outside the city at the Aero Club. Chomsky and I are going to fly to England in a private plane. I think you’d be better out of things for a while, just in case. You’re perfectly welcome to join us. London ’s a big place. Easy to lose yourself.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Absolutely. Do you have cab fare?”
“Of course I do. There’s a rank outside the office. I’ll get a driver to take me home and wait for me.”
Levin put his mobile away and, standing at the counter of the small bar, Chomsky ordered two vodka shots. He raised his glass. “To a nice girl called Mary O’Toole, who did the right thing.”
“And thank God for it,” Levin said.
They moved out into the entrance and found Magee, the chief pilot, standing under the canopy out of the rain, smoking a cigarette and chatting to a young pilot named Murphy. They stopped their conversation.
“Have you sorted it out yet?” Magee asked Levin.
“Three passengers-destination, Farley Field, in Kent, just outside London. It’s all fixed up. We’re expected.”
“I don’t know that one. Check it on the screen, Murphy.”
Murphy returned in a few moments. “It’s there, all right, and classified restricted.”
“Did you send our names?” Chomsky said, the efficient sergeant taking over. “Look again, I’ll come with you.”And it was there on the screen. Captain Igor Levin and Sergeant Ivan Chomsky.
Magee looked. “My God, you must have some pull for a place like that. I think I’ll do the flight myself. You can come with me,” he told Murphy. “A couple of nights in London will do us good. We’ll take the King Air.” He turned to Levin, “Turbo prop, but it gets you there nearly as fast as the jet and the seats are bigger. What about the other passenger?”
“A lady. She’ll be here soon.”
“Is she on the classified list?”
“Thanks for reminding me. Are you?”
“As we both served in the RAF, I expect so.”
Roper answered at once. Levin said, “The girl, Mary O’Toole. I’ve decided to get her out of here fast in case of any trouble from Flynn, so we’ll give her a lift. Will that be okay?”
“Certainly. I was talking to Harry. He says he really owes you one. If you hadn’t come up with the story, he could have had Jimmy Nolan and Patrick Kelly visiting with maybe a bomb and certainly guns.”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t been for the girl. If he wants to do anyone a favor, he can help her get a job.”
“Yes, that makes sense. I’ll see you at Holland Park.”
“You mean I can’t stay at the Dorchester anymore?”
“Look on it as a debriefing. Anyway, the safe house is a bit like a hotel these days.”
A little later, Mary was delivered in her taxi. She had only one small suitcase and a handbag. She was excited. “I’m traveling light.”
“Any sign of Flynn?” Levin asked.
“Not when I left.”
“Let Ivan have your passport. He’ll put your details through.”
She went off with Chomsky, leaving her case by the door. Murphy picked it up. “That’s women for you. There could be a bomb in there. They never learn.”
“No, they never do,” Levin said with some irony, took Mary’s case from him and went to join them.
Magee was finishing some sort of documentation at the desk and suddenly they were all together. “Okay, folks, follow Murphy. I’m right behind.”
They went out to the runway, and the King Air was there in the rain. Murphy got a couple of golfing umbrellas from a stand by the door and they walked under their shelter together toward the plane. Levin was smiling, and so was Chomsky when he glanced at him. It was behind them, what had been. What was ahead was a new chapter, and that could mean anything.
CALLED BY TWO of his collectors, as he thought of them, to Riley’s Bar, Michael Flynn was confronted by the bodies of Riley and Popov and couldn’t believe what he saw. Riley was a creature of almost Dickensian evil. He had murdered many times, both men and women, available to whoever was capable of paying him; a butcher, allowed to exist by the IRA in the hard times because of how useful he was. Even his presence had terrified people, and here he was with two bullets in him. His collectors were a couple on the same level as Riley. “Can’t believe it, Mr. Flynn. Riley murdered. I never thought I’d see the day.”
Flynn would hardly have described Riley’s death in quite that way. “He’s finally dead and that’s it. Get him in the body bag.”
“And the other? His papers are here. Funny name.” One of them handed over Popov’s empty wallet.
Flynn said, “I’ve told you before. Keep the cash, but not credit cards or any identity stuff. I’ll dispose of those.”
The man gave them to him. “It’s lucky we had another body bag in the van.”
“Where will you put them?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t want to know that, Mr. Flynn.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” He took a bulging envelope from his pocket, stuffed with euros.
“It was supposed to be one, Mr. Flynn. Riley was extra.”
“So I’ll give you extra next time. Now get on with it,” and Flynn left them.
He found his car and drove away. It was unfortunate for Popov, but God alone knew what had happened to the man Levin. He’d have him checked out. He was annoyed with himself that his first attempt to do Volkov a good turn had ended in failure, but there was no need to tell the Russian for the moment.
AT THE GREEN TINKER at about two-thirty, the snug was down to old Bert Fahy behind the bar and two aging men enjoying a beer. Nolan and Kelly had been making calls, and the result was two cars turning up outside and four men entering the snug, one after the other.
They were all from Kilburn, the Irish quarter for over a hundred and fifty years, which is why its inhabitants were known as London Irish and hard men. Hard and wild where Danny Delaney and Sol Flanagan were concerned. They were the same age, twenty-five, wearing loose, flashy suits in the Italian style, their hair just a little too long. In both cases, drugs were a priority, and they had a mad, dangerous look to them and a history mainly involving armed robbery.
Jack Burke and Tim Cohan were very different, members of the IRA since their youth, veterans of that long struggle of what the Irish had always called the Troubles. Both were in their late forties, hard, calm faces giving little away. It was the first time they’d met as a group and there was a hint of contempt in the way the older men looked at the younger. One thing was certain. The days of the IRA holding London in thrall were over, there was no disguising that by brave talk.
Danny Delaney said, “Jimmy Nolan told me he was bringing you in on this. Burke and Cohan.” He laughed, the slightly nervous giggle of somebody who was on something. “Sounds like undertakers.”
Flanagan said, “I heard you were with the crew who knocked off that Muslim travel agency in Trenchard Street the other week. These Pakis have real cash in those places.”
Delaney said, “I heard twenty grand.”
The two older men didn’t say a word and Bert Fahy spoke up as the two aging men left their beers and made for the door. “What’s it to be, gents?”
“Let’s just make it Bushmills whiskey all round, large ones,” Delaney said. “If we’re talking business, I like to keep a clear head.” He put a line of coke on the bar in an abstracted way, whistling cheerfully, and sniffed it and drank the glass of Bushmills that Fahy offered him.
“Now that’s what I call good stuff, man. Go on, have a go.”
