Queen Victoria's Revenge (9 page)

“What's a Player?”

“They are cigarettes and they come in packages of various sizes. You will say ‘Packet of ten Players, please,' for that is the code word. Immediately after saying this you add ‘Prince Charlie lives!'”

“Who is Prince Charlie?”

“If your ignorance of history is so abysmal it is not for me to attempt to alleviate it. Go now—and do not forget the guns.”

Tony went. He had every intention of keeping on going, too. The information first, he must try to get that, but instantly afterward he had to try to give these Latin thugs the slip. There was an edge like dull razor blades to the wind that cut through his thin jacket, accompanied by a damp smell of rain hovering close. Did the sun ever shine here? When he opened the door a bell tinkled overhead and a tired woman came through a curtain from the rear. Most of the shelves in the shop were half empty, and what goods were there seemed uninteresting to anyone. Dusty pipes with tiny bowls, cans with labels turned away that he could not read, mysterious envelopes and packages. The only touch of color was a rotating holder on the counter with variegated postcards on it.

“Good morning,” Tony said cheerily as he closed the door behind him. The woman looked him up and down with complete indifference and remained silent. “Brisk weather, though.” Perhaps she was mute? He came closer and gazed down through the patina of scratches on the glass counter top through which there was reluctantly revealed the cigarettes below. “Packet of ten Mayors, please.” She didn't move; that wasn't right. “I mean
Players.”

This twanged some thin thread of communication because she bent and extracted a package of cigarettes and placed them on the glass between them. As soon as she had done this he whispered,
“Prince Charlie lives!”

This elicited a gratifyingly fine reaction. Her head jerked up, her eyes flicked briefly to one side, then back again, and she spoke loudly over her shoulder. “John, front, John,” as though calling a dog. Instead the weathered J. Hardy himself pushed through the curtain.

“Arrr,” he said, or something that sounded like that.

“Gentleman wants ten Players.”

“Give him.”

She fluttered her hands, not knowing what else to say, so Tony came to the rescue. “I also said that Prince Charlie lives.”

Hardy looked aside quickly, then back to Tony as he swept the cigarettes from the counter and put them back in the case. He had a deep and nasty voice.

“None of that here. No Players. Get out.”

That took care of the information. Escape was still a possibility.

“All right, forget all that. Do you have a back door? Some friends, a joke, I'll go out by the rear.”

The bell jingled merrily as Hardy spoke and I kill this man to prove to you that I do mean what I say. Hesitate for an instant more and your wife is dead. It goes without saying that you will be killed as well. And all for nothing. To protect a ragtag band of simpletons. Now, make your mind up and get ready.”

In the brief silence he put the gun back to Tony's head. The men holding him stepped aside so as not to be behind him. This, as much as anything the colonel had said, was assurance that he was ready to commit coldblooded murder at any time.

“GIVE ME THE POSTCARD!”

The words were a roared command. Tony jumped as though he had been shot already, feeling this was his last moment on earth.

Hardy grabbed a postcard from the rack and threw it on the counter.

“Very good,” the colonel said, lowering the gun and putting the card into his pocket without looking at it. “Before we leave be sure in your heart that you have given me the correct card because I will not come back and ask you again. If it is wrong there will be shots from the darkness at night and you both will be dead meat. Just nod your head, do not speak—it
is
the correct card?”

Both of the terrified people nodded dumbly and Tony hated this man for the humiliation they had all suffered at his hands. He would never forget it. Quietly he vowed that, if and when he got out of this mess, he would see a little justice directed in the colonel's direction.

“That was simple enough,” the colonel said as they strolled back to the car, the perfect gentleman again. “I thought they would see light when they saw how expendable a traitor could be.”

He was a beast, Tony realized, but a dangerously intelligent one. Everything had been planned from the beginning, including Tony's attempt to escape. He had been outmaneuvered right down the line. Even now the colonel was smiling as he looked at Tony's face, laughing, knowing just what thoughts were going through his mind. Tony turned away and entered the bus.

