Authors: Jack Higgins
In the three years which followed, Curry maintained a steady flow of confidential information of every description, aided by Lang. They made only three hits during the period. Two at the same time, a couple of IRA bombers released from trial at the Old Bailey on a legal technicality, who proceeded on a drunken spree that lasted all day. It was Curry who charted their progress until midnight, then called in Lang, who killed them both as they sat, backs to the wall, in a drunken stupor in a Kilburn alley.
The third was an American field officer of the CIA attached to the American Embassy’s London Station. He had been giving Belov considerable aggravation and, after the Berlin Wall came down, appeared to be far too friendly with the Russian’s latest rival, Mikhail Shimko, who had replaced Ashimov as Colonel in Charge of London Station KGB.
The CIA man was called Jackson and, by chance, his name came up at one of the joint intelligence working parties, news that he was having a series of meetings at an address in Holland Park with members of a Ukrainian faction resident in London. Curry kept a watch at the appropriate times and noticed that Jackson always walked for a mile afterwards, following the same route through quiet streets to the main road where he hailed a taxi.
After the next meeting, Lang was waiting in a small Ford Van at an appropriate point on the route, provided by Belov, of course. As Jackson passed, Lang, wearing a knitted ski mask in black, stepped out and shot him once in the back, penetrating the heart, finished with a head shot, got in the van and drove away. He left the van in a builders’ yard in Bayswater, again an address provided by Belov, and walked away, whistling softly to himself.
It was half an hour later that a young reporter on the news desk of the
London Times
took the phone call claiming credit for the killing by January 30.
The British Government allowed the Americans to flood London temporarily with CIA agents intent on hunting down Jackson’s killer. As usual, they drew a complete blank. That the killings claimed by January 30 from Ali Hamid onwards had been the work of the same Beretta 9-millimeter was known to everyone, as was the significance of January 30. The Bloody Sunday connection should have indicated an Irish revolutionary connection, but even the IRA got nowhere in their investigations. In the end, the CIA presence was withdrawn.
British Army Intelligence, Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist department, MI5, all failed to make headway. Even the redoubtable Brigadier Charles Ferguson, head of the special intelligence unit responsible to the Prime Minister, had only total failure to report to Downing Street.
It was in January 1990, following the collapse of the Communist-dominated government of East Germany, that Lang and Curry attended a cultural evening at the American Embassy. There were at least a hundred and fifty people there, including Belov, whom they found at the champagne bar. They took their glasses into an anteroom and found a corner table.
“So, everything’s falling apart for you people, Yuri,” Lang said. “First the Wall comes tumbling down, now East Germany folds, and a little bird tells me there’s a strong possibility that your Congress of People’s Deputies might soon abolish the Communist Party’s monopoly of power in Russia.”
Belov shrugged. “Disorder leads to strength. It’s inevitable. Take the German situation. West Germany is at present the most powerful country in Western Europe economically. The consequences of taking East Germany on board will be catastrophic in every way and particularly economically. The balance of power in Europe once again altered totally. Remember what I said a long time ago? Chaos is our business.”
“I suppose you’re right, when you come to think of it,” Lang said.
Curry nodded. “Of course he is.”
“I invariably am.” Belov raised his glass. “To a new world, my friends, and to us. One never knows what’s round the corner.”
“I know,” Rupert Lang said. “That’s what makes it all so damned exciting.”
They touched glasses and drank.
Rupert Lang was more right than he knew. There
was
something round the corner, something profound and disturbing that was to affect all three of them, although it was not to take place until the Gulf War was over and done with. January 1992, to be precise.
Grace Browning was born in Washington in 1965. Her father was a journalist on the
Washington Post
, her mother was English. When she was twelve tragedy struck, devastating her life. On the way home from a concert one night their car was rammed into the curb by an old limousine. The men inside were obviously on drugs. She remembered the shouting, the demands for money, her father opening the door to get out and then the shots, one of which penetrated the side window at the rear and killed her mother instantly.
