"What's it like?" Reilly answered, surprised, his eyes softening as he thought of his answer. "Conlaragh Creek? like all Ireland. A place so lovely that the sight of it brings a lump to your throat and a tear to your eye."
Abou checked the compass bearing, while behind him Suzy encouraged Reilly. The Irishman chuckled gently and spoke in a coaxing voice, as if to a child. "Try to imagine a wash of water as quiet as the grave, moving slowly through a winding creek. Trees crowd one bank and bend their branches to ripple the surface while their roots rest in the water itself, knotted and gnarled like old men's feet on a hot summer's day. There's a jetty opposite, with a boat tied up and nets and lobster pots spread over the cobbles like they'd been there a hundred years. And a cluster of cottages with green doors and white-washed faces under thatched roofs, smelling as sweet as a meadow on a spring morning. And along a bit there's a grey-topped church scowling at a red-faced pub, with a thin white road running between on its way to Cork. All framed by the sweetest green hills that you ever did see. Imagine that and that's Conlaragh."
The girl stared, wondering if it was more of his dry humour. No revolutionary spoke like that. They only talked about the rights of men - committees and resolutions, repression and vengeance. Reilly had talked of a place not an idea. She said, "You should have been a poet, Liam Reilly."
"And shouldn't I just," he laughed. "But didn't the Lord Almighty make me an Irishman instead."
Abou's gaze was fixed on the scanner. "There's a boat coming," he said abruptly. "Will that be them?"
Reilly jerked out of his corner. "No - not for an hour or more at the earliest." But the blip was unmistakably closing, coming out from the shoreline on a course dead set to intercept their own.
"Coastguard," Brady said gruffly, his hands steady on the wheel, holding his course.
"Sure and why not?" Reilly asked himself. "Wasn't it about here we expected them?" He turned to Abou, "Get her below now and yourself. We'll do the talking for the lot of us. Keep your men quiet, but ready - and God help us all if they're needed."
"No," Abou had a hand on Suzy's elbow, already steering her toward the door. "God help the coastguard." He slid the door open with his free hand and stepped out into the darkness.
Reilly closed the door. "I've met all sorts, good and bad.
Most lacked the devil or the wit to be either, but that's a murdering bastard if ever I set eyes on one."'
Brady's answering grunt could have meant anything. He was used to Reilly doing the talking, it was why they worked well together. Mechanically he checked the charts in front of him, rehearsing again the details of their false course and reassuring himself about the fake entries in the log. A moment later he said, "Here they come Liam - lights on the port quarter."
But Reilly had seen them already. He too glanced around the deckhouse, making sure everything was as it should be, and that only what they wanted seen was on show and visible. It would be up to that murdering bastard of an Ay-rab to take care of the rest.
The searchlight broke through the mist and swept fore and aft across the decks of the Aileen Maloney, until it reached the deckhouse where the Irishmen screwed their eyes into slits against its brilliance. Brady cut the speed to three knots and waited. The gurgle of sound increased to a throb as the patrol boat came alongside and the searchlight darted back to the stern. Reilly guessed that men in the other boat were reading the name painted there and a moment later came the shout, "Ahoy there, Aileen Maloney."
Reilly stifled an oath as he slid the door back. He answered and then listened to the shout of, "Shannon coastguard. Request permission to come aboard."
He resisted an urge to tell them where to put their request and shouted instead, "Come aboard and welcome."
Moments later grappling hooks drew the boats so close that two men were able to swing over the gunnels and board the Aileen Maloney. Two men in naval-style duffel coats under peaked caps who hurried directly to the deckhouse. "Morning skipper," the leading figure thrust a hand toward Reilly. "The name's O'Brien. Tim O'Brien. And this here's Wally MacPherson."
Reilly shook hands, studying the baby-blue eyes in a fresh complexioned face, topped with a thatch of straw hair too long for the cap to contain. God save us, he thought, but they get younger every trip. But he greeted them warmly. "Liam Reilly, and this is my mate, Pat Brady." He turned to the second man. "And what's an Irish coastguard doing with a name like Wally MacPherson?"
