Dead Men (21 page)

‘I’ve no interest in terrorist attacks or symbolism,’ said Salih. ‘The only symbols I care about are those found on banknotes.’

The Russian guffawed and slapped Salih’s knee. ‘We are alike in that respect, my friend.’ He took out a leather cigar case and offered it to Salih, who shook his head. ‘You don’t smoke?’ asked Merkulov.

‘A hookah pipe sometimes,’ said Salih. ‘I like my smoke sweet and fragrant.’

Merkulov put the cigar case back inside his coat. His hand reappeared with a gleaming white envelope, which he gave to Salih. ‘She’s in Belfast,’ he said. ‘At least, she was this morning. She’s moving backwards and forwards between Northern Ireland and London. She visits Glasgow every two weeks.’

Salih opened the envelope and took out three computer printouts. One was a list of phone calls made and received with the date and time of each. The second showed the location of the mobile when the calls had been made and received. The third was a list of landline locations.

A group of Japanese tourists walked past, heading for a booth that offered boat trips along the river. ‘And what about getting the locations of the mobile numbers she’s been communicating with?’ asked Salih.

Merkulov grimaced. ‘That’s tough and expensive. If you want that done you’ll have to tell me which numbers to check and we’ll do them one by one.’

Salih studied the list. ‘She’s been calling one mobile number a lot while she’s in Belfast. Can you get me a list of calls made and received from that phone? Say, another five thousand pounds?’

‘You don’t need locations?’

‘Just the numbers at this stage.’

‘Then five will be okay,’ said the Russian.

Salih handed him an envelope. ‘Here’s twenty on account.’

The Russian put it into his pocket. ‘It is always a pleasure to do business with a professional like yourself,’ he said. ‘Be careful, old friend. I wouldn’t want to lose such a good customer.’ He grunted as he stood up and blew a cloud of blue-grey smoke towards the Thames. Then he walked off in the direction of the Houses of Parliament.

Salih watched him go. The Russian’s legs moved awkwardly as if he was having problems with his hips. Merkulov was in his late sixties, but he was in a business where age was no barrier to success. All that mattered was the quality of the information he traded. Salih’s profession was much more age-dependent: his survival depended on his fitness and performance. He reckoned he had another five years ahead of him, ten at most. By the time he was forty he would be either retired or dead.

He crossed his legs and watched a tourist boat battle upstream, dozens of cameras clicking as a bored woman in a red anorak held a microphone to her lips and detailed the buildings that lined the banks. It would be a challenge to go up against a man like Yokely. It wasn’t the first time Salih had been paid to kill another assassin and he doubted it would be the last. It was a job like any other. The problem lay in getting close to the man, who moved between countries leaving virtually no trace. But if Yokely was close to Button, perhaps that was his weakness. If Salih killed the woman,Yokely would attend the funeral. Once he was in the open, he would be vulnerable.

Salih stood up and headed for Embankment Tube station.

Jonas Filbin tossed a briquette of peat on to the fire and prodded it with a brass poker, then settled back in his overstuffed leather armchair. ‘They’ll be banning this before long, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘The Government’s legislating all the pleasures out of life. Either that or taxing them to death.’

‘Aye, you can’t beat a real fire,’ said Gerry Lynn, swirling his whiskey around the glass. He was sitting on a leather sofa with Michael Kelly, one of his IRA minders. Kelly was a few years younger than Lynn, with a mop of red hair that defied all attempts to comb it into shape. He had taken off his jacket to reveal a shoulder holster with a large automatic under his left armpit. He was drinking a mug of sweet tea. He wouldn’t touch alcohol when he was working. The other minder, Mark Nugent, was in his late twenties and deferred constantly to him. Nugent had been on defensive driving courses and was a crack shot, though he had only ever fired on the range. The IRA had announced its 1994 ceasefire as Nugent had turned thirteen. Although he had been through the organisation’s training programme, he had missed the opportunity to put those skills into action against the British.

The four men were in a farmhouse in north County Dublin, a large rambling grey-stone building amid acres of potato fields. It had been in Filbin’s family for six generations and he had moved there from Belfast after his release from prison following the Good Friday Agreement. Filbin’s elder sister was upstairs in bed.

