Free Without Mercy by Jack Higgins

here overnight.”
    “And the funeral?”
    “Ten o’clock in the morning at Golders Green.”
    “So kind.”
    He thought about things for a while, then decided to go for a drive, which took him to Wapping and Cable Wharf and the Dark Man. It was almost night, lights on the river, and he parked, one of many cars, so things were busy. He went and stood on the edge of the wharf and lit a cigarette. He’d always liked rivers, the smell of them, the boats, but now he felt curiously empty. It was Bernstein. He kept thinking of her photo, the look on her face. Dammit, her death was not really his affair, there was an inevitability to it. So why did he feel as he did? The Jewish link? But that was nonsense. It had always meant little to him, and death had been a way of life for years.
    “Pull yourself together, Igor,” he murmured, and flicked his cigarette into the Thames. He took a small leather pouch from his pocket, extracted a minuscule earpiece, another device developed by the GRU, and pushed it into his right ear. The chip it contained enhanced sound considerably. Then he crossed the wharf and entered the Dark Man.
    Ferguson, Dillon and the Salters were all there, including Roper in his wheelchair. They had the corner booth, but the bar itself was busy. Levin got a large vodka and helped himself to an Evening Standard someone had left. He had luck then, for a man and a woman in a small two-person booth next to his quarry got up to go, and Levin moved fast to take their place. He was protected from view by the wooden wall between the booths, but when he gave his earpiece a quarter turn, he could hear what was going on perfectly. He started to work his way through the newspaper and listened attentively.
    Billy Salter was talking. “What’s going on? This bird, this Mary Killane. What’s the connection?”
    It was Roper who intervened. “An IRA connection from childhood. Her father was a Provo hard man. He died of cancer years ago in the Maze Prison. The mother took the girl to Dublin when she was very young.”
    “You’ve checked out what happened to her thoroughly?”
    “Charles, I could tell you the schools she went to, where she trained as a nurse. All that.”
    “Have you checked whether she was a member of the IRA herself?”
    “As well as I could, and she wasn’t.”
    “Was she a member of any political groups, anything like that?”
    “As far as I can tell, which is considerable, she’s not a member of any group connected to Sinn Fein, I can guarantee that.”
    It was Dillon who cut in. “She wouldn’t be. Her worth would be her being in the Republic and uninvolved. Going by her age, she’d be a sleeper.”
    “What in the hell is a bleeding ‘sleeper’?” Harry asked.
    “The new wave, Harry. Nice, decent professional people who work in hospitals or offices or universities, a lot of them London Irish. Born here, English accents. A perfect cover—until they’re activated.”
    “In a way, that applies to you, Sean,” Ferguson said. “Your father brought you here as a little boy. Your education was English.”
    “True. You don’t need an Irish accent to be Irish. The IRA discovered that with me a long time ago, and these days, it’s even more important. If you think they’ve given up, you’re sadly mistaken.”
    “So Mary Killane’s task was to give Hannah Bernstein an overdose,” Ferguson said. “But why?”
    There was silence. Roper said, “As a Special Branch Officer, Hannah not only put members of the IRA away, she killed them.”
    “So what are you saying?” Blake said. “Somebody in the hierarchy waits until she’s almost dying anyway before deciding to have her put down?”
    “Like a dog.” Dillon’s voice was almost toneless, without feeling.
    Billy went to the bar and ordered more drinks. They were still sitting in silence when he returned. “Revenge is the only thing that makes sense. Whoever it was wanted their own back. Because of the IRA connection, we’re