Grace lay in the bottom of the car, frozen, terrified, glancing up only once to see the shape of a man, gun raised, shouting, “Go, go, go!” and then the old limousine shot away.
She wasn’t even able to give the police a useful description, couldn’t even say whether they were white or black. All that mattered was that her father died the following morning and she was left alone.
Not quite, of course, for there was her mother’s sister, her aunt Martha, Lady Hunt to be precise, a woman of considerable wealth and widowed early, who lived in some splendor in a fine town house in Cheyne Walk in London. She had received her niece with affection and firmness, for she was a tough, practical lady who believed you had to get on with it instead of sitting down and crying.
Grace was admitted to St. Paul’s Girls’ School, one of the finest in London, where she soon proved to have considerable intellect. She was popular with everyone, teachers and pupils alike, and yet for her, it was a sort of performance. Inside she was one thing, herself, detached, cold, but on the surface, she was charming, intelligent, warm. It was not surprising that she was something of a star in school drama circles.
Her social life, because of her aunt, was conducted at the highest level: Cannes and Nice in the summer, Barbados in the winter, always a ceaseless round of parties on the London scene. When she was sixteen, like most of the girls she knew, she attempted her first sexual encounter, a gauche seventeen-year-old public schoolboy. It was less than rewarding and as he climaxed, a strange thing happened. She seemed to see in her head the shadowy figure of the man who had killed her parents, gun raised.
When the time came for Grace to leave school, although her academic grades were good enough for Oxford or Cambridge, she had only one desire — to be a professional actress. Her aunt, being the sort of woman she was, supported her fully, stipulating only that Grace had to go for the best. So Grace auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and they accepted her at once.
Her career there was outstanding. In the final play,
Macbeth
, she played Lady Macbeth, absurdly young and yet so brilliant that London theatrical agents clamored to take her on board. She turned them all down and went to Chichester, to the smallest of the two theatres, the Minerva, to play the lead in a revival of
Anna Christie
and so triumphantly that the play transferred to the London West End, the Theatre Royal at the Haymarket, where it ran for a year.
After that, she could have everything, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, establishing herself in a series of great classic roles. She went to Hollywood only once to star in a classy and flashy revenge thriller in which she killed several men. After that she turned down all subsequent offers except for the occasional TV appearance and returned to the National Theatre.
Money, of course, was no problem. Aunt Martha saw to that and took great pride in her niece’s achievements. She was the one person Grace felt loved her and she loved her fiercely in return, dropping out of theatre totally for the last, terrible year when leukemia took its hold on the old woman.
Martha came home at the end to die in her own bed, the windows of her room looking over the Thames. There was medical help in abundance, but Grace looked after her every need personally.
On the last evening it was raining, beating softly against the windows. She was holding her aunt’s hand and Martha, gaunt and wasted, opened her eyes and looked at her.
“You’ll go back now, promise me, and show them all what real acting is about. It’s what you are, my love. Promise me.”
“Of course,” Grace said.
“No sad tears, no mourning. A celebration to prove how worthwhile it’s been.” She managed a weak smile. “I never told you, Grace, but your father always believed the family tradition that they were kin to Robert Browning.”
“The poet?” Grace said.
“Yes. There’s a line in one of his great poems.
Our interest’s on the dangerous edge of things
. I don’t know why, but it seems to suit you perfectly.”
Her eyes closed and she died a few minutes later.
She was healthy now, the house in Cheyne Walk was hers, and the world of theatre was her oyster, but no one could control her, no one could hold her. Her wealth meant that she could do what she wanted. Her first role on her return was in
Look Back in Anger
with an obscure South Coast repertory company in a seaside town. The critics descended from London in droves and were ecstatic. After that she did a range of similar performances at various provincial theatres, finally returning to the National Theatre to do Chekhov’s
A Month in the Country
.
