Ted Bell - Warlord

About four cubic feet of open space remained above the bomb. He filled it with lobster pots and used most of them to do so. The remainder he heaved over the side, knowing the ebb tide would carry them out before morning. He closed the hatch cover upon which Lord Mountbatten always sat when the boat was under way. He loved his little boat, and Smith knew it.

It was only a matter of time before-

He heard two men, mumbling drunkenly, emerge from the pub. They got louder, strolling out to the end of the dock. They were close and there was no time to duck under the cuddy cabin. He flattened himself on the deck, as near to the dockside bulkhead of the boat as he could get. Damn it, he silently cursed. This was no time to be discovered aboard Lord Mountbatten's boat. He'd kill these two unfortunates if he had to, slit their throats with his fish knife, but that would cause no end of complications. He'd no choice but to lie there, dead still, and hope they were too inebriated to notice him.

"Ye know what they say about beer, Paddy O'Reilly?"

"You don't buy it, ye only rent it."

"Exactly," the first man said.

"I'd say the day's rent's long overdue, wouldn't you?"

"Time to bleed the lizards awright, Bucko…"

He knew exactly what was going to happen. He heard two zippers being yanked down and the shuffling feet of the two men on the dock now standing directly over his head. Two streams of urine spattered on the Shadow V's deck not a foot from his face. He caught some of it, of course, but he'd his foul-weather gear on and as a child he'd suffered far worse indignities.

Lying there in the dark, still as stone, watching that black pool of piss spreading across the deck, he smiled. He liked the idea of these two blokes strolling down the dock of an evening, just to relieve themselves on Mountbatten's pride and joy. "Piss on you, oh mighty Lord Mountbottom," one of them said as they zipped up, had a wee chuckle, and returned to the pub.

Lord Mountbottom they call him, Smith said to himself with a smile. The locals' moniker was a fitting enough tag for the old bastard.

HE SAW A FEW FLASHLIGHT beams darting among the trees in the forest as he made his way up the hill. Special Protection guards. He'd shed his black foul-weather gear and the balaclava. He was now dressed in a black turtleneck jumper and black trousers, with the black watch cap pulled down over the tops of his ears. He kept just inside the woods at the side of the lane.

Reaching the hilltop, he skirted the well-guarded Classiebawn estate and moved quickly and silently toward his refuge without incident. It was the end of the summer, and he assumed, correctly, that the Irish Gardai and the Special Branch men assigned to protect Queen Victoria's grandson would be more interested in a final pint of Guinness or a wee dram of Tullamore than some interloper with murder on his mind.

He slept that night, fitfully, inside the damp and crumbling ruin of a Norman watchtower. Water seeped from the mossy old stones like tears. The thousand-year-old tower stood amid a copse of green wood overlooking a moonlit Donegal Bay. He tried to sleep, but all night long he was beset by frightful dreams. In one, he was but a small boy, sent out to slay a great fire-breathing dragon, alone, in order to protect his family.

Unlike St. George, a great knight, he'd only been a defenseless boy, and the dragon had easily engulfed him and his family with great licks of fire. After the dragon slithered away, he saw them all, his father, mother, and sister, as from above, twisted and charred like sticks, strewn about the marble steps leading to the flaming ruins of what had been their home.

In another dream, one he had frequently, a fire-breathing locomotive pulled into a huge and darkened station pulling a long train of boxcars. When the doors to all the cars were pulled open, gallons of viscous red blood gushed out, flooding the platform. Every single cattle car was full to overflowing with the bloody, horribly mutilated corpses of murdered Moslem women.

THE NORMAN WATCHTOWER MADE a decent enough shelter. He'd discovered it a few years ago, on one of his earliest surveillance trips to Mullaghmore, and had known immediately that one fine day it would suit his purposes perfectly. At last, a few hours before daybreak, he slept. When he opened his eyes, looking up through the ragged holes of missing stone in the tower, he knew he'd been right about his timing.

God was with him.

The morning dawned blue and clear, an almost supernaturally lovely day after all the weeks of drenching rain. There was virtually no wind at all. He was stiff from sleeping on the bare, damp ground, but ten minutes of vigorous stretching and breathing exercises brought him fully awake, his blood coursing through his veins with anticipation of what was to come.

There was just enough of a spiral stone staircase remaining inside the tower for him to climb to the top. From this splendid vantage point he had a view that included all of Classiebawn Castle and its grounds, the green hills beyond, the narrow lane that led down the hill to Mullaghmore, the harbor, and the placid blue bay sparkling in the morning sun.

He pulled a fish knife he'd stolen from the Sligo boat from his trouser pocket and quickly slit the seam of his jacket. There, in a waterproof packet, was the detonator. He slid it out of its waxed pouch, unwrapped it, and gazed upon it almost lovingly.

It was a simple aluminum box, no bigger than a pack of cigarettes. It had a dial that showed battery strength (full), a warning light, and a toggle switch, currently in the "off" position.

He set the detonator on the wide stone balustrade of the curved wall and raised his binoculars to his eyes. For a few hours, the house was quiet and it was difficult to be patient. Then, around eleven, there was a bustle of activity in and around the castle. Children and dogs racing in and out of the house, slamming doors, nannies pushing strollers to and fro, gardeners cutting fresh flowers in the gardens.

It looked like the first day of summer, not the last.

Half an hour later he saw Mountbatten emerge from the front entrance of the castle. He was surrounded by family, by laughing and skipping children, all delighted to see the sun shining at last. The old man was dressed in faded corduroys and a rough pullover. All the members of his family, young and old, were carrying something, a picnic basket, a thermos, a jug of wine.

He watched Lord Mountbatten march his little army along the drive leading away from the house. They turned, as he knew, hoped, prayed they would, to the right and began descending the hill toward Mullaghmore harbor.

SHADOW V, A BRILLIANT GREEN in the noonday sun, was waiting at the end of the dock. In no time at all, they'd all boarded, children and adults both clearly excited at the prospect of a day on the water. A young boy, fifteen perhaps and clearly a local, cast off the lines. There was a puff of blue smoke as Mountbatten reached down and started the little three-cylinder diesel engine.

Then Lord Louis took his normal seat, on the portside hatch cover above the well where the unused lobster pots were normally stowed.

He bent forward and engaged the throttle and the little boat moved away from the dock. Proceeding at a stately pace, Shadow V slowly eased beyond the harbor's protecting stone walls until she'd cleared the long jetty. The happy party proceeded along the coast, still barely a stone's throw from shore, for a few hundred yards. Then they came to a stop so Mountbatten could inspect his lobster pots.

It was time. Smith whispered a silent prayer to heaven and thumbed the detonator switch. For a moment, nothing happened and he stared in disbelief at the little green boat bobbing there among the lobster pots.

The sudden explosion shattered the summer stillness into a thousand pieces. A great geyser of splintered wood, blood, oil, and broken bodies shot high into the air. The shock of the blast shook the Norman watchtower to its ancient foundations; indeed, the force of the detonation was felt miles from the fishing village of Mullaghmore. In the roiling bay, nothing remained of Shadow V but countless green splinters of wood, bobbing about everywhere you looked. And then there were the bodies, floating facedown.