Midnight Runner Part 24

"In a minute, Harry. First-Billy, why don't you show me that new paneling you've put in the saloon?"

They left Harry and Quinn at the table, and Billy led the way in. Dillon closed the door and Billy turned. "What is it?"

"Kate Rashid's going to, and I'm following her. Quinn's coming with me because he's h.e.l.l-bent on some sort of revenge for what happened to his daughter. But here's the thing. He was a great war hero in Vietnam, but that was a long time ago. A lot of people over there know me, Billy. I need someone to watch my back."

"Well, you've got him. I'm bored here, anyway. It's always a laugh a minute with you, Dillon, isn't it? Let's go and break the news to Harry."

When they told him, Harry's reaction was quick. "Maybe I should come, too."

"No need," Dillon said. "With luck, we'll be in and out of Drumcree in an hour or two."

"And hopefully find out what that b.i.t.c.h intends," Harry said.

"It must be something special," Dillon agreed.

"But if she sees you, the game's up, Dillon. Come to think of it, she's met the Senator, too."

"And Billy. So he and Quinn will just have to make sure she doesn't see them. It's different for me. Watch."

He went into the saloon and closed the door. When it opened again, he shuffled out, head slightly to one side, his left arm stiff, shoulder down. The face seemed twisted, the entire body language had changed.

Harry recoiled in his chair. "Unbelievable."

Dillon straightened and said dryly, "Yes, I was a great loss to the theater. There's one thing you both should know, however. For various reasons, this trip isn't sanctioned by Ferguson. I'm doing it on my own, so whatever you do, you'll be doing it for me, Billy."

"So how will you get tooled up? You won't be able to take arms through to," Harry said.

"I still have my contacts over there, Harry. A phone call will do it."

"Well, bring this little b.u.g.g.e.r back in one piece. It grieves me to say it, Dillon, but since we met you, he's developed a taste for this sort of caper."

And Billy Salter, a London gangster, four times in prison, a man who had killed in his time, a lover of moral philosophy, smiled coldly.

"Well, you know what Heidegger said: 'For authentic living, what is necessary is the resolute confrontation of death.'"

"You must be cracked," Harry said.

"Let's just say I have a better chance of finding what is necessary in than at the Flamingo Club in Wapping on a Sat.u.r.day night."

Twenty-four hours later, Harry delivered Billy to the Brancaster Aero Club, Joe Baxter at the wheel of the Jaguar. Billy was wearing a black leather bomber jacket and Joe Baxter carried his bag. Billy leaned on the rail, looking at the planes.

"I wonder which is ours?"

A small man was leaning on the rail nearby. He had a bag at his feet and was also wearing a bomber jacket and a cloth cap, from which black hair escaped. His gla.s.ses were tinted and he had a dark moustache.

He said in a faultless upper-cla.s.s English accent, "That's yours over there, old chap. Beechcraft. Smashing plane. The red-and-cream job."

"Looks good to me," Harry said.

"Well I'm happy you're happy." Dillon turned to greet Daniel Quinn. "Morning, Senator. If you're ready, we'll get out of here."

Harry said, "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself."

Dillon picked up his bag. "Right, gentlemen, let's get going," and he went through the gate in the fence and led the way to the Beechcraft.

The flight to Aldergrove airport outside was smooth and uneventful. They went through customs and security and Dillon led the way to the long-term parking lot.

"Shogun four-door, dark green," he told the other two and gave them the number. "Somewhere on the fourth floor."

It was Billy who discovered it. Dillon reached under the rear and found a magnetized key box, with which he opened the rear door. He lifted the trap inside, where tools and odds and ends were kept. There was a tin box, and when Dillon opened it, it proved to contain three Walther PPKs, each with a Carswell silencer and spare magazine. There was also a field medical kit with Royal Army Medical Corp on the lid.

He took one Walther and said to the others, "Help yourselves."

Billy hefted his in his hand. "Feels good, eh, Senator?"

Quinn gazed down at his Walther. "Strange, Billy, it feels strange."

"Where are we staying?" Billy asked as they drove away.

"Well, not the Europa. There's a nice enough hotel just up the road from it, the Townley. If you like, I'll show you around a little. But remember, Senator, at all times you're a bluff, honest Yankee tourist, right? As for you, Billy, if we're going down the Falls Road, keep your mouth shut. They don't like the English much."

"You know it well?" Quinn asked.

"Particularly the sewers. I used to play hide-and-seek in there with British paratroopers more years ago than I care to remember."

"And that's a bleeding showstopper if I ever heard one," Billy said.

Later, Dillon was driving along the Falls Road. They'd eaten at a small restaurant in a side street, visited a couple of bars, and then he'd taken the other two on the grand tour.

"So this is the famous Falls Road. h.e.l.l, it looks so normal, just another city street," Quinn said.

"Well, this one's run with blood in its time," Dillon said. "Plenty of pitched battles between the Provos and the British troops." He was quiet for a moment. "It was a hard way to live."

"So why did you?" Quinn said. "Why did you do it?"

Dillon lit a cigarette, one-handed, and didn't reply. Billy said, "Leave it, Senator."

"But why?"

Billy leaned toward him. "Say you're an actor in London. You get a phone call to say your father's dead, caught in the crossfire of a firefight between Brit Paras and the IRA. What do you do? You come home and bury him, then you join the glorious cause. It's the kind of thing you do at nineteen."

There was silence, then Quinn said, "I'm sorry," but before things could go any further, Dillon's Codex rang.

