spin on contact, mimicking the action and massive tissue damage of a.22. Cramer wasn’t sure why the killer had bothered — the nature of the bullet made little difference in a point-blank shot to the face.
In all, the assassin had fired nine shots. One each for the three bodyguards, two for the drugs dealer, then two more into the chest of one of the bodyguards who’d been trying to pull his own gun out despite being shot in the throat. On the way out of the nightclub the assassin had been challenged by one of the tuxedoed doormen and he’d shot him twice. Nine bullets. Definitely not a revolver.
Many 9mm handguns held eight or nine in the clip, but Cramer doubted if the killer would have gone into a place as crowded as the nightclub and fired off all his shots. He’d have wanted the security of something in reserve. A second clip wasn’t out of the question, but changing clips would take time and he’d be vulnerable during the changeover. Cramer’s weapon of choice would have been the Browning Hi-Power, effective up to forty feet and with thirteen rounds in the magazine, but he figured the killer had used something like a SIG-Sauer P226, which held fifteen cartridges. It was only a guess because he knew there were literally dozens of other possibilities: Heckler amp; Koch of Germany made a thirteen-shot 9mm handgun, the P7A13; the French had the MAB P15 with a fifteen-shot magazine; the Italians had the Beretta Model 92 series with magazines ranging from eight to fifteen; the Czechs had the fifteen-shot CZ 9mm Model 75; the Austrians had the Glock, made from lightweight polymer and available with fifteen, seventeen and nineteen round magazines. Most European countries had factories churning out large capacity 9mm handguns, and tens of thousands found their way to the States, legally or otherwise.
Cramer massaged the bridge of his nose and blinked his eyes. Even if the killer had a favourite weapon, and even if he could identify it, the knowledge wouldn’t do him any good. By the time Cramer was staring down the barrel of whatever gun it was the killer was using, it would be too late. Bang. One bullet in the face. Bang. The second in the heart. Then nothing but darkness.
There was a knock on the bedroom door. ‘Come in, Mrs Elliott,’ he said, closing the file and dropping it onto the bed. He recognised her knock, two taps in quick succession, like the double tap in the Killing House.
Mrs Elliott carried a tray into the room and put it down on a chair by the bed. ‘A snack for you, Mr Cramer,’ she said. ‘Hot milk and ham sandwiches.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Elliott. You shouldn’t have bothered.’ Most of the food she brought up to his room ended up being flushed down the toilet, though he usually drank the milk. Her glance barely passed over the bottle of Famous Grouse but Cramer could sense her disapproval.
‘It’s no bother, Mr Cramer,’ she said, and disappeared out of the door, her dress cracking like a sail in the wind.
Cramer poured a double measure of whisky into the milk and sipped it as he picked up the file again. Cramer wondered what significance there was in the fact that the Miami assassination had been the first. The only links between all the killings in the files that Cramer had read were the handgun and the placing of the two shots. The Miami assassination had been quick and efficient, as if the killer knew exactly what he was doing. Cramer wondered if he’d actually killed before, but using a different method so that the deaths hadn’t been included in the investigation. The killing seemed too professional to have been a first. Perhaps he’d killed in many different ways before focusing on his preferred method?
There was also the question of how the killer had been hired in the first place. Becoming a contract killer wasn’t like setting out to be a doctor or an accountant — you couldn’t simply move into an office and put a sign on your door. Contract killers had to have a track record, they had to prove that they could kill and get away with it, and they had to prove that they could be trusted. Cramer had heard of former soldiers and mercenaries who’d become contract killers, but generally such assassins were Mob-trained, career criminals who had served their apprenticeships before becoming fully-fledged killers. Killers didn’t just appear from nowhere. There were skills to be acquired, techniques to be mastered. Cramer knew, because he was a killer, and he’d been trained by the best.
