could say that, me darling.’
She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You need a nice girl, then, or a bad girl? Whichever is okay by Anya. Fifty dollars American. My place is close by.’
‘Oh moon of my delight, heaven is here in your presence,’ Dillon told her in Arabic. ‘Unfortunately business requires me to wait here for a friend.’ He took a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to her. ‘This is for the pleasure of looking on you.’
She smiled her delight, tucked it down her cleavage and made off.
In London, Rupert Lang rang the bell of Yuri Belov’s mews house and was admitted instantly.
‘Something important?’ Belov asked as he led the way into the sitting room.
‘Yes, I tried to get you the other day, but they told me you were in Paris. Some very interesting developments. The Belfast thing went extremely well. In fact Grace probably saved Dillon’s life.’
‘I heard that January 30 had claimed responsibility for several deaths,’ Belov said. ‘IRA it wasn’t. The Protestant factions must be furious. Dillon certainly doesn’t pull any punches.’
‘The whole thing was a set-up,’ Lang said. ‘He took care of them, of course, but there was an extra man in the shadows. He’d have got Dillon in the back if Grace hadn’t intervened, so we thought we might as well claim the whole lot while we were at it.’
‘And what’s happened now?’
‘Dillon made Daley talk before killing him. It seems that Quinn is in Beirut to do a deal for a supply of plutonium. He’s dealing with a man called Selim Rassi of the Party of God and a KGB captain called Bikov.’
‘Bikov?’ Belov shook his head. ‘I don’t know him, but these Party of God people are pretty ruthless.’ He shook his head. ‘Plutonium. All my sources indicate that the Protestant para-militaries in Ulster have reached a new mood of desperation, but plutonium brings in the threat of nuclear devices. That’s a whole new dimension.’
‘Yes, but see it from their point of view. Sinn Fein, which is really the same as the IRA, get three per cent of the vote in the Republic of Ireland and ten per cent in Ulster, and yet, as the product of a ruthless campaign of terrorism, they end up having achieved peace negotiations which could mean the Protestants being thrown to the wolves, the Army packing in and the threat of some sort of departure by the British Government. It could be a recipe for civil war.’
‘Another Bosnia, my friend,’ Belov said. ‘But the threat that could be imposed if this plutonium could be used in a nuclear device would be incalculable. A whole new and terrible world.’ He walked to the sideboard, poured a couple of whiskies, came back and gave one to Lang. ‘Let’s hope our friend Dillon has the right kind of luck.’
At that moment Francis Callaghan was standing in front of a desk in a rather gloomy room illuminated by a single light bulb. They had only just pulled the bag off his head and he was dazzled after the darkness. He was also, for the first time, beginning to feel thoroughly frightened. The young man who had kidnapped him in the toilet at the café sat behind the desk, smoking a cigarette, the Uzi machine gun in front of him. He was examining Callaghan’s passport.
‘You are from Cork, I see. You represent an electronics firm?’
‘That’s right,’ Callaghan told him eagerly. ‘Francis Callaghan. I’m at the Al Bustan. If you look in my wallet there’s a permit from the Ministry of Supply.’
‘You’re a liar.’ The young man nodded and someone standing behind Callaghan punched him in the kidneys so that he went down on one knee. ‘You’re an Irish terrorist, Protestant variety, here with Daniel Quinn to acquire a supply of plutonium from a KGB agent named Bikov and Selim Rassi of the Party of God.’
‘There’s been a mistake,’ Callaghan said.
The young man nodded again. This time a rifle butt thudded into Callaghan’s back and he went down again. The two men who had been standing behind him started to kick him in the body savagely.
‘Not his face,’ the young man ordered.
After a while they stopped, pulled Callaghan up and sat him in a chair. He was in considerable pain and half sobbing as he said, ‘You’ve got the wrong man.’
‘Really.’ The young man leaned back and lit another cigarette. ‘I don’t think so, but we’ll see.’ He nodded to the others. ‘Let’s save some time. Put him in the well. I don’t think he’ll last long down there.’
They grabbed Callaghan by the arms, picked him up and hustled him out, along a passage, across a courtyard and into a barn. There was the round low stone wall of a well in the centre. One of the men fished a key out of his pocket and unfastened Callaghan’s handcuffs. The other picked up a rope with a loop on the end and slipped it over his head and beneath his arms.
‘Now, look here,’ he protested.
One of them slapped him, then they ran him across the barn and shoved him over the wall, hanging on to the rope, bracing themselves as he swung against the stonework. They lowered him quickly and after about thirty feet, he splashed into water. He had a moment of panic as he went under but it was only about four feet deep. The bottom was a thick and slimy ooze and the stench was terrible.
‘Loosen the rope,’ one of them called.
Callaghan did as he was told, looking up at the faces peering down at him, watching the rope going up. It was bitterly cold and he shivered and then the light went out and there was only the darkness.
Dillon leaned over the rail at the edge of the terrace, looking out at the shops in the darkness of the harbour and waiting for Walid Khasan. There had been no sign of Quinn, not that he’d really expected one. He went down some steps to a lower level where motor boats were moored. As he lit a cigarette, there was a footfall and he turned and found Anya the prostitute there.
‘So here you are,’ she said in Arabic.
‘So it would appear,’ he said. ‘And the answer is still the same.’
‘What a pity.’ She reached in her shoulder bag, produced a Colt .32 automatic with a silencer on the end and rammed it into his side. ‘No one will hear, Mr Dillon, so I suggest you do as I say.’ She reached in his pocket and found the Walther. ‘So, now we walk to the other end and mount the steps, all very sensibly. You follow me?’
‘Oh, if needs be, I’m the most sensible man in the world, girl dear,’ he told her in English.
‘Good, then let’s get moving.’
There were several cars parked at the top of the dock and she took him across to the other side, where the van which had transported Callaghan earlier was waiting. Two men moved out of the shadows. One of them pulled a bag over his head and the other handcuffed him. They pushed him in the rear and joined him. Anya got behind the wheel and drove off.
When they took the bag off his head he was standing in the same room Callaghan had found himself in earlier and the same young man sat behind the desk. The two men stood behind Dillon and the girl went and leaned against the wall, smoking a cigarette.
‘You do good work,’ Dillon
