Angel Of Death

FIVE

It was a bright, clear morning, although rain threatened, and Grace Browning was enjoying herself on a track high up above the forest. She wore black biker’s leathers which Lang had provided and a rather sinister black helmet. Lang was riding behind her, wearing jeans and a bomber jacket but no helmet. Danger ran alongside them. After his initial instruction, it was fun to find how well she could handle the bike. He pulled in beside her, lit two cigarettes, and passed one to her.

“You’ve got flair. Typical actor, I suppose. Chameleon-like ability to take on anything at short notice.”

“Nothing typical about me, darling,” she said. “But I like physical things and this is fun.”

“Good. You’ve mastered the rudiments. We’ll take a twenty-mile run round the moor and back to the house. You’ll be amazed how quickly you’ll pick it up. Just one thing. There’s a very good reason why the Montesa is so popular with shepherds in mountain and moorland country. They’ll do half a mile an hour over rough ground if you want. On the other hand, you can go rather faster.”

He turned the throttle and zoomed away, and after a moment’s hesitation she went after him.

Curry returned to London on the Navajo the following day. After breakfast, Lang took Grace up into the forest to give her more practice on the Montesa.

After an hour, they stopped for a break and sat on the grass. He lit two cigarettes as always and gave her one. She lay on her back. “I like you, Rupert – I like you a lot.”

“Snap, my sweet,” he said. “Except I love you a lot.”

“Yet you’ve never put a hand on me once.”

“I know, my gorgeous one,” he teased her. “But you see I’m terribly faithful. Fell in love with Tom first time we met at Cambridge. Women – and please don’t get upset – don’t do the slightest thing for me.” He turned over and kissed her. “Having said that, I adore you. I suppose you think I’ve got a piece missing in my personal jigsaw.”

“Oh, Rupert, my lovely Rupert, don’t we all?” she said and kissed his cheek.

He rolled away and raised himself on one elbow. “The Navajo’s doing a return; bringing an old friend of mine down just for twenty-four hours. George is picking him up.”

“Who would that be?”

“Ian McNab. Used to be my company sergeant major in the Paras. He runs a gym in London. Karate, judo, aikido – all that sort of thing for those who want it.”

He paused and she said, “And something more?”

Rupert lit another cigarette. “Most martial arts and defense techniques generally are designed to help you defend yourself, ward the attacker off, that sort of thing. To come to terms with those techniques takes years of training. Ian McNab offers something quite different.”

“And what would that be?”

“His self-defense system is delivered with extreme prejudice. No point in using it except to kill or maim.”

“Good God!” she said.

“There we go again, you invoking the Almighty.” He stood up. “Come on, let’s get going.”

Ian McNab was surprisingly small, a gray-haired man of fifty with a broken nose and a pleasant, Highland voice.

“A great pleasure, Miss Browning. I was in Glasgow on business last year and saw you do that Tennessee Williams fella’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Citizen’s Theatre. Wonderful, you were.”

He wore a black tracksuit and trainers. Lang said, “Plenty of judo mats in the barn, Ian.” They left the house and walked across the yard. “The thing is, Miss Browning was attacked by a mugger last week. Shook her up badly. Luckily someone drove by, but it occurred to me that you could help her. Your special course. The seven moves.”

“Of course, Captain.” McNab shook his head. “The terrible times we live in.”

They went in the barn and he and Lang got a number of judo mats from a pile in the corner and laid them out together. He turned to Grace. “Right, miss. My system is special and it’s only to be used in extreme situations.”

“I understand.”

“You see, I can show you seven things to do which will always cripple, but may also kill. You follow me?”

“I think so.”

“For example, if you extend your knuckles in the right hand… you are right-handed I take it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. If you extend a punch under the chin at the Adam’s apple, then even a sixteen-stone rugby player will go down. You can also do it with stiffened fingers. The trouble is he could choke to death. That’s why I call my special course with extreme prejudice.”

“I see.”