He dropped the file on the floor and picked up the next one. It was several times thicker than the Miami file, and as Cramer flicked through it, he soon realised why. The victim had been a British Member of Parliament, a Scot earmarked for a ministerial post who had been a close friend of the Prime Minister. Cramer vaguely remembered reading about the assassination, but at the time he’d been more concerned about the pain in his guts and the grim faces of the Spanish doctors. He scanned the police reports. The killer had been dressed as a motorcycle cop and had flagged down the MP’s official Rover as it drove away from a newly-opened semiconductor plant. The killer had calmly waited for the driver to wind down his window, then he’d shot the MP’s minder in the shoulder and killed the MP with two shots, one to the face, one to the heart. The descriptions provided by the injured bodyguard and the driver were worse than useless — the killer had kept his full-face helmet on, the tinted visor down, and he’d been wearing black leather gloves. Medium height, medium build.
Strathclyde Police had started a preliminary investigation but a team of Special Branch officers were sent up from the Metropolitan Police to take over. Despite the heavyweights, the investigation stalled. A burnt-out motorcycle was discovered in a field outside Carlisle a few days later, but it provided no forensic evidence.
Cramer read a memo from Special Branch to the Security Service requesting possible motives for the assassination and the reply, sent two days later, was noncommittal. The MP was married with two teenage children, had no known sexual liaisons outside the marriage, was a lawyer by profession and had no controversial business interests.
The Security Service did however point out that the MP had helped organise a campaign to stop an American oil company developing two huge offshore oilfields for Iran. The company had been about to sign the billion-dollar contract when the MP raised the matter in the House of Commons. The British had been pressing the Russian Government not to supply the Iranians with nuclear reactors, and the MP made a stirring speech complaining that it was unfair to ask the Russians to stop trading with Iran at a time when the Americans were about to help the country develop its oil resources. The State Department stepped in and the deal was blocked. ‘It is possible,’ the Security Service memo concluded, ‘that the assassination was revenge for the blocked contract.’ Cramer smiled thinly. The memo didn’t say whether the Iranians or the oil company might have paid for the hit. The way big business operated these days, it could have been either.
There was a sheaf of correspondence between Special Branch and the FBI, exchanging information on hired assassins who might be prepared to kill such a high-profile target, but it was clear that the investigation was going nowhere. A memo from Special Branch to the Prime Minister’s office some three months after the killing suggested as much. The Prime Minister hadn’t replied to the Special Branch memo; instead he had written a seven word memo to the Colonel. ‘Immediate action required. Report directly to me.’ The unsigned memo explained something that had been troubling Cramer ever since he had started working his way through the stack of files. Cramer had wondered why the Colonel and the SAS should be leading the hunt for a paid assassin, especially one who appeared to be most active in the United States. Now the answer was clear; it wasn’t just to prevent further killings. The Prime Minister had taken it personally. He wanted revenge for a dead friend.
The mist came rolling off the hills around Crossmaglen, a cold, damp fog that chilled Lynch to the bone. He shivered and looked over at O’Riordan. ‘Nice day for it,’ he said.
‘I don’t suppose a city boy like you gets up before dawn much,’ said O’Riordan. He was wearing a green waterproof jacket, a floppy tweed hat and green Wellington boots. Had it not been for the Kalashnikov he was cradling in his arms, he would have looked every inch the gentleman farmer.
‘Forecast was for sun,’ said Lynch, rubbing his hands together for warmth.
O’Riordan pulled a face. ‘You can’t forecast the weather here,’ he said. ‘It changes from one minute to the next. You should have worn a waterproof jacket, right enough.’
‘Yeah, now you tell me.’ Lynch had put on a black leather jacket with a sheepskin collar which was already wet through, and blue denim jeans which were soaking up the damp like a sponge. Beads of dew speckled his beard and moustache, and water trickled down the back of his neck in rivulets.
The two men stood by O’Riordan’s Landrover which they’d parked under a chestnut tree, but it provided little in the way of shelter, as the moisture was all around them like a shroud. Lynch looked at his wristwatch. It was just before five. O’Riordan was right, he rarely got out of bed before ten and he disliked mornings, with a vengeance.
Davie and Paulie Quinn jumped down from the back of a mud-splattered truck a short distance away, then reached inside and pulled out large spades.
‘Think we should help them?’ asked O’Riordan.