The boy, barely in his twenties, hid his blush behind a grin. "My father was a Scot, but my mother came from Kerry. I've lived there the best part of my life, Skipper."
Reilly's eyes twinkled. He turned back to O'Brien. "A Scot and a colleen from Kerry. He'll have the devil's own temper then, this lad of yours."
O'Brien chuckled while Reilly turned away, already busying himself with a bottle and four glasses.
"A fine craft, Skipper," O'Brien nodded approvingly at the instrumentation. "Is she your own?"
"And do I look like a millionaire?" Reilly handed him the whiskey. "Wouldn't I need to be running contraband for twenty years to afford a boat like this?"
According to her papers the Aileen Maloney was owned by Inishmore Fishing, a limited liability company with a registered office in Dublin. The company had a subscribed share capital of half a million pounds and owned four boats, of which the Aileen Maloney was the latest. The business traded with all of the principal fish markets and made a modest, but respectable, profit according to its annual accounts. Reilly related some of these details in the manner of a raconteur propping up the bar in a favourite pub, knowing that O'Brien would check them later despite his apparent casualness.
MacPherson finished his drink. "Mind if I have a look round, Skipper?"
It was standard procedure. O'Brien would keep the Skipper and the Mate talking while his number two gave the boat the quick once over. "Help yourself," Reilly grinned. "Though you'll oblige me if you let the crew sleep. They've had a hard few days of it." He watched the boy go, knowing that if he as much as sniffed their real cargo he would never live to celebrate another birthday.
"You've had a good trip then?" O'Brien accepted another tot of Jameson's.
"The best in months," Reilly answered truthfully. "Nothing much for the first two days, then we ran into cod off Beaker's Sound." He leaned casually against the chart table and traced the line of their falsified course. "Attacked us you might say," he grinned. "Fair jumped into the boat. Exhausted the lads just packing them."
"Cod?" O'Brien's surprise was genuine. Seiners were near and middle water trawlers, generally out for a week at a time to fish for herring off the coast of Southern Ireland. The recognised fishing grounds for cod were at least two hundred miles south of Beaker's Sound. And well Reilly knew it. But he could hardly admit to being that far south when the fish were caught, nor that the crew of the tanker had lashed crates four deep around the eight foot cube resting on the Aileen Maloney's aft deck. Nor would he explain that the fish and ice overflowing from the hold concealed a much more valuable cargo. One hundred Kalashnikov rifles.
"And weren't we as surprised as they were," Reilly warmed to his story. "Of course, there's herring and a spot of dog amongst it all - but it's mostly a goodly load of cod we'll be landing for tomorrow's market."
"For which you'll collect a goodly price, eh?"
They chuckled and the talk drifted, the convivial atmosphere helped by generous measures of Jameson's, and by the time MacPherson returned, the conversation had turned to the weather as it invariably does amongst men who live by the sea. MacPherson's search had been superficial. O'Brien had already given him the nod to be quick about it. After this they would head for shore and an early breakfast. So he had checked the hold, inspected the crates of fish, been surprised to see so much cod in the beam of his flashlight, and taken a quick squint at the crew's quarters to count the sleeping, bodies. "You've a big crew, Skipper?" he said casually, having seen nine where he would have expected seven at the most.
MacPherson's expression cleared in understanding and O'Brien grinned in sympathy as Reilly launched into a string of abuse about wet-nursing youngsters not fit to sail a boat in a bathtub. Ten minutes later and still chuckling at some of Reilly's saltier expressions, the coastguards returned to their patrol boat. They hailed farewells until the gurgle of the Rolls Royce engines swamped their voices as their boat pulled away into the black swirling mists of the night. Reilly grinned with delighted satisfaction and tilted the whiskey generously to celebrate. And he was having another tot when Abou returned, Suzy Katoul at his heels like a lap-dog.
"There now," Reilly grinned at them. "That wasn't so painful, was it?"
"No problems?" Suzy asked anxiously.
"Not a thing to worry your pretty little head about."
She glared and Abou said, "It was a pity we ran into them though."
Reilly shrugged. "It was always on the cards." He nodded approval to Brady, who was already manoeuvring the boat back on to course.
Abou checked his watch. "An hour before pick up, isn't it? What's the signal?"