Filbin and Lynn had shared a cell in Long Kesh for almost eighteen months and had been released on the same sunny July morning. Filbin had served just six years for the murders of two policemen and the attempted murder of two soldiers. He had refused to recognise the British court that tried him and had been given four life sentences but like Flynn had been released early under the Good Friday Agreement. Filbin was in his sixties with a farmer’s ruddy complexion and watery brown eyes.

‘And how’s Sean MacManus, these days?’ asked Lynn.

‘Still in Portlaoise, and not a happy bunny,’ said Filbin.

‘Aye, well, that’s what you get if you leave your fingerprints on a gun,’ said Lynn. Portlaoise was the most secure prison in Europe, guarded twenty-four hours a day by the Irish Defence Forces. It was also one of the oldest, and bleakest, gaols in Ireland and was where the Irish Government kept its terrorist prisoners. MacManus was a member of Continuity IRA, which, unlike the Provisionals, had been granted no favours under the Good Friday Agreement. He would rot in jail for the kidnap and murder of two Gardai officers.

‘Aye, but you can see the irony in the situation, I’m sure,’ said Filbin.

‘The irony?’ repeated Lynn. He sipped his whiskey.

‘Well, we’re Irish, and he’s Irish. We killed coppers, he killed coppers. He gets sent down, we get sent down. But he’s sleeping on a pissy mattress and getting an hour of fresh air a day, and here’s you and me drinking whiskey and raising our glasses to a job well done.’

Lynn grinned. ‘Aye, there’s irony there.’

‘But did you ever think, when we were in Long Kesh, that we’d be out so soon, free and clear?’

‘For the first couple of years I was sure I’d die behind bars,’ said Lynn. ‘But remember in 1998, when Mo Mowlam turned up to talk to Mad Dog and that nutter Stone? That’s when I knew things were going to happen and the Brits wanted rid. Sure enough, three months later the Good Friday Agreement’s signed and we had our tickets out.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to Martin and Gerry, God bless ’em. There were those that doubted them, but the boys came through.’

Filbin raised his glass. ‘
Tiocfaidh ar la!
’

‘
Tiocfaidh ar la
? Our day will come? Our day has come, Jonas. It’s here and now.’

‘And there’s the irony,’ said Filbin, kicking off his boots and wriggling his toes. ‘We’re getting what we wanted, what we fought and killed for, and the likes of Sean are still eating prison food.’

‘He backed the wrong horse,’ said Lynn. ‘Continuity and Real IRA are pariahs now and always will be. There’s no going back for them. And no going forward. The War on Terror has made sure of that. All terrorists are tarred with the same brush, these days. I tell you, Jonas, the Good Lord was smiling down on us. If we’d still been at war come Nine Eleven the Provos would have been smashed, no question.’

‘Aye, timing’s everything,’ agreed Filbin. He poured more whiskey into their glasses. ‘So what’s it like now, Belfast?’

‘Boom town,’ said Lynn. ‘If I didn’t already own a couple of houses, I wouldn’t be able to afford one. It’s gone crazy. We’ve got tourists photographing themselves in front of the Peace Wall and coach trips down the Falls Road.’

‘And the cops?’

‘None too happy with their new name and the fact that Sinn Fein are scrutinising their every move, but fuck ’em, hey?’

‘Aye to that,’ said Filbin. ‘Do you think it was the cops that did for your boys?’

Lynn sighed. ‘Who the fuck knows? The Brits swear blind it wasn’t, but how the hell would they know? If it was rogue cops they’d hardly broadcast what they were doing.’

‘The SAS settling scores?’

‘That’d be more likely in Joe’s case because he had a few run-ins with them. I dare say they wouldn’t mind giving me the old double-tap too, but Willie McEvoy was a wheel man and never shot anyone, let alone a Sass-man. In any case, the Sass are too busy in Afghanistan and Iraq, these days.’

‘Well, it won’t be the spooks because they can’t move these days without some parliamentary sub-committee or another breathing down their necks,’ said Filbin. ‘And they’ve got bigger things to worry about than settling old scores.’

‘Who would have thought London could be more dangerous than Belfast? Bombs on the Tube,nutters trying to get bombs on planes, buying job lots of fertiliser and planning to blow up shopping malls.’

‘Bloody amateurs,’ said Filbin.

‘They’re on a learning curve, same as we were in the seventies and eighties,’ said Lynn. ‘And they’ve got the advantage that they’re happy enough to blow themselves to kingdom come as well. We’d never have got guys prepared to kill themselves for the cause, but the ragheads are queuing up to be martyrs.’

