Scalpel (33 page)

42

5.17 pm

They arrived in three unmarked Special Branch cars. Dowling drove the first with Hamilton in the passenger seat and John Doyle in the back. The other two cars had three detectives in each, all armed.

They pulled up in the car park and two went to the side, two to the back and the rest paused for the go-ahead outside the apartment entrance. Dowling, Hamilton and Doyle led the way up the stairs and along the corridor to flat twenty-three. One elderly lady, dressed for an hour's shopping in Grafton Street, almost fainted when she opened her apartment door and walked straight into the oncoming team. They shushed and ordered her back inside, identifying themselves.

Dowling tapped on the door, gently at first, then more loudly. The noise from the TV inside could be heard.

He shouted a warning: 'We have a search warrant. Open the door or we'll have to make a forcible entry.'

Which is what they did. Three thumps from Doyle's sledge hammer and the door gave way, setting off two piercing alarms, the noise swamping their thoughts, dulling their curses, and driving John Doyle to take the sledge hammer to one of the inside sound boxes. Mercifully this stopped it, only the outside alarm box continued its whoo-whooing with blue light flashing. But inside the flat, apart from a Sky early evening news programme, there was no sign of life.

Outside Dean Lynch watched and listened to his alarms from the shadows of a darkened telephone box, his hand on the receiver in the speaking mode, one foot pushing the door slightly open.

He slipped the bullets into the magazine. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, then clipped the magazine into place. Metal slid over metal as he fed one round into the breech. He unclipped the magazine and slipped in another bullet. Seven in the magazine and one up the breech, just like London John had taught him.

He watched for almost ten minutes until she came out.

'Pull the place apart.' Hamilton followed the team as they opened the fridge, ripped the mattress, pulled out drawers, prised at floorboards. They discovered the secret compartment and old syringes, needles, sterile water ampoules and green bags with traces of white powder that Lynch had overlooked when he fled the nest.

They discovered everything but Dean Lynch. Who was slowly making his way towards them, sheltered by the shadows of the late evening, hidden by the trees that lined the road.

'Tony,' she motioned to Dowling, 'I'd like a word outside.' The others stopped for a moment. 'Keep looking, bring anything important into the middle of the kitchen and we'll bag it. I want to get a forensic team down here. Everyone put on gloves. I'll be back in a minute.'

She walked with Dowling back down to the car park where she shone a torch into Lynch's car. There was nothing visible, just seats, seat belts, steering wheel, gear stick, the usual, but nothing else. The alarm company logo was etched on all four windows.

'For Jaysus' sake, Kate, don't break inta the car. Me head's still ringin' from that other alarm. The bastard's flown. I bet there won't be a scrap in there tellin' us where he's got to.' Hamilton shone the torch back inside again, but she knew Dowling was right.

The shadowy figure came closer, now only about fifty yards from where the two were standing.

'We better put out an alert and notify all stations. There's road blocks all over the place looking for that kidnapper. We'll need to warn them.'

Hamilton suddenly felt the sense of foreboding again, the sense of impending doom. She looked up and peered at the surrounding gloom. Nothing. Nothing that was unusual.

The figure in black, with hood pulled up and gun held down at his side, came closer, checking all the time he wasn't being followed or watched. One or two cars drove past but no one inside saw or noticed anything amiss.

'I'm freezing, let's get into the squad car and ring HQ from there.'

'I'm all for that,' muttered Dowling, blowing against his cupped hands in a vain attempt to restore some feeling to his numbed fingers.

Lynch finally crossed the road, walking casually and directly. He looked neither left nor right, eyes firmly fixed on Hamilton, watching as she opened one of the car doors and climbed inside. He watched Dowling climb in the other side and smiled. He half-suppressed a fit of coughing that tore at his chest and spat a blob of phlegm onto the road, tasting blood in his mouth again.

'Flick on the light, Tony, would you? I'm going to ring the hospital and see if he's turned up there. I can't see a thing in the dark.'

Dowling flicked the light above the rear vision mirror, noticing a slight movement, like a dark shape that came out and went back behind some bushes. He squinted through the steamed up window, rubbing a circle clear with the back of his right hand. Nothing moved again. He turned towards Hamilton as she talked to switch at the hospital on her mobile phone.

