Drink With the Devil (26 page)

“Jack, Dillon’s here.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Jack Barry said and switched off the engine.

He went out on deck and Sollazo and Mori joined him at the rail. “Is that him?”

“As ever was.” He raised his voice. “Is it yourself, Sean?”

“And who else?” Dillon called back. “Let’s talk.”

“I’ll be over.” Barry turned to Mori. “Pull the inflatable in.” He shook his head. “The mad bastard.”

“You sound as if you like him,” Sollazo said.

“He was like a son to me. The great days we knew together in Derry in the old days leading British paratroopers a fine old dance.”

Mori shaded his eyes with a hand. “He doesn’t look much to me.”

Barry dropped into the inflatable and looked up. “On his worst day and your best he’d put you away without even thinking about it.”

He cast off and started the outboard.

D
ILLON LIT A
cigarette as the inflatable coasted in. “You’re looking good, Jack, the years have been kind.”

“Kinder still to you, you young bastard. Where’s Liam Devlin?”

“Back in Kilrea. Eighty-five is a little old for gunplay.”

“The best of men in his day.”

“So here we are,” Dillon said. “And what’s to be done? You’ve had it, Jack, no point to it anymore.”

“Not quite true, Sean. If we find the wreck, which we will, and the gold bars waiting.” He shrugged. “A hard morning’s work could net one million, perhaps two. Not to be sniffed at.”

“Ah, you were always the practical man,” Dillon said. “Is Hannah Bernstein well?”

“Oh, yes. I like that one, a lady of parts.”

“And then some. Let her go. Take me.”

“And why should I?”

“Oh, I’ve been honing my talents since the old days. I can fly a plane, Jack, but I’m also the best damn diver you ever saw. I even blew up PLO boats in Beirut harbor for the Israelis.”

“You little rascal.” Barry laughed. “No, Sean, she’s too valuable to hand over just yet, too useful.”

“God help us then, I’ll just have to come along for the ride.”

“A nice thought, but let’s check you out first.” Barry prodded his Browning. “Check his pockets, Kevin.” Stringer did as he was told and found the Walther.

“Satisfied?” Dillon asked.

“When was I ever?” Barry smiled. “Under his jacket and against his back, Kevin, he always favored that position.”

Stringer found the second Walther. “You’re right, Jack,” and he handed it over.

“I usually am,” Barry told him. “You hold the fort, Kevin.” He smiled up at Dillon. “In you get, Sean. I think I’ll put you to work.”

D
ILLON WENT OVER
the rail first and Barry handed the line to Mori and followed. The two women came out of the wheelhouse. Dillon said to Hannah, “Are you all right, girl dear?”

“I’m fine.”

Dillon glanced at Mori. “Christ, but he looks as if he just learned to walk erect this morning. If he gives you any trouble let me know and I’ll select two items on his person and break them.”

Mori erupted, but Sollazo got in between. “Leave it, Giovanni.” He turned to Barry. “Have you checked him out?”

“A Walther in his pocket and another in the back of his pants. A good job I remembered that, but I’ve got good news for you. Sean here is a Master diver. I mean, he’s made money out of blowing things up. Don’t you think we should put him to work?”

Sollazo smiled. “Why, that really makes my morning.”

“Good, then let’s have the anchor up.”

Kathleen Ryan had stood there staring at him and now she moved forward, a strange, dazed look on her face.

“Martin, it is you, isn’t it?”

There was something strange here, something not right. Dillon said gently, “As ever was, Kate, I’m sorry about Michael.”

“I killed him,” she said. “I persuaded him to overdose on his pills. Dr. Sieed said it would be all right, that he’d just have an angina attack.” She ran a hand over her face. “He died, Martin, and I killed him. Isn’t that the terrible thing?”

It was Hannah who put an arm around her. “Come on, love, let’s go down to the cabin,” and she led her away.

The engines rumbled into life as Barry took
Avenger
out to sea. Mori said, “That’s all we need, a crazy woman.”

Dillon said, “Tell me, son, do you work at being a shite or does it just come naturally?” and he turned and went and joined Barry in the wheelhouse.

