“Here we are, sir.”
Ferguson moved closer, and, as he approached, Pool turned and started to run away, and the Amara blew up, the explosion echoing between the buildings on either side and setting off their fire alarms.
Ferguson was hurled backwards by the blast, lay there for a moment, then stood up, aware that he was in one piece but that the Amara was burning furiously. The explosion had come from the trunk, and Pool had been closer to the rear of the car. Ferguson lurched towards him, dropped to his knees, and turned Pool over. There was a great deal of blood, and his face was gashed.
Pool’s eyes opened. Ferguson said, “Steady, old son, you’ll be fine. Help coming.”
Pool’s voice was very weak. “I messed up. All my fault.”
“Nonsense,” Ferguson said. “The only person to blame is the bastard who put that bomb in my car.”
Not that Pool heard him, for he’d already stopped breathing, and Ferguson knelt there, a feeling of total desolation passing through him, aware of the sirens of the police and the emergency services approaching, holding a hand already turning cold.
“Not your fault, old son,” he said softly. “Not your fault at all.” As he got to his feet, the first police car roared into the street.
In New York,
Harry Miller and Sean Dillon were enjoying a drink in the wood-paneled Oak Bar of the Plaza Hotel, where they were sharing a suite.
“I like this place,” Dillon said. “The Edwardian splendor of it. They say it was Mark Twain’s home away from home. I had a drink in this very bar on my first trip to New York.” The small Irishman was wearing slacks of black velvet corduroy and a black Armani shirt that seemed to complement the hair, so fair it was almost white. He looked calm and relaxed, with the half smile of a man who couldn’t take the world seriously.
“The IRA must have been generous with their expenses. I presume you were after some wretched informer on the run from Belfast?”
“As a matter of fact, I was,” Dillon said, still smiling. “Another one?”
“Why not, but then you’d better get changed. You are, after all, representing the British Government at the UN. I think I’ll stretch my legs while you do.”
Miller was dressed formally in a navy blue suit, a blue trench coat on the seat beside him. He was a little under six feet, with saturnine gray eyes, dark brown hair, and a scar bisecting his left cheek.
“God bless Your Honor for reminding me, the simple Irish boy I am. What do you think Putin’s up to?”
“God knows,” Miller said. “If he thought his presence at the UN was going to force the President and the Prime Minister to attend as well, he’s been sadly misinformed.”
The waiter provided two more Bushmills whiskeys and departed. Dillon said gloomily, “Sometimes I wonder what the UN is for anymore. Not enough muscle, I suppose.”
“Well, it has eighteen acres of land alongside the East River, and its own police force, fire department, and post office,” Miller said. “I suppose they’ll have to be content with that.” He swallowed his whiskey, stood up, and pulled on his trench coat. “I’m going across the street for a stroll in Central Park. The Embassy car will be here in an hour.”
“Better take care. That place can be tricky.”
“That was then, this is now, Sean. These days, New York is safer than London.”
“If you say so, Major.” Dillon toasted him. “See you later.”
Miller accepted the offer
of an umbrella from the doorman, crossed to Central Park, and entered. There were few people around in the fading light of late afternoon just before the early evening darkness.
He realized suddenly that he was alone, except for voices somewhere in the distance, a dog barking hollowly, and then the footfalls of someone running up behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. A man in a dark green tracksuit, wearing gloves and a knitted cap, came up fast and swerved to one side. He said hello and kept on going, turning through the trees at the end of the path. A moment later, he reappeared, paused to look at Miller, then walked forward.
Miller dropped his umbrella as if by accident and, under cover of picking it up, reached down and found the Colt .25 in the ankle holder. He straightened up, raised the umbrella again, and turned to go.
The man called, “Hey, you, we’ve got business to discuss.”
He ran forward, then slowed, his right hand sliding into a pocket of his tracksuit.
“And what would that be?” Miller asked.
“Wallet, cards, mobile phone. In any order you please.” He was up close now, his right hand still in his pocket.