“There’s another. The kneecap is one of the most sensitive parts of the human body. Again, let’s imagine our sixteen-stone rugby player. If you raise your foot in a struggle and stamp down on his kneecap, you’ll dislodge it and he’ll go down. You won’t kill him, but you’ll cripple him and very probably for life.”

“I see. Extreme prejudice again.”

“That’s right. No offense meant, miss, but there’s then the question of your attacker’s private parts.”

Grace laughed out loud. “There always is with men, Sergeant-Major.”

Lang laughed and McNab smiled. “Too true, miss. Then there’s the reverse elbow strike. Very lethal, that.”

She turned to Rupert. “Are you an expert in all this?”

“Now do I look the physical type, darling?” he said. “I’ve got phone calls to make. Give her the works for an hour, Sergeant-Major. I’ll see you later.”

He went out and McNab turned to Grace. “Right you are, miss. Let’s get started.”

Just before midnight she came down in her dressing gown and found Lang in the drawing room examining some faxes.

“Problems?”

“Government business, my love, particularly the Irish mess. Never goes away. Nightcap?”

“All right.” He poured two Bushmills and gave her one. “What about the Sergeant-Major?” she asked.

“Thought you very promising. He has a gym in Soho. He’d like to see you there when you can manage.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I’m having the Navajo take him back to Gatwick tomorrow. It will return late afternoon. Bring Tom and Yuri Belov back with him.”

“That should be interesting.”

The wolfhound dozed in front of the fire. “He’s lovely,” she said. “Why do you call him Danger?”

“Well he can be pretty ruthless when roused!”

There was a portrait of a Regency buck over the fireplace. He wore a tailcoat, light buskins, and top boots. He bore an extraordinary resemblance to Lang.

“Who is that?” she said.

“An ancestor of mine. He was a Rupert too. He was the Earl of Drury and a great friend of the Prince Regent. The title was lost in the eighteen sixties when the male line died out. I’m descended from the female side.”

“What a shame. You could have been Earl of Drury.”

“True.”

“He looks very arrogant and there’s a restlessness to him. I sense it in you, Rupert.”

“He killed two men in pistol duels. Once faced up to the Duke of Wellington, who shot him in the shoulder.”

“You’d rather have been him than you?” she said with sudden insight.

“Yes, why not? Action, color, excitement. I mean, life’s such a bore, politics a joke.”

“But what about when you were in the Army? That must have had its moments.”

“Not real soldiering, Ireland. A sordid bloody mess. Woman poured a chamberpot full of urine over me once from a bedroom window, but enough of that.”

Rupert poured more whisky and sat sprawled beside her, gazing into the fire. He took her hand. “This is nice.”

“Very pleasant,” she said.

“As I’m not into women and you don’t exactly go for men in that way, I’d say we have a perfect relationship.”

She kissed him on the cheek and snuggled close. “I love you, Rupert Lang.”

“I know,” he said. “Isn’t it a shame?”

The following morning she was on her own on the Montesa high above the forest, enjoying herself. Amazing how expert she had become in so short a time. She paused to have a cigarette, sitting astride the bike, and looked up at a gray sky that threatened rain. There was a droning in the distance and far away through a break in the clouds she saw the Navajo.

She finished the cigarette and took off, driving quite fast, following the track, then turning across the moor, bumping over tussocks and scattering a flock of sheep. She skidded to a halt, searching for a gap in the dry stone wall, and there was an angry shout. She turned, still astride the bike.

The man hurrying toward her wore an old tweed suit and cap and heavy boots. He looked about fifty with a brutal, unshaven face and carried a shepherd’s crook.

“And what in the hell is your game?” he demanded. “Frightening my sheep. You’ve run pounds off them.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry, is it? You need seeing to, you do.”

He lunged with the crook, catching the front wheel. The bike toppled and went over. As she scrambled sideways her helmet came off and he paused, astonishment on his face.

“My God, a woman.” And then there was something else there. “Now what if I put you over my knee and give you a bloody good hiding?”

“Don’t be so stupid,” she said and reached down for her helmet.

He dropped his crook and grabbed her from behind. “You posh bitch. I’ll have to teach you some manners.”

