And when she and her grandmother vanished from the hotel, he would be blamed. The others would know he’d warned her. He was a friend who was doing her a favor by warning her. Yet, all along he’d collected evidence against her grandmother.
Was running away really the right thing to do? Jake seemed to think so. Maybe this investigation was all a case of mistaken identity. They’d discover another Mary McCoy who’d spied for the Germans. Whatever. Her grandmother needed legal advice, an American attorney who’d fight extradition, who’d defend her. Maybe Meg needed one, too. Desperately.
To distract herself from her morose thoughts, Meg kept her eyes on the landscape. The day was turning out to have the usual cold and misty fog that everyone associated with coastal Ireland. As they rode around the Ring of Kerry, a peninsula jutting out into Kenmare and Dingle Bays, all they could see was gray, dense fog; the sea was invisible except for brief patches here and there. Closer to the coach, she could barely see the green, grassy hills. Steep, rocky cliffs plunged down on the other side.
Inland, they passed through fern- and bracken-laden forests, half hidden by swirling mists. Since the coastal views were entirely blanketed, their escort, Robert, couldn’t stop apologizing for the disappointing, nonexistent vistas.
Meg could care less.
The same thought churned around in her head. She should never have brought her grandmother to this place. Her good intentions were now paving the way to her grandmother’s hell. It was all her fault.
It was Jake’s fault!
She had to get Gran out of Ireland tonight!
When they stopped for lunch at Ballinskelligs, overlooking St. Finan’s Bay, she was relieved to get up and stretch her muscles. An idea struck her, and it involved the Le Blancs.
The fog had lulled her grandmother to sleep but she awoke as the coach lurched to a stop.
“C’mon, Gran, time for lunch. And a bathroom break.”
“I don’t feel good,” her grandmother grumbled. “I don’t think I can eat. Let me stay on the coach.”
“No, Gran, you need to move around. It’s good for you. It’s too cold, anyway. We’re having lunch with Pierre and Madeleine.” Most of the passengers, including Jake, had already disembarked. “If you’re in pain, you can have another painkiller but only with your meal. Remember what the doctor said. No more than four painkillers per day.”
At least, bribing her with a painkiller worked most of the time. It was a ploy to get her grandmother to eat. Before Meg’s very eyes, Mary Snider was wasting away mentally and physically. It made Meg tremble with worry. What would she do without the only mother she’d ever known?
In truth, Meg realized her grandmother was probably sneaking one or two more pain pills a day than the doctor had prescribed. But what could Meg do? At home in Frisco, when she was at work, the elderly woman had part-time nursing care. Even so, the homecare attendant couldn’t prevent Mary Snider from medicating herself. It was a matter of will. They’d tried hiding her daily pills—all fourteen of them—but it was impossible. Her grandmother had found all of the hiding places and Meg found it too demeaning and cruel to continue. Grandma had promised her that she wouldn’t overindulge, and Meg had decided to treat her like the adult she was and trust her.
Robert helped Meg’s grandmother down the front steps and to the inn’s entrance. In the parking lot next to the cliffside inn, a black Land Rover pulled up. Then a red, compact Audi drove by and parked alongside the winding cliff road. There were pairs of men in each one. Meg wondered which men were the MI5 surveillance team. The Land Rover disgorged four ruddy-faced men in their forties and fifties in what might pass for hunting or country clothes. Tweeds with suede patches and heavy cords.
The Brits.
She glanced in the direction of the red Audi. Neither man had gotten out but they looked much younger than the MI5 guys. Following her grandmother and Robert inside, Meg spied Jake by the window facing south. Beyond the big, panoramic windows of the inn, the fog enclosed them in a vast, grayish cocoon. There was nothing to see. Meg realized that Jake was watching the red Audi alongside the road. His eyes flickered over to her for a moment and he nodded. Then returned to the Audi.
The skinheads. Of course. The bikers who’d fired at them the night before. Jake had somehow found out who they were. Were they with Blood and Honour, that neo-Nazi group Jake told her about? The one mentioned in that brochure her grandmother had? Who had called them? And why?
A chill ran through her veins.
