Angel of Death (11 page)

“I suppose so, sir.”

“We’ll see. Keep me posted and watch your back, Chief Inspector.”

He put down the phone. Sat there brooding for a moment and then rang through to Simon Carter’s office.

“Ferguson here,” he said. “The Prime Minister insists I keep you informed, so here’s where we are.”

It was really quite pleasant sitting under an umbrella at one of the tables of the waterside cafe Callaghan had led them to. Colored lights were strung overhead, there was a buzz of conversation, and the tables were crowded.

“Plenty of booze being consumed here,” Dillon observed.

“Ah, but Beirut is a mixed society, my friend,” Walid Khasan reminded him.

Callaghan was at a table by the far rail drinking a beer. He appeared totally unconcerned, looking over the crowd and then out into the harbor.

“And this is where he met Quinn and Bikov?” Dillon asked.

“Yes. Actually he sat at the same table.”

“Excellent. If this thing works as it should, I could be in and out like Flynn.” He waved to a waiter and ordered two lagers.

At that moment Callaghan got up and crossed to the door marked Men’s Room. “Is there another way out of there?” Dillon asked.

“No, definitely not. I’ve been in.”

“Good.” Dillon relaxed and lit a cigarette as the waiter arrived with the lagers.

Francis Callaghan stood at the urinal and as he adjusted his trousers and turned, the door to one of the stalls opened, and a young Arab in khaki shirt and pants emerged holding a Sterling submachine gun, silenced version.

“Good evening, Mr. Callaghan,” he said in good English. “I could blow your spine off with this thing and they wouldn’t even hear out there in the cafe, but we wouldn’t want that, would we?” He reached in Callaghan’s right pocket and removed a Colt automatic. “That’s better. Now stand on that stool we have so thoughtfully provided and climb through the window where my colleagues are waiting to receive you.”

Callaghan did exactly as he was told. His years of involvement in the struggle of Ulster had taught him the advisability of playing it cool in a situation like this. He clambered through the window and was pulled down by two more young Arabs. There was a van backed up behind them, the door open. One of them handcuffed his hands behind him.

Callaghan said, “Look, if it’s money . . .”

He got no further. One of the men slapped him across the face. “Shut up!” he said and pulled a linen bag over his head.

He was pushed into the back of the van, the door slammed, and they drove away.

After fifteen minutes with no sign of Callaghan returning, Walid Khasan got up. “I’ll check it out,” he said and eased his way through the tables to the men’s room. He was out again in seconds and returned.

“Don’t tell me,” Dillon said. “He’s gone.”

“I’m afraid so. He must have used the window. The only other way out.”

“You think he knew he was being followed?”

“I’d be surprised. We’ve been very careful and I was told he didn’t know you by sight.”

“That’s true enough.”

“Then I think it more likely he was just being careful and taking precautions in case he was being followed.”

“So what do we do now?”

Walid Khasan frowned, considering the matter. Finally he said, “I’ll go for a run in the taxi with Ali, circle the area, see if we can spot him. You stay here in case Quinn shows up.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Dillon told him.

“Yes, well there’s not much else that we can do, my friend. I’ll see you in half an hour.”

He left and Dillon sat there waiting. A young woman was working her way through the tables. She had hair as black as night, long to her shoulders, good breasts and hips in a clinging silky dress, dark eyes and a full red mouth. She finally reached him after much lewd comment from men at the surrounding tables.

“You are tourist?” she said in English with a heavy accent.

“You could say that, me darling.”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “You need a nice girl then, or a bad girl? Whichever is okay by Anya. Fifty dollars American. My place is close by.”

“Oh moon of my delight, heaven is here in your presence,” Dillon told her in Arabic. “Unfortunately business requires me to wait here for a friend.” He took a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to her. “This is for the pleasure of looking on you.”

She smiled her delight, tucked it down her cleavage, and made off.

In London, Rupert Lang rang the bell of Yuri Belov’s mews house and was admitted instantly.

“Something important?” Belov asked as he led the way into the sitting room.

“Yes, I tried to get you the other day, but they told me you were in Paris. Some very interesting developments. The Belfast thing went extremely well. In fact, Grace probably saved Dillon’s life.”

