Solo (Aka the Cretan Lover)(1980)

by Jack Higgins

  'Hello, Jock.' Morgan moved inside. 'How's the security business?'

  Kelso led the way through into another office, small and uncluttered, a neat desk, green filing cabinets, carpets on the wall. It was here that the real business of the firm was conducted. From this office, mercenaries had gone out to fight in the Congo, the Sudan, the Oman and a dozen other dirty little wars, for Jock Kelso was in the Death business. He knew and so did Morgan.

  He poured whisky into two paper cups and said, 'I heard about Megan. I'm sorry.'

  'I want the man responsible, this Cretan they talk about,' Morgan said.

  'Anything I can do, Colonel, you know that.'

  'Fair enough, Jock. I've got a lead. It could mean something or nothing, but it means going back to Belfast to find out.'

  'Out of uniform?' Kelso looked grave. 'They get their hands on you, Colonel, they'll have your eyes.'

  'Get word to O'Hagan,' Morgan said. 'Tell him I'll be at the Europa in Belfast from tomorrow afternoon. That I must see him. Can you do that?'

  'Yes,' Kelso said. 'If that's what you want.'

  'It is, Jock, it is. How have you been managing since your wife died?'

  'Fine: my daughter, Amy, she's still at home. Looks after me just fine.'

  'She must be about twenty now? She engaged to be married or anything?'

  'Not her.' Kelso laughed. 'Got her head screwed on right, that one. She's in business for herself as a florist. Doing very well, especially on the delivery side. Amazing how they grow. One minute, they're just kids, the next...'

  He paused awkwardly. Morgan emptied his paper cup and shivered. 'Cold tonight. I must be getting old.'

  'But not as cold as Korea, Colonel.'

  'No.' Morgan said softly. 'Nothing could ever quite match up to that. I'll let you know when I get back.'

  Kelso listened to him descending the stairs, then picked up the telephone and called for a taxi.

  It deposited him twenty minutes later outside the Harp of Erin, a public house in the Portobello Road which as its name implied, was much frequented by London Irish. The bar was crowded, an old man in the corner playing a concertina and singing a famous Irish street ballad, 'Bold Robert Emmet'. As Kelso entered, the entire room was joining in the chorus of - tried as a traitor, a rebel, a spy; but no one can call me a knave or a coward, a hero I lived and a hero I'll die.

  There was more than one unfriendly look as he shouldered his way through to the frosted glass door marked Snug. When he went in, he found three men sitting at a small table playing whist.

  The big man facing him was named Patrick Murphy and he was organizer for North London of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA.

  'Jock?' he said.

  'It's important,' Kelso told him.

  Murphy nodded, the other two got up and went out. 'Well?'

  'I've got a message for O'Hagan.'

  'And which O'Hagan would that be?'

  'Don't play games with me, Patsy, we soldiered together too long. Tell O'Hagan that Asa Morgan will be at the Europa from tomorrow and he wants to see him as soon as possible on personal business.'

  'What kind of personal business?'

  'That's for them to discuss.'

  Kelso opened the door, pushed his way back through the crowd and returned to the taxi he'd left waiting. As it drove away, he was sweating slightly.

  In the snug, Murphy sat thinking for a while, then he leaned over the bar and called the landlady. He offered her a couple of pound notes.

  'Change these for ten-pence pieces, Norah, love. I want to call Belfast.'

  'Sure and you can use my phone, can't you?'

  'Not for this one, I can't. You never know who might be listening.'

  She shrugged, gave him the silver from the till and he went out of the side door and walked down the street to the public telephone box on the corner.

  The following morning, just after nine, there was a knock at Katherine Riley's study door. As she glanced up, Mikali appeared.

  'When did you get in?' she demanded.

  'Flew up this morning in my new second-hand Cessna. Got a couple of days to spare, then concerts in Paris, Berlin, Rome. Afterwards, I thought of going to Hydra for a while. Can you spare the time?'

  'I don't know.' She was in his arms now, aware of that surging physical excitement that never failed. 'I've got one hell of a work load this term.'

  'All right, then this morning. If you're an especially good girl, I'll let you fly the Cessna.'

