Vagabond (59 page)

Which of them was responsible? The Irishman who was likely to have killed the girl he had travelled with? Or Timofey Simonov’s ‘friend’? He favoured the friend. He would have liked to seek out the man, and put a knee hard into his groin, then catch the chin with a swinging right fist.

He went to Timofey Simonov and told him to shoot the rocket-propelled grenade launcher, with armour-piercing capability. As its back-blast would endanger the Mercedes, he would move the car first.

‘I can fire the RPG, yes?’

‘Why not?’

He went to the Mercedes, eased himself into the driver’s seat, slipped the hearing-aid from his ear, took the pistol from his waist and laid it on his lap. Then he waited.

Malachy fired. He knew no feeling like it. He felt the impact against his shoulder, smelt the whiff of cordine and heard the crack. He was invincible and fearless.

He imagined men in uniform falling in front of him. He aimed shots at tree-trunks that the headlights caught. He fired well. He saw the mountain again as a place where they wouldn’t dare to come unless they were in armoured vehicles with helicopters overhead. He thought of the best boys he could recruit, and how men from as far as Magherafelt and Omagh, Lurgan and Newry would beg to be taken as volunteers. He fired and hit. Each time. He saw gobbets of wood fly from the tree he aimed at. He was supreme. Frankie McKinney was forgotten. So were the boys, his wife and son, even old Brennie Murphy. The weapon was sleek in his hands, and he heard jabbering in his ear.

‘I want to shoot. Before you finish.’

He handed over the rifle reluctantly, and stepped back.

‘I screwed the focus.’

Gaby hissed at him, ‘You have to be ready with it. They were together. I waited for the shutter sound.’

‘The target’s behind the Irishman.’

‘For God’s sake, just do it and—’

The bickering between Gaby Davies and Karol Pilar was cut short. Timofey Simonov had the rifle at his shoulder and aimed half-heartedly with a shaky hand. He had pulled the trigger, not squeezed it, and nothing happened. A jam. He prevented the Irishman from taking it back, and the dealer who had brought the weapons came forward. Danny Curnow, on his knee, saw it all. He knew how to react to a jam . . . and so did Malachy Riordan.

The Mercedes had eased back during the shooting and doused its lights. It seemed to float away, in low gear at snail’s pace among the trees. It was hard for Danny to follow it.

Riordan took charge. There might have been dirt in the chamber, a damaged bullet in its casing or faulty chemicals. Danny Curnow thought it good rifle discipline. He reckoned a range instructor would not have done Immediate Action better – Riordan had the magazine off, then went into the cock–hook–look routine. With ‘cock’, the bolt was dragged back and a round flew out. The headlights caught the dulled old gold of the casing. The ‘hook’ was the activating of the safety gear. A glance inside must have satisfied Riordan when he did the ‘look’. The last round ejected was picked up and pored over. Danny Curnow saw Riordan’s grimace: problem identified. Magazine back on. Safety off.

The rifle was snatched. A shot was fired. The rifle recoiled into the Russian’s stomach. He swore. And there was a shout of pain, then a howl of anger. He didn’t know whether Alpha, Bravo or Charlie had been hit. Chaos erupted.

Gaby Davies’s moment. A Secret Serviceman was reported to have shouted, as his principal was lying mortally hurt on the pavement slabs, ‘Christ, it’s actually happening.’ It was. She had good response.

‘Go! Go for him.’ Her shout.

She had a fist in the Czech’s collar. The man looked to Danny Curnow for an order, and didn’t get it. Gaby used her knee, firmly into his arse, and shifted him.

It was the start of the charge – and half baked.

Danny Curnow was behind the Czech policeman who ran abreast of Gaby Davies. The girl matched his pace and they went across open ground, tufted grass and the foundations of an old concrete base. Two of the boys were coming out of the side, to the left. They were shouting. So were Pilar and Gaby. Why would she yell? Danny had no idea. Noise and pandemonium. The light failed.

The big van had brought the weapons and the man from it was short and wore nondescript clothing, greys and darker colours, with a baseball cap that celebrated an American college football team. He would have been smart – he sold weapons, old Warsaw Pact stocks and the detritus lying around in the Balkans. There were said to be four million unregistered, unlisted firearms in Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro. It was a tough market, and only the smart should apply. He was straight into the cab, straight on with the engine, straight off with the lights.

Danny Curnow had a glimpse of Riordan and the Russian. One fast wrestling movement and the assault rifle was in Riordan’s hands. He ran and Timofey Simonov clung to the tail of his coat and wouldn’t let go. The rifle butt was swung at him and would have hit him but he had the grip and wouldn’t give up on it. The boys with the firepower had torches on the weapons that threw out thin light cones. One caught the tail of the vehicle and sent random shots at it but likely missed. Another torch beam, and he saw Ralph Exton.

A gutless creature, but sensible. Ralph Exton was lying on his side and had his hands over his ears. Thoughts jangled in Danny Curnow’s mind as he ran, guided by the rakish light of the torches. He wondered how long Ralph Exton, paid betrayer, could survive once the cavalry had moved on and the dawn had come: two big enemies lined up and furious in their shouts for vengeance. Obvious who had betrayed them: Russians coming after him, Irish hunting for him, a price on his life – men would queue for the chance to put a bullet into Ralph Exton’s brain. Danny careered past him.

He followed the torches, listened to the shouts and moved. He was out of the cleared area, past the neat row of boxes in which the weapons had been brought and among the trees. Murphy’s Law never failed to give value. They blundered among the undergrowth and searched. Sometimes old buildings loomed up, and there were ventilation shafts with rusted metal caps, air-raid and blast-shelter entrances.

