Day of Reckoning (16 page)

'No. My American friend Blake took a bullet in the shoulder and won't be too fit. I'm taking a boat into a
remote part of the Irish coast, where there's an underground
bunker full of the wrong kind of weapons waiting to be used
in the next round of the Irish troubles. I intend to blow it to
hell, and as friend Fox has a financial interest, I'll get extra
pleasure.' He turned to Billy. 'Listen, you young dog, it'll
be a good deed in a naughty world. Are you with me?'
Billy had an unholy light in his eyes. 'By God, I am, Dillon.
These fucks come over and blow up London. Let's go and blow
them up.'
'Billy?' his uncle said.
Ferguson's phone rang. He listened, then said, 'Fine. I'll
talk later.' He drank a little champagne. 'That was Major
Roper. He's accessed the White Diamond Company's com
puter. They're receiving a consignment of top-grade dia
monds on Thursday. Ten million pounds' worth.'
Dillon said, 'So we know where we are.' He turned.
'Harry?'
Salter said, 'What the hell, we're with you.'
'Excellent.' Dillon smiled. 'It's Scotland for you, Billy, and
a nice sea voyage.'
'Christ,' Billy said. 'I get seasick.'
'We'll stop at a pharmacist and get you some pills on the
way to Farley Field. That'll be three hours from now, after
which you'll be winging your way north.'
'I've never been to Scotland,' Billy said.
'Well, we'll take care of that.' Dillon smiled as Dora
brought plates of food to the table.
'Cottage pie and Krug champagne, and God help Brendan Murphy.'

SCOTLAND
IRELAND

Blake was flat out when Dillon called at Rosedene to check
on his condition. Hannah was with him. Daz was at the
university, but Martha was there.
'He'll be fine, but not particularly fit for a while,' she said,
and frowned. 'He's not going to get up to any nonsense, I
hope, Mr Dillon? I know what your lot are like, and he
honestly isn't up to it.'
'I know, Martha. I know. We'll take it as it comes. I'm flying
off to Scotland, so keep the Superintendent here informed.' 'Trouble again?' she asked.
Always is.' He kissed her cheek.
'Oh, well,' she said, and gave him the ancient toast. 'May
you die in Ireland.'
'Oh, thanks very much.' Dillon laughed. 'See you soon.'
He and Hannah left.
On the way to the Dark Man, she said, 'It could be a hard
one, Sean.'
'I know, and Blake won't be up to it. Frankly, in his
condition, he'd be a liability.'
'What do you want me to do?'
'Try and lose him. With luck, you won't have to do much. Maybe Martha could give him a pill.'
'Always the practical one, aren't you.'
'He's a good man, Hannah, I'm the bad one. I don't care
about that, but I do care about him.'
'I'll never understand you.'
'I don't understand me. Join the club. I'm just passing
through, Hannah, I'd have thought you'd have realized that
by now.'
Dillon phoned ahead, and Billy was waiting outside the
Dark Man with his uncle, Baxter and Hall.
Harry said, 'I actually care for this young bastard, so bringhim back in one piece, Dillon. Notice I didn't say
try,
so don't let me down, because if you come back alone . . .'
'I get the picture,' Dillon said. 'In you get, Billy.'
The driver put the case in the boot and Billy sat in front, nervous and excited. 'Christ, Dillon, what have you got me into?'
'High adventure, Billy. You'll come back and join the Marines.'
'Like hell I will. Independent spirit, me.'
At Farley Field, the department's quartermaster, a retired
sergeant major, waited with his list.
'All loaded, Mr Dillon. Walthers with Carswell silencers, three Uzi machine pistols with silencers. Stun grenades, and half a dozen of the fragmentation variety, in case you have trouble, plus the Semtex and timers.'
'What about diving equipment?'
'Standard suits and fins as issued to the Special Boat
Service. Our local agent in Oban will put six air bottles in
the stern rack. That should suffice.'
'Excellent.' Lacey was already in the Gulfstream with
Parry; Madoc waited at the bottom of the steps.
Dillon kissed Hannah on the cheek. 'We who are about
to die salute you.'
'Don't be stupid. I'll see you tomorrow.'
'I know, and watch Regan. He's a devious little sod.'
'I thought that was you.'
It was such a stupid remark, and instantly regretted, but
Dillon smiled. 'Ah, the hard woman you are.'