"They'll meet us three miles up from the creek. Just before dawn. Another seiner. She'll show two lights, one above the other, the bottom one flashing. We'll do the same. When she's identified us, she'll turn for the creek and we'll follow."
Abou frowned. "No radio contact?"
"Not in these waters, Mister. Not a word till we're safe ashore."
Arrangements which could not have suited Abou better, but his face remained impassive as he absorbed the information. After a moment he muttered something about the crew and then he left, motioning Suzy to remain in the deckhouse.
Reilly's cheerful face puckered into a grin. "Well now, how shall we pass the time? You could sing us a song perhaps? Or give us a recitation? That would be nice - something out of the little Red Book perhaps?"
But she resisted the bait. Her earlier clash had taught her enough about Reilly's politics to dismiss him as a hopeless romantic. Now all she felt was relief at the departure of the customs men and anticipation of two nights alone with Abou in Ireland. So she smiled. "That's old hat. There's been a whole cultural revolution since then. Today it's Gaddafi's book - and that's green."
"Green is it?" Reilly nodded. "Sure and what a colourful bunch you revolutionaries are." He broke open another pack of cigarettes, chuckling hugely at his own joke.
His laughter brayed in her ears. How different from Abou. Abou who rarely laughed. Abou with his black predator's eyes that saw everything. Abou of the aquiline nose and thin cruel lips that gave him the look of a hawk. Her desert hawk she had christened him, and the name had stuck. Just thinking about him excited her enough for her body to moisten. Strange, she had slept with dozens of men, four in one night in Paris when a student; sex had been a food like rice, you made a meal of it and two hours later you were ready for it all over again. Sex and drugs. Only Abou made them different. Both were better with him. Trips with Abou - floating high above the bed, so that she could almost look down on his shoulders as he made love to her. Christ, she could do with him now. And a shot. The Nembutal were wearing off and they were all Abou would allow until they reached Conlaragh. So the time dragged. Thirty minutes, thirty-five. She helped herself to another of Reilly's cigarettes and watched a thin crack of grey appear low in the eastern sky. Forty-five minutes, fifty. Then Abou returned.
"We've had some trouble with the cargo," he said. "Some of the crates have shifted. The men are re-stacking them now."
"Shifted?" Reilly sounded surprised. "And how could that be?"
"Maybe the coastguard nosing around," Abou shrugged, apparently dismissing it. "It's nearly time, isn't it? Shouldn't we see the signal soon?"
"Oh, they're out there all right," Reilly answered quietly. "Picked us up minutes ago. They'll be making sure, that's all."
"Making sure?"
"Sure the coastguard are tucking into eggs and bacon, sure there's not another boat within five miles of us," he smiled. "Sure we're not being followed and that Conlaragh's as quiet as an empty crib when we arrive."
Abou's dark eyes searched Reilly's face in search of a lie. Not finding one he turned away to peer out into the darkness, and a few minutes later they saw the signal: two lights, the lower one blinking as steady as a pulse. Reilly touched a switch and lights on the Aileen Maloney own main mast responded by splashing pools of white about the deckhouse. "Follow her in," he growled.
"I'm going aft to check the cargo," Abou said. "Skipper, I'd like your advice on it."
Reilly nodded. "I'll be a minute then, Pat," he said, following Abou to the door and out into the darkness. They moved slowly, edging toward the stern, bending their bodies into the biting wind and treading carefully across a deck made treacherous by the icy spray. Reilly gritted his teeth to stop them chattering and reached out to test one of the ropes holding the crates in position. It was as taut as a bowstring. He tried another and found it the same. He started to count the crates, thinking that the stack seemed as secure as ever and wondering what the problem was. And just as Liam Reilly realised there was no problem, the knife went in. Driven hard, it pierced his body just above his kidneys, tearing upwards through his gut and into his heart. Even as the vomit of pink froth spilled from his lips, Abou's free hand clamped over his mouth.
