Hybrid Page 23

  'You sound happy about that.'

  'What am I supposed to do? Retire? Sit around in a cardigan and slippers for the rest of my fucking life waiting for the day when I can't take it any more and I decide to chew the barrel of a 9mm?' He drew on his cigarette. 'Maybe somebody like Leary'll catch me out. Perhaps I'll be the one in a shallow grave in the middle of nowhere. But I can't give up. I don't want to give up.'

  'Do you love it so much?'

  'Perhaps I'm just scared of what I'll be without it.

  I've had a taste of that and I didn't like it.'

  'You were great in the security business, Doyle. Why not come back to it?'

  He shook his head. 'Like you said, Mel,' he told her. 'This is my world.'

  'And you're happy here?'

  'I never said that. I just said it was where I belonged.'

  'Are you happy?' She glanced at him.

  All he could do was shrug. To be happy, you have to want something, don't you?' Doyle murmured.

  'And what do you want?'

  'I have absolutely no fucking idea. What about you?'

  'I've never really thought about it.'

  'So think now. You've got the time. Husband? Kids? What would make you happy?'

  'I wanted a career in the police.That was taken from me. I found something else I could do and I enjoy it. But ask me where I want to be in ten years' time and I couldn't tell you.'

  'If I last another ten years it'll be a fucking achievement,' Doyle grunted.

  'Does that bother you?'

  'Why should it? If I don't know what I'm living for then I'm hardly likely to be scared about the prospect of dying, am I? Besides, so many doctors have told me how lucky I am to be alive now. How I should thank God I can still walk. All that other bullshit. I've got scars on every part of my fucking body and I'm supposed to thank God that I'm lucky. I should have been dead long before now. Sometimes I think it might have saved some pain if I had been.'

  So much pain.

  'Pain for who?'

  'Me. Others too. The only thing I've ever learned from this job is that you should never get close to anyone. They might not be around for too long.'

  They locked stares for a moment then Mel returned to gazing out of the windscreen. 'Do you know what frightens me about dying? That no one will come to my funeral. That the only one at the graveside would be the priest. I've got no family. No close friends. I don't think anyone would miss me if I died tomorrow'

  The counter terrorist sucked hard on his cigarette and tossed the butt out of the open window. 'Join the fucking club,' said Doyle, with an air of finality. 'I told you we weren't that different, Mel.'

  'Doyle.' The shout came from Hendry.

  Both the counter terrorist and Mel clambered out of the car and began walking towards their companion.

  'It's another body,' the driver called, gesturing into the grave.

  'Two more to go,' Mel said.

  Doyle nodded.

  'Then what?' she persisted.

  Doyle didn't answer.

  A LIGHT IN THE BLACK

  Ward finished numbering the pages then sat back and scanned what had been printed. Again he felt that schizophrenic feeling of joy and bewilderment.

  Where had the pages come from? Who had written them?

  He took a deep breath and decided to return to the house. Perhaps he might be able to eat something. Perhaps.

  He promised himself he would return an hour later.

  When he did, he found more.

  We're just about finished with you,' said Doyle, staring at Leary.

  The Irishman was covered in mud. It was smeared on his cheeks. Even in his hair.

  'Last two locations,' Doyle demanded.

  'I thought you wanted to see them,' Leary protested.

  'We're going to see them,' Doyle assured him. 'You and I will go to one.' He turned to look at his companions. 'Mel, you and Joe take the other one.'

  'Why split up now, Doyle?' Mel wanted to know.

  'I've got business to discuss with this piece of shit. There's no need for you two to be there when that happens.'

  Mel held Doyle's gaze for a moment then shook her head.

  The counter terrorist turned back to face Leary. 'Locations of the last two graves,' he snapped.

  'One's buried in some woods near Mountnorris,' Leary said wearily. The other one's in a church at Whitecross.'

  'Which church?' Mel asked.

  'St Angela's. It's in a crypt under the nave.'

  'No bullshit?' snapped Doyle, leaning closer to the Irishman.

