The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers) by Stephen Leather Page B

Mike Cramer. ‘What did McCormack say?’ he asked.
            ‘Let sleeping dogs lie. That’s what he said.’
            O’Riordan snorted softly. ‘Fuck that for a game of soldiers.’
            ‘Yeah. But what can we do? How am I going to track down a helicopter? They could have gone anywhere.’
            O’Riordan shook his head. ‘Not anywhere, Dermott. What goes up must come down. And Air Traffic Control must have been tracking it. You might try asking them.’
            ‘Oh sure, I’ll just phone them up and ask them if they saw a helicopter pick up a Sass-man in Howth. I can just imagine their answer.’
            ‘It was a Sea King, wasn’t it? That’s what it looked like to me.’
            ‘I suppose so. It was a big bugger, that’s for sure, not a normal army chopper. I’ve never seen a red, white and blue chopper before. They’re usually grey or green.’
            ‘What about the Queen’s Flight?’ said O’Riordan.
            ‘Aye, it could have been the Duke of Edinburgh himself, coming to lift our man off. How far can they go, any idea?’
            O’Riordan shrugged. ‘A few hundred miles maybe. They were heading east, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could have circled around and headed up north.’
            ‘Belfast? Yeah, that’s possible. Do we know anyone in Air Traffic Control?’
            ‘I’ll ask around. But you’d best be careful. McCormack won’t like it if he thinks you’re going behind his back.’
            ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’
            ‘I mean it, Dermott. McCormack is a dangerous man to cross.’
            ‘I know. I’ll just be making a few enquiries, that’s all.’
           
           
           
           
    Mike Cramer was walking around the croquet lawn, deep in thought, when he heard the Colonel calling him from the French windows at the rear of the main building. He looked up. The Colonel was waving his walking stick as if he was trying to call back an errant retriever. Cramer smiled at the thought. A Rottweiler would be a better comparison. During his last few years in the SAS, the Colonel had tended to use Cramer on operations where the qualities of a highly-trained attack dog were more in demand than the ability to bring back a dead bird.
            Cramer walked across the grass. Away to his left, by the line of tall conifers which separated the tennis courts from the lawn, stood a broad-shouldered man in a dark blue duffel coat, one of several SAS troopers on guard duty. The wind caught the coat and Cramer got a glimpse of a sub-machine pistol in an underarm holster.
            The Colonel had gone back inside by the time Cramer reached the window. It led into a large, airy room which appeared to have been the headmistress’s office. The Colonel sat behind a huge oak desk. The walls were bare but there were oblong marks among the faded wallpaper where framed photographs of netball and lacrosse teams had hung for generations. As Cramer stepped into the room he noticed another man, standing by an empty bookcase. ‘Cramer, this is Dr Greene,’ said the Colonel.
            The doctor stepped forward and shook hands with Cramer. He was just under six feet tall, in his early fifties with swept-back grey hair and gold-framed spectacles with bifocal lenses. He was wearing a brown cardigan with leather patches on the elbows and was carrying a small leather medical bag. ‘Strip to the waist,’ said the doctor.
            ‘Top or bottom?’
            The doctor looked at Cramer over the top of his spectacles, an amused smile on his face. ‘Whichever you’d prefer, Sergeant Cramer.’
            Cramer took off his reefer jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. The Colonel made no move to leave. He read the look on Cramer’s face. ‘You don’t mind if I stay, do you?’ he asked and Cramer shook his head.
            The doctor whistled softly between his teeth