Angel of Death by Jack Higgins Read Free Book Online Page A

out the Beretta. He said to Belov, “Fifty thousand dollars in there. I believe it’s yours. I’ll keep the Beretta. Just tell me where and when.”
    There was a moment’s silence and Curry said, “You can’t be serious.”
    Lang smiled that strange wolfish smile again. “I killed three people on Bloody Sunday, Tom, and two others elsewhere during my service in Ulster. Never told you that. Secrets, you see, just like you.” He turned to Belov. “Another job for January 30. First this Arab, then the Station Head of the KGB in London? That should really make the Security Services squirm, and I should know. I’m on half the Committees.”
     
     
    He killed Colonel Boris Ashimov with absurd simplicity a week later on a rainy morning in Kensington Gardens. Belov had timed it for him. Every morning at ten, Ashimov walked in the gardens whatever the weather. On that particular Thursday it was raining heavily. Rupert Lang, enjoying a coffee in a café opposite Kensington Park Gardens, was not expecting Ashimov to appear. But the man carrying an umbrella over his head filled the description Belov had given him. Ashimov turned into the Bayswater Road and entered the gardens. Lang got to his feet and went after him.
    He followed him along the path, keeping well back, his own umbrella raised. There was no one about. They reached a clump of trees at the center of the gardens, and Lang quickened his pace.
    “Excuse me.”
    Ashimov turned. “What do you want?”
    “You, actually,” Rupert Lang said, and shot him twice in the heart, the silenced Beretta making only a slight coughing sound. He leaned down and put another bullet between Ashimov’s eyes, then put the Beretta in his raincoat pocket, moved rapidly across the gardens to Queen’s Gate, crossed to the Albert Hall, and walked on for a good half mile before hailing a cab and telling the driver to take him to Westminster.
    He lit a cigarette and sat back, shaking with excitement. He had never felt like this in his life before, not even in the Paras in Ireland. Every sense felt keener, even the colors when he looked out at the passing streets seemed sharper. But the excitement, the damned excitement!
    He closed his eyes. “My God, old sport, what’s happening to you?” he murmured.
     
     
    He arrived at the St. Stephen’s entrance to the Commons, went through the Central Lobby to his office, and got rid of his umbrella and raincoat and put the Beretta in his safe, then went down to the entrance to the House and passed the bar. There was a debate taking place on some social services issue. He took his usual seat on the end of one of the aisles. When he looked up he saw Tom Curry seated in the front row of the Strangers’ Gallery, his left arm in a sling. Lang nodded up to him, folded his arms, and leaned back.
     
     
    Half an hour later the
London Times
news desk received a brief message by telephone in which January 30 claimed credit for the assassination of Colonel Boris Ashimov.
     
     
    In the three years which followed, Curry maintained a steady flow of confidential information of every description, aided by Lang. They made only three hits during the period. Two at the same time, a couple of IRA bombers released from trial at the Old Bailey on a legal technicality, who proceeded on a drunken spree that lasted all day. It was Curry who charted their progress until midnight, then called in Lang, who killed them both as they sat, backs to the wall, in a drunken stupor in a Kilburn alley.
    The third was an American field officer of the CIA attached to the American Embassy’s London Station. He had been giving Belov considerable aggravation and, after the Berlin Wall came down, appeared to be far too friendly with the Russian’s latest rival, Mikhail Shimko, who had replaced Ashimov as Colonel in Charge of London Station KGB.
    The CIA man was called Jackson and, by chance, his name came up at one of the joint intelligence working parties, news that he was having