“How sweet.” Monica took one and the light that followed.
He looked at his friends and winked, then pulled a chair across, sat down, and put a hand on her leg. “A couple more drinks and I think you and I will get along fine.”
There was a hush from all there. “I don’t think so,” Helen said, and turned to Monica. “Do you, darling?”
“Definitely not. In fact, we should be going.”
Nolan exploded. “You’ll stay where you are, you fancy bitches.” He banged a fist on the table, knocking over a glass. “Coming in here, you and your rich friend, laughing at us. Time you were taught a lesson.”
“Now, Nolan, leave off,” Ryan ordered. “Mr. Quinn won’t be pleased.”
“Go and fuck yourself,” Nolan said, and Monica’s hand rose above the table holding a silenced Colt .25 hollow-point, with which she touched the side of his face.
“Just stand up, back off, and sit down with your friends like a good boy.”
She stood herself, pulling on her cap with her left hand, and Helen rose, too. “We’re going now, so everybody stay nice and calm.”
Nolan suddenly moved and stood with his back to the door, legs apart. “You aren’t going anywhere, and you aren’t going to fire that popgun. Who do you think you’re kidding?”
There was a vase with artificial flowers on a stand to his left. When Monica fired, the silenced Colt made only a dull thud, but the vase disintegrated. Mrs. Ryan screamed, Nolan darted out the door fast, head down, and his two friends stood up, disbelief on their faces.
“So sorry, everyone,” Helen said.
They went straight out together. As they went down toward the harbor, Monica started to shake.
“Are you all right?” Helen asked.
“I can’t believe I did that.”
“Well, you did, and Charles is going to be furious.”
They reached the tender and scrambled in. “Everything all right?” Billy asked as he started the outboard.
“Not exactly,” Monica said. “I think the roof just fell in.”
FERGUSON WAS CALM,
but still angry. “So what do we do now? I knew it was a mistake.”
“If I may make a point, Charles,” Helen said, “Monica and I were simply acting out your plan of campaign. A couple of rich bitches from a millionaire’s boat showing themselves off in the local pub. Nobody could have foreseen what happened. After fifteen years in the military police, I know villains when I see them, and that’s exactly what they were.”
Monica said, “It was interesting that the publican tried to put them down by reminding them that Quinn would be displeased.”
Billy, the streetwise gangster, summed it up. “Of course, she could have just sat there while the goon tried to feel her up, and God knows what else with the booze flowing.” He turned to Monica. “It was the Walther, I explained to you when you asked me. Where did the Colt .25 come from?”
“That was me,” Helen said. “Actually, I had one in my boot as usual.”
“Marvelous,” Ferguson said. “Gunfight in the Last Chance Saloon. The point is, Quinn can only draw one conclusion from this. That all is not what it seems on board the Avenger and that we’re up to no good.” He turned to Billy. “We might have to repel boarders at some point, especially when it gets darker. Have the right weapons available at strategic points, and you two had better familiarize yourselves with what he arranges,” he added to Monica and Helen.
“One point intrigues me,” Monica said. “I know the village is rather small, but there must be a few people around. What do they make of all this?”
“Simple. They stay indoors and keep their heads down. There’s an old republican tradition, Monica. Say nothing and then say nothing. It has a powerful effect on these people.”
“And the police. There must be a local station?”
“Closed by now, I should imagine.” Billy smiled. “Somebody’s rustled some cows fifteen miles away up the coast, something like that. This is still an IRA area, peace or no peace.”
Ferguson’s Codex buzzed, and when he answered, it was Dillon. “Just to let you know, the Falcon’s arriving, I can hear it in the distance. Everything okay with you?”
“I’m afraid not.” Ferguson gave him the bad news in a few brief words.
“And Monica did that?” Dillon was astounded. “Who does she think she is, Annie Oakley?”
“Not her fault, it just happened, but it changes the game.”
“Completely. I must go. The Falcon is getting very close.”
THE FALCON
came in to a perfect landing and Grigorin and Makeev, alerted to the situation, were ready as the aircraft turned along the runway and paused outside the small office block. The second pilot, Yeltsin, opened the Airstairs door, the steps dropped, and Volkov went down, followed by Grigorin and Makeev with the bags. A man rushed forward with a black umbrella as the steps were raised and the Airstairs door closed again. The Falcon moved away at once.