She delivered a reverse elbow strike to his mouth and as he cried out and released her she swung round and drove her knee into his crotch, all exactly as Ian McNab had shown her. He lay on his back, knees up in agony, blood on his pulped mouth.

She looked down at him, conscious of a fierce exhilaration. “Here endeth the first lesson,” she said as she replaced her helmet, then picked up the Montesa, got astride it, and drove away.

Ten minutes later she drove into the garage at Lang Place, shoved the Montesa up on its stand beside the Range Rover, hung her helmet on a peg, and crossed the courtyard. Lang opened the front door.

“You looked pretty dashing as you shot into the courtyard, one boot trailing. You’ll be on the dirt track circuit next.”

“That sounds fun.”

“Come in the drawing room. Yuri and Tom have arrived.”

They were standing in front of the log fire in the great stone hearth. Tom Curry kissed her on both cheeks. “You’re looking very dramatic.”

“I’ve been having fun.”

Rupert said, “Yuri, I believe you two have met.”

“Last year at the Soviet Embassy,” she said. “When we did Three Sisters at the National.”

Belov was dressed for the country in a light brown thorn-proof suit. He looked fit and well and smiled with great charm and took her hand and kissed it.

“I saw you three times. I now believe with great regret that Chekhov can only be played at his best by the English. Your performance as Masha was fantastic.”

“Half-English in my case,” she said. “But my thanks for the compliment.”

“Mrs. Farne has prepared lunch in the conservatory,” Rupert said. “Do you want to change?”

“Five minutes.”

She went out. Lang opened a bottle of Bollinger and poured. “Her performance on the firing range has been superb, and Ian McNab was more than impressed with the way she took to his instruction. She’s to go to his gym when she’s back in town.”

“What did you tell McNab?” Belov asked.

“I said she’d had a close shave with a mugger and wanted to know how to take care of herself.”

Belov sipped some champagne. “Amazing, this whole business of acting. The ability to be the role. As Masha she was totally convincing as a Russian woman, and yet I saw her in a TV showing of that Hollywood movie she made where she shot several men quite convincingly.” He accepted a cigarette from Rupert. “Will she join us?”

“Oh yes, I think so,” Lang said.

At that moment Grace entered the room in jeans and sweater. She took the glass Lang offered her. “Tell me, Rupert, the sheep above the forest. Are they yours?”

“That’s right, why?”

“Oh, a rather unpleasant man was up there. Shabby, old tweed suit, shepherd’s crook. Took exception to me riding through the fields.”

“That would be Sam Lee.” Rupert wasn’t smiling now. “What happened?”

“When I stopped, he pushed the Montesa over, then he grabbed me from behind.”

“He what?” Lang’s face was suddenly bone white, his eyes blazing. “Did he harm you in any way?”

“Well the fact is I’m afraid I harmed him,” she said. “I tried something the Sergeant-Major showed me. Reverse elbow strike to the mouth, swivel, and put a knee to the crotch. When I last saw him he was in the fetal position on the ground.”

Lang laughed out loud. “Oh, my God, that’s bloody marvelous.” He shook his head. “I’ll have George deal with him. He’s out.”

“No,” she said. “He’ll behave better next time. Give him a chance, Rupert.” She smiled. “Shall we go in to lunch?”

They had cold salmon, a mixed salad and potatoes, and Lang opened another bottle of Bollinger. Rain drummed against the conservatory glass.

“Sorry about the weather,” he said. “That’s Dartmoor for you. Starts to improve from March into spring.”

“All the joys of country living,” Grace told him.

Curry saw to the coffee and Belov said, “I saw a late-night showing on television of a Hollywood film you made, Miss Browning.”

“Grace,” she said. “Please, and it was my only Hollywood film. I didn’t like it there. They had me wear a series of incredibly short skirts and I killed rather a lot of men. It was what’s known as a revenge movie in the trade.”

“Yes, in the film you killed more than efficiently,” Belov said. “As I recall, the police nicknamed you Dark Angel.”

