Without Mercy

“It’s me,” he said. “How are you?”

“Fine. We’ve moved in, got things arranged. No trouble from the villagers. Life, shall we say, is back to normal. What about you?”

“Well, I’ve a target for you, during the coming weeks.”

“And what would that be?”

“Sean Dillon, Ferguson and company.”

“Jesus! A tall order.”

“We’ll discuss it in detail when I’m there. However, I’m going to need someone from your side of the coin. A hit man who’ll do the job, no questions asked, no argument, no sentimentality.”

“What you mean is you’re looking for the original cold-blooded bastard.”

“No, that’s you,” Ashimov told him. “What I’m looking for is a reasonable facsimile. I know the Peace Process is supposed to have brought an end to the glorious cause of Irish unity, but I believe you do have sleepers in London. Young men and women in good suits who work in the stock exchange…”

“And hanker after the romance of the struggle,” Bell said. “You might be surprised by how many of those there are. What would you be offering?”

“Oh, to you, a big payday. Funds for the organization, of course, not for the personal bank account in Spain. What you pay for him or, indeed, her to eradicate someone for me is your business.”

“Would you be involved?”

“Not personally. I’ll be staying there for a while with Major Novikova. I’m bringing a young colleague from Moscow who’ll handle the London end. He’ll work out of the London Embassy. The target is legitimate from your point of view. A high-ranking Special Branch officer who’s put more of your friends inside the last few years than she’s had hot dinners.”

“It’ll be a pleasure,” Bell said. “I’ve got ideas right away. Leave it with me.”

“We’ll see you soon.”

Levin looked up. “Dillon really is quite something. Now I’m really looking forward to meeting him.”

“Make sure it isn’t your last meeting,” Ashimov told him, and poured another glass of champagne.

LONDON 4

When Igor Levin flew from Ireland to London, it was in a Belov International jet and Liam Bell flew with him, under a false identity. Levin didn’t approach the Embassy, not then. He stayed in an indifferent hotel in Kensington next door to Bell, waited patiently while the man from Dublin made his arrangements with Mary Killane and Dermot Fitzgerald, and then, after the outcome, delivered Fitzgerald to Heathrow for the flight to Ibiza.

He wasn’t impressed. In his opinion the whole business had been badly handled. The Killane girl, for example. Anyone with half a brain would find it too much a coincidence that she, the last person to treat the Bernstein woman, had been murdered so soon afterward and so close to the hospital.

Perhaps things were done differently in Belfast. Maybe the IRA had employed such fear, such power, that they thought they could get away with anything. Or maybe they were just used to getting away with anything.

“Never mind, Igor,” he mused, after delivering Bell to the airfield for his return flight. “You’re just the hired help.”

He’d already rented a Mercedes, but now, taking advantage of his wealth, he moved into a suite at the Dorchester Hotel overlooking Hyde Park.

“Only the best, Igor,” he said, and drove down to the Embassy of the Russian Federation situated in Kensington Palace Gardens. There was a snag at first, when he discovered the Ambassador was in Paris, but a further inquiry revealed that the senior commercial attache, Colonel Boris Luhzkov, in reality Head of Station for the GRU, was lunching in the pub across the High Street. Levin went out the main gates, waited for a break in the traffic, then crossed the road.

Luhzkov was in a window seat on his own devouring shepherd’s pie, a half-empty glass of red wine before him. Levin got two more and went across. He put one of the glasses on the table.

“You always like two.”

Luhzkov looked astonished. “My God, Igor, it is you. I had a message from Moscow this morning. It said you were joining my staff.”

“Not quite true, old son. In a way, it’s you who are joining my staff.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

Levin took the envelope from his inside pocket, extracted the Putin warrant and passed it over. “Read that.”

He sat down and lit a cigarette. When Luhzkov handed it back, his hand shook. “For God’s sake, you’d better not lose it. But what does it mean, Igor?”

“That I’m on a special assignment for the President himself. I need a front, so I’m to be a commercial attache. Any quarrel with that?”

“Of course not.”

“For the moment, I need an office and all that goes with it. I won’t need an Embassy car, I’ve hired a Mercedes, and I don’t need housing – I’m staying at the Dorchester. It’s nice to be back, isn’t it, Boris, and what better place for a Russian intelligence officer to stay than the best hotel in London?”

Luhzkov had totally capitulated. “Anything you say, Igor.”

“Good. The shepherd’s pie looks delicious. I think I’ll have some,” and Levin turned and waved to a waitress.

Later, when the necessary office had been provided, he worked his way through GRU’s computer records, cross-referencing them with the file Ashimov had provided him. Ferguson, Dillon, the Salters. Names, computer printouts, addresses. He even checked on Bell’s past and that of his men whom he’d met at Drumore. An unsavory bunch, no finesse. On the other hand, Bell must have had something going for him to have become Chief of Staff of one of the most notorious organizations in the world.

Dillon was a totally different article; his exploits spoke for themselves. The thing that impressed Levin the most was that in all those years with the IRA, the police and secret intelligence hadn’t touched him once. Levin was lost in admiration.

Even the Salters surprised him. They were far from the usual run of gangsters. Harry Salter’s aging face spoke for itself, and Billy’s deeds were remarkable. Men who didn’t give a damn, the Salters and Dillon.

“Just like me,” Levin said softly.

Hannah Bernstein filled him with a strange kind of regret when he read her file again and looked at her photo. She’d been a remarkable woman – you had to be to make Superintendent rank in Special Branch. An Oxford psychologist and yet she’d killed more than once. And the Jewish background. It made him feel uncomfortable and he knew why that was.

Her death, of course, had had nothing to do with him. She’d been close to death anyway, thanks to Ashimov. The drug the nurse had used might not even have been necessary. Ashimov had killed her, really.

“Trying to comfort yourself, Igor?” he murmured. “Levin, the honorable man? Well, not after what you’ve done, boyo.”

He tapped into the police security facility and all the details of the Mary Killane killing were there: the murder scene, the names of those at Scotland Yard handling the case, the fact that there was a press blackout.

The forensic pathologist in charge of the autopsy was a Professor George Langley. Levin checked him out on the computer. Langley normally worked out of Church Street Mortuary off Kensington High Street. Quite convenient for the Russian Embassy.

However, there was nothing on the police incident screen referring to Hannah Bernstein, and Levin sat back, lit a cigarette and went to the small icebox in the corner, opened it, found the vodka and poured a large one. It calmed