Jack Higgins - Cry of the Hunter

The flames flickered across the oak-beamed ceiling, casting fantastic shadows that writhed and twisted constantly. The liquor in the glass gleamed, amber and gold, and Fallon savoured it slowly and felt its warmth flowing into him. He sighed with pleasure and started to refill his glass and suddenly a light flashed through the window, illuminating the far wall for a second, and disappearing as quickly as it had come.

He moved quickly to the window and peered out into the darkness and the driving rain. There was nothing to be seen. He was about to turn away when car headlights appeared from a dip in the road below. The car was moving slowly and then it appeared to stop. He watched it for a few moments until the lights moved forward again and turned into the track that led to the cottage.

Fallon pushed the typewriter out of the way and opened a drawer in the table. He took out a Luger automatic pistol and an electric torch. He checked the action of the Luger and then opened the door and moved out into the covered porch.

The car came to a halt a few feet away and the engine was turned off. For a little while there was silence and he waited patiently in the darkness as the rain hammered steadily into the ground. He heard one of the doors open and there was a snatch of conversation and then the door closed again and two figures came towards him. They paused a few feet away from the porch and a voice said, ‘It’s a God-forsaken spot. Do you think he’s here?’

Fallon eased the safety-catch off and held the Luger against his right thigh. He raised the torch and said quietly, ‘He’s here!’ Light stabbed through the darkness, picking out the startled faces of the two men who stood before him.

There was silence and then a voice that he had not heard for many years said, ‘Is it yourself, Martin?’

For a moment he held the torch steady on them and then he directed the beam downwards and said, ‘You’d better come in. Watch the step with that leg of yours, O’Hara.’

He went back into the cottage and turned up the lamp. The two visitors followed him in and closed the door behind them. Fallon turned and faced them. He suddenly realized that he was still holding the Luger in one hand and he laughed shortly and put it down. The younger of the two men said, ‘Old habits die hard.’

Fallon shrugged. ‘What would you be knowing about my old habits?’

The man he had addressed as O’Hara laughed. ‘A good answer,’ he said. ‘A good answer.’ He was old with sagging shoulders and he supported his massive frame on a stick.

‘You’d better take your coat off and sit down,’ Fallon told him. He turned away and took two extra glasses from a shelf.

The younger man helped O’Hara off with his coat and the old man sat down in a chair by the fire with a sigh of relief. ‘Ah, now, is it a drop of the right stuff you’re going to offer us?’ he said as Fallon came forward with the glasses.

Fallon poured a generous measure into a glass and gave it to him. ‘Who’s your friend?’ he said.

O’Hara laughed again. ‘Fancy me forgetting my manners like that. This is Jimmy Doolan. He’s wanted to meet you for a long time, Martin.’

Doolan smiled quietly and held out his hand He was a small, quiet man with good capable hands and a Dublin accent. ‘I’ve dreamed of this day, Mr Fallon. You’ve been a hero to me since I was a kid.’

Fallon grunted. ‘A fine sort of hero.’ He handed Doolan a glass of whisky. ‘A lot of bloody good it did me.’

A puzzled expression appeared on Doolan’s face and O’Hara leaned forward and said easily, ‘Now then, Martin. Don’t tell me you’ve turned bitter in your old age.’

Fallon shrugged and sat down. ‘Bitter? It depends how you look at it. It’s one of the few luxuries I can afford these days.’

There was another short, uneasy pause before O’Hara said, ‘How’s the writing going? I never seem to see anything under your name.’

Fallon nodded. ‘You never will. I write thrillers under two different names. They wouldn’t interest you. They don’t even interest me. All they do successfully is pay the bills and keep me in whisky.’

Doolan leaned forward. ‘Don’t you ever feel like doing something else, Mr Fallon?’

Fallon looked at him for a moment and then smiled. ‘Not particularly. What would you suggest?’

Doolan fumbled for words. ‘Well, now, what you were doing before was not such a bad thing.’

‘I was in prison before,’ Fallon told him. ‘I was doing hard labour. Would you have me do that again?’ There was a short, tense silence and he stood up and said, ‘What is it, O’Hara? What do you want with me?’

O’Hara sighed heavily and poked a log that was threatening to fall into the hearth, back into place with the end of his walking stick. ‘The Organization needs you, Martin,’ he said. ‘It needs you bad.’

Fallon started so that whisky slopped over the edge of his glass. He gazed at O’Hara in astonishment and then he laughed harshly. ‘The Organization needs me?’ he said and there was incredulity in his voice. ‘After all these years it needs me?’

O’Hara nodded slowly. ‘It’s right enough. Doolan and I have been asked to come and see you.’

Fallon began to laugh uncontrollably. ‘That’s rich,’ he said. ‘That’s damned rich.’

Doolan jumped up and said angrily, ‘What’s so funny, Mr Fallon?’

‘The fact that the Organization can bloody well do without me,’ Fallon said. ‘That’s what’s so funny.’

Doolan swore savagely and turned to O’Hara. ‘Is this the great Martin Fallon? Swilling his guts with whisky and rotting in a back-country pigsty?’

Fallon moved so quickly that Doolan didn’t stand a chance. A fist caught him high on the right cheek and he stumbled, tripped over a loose rug and fell heavily to the floor. Fallon hauled him to his feet and pushed him down into a chair. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, and his voice was ice-cold. ‘When I was a schoolboy I lived and breathed the I.R.A. I joined when I was seventeen. When I was twenty-two I was the leader of the Organization in Ulster. I was a name in the land. I’m forty years of age and I’ve spent nine of them in prison. I’ve done my share for Ireland.’

‘Now then, Martin,’ O’Hara said soothingly. ‘No one is denying what you’ve suffered but it should only strengthen your resolve to fight until the whole of Ireland is free again.’

Fallon threw back his head and laughed savagely. ‘For God’s sake, are you still handing out that kind of clap-trap? The country is as free as it wants to be. If they ever want to change things north of the border they’ll do it through the government and through law. Guns and bombs will only serve to make them realize how well off they are without us.’

Doolan groaned and shook his head several times and Fallon handed him a glass of whisky which the small man swallowed at a gulp. After a while he fingered his face gingerly and said with a wry smile. ‘That’s a hell of a wallop you’ve got, Mr Fallon, and no mistake.’

Fallon grinned and sat down. ‘I’m sorry I lost my temper,’ he said, ‘but you touched me on a raw spot.’

‘It’s a thing I wouldn’t advise any man to do,’ Doolan said feelingly.

O’Hara coughed and spat into the fire. ‘We wouldn’t have come to you if there was anyone else, Martin. It’s desperate work and you’re the only man for it, and that’s a fact.’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Fallon told him.

Doolan moved uneasily and there was puzzlement in his voice. ‘Do you mean to tell me you won’t help us, Mr Fallon?’

Fallon took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘That’s about the size of it.’ Doolan turned helplessly to O’Hara and Fallon went on. ‘That old spider there knew damned well that I wouldn’t stir a finger. He’d no right to bring you here.’