'No, Dr Lynch hasn't been in all day. I'm afraid no one knows where he is. It's very strange, they had to cancel a theatre list because he didn't turn up.'

'Where is the bollox?' muttered Dowling as he turned the engine on.

Hamilton looked at him suddenly. 'Where are you going?'

'I'm not goin' anywhere. I'm freezin'. I just wanna get some heat in the car. Relax, we're not goin' anywhere.'

Lynch made his final move.

He walked out from behind the bushes, Walther held down by his side, firm, purposeful strides towards the car with the inside light on, where he could clearly make out Detectives Hamilton and Dowling. Hamilton was still speaking into her mobile phone, Dowling wondering whether he'd go fishing that weekend for a break.

'Who's that?' Dowling suddenly noticed the figure, now only twelve feet from the car and flicked on the car headlights, fiddling for full beam. 'Who the fuck's that?' This time he shouted.

With his left hand Lynch pulled back his hood, revealing his face. Just as quickly he raised the gun, clasped firmly in both hands, cup and saucer style. Don't forget to shout, Bobby boy, don't forget to shout. Don't go for a head shot, go for the body. Heads can be ducked out of the way.

Kate Hamilton looked up in time to see the face in the headlights. The mobile phone dropped from her hand and she started to scream.

'Ah Jesus…' were the last words Tony Dowling ever spoke, ever roared.

The image of Rory, screaming in his nightmare, flashed across Kate Hamilton's mind as the flashes from the Walther PPK opened up.

Shooting against the beam of the headlights Lynch was slightly dazzled, his target indistinct. But he kept the pad of his finger firm and squeezed gently, each recoil confirming a successful discharge. London John had been a good teacher.

The first bullet passed through the palm of Tony Dowling's right hand as he held both up in a futile attempt to ward it off. The second entered the side of his left cheek, shattering gums and teeth, spinning his head around so that he was splayed momentarily across Kate Hamilton as she
tried to curl into a ball. The third bullet entered the back of his head, ending his life. Hamilton felt his blood spurt across her face, heard his gurgling and grunts.

Then a sharp sting hit her right chest.

Desperately trying to crouch deeper and at the same time pull her own handgun into action she had no chance as the next bullet shattered the side window, tearing open her scalp. Only the searing pain kept her thinking. I'm still alive, I'm still alive, Rory. The splintered side window was smashed in by an elbow and she looked up to see Dean Lynch's wild eyes, a half-smile on his face as he pointed the Walther straight at her head.

The scream wouldn't come out, her throat constricted. All she saw was the flash before darkness closed in.

43

7.34 pm

Operating Theatre Four, Merrion Hospital,

Sandymount, Dublin 4

'She's stable, she's stable. She's lost a lot of blood but she's stable.'

Three trauma surgeons and four nurses were working on Kate Hamilton. She had taken a direct hit on her right rib cage, her third thoracic rib shattering but directing the bullet away from a major artery and out of her body. The splintering bone had punctured her lung, the resulting pneumothorax collapsing almost two-thirds of that lung. A considerable amount of blood had entered her right chest cavity. A second bullet had shaved the left temporal scalp but did not penetrate the bony skull. There was heavy bleeding from the wound also. The third bullet had entered and exited her left upper arm, tearing a large skin flap from which she had bled heavily as well. The surgeons decided not to graft that wound, it was better left until she was in a more stable condition. A rough estimation suggested she had lost about three pints of blood. It was a lot, but not fatal, she would survive. At that moment she was heavily sedated and breathing on oxygen via a face mask, with an intercostal drain at the upper right chest to re-expand the collapsed lung. A second drain had been inserted at the base of the right lung to drain away the collection of blood. An IV line trickled a Crystalloid infusion while a second IV line in her other arm trickled antibiotics.

'Get a full blood count, immediate haemoglobin and
haematocrit. I want a repeat chest X-ray in two hours, basic obs recorded every fifteen minutes, pulse, blood pressure and respiratory rate.'

Nurses busied themselves preparing blood sample bottles, ringing the laboratory for urgent access to results.

'Give her the first two litres Crystalloid over an hour. Let the third litre drip in over the next two hours. Keep both IV lines open, though.' The senior trauma surgeon barked his orders. It was all routine to him but it was life and death for Kate Hamilton.