He thought he was part of a loose cordon line, and heard Gaby Davies’s voice, increasingly shrill because the chance of a foul-up was high. The cold seemed to catch him. The owl and the fox had gone quiet. He heard the blundering advance of the searchers – and was part of it.

Chapter 19

If there had been good fieldcraft – and there was not – the line should, as one, have stopped. They should have rooted themselves, stayed still and quiet, should have listened. The exhilaration of the chase won. Danny Curnow heard only the blundering pace of the charge.

The boys with the torches went quickest, the narrow beams pushing ahead of them and bouncing back off trees, bracken, tangles of brambles and the shells of buildings. All three were in the ragged line. Simple enough for Danny Curnow to put in place the scenario: a bullet had come close, hit the vest or the webbing at the waist and there might have been blood. Shock, trauma and a yell had done the job for Murphy the law-maker. They were in front. He knew that Gaby Davies, her big night, was with Karol Pilar away to the left. Danny was to the right, and had no torch. He knew the futility of what he was doing and had drawn the pistol – why? Why indeed? Might have been Dusty a pace behind him:
Don’t mind me asking, Desperate, but why have you got the shooter out? We’re not here to slot anyone
. Dusty always asked the sensible bloody questions and those that had no answer. He slowed.

The moon was above him but had little strength on the ground. Most of its light fell on the trees’ canopy.

He was cocooned in the darkness, the voices faded and the torch beams had filtered out. He had once been in a sangar, well sited with good camouflage, and they had watched a crossroads where the tout had said that two cars would meet and that the heavy stuff – an American-made Barrett rifle, model 82A1, with a 50-calibre round – would be transferred. The Green Slimes didn’t know where it was coming from, what car would be used, where it would be taken to: only a crossroads had been identified. There had been chaos. The South Tyrone Hunt had come through and the crossroads had been filled to bursting with baying hounds and horses of all sizes with their riders. He could have broken cover, shouted to the master and pointed in the direction the fox had taken. It had been a good one, with a fine brush, and had headed away at not much more than a brisk trot, which meant it was confident. Chuckles from him and Dusty in the wet and the dirt of the sangar. A war was being fought, and a marksman’s rifle was about to be transferred to a man who would kill with it. An operation, planned with the precision of the military, had been screwed because the locals were chasing a fox. The cars never came that day. The quiet had returned and they had watched and listened. Always best.

He stopped.

Sometimes he could see the torches and sometimes he could hear voices. More often there was the noise of movement. They needed a dog or, better, a pack. He was against a tree.

A deer came past him, young, fast and bounding. It would have been no more than four paces from him and didn’t swerve. Good that it showed no sign of identifying him. He was against the tree, masked by it. The deer went on. Darkness had never unnerved Danny Curnow.

So much to hear.

The wind made the most of it: it made the trees scrape bark on bark, twigs against branches, and seemed to sing. He heard the voices.

Danny Curnow held tight to the butt of the pistol.

One was whining and against it there was a deeper, angry voice.

He looked for the source, and tried to cut out the other sounds around him. He no longer saw the torches or heard the cordon.

Close to and below him. He was still . . . He concentrated and the voices were clearer. He saw the shape of a low wall a little to his left, the pit beyond it and the one step that was visible.

‘It is because of you. I do a stupid deal, unnecessary – for a friend. It is catastrophe.’ The whine of Timofey Simonov.

Then Malachy Riordan: ‘You dress like a carnival queen, and you have no security. We’re blown away.’

‘The leak will be on your side.’

‘No way – and we’ll be wanting the money back – all of it.’

It was dark. Timofey Simonov’s feet were in deep water. It sloshed at the ankles of his boots and smelt dank. He was against the wall. There had been a table there and a small hard chair with it. He had been awarded – because of his importance in Military Intelligence – a computer, which was on the table for his personal use. He had been valued.

His voice quavered: ‘I was paid to arrange the elimination of a man. He was an enemy of the state, had betrayed it and fled to London. I was well paid. It said on the television news before I left my home that the man I’d bought had been taken by the British police and was held. If he had confessed his involvement and given my name I would have faced a calamitous fall. I live here quietly, but I must earn protection. To gain further protection I accepted the contract from the state. What did I hear this evening? Maybe you do not care, but I finish. What did I hear? The man hanged himself. I am free of involvement and I come here. I could have danced with you. A burden off my shoulder. You understand?’

‘To have a burden on the shoulder, yes – and being unable to shake it off.’

‘I am happy. I am helping Ralph Exton, who is my friend. For not many hours, for a few minutes, I am free of the anxiety. Then the rifle fires and they come from the trees. You are a ship and you think you are safe from the reef, but there is another rock, and more dangerous. Irishman, are you honest?’

The voice was quiet, the anger faded. ‘I’m honest. I don’t lie or cheat.’

‘A fighter in a guerrilla war, and you do not lie or cheat? But you kill?’

‘You accuse me?’

‘Not for killing your enemy. Your face. The scrape on your face, her nails. How was she your enemy?’

‘I don’t cheat.’

‘Your wife . . . You do not cheat on your wife.’

‘No.’

‘And the girl is dead?’

Timofey Simonov strained to hear the answer.

‘Yes.’

A screech owl called.

‘My fighter for freedom, be honest. Could it have been you who was tailed, compromised by the British agencies? Could it be you? Honest.’

‘No. What do you know of intelligence?’