“Now, where is this place?” The colonel seated himself comfortably and held the card up to the light and the intense gaze of his single eye. “Fishing boats, a harbor, very attractive. And the name, Carradale—the Jewel of Argyll. How very poetic. Find me this Argyll on the map.”

There was much rattling of paper and muttering and mispronunciation in Spanish before the spot was found. “Here,” Jorge announced proudly. “On this peninsula by a big island. We must take the road number eighty-two to the north, and then the road eighty-three to the south. A drive of perhaps one hundred and thirty miles.”

“We go there. Begin.”

“But, Colonel, hunger tears at our vitals with sharp teeth. Can we not now eat?”

“Possibly. Drive on. We will stop at a shop and I will buy provisions. You can eat while we drive. There, halt by that market and I will provide for you.”

He returned quickly with two large bags, which he opened as soon as they had moved on, displaying his purchases proudly. “The pork pie, very delicious when taken with mustard, and most filling. Simply bite and eat. And the sausage roll. Little flavor but equally filling. It is not the hour for the purchase of alcoholic beverages yet, you know the British eccentricity in this matter, but here is milk in bottles, much more nourishing.”

They champed happily. Tony looked on with eagerness but, perhaps because of his recent meal, was offered nothing. It began to rain and Tony's morale stayed at rock bottom. Would he get out of this alive? There was no telling, or rather there was telling. If the colonel thought he had information best kept secret there would be a quick bullet, he had no doubt of that. So what he had to do was appear frightened—he didn't have to fake that—and co-operate instantly when anything was asked of him. Willing and able. But all the time he must be alert for the chance to escape from these dangerous men. Not an obvious escape, the colonel would be as aware as he was of anything like that. In fact he must ignore the obvious in the hopes of getting the colonel ever so slightly off his guard. Nevertheless his eyes must be open and his brain seething with inquiry, examining everything. When the opportunity presented itself he had to seize it upon the instant and be gone.

All this fervid thinking had a slightly ameliorating effect on his morale, which the appearance of the sun helped considerably. The rain had ceased, the clouds rolled back and slanting rays of light poked down like heavenly fingers. The road was a narrow track that wound between stone-walled fields. Grass that was green enough to hurt the eye filled the meadows, where it was being happily grazed by great, white, barrel-shaped sheep. They lifted black faces to the car as it went by, chewing placidly, at peace with the world. This world was at peace with itself and the knot of armed and desperate men rushing through it was the sour note. Plantations of fir swept by, purple and yellow flowers blossomed on the hillsides, small farms trickled smoke upward from their chimneys into the utterly transparent air. Tony forgot his predicament in the beauty of it, glimpses of ocean between the hills, sea gulls floating overhead. It was an incredibly lovely landscape. The road wound up, between and around the hills, darted down through tiny villages only to climb the next slope on the other side. All, except the driver, enjoyed the scenery; he was too busy rowing up and down the hills with the gear shift, getting the most out of the laboring engine. The road improved going through Inveraray, but soon after resumed its normal looping and soaring.

It was then that the first Cuban, stuffed with meat pies and milk and assaulted by the vibration of the car, admitted to an increase in internal pressure. Others chimed in in agreement until they convinced the colonel that another halt was in order. The driver slowed and, after a good deal of shouted discussion about the precise locale for the function, pulled off onto the grass where the road made a loop around the base of a small hill. There was a stand of birch trees here, their trunks white against the dark forest that marched up over the rise of the steeper hill beyond. It was an idyllic spot, silent and calm, with the smooth waters of Kilbrannan Sound close by beyond the road. Tony looked out at it with appreciation until the colonel tugged on his arm.

“You, too, out.”

“But I don't feel I want to…”

“That was an order, not a request,” the colonel answered in his own sweetly obnoxious way.

Tony grumbled and followed the rest of them across the resilient softness of the grass to the trees beyond. The others were all close by, there was not a weapon in sight—and he realized exactly what he had to do. Stroll in among the trees, stroll a bit farther, ever so slowly. But at the first shout of attention he began running, straight into the grove.