Her eyes drifted from Jake to the Le Blancs, the French Canadians who were now beckoning her and her grandmother over to their table by the fireplace.
When Meg had asked her grandmother that morning how she’d gotten ahold of that brochure, Mary Snider said she couldn’t remember. Upon further pressing, she admitted Madeleine Le Blanc had given it to her. But her grandmother had insisted it was a harmless, political activist group for which the Le Blancs were fundraising. The German branch of this organization wanted all of them to come to a meeting in Berlin, where there would be a photo shoot for a magazine. When Meg asked why they would want her grandmother in a photo, the elderly woman looked confused and wouldn’t reply.
The Canadian couple must be manipulating her poor, befuddled grandmother into taking part in some kind of promotion for this British right-wing activist group, Blood and Honour.
My God. An uneasy thought assailed her. Had the Le Blancs been in contact with her grandmother before the motor coach tour? Was the tour just a convincing cover for their other hidden right-wing agenda?
Whatever that was.
Still, they might be the only ones who could help her and her grandmother get to the airport in Dublin that night without the MI5 surveillance team stopping them.
Jake couldn’t help them. He’d done enough already!
Pierre Le Blanc helped her grandmother take her seat, removed the elderly woman’s coat and solicitously draped it over the back of her chair. His wife, Madeleine, watched it all approvingly, exchanged a look of satisfaction with her husband as if all was coming together as planned. They became aware that Meg was staring at them.
“Is something wrong, dear?” Madeleine asked, a smile fixed on her perfectly made-up face. With lacquered nails, she smoothed the sides of her upswept, auburn-tinted hairdo, then fondled the sable mink jacket folded over her lap.
So incongruous, the idea of this wealthy, educated couple associating with skinheads? Were they really the ones who had the two motorcyclists fire at them? But why? Were they trying to warn her and Jake off from digging into Mary McCoy’s past?
It didn’t make any sense!
Maybe Jake was wrong about that group. Maybe she was wrong about the Le Blancs. Maybe the whole investigation into her grandmother was a huge mistake. They’d find another Mary McCoy who was the real Nazi spy.
“Oh, just a headache I’ve had all day. Some coffee will help.” She ordered coffee to go with her bowl of Irish stew after a waitress took the others’ orders. Actually, she was too upset and apprehensive to eat anything.
At a barely perceptible cue from his wife, Pierre toasted with his glass of wine.
“A la sante de notre mere!” he said, indicating Meg’s grandmother. To the health of our mother. Huh, whatever that meant! Maybe they were just being overly polite. Going along, Meg clicked glasses. “Sante, grand-mere!”
Against Meg’s advice, her grandmother was drinking wine with her most recent painkiller. Meg knew the combination would zonk the elderly woman out the entire afternoon. Which, considering the day’s miserable weather, was probably just as well. Though she’d need her grandmother alert and mobile that night when it came time to slip out of the hotel and head to the airport.
“Gran, we should leave for home tonight. I really don’t mind cutting short this tour. It’s very important that we leave Dublin tonight.”
Three heads turned to each other, and a brief, quiet exchange of rapid German ensued. Meg continued to be uneasy about the
Le Blancs’ speaking German. That one time at breakfast, when her grandmother and Jake had spoken in German, they’d pretended to not understand. And then this morning at breakfast, the two of them were speaking to her grandmother in rapid, fluent German. But why? Three pairs of eyes bore into her, drilling her with suspicion.
Another fusillade of rapid German, then the diminutive Pierre, normally reserved and quiet-spoken, turned to her.
“What has that Jew cop told you?” he asked in French. “What’s about to happen?” His voice was harsh and autocratic, the first time he’d spoken to her in such a way. There was fear in the man’s brown eyes. In Madeleine’s, too.
Shit! She’d stepped in the middle of something all right! A nest of vipers!
Meg bit her lower lip. She hated to reveal anything to this couple, but if they could assist her in getting her grandmother to the airport on the sly, she’d have to trust them.
In keeping with Pierre’s actions, she lowered her voice and switched to French, also.
“British Intelligence is going to arrest Grandma and me. In Dublin, as soon as we arrive. I need to get her on a plane tonight. We need to go home. Uncle John’ll get her a good lawyer and everything will be fine.”
