half of Wapping with gunmen shooting at shop windows on the way by.”

  “Disgusting, don’t know what the world’s coming to,” Harry said. “Collided with my friends’ vehicle and straight down the wharf.”

  “And into the Thames,” Dillon said. “We saw it go down and no one came up.”

  “Christ,” the sergeant said.

  “We’ll leave you to it and get the Major here inside,” Harry said piously. “I mean with his war record, it’s disgusting that he should be subject to this kind of treatment in his own city.”

  * * * *

  INSIDE, BAXTER AND HALL had cleared a couple of booths. Ruby served champagne, Mary helped her. “All in all, I say more than satisfactory,” Ferguson said.

  “I should bleeding think so.” Harry chuckled. “Talk about clearing the decks.”

  “Volkov can chew on that.” Roper nodded, as the police sergeant came in.

  “What can I do for you, Sergeant?” Harry said.

  “Just to let you know. A recovery detail’s been booked for tomorrow and a series of reports indicate the people in the Mercedes were a couple of hoods with very bad reputations. They’d stolen the car, spent a few hours at the Festival getting coked up on the way here, and as I told you, shooting half of Wapping up on the way. I don’t know what they intended. Names of Delaney and Flanagan.”

  “Never heard of them in my life, Sergeant. A lot of rats around these days.”

  The sergeant departed and they all relaxed. “That’s it then, all sorted,” Billy said.

  “Except for the question of Hussein Rashid,” Ferguson pointed out.

  There was a pause while they thought about it. “Maybe he won’t come. What do you think, Roper?” Dillon asked.

  “You know what I think. Now if you don’t mind, I could do with a return to Holland Park. I’m bruised all over.”

  * * * *

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, of course, was the day everything came together, the day that the trace element Roper had inserted in his computers came up trumps and that a Citation X chartered by Rashid Shipping departed under a flight plan taking it to Khufra in Algeria. But where to from there?

  BRITTANY

  ENGLAND

  Chapter 12

  THE LOW-BUDGET FLIGHT TO RENNES CRAMMED WITH passengers had resembled a refugee flight from some war zone. The train to Saint-Malo, on the other hand, was excellent. A taxi from there took them to Saint-Denis. According to the details the Broker had given Hussein, Romano lived on a boat, the Seagull.

  “This is the best I can do, monsieur,” the taxi driver said.

  Khazid handled it in rapid and fluent French. “That’s okay. We’ll find it.” He overtipped the man, who drove off, leaving them looking at a half-empty marina.

  “Let’s start searching,” Khazid said in Arabic.

  Hussein lectured him quietly. “No Arabic, just in case. You might as well make it English. My French is poor at the best of times.”

  “As you say.”

  There was a walkway, boats of many kinds moored on each side, but they didn’t seem to be getting very far, so Khazid paused and shouted, “Ahoy, Seagull.”

  Nothing happened for a while and Hussein said, “You fool.”

  A young woman came out of the wheelhouse of a motor cruiser and looked toward them. She was pretty enough, denims and a black sweater, and there was a gypsy look to her.

  She spoke in French. “What do you want?”

  Khazid handled her. “We’re looking for a man named George Romano.”

  “He’s at the bar on the jetty. I’ll show you.”

  Both her English and French had strong accents. As they went back a
long the walkway, Khazid said, “Where are you from?”

  “Kosovo.”

  “So, you were in the war, little sister?”

  Hussein managed to kick his ankle, for if the girl was a refugee, which seemed likely from Kosovo, she was almost certainly a Muslim.

  “The war was a long time ago.”

  “And your name?”

  “Saida.”

  Which confirmed it. At the end of the walkway she paused, took a packet of Gitanes from her pocket and a lighter. She put a cigarette in her mouth and Khazid took the lighter from her. “Allow me.”

  “Thank you.” She took the lighter back and inhaled and said in heavily accented Arabic, “I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here, but take care with this man. He’s English Royal Navy, but rotten to the core.”

  Hussein said gently, “You are Muslim?”

  “And the war stank. Allah bless Tony Blair for sending the British Army and RAF to Kosovo to save us from the Serbs.”

  “It is true he did such a thing,” Khazid said. “But what of Iraq?”

  “Agreed, but life is learning to live with the good and the bad.”

  “What a wise girl,” Hussein commented.

  “My father was a teacher of children at the mosque in our small town. When the Serbs came, they hung him-they hung boys, too.”

  All this was delivered in the most matter-of-fact way as they came to a café called the Belle Aurore. There was a terrace at the front with tables, waiters in white jackets, not particularly busy. The man they were seeking was at a corner table reading a copy of Paris Soir. He wore a reefer coat and a seaman’s cap, was perhaps sixty with a florid face and a cruel mouth. He reached out for a glass and continued to read.

  Saida said, “George, these gentlemen are looking for you.”

  Hussein said, “Mr. Romano, I’m Hugh Darcy.”