LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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