Ted Bell - Warlord

FIVE LONG MONTHS PASSED, and Mountbatten had grown weary of the struggle. The endless meetings with Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah. While they argued and schemed, the political situation grew worse almost daily. The death toll among warring Moslems, Hindus, and Sikhs was mounting. Provocations on both sides abounded. A sacred cow, wandering inside a tiny Moslem village in the Punjab, was slaughtered, its bloody carcass delivered in a cart to the Hindu village across the valley. The resulting violence of that blasphemy left hundreds, perhaps thousands, dead.

India was now a powder keg with a very short fuse.

Mountbatten knew then that he could only stave off the inevitable for a very short time. He could only present a front of supreme confidence until that wretched hour when England would have little choice but to abandon her responsibilities and slip away.

It had come to this, he told his wife one night in bed: he could watch the Indian pot boil but he could not, ever, extinguish the flame beneath it.

Delhi was already gasping in the first searing blasts of the hot season. In the mornings, beyond the opened windows of his study, scorching breezes fried the dhak trees in the Mogul garden, the branches seeming to emit sparks in the sun's phosphorescent white glare.

With each passing day, there was fresh evidence of increasing violence and bloodshed. Just five days after Mountbatten's arrival, an incident between Moslems and Hindus took ninety-nine lives in Calcutta. More recently, a conflict in Bombay left forty-one mutilated bodies on the pavement. And, now, the violence flared unabated throughout the land.

Mountbatten, at his wit's end, summoned India's senior police officer to his study and asked a simple question.

"Tell me the truth, Chief Inspector. Are the Indian police capable of maintaining law and order in India or are they not?"

"No, Your Excellency, we can no longer maintain law and order."

That night Lord Mountbatten put in a call to Buckingham Palace.

He told his King the time had come.

England must prepare at once to abandon India.

The cost in blood and treasure would be incalculable. The once great land that had been England's shining pride of empire would be ripped asunder for all time. For the glorious British Empire that had been, this was the beginning of the end.

COUNTY SLIGO, NORTHERN IRELAND, JUNE 1979

FIVE INVISIBLE MEN SAT AROUND the battered kitchen table staring at each other through eye slits in their black balaclavas. It was a bit odd, Smith thought, all of them including himself wearing these bloody ski masks, sharing a bottle of Irish whiskey. There was no heat in the house but for what was in that bottle, so unseasonably cold on this rainy June night that they all wore leather gloves.

The two gentlemen who had transported him from the IRA pub in Belfast out to the safe house in the County Sligo countryside had been sent outdoors with a bottle of Tullamore Dew and a pair of automatic rifles. Sentry duty. He doubted they'd be disturbed.

The safe house was an old place, long abandoned. There was a crooked sign over the door, faded and peeling. The Barking Dog Inn. The old building sat deep within a thick wood at a bend in the river. Despite the shutters, there was heavy black paper taped to all the windows in the small, plain kitchen and also in the parlor filled with musty-smelling furniture, the only two rooms he'd seen. A flight of stairs led up into total darkness.

"And yer name would be?" the largest of the four heavily armed men finally asked.

"Smith," he said automatically. It was the only name he ever used now.

"Smith?"

"Yes. Just Smith."

"Awright, Smith. And what might yer first name be, then?"

"Mister."

"Mister, is it? He's funny, ain't he, lads? I need your full fuckin' name, Mister Smith. We're bleeding sticklers on that kind of detail, ye can well understand."

"John," he said, using the first name that popped into his mind. Red rage was blooming inside him and he wanted to kill this filthy, sarcastic bastard. But he needed him too badly. Hell, he needed all of them too badly.

"Bloody hell, John Smith. Where are you from, then?"

"Mutton Island. I doubt you've heard of it."

"Desolate place, ain't it? Hainted by banshees."

"I need my privacy."

"You'd better have a right good reason for being here," one of the anonymous black woolen heads said, looking at him over the rim of his mug. "You ain't leavin' alive if ye don't."

He was mildly unnerved. Odd. Nothing unnerved him, ever. But finding oneself alone in an abandoned old house with four heavily armed killers seemed to have adverse effects. He found it quite interesting from a psychological point of view. He spoke, keeping his voice calm and deliberate.

"You kill people quite easily. So do I. Kindred spirits, that's what we are."

A silence ensued, in which his fate was clearly being privately debated by the four Provos. Finally, the big IRA soldier spoke.

"You have something for me?"

Smith withdrew a manila envelope, slid it across the table, and the IRA officer eagerly rifled through the contents. He studied a few pages very carefully and then, seemingly satisfied, looked up at the man with a hard eye.

"This is good intelligence, Mr. Smith, the genuine article it would seem. How did you happen to come by all this information?"

"I find people who have information and force them to tell me things by whatever means necessary."

"British soldiers?"

"Certainly not. That would be suicide. My informants are those who are close to British soldiers. People with whom they share sometimes valuable information."

"And how do you make these people tell you things?"

"Unbearable pain."

"Cold bastard, ain't he?"

"Are you Billy McKee, sir?" Smith asked.

"Might be. Might not. There's many a Billy McKee in this godforsaken land of ours."

"Let us assume you are. Then, Mr. McKee, I should think your colleague in Dublin would have explained the reasons behind my desire for this meeting. This British military intelligence of mine, an endless supply of it, is yours for the asking."

"How much?"

"I don't want your money, Mr. McKee. I want your help."

"Why don't you tell me and my colleagues here exactly what you've got in mind, Smith."

Smith cleared his throat and placed his gloved hands palm down on the rough wooden table.

"I wonder if I might first have a taste of that whiskey. It's been rather a long journey. I'm parched."

McKee filled a cracked glass with whiskey.

Smith drank it down and it blistered his throat.

"Another, if you don't mind?"

"Pour him another crapper, Sean."

"Crapper?" Smith said, worriedly.

"Don't worry, mate. Irish for a half-glass of whiskey."

"Thanks," Smith said, and downed the second tumbler. He looked round the table into the eyes of the four rather fearsome-looking IRA Provos. The moment had finally arrived.

"Well, Mr. Smith?" Billy McKee said. "Sometime tonight, I hope?"

"Sorry," he croaked. The whiskey burned his throat, and he was trying to suppress a cough with a fist to his mouth, "I want to do much more than provide military intelligence to the IRA. I want to-to assassinate someone."

"Who doesn't?" one of the anonymous men said, to general laughter.

"Point taken," Smith said. "You fellows have perfected the art of political murder. I admire your skills, your tactics. I can't do this killing alone, you see. The chance of failure is too high. I've come because I need to ask for your help."

"I wouldn't think an island hermit would make that many serious enemies, Smith. Besides, why the hell should we help you assassinate anyone?"

"Quite simple. I will assume all the risk. You gentlemen will get all the credit."