"Who is it?"

"Ferguson. Roper told me you went to, which I a.s.sume you meant him to do. Where are you?"

"The Falls Road."

"Just the place for you. Anyway, the minute you know what she's up to, let me know."

"Why, Charles, I thought I was on my own now. I thought I no longer worked for you. Isn't that what you said?"

"Don't be coy, Dillon, you know exactly what's going on."

"Well, what if I don't want to work for you anymore?"

"Don't be stupid, either. Where else would you go?" And Ferguson put his phone down.

"Who was that?" Billy inquired. "Ferguson?"

"Welcoming me back into the fold."

"Unctuous b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Why, Billy, you've been reading another book. We'll drop in at a real Irish bar I know on the way back to celebrate, and then an early night."

Drumcree was typical of the villages on the Down coast. A small harbor, gray stone houses, fishing boats-that was about it. They pulled up outside the Royal George, an eighteenth-century inn, nicely refurbished, the sign a portrait of King George the Third, obviously recently repainted.

"I'm starving." Dillon got out and they followed him. He said over his shoulder to Quinn, "Don't forget, you're the Yank abroad."

A bell tinkled as they went in. Three young men, one in a reefer coat, two in anoraks, were sitting in the windowseat eating sizable breakfasts. There was no one behind the bar.

Dillon a.s.sumed his version of a Southern accent and said genially, "Hey, what you boys are eating looks real good. How's a man get service round here?"

The three stopped talking amongst themselves, and one of them, a hard-faced youth with cropped red hair, looked Dillon and his friends over with a certain contempt.

"Tourists, are you?"

"That's right," Dillon said, and indicated Quinn. "My friend's grandpappy was born in. Emigrated to the good old US of A years ago."

"Well, that must have been nice for him," Red Hair said. "Ring the bell on the bar."

Which Dillon did, and a moment later, the publican came out, one Patrick Murphy, who Dillon remembered well from his last visit. He didn't recognize Dillon for a moment but was obviously surprised to see them.

"Can I help?"

"You can indeed. A large Bushmills whiskey, a pint of Guinness, and an orange juice."

One of the three men, the one who sported a fringe beard, burst into laughter. "Have you ever heard the like? Orange juice."

Dillon put a restraining hand on Billy's arm and ignored them as Murphy got the drinks and said, "Will there be anything else?"

"Yes," Dillon told him. "We'll have some breakfast. Where's the men's room?"

"Just along the corridor."

Dillon knew very well where it was, next to the snug, but, of course, he wasn't supposed to. He brought the drinks to the table.

"I need the toilet," he announced. "Anyone else?"

"I'm fine," Quinn said.

Dillon went along the corridor, paused outside the men's room, aware of sounds from the kitchen, then opened the snug door and moved in. There was a fire on the open hearth, chairs arranged beside it, a coffee table in between, a smell of polish and a general tidiness that argued that Murphy had made a special effort. A row of books stood on the window ledge beside the fire. Dillon placed the recorder behind them, turned, and went out.

The breakfast was excellent and Dillon kept up the performance. "Hey, this is d.a.m.n good."

"It sure is," Quinn told him. "A h.e.l.l of a good idea dropping in here."

Murphy appeared with a large pot of tea, milk, and three cups. Dillon said, "Fantastic. Is there anything round here worth looking at? That old castle up on the hill, for instance?"

"There's not much there," Murphy said. "However, Drumcree House is half a mile up the road. That's National Trust, it's open from ten o'clock. It's worth a look, if that kind of thing takes your fancy."

"Thanks for the tip. Say, do you do lunch, my friend?"

"Yes."

"Well, we'll do the tourist bit and be back."

The three men at the window whispered together again, then got up. The one with the beard paid Murphy at the bar and followed the others out.

Quinn said, "Not exactly friendly."

"They wouldn't be. All strangers are under suspicion in areas like this. That's why it's essential to keep the American touch. I'll pay the bill, and let's go and act like tourists."

They explored the village, what there was of it, and paused at the Shogun, where Dillon found a pair of binoculars. They went to the end of the jetty and took turns checking the fishing boats out at sea, then they climbed up the hill to the castle. It wasn't much except for the view, and then the Volvo they were waiting for came down the road below, entered the village, and pulled up at the pub.

"And here they are, right on time," Dillon said, as Hennesy got out and opened the door for Kate Rashid, and Rupert moved round to join her.

"Now what?" Billy asked.

"Hang on. There's no sign of Keenan yet." But almost immediately an old Ford wooden-framed station wagon appeared from a back lane and pulled up behind the Volvo. Dillon focused the binoculars. "There you go: Barry Keenan, Sean Casey, Frank Kelly."

They watched the three men enter the pub, and Billy said, "So, what do we do?"

"They'll be a while, too long for us to hang around watching. We'll go up the road for an hour or so and take a look at Drumcree House. We'll come back later."

Barry Keenan had the look of a scholar more than anything else-of medium height and wearing a tweed suit, his black hair peppered with gray-and yet he was a man who had been responsible for many deaths. Casey and Kelly were typical IRA foot soldiers, straight off a building site or a farm.

Kate and Rupert had already been shown through to the snug by Murphy, and the three men joined them. Outside, Dillon and his friends were walking toward the Shogun. He operated the remote control and a tiny red light came on.

"We're in business." He smiled and opened the driver's side of the Shogun. "Let's go."

"A pleasure to meet you," Keenan told her. "What do I call you?"

"Countess will do."

"The Countess it is, and your friend?"