  'Listen, I'm as anxious to get away from you as you are from me. Why would I lie now?'

  'Those locations aren't more than ten miles apart,' Doyle mused.'Joe. Drop us at the one in Mountnorris. The woods will be nice and quiet for me and this prick to have a chat.' He looked at Leary.'You and Mel check out the one in Whitecross. If it's kosher, let me know then come back and pick me up. I'll ring both locations through then we'll drop this fucker off somewhere the RUC can pick him up.'

  Hendry nodded.

  The Astra sped on through the gathering dusk.

  Doyle checked his watch. 6.04 p.m.

  Mel and Hendry should be at the church in Whitecross soon. They'd left Doyle and his captive more than twenty minutes earlier. The counter terrorist had been following Leary through increasingly dense woods ever since. He walked five or six feet behind him, carrying the shovel like an oversized club. He prodded Leary in the back with it and the Irishman continued leading the way. He was still handcuffed.

  Birds returning to their nests were black arrowheads against the sky. Clouds were forming into menacing banks and Doyle thought he felt the first drops of rain in the air.

  'Who was he?' Doyle wanted to know.

  'Who was who?'

  'This one? The poor bastard buried in here.'

  'Brit. Proddie.Tout. How the fuck do I know?'

  They continued on through the trees, the gloom

  made more palpable by the canopy of branches above them.

  'What about the one in Whitecross?' Doyle persisted.

  Leary didn't answer.

  'I'm talking to you, you cunt,' Doyle snarled, pushing the Irishman hard in the back.

  He fell forward, catching his head on a fallen branch hard enough to break the skin. He rolled over, looking up at Doyle. 'There's no body in the church,' he hissed.

  'I told you not to fuck me around,' Doyle said angrily.

  There's something there but it's not a body.'

  'What the fuck are you talking about?'

  'It's an arms dump. The organisation hid weapons and explosives there. It's booby-trapped.'

  Doyle's grey eyes blazed. He dropped the shovel and pulled the Beretta from its shoulder holster, pointing it at Leary.

  'As soon as they open it, it'll explode,' the Irishman continued. 'You'll be able to bury them both in the same matchbox. I knew you'd prefer to get me alone in the woods in case we were interrupted in the church. Looks like you lose again, Doyle.'

  Doyle lowered the Beretta slightly. He shot Leary once in the right kneecap.

  Moving at a speed in excess of twelve hundred feet a second, the heavy-grain slug shattered the patella as if it were porcelain. It tore through the leg, ripping away cruciate ligaments and muscle.

  Leary screamed in agony.

  'How do they disarm it?' Doyle said, kneeling beside

  the wounded Irishman. He pressed the barrel of the automatic against the younger man's chin. 'How?'

  They can't,' Leary said through gritted teeth.

  Doyle fired again.The second shot pulverised Leary's left kneecap.

  His screams echoed through the woods, mingling with the thunderous retort of the pistol.

  The counter terrorist thrust a hand in his jacket, reaching for his mobile. He stabbed in Mel's number and waited.

  Leary was still screaming. Doyle spun round and kicked him hard in the face. It shut him up for long enough.
r />   'Hello.'

  'Mel, listen to me,' Doyle said breathlessly.'Don't go inside that fucking church.'

  'Doyle .. . can't hear . .. breaking up,' Mel said, her voice fading.

  'Don't go inside the fucking church,' Doyle bellowed into the mouthpiece.

  'Still .. . hear . . . saying ...'

  The counter terrorist looked around him.

  The trees. There are too many trees. That's what was fucking up the signal. Get back to the road.

  He looked down at Leary who lay motionless on the mossy floor of the forest.

  The road was two hundred yards away.

  You'll never make it

  Doyle turned and ran as he'd never run in his life.

  As he ran, Doyle ducked to avoid low branches, crashed through bushes, ignored twigs that scratched at his face. And, all the time, the road seemed to be miles away from him.

  The breath seared in his lungs.

  You're not going to make it.

  He was fifty yards from the road now.

  'Stay out of the church,' he shouted into the phone as he ran. There was still a deafening hiss of static.

