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

a series of meetings at an address in Holland Park with members of a Ukrainian faction resident in London. Curry kept a watch at the appropriate times and noticed that Jackson always walked for a mile afterwards, following the same route through quiet streets to the main road where he hailed a taxi.
    After the next meeting, Lang was waiting in a small Ford Van at an appropriate point on the route, provided by Belov, of course. As Jackson passed, Lang, wearing a knitted ski mask in black, stepped out and shot him once in the back, penetrating the heart, finished with a head shot, got in the van and drove away. He left the van in a builders’ yard in Bayswater, again an address provided by Belov, and walked away, whistling softly to himself.
     
     
    It was half an hour later that a young reporter on the news desk of the
London Times
took the phone call claiming credit for the killing by January 30.
     
     
    The British Government allowed the Americans to flood London temporarily with CIA agents intent on hunting down Jackson’s killer. As usual, they drew a complete blank. That the killings claimed by January 30 from Ali Hamid onwards had been the work of the same Beretta 9-millimeter was known to everyone, as was the significance of January 30. The Bloody Sunday connection should have indicated an Irish revolutionary connection, but even the IRA got nowhere in their investigations. In the end, the CIA presence was withdrawn.
    British Army Intelligence, Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist department, MI5, all failed to make headway. Even the redoubtable Brigadier Charles Ferguson, head of the special intelligence unit responsible to the Prime Minister, had only total failure to report to Downing Street.
     
     
    It was in January 1990, following the collapse of the Communist-dominated government of East Germany, that Lang and Curry attended a cultural evening at the American Embassy. There were at least a hundred and fifty people there, including Belov, whom they found at the champagne bar. They took their glasses into an anteroom and found a corner table.
    “So, everything’s falling apart for you people, Yuri,” Lang said. “First the Wall comes tumbling down, now East Germany folds, and a little bird tells me there’s a strong possibility that your Congress of People’s Deputies might soon abolish the Communist Party’s monopoly of power in Russia.”
    Belov shrugged. “Disorder leads to strength. It’s inevitable. Take the German situation. West Germany is at present the most powerful country in Western Europe economically. The consequences of taking East Germany on board will be catastrophic in every way and particularly economically. The balance of power in Europe once again altered totally. Remember what I said a long time ago? Chaos is our business.”
    “I suppose you’re right, when you come to think of it,” Lang said.
    Curry nodded. “Of course he is.”
    “I invariably am.” Belov raised his glass. “To a new world, my friends, and to us. One never knows what’s round the corner.”
    “I know,” Rupert Lang said. “That’s what makes it all so damned exciting.”
    They touched glasses and drank.
     
FOUR
     
    Rupert Lang was more right than he knew. There
was
something round the corner, something profound and disturbing that was to affect all three of them, although it was not to take place until the Gulf War was over and done with. January 1992, to be precise.
     
     
    Grace Browning was born in Washington in 1965. Her father was a journalist on the
Washington Post
, her mother was English. When she was twelve tragedy struck, devastating her life. On the way home from a concert one night their car was rammed into the curb by an old limousine. The men inside were obviously on drugs. She remembered the shouting, the demands for money, her father opening the door to get out and then the shots, one of which penetrated the side window at the rear and killed her mother instantly.
    Grace lay in the