The Killing Ground Part 26

"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 G.o.d, 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 ash.o.r.e from ships in the Pool. You've never seen anything like it. Every nationality on G.o.d's earth. Indians, blacks, lascars, and if you dressed the right way you got swallowed up by them."

He looked at his watch. "d.a.m.n me, it's seven already. We'll have to get moving." He gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek."G.o.d 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 ca.n.a.l. 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 h.e.l.l 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 ca.n.a.l 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 ca.n.a.l, 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 ca.n.a.l. 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. t.i.tanium 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 a.s.sa.s.sin."

"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 announced. "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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 pa.s.sed, 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, Linda Jones, down there. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.senger 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 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 n.o.body appeared. 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 n.o.body 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, gla.s.ses 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 c.o.ked 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 pa.s.sengers 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. 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." 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 along 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."