Алистер Маклин - Dead Halt

“And neither did Scoby.”

“Isn’t it great? A woman flirts with you and you don’t even know she’s doing it.” Graham managed a wry smile. “I guess I’ve been out of circulation too long.”

“She isn’t your type anyway.”

“Damn right.” He noticed a faint smile touch the corners of her mouth. “What is it?”

“I was just thinking.”

Graham waited for her to continue and when she didn’t asked, “Is that it? You were just thinking?”

“It was something Fabio said when I went to see him at the hospital this afternoon. He reckons you and I would make a good couple.”

“I think he’s been overdoing the tranquilizers. We work well together as a team. But that’s purely on a professional level.”

“And it’s only been in the last few months that we’ve actually clicked as a team. I can remember the days when we used to be at each other’s throats over every little thing.”

“Banging heads at every turn. We were too independent for our own good in those days.”

“You were,” she corrected him.

“You weren’t exactly blameless yourself.” He took a sip of the Perrier water. “What gets me is this idea that a man and a woman can’t work together without there being some sexual stigma attached to it.”

“I know,” she replied with a shrug.

“It’s not even as if we’ve got anything in common.”

“Apart from a love of jazz,” she was quick to point out.

“Well, yeah,” he conceded.

“I had a great time at Sweet Basil’s the other night.”

“Me too. The band was great. Perhaps we can do it again sometime?”

“I’d like that,” she said softly.

“But just as long as you don’t go shouting your mouth off again to everyone at work like you did the last time.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sarah and Fabio hardly constitute everyone.”

“It’s sure to get around.”

“Why does that worry you so much, Mike?”

“It doesn’t worry me. I just don’t like to fuel any rumors. Especially amongst the other Strike Force teams. They’d have a field day if they thought for a moment that there was something going on between us.” He quaffed the last of the Perrier water then stood up and put the empty bottle on the table beside him. “Well, I’d better be off.”

“Before you fuel any more rumors?” she said with a smile, then got to her feet and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Night, Mike.”

He reached out and brushed a strand of loose hair back over her shoulder. She tried to read something, anything, in his eyes as he held her gaze. But she couldn’t. She had never known anyone capable of masking their emotions better than Mike Graham. Then the moment was gone.

“See you in the morning,” he said softly.

She stared at the door for some time after he’d gone. “Don’t even think it, girl,” she suddenly snapped to herself then went through to the bathroom to run herself a bath.

It had just gone midnight when the motorbike pulled up outside the house on the outskirts of Warrenpoint. The rider, dressed in a pair of jeans and a black leather jacket, switched off the engine and hurried to the front door. The door opened before he could press the bell. Sammy Kane held out his hand. The man removed a package from inside his jacket and gave it to Kane. The door closed again and the man returned to his bike. He kick-started it and drove off into the night.

Neither he nor Kane had noticed the Mercedes which had been parked beside a tangle of undergrowth thirty yards away from the house for the past two hours. All four men inside the car were dressed in black. Three of them climbed out of the car, disappeared into the undergrowth and came out at the back of the house. Their faces were now hidden under black balaclavas. They paused to survey the house. A single light came from behind the drawn curtains in the lounge. They knew Kane was alone.

One of the men was carrying a holdall. He opened it and three sawed-off shotguns were produced. He then ghosted around to the back of the house to disable the security system. When he returned a few minutes later the job was done. A glass-cutter was used to remove one of the panes and a hand snaked through the hole and unlatched the window. They clambered silently into the house, closed the window again behind them, then made for the lounge.

The door was kicked open with such force that the bottom hinges were torn from the frame. Kane made a desperate grab for the automatic in the desk drawer in front of him.

“Don’t even think it, Sammy!” one of the men commanded in a strong Belfast accent, the shotgun aimed at Kane’s head.

Kane’s eyes flickered to the other two shotguns aimed at him then he slowly brought both hands up into view.

“Move away from the desk!” the Belfast voice snapped.

“Who the hell are you?” Kane demanded. “And why–”

“I said move away from the desk!”

Kane did as he was told.

The Belfast man approached Kane and slammed the butt of the shotgun viciously into his midriff. “The Army Council send their regards.”

Kane crumpled to the floor, his hands clutched over his stomach in agony. When he finally managed to get up on his knees one of the men moved behind him and pressed the shotgun against the back of his head.

“My God, what’s all … this about?” Kane stammered, still struggling to catch his breath.

“It’s about a meeting you and Brady had with Commander Maurice Palmer of Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad earlier this evening,” the Belfast voice told him.

“The Army Council knew about that,” Kane blurted out. “Kevin cleared it with them before he made the arrangements with Palmer.”

“Brady never informed the Army Council about any meeting tonight.”

“That’s absurd,” Kane retorted. “He told me that he’d cleared it all with them and that they had sanctioned the meeting. He would never have done it behind their backs.”

“The Army Council only found out about the meeting from one of their touts inside the RUC. They also heard a rumor from the same source that Brady taped the whole meeting. Is that true?”

Kane swallowed nervously as he felt the barrel of the shotgun press harder against the back of his head. He said nothing.

“Your loyalty to Brady’s very misguided, Sammy,” the Belfast voice said disdainfully. “The Army Council are well pissed off with him right now. And if he is relieved of his command because of what happened tonight, you can be sure they’ll be very critical of those around him as well. And as you virtually live in his shadow, you’d be the first to go down with him. Think about it, Sammy.”

Kane used his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “Yes, he taped the meeting. But how would the RUC know about that?”

“Because Brady’s lost his touch. He used to be innovative. Now he’s just predictable. And it seems that the RUC are very interested in hearing those tapes.”

“Tapes?” Kane said hesitantly.

“Don’t piss us about, Sammy. It’s obvious that Brady intended to send an edited version of the tape to the Press just so that he could save his own miserable skin. As I said, he’s become very predictable. Why else would he have taped the meeting? And if those tapes do fall into the hands of the RUC the Army Council are going to have a hell of a job explaining the deception to our supporters abroad. You received a delivery not five minutes ago from a courier on a motorbike. And it wasn’t a bloody pizza. So where are the tapes?”

“How do I even know the Army Council sent you? I don’t recognize your voices. You won’t even show your faces. You could be from the RUC for all I know.”

“We’ve got our orders,” the man behind Kane said to the Belfast man.