Angel of Death (8 page)

“You never even told me,” Curry said.

“Secrets again, old sport, we all have them.”

“I certainly do. I killed a man,” Grace said.

“Perhaps not. I was the one who made sure with both of them.”

“I killed him,” she said. “I know it and so do you.”

“Has it given you a problem coming to terms with it?” Curry asked.

“Not really. Looking back it seems to have been like a performance in a play or film and it merges into all my other performances.” She shook her head. “Heaven knows what a psychiatrist would make of that, and anyway, those men were scum.”

“Exactly,” Lang said. “There was, as the courts put it, reasonable cause.”

“A good point,” she said. “I got all the press cuttings on January 30. There was Ali Hamid, an Arab terrorist, a KGB Colonel called Ashimov, two IRA bombers some silly judge released, an American here in London reputed to be a CIA agent, and now our two friends in Belfast. I’d say the one weak link would be the American.”

“I see,” Curry said. “You accept the killing of the KGB Colonel, but the CIA man is a different proposition.”

“I see the logic in what you’re saying. I suppose it’s a question of your point of view.” She finished her champagne and put the glass down on a side table. “Of course, it didn’t take the authorities long to work out that January 30 was the date of Bloody Sunday in Londonderry and you were there, Mr. Lang. Interesting coincidence.”

“Rupert,” he said. “Please. Yes, I was there along with a couple of thousand soldiers and large numbers of IRA supporters.”

There was a long silence. She opened a silver cigarette box and took one out. Lang gave her a light and she blew out a feather of smoke. “Why do you do it?”

“Do what exactly?” Lang asked. “I mean, just because we arrived in that alley at an opportune moment and as a Minister of the Crown on service in Ulster I do have a permit to carry a weapon.”

“A silenced Beretta 9-millimeter Parabellum,” she said. “In all the newspaper reports they constantly mention the fact that all January 30 hits have been committed with the same weapon.”

“Many people think of it as the best handgun in the world these days,” Lang said. “The American Army uses it — thousands of them around.”

She opened a drawer in the side table and took out a newspaper clipping. “This is the
Belfast Telegraph
report on the deaths of those two animals in Carrick Lane. They state that the credit for the killings claimed by January 30 is substantiated by the forensic tests on the rounds removed from the bodies indicating that they were killed by the same weapon used to assassinate the other victims, a Beretta 9 millimeter, silenced version.”

“Amazing what they can do these days,” Lang said. “The scientific people, I mean.”

Curry emptied his glass. “What are you going to do? Turn us in?”

“Don’t be stupid, Tom. I’d be turning myself in, however much a good lawyer tried to argue my case. No, I haven’t the slightest intention of doing that, but one thing I would like to know. Why do you do it?”

“For me it’s simple,” Curry said. “I’ve been a Marxist-Leninist since boyhood. It’s my faith, my religion if you like. I think the world needs to change.”

“And Communism is the answer?”

“Yes, but change comes out of chaos and anarchy, which is where we come in.”

“And you?” she said to Lang.

“Well life can be such a bloody bore. Helps to have a little excitement once in a while.”

“Rupert never takes anything seriously,” Curry told her.

Lang smiled. “All right, Father.
She
can play good women or bad, great queens, murderers, the worst harlot in the world. Now that’s really getting your rocks off.” He turned to Grace. “But it isn’t enough, is it, and never will be.”

“You bastard,” she said. “You clever, clever bastard.”

“But I’m right. You’d like to join in.”

She sat there looking at him and, for a moment, had a quick glimpse of that shadowy figure in Washington, gun raised high, and her stomach crawled with excitement.

It was two weeks later that Curry turned up at the Old Red Lion, a pub fringe theatre where she was doing her one-woman show for a week. She was sharing a cramped little dressing room with two young girls acting as assistant stage managers. He glanced in and found her putting on jeans.

“Hello, it’s me,” he said.

“Tom, how nice. How was I?”

“Dreadful.”

“Bastard,” she said.

“Only sometimes. Are you free for a Chinese?”

“Why not?”

An hour later, working their way through a third or fourth course, she said, “It’s lovely to see you, but to what do I owe the honor?”