“Ce n’est pas possible,” said Madeleine; her chin came up in an all too familiar gesture. For the first time, Meg noticed the faint resemblance to her grandmother. The bone structure, the height and slimness. No! Her aching mind was playing tricks…
With deliberate hauteur, Madeleine Le Blanc took off her tinted glasses. For the most part, Meg had ignored this couple over the past week. Distracted by meeting Jake, their intense attraction, discovering who he really was, and the danger her grandmother was in, had occupied her every waking moment. Now, for the first time since Meg had met the woman, she observed her eyes. The same hue of dark, sapphire-blue as Meg’s grandmother. As Meg, herself.
“Pourquoi pas?” Meg asked. “Why not? Why isn’t it possible?”
“Because my mother is coming with us.”
“Y-your mother?”
Meg looked over at her grandmother. Gran nodded and mumbled something in German, to which Madeleine replied. Too hurriedly spoken and too idiomatic for Meg to understand.
“What’s going on? Is this some kind of sick joke?”
Madeleine sneered and continued speaking in rapid French. “No, darling Meg, the only sick joke is your association with that Jew cop.” The woman’s hand shot out to grab Meg’s wrist. “You’ve done enough. Thanks to you and what you’ve told that Jew, your grandmother’s in danger. We all are.”
Her grandmother’s crooked, gloved hand seized her other wrist. Meg looked at her grandmother. There was a glazed-over look about her eyes, a slackness around her mouth.
The damn painkillers were muddying her mind!
“Gran? I didn’t help him—I was only looking for the truth.”
“It’s okay, Meggie dear. You’re young and naïve. Too good for the rest of us.” Her grandmother let go of her wrist and patted the back of her hand. She held up her glass of wine and sipped. “Ah, not bad for such an out-of-the-way place. What do you think, Pierre?”
Pierre smiled condescendingly and murmured approval at the elderly woman, but kept vigilant eyes on Meg. Surreal, Meg thought, her grandmother had no clue what was going on. She was more concerned about the wine than her imminent arrest by MI5.
Madeleine, however, did; she kept a firm hold on Meg’s wrist until Meg wrested her arm away, darting the woman a look of warning. Her first instinct in the midst of this crowded dining room was to call Jake over for help. As if reading her mind, Madeleine’s reaction was smooth, calm, and crackling with disdain.
“Careful now, Meg. You don’t want to alarm the British, do you? Then you and Clare will never get away. They’re here, of course, watching our every move. So what do you want to do, Meg dear? Sound the alarm or let us help our dear Clare escape? You know, she is like a mother to me. We have stayed in touch over the years.”
Meg looked at her grandmother. The elderly woman was smiling with encouragement, as if she were urging Meg to try out for the cheering squad at the high school. There was an air of disconnect about her grandmother’s demeanor. Meg sensed her grandmother didn’t fully comprehend what was happening. Madeleine was pretending to be Clare’s daughter, whoever Clare was. And they’d convinced her grandmother she was this Clare person.
Oh God! What do I do now?
“Gran, I don’t know why they’re calling you Clare. Your name’s Mary Snider. We have to leave. We have to go home. To Texas. We’re can’t go to Germany or anywhere else with the Le Blancs. We have to fly home tonight. From Dublin.”
“But I must do this,” her grandmother said blandly, her dark blue eyes pinning Meg tenderly. “You’ve said many times over the years, dear child, that you wanted to see where I was born and grew up. We’ll do that now. We’ll just do it sooner than Madeleine and I planned.”
“Do what, Gran?”
“Go home, dear.” Her gloved hand fluttered about her blondish-white curls. “This place…Ireland…is not my home.”
“But Texas?”
“Non, Meggie. Chez moi. Allemagne.”
My home. Germany.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The red Audi hadn’t budged from its spot. As prearranged with the MI5 surveillance team, Jake offered himself as bait.
Disregarding the click-clack of lunch dishes being served behind him, he went out the inn’s entrance. Just beyond the Audi was a lookout sight where tourists could park and get out. Guardrails were knee-high and inquisitive fools, if they had a daring mind, could step beyond the railing to look over the edge of the cliff.
