Stephen Leather - The Double Tap

There was also the question of how the killer had been hired in the first place. Becoming a contract killer wasn’t like setting out to be a doctor or an accountant — you couldn’t simply move into an office and put a sign on your door. Contract killers had to have a track record, they had to prove that they could kill and get away with it, and they had to prove that they could be trusted. Cramer had heard of former soldiers and mercenaries who’d become contract killers, but generally such assassins were Mob-trained, career criminals who had served their apprenticeships before becoming fully-fledged killers. Killers didn’t just appear from nowhere. There were skills to be acquired, techniques to be mastered. Cramer knew, because he was a killer, and he’d been trained by the best.

He dropped the file on the floor and picked up the next one. It was several times thicker than the Miami file, and as Cramer flicked through it, he soon realised why. The victim had been a British Member of Parliament, a Scot earmarked for a ministerial post who had been a close friend of the Prime Minister. Cramer vaguely remembered reading about the assassination, but at the time he’d been more concerned about the pain in his guts and the grim faces of the Spanish doctors. He scanned the police reports. The killer had been dressed as a motorcycle cop and had flagged down the MP’s official Rover as it drove away from a newly-opened semiconductor plant. The killer had calmly waited for the driver to wind down his window, then he’d shot the MP’s minder in the shoulder and killed the MP with two shots, one to the face, one to the heart. The descriptions provided by the injured bodyguard and the driver were worse than useless — the killer had kept his full-face helmet on, the tinted visor down, and he’d been wearing black leather gloves. Medium height, medium build.

Strathclyde Police had started a preliminary investigation but a team of Special Branch officers were sent up from the Metropolitan Police to take over. Despite the heavyweights, the investigation stalled. A burnt-out motorcycle was discovered in a field outside Carlisle a few days later, but it provided no forensic evidence.

Cramer read a memo from Special Branch to the Security Service requesting possible motives for the assassination and the reply, sent two days later, was noncommittal. The MP was married with two teenage children, had no known sexual liaisons outside the marriage, was a lawyer by profession and had no controversial business interests.

The Security Service did however point out that the MP had helped organise a campaign to stop an American oil company developing two huge offshore oilfields for Iran. The company had been about to sign the billion-dollar contract when the MP raised the matter in the House of Commons. The British had been pressing the Russian Government not to supply the Iranians with nuclear reactors, and the MP made a stirring speech complaining that it was unfair to ask the Russians to stop trading with Iran at a time when the Americans were about to help the country develop its oil resources. The State Department stepped in and the deal was blocked. ‘It is possible,’ the Security Service memo concluded, ‘that the assassination was revenge for the blocked contract.’ Cramer smiled thinly. The memo didn’t say whether the Iranians or the oil company might have paid for the hit. The way big business operated these days, it could have been either.

There was a sheaf of correspondence between Special Branch and the FBI, exchanging information on hired assassins who might be prepared to kill such a high-profile target, but it was clear that the investigation was going nowhere. A memo from Special Branch to the Prime Minister’s office some three months after the killing suggested as much. The Prime Minister hadn’t replied to the Special Branch memo; instead he had written a seven word memo to the Colonel. ‘Immediate action required. Report directly to me.’ The unsigned memo explained something that had been troubling Cramer ever since he had started working his way through the stack of files. Cramer had wondered why the Colonel and the SAS should be leading the hunt for a paid assassin, especially one who appeared to be most active in the United States. Now the answer was clear; it wasn’t just to prevent further killings. The Prime Minister had taken it personally. He wanted revenge for a dead friend.

The mist came rolling off the hills around Crossmaglen, a cold, damp fog that chilled Lynch to the bone. He shivered and looked over at O’Riordan. ‘Nice day for it,’ he said.

‘I don’t suppose a city boy like you gets up before dawn much,’ said O’Riordan. He was wearing a green waterproof jacket, a floppy tweed hat and green Wellington boots. Had it not been for the Kalashnikov he was cradling in his arms, he would have looked every inch the gentleman farmer.

‘Forecast was for sun,’ said Lynch, rubbing his hands together for warmth.

O’Riordan pulled a face. ‘You can’t forecast the weather here,’ he said. ‘It changes from one minute to the next. You should have worn a waterproof jacket, right enough.’

‘Yeah, now you tell me.’ Lynch had put on a black leather jacket with a sheepskin collar which was already wet through, and blue denim jeans which were soaking up the damp like a sponge. Beads of dew speckled his beard and moustache, and water trickled down the back of his neck in rivulets.

The two men stood by O’Riordan’s Landrover which they’d parked under a chestnut tree, but it provided little in the way of shelter, as the moisture was all around them like a shroud. Lynch looked at his wristwatch. It was just before five. O’Riordan was right, he rarely got out of bed before ten and he disliked mornings, with a vengeance.

Davie and Paulie Quinn jumped down from the back of a mud-splattered truck a short distance away, then reached inside and pulled out large spades.

‘Think we should help them?’ asked O’Riordan.

Lynch grinned. ‘The exercise will do them good,’ he said.

‘Didn’t you tell them to bring gloves? They’ll have blisters the size of golfballs by the time they’ve finished.’

‘Slipped my mind,’ said Lynch. He sat down on the bumper of O’Riordan’s Landrover and groaned. ‘God, I hate mornings,’ he said.

Davie walked over, his spade over his shoulder. ‘Okay?’ he asked cheerfully.

O’Riordan stood with his back to the tree and counted off twenty paces. He raked his heel through the damp earth. ‘Here there be treasure, me hearties,’ he growled.

‘How deep is it?’ asked Paulie as he joined his brother.

‘Six feet. Maybe a bit more. Put your backs into it, boys. We haven’t got all day.’

As the brothers began to dig, O’Riordan went back to Lynch. Lynch looked at his wristwatch again.

‘We’ll be okay,’ said O’Riordan. ‘Half an hour, then fifteen minutes to load up, fifteen minutes to refill the hole. We’ll be away in an hour.’

‘I just don’t like being exposed, that’s all.’ He squinted up at the reddening sky. Birds were already starting to greet the approaching dawn.

O’Riordan leant his assault rifle against the vehicle and ducked his head through the driver’s side window. He took out a Thermos flask. ‘Coffee?’

Lynch nodded and O’Riordan poured steaming black coffee into two plastic mugs. Paulie Quinn looked over at them but O’Riordan nodded at the hole. ‘Keep digging, son.’

Mike Cramer lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He was thinking about death. His own death. Cramer wasn’t scared of dying. The act was usually less painful and stressful than what led up to it. Death could often be a welcome release, an escape from pain, a way out. His right hand stroked the raised scar across his stomach as he remembered how he’d been so sure that he was dying as he lay on the floor of the Lynx helicopter, his trousers soaked with blood, his entrails in his hands.