“We saw that interview on you in the
Stage
. All about you having a month off after finishing this show until you start
Macbeth
for the Royal Shakespeare Company.”

“So?”

“There’s a Parliamentary break, so Rupert’s free and I have nothing on. The thing is, Rupert has this old hunting lodge in Devon, Lang Place. Been in his family for years. Moors, shooting, all that kind of stuff. On Dartmoor.”

“My dear Tom, the only time anybody bothers to go there for the shooting is August when the birds do their usual stupid thing, and deer culling is so rigid these days that it’s hardly worth the effort. So — what’s it all about?”

He paused while crispy duck and pancakes were served. “The shooting could be fun — all kinds of shooting. I know Rupert might seem your effete aristocrat, but he knows his stuff when it comes to weaponry.”

She nodded. “That does sound interesting. Anything else?”

He paused, looking at her, then sighed. “You’ve heard of Kim Philby, Burgess, Maclean?”

“Oh, yes — didn’t they all go to Cambridge too and work for Russia?”

“Yes, well they all had rank in the KGB. I’m a Major in the GRU. That’s Russian Military Intelligence. My boss would like to meet you.”

“And who might that be?”

“Colonel Yuri Belov.”

She started to laugh. “But I know him. When I did Chekhov’s
Three Sisters
last year the Soviet Embassy gave us a reception. He was chief cultural attaché or something.”

“Or something,” Curry said with an apologetic smile.

She laughed again. “All right. When do we leave?”

And she was glad she’d gone. Rupert had a twin-engined Navajo Chieftain pick them up from an airfield in Surrey, and the flight to an old World War Two RAF landing strip near Okehampton only took an hour. Here a man with a weather-beaten face was waiting for them. He introduced himself as George Farne and escorted them to a Range Rover.

After a half-hour drive through wonderful moorland scenery and forest, they reached a wooded valley and saw Lang Place. It appeared to be eighteenth century, with tall chimneys and an ornate garden behind high walls.

When they pulled up at the steps below the front door, Rupert Lang came out wearing jeans and a sweater, an Irish wolfhound at his heels. He came down the steps and took Grace’s hands.

“You look wonderful, as usual.”

“Well, you don’t look too bad yourself.” She kissed him on the cheek. “What’s the wolfhound’s name?”

“Danger.” Lang fondled its ears.

“Bring the bags, George,” he called and took her up the steps, an arm about her waist. “Tell me, can you ride a motorcycle?”

“One thing I’ve never tried.”

“Oh, you’ll take to it like a duck to water. I have a couple of Montesa dirt bikes. Spanish job. Go anywhere. Good if you’ve got sheep in the high country. I’ll show you tomorrow.”

They had an excellent dinner, although very simple, all prepared by George Farne’s wife, steak, new potatoes, salad, and some sort of cream tart. Afterwards, Lang opened the French windows and they stood on the terrace with brandies, listening to the silence.

“Do you only have the Farnes working here?” she asked.

“That’s right. George’s Dad worked for my father, so he’s known this place as long as I have. He and his wife caretake. He brings in local help when he needs it.”

“What a heavenly existence,” she said.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Tom Curry told her. “You’d be screaming your head off by the second week.”

“Philistine,” she said and turned to Lang. “What now — , Bridge?”

“Actually, I have a shooting range in the barn. I thought you might like to try your hand.”

For a moment, she stared at him and then she smiled. “Why not.”

When Lang switched on the lights in the barn they disclosed a very professional shooting range with a wall of sandbags at the rear fronted by six-foot cardboard replicas of charging soldiers. An assortment of weaponry was laid out on several trestle tables, hand guns, machine pistols, and rifles.

Curry lit a cigarette and stood watching. Lang picked the first pistol up. “Recognize this, our old friend the Beretta? This is how you load it.” He picked up an ammunition clip and rammed it in the butt. “Would you like to try?”

“Why not.”

He ejected the clip and handed her the Beretta. She loaded it for herself. “Good, now pull the slider and you’re in business, but don’t fire. Let me give you some ear muffs.” He adjusted them. “Good. Take aim, both eyes open, then squeeze gently.”

She did as she was told, hitting the target she aimed at in the shoulder, firing one round after the other, a widely dispersed pattern. He showed her how to discharge the magazine.