“I heard that January 30 had claimed responsibility for several deaths,” Belov said. “IRA it wasn’t. The Protestant factions must be furious. Dillon certainly doesn’t pull any punches.”

“The whole thing was a setup,” Lang said. “He took care of them, of course, but there was an extra man in the shadows. He’d have got Dillon in the back if Grace hadn’t intervened, so we thought we might as well claim the whole lot while we were at it.”

“And what’s happened now?”

“Dillon made Daley talk before killing him. It seems that Quinn is in Beirut to do a deal for a supply of plutonium. He’s dealing with a man called Selim Rassi of the Party of God and a KGB Captain called Bikov.”

“Bikov?” Belov shook his head. “I don’t know him, but these Party of God people are pretty ruthless.” He shook his head. “Plutonium. All my sources indicate that the Protestant para-militaries in Ulster have reached a new mood of desperation, but plutonium. That brings in the threat of nuclear devices. That’s a whole new dimension.”

“Yes, but see it from their point of view. Sinn Fein, which is really the same as the IRA, get three percent of the vote in the Republic of Ireland and ten percent in Ulster, and yet as the product of a ruthless campaign of terrorism, they end up having achieved peace negotiations, which could mean the Protestants being thrown to the wolves, the Army packing it in, and the threat of some sort of departure by the British Government. It could be a recipe for civil war.”

“Another Bosnia, my friend,” Belov said. “But the threat that could be imposed if this plutonium could be used in a nuclear device would be incalculable. A whole new and terrible world.” He walked to the sideboard, poured a couple of whiskys, came back, and gave one to Lang. “Let’s hope our friend Dillon has the right kind of luck.”

At that moment Francis Callaghan was standing in front of a desk in a rather gloomy room illuminated by a single lightbulb. They had only just pulled the bag off his head and he was dazzled after the darkness. He was also, for the first time, beginning to feel thoroughly frightened. The young man who had kidnapped him in the toilet at the cafe sat behind the desk smoking a cigarette, the Uzi machine gun in front of him. He was examining Callaghan’s passport.

“You are from Cork, I see. You represent an electronics firm?”

“That’s right,” Callaghan told him eagerly. “ Francis Callaghan. I’m at the Al Bustan. If you look in my wallet there’s a permit from the Ministry of Supply.”

“You’re a liar.” The young man nodded and someone standing behind Callaghan punched him in the kidneys so that he went down on one knee. “You’re an Irish terrorist, Protestant variety, here with Daniel Quinn to acquire a supply of plutonium from a KGB agent named Bikov and Selim Rassi of the Party of God.”

“There’s been a mistake,” Callaghan said.

The young man nodded again. This time a rifle butt thudded into Callaghan’s back and he went down again. The two men who had been standing behind him started to kick him in the body savagely.

“Not his face,” the young man ordered.

After a while they stopped, pulled Callaghan up, and sat him in a chair. He was in considerable pain and half sobbing as he said, “You’ve got the wrong man.”

“Really.” The young man leaned back and lit another cigarette. “I don’t think so, but we’ll see.” He nodded to the others. “Let’s save some time. Put him in the well. I don’t think he’ll last long down there.”

They grabbed Callaghan by the arms, picked him up and hustled him out along a passage, across a courtyard, and into a barn. There was the round, low stone wall of a well in the center. One of the men provided a key and unfastened Callaghan’s handcuffs. The other picked up a rope with a loop on the end and slipped it over his head beneath his arms.

“Now look here,” he said.

One of them slapped him, then they ran him across the barn and shoved him over the wall, hanging on to the rope, bracing themselves as he swung against the stonework. They lowered him quite quickly, and after about thirty feet, he splashed into water. He had a moment of panic as he went under, but it was only about four feet deep, the bottom a thick and slimy ooze and the stench was terrible.

“Loosen the rope,” one of them called.

Callaghan did as he was told, looking up at the faces peering down at him, watching the rope going up. It was bitterly cold and he shivered and then the light went out and there was only the darkness.

At that moment back at the cafe, Dillon leaned over the rail looking out at the shops in the darkness of the harbor, waiting for Walid Khasan. There had been no sign of Quinn, not that he’d really expected one. He went down some steps to a lower level where motor boats were moored. As he lit a cigarette, there was a footfall and he turned and found Anya, the prostitute, there.

