The Double Tap

Lynch smiled. ‘That’ll be just great.’

‘Do you have somewhere to stay?’ Lynch shook his head. ‘You can use my room,’ she said. ‘You’re too big for the sofa. I’ll sleep in here.’

‘Marie, I can’t thank you enough.’

‘You don’t have to. Just get that fucker Cramer. That’ll be thanks enough.’ She smiled sweetly, the girlish grin at odds with the obscenity.

Mike Cramer could feel the sweat trickle down his back and soak into the handmade shirt. It wasn’t a cold night but he was wearing the cashmere overcoat over his suit. Allan’s orders. Allan was standing slightly ahead of him and to his right, Martin was two paces to Cramer’s left. Both bodyguards were wearing dark suits that glistened under the floodlights. They were walking together across the tennis courts. The nets had been taken down, giving them plenty of space to work in. Cramer had been about to go to bed when Allan had knocked on his door and told him to report outside in his Vander Mayer clothing.

One of the lights was buzzing like a trapped insect but Cramer blocked it out of his mind. There were three men standing at the far end of the tennis courts, whispering. Martin moved to cover Cramer, getting between him and the three men. Cramer’s throat was dry and he was dog tired, but he forced himself to concentrate. The three men started to walk, fanning out as they headed in his direction. Cramer kept walking. The overcoat felt like a straitjacket and the shoes were rubbing his heels.

Allan’s head was swivelling left and right, keeping track of the three men. The man in the middle of the group, stocky and well-muscled with a receding hairline, moved his hand inside his jacket. Cramer tensed, but the hand reappeared holding a wallet. The man on the left of the group bent down as if about to tie his shoelace but Cramer could see that he was wearing cowboy boots under his jeans. Martin moved to block the kneeling man, but as he did the third walker pulled a large handgun from under his baseball jacket. Without breaking stride he fired at Martin, one shot to the chest. Cramer stopped dead, his right hand groping for the gun in its leather underarm holster. Allan began to scream ‘Down! Down! Down!’ and reached for his own gun. Before he could bring it out the man fired again at close range and Allan slumped to the ground.

Cramer grabbed the butt of his Walther PPK. The man walked away from Allan, holding his own gun at arm’s length. He was the tallest of the three, with a swimmer’s build, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes as if to shield them from the glare of the floodlights. He was only six feet away from Cramer, his mouth set in a straight line, his eyes narrowed. Cramer yanked out the PPK, swinging it in front of him, trying to slip his index finger into the trigger guard but he was too late, the gun was in his face. The explosion jerked him back and he flinched, his eyes shutting instinctively so that he didn’t even see the second shot being fired.

‘Shit!’ he screamed.

Allan rolled over and looked at Cramer. ‘Bang, bang, you’re dead,’ he said.

‘It’s this fucking coat,’ said Cramer.

Martin got to his feet and dusted down his trousers before walking over to Allan. He held out his hand and pulled him to his feet.

‘You’re getting better,’ said Allan.

‘I missed the trigger,’ said Cramer. ‘I had the gun in my hand but I couldn’t get my finger on the trigger.’

‘You just need practice,’ said Allan. ‘You’re not trained in quick-draw. In the Killing House you go in with guns blazing, not stuck in underarm holsters.’ He slapped Cramer on the back. ‘You’ll be fine, Mike. Trust me. Come on, back to the starting position.’ Allan, Martin and Cramer went back to their end of the tennis courts while the three other SAS men regrouped.

Cramer slipped his PPK back into the holster, then tried drawing it quickly. It snagged on the pocket of his jacket and he cursed. As he tried again he saw the Colonel open the gate in the tall wire-mesh fence which surrounded the three tennis courts.

The Colonel walked across the red clay playing surface. ‘How’s it going?’ he called.

Cramer pulled a face. ‘Twenty-three runs and I’ve taken a bullet every time.’

‘You don’t have much longer to practice. The photographs have arrived in Miami. They’ll be sent by courier tomorrow. The money is being transferred through the banking system.’

‘I’ll be ready.’

‘Good. The profiler will be here tomorrow. Then you leave for London.’

Cramer shrugged his shoulders inside the coat. ‘I’m going to need a few more rehearsals. I’ve got to get my reaction time down.’

The Colonel nodded and tapped his stick on the playing surface, hard enough to dent the clay. ‘There’s been another killing. In South Africa.’

‘He gets around, doesn’t he? Have gun, will travel.’

‘There’s no turning back now, Joker.’ There was a flat finality about his words, a coldness Cramer hadn’t heard before, as if he was already distancing himself.

The boy heard his mother’s screams as he opened the front door. He fought the impulse to pull the door shut and run away as he stood on the threshold listening to the animal-like cries of pain. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door-jamb. The screams stopped and the boy sighed deeply. He closed the door as quietly as he could but the lock clicked and his mother called out his name. The boy dropped his book-filled carrier bag on the floor and climbed the stairs with a heavy heart.

His mother was curled up on the bed, her arms wrapped around her legs, tears streaming down her cheeks. The boy stood by the bedroom door, watching her. ‘I can’t take any more of this,’ she said.

‘You’ll get better, Mum,’ he said.

‘No, I won’t,’ she said.

‘You will. I know you will.’

‘It hurts,’ she said, curling up into a tighter ball.

She was so thin, the boy realised. Her arms were like sticks and the skin seemed to be stretched tight across her face. But she was still his mum. ‘Shall I call the doctor?’ he asked, his voice trembling.

‘The doctor can’t help,’ she said. ‘He can’t make the hurt go away.’ Her breath started coming in short gasps as if she was having trouble breathing.

‘Do you want me to get you some milk?’ His mother shook her head. ‘What about something to eat?’

‘You have to help me,’ she pleaded.

‘I will,’ he said. ‘I will, Mum. I’ll do anything to make you better.’

She shook her head again. ‘You can’t make me better,’ she said. She fixed him with her tear- filled eyes. ‘But you can stop the hurting. You have to get me my medicine.’

Dermott Lynch woke instantly at the sound of the shower being turned on. At first he couldn’t remember where he was, the wallpaper with its yellow flowers and the ruffles on the curtains gave the bedroom a feminine feel and there was a fluffy white bear on the dressing table which stared at him with blue glass eyes. Sun streamed in through the thin curtains and then he heard someone step into the shower. Marie Hennessy. Lynch looked at his watch. It was just before nine o’clock but he’d only slept for a few hours. Marie had kept him up late, talking over old times, begging him to tell her stories about her mother and father.

Lynch had taken care to sanitise what he told her. While her parents had both died for the IRA, Marie had never shown any interest in joining the organisation and Lynch didn’t think she knew the full extent of their involvement. Liam Hennessy had been an adviser to Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, during several bombing campaigns on the mainland during the late Eighties. He had also been the driving force behind the bomb attack on the Brighton hotel which had come close to taking the life of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Following the death of Liam Hennessy, his wife Mary had assumed an even more active role, going underground and taking part in several high profile bombings, or spectaculars as the IRA Army Council liked to call them. A lot of people had died.

He sat up in bed and rubbed his face with his hands. It still felt strange without the beard, as if the skin