Jack Higgins - Angel Of Death

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“And do you feel up to Ardmore House?”

Keogh laughed, and yet there was a hardness to him. “I sure as hell do. I’ve come this far, so let’s do it, Brigadier.”

Grace Browning drove very fast most of the way through the forest, was at Kilbeg within twenty minutes of leaving Drumgoole. There was nothing to keep her here now, no way of interfering with what was to take place at Ardmore House. The best thing to do was to get out.

She parked inside the shed beside the ruined cottage and killed the engine, then she got out of the Toyota, her shoulder bag in one hand, and walked toward the Conquest, holding the umbrella over her head.

Carson got out to meet her. “Everything okay?”

She smiled calmly. “Couldn’t be better. Coldwater next stop, so let’s get moving,” and she went up the steps in front of him.

In the helicopter Ferguson sat apart from them, the telephone to his ear. Finally he put it down and moved to join them.

“I’ve spoken to Chief Superintendent Hare. He’ll do what he can, but I don’t think it will be much. I mean, what do we have? An eight-year-old boy says he saw a nun in the gallery with a rifle.”

“Not much of a description, a nun in Ireland,” Dillon said.

“Exactly.”

Keogh was drinking black coffee supplied by Hannah from a thermos. “It seems to me there’s more here than meets the eye, Brigadier. Do I get to know?”

“Of course, Senator. If anyone has a right to know, it’s you.” Ferguson turned to Dillon. “You’re the Irishman, the story-teller, so let’s see what you can do.”

When Dillon was finished, Keogh said, “let’s stick with the basics. This woman, this Grace Browning, is what’s left of January 30?”

“That’s right,” Dillon said.

“You last saw her apparently going into the River Thames yesterday. You assume it was she who tried to shoot me. Now how could she have been there and turn up here?”

“We were there, sir,” Hannah Bernstein said, “and we turned up here. A few hours’ flying, that’s all.”

“And I suspect she did the same,” Ferguson said.

“But where is she now?” Keogh asked. “Adrift in Ireland?”

Ferguson shook his head. “I doubt it, sir. If she flew in, she’ll already be flying back.”

“Leaving us with one God Almighty mess,” Keogh said. “The whole Drumgoole thing could hit front pages all over the world.”

“I don’t think so, sir. Most of the children, virtually all of them, have no idea what happened back there. There was one hell of a scrummage. As for the little boy in the gallery – he can be handled. Mother Mary and Father Tim will do whatever Chief Superintendent Hare suggests, I’m certain of that. It’s a remote place and the damage limitation will keep the lid on things in the immediate future. By the time any kind of story leaks out it can be dismissed as fantasy.” He smiled. “This is, after all, Ireland, Senator.”

“My God!” Patrick Keogh said. “After this, events on Capitol Hill will seem like an everyday story of country folk.”

The conquest was heading east fast. Grace Browning changed out of the nun’s habit, carefully folded everything, and replaced it in the suitcase. She had failed. All that effort and she had failed. Strange, because that wasn’t the way the script had intended at all. She opened the thermos, had some coffee, and sat back thinking of Rupert and Tom. She closed her eyes. The man wasn’t there, only the darkness, and after a while she slept.

The helicopter dropped in at the lawn in front of Ardmore House. Two men were posted in the porch on either side of the door, both carrying Armalites, and two men stood on the lawn itself, holding umbrellas against the rain – Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

The helicopter settled and the pilot killed the engine. Patrick Keogh turned to Ferguson. “This is it, then.”

“We’ll wait for you, Senator.”

“Like hell you will. After what we’ve been through, I want you to hear what I have to say.”

The second pilot opened the door, Keogh clambered out, and Dillon grabbed an umbrella. Gerry Adams came forward. “A pleasure to see you again, Senator.” He shook hands. “This is Martin McGuinness.”

Ferguson and Hannah emerged and joined the group. Keogh said, “Brigadier Charles Ferguson, his aide Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein, and Sean Dillon.”

“We know only too well who Brigadier Ferguson is,” Gerry Adams said.

“Good,” Keogh told him. “I’d like the Brigadier and his people to hear what I have to say.”

Gerry Adams looked at McGuinness, who nodded. “Fine, Senator, whatever you want. They’re all waiting for you. They’ve just been told.”

They walked toward the house, Keogh leading with Ferguson and Hannah behind. Adams and McGuinness took up the rear on either side of Dillon.

“A long time, Sean,” Adams said.

“ Belfast, seventy-eight,” Dillon told him. “I remember it well. We got out of the Falls Road one night using the same sewer.” He turned to McGuinness. “And you, Martin. The old days in Derry were like a bad movie.”

“Incredible,” Adams told him. “You nearly got John Major and the whole British Cabinet in Downing Street in ninety-one, and here you are with Ferguson.”

“Turncoat is it, Sean?” McGuinness asked.

“And aren’t we all that now in the cause of peace?” Dillon shot back.

Gerry Adams exploded into laughter. “God help us, but he’s got you there, Martin,” he said as they followed the others up the steps to the entrance.

The entrance hall of Ardmore House was very large and there were at least fifty men crammed in there and a handful of women. Ferguson, Hannah Bernstein, and Dillon stood against the wall at the back and Keogh was halfway up the huge staircase, flanked by Adams and McGuinness.

Gerry Adams said, “One of our own, Senator Patrick Keogh. Listen to what he has to say, that’s all I ask.”

There was a murmur that stilled as Keogh started to speak.

“When my great-grandfather left Ireland all those years ago for East Boston, it was to find a new life – to be an American – but like so many other families in the same tradition we were Irish Americans – good Catholics with warm memories of home and nationalist ideals. Ireland must be free, that was our creed, but I think we perhaps forgot one thing, and it’s this. There are just as many Irish Americans with Protestant roots as Catholic.” There was a murmur from the crowd and he raised his hand. “Bear with me, friends, I beg you. I’m a Catholic by birth, perhaps not a good one, but I’ll always remain one, and isn’t there room for all of us? When I was a youngster and involved with Irish history, I was much influenced by Wolfe Tone, who founded the United Irishmen. He said that Ireland had a right to assert its independence. I agreed with everything he wrote and was amazed to discover that he was a Protestant.”

Someone laughed and there was scattered clapping. He carried on, “The other day someone quoted an ancient Protestant toast to me. Our country too .” He paused and there was total silence. “We should seize that toast, my friends. Ireland belongs to every decent Irish man and woman, irrespective of creed. If you can go forward and declare that as your belief, make peace after twenty-five bloody years, reach out your hand and say to the other side, let’s go forward together, then I think that would be the most significant step ever taken in the history of this country.”

There was total stillness and then someone started to clap and the clapping spread and suddenly there was cheering and the applause mounted.

Ferguson turned to Hannah Bernstein and Dillon. “That’s it. Back to the helicopter.”