He pushed Billy up the steps in front of him, Madoc followed
and closed the door, and the Gulfstream moved away.
'Why?' Hannah whispered. 'Why do I say things like
that?' And yet she knew that, for
_her,
his past condemned
him. All those years as the Provisional IRA's most feared enforcer, all the killing.
She looked up as the Gulfstream lifted. 'Damn you, Dillon,' she said. 'Damn you.'
In his suite at Pine Grove, Roper trawled the computer
and came up with results. He checked again, then phoned Ferguson.
'Fox and his two goons are booked into the Dorchester for
a week.'
'Anything else?'
'Murphy and Dermot Kelly are booked on an Air France
flight from Paris, arriving in Dublin around what the Irish
call tea time.'
'Any idea of the onward destination?'
'Come on, Brigadier, it must be Kilbeg. They think he's Robin Hood up there. If you want to check, why don't you
call in a favour from that Chief Superintendent Malone at
the Garda Special Branch?'
'What an excellent idea,' Ferguson said.
He thought about it, then rang through to Malone in
Dublin. 'Charles Ferguson, Daniel.'
Malone groaned. 'What in the hell do you want, Charles?'
'A favour.'
At Dublin Airport, Murphy and Kelly landed at four-
thirty, proceeded through customs with light luggage,
went out of the concourse and approached an old Ford
saloon car. The driver was named John Conolly, the man beside him Joseph Tomelty; both were hard-line Republi
cans and had been members of Murphy's group for many
years, all boyhood friends. They shook hands with Murphy
and Kelly.
'Good to see you, Brendan,' Conolly said. 'Did it go
well?'
A total fuck-up,' Murphy said. 'Couldn't have been worse. Let's get out of it. Make for home and I'll tell you.'
They all got in and drove away, and Malone, sitting
in an unmarked car with a driver, said, 'Jesus. Conolly,
Tomelty, plus Brendan and Dermot Kelly. The old Kilbeg
Mafia. There's no doubt where they're going, but follow
at a discreet distance and let's make sure they're taking the
right road north.'
Twenty minutes later and well outside Dublin, he tapped
the driver on the arm. 'Turn back. It's got to be Kilbeg.'
A few minutes later, as the car returned to Dublin, he
called Ferguson on his mobile and told him what had hap
pened.
'So it's Kilbeg?' Ferguson said.
'I'd say definitely. Are you going to give us trouble here, Charles?'
'Don't be silly, Daniel, we're doing ourselves a favour and you a favour. Leave it alone and I'll keep you informed.'
'One more question. Since you're running this, it means Dillon's involved.'
'Obviously.'
'Then God help Brendan Murphy.'
Ferguson put down his phone and turned to Hannah, who
had been listening. 'You heard? Murphy and company are
on their way to Kilbeg.'
^,
I'll let Dillon know, sir, in case it affects his plans.'
'It won't make much difference. You know what he's like.
He'll go in tomorrow night anyway, Murphy or no Murphy.
Just like a bad war movie.'
'I know, sir. He has a kind of death wish.'
'Why?'
'God knows.'
'You really have it in for him, Superintendent.'
'You couldn't be more wrong, sir. Actually, I like him too much. He reminds me of Liam Devlin, that combination of scholar, actor, poet and absolutely cold-blooded killer.'
'Just like Sir Walter Raleigh,' Ferguson said. 'Very bewildering, life, on occasion.'
Dillon and Billy were delivered by an unmarked RAF car
driven by two uniformed RAF sergeants named Smith and
Brian.
'Checked it out earlier,' Sergeant Brian said. 'That's the
Highlander
two hundred yards out.'
'Well, it doesn't look much to me,' Billy told him.
'Don't go by appearances. It's got twin screws, depth
sounder, radar, automatic steering. Does twenty-five knots
at full stretch.'
'Good. Let's get cracking,' Dillon said.
'Right, sir, we've got a whaleboat to take your gear out.'
Forty minutes later, the gear was stowed, everything
shipshape. Brian said, 'You've got the inflatable, with a
good outboard motor. We'll get back now.'
'Thanks for a good job,' Dillon told him.
The sergeants departed in the whaleboat, and Dillon's
mobile rang. It was Hannah Bernstein, bringing him up
to date on the Kilbeg situation.
'Murphy being there, will it give you a problem?'
'Only if I can't shoot the bastard. How's Blake?'