“My one contribution to the script. One of my great-grandmothers on my father’s side was Jewish. As a child I recall the stories she told me. Judaism teaches that God is the master of life and death, but he employs angels as his messengers.”

“So there was an Angel of Death?” Curry said.

“When God inflicted the ten plagues on the people of Egypt, in Exodus, the Jews were instructed to put blood on either side of the door post so the Angel of Death would pass over them. To this day that’s why Passover is celebrated.”

“An interesting legend,” Belov said.

“In Hebrew the Angel of Death is Malach Ha-Mavet. In the old days the word was used to frighten children. The film people, when I suggested it, thought it too melodramatic and came up with Dark Angel.”

“Interesting.” Belov nodded. “The revenge concept.”

“Revenge gets you nowhere. Let’s stop fencing, gentlemen. We all know pretty much all there is to know about each other. If at some time I’d caught up with and killed the man who murdered my parents, it wouldn’t have brought them back.”

“But it might have afforded a certain satisfaction,” Rupert told her.

“True.”

“I mean, things happened in a hurry back there in Belfast, but you didn’t regret shooting that swine, did you?”

“Not at all. In fact it rather exorcised a ghost in my machine. I sleep better.”

There was a long pause and rain rattled the windows. Belov said, “Do I take it you are prepared to join us, Grace?”

“Yes, I think so, but on my terms. You and Tom have a political commitment and I understand that, but it means nothing to me.” She ran a hand over Lang’s hair. “Rupert can’t take life seriously. He bores easily, likes the excitement. I relate to that more.”

“In what way?” Curry asked.

“My father’s family believed they were kin to the Victorian poet Robert Browning. There’s a line in one of his poems. Our interest’s on the dangerous edge of things. I can relate to that. It’s like a performance, if you like, and performance is what my life is about.”

“Exactly,” Belov said. “But always fantasy, always except for that alley in Belfast. That was real and earnest, razor-sharp. I should imagine that afterwards on reflection it must have seemed like one of your finest performances.”

“Very perceptive, Colonel, but one stipulation. If I don’t like the sound of something, I don’t do it.”

“But of course, my dear.” He smiled at the other two and raised his glass. They all followed suit. “To us, my friends, to January 30.”

Back in London, she was free for most of March. She went to Ian McNab’s gym three times a week and bought herself a BMW motorcycle, which she used to explore parts of the city she’d never been. Toward the end of the month she was asked to do Hedda Gabler at the National and started five weeks of intensive rehearsals. It was in the third week that Curry asked if they could all meet and she invited them to Cheyne Walk.

As Grace handed round coffee, Belov said, “I’m having problems with the KGB here in London, not that they call themselves that since the breakup of things in Russia. The latest title is Federal Service of Counter Espionage. At the moment, the London Station is being run by a Major Silsev. Here’s his photo.” He passed it across. “A crook of the first water, involved with the Russian Mafia. Illegal trading in weapons, various currency rackets, drugs – particularly drugs.”

She examined the photo and passed it to Lang. “He looks mean.”

“He is.” He passed her another photo. “Frank Sharp, one of the most notorious gang bosses in the East End of London, intends a deal with him at the moment. If Sharp meets his terms, Silsev will bring in heroin with a street value in excess of a hundred million pounds.”

“Why should you mind? I didn’t think you were in the business of doing good,” Grace said.

“I take your point. In my own defense, I hate drugs, and people who trade in them disgust me, but the feud between my people of the GRU and the KGB, or whatever name they choose to call themselves, is of prime importance. The kind of money Silsev would make from this deal would give them too much power.”

“I see.”

“My sources at the Embassy tell me that Silsev and Sharp are to meet tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock at the Karl Marx Memorial in Highgate Cemetery.”

“I know where that is. I’ve been there.”

“It’s face-to-face stuff, no one else allowed, so Sharp won’t have his minders with him.”

There was a short silence. Grace Browning turned to the others. Curry’s face was pale and even Rupert Lang looked grave.

“Moment of truth, my friends,” she said and turned back to Belov. “How do you want it done?”

