Anything was possible.
But miracles, he’d found, occurred most often for the people who prepared themselves, and that took money. Name a poor man who had ever led a major revolution—well, outside of China, anyhow—and Wallace would show you a loser’s headstone. No matter what the cause, from charity to civil war, a fat bankroll made all the difference.
“Say, Graham,” Henry Bell called, from his starboard window seat. “What happens if we find wee Nessie, after all?”
“We make a million pounds,” Raeburn opined.
“Of course we do,” Wallace replied. “After we catch it, reel it in alive and find someplace to keep it while the zoos start biddin’. Any one of you sods bring your fishin’ tackle?”
No reply to that, and Wallace said, “I didn’t think so. Feck the beastie, then. Just keep an eye out for the other, since we know it’s down there.”
“Do we?” Bell asked him. “Know it’s down there?”
Wallace frowned at that. “Macauley says so,” he replied.
“Because the old kraut told him,” Bell answered back. “How do we know it’s not a crock of shite, and all?”
“You want to ask him that, I’ll talk to Fergus,” Wallace said. “See if he can set up a meeting for you with the laird.”
“And that’s another thing,” Bell pressed on. “Who made him laird of anything? I thought we were about disposin’ of the royals and that.”
“The English royals,” Raeburn chimed in, and took another sip of beer.
Wallace killed the debate by shifting gears. “Henry, it’s your turn on the monitors,” he said. “Jimmy, go up and see if Colin wants more coffee.”
Raeburn seemed about to protest, but he instantly thought better of it, rose and moved out toward the wheelhouse. Bell took his place before the screens where colors changed with depth and objects on the bottom were revealed in outline, subject to interpretation by the viewer.
“Hope I know the damn thing if I see it,” Bell said.
“Should be no doubt about it,” Wallace said. “Two hundred and twenty feet long, it’s not easy to miss.”
“We’ve been doin’ a fair job so far,” Bell replied. “And who says that it’s still in one piece?”
“May be better for us if it’s not,” Wallace said. “Close to eight hundred tons for the lot.”
“Jaysus Christ! You expect us to lift that and all?”
“Don’t be daft. We’ll be usin’ the laird’s toy for that.”
“And which fools get the honor?” Bell asked.
With a smile, Wallace said, “I was thinking of you.”
THE INCHNACARDOCH Lodge’s lobby, lounge and stairs to Bolan’s left were carpeted in a dramatic tartan pattern, red and black predominating. At the registration desk, a smiling hostess welcomed them. The jet-black Labrador retriever at her feet was smiling, too, beating a tattoo on the carpet with his tail.
Bolan signed in, using his Cooper ID and credit card. Their room was number 10, at the far end of the first-floor hall. Newly remodeled, they were told, with a Jacuzzi tub in the ensuite. Dinner was served between seven and nine, with breakfast the same in the morning. They declined help with their bags and made the trek upstairs.
“Looks like the bridal suite,” Beacher said, teasing Bolan, as they stepped into a spacious room with a four-poster. “Do you suppose she noticed that we don’t have rings?”
“Makes us a modern couple, I suppose,” Bolan replied.
Beacher unpacked her bag while Bolan studied Loch Ness from their window. A boat made its slow way along the far shore, one man on deck, at least two vaguely visible through tinted windows.
“Is this Macauley’s monster-hunting boat?” he asked.
Beacher was at his elbow in an instant, Bolan shifting to provide her with a view. “I can’t make out the name from here,” she said. “His is the DeepScan. What he’s playing at is anybody’s guess.”
“Something to check on,” Bolan said. “I’d like to see his place as soon as possible.”
“From land or water?” Beacher asked.
“Let’s try the water first,” Bolan replied. “We’re less obtrusive on a tour boat than cruising past his gate in daylight.”
“Anytime you’re ready, then,” she said.
Their room keys were attached to brass fobs six or seven inches long. Beacher slipped hers into her handbag; Bolan tried a couple of his pockets and decided he would hide it in the Camry when they got downstairs.
The black Lab saw them off and might have trailed them to the Camry if his owner hadn’t called him back. Leaving the hotel’s driveway, Bolan turned across oncoming traffic and back toward Fort Augustus, for the short run to the tourist parking lot. He found a space close by the information center, scored a free map of the district from a rack inside the open doorway and joined Beacher for the stroll through town, to reach the dock where tour boats berthed and sailed.
The walk took them past shops, row houses and a busy restaurant, across the swing bridge—closed this time, no boats awaiting passage—and beyond the point where they had seen the wedding party. There were more shops and restaurants across the way, before their path would take them to the monastery-cum-hotel. Each shop they passed had monster souvenirs on sale: plush Nessies of all sizes, long-necked glass and plastic dragons, monster key chains and erasers, monster T-shirts, comic postcards.
The tour boat sailed again at three o’clock, which left them time to kill after procuring tickets. They walked along the canal, three hundred yards or so, until they reached a concrete pier protruding like a finger raised to probe Loch Ness. From where they stood, the loch seemed to go on forever, flanked by steep hillsides that plunged below the surface into depths that never saw sunlight.
