Jack Higgins - The Judas gate

'Over here, Mr Salter, I'm trying to get up this ladder.'

Billy ran along the wharf, Baxter following him, and they found Hasim in the light of a single lamp, halfway up an iron ladder. Baxter reached down, managed to grasp his right wrist, and heaved him up. He was shaking with cold and Billy took off his raincoat.

Hasim tried to wave it away. 'I think I'm bleeding, I'd ruin it. He tried to shoot me, so I had to jump off the roof.'

'I can't believe it,' Billy said. 'It's a miracle you're in one piece. Get this bloody coat on and we'll get out of it.'

'He's got away, has he?'

'He was knocked down by a bus and killed up on the high street,' Billy said as they walked to the car. 'How the hell did you come to be up there with him?'

Hasim explained, teeth chattering. As he finished, he said, 'He was going to kill all of us, no question, but something else happened on the roof. He called someone on his mobile. He said he had you two trying to invade the flat. He mentioned you by name. He said that Al Qaeda was a problem for them, which I figured meant you. He called the guy he was talking to "Preacher", and asked him to look after his mother if things went sour.'

They were at the Mercedes now, and Billy felt for the wound, got out his handkerchief and bound it tightly. He pushed Hasim into the back of the car and sat beside Baxter.

'St Luke's accident and emergency, Joe. I'll take over the car when we get there and you stay with Hasim – the story is that he fell in the river and hurt himself on the ladder. When everything's okay, we'll come up from the Dark Man and fetch you.'

'You mean me as well, Mr Salter?' Hasim said.

'Who else do I mean? You're a bleeding hero, sunshine. After what you did tonight, you're a made man. Harry Salter will see to that.' Harry was over the moon as Billy sat in the corner booth and told him exactly what had happened, Sam Hall and Dora hanging on his every word. They were still discussing it when Joe Baxter appeared, having come down in a taxi with the news that Hasim was being kept in the hospital for a day or two.

'Hypothermia,' he said. 'And he needed a few stitches in his arm. He was more worried about that than anything else – said it would give him a problem boxing.'

Harry shook his head. 'He's got guts, that kid, to do what he did. Have a word with Chuck Green, Billy. He's opened another health club, in Wandsworth. That makes seven. We've got money in that. Get him to take Hasim on, keep an eye on him.'

'I'll do that,' Billy said. 'But I'm going to take a run up to Holland Park and report in to Roper. I'll see you later. In West Hampstead, Professor Hassan Shah sat at the desk in his ornate Edwardian villa, thinking about everything as calmly as he could. Lancy's telephone call had set every alarm bell going. Lancy didn't do panic, it wasn't in his nature; he was a hard-knocks paratrooper who'd done his time in Afghanistan and paid the price with his wounds. More than that, he'd killed on Shah's behalf without the slightest compunction. He was a man who could handle anything, and yet he hadn't been in touch since his call from Tangier Wharf. So Shah did the obvious and called him on his mobile. After all, he couldn't be traced if someone else answered.

It rang for a long time and he simply sat there listening. He was about to give up when a woman answered. 'Grange Street Morgue.'

Hassan Shah said calmly, 'I'm so sorry, I must have called the wrong number.'

'Probably not, sir. This is the personal effects room, where we store the belongings of those brought in dead, to be claimed later, of course. Could you give me the name of the individual you were trying to call?'

Shah took a huge breath to steady himself. 'Selim Lancy.'

She answered at once. 'Oh, yes, he was brought in quite recently. Knocked down by a bus in Wapping High Street.'

'And killed,' Shah said. It was a stupid remark, but involuntary.

'Of course, sir, he's here waiting for a post mortem. You're a relative?' she asked.

'No, I employed him on occasion.'

'Could I have your name? It may be of use if there are identification problems.'

'I'm so sorry, but I suddenly feel very upset. I'll have to call you back.'

He switched off and sat there. The consequence of the business he was in was death, sometimes of a few, sometimes of many. You had to harden your heart: he had learned that a long time ago. Strange, then, that he felt genuine sadness in Lancy's case. Considering what had gone before, it was obviously not an accident. The Salters had to be behind it – them and Ferguson.

Ferguson had been a problem for too long, but he seemed to live a charmed life; it was rumoured he had even walked away from a car bomb. Perhaps, after all, the best solution was the old-fashioned way as used by the IRA for years. A silenced pistol loaded with hollow point cartridges, the bullet in the back of the head one lonely night in the rain and dark. Or in the back in a crowd, the target falling to the ground, the assassin calmly walking away.

All it required was a man with nerves of steel, and probably one who liked his work: a man like Lancy. Justin Talbot certainly liked his work, and was mad enough to take any chance. In fact, he was beginning to worry Shah, who for some time now had decided it was a good thing that Talbot did not know his identity. Perhaps the temptation of putting a bullet in the back of Shah's own head on a dark rainy night might have proved too great.

But all this would have to wait, for suddenly the most important thing in his life was an old Muslim woman in the cancer ward at St Luke's Hospital who did not know that her best beloved son had gone to paradise, leaving her alone. Professor Hassan Shah had no idea how to break the news to her, but it had to be done. It was a matter of honour, but at this time of night she would be asleep. He would leave it till the morning.

There was another matter that needed taking care of, also a matter of honour. He made a call on his special mobile and spoke to the man who answered it.

'Hamid, this is the Preacher. I have traffic for you, starting now. A photo and address will be in your laptop in five minutes. Deliver punishment at once with extreme prejudice. Osama's blessing on you.'

There was a short pause and then the reply. 'Allah is great and Osama is his Prophet.' It was just past midnight. Billy Salter had been with Roper for the past hour, getting filled in on the reason for Dillon's sudden trip to Ulster, and now he was driving down from Wapping High Street to the Dark Man. There were lamps here and there, three on the jetty that had the Linda Jones tied up to it, a few scattered around the car park. Not that there were many vehicles around at that time of night, with the pub closed since eleven, Dora's implacable house rules. There were lights on at the back of the building in the private quarters, but otherwise it was quiet and remote, with only the river noises to be heard.

He parked the red Alfa Romeo Spider, got out and stretched, for he was exhausted, hardly surprising after the events of the evening. He stood by one of the lamps at the beginning of the jetty and inhaled that wonderful river smell that was the Thames; it was where he'd grown up and it always made him feel better.

When he turned, a man was standing there, medium height with longish hair, wearing a leather bomber jacket. 'Mr Salter.' The voice was very soft.

'Who the hell are you?' Billy demanded.

'The Wrath of Osama.'

His hand swung up, there was the dull thud of a silenced weapon, and two rounds hit Billy around the heart. The force of the blow was enormous, sending him staggering on to his back. He breathed deeply as he had been trained to do, trying to stay conscious.

The man came forward to finish him, and Billy's right hand found the silenced Colt.25 with hollow point cartridges in his ankle holster. As the man leaned over, Billy shot him between the eyes.