The Double Tap

had been painted a bright red, and wire baskets of brightly coloured flowers were hanging by the windows.

He switched on the radio and listened to a phone-in programme where listeners were calling up to give their views on the death penalty. Lynch half-listened as he watched the trucks file into the printworks. The Times, the Sun, the Sunday Times, the News of The World, most of the country’s large circulation newspapers were printed there. The IRA had drawn up plans to bomb the plant several times and at one stage they had actually stored over a ton of fertiliser explosive and several kilos of Semtex in a lock-up garage on the Isle of Dogs, in preparation for the go-ahead from the Army Council. Lynch had helped put the explosive in place and another active service unit was instructed to commandeer one of the delivery trucks, fill it with the explosive and drive it into the plant. The 1994 ceasefire had put an end to the planned spectacular, and the explosive cache was now buried somewhere under the New Forest in plastic dustbins. A pity, thought Lynch. It would have made one hell of an explosion. And he’d never liked the Sun, anyway.

Most of the callers to the radio station seemed to be in favour of bringing back the death penalty, and several offered to do the deed themselves. Lynch smiled to himself. He had long thought that there was a vicious side to the British character, a nasty undercurrent that was never far from the surface, and radio talk shows seemed to bring out the worst in the population. String ’em up and hang ’em high appeared to be the consensus, and even the presenter agreed with the majority. It was as if the British public had never heard of the Guildford Four or countless other miscarriages of justice, where if there had been a death penalty, there would have been no chance of an appeal, no chance to prove that evidence was faked or juries misled.

The programme was coming to an end when Marie walked out through the security gates and down the street towards the Rover. There was a spring in her step and her hips swung from side to side as she walked. It was a sexy walk, a youngster’s walk, the walk of a girl who was used to being watched. It was also a walk that men would remember, and that could be dangerous. It wasn’t a good thing to be remembered, Lynch knew. Better by far to blend, to remain anonymous, so that you could come and go without anyone knowing you’d ever been there. All the volunteers had that quality, an ability to remain unnoticed in a crowd. The idea that members of the IRA were big, threatening figures was a figment of the media’s imagination. They weren’t the monsters that papers like the Sun painted them, most of them looked no more threatening than an assistant bank manager. It wasn’t physical size or strength that counted in a war, it was a mental attitude, mental toughness. Character. Lynch wondered if Marie had what it took. She had the enthusiasm, and the motivation, but there was a world of difference between wanting to see another person dead and helping to pull the trigger.

Marie opened the passenger door and slid into the car. ‘Your man Vander Mayer’s a secretive soul,’ she said.

‘Secretive?’

‘He’s been mentioned twice in the last ten years.’

‘In The Times?’

‘In any British or American publication. They’ve got this on-line computer database which lets you put in key words and call up any article that ever used the words. It goes back ten years with most publications, even further with some. And Andrew Vander Mayer has had two honourable mentions, one in a feature on arms dealers in Newsweek three years ago, and another in the Asian Wall Street Journal five years ago.

‘What was that about?’

‘The Chinese planning to sell tactical nuclear weapons. They were said to have approached several international arms dealers and he was one.’

‘Jesus Christ, nuclear weapons?’

Marie handed him a computer printout. ‘Read it for yourself. The story is pretty thin on facts, but it names him as an American arms dealer who has contacts all over the world.’

Lynch sniffed and took the cuttings. He scanned them quickly. As she said, the mentions were brief; one sentence in the Newsweek piece, two paragraphs in the Journal.

‘I think you can pretty much discount the nuclear weapons stuff,’ said Marie. ‘It was three years ago and it never happened. It reads to me like one of those “what if” stories.’

‘Yeah, but he’s obviously pretty high-powered. It makes you wonder what he’s doing with Cramer.’ He stuffed the printout in the glove compartment. ‘What about photographs?’

Marie pulled down the sunvisor and checked her make-up in the mirror. Lynch realised she must have kissed the journalist she’d met. ‘No photographs. There were no photographs of Vander Mayer used with the two articles, and none in The Times’ files. My friend called up Reuter and AP and the news agencies don’t have any either. Andrew Vander Mayer has never been photographed.’ She folded the sunvisor back up. ‘What now?’

‘Vander Mayer’s office. It could be that Cramer’s there. If he isn’t, maybe we can get hold of Vander Mayer. We’ll play it by ear.’

The man Simon Chaillon had known as Monsieur Rolfe popped the tab on a can of Diet Coke and put his feet up on the coffee table. The television was tuned to CNN, a financial news programme. A blonde with blow-torched hair and a middle-aged man with matinee-idol looks were discussing the strength of the dollar against the yen with the measured seriousness of people who weren’t quite sure of what they were talking about and were frightened of being caught out.

The man had no interest in the world’s financial situation. He had more than enough money, more than he could reasonably be expected to spend, tucked away in safety deposit boxes around the world. Interest rates and currency fluctuations didn’t concern him one way or the other. He picked up the remote control unit and channel- surfed for a while as he drank from the can but he found nothing to hold his attention. He settled for a channel which was playing country music videos. A manila envelope lay on the table next to a stack of new magazines. He put down his soft drink and picked up the envelope. Inside were three colour photographs, but he tossed them to the side. It was the three A4 typewritten sheets he was interested in. The top sheet was a biography of the target, Andrew Vander Mayer, and details of his entourage. He leaned over and picked up the photograph of the target walking away from a Mercedes. A young Oriental girl, pretty but with a frown creasing her forehead, was just behind him. Su-ming, her name was. There was no mention of a surname. The man studied the picture, tracing his finger along her face and down her body. She had a boyish figure, trim and tight, just the way the man liked them. He’d have enjoyed meeting Su-ming under other circumstances, but he doubted whether they’d get to spend much time together. The man kissed his forefinger and then pressed it onto the photograph. ‘Don’t worry, Su-ming, it’s not you I’m after,’ he whispered.

He dropped the photograph back on the table and read through the Vander Mayer itinerary. London. Then New York. Then back to London and on to Hong Kong. Vander Mayer’s residence in London was in Chelsea Harbour, a place the man had visited several times. It boasted an excellent restaurant, the Canteen, part-owned by the movie star Michael Caine, and a five-star hotel. It was generally a quiet area, especially in the evenings — a perfect place for a hit.

The man put the sheets of paper back into the envelope. The Vander Mayer assassination could wait. He had more urgent business to take care of first. He took a long drink from his can of Diet Coke and turned up the sound on the television.

Dermott Lynch parked the Rover in a side street overlooking the building which housed Vander Mayer’s office. Marie got out and fed the meter, then leant into the car through the window. ‘There’s a call box over there,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long.’

‘Just be careful,’ he said, handing her a ballpoint pen and the piece of paper on which he’d written down the details of the owner of the jet. ‘Be relaxed, low-key, don’t give them any reason to remember you.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ she said.

Lynch grabbed her wrist, hard enough to hurt. ‘Marie, this isn’t a game,’ he hissed.

Marie suddenly became serious. ‘I know.’

Lynch let go of her arm. ‘Be careful,’ he repeated.

She rubbed her wrist. ‘I will be. Don’t worry. I won’t let you down.’ She patted the top of the car as if saying