“There might be anything down there,” Beacher observed.
“I guess,” Bolan replied. “Smart money says Macauley isn’t hunting for an undiscovered species, though.”
“It wouldn’t help his cause, I grant you,” Beacher said. “But I can’t suss out what he’s up to.”
“We may have to ask him,” Bolan said.
“Lairds tend to resent intrusion,” she replied.
“I feel the same way about terrorism,” Bolan said, pausing briefly before going on. “We should have brought binoculars.”
“I have a small pair in my bag,” Beacher said. “Good enough for checking out the manor when we pass it, anyhow.”
A breeze came off the loch and found its way through Bolan’s clothing to his skin. Again, he pictured tribes of Highlanders hunched over fires at night, trying to keep the chill and dark at bay.
“It’s beautiful,” he said at last. “But you can feel the harshness underneath. It gives me a new respect for pioneers.”
“Do you know anything about the Highland clearances?” she said.
“Some kind of sale?” he asked.
“Nothing to joke about with locals,” Beacher said. “During the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, landlords from England drove the Highland natives from their homes by any means available, replacing them with herds of sheep. A cholera epidemic and a potato famine rivaling Ireland’s finished the job, clearing out two thousand families a day at the peak of it. We’ll never know how many starved or died from other causes, but three-quarters of the Gaelic-speaking population disappeared.”
“Plenty of room for grievance, then,” Bolan replied.
“But not Macauley’s kind,” she said. “His lot were never dispossessed.”
Bolan glanced at his watch and said, “We’d better get back to the boat.”
“One Scottish monster coming up,” Beacher replied, and fell in step beside him.
THEIR TOUR BOAT, the Royal Scot, was roughly the same size as Alas
tair Macauley’s DeepScan, equipped with similar scanners but fitted with upper-deck seating for sixty passengers and sheltered seats for sixty more below. A well-stocked bar completed the amenities.
Bolan and Beacher were close to the front of the line as they boarded, securing window seats belowdecks near the bow. As they sat, Beacher nudged Bolan in the ribs and told him, “There’s your monster.”
Glancing to his left, he found a small window decal depicting a miniature long-necked creature in silhouette. Once they had sailed, he understood, a photo snapped from inside the cabin would seem to show Nessie emerging to starboard, some distance away.
“I’m guessing that’s the closest that we’ll come to one,” he said.
“You never know,” Beacher replied.
It took ten minutes for the other passengers to board, then their skipper began the delicate process of backing away from the dock. Five minutes later, the Royal Scot was motoring north, Fort Augustus receding behind them. A live voice emerging from speakers throughout the interior cabin began to regale them with statistics on the loch’s dimensions and anecdotes from its history.
Bolan listened with part of his brain, while he watched the depth monitors mounted above the bow windows. From Fort Augustus onward, the loch grew increasingly deeper, its bed dropping away below them toward record depth logged off Urquhart Castle on the west bank, several miles ahead. Bolan saw nothing on the screens that looked like swimming dinosaurs, but he was no expert at reading high-tech sonar, either.
“Half a mile until we pass Macauley’s place,” Beacher informed him. As she spoke, she took a pair of Bushnell Elite custom compact binoculars from her purse and held them ready in her lap.
“You must have been a Girl Scout,” Bolan said.
“Girl Guide, on this side of the water,” she corrected him. “But yes, I like to be prepared.”
About that time, the captain’s voice announced that mountain goats were visible above the Royal Scot, to their right. It gave Beacher the perfect opportunity to raise her small field glasses, scanning for their target.
“There,” she said, pointing as she handed the binoculars to Bolan. He used one finger to adjust the focus and saw a huge stone structure perched atop the hillside, windows like a row of spider’s eyes commanding a panoramic view of the loch. There was a dock and boathouse below, with steep stairs leading upward, with some kind of lift beside them.
“No safe access from this side,” he said, keeping his voice low-pitched.
“I wouldn’t want to climb that in the dark,” Beacher agreed.
Or daylight, either, Bolan thought. One halfway decent rifleman could stop an army coming up the hillside on those stairs, exposed. Give him some cover, and they’d never reach the top.
“Okay,” he said, returning the binoculars. “The other side it is, then.”
“Look before you leap,” the SO15 agent advised. “The property is fenced and guarded.”
“Right,” Bolan replied. “The ghillie.”
“At the very least. For all I know, he might have a small army on the grounds.”
Time for reconnaissance.
Some thirty minutes out, the Royal Scot turned for home, her skipper directing their attention to specific points of interest on the western shore. Bolan thought normal tourists on the cruise should be well satisfied—particularly those who’d patronized the bar—but he’d learned little that would help him tackle Laird Macauley in his lair.
When they were halfway back to Fort Augustus, Bolan saw a small police boat off their port side, two men in fluorescent chartreuse vests bent over the gunwale, hauling at something in the water. Closer, and he saw it was a human body, tangled in what seemed to be a fishing net.
The Royal Scot’s captain tried to redirect his squeamish passengers’ attention to the far side of the loch, but Bolan focused on the small drama unfolding as they passed. While it was difficult to say with any certainty, the corpse looked fairly fresh.
