Thunder Point

‘He’ll be here,’ Wegner told him. ‘I was told he could never resist a challenge, this one.’

‘A mercenary,’ the young man said. ‘That’s what we’ve come down to. The kind of man who kills people for money.’

‘There are children dying over there,’ Wegner said. ‘And they need what’s on that plane. To achieve that I’d deal with the Devil himself.’

‘Which you’ll probably have to.’

‘Not kind,’ Dillon called in excellent German. ‘Not kind at all,’ and he stepped out of the darkness at the end of the hangar.

The young man put a hand in his pocket and Dillon’s Walther appeared fast. ‘Plain view, son, plain view.’

Dillon walked forward, swung the young man round and extracted a Mauser from his right-hand pocket. ‘Would you look at that now? You can’t trust a soul these days.’

Wegner said in English, ‘Mr Dillon? Mr Sean Dillon?’

‘So they tell me.’ Dillon slipped the Mauser into his hip pocket, took out his silver case one-handed, still holding the Walther, and managed to extract a cigarette. ‘And who might you be, me old son?’ His speech had the hard distinctive edge to it that was found only in Ulster and not in the Republic of Ireland.

‘I am Dr Hans Wegner of International Drug Relief and this is Klaus Schmidt from our office in Vienna. He arranged the plane for us.’

‘Did he now? That’s something to be said in his favour.’ Dillon took the Mauser from his hip pocket and handed it back. ‘Doing good is all very fine, but playing with guns when you don’t know how is a mug’s game.’

The young man flushed deeply, took the Mauser and put it in his pocket and Wegner said mildly, ‘Herr Schmidt has made the run by road twice with medical supplies.’

‘Then why not this time?’ Dillon asked, slipping the Walther back in his waistband.

‘Because that part of Croatia is disputed territory now,’ Schmidt said. ‘There’s heavy fighting between Serbs and Moslems and Croats.’

‘I see,’ Dillon said. ‘So I’m to manage by air what you can’t by road?’

‘Mr Dillon, it’s a hundred and twenty miles to Sabac from here and the airstrip is still open. Believe it or not, but the phone system still works quite well over there. I’m given to understand that this plane is capable of more than three hundred miles an hour. That means you could be there in twenty minutes or so.’

Dillon laughed out loud. ‘Would you listen to the man? It’s plain to see you don’t know the first thing about flying a plane.’ He saw that the mechanic high on his ladder was smiling. ‘Ah, so you speak English, old son.’

‘A little.’

‘Tomic is a Croatian,’ Dr Wegner said.

Dillon looked up. ‘What do you think?’

Tomic said, ‘I was in the air force for seven years. I know Sabac. It’s an emergency strip, but a sound asphalt runway.’

‘And the flight?’

‘Well, if you’re just some private pilot out here to do a bit of good in this wicked world you won’t last twenty miles.’

Dillon said softly, ‘Let’s just say I’ve seldom done a good thing in my life and I’m not that kind of pilot. What’s the terrain like?’

‘Mountainous in parts, heavily forested and the weather forecast stinks, I checked it myself earlier, but it’s not only that, it’s the air force, they still patrol the area regularly.’

‘Mig fighters?’ Dillon asked.

‘That’s right.’ Tomic slapped the wing of the Conquest with one hand. ‘A nice aeroplane, but no match for a Mig.’ He shook his head. ‘But maybe you’ve got a death-wish.’

‘That’s enough, Tomic,’ Wegner said angrily.

‘Oh, it’s been said before.’ Dillon laughed. ‘But let’s get on. I’d better look at the charts.’

As they moved towards the office Wegner said, ‘Our people in Vienna did make it plain. Your services are purely voluntary. We need all the money we can raise for the drugs and medical supplies.’

‘Understood,’ Dillon said.

They went into the office where a number of charts were spread across the desk. Dillon started to examine them.

‘When would you leave?’ Wegner asked.

‘Just before dawn,’ Dillon told him. ‘Best time of all and least active. I hope the rain keeps up.’

Schmidt, genuinely curious, said, ‘Why would you do this? I don’t understand. A man like you.’ He seemed suddenly awkward. ‘I mean, we know something of your background.’

‘Do you now?’ Dillon said. ‘Well, as the good doctor said, I find it hard to resist a challenge.’

‘And for this you would risk your life?’

