Palestine, but the temperature was at least thirty degrees lower.
Salih glanced over his shoulder, but he was already sure he wasn’t being followed. London was a great place to hide. He had read somewhere that a third of its inhabitants had been born overseas. It was a city of foreigners, a city of strangers. There was no such thing as a typical Londoner any more, so no one stuck out.
The Russian was sitting on a wooden bench that overlooked the river. He blew smoke as Salih sat down next to him and gestured at the giant wheel with his cigar. ‘It has to be the mother of all targets, doesn’t it?’ he said. Salih assumed that the question was rhetorical so he said nothing. ‘I mean, its full name is the British Airways London Eye, so blowing it up would be on a par with bringing down a 747. And you’d probably kill as many people.’
‘Are you planning a terrorist atrocity?’ asked Salih. ‘I didn’t think it was your style.’
‘Nor my area of expertise,’ said the Russian. ‘I leave that sort of thing to your kinsfolk. But what do you think? Four suicide-bombers? Blow up individual pods? Or a massed attack at the bottom to see if you could bring down the entire structure. Can you imagine what it would look like? One big bang and the wheel slams into the Thames. Everyone on it would be killed, guaranteed. And such an image! That’s what al-Qaeda wants – images. They didn’t care about the three thousand or so who died in the Twin Towers. They wanted that image of the buildings on fire, then collapsing. Same with the attacks on the Tube. It’s a symbol of the city, and their attacks are all about symbolism.’ He blew smoke, then jabbed his cigar towards the giant wheel. ‘And over there, my friend, is one hell of a symbol.’
‘I’ve no interest in terrorist attacks or symbolism,’ said Salih. ‘The only symbols I care about are those found on banknotes.’
The Russian guffawed and slapped Salih’s knee. ‘We are alike in that respect, my friend.’ He took out a leather cigar case and offered it to Salih, who shook his head. ‘You don’t smoke?’ asked Merkulov.
‘A hookah pipe sometimes,’ said Salih. ‘I like my smoke sweet and fragrant.’
Merkulov put the cigar case back inside his coat. His hand reappeared with a gleaming white envelope, which he gave to Salih. ‘She’s in Belfast,’ he said. ‘At least, she was this morning. She’s moving backwards and forwards between Northern Ireland and London. She visits Glasgow every two weeks.’
Salih opened the envelope and took out three computer printouts. One was a list of phone calls made and received with the date and time of each. The second showed the location of the mobile when the calls had been made and received. The third was a list of landline locations.
A group of Japanese tourists walked past, heading for a booth that offered boat trips along the river. ‘And what about getting the locations of the mobile numbers she’s been communicating with?’ asked Salih.
Merkulov grimaced. ‘That’s tough and expensive. If you want that done you’ll have to tell me which numbers to check and we’ll do them one by one.’
Salih studied the list. ‘She’s been calling one mobile number a lot while she’s in Belfast. Can you get me a list of calls made and received from that phone? Say, another five thousand pounds?’
‘You don’t need locations?’
‘Just the numbers at this stage.’
‘Then five will be okay,’ said the Russian.
Salih handed him an envelope. ‘Here’s twenty on account.’
The Russian put it into his pocket. ‘It is always a pleasure to do business with a professional like yourself,’ he said. ‘Be careful, old friend. I wouldn’t want to lose such a good customer.’ He grunted as he stood up and blew a cloud of blue-grey smoke towards the Thames. Then he walked off in the direction of the Houses of Parliament.
Salih watched him go. The Russian’s legs moved awkwardly as if he was having problems with his hips. Merkulov was in his late sixties, but he was in a business where age was no barrier to success. All that mattered was the quality of the information he traded. Salih’s profession was much more age-dependent: his survival depended on his fitness and performance. He reckoned he had another five years ahead of him, ten at most. By the time he was forty he would be either retired or dead.