It was a simple plan and had the advantage of surprise, and he was dodging even deeper among the trunks before the pursuit even began. One shot was fired that thudded into a tree nearby; the colonel's order stopped all firing. They wanted him alive. He had hoped they would, which meant that they would then have to catch him on foot. This proved the case. He pushed through the brush, ducking under low-hanging limbs, going as fast as he could, while behind him came the mixed shouts and crashings. None of his captors had been expecting his escape and, in more ways than one, they were caught with their pants down.

A wall appeared ahead, flat stones laid one on top of the other, and he scrambled up this desperately, slipping on the moss that covered it, then hurled himself into the meadow on the other side—almost landing on a large and fat sheep. This fled, baaing in fear, an accompanying lamb maaing in concert. Through the field Tony ran, or rather up it, for it was a hillside field and steep enough to make the going difficult. Well if it was difficult for him it was just as difficult for the skyjackers; press on! His heart was thundering with the effort, a red haze of fatigue clouding his eyes, lungs gasping for air by the time he reached the wall at the top. He felt he could not go on a moment longer, yet he knew he had to. With scratching fingers he clawed his way to the top of the fence, then glanced behind before he fell heavily on the other side.

The Cubans were spread out unevenly across the meadow, the slowest just climbing the lower fence, the swiftest halfway up and being urged on by the colonel, who stood on the fence below and called to them for greater efforts. He must press on!

Or must he? Hadn't Old Fred, pride of the FBI, provided him with the answer to a situation like this? He had indeed! Tony bent and pulled strongly at his heel—and nothing happened. Wasn't this the heel with the mini-grenades in it? Or perhaps it was the other one. Angry Spanish curses were gasped from the field beyond the fence as he scratched at the other shoe. The heel promptly opened and dumped the grenades out onto the ground.

Pull the pin on top, right. Perhaps they did not want to kill him, but the feeling was not necessarily mutual. He looked over the fence again and saw the first man no more than thirty feet away. With a sharp pull he ripped the pin free and threw the small grenade in a high arc.

Off to one side. In the last instant he realized he could not kill any of the skyjackers in cold blood, as much as they probably deserved it.

Despite its size the grenade went off with a satisfying boom, sending clods of dirt flying in all directions. In the instant every man in the field was flat on his face, cries of outrage signifying that more than one of them had found that a sheep meadow was not the ideal place for this activity. Tony jumped to the top of the fence and waved another grenade over his head, shouting angrily:

“Death to the counterrevolution!”

This explosion was even closer to the men, raining dirt on some of them, and their response was most satisfying. Despite the orders of the colonel, they all fled back down the hill to the safety of the fence. A third grenade kept them moving. He shoveled the remaining grenades into his pocket, grinning happily.

Ducking low so he could not be seen from below, Tony moved as swiftly as he could back into the shelter of the pine trees. He straightened up as soon as they were thick enough and walked uphill as steadily and as fast as he could. They would have no way of knowing he was gone, and by the time they did get up enough nerve to try and cross the field again he would be well away. Success!

Only what did he do next? So far he had just fled by reflex. Now that he had broken contact with the enemy he had to keep it that way, while at the same time working out some plan. The countryside seemed empty of habitation—and there was only the single road. That was clue enough—he had to stay away from the road, at least for the time being, for they were sure to keep it under observation. But without the road where could he go? Nowhere. Perhaps he might just stay in the trees, stay out of sight until they gave up the chase and left. But this might take a good while and although the weather had been fine lately, it could change. As though to remind him of this, thunder rumbled ominously in the distance and a cloud passed in front of the sun. No thank you. He wasn't dressed for this kind of an exercise, not in a lightweight suit that became lighter every moment as the wind cut through it to his sweat-damp skin. He shivered and climbed faster.

When he reached the brow of the hill the forest stopped and a smooth slope of low plants and bushes swooped downward in a valley toward the sea beyond. He stayed furtively among the trees but was not able to see enough until he crouched and crawled through the bushes to the edge of the slope. Far below, beside the road, was a neat white farmhouse. Wires ran to it from a pole at the edge of the road, electricity undoubtedly, telephone perhaps. With a decided click that echoed in his frontal lobes his mind decided on a positive course of action.