‘Ah, sure and I was forgetting.’ Dillon looked up and smiled and an astonishing change came to his face, nothing but warmth and great charm there. ‘I should also mention that I’m the last of the world’s great adventurers. Now leave me be like a good lad and let me see where I’m going.’

He leaned over the charts and started to examine them intently.

Just before five the rain was as relentless as ever, the darkness as impenetrable as Dillon stood in the entrance of the hangar and peered out. Wegner and Schmidt approached him.

The older man said, ‘Can you really take off in weather like this?’

‘The problem is landing, not taking off.’ Dillon called to Tomic, ‘How are things?’

Tomic emerged from the cabin, jumped to the ground and came towards them wiping his hands on a rag. ‘Everything in perfect working order.’

Dillon offered him a cigarette and glanced out. ‘And this?’

Tomic peered up into the darkness. ‘It’ll get worse before it gets better and you’ll find ground mist over there, especially over the forest, mark my words.’

‘Ah, well, better get on with it as the thief said to the hangman.’ Dillon crossed to the Conquest.

He went up the steps and examined the interior. All the seats had been removed and it was stacked with long olive-green boxes. Each one was stencilled in English: Royal Army Medical Corps.

Schmidt, who had joined him, said, ‘As you can see we get our supplies from unusual sources.’

‘You can say that again. What’s in these?’

‘See for yourself.’ Schmidt unclipped the nearest one, removed a sheet of oiled paper to reveal box after box of morphine ampoules. ‘Over there, Mr Dillon, they sometimes have to hold children down when they operate on them because of the lack of any kind of anaesthetic. These prove a highly satisfactory substitute.’

‘Point taken,’ Dillon said. ‘Now close it up and I’ll get moving.’

Schmidt did as he was told, then jumped to the ground. As Dillon pulled up the steps Wegner said, ‘God go with you, Mr Dillon.’

‘There’s always that chance,’ Dillon said. ‘It’s probably the first time I’ve done anything he’d approve of,’ and he closed the door and clamped it in place.

He settled into the left-hand pilot’s seat, fired the port engine and after that the starboard. The chart was next to him on the other seat, but he had already pretty well committed it to memory. He paused on the apron outside the hangar, rain streaming from his windscreen, did a thorough cockpit check then strapped in and taxied to the end of the runway, turning into the wind. He glanced across to the three men standing in the hangar entrance, raised a thumb then started forward, his engine roar deepening as he boosted power. Within a second or two he had disappeared, the sound of the engines already fading.

Wegner ran a hand over his face. ‘God, but I’m tired.’ He turned to Tomic. ‘Has he a chance?’

Tomic shrugged. ‘Quite a man, that one. Who knows?’

Schmidt said, ‘Let’s get some coffee. We’re going to have a long wait.’

Tomic said, ‘I’ll join you in a minute. I just want to clear my tools away.’

They crossed towards the end hut. He watched them go, waited until they’d gone inside before turning and swiftly crossing to the office. He picked up the telephone and dialled a lengthy series of numbers. As the good doctor had said, the telephone system still worked surprisingly well over there.

When a voice answered he spoke in Serbo-Croat. ‘This is Tomic, get me Major Branko.’

There was an instant response. ‘Branko here.’

‘Tomic. I’m at the airfield at Fehring and I’ve got traffic for you. Cessna Conquest just left, destination Sabac. Here is his radio frequency.’

‘Is the pilot anyone we know?’

‘Name of Dillon – Sean Dillon. Irish, I believe. Small man, very fair hair, late thirties I’d say. Doesn’t look much. Nice smile, but the eyes tell a different story.’

‘I’ll have him checked out through Central Intelligence, but you’ve done well, Tomic. We’ll give him a warm welcome.’

The phone clicked and Tomic replaced the receiver. He took out a packet of the vile Macedonian cigarettes he affected and lit one. Pity about Dillon. He’d rather liked the Irishman, but that was life and he started to put his tools away methodically.

And Dillon was already in trouble, not only thick cloud and the constant driving rain, but even at a thousand feet a swirling mist that gave only an intermittent view of pine forest below.

‘And what in the hell are you doing here, old son?’ he asked softly. ‘What are you trying to prove?’

He got a cigarette out of his case, lit it and a voice spoke in his earphones in heavily accented English, ‘Good morning, Mr Dillon, welcome to Yugoslavia.’

The plane took station to starboard not too far away, the red stars on its fuselage clear enough, a Mig 21, the old Fishbed, probably the Soviet jet most widely distributed to its allies. Outdated now, but not as far as Dillon was concerned.