He crossed his legs and watched a tourist boat battle upstream, dozens of cameras clicking as a bored woman in a red anorak held a microphone to her lips and detailed the buildings that lined the banks. It would be a challenge to go up against a man like Yokely. It wasn’t the first time Salih had been paid to kill another assassin and he doubted it would be the last. It was a job like any other. The problem lay in getting close to the man, who moved between countries leaving virtually no trace. But if Yokely was close to Button, perhaps that was his weakness. If Salih killed the woman,Yokely would attend the funeral. Once he was in the open, he would be vulnerable.
Salih stood up and headed for Embankment Tube station.
Jonas Filbin tossed a briquette of peat on to the fire and prodded it with a brass poker, then settled back in his overstuffed leather armchair. ‘They’ll be banning this before long, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘The Government’s legislating all the pleasures out of life. Either that or taxing them to death.’
‘Aye, you can’t beat a real fire,’ said Gerry Lynn, swirling his whiskey around the glass. He was sitting on a leather sofa with Michael Kelly, one of his IRA minders. Kelly was a few years younger than Lynn, with a mop of red hair that defied all attempts to comb it into shape. He had taken off his jacket to reveal a shoulder holster with a large automatic under his left armpit. He was drinking a mug of sweet tea. He wouldn’t touch alcohol when he was working. The other minder, Mark Nugent, was in his late twenties and deferred constantly to him. Nugent had been on defensive driving courses and was a crack shot, though he had only ever fired on the range. The IRA had announced its 1994 ceasefire as Nugent had turned thirteen. Although he had been through the organisation’s training programme, he had missed the opportunity to put those skills into action against the British.
The four men were in a farmhouse in north County Dublin, a large rambling grey-stone building amid acres of potato fields. It had been in Filbin’s family for six generations and he had moved there from Belfast after his release from prison following the Good Friday Agreement. Filbin’s elder sister was upstairs in bed.
Filbin and Lynn had shared a cell in Long Kesh for almost eighteen months and had been released on the same sunny July morning. Filbin had served just six years for the murders of two policemen and the attempted murder of two soldiers. He had refused to recognise the British court that tried him and had been given four life sentences but like Flynn had been released early under the Good Friday Agreement. Filbin was in his sixties with a farmer’s ruddy complexion and watery brown eyes.
‘And how’s Sean MacManus, these days?’ asked Lynn.
‘Still in Portlaoise, and not a happy bunny,’ said Filbin.
‘Aye, well, that’s what you get if you leave your fingerprints on a gun,’ said Lynn. Portlaoise was the most secure prison in Europe, guarded twenty-four hours a day by the Irish Defence Forces. It was also one of the oldest, and bleakest, gaols in Ireland and was where the Irish Government kept its terrorist prisoners. MacManus was a member of Continuity IRA, which, unlike the Provisionals, had been granted no favours under the Good Friday Agreement. He would rot in jail for the kidnap and murder of two Gardai officers.
‘Aye, but you can see the irony in the situation, I’m sure,’ said Filbin.
‘The irony?’ repeated Lynn. He sipped his whiskey.
‘Well, we’re Irish, and he’s Irish. We killed coppers, he killed coppers. He gets sent down, we get sent down. But he’s sleeping on a pissy mattress and getting an hour of fresh air a day, and here’s you and me drinking whiskey and raising our glasses to a job well done.’
Lynn grinned. ‘Aye, there’s irony there.’
‘But did you ever think, when we were in Long Kesh, that we’d be out so soon, free and clear?’
‘For the first couple of years I was sure I’d die behind bars,’ said Lynn. ‘But remember in 1998, when Mo Mowlam turned up to talk to Mad Dog and that nutter Stone? That’s when I knew things were going to happen and the Brits wanted rid. Sure enough, three months later the Good Friday Agreement’s signed and we had our tickets out.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to Martin and Gerry, God bless ’em. There were those that doubted them, but the boys came through.’
Filbin raised his glass. ‘
‘
‘And there’s the irony,’ said Filbin, kicking off his boots and wriggling his toes. ‘We’re getting what we wanted, what we fought and killed for, and the likes of Sean are still eating prison food.’