  'Mel,' he roared.

  Thirty yards. 'Mel, can you hear me?'

  'Breaking up ... to go in now . . .'

  Twenty yards. 'Don't go inside the church,' Doyle bellowed frantically.

  'Off now . . . call you back . . . Leary was talking about . . .'

  Ten yards. He crashed through the hedge, almost sprawled on to the road.

  'Mel, keep away from the church,' he shouted.

  There was no sound at the other end.

  Doyle switched off. Dialled again. Waited.

  'Come on. Come on.'

  No answer. He tried Hendry's phone. It rang twice.

  'Answer it,' Doyle snarled, his eyes bulging madly.

  'Yeah.'

  'Joe, get out of there now. It's a set-up.'

  'What?' Hendry said, his voice echoing.

  They must be inside the church.

  'Leary's fucked us over. The crypt is booby-trapped. Don't open it,' Doyle gasped.

  He heard Mel's voice in the background. Something unintelligible.

  There was a creak. A sound that almost split his eardrum.

  Then silence.

  Doyle dropped the mobile back into his pocket and turned back towards the woods. He moved slowly, retracing his steps, his face set in hard lines.The knot of muscles at the side of his jaw was pulsing angrily.

  It took him fifteen minutes to reach the place where he'd left Leary. The Irishman was still lying face down, both his legs shattered. It looked as if he'd been dipped in red paint from the knees down.

  He walked up to Leary and kicked him hard in the ribs. Hard enough to roll him over on to his back.

  Doyle took out his mobile again and dialled a number.

  He recognised the voice on the other end. 'Robinson. It's Doyle,' he said quietly.

  'Doyle ... can hardly hear you ... breaking up,' the Cl told him.

  'Listen carefully.'

  'What . . . hell is going on?' the RUC man wanted to know.'Been an explosion ... church in Whitecross. All hell's .. . loose.'

  'I know about the explosion. You'll find two bodies in the church. My back-up team. Leary double-crossed us.'

  'Where is he?1

  'Here, with me.'

  Thank God for that.'

  'I need to ask you something. What was your

  daughter's name?'

  'What?'

  'Your daughter? The one who was killed in that bomb blast. What was her name?'

  'Angela. Why?'

  'Next time you go to visit her grave tell her everything's all right.'

  'Doyle, what . . . talking about? You're not making any sense and I can hardly hear you ...'

  'I shouldn't have killed Kane.'

  'Doyle ... say again . . .'

  'I'll call you back in twenty minutes.'

  The counter terrorist switched off the phone. He looked down at Leary impassively.

  The Irishman tried to hold his gaze but was forced to close his eyes due to the unbearable pain.

  Doyle shot him five times.

  He stood there for a moment longer then turned and trudged back towards the road.

  LONDON; TWO DAYS LATER:

  Sean Doyle held the crystal tumbler in his hand and studied the amber liquid in it before taking a mouthful. The brandy burned its way to his stomach.

  'Perhaps we should have had a toast first,' said Sir Anthony Pressman, raising his own glass.'I'll be the first to admit that your methods are somewhat irregular, Doyle, but they seem to get results.'

  Jonathan Parker glanced at Pressman then at Doyle as he sipped his drink.

  Sunshine was streaming through the windows of Parker's office at the CTU's Hill Street headquarters. Motes of dust turned lazily in the air.

  'Sinn Fein seemed fairly happy with the way you handled Leary,' said Pressman.

  'I'm glad they approve,' Doyle said disdainfully.'l saved them the job of killing him. What did they have to say about the graves he showed us?'

  That's a matter that will have to be discussed in the future,' Pressman said.

  'Yeah, I bet it fucking will,' grunted Doyle getting to his feet.

  'Most of those responsible for the murders are no longer associated with that organisation or the Provisional IRA,' Pressman continued. The recovery of the bodies was a cosmetic exercise anyway. Designed to help the families of the victims as much as anything else. It's just rather unfortunate about your colleagues.'

  'Shit happens,' Doyle said flatly, moving towards the door.