  'I'm better than you are, John Mikali, and you know it,' she said, for flying was a passion they mutually shared. 'Just give me ten minutes to change.'

  'Five,' he said and sat on the desk and lit a cigarette as she went into her bedroom. 'So, you've been busy this week? Doing what?'

  'The same old routine,' she called. 'Except for the Hoffmann girl. I saw her yesterday in rather strange circumstances.'

  'Is that so?' He went and leaned against the door. 'Tell me about it.'

  Later, as they walked out to the car, he made an excuse, went back inside the college, stopped at the first public phone and dialled Paris.

  When Deville answered, he said quickly, 'The man Morgan, I want the complete file. Everything there is to know. The works, including photo. Can your people in London supply this?'

  'Of course. You can pick it up at the London post box there any time after seven this evening. Do I take it you are experiencing trouble?'

  'He's been to see the German package, not that it got him anywhere. My information is he's now gone to Ulster looking for a lead that might help him trace the tool employed.'

  Deville chuckled. 'He's running in the wrong direction. A blind alley.'

  'Of course,' Mikali said. 'But it's as well to be prepared. I'll keep in touch.'

  7

  The Europa Hotel in Belfast stands in Great Victoria Street, rising twelve storeys above the railway station next to it. Since it had opened in 1971, more than twenty-five separate bombing attacks had been made on it by the IRA.

  Morgan remembered that interesting statistic as he stood at the window of his room on the fourth floor and looked down to the bus station and the Protestant stronghold of Sandy Row.

  A cold east wind blew in from Belfast Lough, driving rain across the mean streets of the devastated city. He was restless and frustrated. This was his second day here and nothing had happened.

  He had stayed in the hotel, only left his room to go down to the dining-room or the bar, had spent most of the previous night sitting in the darkness by the window, a night punctuated by the sounds of bombs exploding or the occasional rattle of small-arms fire.

  He was worried because this was Friday and in less than forty-eight hours, at 4.00 a.m. on Monday 31 July, Motorman was to go into action: the biggest operation mounted by the British Army since Suez. A planned invasion of all the so-called no-go areas dominated by the IRA in Belfast and Londonderry. Once that went into operation, O'Hagan would be certain to drop completely out of sight for a while, might even run south to the Republic if he wasn't lifted.

  In the end, he could stand it no more, pulled on his jacket and took the lift down to the foyer. He told the desk clerk that he'd be in the bar, sat himself on a high stool and ordered Irish whiskey - Bushmills.

  Perhaps he'd expected too much from O'Hagan. Perhaps the gulf was too wide now.

  He sipped a little of his whiskey and a uniformed porter tapped him on the shoulder. 'Colonel Morgan? Your taxi's here, sir.'

  The driver was an old man badly in need of a shave. Seated in the rear, Morgan was aware of the eyes watching him in the driving mirror. Not a word was said as they drove through gathering darkness and rain. At most main street corners, there were soldiers of one kind or another, but there was a considerable amount of traffic on the road and a surprising number of people about.

  They were somewhere on the Falls Road, with the Catholic Turf Lodge area on the left. Morgan knew that and then the old man turned into one of
the mean little side streets.

  There was a builder's yard at the end. As they approached, the high gate swung open. They drove inside, the gate closed behind them.

  There was a lamp above a door which illuminated the yard. The old Ford van standing next to it had Kilroy's Bakery painted on the side.

  There was silence, only the rain. The old man spoke for the first time. 'I think you'd better get out, mister.'

  This was the most dangerous moment, Morgan knew that. The moment that would tell him whether his calculated risk had paid off or not. He lit a cigarette calmly, then opened the door and got out.

  A heavily built man in a dark anorak, the hood up, came round from behind the van holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Morgan waited. There were footsteps and a second figure emerged from the darkness. A tall man in an old belted raincoat and tweed cap. He was very young, little more than a boy. As he came close, Morgan saw the face beneath the peaked cap, the dark, tormented eyes that hinted at a soul in hell.

  'If you'd be good enough to assume the position, Colonel.'

  He was Belfast, his accent said as much and he knew his job, running his hands expertly over Morgan as the Colonel leaned against the side of the van, arms braced.