He headed in that direction. Walking by the Audi on the roadside, Jake swung his camera hanging by a strap around his neck. Close to the cliff, just a foot beyond the guardrails, there was enough of a patch of open air not blocked by the fog. Pretending to be enticed by the limited but dramatic views of the cliff, the crashing surf and rocks below, Jake stepped over the guardrail and aimed his camera.
Two car doors opened, then shut. Jake didn’t look up. The plan was working. By the entrance, he knew, two MI5 agents were taking position, .45 mm pistols at their side. Jake reassured himself by slipping his right hand inside his jacket and thumbing off the safety of his pistol. Nothing would please him more than a confrontation with these two bastards.
His hand returned to the camera, holding it steady for a shot at the waves below. Boots crunched on the gravel lining the road. He heard one of the skinheads snicker and mumble something about smashing Jew-heads. The driver carried something in his hands. A taser gun? They were going to zap him, render him unconscious, then push him over the cliff, Jake concluded. Or die trying.
C’mon, assholes. Let me teach you Jews no longer lie down. Times’ve changed, you dumbasses.
Peripherally, he saw the two skinheads halt and murmur to each other. One was holding something to his ear. He was evidently talking on his cell phone and keeping his voice low. He heard the man’s Irish accent.
Abruptly, they pivoted around and returned to their car. The engine gunned a couple of times, made a U-turn, then took off down the road. Going in the direction of where the motor coach was heading after lunch. North.
Would they meet again later that day?
Jake was betting on it.
He returned to the inn. The blond Pierce and his partner, an older man named Badgely, wore looks of confusion as they approached him.
“What happened there, Bernstein?”
Jake shrugged. He reached inside his jacket and thumbed the safety back on. “They got a call. I think they plan to meet us later down the road.”
Eager for action, Pierce’s face was crestfallen. “What’s the next stop?”
“Kildare. The Irish National Stud farm.”
“What time?”
“About four, according to our guide.”
“Well, fuckit,” swore the older guy, Badgely, “I wa
s hoping we’d get a little piece of ’em out here. The bloody fog’s putting me to sleep. And I’m the one driving!”
Pierce grinned. “Can’t wait to nab these bloody wankers. Could tell by the tattoos on the back of their heads, they’re Celtic Wolves. Temple says there’s a Canadian couple in this coach that’s running this fuckin’ neo-Nazi show.”
“Possibly. Keep an eye on them,” urged Jake, “she’s the tall, middle-aged woman in the mink jacket, auburn hair. He’s short, effeminate, wears a fedora most of the time. They’re cooking up something with our target. Don’t know what it is.”
“What about the informant? The granddaughter?”
“She doesn’t know anything,” Jake said curtly. “She’s just as much in the dark about this couple as we are.”
“Can’t wait to clap handcuffs on the ol’ bag! You sure her granddaughter isn’t trying to obstruct justice?”
“I’m positive,” said Jake, not liking the direction of Pierce’s comments. “On the contrary, she’s been helpful.”
Badgely smirked. “Wish Temple would give me an assignment like yours, Bernstein. Wouldn’t mind getting some so-called help from a pretty, young thing like her.”
Pierce guffawed. “Oh yah, sure, you hound-dog. You’d send the dish running in disgust!” Badgely smiled good-humoredly and flipped his partner the bird. When they looked over at Jake, their expressions changed.
Pierce sobered quickly. “Sounds like Temple’s got everything in place. Soon as the Irish minister gives the nod for the arrest warrants, in we go.” Pierce spat, glanced over at his partner. “Let’s go in and tip a pint, Badgely. Nothing else to do while we wait for these tourists to finish up.”
They waited, Jake noticed, five minutes before following him in. The inn’s bar area, he saw, already was full of sightseers, disappointed by the weather but not about to waste the day without their favorite ale. The two new agents sent by Major Temple that morning were sitting at a small table in the dining room, casting furtive glances around the room. Their gazes connected briefly with Jake’s before he looked over at Meg’s table. Jake wondered if the new guys were picking up any conversation from her table.
A Bodyguard of Lies Page 28