  Pressman rose too.

  'There's a message you can give to Sinn Fein when you see them,' the counter terrorist said. The same one I want to give to you.'

  Pressman smiled efficiently.

  Doyle caught him with a perfect right hook. The powerful blow knocked the politician off his feet and sent him crashing backwards into the sofa, his nose broken, blood spilling down his perfectly laundered shirt and tie.

  'Get out,' Parker said quietly.

  'I was on my way,' Doyle told him.

  And he was gone.

  THE END

  PARTING OF THE WAYS

  The end. Ward looked at the two words. To him they may as well have been glowing in neon.

  The end.

  Who had decided this was the end? When had he completed this novel? This novel he could remember barely a third of.

  He swallowed hard and laid the last of the pages on the pile.

  It was over.

  The book was finished.

  As he sat at his desk, he found that his hands were shaking.

  AN ALL-SEEING EYE

  As before, Ward peered through the viewfinder of the camcorder and trained it on his desk.

  The night was humid and more than once he had to wipe the lens with the corner of his handkerchief. Perspiration was running down his back. He could feel it like a clammy sheath on the nape of his neck.

  He glanced at his watch. 11.36 p.m.

  He took one more look, then satisfied he had done everything he could, he pressed the red record button.

  The small cassette began to turn its spools. Ward watched it for a moment then made his way down the stairs. He locked the office door and wandered slowly back towards the house.

  The sudden breeze that sprang up was a welcome cooling touch on his hot skin and he stood for a moment, enjoying the temporary respite from the cloying humidity.

  It was a second or two before he noticed the smell. A rank, pungent odour that made him cough.

  Ward put a hand to his nose and stared in the direction from which the odour was coming.

  Carried on the breeze, it seemed to be wafting up from one of the darker parts of the garden.

  At opposite corners there were two large and very old oak trees. He had guessed, when he bought the place, around three hundred years old. One was close to his office, the other about a hundred
yards away towards the wooden fence that formed one boundary of his property.

  It was from there that the stench was coming.

  Ward took a step towards it, trying to hold his breath.

  There were only two lights on inside the house so very little illumination spilled into the garden. It was almost impossible to see more than a few yards ahead.

  Ward stood still once more, trying not to gag.

  He heard sounds of movement in the high blackberry-and-laurel hedges at the bottom of the garden. Cats sometimes prowled there and he'd seen hedgehogs and even squirrels in the past. But none of them smelt like this.

  He knew the stench. Knew it but . . .

  Rotten meat. The realisation hit him as palpably as the vile odour itself. This was what was filling his nostrils with so noxious a scent.

  During his days as a student he'd had a summer job on a farm in Normandy and two of the cows had been attacked and killed by gypsies' dogs. Their carcasses hadn't been discovered for two days. Left to putrefy in the blistering sun, they had swelled and bloated like corpulent balloons.

  Ward could remember finding them in one of the fields. Smelling their rankness.The foul stench had never left him and he knew that was what he was sampling now.

  The smell seemed to grow stronger. He expected to hear the sound of buzzing flies.

  There was more rustling from the hedge. Ward wasn't sure whether to move towards it or head back into the house. There was a torch in one of the drawers near the back door and he wondered about fetching it. Shining it in the direction of the smell and noises.

  For brief moments he wondered if it could be a fox. If it was, best not to get too close. They spread rabies.

  A badger? He shook his head. His house wasn't that close to the countryside.

  And, even if the nocturnal visitor proved to be any of these creatures, that didn't account for the rancid stench.

  He stroked his chin thoughtfully then wandered towards the back door. The smell was making his head spin.

  He'd just put his hand on the door handle when he heard more movement. Louder. Closer.

  Ward pulled open the door and fumbled quickly for the torch. He stepped back into the garden and flicked it on, allowing the cold, white light to cut through the blackness.

  'Jesus Christ,' murmured Ward, the torch quivering in his grasp.

  For fleeting seconds the beam caught and held the source of the sounds.

  Ward took a step back. He blinked hard. The shape in the cold light was still there.