Jack Higgins - The Judas gate

'It's kind of you to say so, Colonel, I was only doing my duty,' Salim said.

Atep glanced at his watch. 'Ah, you must be on your way. You'll forgive me for not seeing you off to the airport. I have another appointment. I trust your luggage is being taken care of?'

'I'll see to it,' Salim said. 'Excuse me.'

He got up and went out and the bill was discreetly presented to the Colonel, who waved it away to be put on his account. They all went out to the hall, where Salim waited, and said their goodbyes.

Colonel Atep went down the steps to where his Porsche 911 was parked. He waved, got in and drove away.

'He loves that car above all things,' Salim said. 'It's his virility system. He will drive it from here for exactly thirty minutes to that "appointment" at his favourite house of pleasure.'

'How interesting,' Ferguson said.

'Isn't it?' Abu Salim smiled. 'And now let me see you off.' It wasn't particularly busy, and they walked through the concourse towards the private departure section for VIPs, where they could see Parry waiting, talking to some security man in uniform.

'There he is,' Ferguson said. 'We'll be on our way before you know it. Have a little champagne when we get on board, Harry, eh? That'll be nice.'

The security man's mobile sounded. He answered it and seemed to go rigid, then turned at once to Salim. 'Terrible news, Captain, that was headquarters. Colonel Ahmed Atep has just been blown up in his car!'

Salim barely managed a frown with his scarred face. 'Tell them I'll be there at once. But first I must see our guests off.'

The security man nodded, then hurried away, speaking into the mobile. Ferguson said to Parry, 'Lead the way.' They passed outside and walked towards the Gulfstream, which waited, steps down. 'Do carry on, Parry. We'll only be a moment.'

He and Miller turned to face Salim, and Ferguson looked at him gravely. 'A terrible business, Captain.'

'Car bombs are one of the curses of our age,' Abu Salim said. 'A block of Semtex, a fifteen-minute timer.' He shrugged. 'No one is safe any more.'

'I suppose not. You're a remarkable young man,' Ferguson told him, and went up the steps.

Miller held out his hand and Salim took it for a moment. 'I've always remembered one thing in particular from your counter-terrorism lectures at Sandhurst, Major.'

'And what would that be?'

'That in the world of today, the only rule is that there are no rules.'

He walked away. Miller turned and went up the steps, the door closed, and a few minutes later the Gulfstream moved away.

It was ten o'clock in the morning when Dillon and Holley turned up at Holland Park and found Roper in his usual place.

'You're late for breakfast,' Roper said.

'We've already had it,' Dillon said. 'Daniel and I had a night out. First Le Caprice. Wonderful food. Finished in the bar at the Dorchester with far too much champagne, then retired upstairs where my friend, being appallingly rich, has booked one of those Park Suites with two bedrooms.'

'What about the hangovers?'

'We don't indulge in those. I'm Irish and Daniel is half-Irish and his other half is Yorkshire, the biggest beer drinkers in the world.' Dillon grinned and, as Tony Doyle entered, said, 'Any chance of one of your big mugs of tea, Tony?'

'Coming right up, Mr Dillon.'

Daniel Holley had pulled a chair forward, sat down on it and started to scan the computer screens. Something caught his eye, and he said, 'What's this about Talbot International?'

'Colonel Henry Talbot passed on last night,' Roper said. 'It'll mean Justin Talbot will want the Chairman's seat for himself.'

'Which makes sense. The ultimate job for the man who's got everything. If you don't mind, Roper, let's have a look at him.'

Roper turned up a family history, which was considerable, stretching back to the Talbots' first appearance in Northern Ireland from Wales in the late seventeenth century.

'Scroll through,' Dillon said. 'Just show us glamour boy.'

Roper did as he was asked, but said, 'Why do you call him that?'

'Because he's too good to be true.' A photo came up of Talbot receiving his Military Cross from the Queen, a dazzling smile on his face.

'You can't argue with his service record,' Roper pointed out. 'Both Gulf Wars, Bosnia and Kosovo, two tours in Afghanistan, badly wounded and decorated during the second.'

Dillon said, 'No Irish time, what do you make of that?'

'Could be he opted out of service there.'

'But it was still a matter of choice,' Dillon told him. 'Somehow it doesn't fit the hero image. I bet if you started digging online, as only you can, you'd probably turn something up.'

'I'll see what I can do.'

A picture of Jean Talbot and Justin appeared on the screen and Holley said, 'Now there's a nice-looking lady.'

'Jean Talbot, his mother.' Roper's fingers moved. 'Here's her background.'

'Clever lady,' Holley said. 'Oxford and the Slade.'

'And look at the results,' Dillon pointed out. 'She won the Hollyfield Award for her portrait of the Queen Mother. Visiting Professor in Fine Art at London University.' He shook his head. 'I didn't think Colonel Henry had it in him to produce someone like that.'

'I'd say her mother had more effect than he did,' Roper said. 'Ah, here we are. Twenty-first of July, Nineteen sixty-four, delivered of a son named Justin Talbot. No entry for name of father.'

'Her privilege,' Holley said. 'Not to name the father. Could be all sorts of reasons.'

'I wonder how Colonel Henry took it?' Dillon said. 'At least he got an heir bearing his name.'

'Here we go: there's more,' Roper said. 'She bought a house in Marley Court, Mayfair, on the thirteenth of August, that year.' He nodded. 'So she was raising her son in London, not Ulster.'

'Probably didn't want her beloved father anywhere near the boy,' Dillon said. 'We'll leave you to it and indulge in a workout in the gym, followed by a sauna. Don't forget to turn over Talbot's dubious past.' Information of the type that Roper sought was impossible for most people to obtain, but Roper wasn't most people. Two hours of patient probing finally produced a result, and it was a treasure trove. He was sitting there when they returned.

'You seem deep in thought,' Dillon said.

'I've a lot to think about.'

'Justin Talbot?'

'I've printed it out. You can read it, but I wonder whether I should put a match to it.'

'As bad as that?' Dillon said.

Roper pressed his buzzer for Doyle. 'A first-rate soldier just doing what they told him to do, I suppose.' Doyle appeared and he said, 'Toilet, Tony, shower, clean everything, shirt and track suit.'

'Right, sir, let's go,' Doyle said.

'It's the jobs he handled on his own that I find astonishing,' Roper said to Dillon. 'A one-man killing machine. But you'll see for yourself.'

He switched on his wheelchair and cruised out, Doyle walking beside him. Dillon read it, then poured himself a whisky while Holley worked through it. 'What do you think?' Dillon asked.

Holley handed the report back. 'You and I have done as much. We're not soldiers of virtue, Sean, we are soldiers of fortune. A bad thing happened to me a long time ago and my response changed me forever, and made me what I am. I don't do it for money, I have money.' He shrugged. 'As long as it's bad people I'm up against, I don't care. I'm certainly not going to condemn Justin Talbot for what he's done. Every IRA member I've known told me he was fighting a war. That's exactly what Talbot was doing, only it was for the other side.'

Dillon smiled reluctantly. 'You're right, damn you.'

An Ulster Television news flash appeared on one of the screens, and a reporter in a dark suit read, 'The death of Colonel Henry Talbot at his home in County Down last night may seem by many to symbolize the end of an era of extreme politics for which there is no longer a place in Northern Ireland.'