"Get the other one," Abou grunted, breathless under the weight of Reilly's sagging body. Two shadows detached themselves from behind the stack of crates and moved like cats toward the deckhouse. "The weights," Abou gasped. "And the explosives." Another commando slipped forward, dragging an oilskin-covered case on the end of a length of rope. A loop was passed quickly around Reilly's ankles and tightened about an unresisting body. Liam Reilly was already dead. Abou checked the knots which secured the oilskin-covered case and straightened in time to greet the two men returning from the deckhouse. Between them they dragged the dead Pat Brady, like a carcass in a slaughterhouse. That too was fitted with weights and then roped to Reilly's body.
"The buoy," Abou commanded. "And someone get forward to the deckhouse. Keep station on the other boat."
He worked quickly, tying a ten foot length of rope to the buoy before fastening the other end to Reilly's ankles. The knots were checked and double-checked, then grunting with effort, Abou and his men pushed both bodies toward the guardrails. The heavy oilskin-covered case hit the water first, followed by Reilly, then Brady, and last of all the orange coloured marker buoy - all connected like links in a chain. The icy black water closed over them like a satisfied god accepting a sacrifice, and only the marker buoy bobbed to the surface, a dancing insignificant dot in the vastness of those seas, soon lost from sight as the Aileen Maloney pulled quickly away.
Abou hurried to the deckhouse to mark the spot on the charts.
"You didn't tell me," Suzy challenged, white-faced and trembling.
"It was necessary," Abou busied himself with the charts. "They would have talked—"
"You should have told me," she reproached, trying to still her shaking hands and fighting down the bile which rose in her throat. "You should—"
He hit her without a moment's hesitation. A powerful sweeping blow which caught her across the face and sent her sprawling backwards across the deckhouse. It was done quite without compunction and his bleak eyes betrayed no emotion. The commando at the wheel stared directly ahead and, without another glance at the girl, Abou snatched up the half bottle of whiskey and returned to the aft-deck.
"Cut the stacks free," he shouted above the moaning wind. "Scatter the crates about the deck - make it look like an accident." He stood in the lee side of the deckhouse and watched the shadowy figures respon
d to his orders. A man dropped a crate on to the deck a yard away, splintering the boxwood and spilling fish. Others did the same, breaking crates open and creating chaos out of order. Abou's right hand closed over the crowbar, retrieving it from its hiding place. Nearby a man crouched over a fallen crate, one hand clawing the top to splinter the thin wood. Abou aimed for the wrist, hoping for a clean break, one that would set easily later. But, as if sensing danger, the man released his grip and straightened up, so that only for the briefest moment was his hand still on the crate, his palms downwards and his fingers splayed. The iron bar traced an arc through the air just in time to catch the knuckles, smashing bone and pulping flesh like a rotten apple caught in a threshing machine. The man screamed and swung round, agony and surprise mingled with shock in his face, and pain coming in thick red waves as his legs buckled on the pitching deck. Abou hit him again, this time with his fist, catching the point of his jaw and sending him plunging backwards into the broken crates.
"Here," Abou pulled the bottle from his pocket and handed it to the nearest man. "Get him below and give him this when he comes round. Enough of it might deaden the pain until we can get him to a doctor." And without another word he turned on his heel, his face set in grim lines as if to suggest indifference. Yet despite the chill wind, tiny beads of perspiration lay across his forehead and along his upper lip. He wiped his face with the back of his hand as he entered the deckhouse. Nothing matters, he told himself bitterly, nothing matters except the success of the Plan.
0630 Wednesday
Spitari's Health Farm was quite handy really. An ambitious estate agent might even have claimed it was within easy commuting distance of Kensington - quite truthfully too, so long as Ross & Co. handled the travel arrangements. LeClerc even carried my bag down to the unmarked police car waiting on the double yellow lines. Then we drove up through Chiswick, along the Western Avenue to Northolt, and straight on to an RAF Valiant. No customs clearance, no passport control, no hassle with boarding cards. Thomas Cook's couldn't have lived with it. Even the Valiant was bigger than I imagined, four seats facing each other across a low table set ten feet back from the pilot. Noisy though, and no pretty stewardess dripping drinks and cleavage to relieve the boredom. But Ross did his best to be hospitable, fishing half a dozen whiskey miniatures from his briefcase and sharing them equally among us.
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 4