“You are?” Volkov asked the man with the umbrella in English.
“Pushkin, Mr. Petrovsky.” The man hesitated and said in Russian, “But I know who you are. I’m the traffic controller. I’ve seen you in the past at the Moscow complex.”
“So, a Russian, and I hadn’t expected that. Very remiss of me. Let’s go inside.” Which they did. “You have a car for us?”
“A Mercedes, General, parked outside.”
“You followed your instructions about me?”
“To the letter, General. No mention of your arrival at all.”
Outside, the Falcon roared along the runway and took off. “Yes, Captains Makeev and Grigorin are GRU and take matters concerning my security seriously. This is a matter of state security, on behalf of President Putin, and I particularly wish to announce my arrival to Michael Quinn myself.”
“Of course,” Pushkin said, completely overawed, and at that moment his mobile sounded. He looked hunted, then answered. “Pushkin here.” He glanced at Volkov. “Oh, yes, Mr. Quinn, it was just a Belov Falcon touching down with a package of drugs for the nun’s hospital. It took off again for Dublin. Yes, sir, thank you.”
“Good man,” Volkov said in Russian, and patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll go now. Of course, if we discover we are expected, then my friends here will obviously be back to find out how such a misunderstanding could have occurred.”
Pushkin took one look at Makeev and Grigorin’s threatening faces and almost had a bowel movement. “Everything is as I’ve said, Comrade General, I swear it.”
“I’m sure it is.”
Pushkin led the way out to the Mercedes, held the rear door open for Volkov, and closed the door on him, half bowing. Grigorin took the wheel, Makeev sat beside him, and they drove away. Dillon, standing beside the Ford, was watching, for what happened next would be crucial. If they turned left out of the gate, it would mean the inland route; if right, the coast road. They turned right, and at two hundred yards’ distance he had plenty of time to get behind the wheel of the Ford, turn into the coast road, and drive away in front of them.
HE DROVE VERY FAST,
the Ford Anglia responding superbly. Mickeen Oge had certainly been right in the performance he had promised with the engine. He pushed it to seventy-five, the coast road skirting clifftops, the rain and mist driving in from a turbulent sea. There was no sign of the Mercedes in the rearview mirror, but then, he had been driving dangerously fast.
Ahead, there was a rock face to his right, and opposite on the left, a lay-by, a place that could take perhaps three cars, a wooden fence on the edge. He pulled in nose first, leapt out, and went to the fence. It was an overhang, a drop of over a hundred feet into the sea. He turned, got back into the Ford, took the sawn-off out of the carpetbag and laid it within reach of his left hand, and sat there, the engine running.
What he intended had to be savage and brutal and without mercy. He took off the Zeiss glasses, put them in his pocket, and waited, looking through his windows to the left, aware of the Mercedes rounding the bend and rushing toward him. Dillon hung on till the last possible moment, then rammed the gear stick into reverse and exploded into the road.
Volkov cried out in alarm. Grigorin, at the wheel of the Mercedes, cursed and slammed his foot on the brake. The car skidded, turning in a half-circle, finishing up on the lay-by only a yard or so from the fence.
Makeev leapt out of the passenger seat and stood up, shouting in English, “What the hell’s going on?” Grigorin had his window down, rage on his face.
Dillon took Makeev first, firing the sawn-off across the top of the Ford, blowing him away, then gave the next shot to Grigorin full in the face as he sat there. The sound was very loud, echoing through the rain, seagulls calling angrily. Dillon pumped two more steel-ball shot in place and wrenched open the rear passenger door.
Volkov crouched back in his seat with nowhere to go, looked death in the face and knew it. “Welcome to Ireland. Dillon’s the name. If you’ve got a pistol, give it to me or I’ll blow your head off.”
“This is madness. Kill me and President Putin will stop at nothing to avenge me, and I’m not armed. This is murder.”
“But you’re not here,” Dillon said. “That’s the beauty of it. Just some guy named Petrovsky. This is for a lot of things in the past, but let’s just make it for Major Harry Miller’s lovely wife.”