The Mig pilot spoke again. ‘Course 124, Mr Dillon. We’ll come to a rather picturesque castle at the edge of the forest, Kivo it’s called, Intelligence Headquarters for this area. There’s an airstrip there and they’re expecting you. They might even arrange a full English breakfast.’

‘Irish,’ Dillon said cheerfully. ‘A full Irish breakfast and who am I to refuse an offer like that? One-two-four it is.’

He turned on to the new course, climbing to two thousand feet as the weather cleared a little, whistling softly to himself. A Serbian prison did not commend itself, not if the stories reaching Western Europe were even partly true, but in the circumstances, he didn’t seem to have any choice and then, a couple of miles away on the edge of the forest beside a river he saw Kivo, a fairytale castle of towers and battlements surrounded by a moat, the airstrip clear beside it.

‘What do you think?’ the Mig pilot asked. ‘Nice, isn’t it?’

‘Straight out of a story by the Brothers Grimm,’ Dillon answered. ‘All we need is the ogre.’

‘Oh, we have that too, Mr Dillon. Now put down nice and easy and I’ll say goodbye.’

Dillon looked down into the interior of the castle, noticed soldiers moving towards the edge of the airstrip preceded by a Jeep and sighed. He said into his mike, ‘I’d like to say it’s been a good life, but then there are those difficult days, like this morning for instance. I mean, why did I even get out of bed?’

He heaved the control column right back and boosted power, climbing fast and the Mig pilot reacted angrily. ‘Dillon, do as you’re told or I’ll blast you out of the sky.’

Dillon ignored him, levelling out at five thousand, searching the sky for any sign and the Mig, already on his tail, came up behind and fired. The Conquest staggered as cannon shell tore through both wings.

‘Dillon – don’t be a fool!’ the pilot cried.

‘Ah, but then I always was.’

Dillon went down fast, levelling at two thousand feet over the edge of the forest, aware of vehicles moving from the direction of the castle. The Mig came in again firing his machine guns now and the Conquest’s windscreen disintegrated, wind and rain roaring in. Dillon sat there, hands firm on the control column, blood on his face from a glass splinter.

‘Now then,’ he said into his mike. ‘Let’s see how good you are.’

He dropped the nose and went straight down, the pine forest waiting for him below and the Mig went after him, firing again. The Conquest bucked, the port engine dying as Dillon levelled out at four hundred feet and behind him the Mig, no time to pull out at the speed it was doing, ploughed into the forest and fireballed.

Dillon, trimming as best he could for flying on one engine, lost power and dropped lower. There was a clearing up ahead and to his left. He tried to bank towards it, was already losing height as he clipped the tops of the pine trees. He cut power instantly and braced himself for the crash. In the end, it was the pine trees which saved him, retarding his progress so much that by the time he hit the clearing for a belly landing, he wasn’t actually going all that fast.

The Conquest bounced twice, and came to a shuddering halt. Dillon released his straps, scrambled out of his seat and had the door open in an instant. He was out head first, rolling over in the rain and on his feet and running, his right ankle twisting so that he fell on his face again. He scrambled up and limped away as fast as he could, but the Conquest didn’t burst into flame, it simply crouched there in the rain as if tired.

There was thick black smoke above the trees from the burning Mig and then soldiers appeared on the other side of the clearing. A Jeep moved out of the trees behind them, top down and Dillon could see an officer standing up in it wearing a winter campaign coat, Russian-style, with a fur collar. More soldiers appeared, some of them with Dobermanns, all barking loudly and straining against their leashes.

It was enough. Dillon turned to hobble into the trees and his leg gave out on him. A voice on a loudhailer called in English, ‘Oh, come now, Mr Dillon, be sensible, you don’t want me to set the dogs on you.’

Dillon paused, balanced on one foot, then he turned and hobbled to the nearest tree and leaned against it. He took a cigarette from his silver case, the last one, and lit it. The smoke tasted good as it bit at the back of his throat and he waited for them.

They stood in a semi-circle, soldiers in baggy tunics, guns covering him, the dogs howling against being restrained. The Jeep rolled to a halt and the officer, a major from his shoulder boards, stood up and looked down at him, a good-looking man of about thirty with a dark saturnine face.

‘So, Mr Dillon, you made it in one piece,’ he said in faultless public school English. ‘I congratulate you. My name, by the way, is Branko – John Branko. My mother was English, is, I should say. Lives in Hampstead.’

