Without Mercy

The Gulfstream was an hour late due to bad headwinds. It was just descending into the lights of Farley Field when Ferguson got the call. He listened, his face grave.

“I’m desperately sorry. Have you spoken to everybody?”

“Yes.”

“How awful for her father and grandfather. And Dillon? How was he?”

“I don’t think he could take it in. He was at the Dark Man with Roper and the others. He passed the phone to Roper and apparently rushed out. Roper said he and the Salters would go after him. He’s probably gone to Rosedene.”

“You know her religion will have an impact here. I’m not sure they’ll allow an autopsy. Find out, would you? Thank you, Doctor, and we’ll talk again.”

Ferguson sat there, face grave as the Gulfstream rolled to a halt, then told Blake the bad news.

Blake was shocked. “How terrible.” He raised the inevitable question. “You mentioned an autopsy?”

“That’s not certain. Generally, they’re not allowed. The Jewish body is considered sacred, and the corpse must be buried within twenty-four hours. However, if it can be argued that an autopsy could save another life, for instance by helping to apprehend a killer and prevent him killing again, then there are exceptions. You’d need an expert rabbi to determine that.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Particularly as she worked for me under the Official Secrets Act.”

They disembarked, and as they walked toward the small terminal, Ferguson’s Daimler drew up and Dillon got out from behind the wheel. He leaned against the Daimler and lit a Marlboro. His face was curiously expressionless.

“Blake, Charles. Good flight? Thought I’d come myself.”

Ferguson said, “I’m damn sorry, Sean, damn sorry.”

“You’ll be sorry yourself when you hear my news. Get in and we’ll move out.”

They did, sitting in the rear while Dillon drove. “What have you got for me, then?” Ferguson asked.

“The last person to see Hannah alive was a Dublin girl, an agency nurse named Mary Killane. Maggie Duncan spoke to her when she finished her shift. Half an hour later, the alarm went off in Hannah’s room and she died in spite of the crash team.”

“What’s your point, Sean?” Ferguson was gentle.

“An hour and a half ago, a man walking his dog by the canal some ten minutes from Rosedene found a dead woman half-in, half-out of the water. Her handbag was still caught around one wrist. It was Mary Killane.”

“My God,” Blake said. “That’s a strange coincidence. And you know I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Especially with two bullets in her,” Dillon told him. “George Langley’s going to do the autopsy tonight. He’s at the scene of the crime now.”

They traveled in silence for a while, and it was Blake who said, “It smells to high heaven. Hannah dies, and then someone wastes the last nurse to deal with her.”

“And somehow a dead Belov is walking around in Siberia,” Ferguson said. “I’ve got an uneasy feeling they’re all related.”

“But like Billy said earlier,” Dillon told him, “if there’s one certainty in the matter, it’s that Belov is dead.”

“And what if he isn’t?” Blake put in.

“I know what I did.”

“Maybe something else happened, something you weren’t aware of.”

“In your dreams,” Dillon told him.

“Maybe. But I’ll tell you what I think. I was with the FBI for a long time, and any good cop will tell you that experience tells you to go with your instincts. And my instincts tell me that everything is linked to what happened at Drumore Place. That’s where we’ve got to begin.”

And he was right, of course.

DRUMORE PLACE DUBLIN MOSCOW 3

Three weeks earlier, Sean Dillon and Billy Salter were at Drumore Place, that great house that was Josef Belov’s pride and joy, engaged in a desperate firefight while the villagers kept their heads down inside their cottages.

At the Royal George, Patrick Ryan had the shutters up while his mother, who was the cook at Drumore Place, and old Hamilton, the butler, cowered in the kitchen, where Ryan joined them.

“Mother Mary, it’s just like the old days,” she moaned.

“Sure, and they never went away,” he told her, which was true, for this was still Provisional IRA country to the core. He splashed whiskey into three glasses. “Get that down you and shut up. It’s none of our affair. The nearest police are twenty miles up the coast. One sergeant and three men, and they’d drive the other way if they knew. God save the good work.” He swallowed his whiskey down and crossed himself as sporadic shooting continued.

There was silence for a while and then they heard a boat engine start in to life down in the harbor. It increased in power, and Ryan hurried through the bar, opened the door and peered out. It had left the tiny harbor and moved beyond the point when the explosion took place. There was a momentary ball of fire, and as it cleared, he saw the boat half under the water, the stern raised, and it looked as if someone was scrambling over, but he could not be certain for a cloud passed over the moon.

Hamilton appeared beside him and the old lady. “What is it?”

“Some sort of explosion on the Kathleen. I can’t be sure, but I think I saw someone. I’m going to check.”

“You’ll need some help. Get some of the men.”

“Don’t be daft. They’ll all stay close to home this night.”

He hurried out to his old Land Rover, got behind the wheel and drove away, down through the village, following the narrow road toward the point, no more than five minutes away, got out and ran toward the top of the steps leading down to the small beach below. It was very dark down there, only the waves dashing in, and then the cloud moved away and the moon shone through and he saw something, head and shoulders perhaps, and started down.

Greta Novikova had been standing in the stern of the Kathleen, Belov and Tod Murphy in the wheelhouse, when the explosion took place in the engine room. The two men didn’t stand a chance, but the force of the blast, a great wind, drove her across the stern rail as the shattered boat lifted and then dove down to its last resting place. She plunged headfirst into the water, lucky enough to slide to one side and miss the propellers. She went under, and surfaced, turning as the sea swallowed the Kathleen. An undertow sucked at her as if greedy to take her with it, and frightened and dazed, she screamed and kicked out toward the cliffs of the point.

There was a trench in the seabed at that place, fully fifty fathoms deep, so that as the Kathleen descended rapidly, there was turbulence on the surface, waves driving toward the small beach, increasing in force and taking her with them.

In the moonlight, she saw Ryan plunging knee-deep in the water to reach for her. She cried out, he grabbed, waist-deep in water, pulling her close.

“I’ve got you.” He waded onto the beach, pulling her behind him. He held her close as she gasped for air. “Who was with you?”

“Belov… Tod Murphy.”

“And Kelly and the others?”

“There was a shoot-out at Drumore Place. I don’t know. You must take me there.”

“Jesus, woman, you’re in no fit state to go anywhere. There’s blood on your face. You must have taken a hell of a battering.”