No long-term contracts, no ties. She had set a pattern. If a part interested her, she would play it, even if it was for four weeks at some obscure civic theatre in the heart of Lancashire or some London fringe theatre venue such as the King’s Head or the Old Red Lion, and the audiences everywhere loved her.
Love in her own life was a different story. There were men, of course, when the mood came, but no one who ever moved her. In male circles in the theatre she was known as the Ice Queen. She knew this, but it didn’t dismay her in the slightest, amused her if anything, and her actor’s gift for analysis of a role told her that if anything, she had a certain contempt for men.
In October 1991, she did Brendan Behan’s
The Hostage
at the Minerva Studio at Chichester, still her favorite theatre. It was a short run, but such was the interest in this most Irish of plays that the company was invited to the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, for a two-week run. Unfortunately, Grace was scheduled to start rehearsals at the National for
A Winter’s Tale
immediately after her stint at the Minerva, and so the director of
The Hostage
came to see her in some trepidation.
“The Lyric, Belfast, would like us for two weeks. Of course, I’ll have to say no. I mean, you start rehearsing Monday at the National.”
“Belfast?” she said. “I’ve never been. I like the sound of that.”
“But the National?” he protested.
“Oh, they can put things on the back burner for a couple of weeks.” She smiled, that famous smile of hers that seemed to be for you alone. “Or get someone else.”
She indulged herself by staying at the Europa Hotel. She stood at the window of her suite and looked out at the rain driving in across the city, suddenly excited to be here, surely one of the most dangerous cities in the world. It was only four o’clock and she was not due at the Lyric until six-thirty. On impulse, she went downstairs.
At the main entrance, the head doorman smiled. “A taxi, Miss Browning?”
Posters advertising the play with her photo on them were on a stand close by.
She gave him her best smile. “No, I just need some fresh air and I like the rain.”
“Plenty of that in Belfast, miss. Better take this,” and he put up an umbrella for her.
She started toward the bus station and the Protestant stronghold of Sandy Row, feeling suddenly cheerful as a bitter east wind blew in from Belfast Lough.
Tom Curry always stayed at the Europa during his monthly visits as visiting Professor at Queens University. He liked Belfast, the sense of danger, the thought that anything might happen. Sometimes his visits coincided with Rupert Lang’s, for Lang was now an extra Under Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office, which meant frequent visits to Ulster on Crown business, and this was one of them.
He arrived back at the Europa at five-thirty, went into the Library Bar and found Tom Curry seated at one end reading the
Belfast Telegraph
, a Bushmills in front of him.
Curry glanced up. “Hello, old lad, had a good day?”
“Bloody raining every time I come to Belfast.” Lang nodded to the barman. “Same as my friend.”
“You don’t like it much, do you?” Curry said.
“I went through hell here, Tom, back in seventy-two. Close to six hundred dead in one year. Bodies under the rubble for days, the stink of explosions. I can still smell it.” He raised his glass. “To you, old sport.”
Curry toasted him back. “As the Fenians say, may you die in Ireland.”
“Thanks
very
much.” Lang smiled. “Mind you, you can’t fault them on their attitude to culture here.” He nodded behind the bar where Grace’s poster was displayed.
Curry said, “Grace Browning. She’s wonderful. Strange choice of a play for Belfast though,
The Hostage
. Very IRA.”
“Nonsense,” Lang said. “Behan showed the absurdity of the whole thing even though he was in the IRA himself.”
At that moment Grace Browning entered. As she unbuttoned her raincoat, a waiter hurried to take it. She walked to the bar and Rupert Lang said, “Good God, it’s Grace Browning.”
Hearing him, she turned and gave him that famous smile. “Hello.”
“May I introduce myself?” he asked.
She frowned slightly. “You know, I feel I’ve met you before.”
Curry laughed. “No, you’ve occasionally seen him on the television. Under Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office. Rupert Lang.”