Jack Higgins - Angel Of Death

She slammed the phone down, went out and ran along the corridor, holding up the skirts of her habit. She went out of the main door and ran through the rain to the great door of the Abbey, pushed it open, and hurried inside.

When she opened the vestry door, Father Tim was sitting at his desk, very frail with snow-white hair and steel-rimmed glasses. He turned in shocked surprise.

“Sister Mary, what on earth is it?”

She collapsed in the other chair, quite breathless, and told him.

Grace Browning moved down through a walled kitchen garden, her umbrella sheltering her from the rain. As she got closer to the Abbey, she saw considerable activity, nuns running backwards and forwards through the rain, and then a crocodile of young girls in white blouses, navy-blue school skirts and white socks moving from the school to the Abbey, a number of nuns hurrying alongside and trying rather ineffectually to protect them with umbrellas.

Grace stood watching and a nun turned and, on catching sight of her, called, “Come, Sister, we need you. Senator Keogh is coming.”

At that distance, and with the umbrella over her head, she was just another nun, but she seized the opportunity, hurried down and joined on the end of the tail of children as they went in through the great door of the Abbey.

Inside, they moved up the center aisle toward the high altar. Grace Browning put down her umbrella, paused just inside, glancing around her, then saw a stone spiral staircase through an archway, a gallery above it. She moved forward without hesitation and went up.

As the helicopter approached Drumgoole, Senator Keogh said, “What is it with the Kevlar jacket and so on, Brigadier? Do we really have a problem?”

“Let me put it this way, Senator. If there was a problem, it no longer exists. We’re just taking full precaution.”

“Well one thing’s for sure,” Keogh said, looking out as they approached the Abbey. “The visit down there should be the least of my problems. It’s what I’m going to say at Ardmore that concerns me. We’re so close, Brigadier, so damn close to getting the IRA to make a peace initiative. We’ve got to make it work, we’ve just got to.”

“I couldn’t agree more, Senator,” Ferguson told him as the helicopter settled on the lawn.

The second pilot came back and opened the door. Sister Mary Fitzgerald and Father Tim, wearing an alb over his cassock and a stole around his neck, stood waiting.

Dillon handed Keogh an umbrella. “You’ll need this, Senator. This is Ireland, remember.”

“And how could I forget that?” Keogh grinned.

He went down the steps and crossed to the Abbey, and Ferguson, Hannah Bernstein, and Dillon went after him.

From the gallery, Grace Browning had a perfect view of events below – the schoolgirls so excited, half a dozen boys, acolytes, bright in their scarlet cassocks and white cottas. Although she did not know who Sister Mary Fitzgerald was, she realized she was in charge from the way she marshaled people, and she’d also noticed Father Tim arranging things in the side chapel – that must be the Keogh memorial.

There was a sudden excited murmur from the nuns grouped at the door, which spread to the children, and then Patrick Keogh walked in, followed by Ferguson, Dillon, and Hannah Bernstein.

“Well, well,” Grace said softly. “Old Home Week.”

She moved to a position behind a pillar from which she could see across into the Keogh Chapel, put the shoulder bag on the floor, took out the AK-47, and unfolded the butt.

“Such an honor, Senator,” Sister Mary Fitzgerald told him.

“The honor is mine,” he replied.

“If we could show you the window, Senator,” Father Tim said. “A fitting memorial to your great ancestor.”

“I’m sure it is,” Keogh said and followed him.

There was a small altar in front of the stained-glass window and three young girls, neat in their school uniforms, stood in front of it holding tiny bouquets of flowers. Patrick Keogh smiled and stepped toward them.

“What’s this?”

In the gallery leaned against the pillar, took aim, and her finger eased on the trigger. At the same moment, a young girl ran forward, holding out a bunch of flowers, crossing Keogh, and Grace pulled the weapon up. There was the inimitable muted crack of a silenced AK-47 and a large vase on the altar disintegrated.

Dillon called, “Down, Senator, down! That’s rifle fire!”

The girls at the altar turned and Patrick Keogh, presenting his back, flung his arms around the three nearest, pulling them close, and Grace Browning shot him twice.

Dillon drew his Walther, looking up, saw a movement and raised his gun to fire. It was Hannah who called out to stop him.

“No, Dillon, no!”

And then he saw the figure in the gallery and realized it was a nun. He turned and ran to Keogh, whom Ferguson was already bending over. The Senator was gasping for breath as they pulled him up.

“Bring him into the vestry,” Father Tim said. “He needs to sit down.”

As Grace Browning stepped back, she heard a sound, turned, and saw a boy of perhaps ten in scarlet cassock and white cotta. She stood there looking at him, holding the AK-47 across her front. He gazed at her round-eyed as she folded the butt and replaced it in the shoulder bag. She put a finger to her lips.

“Be a good boy now,” she said in an Irish accent, “and be off with you.”

He turned and ran the other way and she went down the spiral staircase.

In the vestry they got Keogh’s jacket and waistcoat off and removed the Kevlar jacket.

“God help me,” the Senator said. “But I feel like I’ve been kicked in the back twice by a mule.”

Dillon showed him the two rounds embedded in the Kevlar jacket. “You could have been dead.”

“Except that you made me wear that damn thing,” Keogh said.

Ferguson shook his head. “Not good enough, Senator. I was responsible and I got it wrong. In some way I got it wrong.”

Sister Mary Fitzgerald, standing listening, opened the door and went out. There were children at the main door, nuns trying to control them in the porch, and Father Tim doing his best to help. Sister Mary Fitzgerald took him to one side.

“It’s incredible. Someone tried to shoot Senator Keogh.”

“The IRA?” Father Tim asked.

“And why would they do that to one of their own? Praise be to God he was wearing a bullet-proof jacket. He’s all right.”

At that moment, the young acolyte from the gallery ran up, sobbing. “What is it, Liam?” Father Tim asked.

“I’m frightened, Father. I was in the gallery and there was a nun there, someone I didn’t know.”

“And what was so special about her?”

“She had a rifle, Father.”

On the other side of the pillar, where she had overheard everything, Grace Browning eased away and slipped out of the church through a side door. Putting up her umbrella, she started up through the gardens. She reached the woods and her car within five minutes, got behind the wheel, and drove away. She felt quite calm. She had tried and she had failed. That was how the script had turned out and there was nothing to be done about it.

“She was here,” Dillon said, “instead of at the bottom of the Thames. The whole thing was a trick, can’t you see? Lang and Curry were dead, so she had to die too to fool us.”

“My God!” Ferguson said. “What a woman.”

“But how?” Hannah Bernstein demanded. “That charade in Wapping. That was only a few hours ago. How did she get here?”

“How did we get here?” Dillon said. “I suspect she did it the same way.”

Ferguson said, “There’s only one important thing at the end of the day. She failed.” He turned and went to Keogh, who sat there on a chair, breathing deeply. “Are you all right, Senator?”