The Killing Ground (24 page)

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“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 196

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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.

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“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.

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.

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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.”

“So what? There’s only one way to handle this.”

“You noticed the prison photos on Roper’s screen were about twenty years old. You wouldn’t even recognize them now.”

“Let’s just see.”

T H E Y P A R K E D O U T S I D E the Green Tinker and went in the saloon bar.

Three old men sat at a table by the window and played dominoes. An unshaven young man in a black T-shirt with short sleeves and lots of muscle stood behind the bar reading a newspaper. The snug door was open and old Fahy was filling a pipe. He took one look at them and an 200

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expression of horror appeared on his face. The barman glanced up. He wore a black patch over his right eye. From the expression on his face, he wasn’t impressed by what he saw.

“Yes?”

“I’ll have half a bottle of still water,” Billy told him.

“And a glass of your strongest for me.” Dillon smiled. “Bushmills, if you have it.”

“And we’d also like to see Nolan and Kelly,” Billy said.

The man put Dillon’s whiskey into a shot glass. He gave it to Dillon, pushed another glass at Billy and picked up a jug of water from behind the bar. “Will this do, sir?”

Billy reached for the glass. “Why not?” The man started to pour, then moved all the way up the sleeve of Billy’s trench coat.

Old Fahy called, “I wouldn’t do that, Michael,” but Billy was already reaching, pulling the man across the bar, punching him heavily in the face several times.

The old man stopped talking. Billy pulled Michael up, jerked the left arm out straight, the edge of his own right hand descending like a chop-ping axe. He eased him down into a chair.

“I think you’ll find I’ve broken it. Now, Nolan and Kelly? Who’s going to speak up?”

Old Fahy said, “You’d better come in the office. I expect you’ll force your way in anyway.”

They stood and looked at the display on the wall, read what was said about them, examined the photos.

“I think yours is quite good,” Dillon said. “I’m not sure about mine.”

“It’s called the older man look,” Billy said. “You know, been places, done things.”

“Is that it?” Dillon passed his glass to Fahy. “I’ll have the same again.”

“The Bushmills as usual, I know that well.”

He poured a large one. Dillon said, “And how would you know?”

“Because he heard you order one from the prick next door,” Billy said.

The old man shook his head. “I’m from Derry. I saw you three times

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with Martin McGuiness there. I had my moments with the IRA, but ten years inside finished me off and I came to Kilburn. Remember a pub called the Irish Guard? I was pot man there. Gerry Brady was the publican. Did me a favor and found me a job. I remember the first time you came in and asked for Gerry, only you weren’t calling yourself Sean Dillon.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be.”

“But I knew you. February ’ninety-one it was, the time somebody mounted a mortar attack on the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet at Downing Street.”

Dillon smiled. “We won’t get into that one. Have a Bushmills and tell us what you know about this lot on the wall.”

“And what bleeding Nolan and Kelly are up to,” Billy said.

Fahy poured himself the Bushmills. “Now do I look like an informer?”

“You’d look a damn sight worse if I put you on sticks,” Billy told him.

“For you, then, Mr. Dillon. Jimmy got all this stuff on his computer, photos, pages and so on, from a man called Flynn in Dublin.”

“You listened in?”

“The walls are terribly thin here. They were being offered a contract, that’s the upshot of it. A hundred thousand pounds. That’s why they put everything up on the board.”

“The bastards,” Billy said. “So they intend to do all of us.”

“The Ferguson fella and Harry Salter are the prime targets, that was the phrase used.”

“And how was this to be achieved?” Dillon asked.

“Nolan and his cousin Patrick run this place.”

“We know that,” Billy said. “Do they intend to do it themselves or put a crew together?”

“They’ve got Danny Delaney and a worm called Sol Flanagan: drugs, booze, they’re off their heads most of the time.”

“What’s their game?”

“Armed robbery, shops, particularly Muslim stores of any kind.

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Delaney is crackers. He really hates those Pakistanis and he shoots without hesitation.”

“And Flanagan?”

“Cut from the same bolt of cloth.”

“And never been nailed for any of this?” Dillon asked.

“Oh, they’ve been pulled in, appeared in court on occasion, but you can’t get a conviction without witnesses, can you?”

“Who else?” Dillon asked.

“Different breed altogether. Jack Burke and Tim Cohan. London Irish, the kind who slipped off to Ulster to join the Provos when they were kids. They did the lot, including the Maze. They know you, Mr. Dillon, and were distressed to see you in bad company.”

“Who did they particularly dislike?”

“Ferguson. Burke said he was lifted along with some others when Ferguson was a colonel in Derry. Cohan said that if he passed him on a wet night in the rain, he’d shoot him in the back without hesitation.”

“Never mind all this,” Billy said. “Where are Nolan and Kelly now?”

“They went out about forty minutes ago. They were both armed and they aren’t coming back. Their conversation was all about filling the time until this evening. They were going to drive past Ferguson’s house, check out your place, Mr. Dillon, then later visit the Dark Man. Something about the movies was mentioned—maybe they intend to kill time there until it’s late enough.”