‘Is that a fact.’ Dillon smiled. ‘A desperate bunch of rascals you’ve got here, Major, but cead mile failte anyway.’

‘And what would that mean, Mr Dillon?’

‘Oh, that’s Irish for a hundred thousand welcomes.’

‘What a charming sentiment.’ Branko turned and spoke in Serbo-Croat to the large, brutal-looking sergeant who sat behind him clutching an AK assault rifle. The sergeant smiled, jumped to the ground and advanced on Dillon.

Major Branko said, ‘Allow me to introduce you to my Sergeant Zekan. I’ve just told him to offer you a hundred thousand welcomes to Yugoslavia or Serbia as we prefer to say now.’

Dillon knew what was coming, but there wasn’t a thing he could do. The butt of the AK caught him in the left side, driving the wind from him as he keeled over, the sergeant lifted a knee in his face. The last thing Dillon remembered was the dogs barking, the laughter and then there was only darkness.

When Sergeant Zekan took Dillon along the corridor, someone screamed in the distance and there was the sound of heavy blows. Dillon hesitated but the sergeant showed no emotion, simply put a hand between the Irishman’s shoulder-blades and pushed him towards a flight of stone steps and urged him up. There was an oaken door at the top banded with iron. Zekan opened it and pushed him through.

The room inside was oak-beamed with granite walls, tapestries hanging here and there. A log fire burned in an open hearth and two of the Dobermanns sprawled in front of it. Branko sat behind a large desk reading a file and drinking from a crystal glass, a bottle in an ice-bucket beside him. He glanced up and smiled, then took the bottle from the ice-bucket and filled another glass.

‘Krug champagne, Mr Dillon, your preferred choice, I understand.’

‘Is there anything you don’t know about me?’ Dillon asked.

‘Not much.’ Branko lifted the file then dropped it on the desk. ‘The Intelligence organizations of most countries have the useful habit of frequently cooperating with each other even when their countries don’t. Do sit down and have a drink. You’ll feel better.’

Dillon took the chair opposite and accepted the glass that Zekan handed him. He emptied it in one go and Branko smiled, took a cigarette from a packet of Rothmans and tossed it across.

‘Help yourself.’ He reached out and refilled Dillon’s glass. ‘I much prefer the non-vintage, don’t you?’

‘It’s the grape mix,’ Dillon said and lit the cigarette.

‘Sorry about that little touch of violence back there,’ Branko told him. ‘Just a show for my boys. After all you did cost us that Mig and it takes two years to train the pilots. I should know, I’m one myself.’

‘Really?’ Dillon said.

‘Yes, Cranwell, courtesy of your British Royal Air Force.’

‘Not mine,’ Dillon told him.

‘But you were born in Ulster, I understand. Belfast, is that not so and Belfast, as I understand it, is part of Great Britain and not the Republic of Ireland.’

‘A debatable point,’ Dillon said. ‘Let’s say I’m Irish and leave it at that.’ He swallowed some more champagne. ‘Who dropped me in it? Wegner or Schmidt?’ He frowned. ‘No, of course not. Just a couple of do-gooders. Tomic. It would be Tomic, am I right?’

‘A good Serb.’ Branko poured a little more champagne. ‘How on earth did you get into this, a man like you?’

‘You mean you don’t know?’

‘I’ll be honest, Mr Dillon. I knew you were coming, but no more than that.’

‘I was in Vienna for a few days to sample a little opera. I’m partial to Mozart. Bumped into a man I’d had dealings with over the years in the bar during the first interval. Told me he’d been approached by this organization who needed a little help, but were short on money.’

‘Ah, I see now.’ Branko nodded. ‘A good deed in a naughty world as Shakespeare put it? All those poor little children crying out for help? The cruel Serbs.’

‘God help me, Major, but you have a way with the words.’

‘A sea-change for a man like you I would have thought.’ Branko opened the file. ‘Sean Dillon, born Belfast, went to live in London when you were a boy, father a widower. A student of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at eighteen, even acted with the National Theatre. Your father returned to Belfast in 1971 and was killed by British paratroopers.’

‘You are well informed.’

‘You joined the Provisional IRA, trained in Libya courtesy of Colonel Gadaffi and never looked back.’ Branko turned a page. ‘You finally broke with the IRA. Some disagreement as to strategy.’

‘Bunch of old women.’ Dillon reached across and helped himself to more Krug.