“So here you are,” she said in Arabic.

“So it would appear,” he said. “And the answer is still the same.”

“What a pity.” She reached in her shoulder bag, produced a Colt .32 automatic with a silencer on the end, and rammed it into his side. “No one will hear, Mr. Dillon, so I suggest you do as I say.” She reached in his pocket and found the Walther. “So, now we walk to the other end and mount the steps, all very sensibly. You follow me?”

“Oh, if needs be, I’m the most sensible man in the world, girl dear,” he told her in English.

“Good, then let’s get moving.”

There were several cars parked at the top of the dock and she took him across to the other side where the same van which had transported Callaghan earlier was waiting. Two men moved out of the shadows. One of them pulled a bag over his head and the other handcuffed him. They pushed him in the rear and joined him. Anya got behind the wheel and drove away.

When they took the bag off his head he was standing in the same room Callaghan had found himself in earlier and the same young man sat behind the desk. The two men stood behind Dillon and the girl went and leaned against the wall, smoking a cigarette.

“You do good work,” Dillon told her. “I’m only sorry I didn’t take you up on your offer.”

The man behind the desk said, “My sister, Mr. Dillon, so mind your mouth.”

He nodded and one of the men put a rifle butt into Dillon’s back, sending him down on his knees. They lifted him up and put him in a chair.

The young man said, “You are Sean Dillon, an ex –IRA enforcer now working for Brigadier Charles Ferguson of British Intelligence. You are staying at the Al Bustan with a good-looking lady called Amy Cooper who is really Chief Inspector Bernstein of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch.” He shook his head. “Jewish. We don’t like Jews here in Beirut. They’ve given us a lot of trouble.”

“Well good for them,” Dillon said.

One of the men clouted him across the side of the head and the young man said, “My name is Omar, that is all you need to know. I’m with the Dark Wind group. You’ve heard of us?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of you.”

“I know why you are here. To find an Irish Protestant terrorist called Daniel Quinn who is here to do a deal with Selim Rassi of the Party of God and a piece of KGB slime called Ilya Bikov.”

“You’ve a vivid imagination.”

One of the men hit Dillon again and Omar said, “You were following Callaghan tonight, Quinn’s right-hand man. You were a nuisance, Mr. Dillon. You see, we of Dark Wind don’t care for the Party of God at the best of times, but in this case, we would like the plutonium for ourselves.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

“Like you, I don’t know where Quinn and Selim are hanging out. However, we do have Callaghan at the bottom of the well on the other side of the courtyard. He won’t like it down there, he won’t like it at all, and neither will you.”

“I see,” Dillon said. “I’m to have a bath too?”

“You will end up dirtier than you went in, Mr. Dillon. It’s rather unpleasant. I don’t think Callaghan will last the night. He’ll talk by morning.”

“You seem sure about that.”

“Oh, I am. You see, I’ve had a rather ingenious idea. I’ve nothing against you, so I’ll have a message sent to Walid Khasan and the Chief Inspector offering to sell you back.”

“Now isn’t that kind of you,” Dillon said.

“Ah, there’s a catch. Once down there with Callaghan, you go to work on him. I don’t care how you do it, but you get him to tell us where Quinn may be found.”

“Is that all?” Dillon said.

Omar got up, came round, put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. “Enjoy it, Dillon, your last for some time, and be sensible. You see, if you don’t get Callaghan to talk, I won’t sell you back. I’ll have you shot.”

Dillon smiled at Anya. “See where an interest in good-looking women gets you? I should have listened to my aunt Mary.”

Anya laughed out loud and Omar smiled. “I like you, Dillon, but business is business.” He nodded to the two men. “Take him.”

They led Dillon along the passage, across the courtyard, and into the barn. They paused at the well while one of them removed his handcuffs, then slipped the loop over his head.

“Over you go,” he ordered.

Dillon climbed over the wall and they lowered him down into the darkness. He was aware of the water, cold and clammy, the stench, glanced up as he slipped out of the rope and saw them peering down. They pulled up the rope.