'Still on his back.'
'Good, let's keep it that way. We'll see you tomorrow.'
Oban was enveloped in mist, and a fine rain was driving across the water, pushed by a light wind. Above on the land, low clouds draped across mountain tops, but beyond Kerrera the waters of the Firth of Lorn looked troubled.
'This is Scotland?' Billy said. 'What a bloody awful place. Why would anybody come here for a holiday?'
'Don't tell the tourist board, Billy, they'd lynch you. Now, we've things to do. We can go ashore and eat later.'
He laid out the diving equipment in the stern cabin. 'I
don't need to explain this to you, you're an expert, but let's
check over the arms.'
They laid the Walthers, the Semtex, the Uzis and stun
grenades on the main saloon table. 'Let's give you a quick
course on the Uzi, Billy. The Walther is simple enough.'
They spent half an hour going over things, then Dillon
took one of the Walthers and led the way up to the wheel
house. There was a flap to one side of the instrument board.
He found a button, pressed, and inside was a fuse board. He cocked the Walther, slipped it inside, and closed the flap.
'Ready for action with ten rounds, Billy. Remember it's
there. It's what is called an ace in the hole.'
'You think of everything, don't you?'
'That's why I'm still here. Let's go ashore and eat.'
He switched on the deck lights before they left and they
coasted to the front at Oban on the inflatable and tied up.
There was a pub close by that offered food. They went in,
had a look at the menu, and opted for fish pie.
Dillon ordered a Bushmills, but Billy shook his head. 'Not me. I never liked the booze, Dillon. There must be something wrong with me.'
'Well, most things in life are in the Bible, and what the
good book says is: wine is a mocker, strong drink raging.' He smiled. 'Having said that, I'll finish this and have another.'
Later, back on the
Highlander,
it started to rain harder.
They sat on the stern deck under the awning, and Dillon
went through everything from Katherine Johnson's death
in New York to Al Shariz.
Billy said, 'These Mafia guys are fucks, Dillon, and Murphy's no better.'
'That about sums it up.'
'So we take them out?'
'I hope so.'
The rain drummed on the canvas awning and Dillon poured another whisky.
Billy said, 'Listen, Dillon, I know a little bit about you, the IRA hard man who switched sides. But every time I ask my uncle how it all happened, he clams up. What's the story?'
Maybe it was the rain, and maybe it was the whisky, but
instead of giving him a hard look and telling him to mind
his business, Dillon felt himself talking, the words coming slowly but steadily.
'I was born in Ulster, my mother died giving birth to me –a heavy load to bear. My father took me to London. He was a
good man. A small builder. Got me into St Paul's School.'
'I thought that was for toffs?'
'No, Billy, it's for brains. Anyway, I liked the acting.
Went to the Royal Academy. Only did a year and joined
the National Theatre. I was still only nineteen. My father
went home to Belfast and got caught in a fire fight between
IRA and Brit paratroopers.'
'Jesus, that was a bastard.'
Dillon poured another whisky, looking back into the past.
'Billy, I was a damn good actor, but I went back to Belfast
and joined the IRA.'
'Well, you would. I mean, they killed your old man.'
'And I was nineteen, but they were nineteen, Billy, mostly
a lot like you. Anyway, the IRA had access to camps in Libya.
I was sent for training. Three months, and there wasn't a
weapon I didn't know inside out. You wanted a bomb, I
could make it, any bomb.' He hesitated. 'Only that side I
never liked. Passersby, women, kids – that isn't war.'
'That's how you saw it, war?'
'For a long time, yes, then I moved on. I was a profes
sional soldier, so I sold my services. ETA in Spain, Arabs, Palestinians, also the Israelis. Funny, Billy, the job I've just done in Lebanon, blowing up a ship with arms for Saddam. Back in ninety-one, I worked for them.'
'You what?'
'Gulf War. I did the mortar attack on Downing Street in
the snow. You wouldn't remember that.'
'I bleeding well do. I've read articles. They used a Ford
Transit, then a guy on a motorbike picked up the bomber.'
'That was me, Billy.'
'Dillon, you bastard. You nearly got the Prime Minister
and the entire cabinet.'
'Yes, almost, but not quite. I made a great deal of money
out of it. I'm still rich, if you like. Later, I got into trouble in Bosnia. I was due to face a Serb firing squad, only Ferguson