T
O GET THE
Walther from his ankle holster and to kill Barry, Mori, and Sollazo in seconds was not impossible, but it required the right moment, and the fact that Hannah came up on deck didn’t help. Dillon smiled out at her as she stood under the deck canopy shielded from the rain.

He said to Barry, “The great pity we end up dealing with scum, Jack.”

“I know, son, but one thing hasn’t changed. Anything I get out of this goes to the Organization we both served for so many years. Money for arms.”

“Times have changed, Jack.”

“We can’t be sure.”

Dillon sighed. “All right, you’d better fill me in. Where are we going?”

“Just off Rathlin Island.”

“And the Master Navigator will home in on the position?”

Barry looked startled. “Is there nothing you don’t know?”

“We’ve really been on your case, Jack, thanks to Liam. Anyway, how deep will she be?”

“Well, off Rathlin Island according to Admiralty charts, anything between ninety and one hundred and twenty feet.”

“That’s not bad, not if you allow for the size of the vessel. Mind you, it’s how she’s lying that matters.”

Sollazo joined them. “How much further?”

“Half a mile,” Barry said. “I’m turning the Navigator on now.”

He handed it to Sollazo. There was a monotonous pinging at regular intervals. “Heh, it’s working,” Sollazo said.

“The closer we get, the more urgent the sound, and when we reach the final position, the pinging becomes continuous.”

“Let’s keep our fingers crossed.” Sollazo gave it back to him and turned to Dillon. “I was going to dive with Mori, but as you’re supposed to be such hot stuff—” He shrugged. “You’d better come and check the gear.”

“My pleasure,” Dillon said and followed him out.

R
ATHLIN
I
SLAND LOOMED
out of the mist and Barry reduced power as they coasted onward through water which was extraordinarily calm. The pinging on the Master Navigator had increased in urgency and suddenly it changed into a long, single, high-pitched shriek.

“That’s it,” Barry called. “Get the anchor over.”

Mori and Sollazo hurried to comply. Kathleen was at the port rail and for a moment Dillon was at Hannah’s shoulder.

“I’m carrying,” he whispered. “Barry found two, but Devlin, the old fox, gave me a third. Ankle holster.”

“Careful,” she said. “Not now. It could be a blood bath.”

“Not to worry, girl dear, I’d like to go down and take a look at an old friend so to speak.”

The anchor rattled down, the
Avenger
stopped dead. There was silence, then Barry came out of the wheelhouse. “There you go, so let’s get on with it.”

Sollazo turned to Dillon. “Let’s get ready. I’ll go first,” and he went down to the saloon.

W
HEN HE CAME
back on deck he was wearing one of the diving suits and a weight belt and buoyancy jacket. “Your turn,” he said to Dillon.

Dillon went down the companionway to the saloon and undressed to his underpants, unstrapping the ankle holster. There was a cupboard marked Emergency Flares. He opened it and slipped the Walther inside. As he reached for the diving suit there was a step on the companionway and Sollazo looked in.

“Come on, let’s get moving.”

Dillon dragged on the suit awkwardly and the cowl over his head. He pulled on the socks, then picked up the other weight belt and fastened it around his waist with the velcro tabs. Then he reached for the diver’s knife in the sheath.

Sollazo said, “Leave it. You’re the last man in the world I want to see with a lethal weapon.”

“Suit yourself.”

Dillon picked up his inflatable, then took the other Orca computer and went up on deck to where the others waited, sheltering from the rain under the deck awning. Sollazo followed him.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “We’ve got to husband ourselves. We can only spend so much time down there, you know that, even less if it’s lying at a hundred and twenty. You go first, Dillon, and see what you find.”

It made sense and Dillon smiled. “My pleasure.”

With a skill born of long practice he lifted the inflatable and tank over his head, inserted his arms, and strapped the velcro tabs across his chest. He sat down to put his fins on and took the Halogen lamp Mori passed to him looping its cord round his left wrist. He leaned over the rail to swill out his mask, then pulled it down and turned, sitting on the rail.

He raised a thumb. “We who are about to die salute you and all that old Roman rubbish,” he said, put his mouthpiece in, checked that the air was flowing, and went over backwards.