She would survive, thanks to the immediate attention. Unlike Tony Dowling, who did not.

He was lying in the hospital morgue, pronounced dead on arrival by one of the casualty officers.

'Take her up to ICU. Anyone know who did this?'

John Doyle stood outside the theatre, still shaking. He knew. He'd chased Lynch for almost a mile before losing him along Baggot Street. But he knew who did it and he equally knew he could just as easily be on that operating table himself, or, even worse, lying in the morgue, like Tony Dowling.

'It doesn't look good.'

In the radiology department of the Central Maternity Hospital Paddy Holland was looking at the viewing box along with Donal Collins, consultant radiologist. Flicked up on the screen were the latest AP and lateral chest X-rays of Gordon O'Brien. The pneumonia was not abating.

'No, it doesn't, Paddy. How does he look?'

'Terrible.'

'Do you think he'll make it?'

Holland looked at the screen closely again, the lung markings, the infective shadowings, the heart outline. He glanced down at the most recent blood results, taken in the past hour. The white cell count was still very high as was the ESR. The blood culture had finally been reported confirming a Group B Streptococcal septicaemia. Holland looked again
at the observations: pyrexial, rapid tachycardia, and remembered how the baby looked fifteen minutes previously.

'No, I don't Donnie. I don't. I don't think he'll make morning.'

9.00 pm

The RTE nine o'clock news was extended as were bulletins on Sky, BBC, ITV, CNN, NBC and a number of other national and cable broadcasting organisations. The news out of Dublin was so hot camera crews were working overtime, dashing from one flash point to another. Images of the Elms apartment complex and the bullet riddled car partly hidden by police screens and yellow incident tapes were beamed across the country and the world. The word was out. The detective team investigating the murders at the Central Maternity Hospital had been attacked, almost certainly by the man responsible for the murders themselves. One female detective lay in a critical, but stable condition in the intensive care unit of the Merrion Hospital in Dublin. Another older and very experienced detective lay in the morgue of the same hospital. Lifeless. The news reader solemnly added that the detective's name could not be released until next of kin had been notified, but Garda sources had revealed he was only weeks away from retirement.

The cabinet was meeting in emergency session, Alice Martin and Commissioner Quinlan both attending to brief the government on developments.

Tommy Malone watched and listened, Betty sitting beside. They were nibbling on a Chinese takeaway.

'Jaysus, Tommy, ye're not even the main attraction tonigh'.' It was a forced attempt at humour. Then, like a bombshell, the screen showed a photograph of Dean Lynch followed by front and side views of Tommy Malone.

Lynch first, then Malone.

'The government has announced that a reward of half a
million pounds will be paid to anyone providing information leading to the successful arrest of either of these two men. They are Dean Patrick James Lynch, aged forty-five years, five foot six inches tall, grey-haired, of stocky build but said to be showing signs of recent weight loss. He was last seen in the Baggot Street area of Dublin wearing a black tracksuit top and bottom with hood pulled up over his head. The other is Thomas, also known as Tommy, Malone, aged fifty-eight years. He is five foot eight inches tall, usually well dressed and with steel-grey hair and has a thick moustache. Gardai have warned members of the public not to approach either of these men but to immediately notify their nearest Garda station or contact the Garda confidential telephone line if they are spotted. The number is on the bottom of your screens and will remain there for the rest of this extended news bulletin. Both men are considered highly dangerous and are almost certainly carrying fire arms.'

The newscaster shuffled papers and turned back to autocue. 'In other news,' he added, trying hard to lift even his own mood, 'Sister June Morrison, the nurse attacked and left unconscious when baby Gordon O'Brien was kidnapped, has made a full recovery. Doctors at Wicklow General Hospital expect her to be able to go home within the next day or two.'

Tommy Malone turned the volume down and stared at the screen. He couldn't have given a stuff about June Morrison's recovery, there was too much else worrying him. Betty's hands were shaking.

'We can't stay here, Tommy. Ye know they'll find ye here. Nothin' happens aroun' here without somebody noticin'. Ye just can't stay here for much longer. Sandra'll be up tomorra and she'll notice somewan's stayin' here, sure as God. She misses nuthin'.'

Malone ground out a cigarette and turned to Betty, looking her straight in the eyes. For a moment he didn't speak.

'Will ye come with me, Betty? I know how to get outa

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