It was raining hard when the Mercedes Limousine drew up by the main gates of Highgate Cemetery shortly before four o’clock on the following afternoon.

The man in the chauffeur’s uniform at the wheel said, “Sure you don’t want me to come, guv?”

“No need, Bert, this guy’s kosher. Too much in it for him not to be. Give me the umbrella. I won’t be long.”

He got out of the car, a large, fleshy man of fifty in a dark blue overcoat, put the umbrella up, and went in through the gates. Dusk was already falling and what with the rain, the cemetery was deserted. He followed the path through a jumble of graves, monuments, and marble angels. There were trees here and there and it was all rather overgrown. Sharp didn’t mind. He’d always liked the place, had always liked cemeteries if it came to that. Up ahead was the monument with the huge head, Karl Marx.

Sharp stood looking up at it, took out a cigarette, and lit it. “Commie bastard,” he said softly.

Major Silsev stepped round from the other side. He was small, eyes close set, wore a trilby hat and raincoat, and like Sharp held an umbrella.

“Ah, there you are, Mr. Sharp.”

“Yes, here I bleeding well am,” Sharp told him. “Wet and cold and I don’t like all this cloak and dagger stuff so let’s get on with it.”

At that moment an engine roared into life, and as they turned a motorcycle emerged from a clump of trees and came toward them, the rider wearing black helmet and leathers.

“What the hell?” Sharp cried as it skidded to a halt.

Silsev turned to run, but Grace pulled the Beretta from the front of her leather jacket and shot him in the back.

“Bastard!” Sharp cried and his hand came out of his overcoat pocket clutching a revolver. Before he could raise it, she shot him between the eyes and he went down. Silsev was still twitching. As she moved past, she leaned over and finished him with a head shot.

A few moments later she emerged through the main gate, a dark and anonymous figure as she drove past the Mercedes, where Bert sat behind the wheel reading the Standard.

She moved through the evening traffic of Highgate Road into Kentish Town and then to Camden, finally turning into a yard in a side street near Camden Lock. There was a large truck, the rear door open, a ramp sloping up inside. As she ran the motorcycle up and put it on its stand, Curry, behind her, closed the yard gate.

He didn’t say a word, simply stood waiting while she stripped off the leathers and helmet, revealing jeans and a tee shirt underneath. He opened a hold-all bag he was carrying and offered her a nylon anorak and a baseball cap and she put them on quickly.

“Right, let’s get out of here.” Curry closed the truck door and opened the gates. “Belov’s people will clear up.”

She handed him the Beretta and he slipped it in the hold-all. “Everything okay?”

“If you mean did I kill Sharp and Silsev, yes. What with Ashimov, London ’s not going to be a favored KGB posting.”

“I expect not.” They were approaching a telephone kiosk. He said, “Give me a minute.”

A few seconds later the news desk at the Times received the call claiming responsibility for the deaths of Major Ivan Silsev and Frank Sharp by January 30 as a direct response to their involvement in the drug trade.

Curry paused on the corner of Camden High Street and hailed a cab. “You all right?” he asked.

“Never better.”

“Good. Rupert’s got tickets for Sunset Boulevard. We’re eating at Daphne’s afterwards. Does that suit?”

“Fantastic. Just get me home. As a great writer once said, a bath and a change of clothes and I can go on forever.”

A cab slid in to the curb and he opened the door for her.

When Grace entered the piano bar at the Dorchester, it was just before seven. Guiliano, the manager, met her with pleasure, kissed her hand, and took her down to the far corner beside the piano where Lang, Curry, and Belov waited. She looked quite spectacular in a black beaded shift, black stockings and shoes.

Belov waved off a waiter and started to pour from a bottle of Cristal champagne. “You look wonderful.”

At that moment Guiliano came up. “The late edition of the Standard. I thought you might like to see it. A double shooting in Highgate by some terrorist group. Isn’t it terrible? Not safe to be out these days.”

He walked away. Rupert Lang laughed; even Tom Curry was having difficulty. Belov raised his glass, looked at Grace, and she smiled slightly.

“What can I say after that except, to you, my friends,” and he toasted them.