H
E PASSED UNDER
the keel, found the anchor line and started down, pausing at fifteen feet to equalize the pressure in his ears. The water was extraordinarily clear yet strangely dark, and he pulled himself down the anchor line checking his Orca computer. Thirty, forty, then sixty feet and there it was looming out of the gloom, tilted to one side, quite visible even without the lamp being turned on.

He was at ninety feet and the ship lay on a smooth sandy bottom that sloped downwards. Here and there great fronds of seaweed undulated backwards and forwards in the current.

Dillon closed in on the prow and switched on his Halogen lamp, and there it was clearly visible in spite of being encrusted in barnacles, the ship’s name
Irish Rose
, and this was special because he’d been part of what had happened here.

He moved towards the stern, torn apart by the force of the explosion, and there was the truck to one side of the ship. Obviously the explosion had torn it free from the deck clamps and, incredibly, it had settled upright on all six wheels.

Dillon moved to the rear, raised the door clamp, and pulled. It refused to budge. He tried again, but got the same result. No point in wasting precious time at that depth so he made for the surface.

H
E WENT UP
the small side ladder to the deck, pushed up his mask, and spat out his mouthpiece. They all stood waiting.

“For Christ’s sake, Sean, tell us the worst,” Barry pleaded.

“Oh, it’s there,” Dillon said, “and at ninety feet, which is useful. Gives more bottom time.”

“And the truck?” Sollazo demanded.

“That’s there, too. It obviously became detached from the deck in the explosion, and it’s standing upright beside the ship.”

“Marvelous,” Sollazo said.

“Only one thing I don’t understand. When we grabbed the truck we used an electronic device called a Howler that screwed up the security system so everything unlocked.”

“So?” Sollazo said.

“I couldn’t open the rear door.”

“So the electronics got shook up in the explosion,” Sollazo told him, “or maybe the door jammed. We’ve got Semtex and pencil timers. Go down and blow it.”

“Yes, oh master,” Dillon said. “Just get me the necessary.”

Barry crouched beside him with a Semtex block. “Here you go, Sean, and a three-minute pencil timer.”

“Czechoslovakia’s contribution to world culture,” Dillon said.

“Can you manage?”

“Can a fish fly?”

Hannah called, “Take care, Sean.”

“Don’t I always?” He pulled down his mask, sat on the rail, and went over.

H
E HAULED HIMSELF
down the anchor line again, the quickest route, made for the truck and floated there, working the plastic block of Semtex around the door clamp. Then he broke the timer pencil. There was a gentle fizzing and he turned and made for the surface. Barry reached a hand down to help him up the ladder. Dillon sat down and the others moved to the rail. After a while, the sea boiled, turning over angrily, and a number of dead fish surfaced. Soon it was still again.

Dillon grinned up at Sollazo. “Don’t tell me, down I go again.”

T
HE TRUCK HAD
moved to one side but was still upright and the rear doors had been blasted apart, one hanging on the hinges, the other lying some distance away where it had been thrown. Sand hovered in clouds. Dillon approached and switched on the Halogen light and experienced a considerable shock, for the truck was empty.

H
E HUNG AT
the bottom of the ladder, took out his mouthpiece, and looked up as they all leaned over the rail.

“You’re not going to like this one little bit, Jack,” Dillon said. “But there’s nothing there.”

“What do you mean there’s nothing there?” Barry demanded.

“I mean, the truck’s empty.”

“It can’t be empty,” Barry said. “You told me you looked in the back when you knocked it off on that road. It was there then.”

“Yes, it was,” Dillon said. “But it isn’t now.”

Kathleen Ryan’s face was burning, her eyes dark holes. “Someone must have been here before.”

“Not possible,” Dillon said. “The door was fast and no sign of blasting.”

“Mori, help me,” Sollazo said and reached for his inflatable and tank. “You’re going down again, Dillon, and I’m going with you. I think you’re lying.”

“Suit yourself,” Dillon told him and went under again, starting down the anchor line.

He hovered beside the wreckage of the stern of the
Irish Rose
hanging on to a rail, and Sollazo drifted down to join him. He poised there, then swam toward the truck. Dillon went after him.

Sollazo hung on the edge of the door and peered inside. He turned once to glance at Dillon, his face clear, then turned to the dark interior again. Dillon came up behind him, pulled the diver’s knife from Sollazo’s leg sheath, reached over and sliced open his air hose.