Sean Dillon 14 - The Killing Ground by Jack Higgins

Author:Jack Higgins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Published: 2011-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

IRELAND

LONDON

Chapter 10

IT HAD BEEN THE PREVIOUS DAY, TWENTY-FOUR HOURS before Hussein and Khazid reached Majorca, when Roper had astonished Boris Lhuzkov with his candid conversation. Obviously, Lhuzkov couldn’t speak to the Broker, but Volkov was a different matter. He phoned him on his secure line at the Kremlin.

“I’ve got something for you—rather interesting.”

“Well, that makes a change.”

“I’ve just had a conversation with Roper at Holland Park.”

“Have you, by God? Tell me everything.”

* * * *

IT COULDN’T BE QUITE EVERYTHING, for at that stage of the game, Hussein had just buried his uncle and his two friends. Admittedly, the photo planted by Roper in the British newspapers had just appeared, but the Broker hadn’t made any mention to Volkov of Hussein’s determination still to travel to England.

“What do you think?” Lhuzkov said. “Is Roper a loose cannon?”

“No, everything he does has a purpose. So he tells you Greta is working for Charles Ferguson. We suspected that anyway. He talks of Levin in Dublin. We know very well that Levin is in Dublin, and his sergeants. This Rashid business, the girl in Hazar, is interesting, though hardly surprising with Dillon and that wretched Salter involved. Personally, the idea that Hussein would for any reason come to England now confirms to me that it would be stupid. In my opinion, any hopes of using his services for any of our own problems must go out the window. But we’ve still got to do something about Ferguson. This unholy alliance with Dillon and Harry Salter and all his criminal connections is unacceptable.”

“And so we see even the Moscow Mafia confounded.” Lhuzkov laughed. “Now that Chekov is out of the picture for a while, what do you intend to do?”

“I’m not certain, but it must be something, and soon.”

“It needs to be something to make people sit up and take notice,” Lhuzkov told him. “Physical violence may be old-fashioned, but Stransky and Chekov certainly got the point.”

“A great many people, not only in our line of work but in the criminal underworld, got the message that Harry Salter is back in business.”

“If he ever went away.”

“He’s doing a very clever thing, Boris, and even the police reluctantly approve. The things he does, he does to bad people, unpopular people.”

“Like Russians in London,” Lhuzkov said. “Billionaire oligarchs and foot soldiers in the Mafia. So they got a rough passage. Why should ordinary Londoners care?”

“I’d love to take Salter down,” Volkov said.

“You’d never get near him, just the way you’d never get near Ferguson.”

“I don’t know,”Volkov said. “I’ve always believed if you want to shoot someone, it’s perfectly possible. Look at that idiot who shot President Reagan.”

“Honey, I forgot to duck, he said to his wife.”

“Yes, he had a great sense of humor.”

“For a man intent on destroying Communism and the Soviet Union.”

“Thank you for reminding me. Let me remind you that when Igor Levin was given the job of disposing of that Chechnyan general, he got close enough to cut his throat in the hotel they were using as command headquarters.

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