Jack Higgins - Angel Of Death

He closed his eyes. “My God, old sport, what’s happening to you?” he murmured.

He arrived at the St. Stephen’s entrance to the Commons, went through the Central Lobby to his office, and got rid of his umbrella and raincoat and put the Beretta in his safe, then went down to the entrance to the House and passed the bar. There was a debate taking place on some social services issue. He took his usual seat on the end of one of the aisles. When he looked up he saw Tom Curry seated in the front row of the Strangers’ Gallery, his left arm in a sling. Lang nodded up to him, folded his arms, and leaned back.

Half an hour later the London Times news desk received a brief message by telephone in which January 30 claimed credit for the assassination of Colonel Boris Ashimov.

In the three years which followed, Curry maintained a steady flow of confidential information of every description, aided by Lang. They made only three hits during the period. Two at the same time, a couple of IRA bombers released from trial at the Old Bailey on a legal technicality, who proceeded on a drunken spree that lasted all day. It was Curry who charted their progress until midnight, then called in Lang, who killed them both as they sat, backs to the wall, in a drunken stupor in a Kilburn alley.

The third was an American field officer of the CIA attached to the American Embassy’s London Station. He had been giving Belov considerable aggravation and, after the Berlin Wall came down, appeared to be far too friendly with the Russian’s latest rival, Mikhail Shimko, who had replaced Ashimov as Colonel in Charge of London Station KGB.

The CIA man was called Jackson and, by chance, his name came up at one of the joint intelligence working parties, news that he was having a series of meetings at an address in Holland Park with members of a Ukrainian faction resident in London. Curry kept a watch at the appropriate times and noticed that Jackson always walked for a mile afterwards, following the same route through quiet streets to the main road where he hailed a taxi.

After the next meeting, Lang was waiting in a small Ford Van at an appropriate point on the route, provided by Belov, of course. As Jackson passed, Lang, wearing a knitted ski mask in black, stepped out and shot him once in the back, penetrating the heart, finished with a head shot, got in the van and drove away. He left the van in a builders’ yard in Bayswater, again an address provided by Belov, and walked away, whistling softly to himself.

It was half an hour later that a young reporter on the news desk of the London Times took the phone call claiming credit for the killing by January 30.

The British Government allowed the Americans to flood London temporarily with CIA agents intent on hunting down Jackson ’s killer. As usual, they drew a complete blank. That the killings claimed by January 30 from Ali Hamid onwards had been the work of the same Beretta 9-millimeter was known to everyone, as was the significance of January 30. The Bloody Sunday connection should have indicated an Irish revolutionary connection, but even the IRA got nowhere in their investigations. In the end, the CIA presence was withdrawn.

British Army Intelligence, Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist department, MI5, all failed to make headway. Even the redoubtable Brigadier Charles Ferguson, head of the special intelligence unit responsible to the Prime Minister, had only total failure to report to Downing Street.

It was in January 1990, following the collapse of the Communist-dominated government of East Germany, that Lang and Curry attended a cultural evening at the American Embassy. There were at least a hundred and fifty people there, including Belov, whom they found at the champagne bar. They took their glasses into an anteroom and found a corner table.

“So, everything’s falling apart for you people, Yuri,” Lang said. “First the Wall comes tumbling down, now East Germany folds, and a little bird tells me there’s a strong possibility that your Congress of People’s Deputies might soon abolish the Communist Party’s monopoly of power in Russia.”

Belov shrugged. “Disorder leads to strength. It’s inevitable. Take the German situation. West Germany is at present the most powerful country in Western Europe economically. The consequences of taking East Germany on board will be catastrophic in every way and particularly economically. The balance of power in Europe once again altered totally. Remember what I said a long time ago? Chaos is our business.”

“I suppose you’re right, when you come to think of it,” Lang said.

Curry nodded. “Of course he is.”

“I invariably am.” Belov raised his glass. “To a new world, my friends, and to us. One never knows what’s round the corner.”

“I know,” Rupert Lang said. “That’s what makes it all so damned exciting.”

They touched glasses and drank.

Rupert Lang was more right than he knew. There was something round the corner, something profound and disturbing that was to affect all three of them, although it was not to take place until the Gulf War was over and done with. January 1992, to be precise.

Grace Browning was born in Washington in 1965. Her father was a journalist on the Washington Post , her mother was English. When she was twelve tragedy struck, devastating her life. On the way home from a concert one night their car was rammed into the curb by an old limousine. The men inside were obviously on drugs. She remembered the shouting, the demands for money, her father opening the door to get out and then the shots, one of which penetrated the side window at the rear and killed her mother instantly.

Grace lay in the bottom of the car, frozen, terrified, glancing up only once to see the shape of a man, gun raised, shouting, “Go, go, go!” and then the old limousine shot away.

She wasn’t even able to give the police a useful description, couldn’t even say whether they were white or black. All that mattered was that her father died the following morning and she was left alone.

Not quite, of course, for there was her mother’s sister, her aunt Martha, Lady Hunt to be precise, a woman of considerable wealth and widowed early, who lived in some splendor in a fine town house in Cheyne Walk in London. She had received her niece with affection and firmness, for she was a tough, practical lady who believed you had to get on with it instead of sitting down and crying.

Grace was admitted to St. Paul ’s Girls’ School, one of the finest in London, where she soon proved to have considerable intellect. She was popular with everyone, teachers and pupils alike, and yet for her, it was a sort of performance. Inside she was one thing, herself, detached, cold, but on the surface, she was charming, intelligent, warm. It was not surprising that she was something of a star in school drama circles.

Her social life, because of her aunt, was conducted at the highest level: Cannes and Nice in the summer, Barbados in the winter, always a ceaseless round of parties on the London scene. When she was sixteen, like most of the girls she knew, she attempted her first sexual encounter, a gauche seventeen-year-old public schoolboy. It was less than rewarding and as he climaxed, a strange thing happened. She seemed to see in her head the shadowy figure of the man who had killed her parents, gun raised.

When the time came for Grace to leave school, although her academic grades were good enough for Oxford or Cambridge, she had only one desire – to be a professional actress. Her aunt, being the sort of woman she was, supported her fully, stipulating only that Grace had to go for the best. So Grace auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and they accepted her at once.