Stephen Leather - The Double Tap

‘Maybe,’ said Cramer.

‘Unless they’re planning to remove all the evidence. If there’s no body, I suppose there’d be no proof that it ever happened. Not now you’re no longer with the regiment. It’s not as if you’d be missed, is it?’

‘Thanks, Colonel,’ said Cramer bitterly.

‘Do you know who they are?’

Cramer shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He noticed for the first time that the Colonel was wearing a blue tie covered with small winged daggers. Cramer smiled. Only the Colonel would go up against a team of IRA hitmen wearing the regimental tie of the Special Air Service.

‘Dermott Lynch’s running the show. He’s got Pat O’Riordan with him. Down on the beach you’ve got Gerry Fitzpatrick and Fergus McVeigh. We couldn’t identify the youngster.’

‘Lynch’s good.’

‘Oh yes, he’s good. And he’s got a personal interest in you, of course. We’d love to get hold of O’Riordan, too. But the rest are strictly second division.’

The Colonel looked at his watch, then turned back to face the sea again.

‘What do you want, Colonel?’

‘A chat. You’ve got time for a chat, haven’t you?’

Cramer shrugged listlessly. ‘I’d rather be on my own, if that’s all right with you.’

‘But you’re not on your own, are you, Sergeant Cramer? There’s an IRA active service unit armed to the teeth heading your way.’

‘You’d best be going then, huh?’

The Colonel shook his head sadly. ‘This isn’t the way to do it, Joker.’

The nickname made Cramer smile. It had been a long time since anyone had used it. ‘Do what?’

‘You know what.’

Cramer sighed and hunched his shoulders. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said flatly.

‘I know you’re dying.’

For the first time, Cramer looked across at the Colonel. ‘We’re all dying,’ he said venomously.

‘How long?’ asked the Colonel. ‘How long did the doctor give you?’

‘If you’re here, you already know.’

‘Two months. Three months at the most. The last few weeks will be in intolerable pain. You’ll need to be on a drip, and even that won’t be enough.’

‘So you know why I’m here.’

‘Because you’re frightened of dying in a hospital bed, screaming in agony. Friendless. Alone.’

Cramer wrinkled his nose at the image. ‘Thanks for sugar-coating it for me, Colonel.’

‘Bowel cancer isn’t a pleasant way to die.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘So you’ve decided to go down fighting. To die like a soldier, in battle.’

Cramer smiled and drew back his jacket so that the Colonel could see the Browning in the holster. He looked over his shoulder. The men on the beach were still heading in their direction. Lynch and O’Riordan were standing in the car park, talking. ‘You should go, Colonel. This is going to get messy.’

‘Hear me out, Joker. This isn’t the way to do it.’

Cramer’s eyes hardened. ‘With all due respect, Colonel, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’

The Colonel thrust his square jaw forward. His jaw, and the wide nose which had been broken several times, gave the man a deceptively simple appearance, but Cramer knew that he had an IQ in the high 150s and was one of the top twelve chess-players in the United Kingdom. ‘I can offer you a better way.’

‘Yeah, right. What do you want me to do? Swallow my gun? I’ve tried, Colonel. I can’t.’

The Colonel shook his head. ‘That’s not what I’m offering. I’m offering you a chance to do something worthwhile with your last few weeks.’

Cramer frowned, then looked away. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Over the last two years there’ve been a series of assassinations around the world. Businessmen, politicians, criminals, all killed by one man. A professional killer who’ll hit anyone if the price is right. He’s never been caught, and we have no idea who he is.’

‘We? We as in the SAS?’

‘The FBI, Interpol, MI6, the SVR, Mossad.’

‘All the good guys, huh?’

The Colonel ignored the interruption. ‘He likes to get in close, this killer. He always uses a handgun. We’ve dozens of witnesses, but we don’t know what he looks like.’

Cramer frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘Oh, we’ve dozens of descriptions all right. He’s short. He’s tall. He’s thin, he’s overweight, he’s balding, he has a beard, blue eyes, brown eyes, pale skinned, tanned. The only thing we’re sure of is that he’s white and male.’

‘A master of disguise,’ said Cramer, smiling at the cliche.

The Colonel shrugged. ‘He uses contact lenses, he grows facial hair as and when he needs it. He puts on weight, he takes it off. Maybe he even has plastic surgery. There isn’t anything he won’t do to succeed.’

Cramer turned around slowly. The men in the car park had started walking again. They’d soon be at the sea wall. He looked anxiously at the Colonel, who seemed unfazed by the approaching killers. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘Do you know what a Judas Goat is?’

Cramer shook his head.

‘Say you’re trying to trap a tiger. You can trample through the jungle all you want, you’ll not see a hair of it. You’re in his territory. You’re wasting your time trying to hunt it. So what you do is you take a young goat, a kid, and you tether it in a clearing. Then you sit back and wait. The tiger seeks out the bleating goat, and BANG! One dead tiger.’

‘A Judas Goat?’ repeated Cramer. ‘Sounds more like bait to me. That’s what you’re offering me? The chance to be bait?’

‘I’m offering you the chance to go up against the most successful assassin in the world, Joker. To the best of our knowledge he’s never failed. Never been caught, and never failed. Wouldn’t that be more of a challenge for you? Those bastards down there might call themselves an IRA active service unit, but we know better, don’t we? They’re psychopathic thugs with guns, that’s all. Sure, you’ll die with a gun in your hand and the blood coursing through your veins, but there’s no honour in being gunned down like a rabid dog. Sheer weight of numbers, that’s the only advantage they’ll have. They’ll just keep firing until you’re dead. You’ll get a couple of them, maybe more, but look at the company you’ll be dying in. Hell’s fucking bells, Joker, you wouldn’t give those bastards the time of day and yet you want to die with them?’

Paulie Quinn swung the binoculars from side to side, scanning for Fitzpatrick and McVeigh. They flashed across his vision and he panned back slowly until he had them dead centre. They’d stopped on the beach and were watching Cramer and the new arrival. McVeigh scratched his head and Fitzpatrick shrugged. McVeigh said something and Fitzpatrick nodded, then they started to walk, pulling their guns from beneath their bomber jackets. Paulie turned the binoculars onto Lynch and O’Riordan, who were striding towards the sea wall. O’Riordan turned as he walked and motioned with his hand for Davie to follow them.

Paulie searched for his brother and found him walking quickly along the road, clutching a newspaper. Paulie smiled. His brother looked tense, but he was doing exactly as he’d been told, following behind Lynch and O’Riordan, ready to cut off Cramer’s escape if he should try to get around them. Paulie wondered if Davie would get to shoot the Sass-man. God, he hoped so. He wondered who the man in the Barbour jacket was and why he was so earnestly talking to Cramer. Whoever he was, he was as good as dead. Lynch had obviously decided to take him out as well.

Cramer said nothing. He stared out to the horizon and took several deep breaths. The Colonel waited for him to speak. ‘Why does he take risks?’ Cramer asked eventually. ‘Why does he always do it close up? There are easier ways to kill. Safer ways.’