Jack Higgins - Day of Reckoning

'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 professional 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 turned up, saved my miserable skin, and in return I had to work for him. You see, Billy, he wanted someone who was worse than the bad guys, and that was me.'

There was a kind of infinite sadness, and Billy surprised himself by saying quietly, 'What the hell, sometimes life just rolls up on you.'

'You could say that. The kid who was an actor at nineteen carried on acting just like in a bad movie, only he became the living legend of the IRA. You know those Westerns where they say Wyatt Earp killed twenty-one men? Billy, I couldn't tell you what my score is, except that it's a lot more.' He smiled gently. 'Do you ever get tired? I mean, really tired?'

Billy Salter summoned up all his resources. 'Listen, Dillon, you need to go to bed.'

'True. It's not much good when you don't sleep very well, but there's no harm in trying.'

'You do that.'

Dillon got up, rock steady. 'The trouble is, I don't really care whether I live or die any more, and when you're into the business of going into harm's way, that's not good.'

'Yes, well, this time you've got me. Just go to bed.'

Dillon went down the companionway. Billy sat there thinking about it, the rain beating down relentlessly, dripping off the awning. He'd never liked anyone as much as he liked Dillon, never admired anyone as much, outside of his uncle, anyway. He lit a cigarette and thought about it and suddenly saw a parallel. His uncle was a gangster, a right villain as they said in London, but there were things he wouldn't do, and Billy saw now that Dillon was the same.

He looked at the bottle of Bushmills morosely. 'Screw you,' he said, then picked it up, and the glass, and tossed them over the rail.

He sat there, the rain falling, feeling curiously relaxed, then remembered the paperback on philosophy, took it out of his pocket, and opened it at random. There were some pages about a man called Oliver Wendell Holmes, a famous American judge who'd also been an infantry officer in their Civil War: Between two groups of men that want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy except force…It seems to me that every society rests on the death of men.

Billy was transfixed. 'Jesus,' he said softly, 'maybe that explains Dillon,' and he read on.

He awoke in the morning in the aft cabin, and was lying there, adjusting, when he was aware of a loud cry. He threw aside his blankets and went up the companionway in his shorts. It was still raining relentlessly and mist draped the whole of Oban harbour. As he looked over the rail, Dillon surfaced a few yards away.

'Come on, the water's wonderful.'

'You must be bloody mad,' and then Billy cried out. 'Behind you, for Christ's sake.'

Dillon turned to look. 'Those are seals, Billy. No problem. They're intelligent and curious. You get them a lot around here.'

He struck out for the ladder and climbed it, his shorts clinging to him. There was a towel on the table under the awning and he picked it up.

'What a bleeding place.' Billy looked out across the harbour. 'Does it always rain like this?'

'Six days out of seven. Never mind. Get dressed and we'll take the inflatable and go back to that pub. We'll get an all-day breakfast, just like in London.'

'Well, I'm with you there.'

Hannah Bernstein called in at Rosedene around nine-thirty and found Martha in reception.

'How is he?'

'Not wonderful. The bullet gouged deep. We thought twenty stitches and ended up with thirty. Look, I don't know what's going on, but he isn't fit to go anywhere. The professor is checking him out now. I'll go and see how he's doing.'

Hannah helped herself to coffee from the machine and was sipping it when Daz appeared.

'Listen, tell me the truth,' he said. 'He's as woozy as hell, yet he keeps trying to tell me he's got important things to do, and I presume by that he means the usual kinds of things you, Dillon and the Brigadier get up to.'

Absolutely, only this time it's something so dangerous that there's no way he can be involved in his condition. Dillon will handle it.'

'Yes, well, he would, wouldn't he? What do you want from me?'

'I know it sounds unethical, but couldn't you sedate him?'

'Hmm. That might be the best solution.' He turned to Martha. 'He really needs a sound sleep. You know what to do.' He smiled at Hannah. 'If you want to see him, better do it now.'

Blake was propped up, his right shoulder and arm bandaged, and looked awful, his face haggard. Hannah leaned over and kissed his cheek.

'How are you, Blake?'

'Terrible. I just need a rest. A couple of hours, and I'll be fine. When are we leaving?'

'Later this afternoon, but take it easy for now.'

'Christ, it hurts.'

Martha, lurking in the background, came forward with a glass of water and a couple of pills in a plastic cup. 'Here you go,' she said to Blake.

'What are these?'

'Painkillers. You'll feel a lot better soon.'

Hannah held his hand for a while, and slowly it relaxed and slipped away, as he stared blankly at her.

'There he goes,' Martha whispered. 'He'll be asleep for hours.'

They went out and found Daz at reception signing a few letters. He looked up. 'All right?'

'On his way to dreamland,' Martha told him.

'Good. I must go. I've got an operation scheduled at Guy's Hospital.' He smiled at Hannah. 'You'll monitor the situation?'

'The Brigadier will. I'm needed elsewhere.' She nodded to Martha and went out with him to where the Daimler waited. 'Can I give you a lift?'

'I was going to get a taxi, but, yes, a lift would help.'

'Ministry of Defence first, then you belong to Professor Daz,' she told the driver, and they drove away. 'I hate March weather,' she said. 'Bloody rain.'

'Oh, dear, it's like that, is it?' Daz smiled. 'As may not have escaped your attention, I'm a Hindu, Hannah. Personal vibrations are important to me, and I sense you're up to your neck in trouble again, the Dillon kind of trouble.'

'Something like that.'

'When will you learn?'

'I know. I'm a nice Jewish girl, unmarried, with no kids, but very good at shooting people.'