Jack Higgins - Drink With The Devil

“True enough,” Ryan said. “So what do you suggest?”

“Why not cut your losses? There’s the big yellow inflatable behind you in the stern with a good outboard motor. We’re only two miles off the coast now as far as I know. You could make it easily now that the wind’s dropping.”

“And leave the gold to you?” Ryan demanded. “So what do we get out of this?”

“Your lives,” Tully said.

“And you trying to pick us off as we get in the inflatable.”

“I can’t even see it from the wheelhouse. The truck’s in front of it. Think about it. I’ll give you five minutes and then I’ll turn this thing around.”

He went off the air and Kathleen said angrily, “We can’t do it, Uncle Michael, not after all we’ve been through.”

“I know, girl, I know.” He turned to Keogh. “What do you think, Martin?”

“I don’t think we have much choice.”

“So it’s live to fight another day?” And then Ryan smiled that unholy smile of his. “Of course there is another possibility, which is to make sure Tully doesn’t get the gold, either.”

Kathleen gasped and Keogh said, “And how would you do that?”

So Ryan told them.

A MINUTE LATER he called Tully. “All right, you’re on. Give me a few moments while Keogh checks that you really can’t see that inflatable because of the truck and I’ll come back to you.”

In the wheelhouse, Tully laughed hoarsely and turned to Grant. “It’s worked. The bastard’s going to go. We’ve won.”

“If he means it.”

“Of course he does. No other way out. Nothing for him here now.”

Ryan’s voice sounded again. “Okay, Tully, everything checks. I’ll see you in hell one of these days.”

The transmission ended and Tully laughed exultantly. “I’ve beaten the bastard. Fifty million pounds and it’s all mine.”

“All ours you mean?” Grant said.

“Of course.” Tully smiled. “We need each other, so let’s get this tub turned around.”

SHELTERED BY THE truck, Keogh and Ryan slid the inflatable over the stern rail and tethered it by its line. Keogh went over first and got to work on the outboard motor. It roared into life instantly with a strong heartbeat.

“Over you go, girl,” Ryan told Kathleen.

Keogh helped her in and the inflatable tossed this way and that in the choppy sea, the stern of the Irish Rose rising up and falling again just above them.

“Come on, Michael, for God’s sake,” Keogh called.

“Not before I leave Tully his going-away present.” Ryan held it up. “A half pound block of Semtex and a one-minute timing pencil.” He pulled open the stern deck hatch, dropped the Semtex inside, and closed the hatch again. He was over the rail on the instant, untied the line, and Keogh gunned the motor.

They were perhaps fifty yards away when the stern of the Irish Rose exploded into the darkness in a vivid tongue of flame. The end was incredibly quick, the ship tilting, the prow rising dramatically, and it slid backwards under the surface, vanishing in seconds in a hiss of steam.

“And you can chew on that, you bastard!” Michael Ryan said and put an arm around his niece. “All right, Martin, take us to some sort of shore.”

IT WAS FOUR o’clock in the morning, the sky lightening just a little, when they coasted into a wide beach, the land rising on the other side cloaked with trees. Keogh killed the outboard motor, jumped over with the line, and waded out of the water. Ryan helped Kathleen over the side and followed her.

“What do we do with the inflatable?” Keogh asked.

Ryan was inspecting it in the light of a small torch. “No name on it as far as I can see. Shoot a couple of holes in it, Martin.”

Keogh waded in again and pushed the inflatable out to sea again. It drifted for a while, then an eddy took it out some distance. He took careful aim with his silenced Walther and fired twice. After a while the inflatable went down.

“And where do you think we’d be, Uncle Michael?” Kathleen asked.

“God knows, girl, but it hardly matters. We’re home.” He turned to Keogh. “What now, Martin?”

“I think it best we part company,” Keogh told him. “You go your way, Michael Ryan, and I’ll go mine.”

“Martin?” Kathleen sounded distressed. “Can’t we stay together?”

“I don’t think so, Kate. Your uncle will have his plans and the Army Council and Reid to consider. One trip back home to dear old Ireland has been exciting enough for me. I’ll say goodbye, Michael.” He shook Ryan’s hand.

The girl grasped his arm, reached up, and kissed his cheek. “God bless you, Martin, and thanks for all you’ve done.”

“I didn’t have the chance to pay you,” Ryan said. “I’m sorry.”

“Not to worry.” Keogh smiled. “It was a great ploy.”

He started to walk away and Ryan called, “Who are you, Martin, who are you really?”

“God save us, there are days in the week when I don’t know that myself,” and Keogh turned into the trees.

HE DISAPPEARED AND Ryan said, “Off we go, girl. We’ll find a road, follow it, and see where we are.”

He led the way up through the trees, a ghostly passage as dawn came so that it was comparatively easy to see the way. They came to a narrow country road in a few minutes. There was a turning opposite and a signpost.

“You stay here in shelter and I’ll see where we are.”

He walked through the rain to the signpost, examined it, and came back, standing beside her in the shelter of the trees to light a cigarette.

“Drumdonald three miles to the left. Scotstown five miles the other way. We might as well go for the shorter walk.”

They stayed there for a moment and she said, “All for nothing. We don’t even know where the Irish Rose went down.”

“Don’t we?” He laughed and took another black instrument from his pocket that looked rather like the Howler. “Another gadget that young electronic genius at Queen’s University found for me. It’s called a Master Navigator. I gave him Marsh End and Kilalla and he programmed in their positions. This thing has given a constant reading of course and position all the way across. I know exactly where the Irish Rose went down.”

“My God,” she said, “and you never told me.”

“There are things I keep close to myself.”

“So what do we do now? Reid will be looking for us and that swine Scully.”

“And the Army Council,” Ryan said. “No, time to take a trip, I think. They say America’s grand at this time of the year. We’ll get to the safe house at Bundoran. False passports there. You know how careful I am. They’re always in stock.”

“But money, Uncle Michael, what about that?”

“Oh, I wasn’t exactly honest with Martin. I still have the second fifty thousand pounds I was to pay Tully in an envelope in my breast pocket.”

“My God, what a man you are.”

“It should keep us going for a while. When it runs out I’ll think of something.”

“Such as?”

“I’ve robbed banks in Ulster and got away with it. No reason I can’t do the same in America.”

“Sometimes I think you’re a raving madman.”

“And sometimes I am, but let’s get going.” He took her arm and they started along the road to Drumdonald.

There was silence, only the rain, and then Keogh stepped out of the trees where he had sheltered while listening to the conversation.

“You bloody old fox,” he said softly and there was a kind of admiration there.

He turned and started to walk the opposite way toward Scotstown.

IT WAS SIX o’clock in the morning and in Dublin Jack Barry was half awake, lying in the big bed beside his wife, when the portable phone he’d placed at the side of the bed sounded. He slid out of bed, picked it up, and went into the bathroom.