Cold water? Or a recent death?
Coincidence, or something else?
“Can you find out what happened here?” he asked Beacher.
“I should be able to,” she said. “Likely a simple accident.”
“Let’s hope so,” he replied.
The skipper did his part to liven up the last bit of the tour, but one tourist abovedecks had reacted badly to the water-logged cadaver, and a cabin boy was busy with a mop and pail. Bolan had no idea how many people drowned at Loch Ness during any given year, but reckoned the police should have at least a general idea. They wouldn’t share with him, nor was he anxious to approach them, but Beacher could likely badge her way past any rote objections and secure preliminary information on the latest incident.
And Bolan hoped it was coincidence.
If Alastair Macauley was involved with terrorists, he had enough to answer for already.
And the tab was coming due.
Chapter 8
The police station in Fort Augustus was a two-man operation with a hotline to the Northern Constabulary’s headquarters in Inverness. Colleen Beacher knew that she might trigger alarms by barging in and questioning the local constables, but since she had secured the backing of her own superiors in London, she believed the risk to be minimal.
Unless, of course, her wealthy target had a local friend in uniform.
Beacher found the station house on the southwestern outskirts of Fort Augustus. They had passed it coming in, on the A-82, and she had made a mental note of its location from the blue-and-chartreuse sign outside. The officer who greeted her was decked out in the standard uniform: white shirt, black tie, black slacks and shoes. His stab-resistant belt with two-way radio attached at shoulder level bore a stenciled POLICE logo in place of a badge. His duty belt creaked lightly when he moved, and she could see his baton on the desk behind him, beside a checkered cap.
“Yes, ma’am,” the young man said. “May I help you?”
Beacher showed her ID and introduced herself. The officer blinked once at mention of SOI5.
“Security Service, is it? We don’t see much of you lot in Fort Augustus.” With a smile, he added, “None at all, in fact, since I’ve been here.”
“Routine investigation,” Beacher said, watching his eyes dip toward her chest, then bounce back to her face. “I’m curious about a body in the loch.”
“Och, aye.” The smile vanished. “Likely a fisherman, from what I understand. The water bailiff found a boat adrift, then spied the body. Since it’s nothing to do with poaching and the like, he passed it off to us.”
“ID?” she asked.
He frowned. “You mean the floater?”
“Right.” A test of patience, but she passed.
“Ronald MacTaggart, from the wallet in his pocket. Home address in Foyers. That’s along the east side—”
“I know where it is,” she cut him off. “Who’s handling the FAI?”
There were no coroners in Scotland. Public prosecutors—known as procurators fiscal—convened fatal accident inquiries on any suspicious deaths, generally conducted by a sheriff court equivalent to a justice of the peace in other jurisdictions. The sheriff may employ pathologists as needed to determine cause of death. In the event of homicide, all evidence available was then delivered to an advocate-depute for prosecution before the High Court of Justiciary.
“They’ll send him up to Inverness,” the constable replied, “and then release him to the family, if any, when they’re done with him.”
“You didn’t know MacTaggart personally?” Beacher asked.
“No, ma’am. If he was prone to poaching, you might ask the water bailiff. Liam Abercrombie, that would be.”
“And I would find him…where, again?”
“Right here,” he
said. “By which, I mean to say in Fort Augustus. Liam shares an office with the local registrar, on Oich Road at the Highland Council service point. Memorial Hall, that would be. It’s on the channel by the ferry landing. Hard to miss, ma’am.”
Beacher recalled the wedding party. “Just across from where the tour boat docks,” she said.
“The very same. There’s nothing very far from anything in Fort Augustus.”
“Makes it simple,” she replied. “Thanks for your help.”
“Always a pleasure, ma’am,” he said.
“I need to keep this visit confidential,” Beacher said. “You’ll help me out with that, I trust?”
“Of course! A pleasure, as I say.”
And Beacher felt him watching as she left.
It wasn’t quite a wasted trip, but if she’d known the water bailiff was her man, she could have saved the hike. As Beacher doubled back toward town, she wondered if Cooper was making any headway on his part of it. He planned to track the DeepScan, heading for a shop that rented motorboats to fishermen, and Beacher hoped he wasn’t biting off too much, his first day on the scene.
If anything went wrong…
The agent dismissed that thought. Whoever Cooper was representing, whatever his real name might be, he’d survived in the trade so far without her second-guessing his plans. Beacher knew she should be more concerned with herself, her career and survival, instead of a man she had known less than twenty-four hours.
And take out insurance, she thought. If he blows it, make sure there’s a way to get clear.
That defeatist train of thought disgusted and embarrassed her, but it was part of day-to-day survival in the bowels of a bureaucracy. No one was simply free to do the job he or she had signed on for, without considering the politics involved and how a split-second decision might rebound to scuttle a career.
Turning off Station Road with open parkland opposite, she moved past gift shops and a restaurant, then crossed before she reached the swing bridge. From the sidewalk she could see a green Land Rover parked outside of Memorial Hall, with an emblem of the Highland Salmon Fishery Board.
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