  Finally satisfied, he opened the rear doors. 'All right, Colonel. Inside.'

  He climbed in after Morgan, the other man handed him the rifle and closed the doors. Morgan heard him walk round to the cab. A moment later, they drove away.

  The journey took no more than ten minutes. The van stopped, the driver came round and opened the doors. The boy jumped out and Morgan followed him. The street was a scene of desolation, littered with glass. Most of the lamps were smashed and a warehouse on the other side had been reduced to a heap of rubble.

  The small terrace houses showed little sign of life except for the odd chink of light where a curtain was badly drawn. The boy lit a cigarette and tossed the match away.

  'A grand place to raise your kids, wouldn't you say, Colonel?' he said without looking at Morgan, then started across the road, hands in the pockets of his old raincoat.

  Morgan followed him. There was a small cafe on the corner. The boy pushed the door open and entered. It wasn't much of a place. There was a row of brown-painted booths down one side, a marble-topped bar on the other with a large old-fashioned tea urn operated by a gas burner.

  There didn't seem to be any customers. The only sign of life was the old grey-haired woman in the soiled white apron who sat by the urn reading a paper. She glanced at Morgan briefly, then nodded to the boy.

  A quiet voice called softly from the end booth, 'Bring the Colonel down here, Seumas.'

  Liam O'Hagan was eating egg and chips, a mug of tea at his elbow. He was in his early forties with dark curly hair. He wore a denim shirt open at the neck and a donkey jacket and looked like a shipyard worker who'd stopped off for a bite to eat on his way home.

  'Hello, Asa,' he said. 'You're looking well.' The boy went to the counter and asked for two teas. Morgan sat down. 'A bit young for it, isn't he?'

  'Who, Seumas?' O'Hagan laughed. 'They didn't think so in the Falls Road, back in August sixty-nine, when the Orange mobs swept in to burn the place to the ground, chase out every Catholic family who lived there. It was a handful of IRA men who took to the streets that night to hold them off and Seumas was one of them.'

  'He must have been all of sixteen at the time.'

  'Eighteen, Asa,' O'Hagan said. 'He turned up with a .45 Webley revolver his grandfather had brought home from the First World War. Fought at my side that night. Has looked after my interests ever since.'

  'Looked after you?'

  'With a handgun, he's the best I've ever seen.' Seumas returned with a mug of tea which he put down at Morgan's elbow. He went back to the counter and sat on a stool at the far end, watching the door as he drank his tea.

  'I'm impressed.'

  O'Hagan said, 'What is it you want, Asa?'

  'The winter of nineteen fifty, Liam, in Korea when you were the worst National Service second lieutenant in the Ulster Rifles.'

  'Those were the days,' O'Hagan said. 'God, but we were impressed when a big man like you turned up on attachment. A real soldier, medals, everything.'

  'When the Chinese encircled us on the Imjin, when the regiment had to carve its way out, I went back for you, Liam, when you took that bullet in the foot. I brought you out. You owe me for that.'

  O'Hagan wiped his mouth, took half a bottle of whiskey from his pocket and sweetened his tea. He did the same for Morgan.

  'Paid in full,' he said. 'Bloody Friday, Asa, you were standing in Lewis Street at midnight, outside Cohan's Bar which was burning rather well at the time. The boy and I were on the roof opposite. He wanted to blow your head off. I wouldn't let him. So if you've come looking for any special favours, you've wasted your time.'

  'A good day for you, that,' Morgan said bitterly. 'Around one hundred and forty dead and injured.'

  'Be your age. The fire storm those RAF bombs raised in Hamburg in July forty-three killed more people in three days than the atom bomb did at Hiroshima. The only difference between the bomb dropped from twenty thousand feet and the one left under a cafe table in a parcel is that the airman can't see what he's doing.'

  'And where does it all end, Liam, all the violence, the killing?'

  'A united Ireland.'

  'And then what? What do you do when it's all over?'

  O'Hagan frowned. 'What in the hell are you talking about?'

