Jack Higgins - Thunder Point

She got out of bed and went to the window. The light was still on in the Mother Superior’s office. She dressed quickly in jeans and sweater and hurried across the courtyard through the rain and knocked on the door.

When she entered, she found Sister Maria Baker seated behind her desk working. She glanced up in surprise. “Why, Jenny, what is it? Can’t you sleep?”

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow, Sister, I just wanted to let you know. I’m going back to St. John.”

“So soon, Jenny? But why?”

“The location of the U-boat that Henry found and that Dillon is looking for? I think I can find it for him. It just came to me as I was falling asleep.”

Ferguson sat on the terrace at Turtle Bay and looked out to the Sir Francis Drake Channel, islands like black cutouts against the dark sky streaked with orange as the sun descended.

“Really is quite extraordinary,” the Brigadier said as they sipped a fruit punch.

“ ‘Sunsets exquisitely dying,’ that’s what the poet said,” Dillon murmured.

The cicadas chirped ceaselessly, night birds calling to each other. He got up and moved to the edge of the terrace and Ferguson said, “Good heavens, I didn’t realize you had a literary bent, dear boy.”

Dillon lit a cigarette, the Zippo flaring. He grinned. “To be frank with you I’m a bloody literary genius, Brigadier. I did Hamlet at the Royal Academy. I can still remember most of the text.” His voice changed suddenly into a remarkable impression of Marlon Brando. “I could have been somebody, I could have been a contender.”

“Don’t get maudlin on me at this stage in your life, Dillon, never pays to look back with regret because you can’t change anything. And you’ve wasted too much time already on that damned cause of yours. I trust you realize that. Stay with the present. The main point which concerns me at the moment is how this wretched man Santiago comes to be so well informed.”

“And wouldn’t I like to know that myself?” Dillon said.

Santiago walked in through the arched gateway, Algaro at his shoulder. He looked around the terrace, saw Dillon and Ferguson and came over. “Mr. Dillon? Max Santiago.”

“I know who you are, Señor,” Dillon replied in excellent Spanish.

Santiago looked surprised. “I must congratulate you, Señor,” he replied in the same language. “Such fluency in a foreigner is rare.” He turned to Ferguson and added in English, “A pleasure to see you at Caneel Bay, Brigadier. Have a nice dinner, gentlemen,” and he left followed by Algaro.

“He knew who you are and he knew you were here,” Dillon said.

“So I noticed.” Ferguson stood up. “Let’s eat, I’m starving.”

The service was good, the food excellent and Ferguson thoroughly enjoyed himself. They split a bottle of Louis Roederer Crystal Champagne and started with grilled sea scallops in a red pepper and saffron sauce, followed by a Caesar salad and then a pan-roasted pheasant. Ferguson, napkin tucked in his collar, devoured everything.

“To be honest, dear boy, I really prefer nursery food, but one must make an effort.”

“An Englishman abroad again?” Dillon inquired.

“Ferguson, I need hardly point out, is the most Scots of Scottish names, Dillon, and as I told you, my mother was Irish.”

“Yes, but Eton, Sandhurst and the Grenadier Guards got mixed up in that little lot somewhere.”

Ferguson poured some more Crystal. “Lovely bottle. You can see right through it. Very unusual.”

“Czar Nicholas designed it himself,” Dillon told him. “Said he wanted to be able to see the champagne.”

“Extraordinary. Never knew that.”

“Didn’t do him any good when the Bolsheviks murdered him.”

“I’m glad you said murdered, Dillon, there’s some hope for you still. What’s friend Santiago doing?”

“Having dinner at the edge of the garden behind you. The ghoul with him, by the way, is called Algaro. He must be his minder. He’s the one who ran me off the road and fired a shotgun.”

“Oh, dear, we can’t have that.” Ferguson asked the waiter for tea instead of coffee. “What do you suggest our next move should be? Santiago is obviously pressing and intends we should know it.”

“I think I need to speak to Carney. If anybody might have some ideas about where that U-boat is, it would be he.”

“That’s not only exquisitely grammatical, dear boy, it makes sense. Do you know where he might be?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Excellent.” Ferguson stood, picked up his Panama and Malacca cane. “Let’s get moving then.”

Dillon drove into the car park at Mongoose Junction and switched off. He took the holstered Belgian semi-automatic from his jacket pocket. “What on earth is that?” Ferguson demanded.

“An ace-in-the-hole. I’ll leave it under the dashboard.”

“Looks like a woman’s gun to me.”

“And like most women it gets the job done, Brigadier, so don’t be sexist.” Dillon clamped the holster under the dashboard. “Okay, let’s go and see if we can find Carney.”

They walked along the front from Mongoose Junction to Jenny’s Place. It was about half-full when they went inside, Billy Jones working the bar, Mary and one waitress between them handling the dinner trade. There were only four tables taken and Carney sat at one.

Captain Serra and three of the crew from the Maria Blanco were at a booth table in the corner. Guerra, the mate, was one of them. Dillon recognized him from the first night, although the fact that Guerra said, “That’s him,” in Spanish and they all stopped talking was sufficient confirmation.

“Hello there.” Mary Jones approached and Dillon smiled.

“We’ll join Bob Carney. A bottle of champagne. Whatever you’ve got!”

“Two glasses.” Ferguson raised his hat politely.

Mary took his arm, her teeth flashing in a delighted smile. “I like this man. Where did you find him? I love a gentleman.”

Billy leaned over the bar. “You put him down, woman.”

“It’s not his fault,” Dillon said. “He’s a Brigadier. All that army training.”

“A Brigadier General.” Her eyes widened.

“Well, yes, that’s true in your army,” Ferguson said uncomfortably.

“Well, you go and join Bob Carney, honey. Mary’s gonna take care of you right now.”

Carney was just finishing an order of steak and french fries, a beer at his elbow, and looked up as they approached. “Mr. Dillon?” he said.

“This is a friend of mine, Brigadier Charles Ferguson,” Dillon told him. “May we join you?”

Carney smiled. “I’m impressed, but I should warn you, Brigadier, all I made was corporal and that was in the Marines.”

“Grenadier Guards,” Ferguson told him, “hope you don’t mind?”

“Hell, no, I guess we elite unit boys have got to stick together. Sit down.” As they each pulled up a chair he went back to his steak and said to Dillon, “You ever in the army, Dillon?”

“Not exactly,” Dillon told him.

“Hell, there’s nothing exact about it, not that you hear about the Irish Army too much except that they seem to spend most of their time fighting for the United Nations in Beirut or Angola or someplace. Of course, there is the other lot, the IRA.” He stopped cutting the last piece of steak for a moment, then carried on. “But no, that wouldn’t be possible, would it, Dillon?”

He smiled and Ferguson said, “My dear chap, be reasonable, what on earth would the IRA be interested in here? What’s more to the point, why would I be involved?”

“I don’t know about that, Brigadier. What I do know is that Dillon here is a mystery to me and a mystery is like a crossword puzzle. I’ve just got to solve it.”