“Not bad. At least you hit him.”

She was suddenly angry. “Could you do better?”

Rupert slammed another magazine in the butt of the Beretta, pulled the slider, and his hand swung up. He fired three times very rapidly, shooting out the target’s eyes and putting the third in between. “My God!” she said.

“He’s got nothing to do with it. I’ve got a selection for you here. Walther PPK, Browning, both similar to the Beretta, and a Smith & Wesson revolver.”

She moved to the other table. “And this lot?”

“Stun grenade, standard-type hand grenade. The rifles are an Armalite, AK-47, both with sonic noise suppressor — silencer to you. The big job is a Barret Light Fifty Rifle with a laser guide night sight. Fifty-round, that thing fires, guaranteed to penetrate a Kevlar at two thousand yards.”

“A Kevlar?”

“Flak jacket like the army wears in Ireland. Actually, I’ve got a neater job here, rather like a waistcoat. Titanium and nylon. Should suit you down to the ground.”

She examined it. “You were sure of me, weren’t you? Do I get to try the rifles?”

“Plenty of time, we have all week, but why not.”

He reached for the AK-47, unfolded the butt, and Curry came forward. “Just one thing before you two start having fun.” He picked up the Walther, slammed in the magazine, and said to Grace, “Come on.”

He walked down the range and paused about five feet from the targets. “You want to make sure? I’ll show you how.”

He walked to the center target, held the gun to it, and pulled the trigger. “See what a brilliant marksman I am?”

He came back to her. “But if that isn’t possible, never further away than five or six feet.”

He raised the Walther and emptied it into the target.

Grace said, “I get your point.”

Curry turned, walked to the table, and put down the Walther. “She’s all yours, old lad,” he said and walked out.

It was a bright, clear morning, although rain threatened, and Grace Browning was enjoying herself on a track high up above the forest. She wore black biker’s leathers which Lang had provided and a rather sinister black helmet. Lang was riding behind her, wearing jeans and a bomber jacket but no helmet. Danger ran alongside them. After his initial instruction, it was fun to find how well she could handle the bike. He pulled in beside her, lit two cigarettes, and passed one to her.

“You’ve got flair. Typical actor, I suppose. Chameleon-like ability to take on anything at short notice.”

“Nothing typical about me, darling,” she said. “But I like physical things and this is fun.”

“Good. You’ve mastered the rudiments. We’ll take a twenty-mile run round the moor and back to the house. You’ll be amazed how quickly you’ll pick it up. Just one thing. There’s a very good reason why the Montesa is so popular with shepherds in mountain and moorland country. They’ll do half a mile an hour over rough ground if you want. On the other hand, you can go rather faster.”

He turned the throttle and zoomed away, and after a moment’s hesitation she went after him.

Curry returned to London on the Navajo the following day. After breakfast, Lang took Grace up into the forest to give her more practice on the Montesa.

After an hour, they stopped for a break and sat on the grass. He lit two cigarettes as always and gave her one. She lay on her back. “I like you, Rupert — I like you a lot.”

“Snap, my sweet,” he said. “Except I love you a lot.”

“Yet you’ve never put a hand on me once.”

“I know, my gorgeous one,” he teased her. “But you see I’m terribly faithful. Fell in love with Tom first time we met at Cambridge. Women — and please don’t get upset — don’t do the slightest thing for me.” He turned over and kissed her. “Having said that, I adore you. I suppose you think I’ve got a piece missing in my personal jigsaw.”

“Oh, Rupert, my lovely Rupert, don’t we all?” she said and kissed his cheek.

He rolled away and raised himself on one elbow. “The Navajo’s doing a return; bringing an old friend of mine down just for twenty-four hours. George is picking him up.”

“Who would that be?”

“Ian McNab. Used to be my company sergeant major in the Paras. He runs a gym in London. Karate, judo, aikido — all that sort of thing for those who want it.”

He paused and she said, “And something more?”

Rupert lit another cigarette. “Most martial arts and defense techniques generally are designed to help you defend yourself, ward the attacker off, that sort of thing. To come to terms with those techniques takes years of training. Ian McNab offers something quite different.”

“And what would that be?”