Miller took two quick steps so that the two of them were good and close, then held the silenced Colt almost touching the man’s left knee and fired. The man cried out, lurching back as Miller pushed him towards a park bench at the side of the park.
“Oh, Jesus,” the man cried, and Miller reached in the tracksuit pocket and found a silenced pistol, which he tossed into the bushes.
“Wallet, cards, mobile phone, wasn’t that what you said?”
The man had grasped his knee with both hands, blood pumping through. “What have you done to me? They didn’t say it would be like this.”
“I’ve crippled you, you bastard,” Miller said. “Hollow-point cartridges. Now, speak up, or I’ll give it to you in the other knee as well. Who’s ‘they’?”
“I don’t know. I’m a free lance. People contact me, I provide a service.”
“You mean you’re a professional hit man?”
“That’s it. I got a call. I don’t know who it was. There was a package, I don’t know who from. A photo of you staying at the Plaza, with instructions, and two thousand dollars in hundreds.”
“And you don’t know who the client was? That’s hard to believe. Why would they trust you?”
“You mean trust me with the money? That’s the way it works. Take the money and run, and I’d be the target next time. Now, for the love of God, man, help me.”
“Where’s the money?”
“In the bank.”
“Well, there you go,” Miller said. “I’ll keep your wallet and cards and leave you your mobile. Call an ambulance and say you’ve been mugged. No point in trying to involve me. For what you tried to pull, you’d get twenty years in Ossining, or maybe you’ve already done time there? Maybe you’re a three-time loser.”
“Just fuck off,” the man said.
“Yes, I thought you’d say that.” Miller turned and walked rapidly away, leaving the man to make his call.
In the two-bedroom suite
they were sharing at the Plaza, Dillon was standing at his bathroom mirror adjusting a tie as black as his shirt. His jacket, like his slacks, was black corduroy, and he reached for it and pulled it on.
“Will I do?” he asked as Miller walked in the door.
“In that outfit, Putin is going to think the undertaker’s come for him.”
“Away with you. You hardly ever see old Vladimir wearing anything but a black suit. It’s his personal statement.”
“The hard man, you mean? Never mind that now. We need to talk.”
“What about?”
Miller put his right foot on the edge of the bathtub, eased up the leg of his slacks, and removed the ankle holder.
“What the hell is that for?” Dillon said. “I’d like to remind you it’s the United Nations we’re going to. You wouldn’t have got inside the door wearing that.”
“True, but I never intended to try. On the other hand, a walk in Central Park is quite another matter, it seems, so it’s a good thing I was carrying.”
As always with Dillon, it was as if a shadow passed across his face that in the briefest of moments changed his entire personality.
“Tell me.”
Miller did, brief and succinct, because of the soldier in him, and, when he was finished, he took out the wallet he’d taken from his assailant and offered it.
“A folded computer photo of me, no credit cards, a Social Security card, plus a driver’s license in the name of Frank Barry, with an address in Brooklyn. I doubt any of it is genuine, but there you are. I need a shower and a fresh shirt, and we’re short on time.”
He cleared off to his own bedroom, and Dillon took the items from the wallet and unfolded the computer photo. It showed Miller walking on a relatively crowded pavement, one half of a truck in view and, behind it, the side of a London cab. Now, where had that come from? A long way from Central Park.
Dillon went to the sideboard and poured himself a whiskey, thinking of Frank Barry, the hit man. Poor bastard, he hadn’t known what he was up against. Miller was hardly your usual politician. He’d served in the British Army during some of the worst years of the Irish Troubles, for some of that time an apparent deskman in the Intelligence Corps. But Dillon knew the truth. Miller had long ago decided that summary justice was the only way to fight terrorism. Since the death of his wife, the victim of a terrorist attack aimed at Miller himself, he had grown even more ruthless.
Dillon folded the computer photo and tried to slide it back into the wallet. It refused to go because there was something there. He fiddled about and managed to pull out a card that was rather ornate, gold around the edges, with a sentiment inscribed in curling type.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, we who are ourselves alone.
