Read Without Mercy for Free Online

Patrick Ryan. He’s a good man.”
    “I was two years in the Maze Prison with him. He’s one of our own.” Bell laughed harshly. “What a bastard Dillon is. I’ve had my brushes with him. Anyway, I’ve phone calls to make, recruiting to do. You can leave it with me.”
    “And the disposal of the corpses?”
    “I’m an expert in that department.”
    “I’ll keep in touch.”
    Ashimov walked through to the terrace and found Ryan and McGuire standing by the body of Kelly.
    “Poor old Kelly,” McGuire said. “He never knew what hit him.”
    “And that’s a fact.” Ashimov took a silenced pistol from his left-hand pocket and shot McGuire in the side of the head. He went down like a stone, and Patrick Ryan jumped back, hands raised, fear on his face.
    “No, for God’s sake.”
    “Not you, you fool.”
    “But why?”
    “Because he knew Josef Belov is dead and that doesn’t suit me or those involved with me in Moscow. Listen here. You know Liam Bell, an old friend, I think.”
    Ryan was astonished. “Of course. I was in the same cell at the Maze Prison with him.”
    “I’ve spoken to him in Dublin. He’ll be here within hours with a crew. He’ll take over everything Kelly was responsible for, and he’ll take care of this lot.” He stirred McGuire with his foot. “They’ll do a satisfactory disposal job.”
    “I see.”
    “He’ll expect you to fit in, you know.”
    “I could do that,” Ryan said slowly.
    “I want you to be my eyes and ears. I’ll make your fortune, Patrick, put the Royal George in your name. Would you like that?”
    Ryan’s face lit up. “That would be grand.”
    “One thing. Nobody, not even Liam Bell, must know that Belov went down on that boat. It was just Tod Murphy as far as Bell knows.”
    Ryan took a deep breath. “Right, I’m your man.”
    “Good. McGuire should have some keys in his pocket. Get them, would you?”
    Ryan fished them out.
    “Excellent.” They walked through to the hall and Greta came down the great stairs in a fawn coat and black trouser suit, a traveling bag slung over one shoulder. “You look better, a lot better. Let’s get moving. I’ll be in touch, Patrick.”
    They went out and Ryan waited. He heard one of the cars start up outside and then move off.
    It was very quiet, too quiet, but he’d taken a step on the kind of journey from which there was no going back.
    The convent looked more like a country house than anything else, but inside it was a very different story. The nuns were a nursing order, the Little Sisters of Pity, and Belov had put a great deal of money into the place, a couple of operating theaters, all sorts of medical facilities. The result was a facility that was of great benefit to the local farming community, and a further enhancement of the Belov name.
    The Mother Superior, Sister Teresa, was a general surgeon. She saw Greta at once in reception, gave her a cursory check and frowned. “You have been in the wars. What happened?”
    Ashimov said quietly, “She was in an accident.”
    Greta, improvising, said, “It was so stupid. I was on a fishing boat moored in the harbor, and I slipped stepping over the stern and fell.”
    “Several feet. That’s not good.”
    “I fell into water. Such a fool.”
    “Well, your head’s going to need a stitch or two, and I think we’ll give you a quick scan.”
    “Do we have time for all that?” Greta asked Ashimov.
    “You can come and watch through the surgery window, but not if you smoke,” Sister Teresa said, and led Greta out.
    Ashimov went outside to think things over and he did smoke. In fact, he smoked several, going back over events. He should have been dead, but he wasn’t, thanks to Belov’s gift of the titanium vest. Ferguson would have been behind it, because of what happened to Bernstein, the Salters and Dillon, always Dillon. Now Belov was dead. He thought of their years together in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, and this was what it had come to. Well, they would