Filbin grinned mischievously. ‘That’s because they’ve got seventy-two virgins waiting for them in Heaven.’

Lynn laughed. ‘Yeah, that was always a problem for us. We could never have found seventy-two virgins in Belfast.’

Filbin drank some whiskey. ‘I went to school with Joe McFee. Threw my first petrol bomb and did my first kneecapping with him. He didn’t deserve to die like that, shot like an animal.’ A faraway look came into his eyes. ‘Who’d do that, huh? You’re right about the spooks, though. MI5 and MI6 aren’t allowed to kill anyone. The cops and the army might have scores to settle, but the spooks are too cerebral for that. University graduates one and all.’

Lynn cupped his glass in both hands. ‘It could be the Prods, getting in a last hurrah,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t put it past them. They’re laying down their arms, so they say, but they’re not decommissioning and there’s some mad bastards who won’t listen to their leadership anyway.’

‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Filbin.

‘I keep looking over my shoulder,’ said Lynn, and patted his chest, ‘and I’m wearing a vest, though I’m not sure how much good it’ll do because McFee, Dunne and McEvoy were all shot in the back of the head.’

‘And the knees, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Which is how the RUC Special Branch guy died, isn’t it? I’m assuming that’s not a coincidence.’

Lynn’s eyes narrowed. ‘What big ears you’ve got,Grandma. The cops haven’t revealed the details, just that they were shot.’

‘I might be a farmer these days but I’ve still got friends in the North. I’m told that Joe and the guys were killed the same way Robbie Carter died.’

‘That’s what I’ve heard, yeah.’

‘Then it’s as obvious as the nose on your face. Someone’s taking revenge for what you did to him. Family or friend. Has to be.’

‘The cops say they’re looking at that, but they won’t tell me what they’ve got, if anything. I made a few enquiries myself. Carter’s parents are old, he’s got a brother in Canada and his widow’s got no connection with paramilitaries. Neither has her family.’

‘So that just leaves the whole of Special Branch.’ Filbin scowled.

‘We killed Carter in 1996,’ said Lynn. ‘I know revenge is a dish best served cold but waiting this long is ridiculous.’ He grinned at Kelly and Nugent. ‘Anyway, with these guys babysitting me, no one’s going to get near me.’

Kelly lifted his mug of tea in salute. ‘That’s the plan, anyway,’ he said.

‘What about Noel Kinsella?’ asked Filbin. ‘Who’s taking care of him?’

‘He’s thrown in his lot with the Brits,’ said Lynn, contemptuously. ‘He’s got the cops watching over him – and the spooks as well, from what I hear. Lying low in London until they get the killer.’

‘Is it right he’s been promised something in the new Assembly?’

‘Apparently.’

‘And that he’s married well?’

Lynn chuckled. ‘A Kennedy.’

‘Well indeed, then,’ said Filbin.

‘It’s a love match, I’m told.’

‘There’s only one person Noel Kinsella loves and that’s himself,’ said Filbin. ‘Between you and me, I never really trusted him. Always out for what he could get.’

‘He’s destined for better things now,’ said Lynn. ‘In his own mind, anyway.’ He paused. ‘I’d better be going.’

‘Stay the night, Gerry. There’s a spare bed.’

‘We can be back home in a couple of hours,’ said Lynn. ‘It’s motorway and there’ll be no traffic this time of night.’ He drained his glass. ‘It was good to see you, Jonas.’

Filbin hugged him. ‘You be careful, yeah?’ He kissed Lynn on the cheek.

Kelly and Nugent pushed themselves out of their chairs and shook his hand. ‘You take care of this man now,’ he said.

Kelly and Nugent walked with Lynn to their Lexus. Nugent climbed into the driving seat and Lynn sat next to him. Kelly walked to the barred metal gate at the entrance to the courtyard and opened it.

Nugent drove slowly across the cattle grid and waited while Kelly closed the gate and climbed into the back.

‘Right, boys, don’t spare the horses.’

Nugent headed slowly down the gravelled track that led to the main road. As they left the farm, he flipped on the full headlights, their powerful beam flooding the track ahead. A fox hurried away, its tail low, and an owl soared into the darkness.

‘He’s real old-school, Jonas, isn’t he?’ said Nugent.

‘Careful what you say. He’s not much older than me,’ said Lynn.

‘I meant politically,’ said Nugent.