‘Beirut, the PLO, even the KGB. You really do believe in spreading your services around.’ Branko laughed suddenly in a kind of amazement. ‘The underwater attack on those two Palestinian gunboats in Beirut in 1990. You were responsible for that? But that was for the Israelis.’

‘I charge very reasonable rates,’ Dillon said.

‘Fluent German, Spanish and French, oh, and Irish.’

‘We mustn’t forget that.’

‘Reasonable Arabic, Italian and Russian.’ Branko closed the file. ‘Is it true you were responsible for the mortar attack on No. 10 Downing Street during the Gulf War when the British Prime Minister, John Major, was meeting with the War Cabinet?’

‘Now do I look as if I’d do a thing like that?’

Branko leaned back and looked at him seriously. ‘How do you see yourself, my friend, gun for hire like one of those old Westerns, riding into town to clean things up single-handed?’

‘To be honest, Major, I never think about it.’

‘And yet you took on a job like this present affair for a bunch of well-meaning amateurs and for no pay?’

‘We all make mistakes.’

‘You certainly did, my friend. Those boxes on the plane. Morphine ampoules on top, Stinger missiles underneath.’

‘Jesus.’ Dillon laughed helplessly. ‘Now who would have thought it.’

‘They say you have a genius for acting, that you can change yourself totally, become another person with a look, a gesture.’

‘No, I think that was Laurence Olivier.’ Dillon smiled.

‘And in twenty years, you’ve never seen the inside of a cell.’

‘True.’

‘Not any longer, my friend.’ Branko opened a drawer, took out a two hundred pack of Rothmans cigarettes and tossed them across. ‘You’re going to need those.’ He glanced at Zekan and said in Serbo-Croat, ‘Take him to his cell.’

Dillon felt the sergeant’s hand on his shoulder pulling him up and propelling him to the door. As Zekan opened it Branko said, ‘One more thing, Mr Dillon. The firing squad operates most mornings here. Try not to let it put you off.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Dillon said. ‘Ethnic cleansing, isn’t that what you call it?’

‘The reason is much simpler than that. We just get short of space. Sleep well.’

They went up a flight of stone steps, Zekan pushing Dillon ahead of him. He pulled him to a halt outside an oak door on the passageway at the top, took out a key and unlocked it. He inclined his head and stood to one side and Dillon entered. The room was quite large. There was an army cot in one corner, a tablet chair, books on a shelf and, incredibly, an old toilet in a cubicle in one corner. Dillon went to the window and peered through bars to the courtyard eighty feet below and the pine forest in the near distance.

He turned. ‘This must be one of your better rooms. What’s the catch?’ Then realized he was wasting his time for the sergeant had no English.

As if perfectly understanding him Zekan smiled, showing bad teeth, took Dillon’s silver case and Zippo lighter from a pocket and laid them carefully on the table. He withdrew, closing the door, and the key rattled in the lock.

Dillon went to the window and tried the bars, but they seemed firm. Too far down anyway. He opened one of the packs of Rothmans and lit one. One thing was certain. Branko was being excessively kind and there had to be a reason for that. He went and lay on the bed, smoking his cigarette, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about it.

In 1972, aware of the growing problem of terrorism and its effect on so many aspects of life at both political and national level, the British Prime Minister of the day ordered the setting up of a small elite Intelligence unit, known simply by the code name Group Four. It was to handle all matters concerning terrorism and subversion in the British Isles. Known rather bitterly in more conventional Intelligence circles as the Prime Minister’s private army, it owed allegiance to that office alone.

Brigadier Charles Ferguson had headed Group Four since its inception, had served a number of prime ministers, both Conservative and Labour, and had no political allegiance whatsoever. He had an office on the third floor of the Ministry of Defence overlooking Horseguards Avenue, and was still working at his desk at nine o’clock that night when there was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ Ferguson said, stood up and walked to the window, a large, rather untidy-looking man with a double chin and grey hair who wore a baggy suit and a Guards tie.

As he peered out at the rain towards Victoria Embankment and the Thames the door opened behind him. The man who entered was in his late thirties, wore a tweed suit and glasses. He could have been a clerk, or even a schoolmaster, but Detective Inspector Jack Lane was neither of these things. He was a cop. Not an ordinary one, but a cop all the same and, after some negotiating, Ferguson had succeeded in borrowing him from Special Branch at Scotland Yard to act as his personal assistant.

‘Got something for me, Jack?’ Ferguson’s voice was ever so slightly plummy.