Killer Elite

23

The long antiseptic corridors, as in all major hospitals, served as thoroughfares for two types of inmate: the sick and listless in pajamas with too much time on their hands and the rushed-off-their-feet doctors and nursing staff for whom there were never enough hours in the day.

In the Maternity Ward of Hereford General Hospital a new doctor made his way, rather more slowly than most, from the staff toilets to the postnatal wing. There was a rapid turnover of doctors and surgeons at the hospital and no identity check at the various hospital entrances.

Two years before, in Belfast’s Catholic Mater Hospital, the MP, Mrs. Maive Drumm, had been assassinated in her hospital bed by men wearing doctors’ white coats. Since few hospital-based crime novels escape the cliche of criminals masquerading as medical staff, the trick might be considered dangerously overworked. But if it works, why not use it? Davies certainly had no qualms about plagiarism. He approached a junior nurse in the reception of the Postnatal Ward and learned both the location of Mrs. Kealy’s bed and the fact that she had produced twins the previous evening.

Maggi Kealy was awake and surrounded by flowers. Davies arrived with clipboard, stethoscope and wearing the ubiquitous white coat. He bent over the chart at the end of her bed and made an entry on his clipboard while attaching a small bug to the underside of the bed frame. The bug was fitted with a superstick tab, not a magnetic clamp, to minimize transmission interference.

“All seems to be well, Mrs. Kealy. Rest, while you may.” He grinned and left her cubicle congratulating himself on his easy bedside manner. Following the copious array of signs, he made for the General Medical Ward and approached the duty sister there. He had come from the Geriatric Unit, he explained, and needed a supply of insulin and chlorpropamide. They had run short. Chlorpropamide is used by diabetics not requiring insulin.

He was given both drugs and signed two sets of forms to acknowledge receipt.

Three weeks of pussyfooting and freezing his toes off in the scrub behind Kealy’s house had led Davies to the firm conclusion that Kealy could never be dealt with inside the SAS citadel of Hereford. Twice Kealy and his wife had spent some time in their back garden, and on each occasion they were nursing a sick rabbit. Kealy had been complaining that he never had time to keep fit and that once the babies were born he would spend more time on the Brecon Beacons. Hills that Davies also knew well, these were the main SAS training grounds where a small number of unfortunates had over the years died of exposure in their keenness to pass SAS selection. Davies had formulated a simple plan to put before de Villiers on his arrival.

Darrell Hallett failed to find any trace of the Welshman in the many hotels, motels and guest houses he visited around and about Hereford, despite his photographs of Davies by the Gulf Hotel swimming pool. Eventually he had given up and set about shadowing the postman Bob Bennett. Again nothing. Only an Afghan hound had shown any untoward interest in Bennett. So he switched to Kealy.

At 4 p.m. on Boxing Day Kealy, carrying his young daughter, Alice, arrived at Maggi’s bedside. Hallett parked two ranks away from Kealy’s Renault and settled down to watch for anyone with an unhealthy interest in Kealy or his car.

Twenty minutes passed and Hallett found his attention continually drawn to the occupant of a Ford Escort four cars away from and parallel with his own. The man wore a doctor’s coat but what niggled Hallett were the earphones and something about his profile. It came to him in a while that the Escort had a perfectly good radio antenna, so why the headphones? Furthermore, Mason’s excellent telephoto lens had obtained first-class side views of the Welshman and, apart from the fact that the man with headphones was balding, he was the spitting image of Hallett’s quarry.

Determined to check out this coincidence, Hallett quietly reversed his car, circled the car park, which was full to capacity, and drew up again facing the Escort from two car spaces away. He watched the man through his binoculars, then glanced at the Muscat photograph. He felt his excitement mounting. It could not be a mere coincidence. This was the Welshman.

Davies must have sensed rather than seen Hallett’s interest in him, for he was engrossed in the conversation between the Kealys. He realized he was glimpsing a world of tender togetherness, of selfless love between two humans that he would never know for himself. His eyes were focused in the middle distance, his mind far away, when that sixth sense possessed by many people who live on the edge swung his gaze to the car that had moved around from behind to opposite him and from which no driver had emerged.

To Davies, Hallett’s binoculars might just as well have been a gun. He tore off the earplugs, started the car and screeched into reverse. Hallett was faster still. The two cars made for the exit but Hallett swung his Avenger violently across the path of the Escort. Yorkie bars cascaded forward onto him. Davies, fearing a police ambush, decided escape was more likely on foot. He dashed for a side door in the nearest hospital block, with Hallett, unencumbered by coat and suit, gaining ground fast.

Davies came to bay in a first-floor lavatory. He was out of breath. Hallett, a street fighter since childhood, automatically assumed a boxer’s stance. Davies kicked out and contacted Hallett’s kneecap. Hallett’s guard dropped briefly and Davies lanced a direct blow, straight as a snooker stroke, at Hallett’s neck with the handle of a broom he had snatched up. Hallett snarled in pain but resisted the urge to finger his neck. His boxer’s straight right caught Davies in the nose and mouth, splitting his upper lip. As he closed in, the door opened and two cleaning women with buckets entered. Both screamed and Davies knocked them out of the way as he lurched from the room.

Hallett tried to talk to the women but his throat felt mangled. To swallow was excruciating. He followed the Welshman as best he could but the corridors were thronged with merry people involved in a Boxing Day party. By the time Hallett reached the car park there was no sign of the Escort. He rang Spike’s number and croaked his report to the answering machine. Kealy was definitely at risk. He should be given closer protection at once.

De Villiers and Meier were ill at ease. Davies’s description of his attacker at the hospital did not tally with their idea of police surveillance. Yet, if not from the security services, who was the man? Was he from the same stable as the tall man in the Sumail falaj?

De Villiers had sent Davies back to the United States. He would now be a liability in Britain and might lead the unknown hunters to Tadnams or the Clinic. All the same, Davies had done well and de Villiers quite liked the method that he had suggested, and for which he had begun to prepare.

The hospital tapes confirmed Davies’s opinion. Mike Kealy had told his wife that the regiment wanted him in Belfast for a week’s introduction to the work he and his new squadron would be doing there. Once he returned, there would be a week or two before he started his Irish tour of duty. “I must get some more hill training in before then,” he told his wife.

“But you’re superfit already, my love,” she said.

He shook his head. “No, that’s sadly not so, but I’ll up the daily training and then do a couple more weekends in the Brecons. If I round that off with an endurance march with the selection students, I should be back on course and fit for Armagh or wherever.”

His wife knew better than to argue. Mike had always been a fitness fanatic. He bounced Alice on his knees and they talked about the twins and the future.

The Clinic listened carefully to the tapes and looked at the many photographs Davies had taken of the Kealys, their home in Hereford, their car, the two main entrances to the SAS barracks, and even Forge House in Ditchling. Davies’s written report was efficient and thorough. His conclusion was to the point. Major Kealy could not safely be terminated at his place of work nor in his home. There remained his stated intention to train on the Brecon Beacons. Davies’s method was based on his knowledge of those hills during the winter months.