Miller came in, ready to go. “What have you got there?”
“Something you missed in the wallet.” The card was creased and obviously old, and Dillon held it to his nose. “Candles, incense, and the holy water.”
“What in hell do you mean?” Miller held out his hand, and examined the card.
“So Barry is a Catholic, so what?”
“Such cards are very rare. They go back in history to Michael Collins, the Easter Rising. The card begs the Virgin to pray for ‘we who are ourselves alone.’ The Irish for ‘ourselves alone’ is
Sinn Fein.
”
Miller stared at the card, frowning. “And you think that’s significant?”
“Maybe not, but Barry is an Irish name, and you told me that after you shot him he said, ‘They didn’t say it would be like this.’ ”
“That’s true, but he claimed he didn’t know who’d hired him, even when I threatened to put one through his other knee.”
Dillon shrugged. “Maybe he lied in spite of the pain.” He took the card from Miller’s fingers and replaced it in the wallet.
Miller said, “Are you saying there could be a smell of IRA here?”
Dillon smiled. “I suppose anything is possible in the worst of all possible worlds. You were right not to kill him, though. He’ll stick like glue to the story of being the victim of a mugging. He wouldn’t want the police to think anything else.”
“And the IRA connection?”
“If there was one, it’s done them no good at all.” He put the wallet in his inside pocket. “An intriguing present for Roper when we get back to London. Now can we get moving? Putin awaits us.”
At the UN that evening,
there was no sign of Blake Johnson, which surprised Dillon because Blake had said he’d be there, but maybe he’d decided he just had better things to do. Vladimir Putin said nothing that he had not said before. The usual warning that if the U.S. went ahead with a missile defense system, the Russians would have to deploy in kind, and implying that the Russian invasion of Georgia was a warning shot. Delving deep into history, he warned the U.S. about overconfidence in its military might. “Rome may have destroyed Carthage, but eventually it was destroyed by barbarians.”
“That’s a good one,” Miller murmured.
“I know,” Dillon said. “Though I don’t know if equating Russia with the barbarians is really a good idea for him.”
Putin then moved on to Britain, turning to look at the British Ambassador to the UN as if addressing him personally. Britain was guilty of granting asylum to some who had been traitors to the Russian people. London had become a launching pad to fight Russia. In the end, it seemed impossible to have normal relations anymore. And on and on.
Many people sitting there obviously agreed with him, and there was applause. The British Ambassador answered robustly, pointing out that the British Security Service had identified Russia as a menace to national safety, the third-most-serious threat facing the country, after Al Qaeda terrorism and Iranian nuclear proliferation.
At the champagne reception afterwards, Miller said, “The trouble is, Vladimir Putin is dangerously capable. Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, not to mention his career with the KGB.”
“I agree.” Dillon nodded. “But, in a way, the most significant thing about him is that he’s a patriot. He believes what he says. That’s what makes him the most dangerous of all.” He nodded towards the Russian delegation, who were hanging on Putin’s every word as he spoke to a Hamas representative. “Anyone of special interest over there?”
“Actually, there is,” Miller said. “The scholarly looking man with the rather weary face and auburn hair.”
“Gray suit, about fifty?”
“Colonel Josef Lermov, new Head of Station for the GRU at the London Embassy. At least, that’s the whisper Ferguson’s heard. He only told me yesterday and pulled out Lermov’s photo.”
“I see,” Dillon said. “So they’ve given up on finding his predecessor, dear old Boris Luzhkov?”
“It seems so.”
“It’s hardly likely they would have succeeded, considering he went into the Thames with a bullet between the eyes. Ferguson had the disposal team fish him out the same day,” Dillon told him.
“Ashes to ashes?” Miller said.
“If he couldn’t take the consequences, he shouldn’t have joined. Lermov is coming this way.”
Lermov was. Even his smile seemed weary. “Major Miller, I believe? Josef Lermov.” He turned to Dillon and held out his hand.
“So nice to meet you, Mr. Dillon.”
“How flattering to be recognized,” Dillon told him.