Free Be Careful What You Wish For: The Clifton Chronicles 4 by Jeffrey Archer

number 18.

    Luis’s plane touched down in Nice a few minutes after Karl’s took off. Luis had a wad of new five-pound notes secreted in his washbag, and instructions that could
not have been clearer: enjoy yourself, and don’t come back for at least a week. Hardly a taxing assignment, but all part of Don Pedro’s overall plan.
    Diego’s plane entered Spanish airspace an hour behind schedule, but as his appointment with one of the nation’s leading beef importers wasn’t until four that afternoon, he had
time to spare. Whenever he travelled to Madrid, he always stayed at the same hotel, dined in the same restaurant and visited the same brothel. His shadow also booked himself into the same hotel and
ate in the same restaurant, but he sat alone in a coffee shop on the opposite side of the road whenever Diego spent a couple of hours at La Buena Noche. Not an expense claim he felt Colonel
Scott-Hopkins would be amused by.

    Karl Lunsdorf had never visited Belfast, but after several ‘drinks on me’ evenings at Ward’s Irish House in Piccadilly, he left the pub for the last time with
almost all of his questions answered. He also vowed never to drink another pint of Guinness in his life.
    On leaving the airport, he took a taxi to the Royal Windsor Hotel in the city centre, where he booked himself in for three nights. He told the receptionist that he might have to stay longer,
depending on how his business worked out. Once he was in his room, he locked the door, unpacked his Harrods carrier bag and ran a bath. Afterwards he lay on his bed thinking about what he planned
to do that evening. He didn’t move until he saw the street lights go on. He then checked the city road map once more, so that by the time he left the hotel he would not need to refer to it
again.
    He left his room just after six, and took the stairs to the ground floor. He never used the hotel lift – a tiny, exposed, over-lit space that would make it far too easy for other guests to
remember him. He walked quickly, but not too quickly, across the foyer and out on to Donegall Road. After a hundred yards of window-shopping, he was confident no one was following him. He was, once
again, on his own behind enemy lines.
    He didn’t take the direct route to his destination, but doubled back down side streets so that a walk that normally would have taken him twenty minutes took just under an hour. But then,
he wasn’t in a hurry. When he finally reached the Falls Road, he could feel the beads of sweat on his forehead. He knew that fear would be a constant companion while he remained in the
fourteen blocks occupied only by Roman Catholics. Not for the first time in his life he found himself somewhere where he wasn’t quite certain he would get out alive.
    At six foot three, with a mane of thick blond hair and weighing 208lbs, mostly muscle, it wasn’t going to be easy for Karl to melt into the background. What had been an advantage when he
was a young SS officer was going to be the exact opposite for the next few hours. He only had one thing going for him, his German accent. Many of the Catholics who lived on the Falls Road hated the
English even more than the Germans, although sometimes it was a close-run thing. After all, Hitler had promised to reunite the north and the south once he’d won the war. Karl often wondered
what post Himmler would have given him if, as he’d recommended, Germany had invaded Britain and not made the disastrous mistake of turning east and heading for Russia. Pity the Führer
hadn’t read more history. However, Karl didn’t doubt that many of those who espoused the cause of Irish unity were no more than thugs and criminals who regarded patriotism as a thinly
disguised opportunity to make money. Something the Irish Republican Army had in common with the SS.
    He saw the sign swinging in the evening breeze. If he was going to turn back, it would have to be now. But he didn’t hesitate. He would never forget that