  'You're going to win, aren't you? You must believe that or there wouldn't be any point to it or don't you ever want it to stop? Do you want it to go on for ever, like stage six at MGM? Up the Republic! Thompson guns and trenchcoats. My life for Ireland.'

  'To hell with you, Asa,' O'Hagan said.

  'Remember my daughter, Megan?'

  O'Hagan nodded. 'How old is she now? Fourteen or fifteen, I suppose?'

  'You read about the Maxwell Cohen shooting last week?'

  'That was the Black September, not us.'

  'The man responsible had to hijack a car to get away with the police hard after him. Megan was cycling home from school through Paddington tunnel. He ran her down. Left her lying in the gutter, like a dog.'

  'Mother of God!' O'Hagan said.

  'I wouldn't let it upset you. It happened on Bloody Friday, so what's one extra more or less.'

  O'Hagan's face was grim. 'All right, Asa. What do you want?'

  'Full details haven't been released to the press for security reasons, but it looks as if the man responsible is the one known as the Cretan.'

  'The Cretan Lover? I've heard of him. Some kind of international hit man who's knocked people down from both sides of the fence.'

  'That's him. He shot Cohen using a very unusual handgun. A silenced Mauser, one of a batch made for SS security men during the war. They don't often turn up now.'

  'I see,' O'Hagan said. 'If you could trace the dealer who supplied it?'

  'Exactly. According to Special Branch, the only recorded killing in the UK using such a gun was of an Army Intelligence sergeant in Londonderry by a Provisional gunman named Terence Murphy. He was shot dead by Commandos while making a run for it along with a man called Pat Phelan who also had one.'

  'And you'd like to know where they got them from?' O'Hagan shrugged. 'There's only one problem.'

  'And what would that be?'

  'Terry Murphy and Phelan weren't Provos. They were to start with, but then last September, they joined a splinter group called the Sons of Erin led by Brendan Tully.'

  'I've heard of him,' Morgan said. 'Another of your purity of violence types?'

  'That's our Brendan. Mad as a hatter. Lights a candle to the Virgin every night of his life, yet he'd shoot the Pope if he thought it would advance the cause.'

  'Would he tell you where they got those Mausers?'

  'Maybe.'

  'Liam, I need to know. It's the only lead I've got.'

  O'Hagan nodded slowly. 'Yo
u want this man badly. What for - justice?'

  'To hell with justice, I want to see him dead.'

  'That's honest, anyway. I'll see what I can do. You go back to the Europa and wait.'

  'How long?'

  'A couple of days - perhaps three.'

  'That's no good.'

  'Why not?'

  Morgan was in too deep to draw back now. 'By Monday night, they'll have Belfast sewn up so tight that even a mouse couldn't slip through the net.'

  'Interesting,' O'Hagan said and the door burst open.

  Seumas was already on his feet and O'Hagan produced a Browning Hi Power from his pocket with some speed and held it in his lap under the table.

  A great brute of a man stood swaying drunkenly just inside the door. He wore a soiled reefer coat and denim overalls and his eyes were bloodshot. He didn't appear to notice O'Hagan and Morgan and ignored Seumas, lurching across to the counter and holding on to it with both hands as if to prop himself up.

  'I'm collecting,' he said to the old woman. 'Funds for the Organization. Ten quid, ma, and we'll call it quits. Otherwise we close you down.'

  She wasn't in the least afraid. Simply poured tea into a mug, spooned sugar into it and pushed it across the counter.

  'Drink that, lad, then sober up and go home. You've come to the wrong shop.'

  He sent the mug flying with a sweep of his hand. 'Ten quid, you old bitch, or I smash the place up.'

  There was a Luger in Seumas's right hand, the barrel up under the man's chin. The boy didn't say a word. It was O'Hagan who spoke.

  'The IRA, is it? Which brigade?' The big man glared at him stupidly and O'Hagan said, 'Outside with him, Seumas.'

  The boy swung the man round and sent him staggering through the door. O'Hagan got to his feet and went after them and Morgan followed.

  The big man stood under one of the few street lamps still working, rain soaking his head, Seumas to one side covering him with the Luger. O'Hagan walked forward, paused, then kicked him viciously in the crotch so that he cried out and went down on his knees.