He opened the driver’s door, stretched across Grigorin’s body and released the hand brake, then slammed the rear passenger door. A quick heave and the Mercedes, helped by a slight slope, fractured the wooden rail, Volkov trying to open the door, and then it was over. The rear of the car tilted and Dillon went to the edge and saw it fall the hundred feet down to the sea below. He watched it explode in a great gout of water and start to sink.
Which left Makeev lying on his side. Dillon turned the body over, got him by the belt, hauled him to the edge of the cliff, and simply let go. The body bumped once against the cliff and dropped through space, hitting the water where the Mercedes had already sunk.
HE DIDN’T GO DOWN
to Drumore, but turned the Ford and drove back to the chapel close to the Belov complex, parked, and went in. There was a washroom, and he checked his clothing. The right-hand sleeve of his raincoat had some blood on it, received when he’d reached over Grigorin’s body to release the hand brake. The place was decent and well looked after and there were plenty of paper towels and warm water available, and he managed to do an acceptable job on his sleeve.
He went out into the chapel. There was a sanctuary light at the altar, the virgin and child in the darkness at one side, candles guttering. It took him back to childhood, candles, incense, and holy water, but there was no way back to that. He went outside to the porch, and it was gloomy. No wonder it had been dark in the chapel.
He phoned Roper. “It’s done,” he said simply.
“Volkov?” Roper sounded incredulous. “His plane landed at Dublin. It’s due back the day after tomorrow.”
“And the two GRU goons. I did some shooting with the sawn-off and put their Mercedes over a cliff. Volkov was still alive in the back.”
“Not a nice way to go.”
“I didn’t feel nice. Anyway, as they would say in Sicily, Ivan Volkov is asleep with the fishes.”
“Have you told Ferguson?”
“No, but I’ll speak to him.”
“What happens now?”
“It’s going to be dark quite soon. I think I’ll leave it until it’s time to board. A strange priest might cause comment in the village, but I’m out of the way at the moment. I can always go for a drive round the surrounding countryside for an hour. How’s Harry?”
“Improving, but still very weak. Do you want me to tell him?”
“That’s up to you.”
Then he called Ferguson, who answered at once. “What’s happening?”
“It’s done, Volkov and his minders all taken care of.”
“Putin won’t be pleased.”
“He’ll never know what happened. Volkov’s Falcon is due back from Dublin the day after tomorrow, to find no Volkov. The pilots know he was delivered here, but with a false identity. A problem, that, for Putin, whichever way you look at it.”
“Are you coming in?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve just been passing the good news to Roper. As I told him, I think I should drive around for an hour until it’s good and dark, then I’ll join you.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“Why don’t you give that some thought, General. I’ve just killed three people, so I’ve been busy.”
He cut off, and Ferguson turned to three anxious faces. “It was Dillon. He’s taken care of Volkov and his men.”
“All three?” Billy said. “Christ Almighty.”
“He’s all right, though, he’s coming back?” Monica demanded.
“Yes, he’s going for a drive to keep out of the way until it’s nice and dark, and then he’ll board.”
“So what comes next?” Monica asked.
“To be honest, I’m not sure. The way Volkov had it planned, Quinn wasn’t to know he was arriving. That means Quinn won’t be agitated about his death, because he didn’t even know he was here.”
“An interesting situation,” Helen said.
“To put it mildly. We’ll wait and see what Dillon thinks.”
BUT UP AT
Drumore Place, things were happening. Quinn sat by the fire in the great hall, drinking whiskey, his mother on the sofa on the other side of a glass table. “Terrible it was,” she said. “When she pulled that gun out and fired at the vase, the heart nearly stopped in me.”
Nolan, Tone, and Logan were ranged along the back of the sofa, and Quinn said, “Has the world gone bloody mad? What would the kind of woman you mention be doing with a gun? It doesn’t make sense.”
Ryan came in from the study. “I took some snaps with that new digital camera of mine. State of the art. You put them into the computer, then use the printer and out come the pictures just like this, Mr. Quinn.”
Quinn looked at them, the boat, the two women walking up to the pub, the close-ups of them at the table with their drinks, caps off. He exploded and jumped to his feet.