The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  Conor woke again, feeling even more stiff and lightheaded than he had earlier. He lay still, wondering if it was worth the attempt, but finally he pulled himself up and started along the trail. At the top of the rise, the village appeared in the distance.

  He continued on, stopping frequently to rest. Each time, it took little longer to catch his breath, until at last it escaped him entirely.

  The next time he swam up into consciousness, he felt a band like iron tightening around his chest, and then he realized it was a pair of arms, grappling to raise him to his feet.

  “Where am I?” He asked the question first in English and then, remembering, repeated it in Hindi.

  “Bunagam.” The unseen voice behind him was low and musical. “Sir, please lean on me. My cart is just there. American doctors are near the village. I will bring you.”

  He didn’t want to be saved. Mumbling a polite refusal, he tried to settle himself on the dusty ground, but the tenacity and surprising strength of the man’s arms defeated him. Conor allowed himself to be brought to his feet, and with painstaking effort, he crawled onto the cart’s rough-hewn planks and collapsed. Face down, he remained motionless as his rescuer climbed aboard and urged the oxen forward. The vehicle lurched into motion.

  The day had lost most of its warmth, and his fever was climbing. He rolled onto his back, shivering, and slid his hands into the pockets of his coat. His right hand brushed against something small and feathery soft. Conor drew out the marigold with the tips of his fingers, and holding it up between his eyes and the setting sun, recited to himself what his brother had not needed: the last lines of the Bright Prayer.

  Lig an tsoilse mhór amach. (Let the great light out.)

  Is an t-anam trua isteach. (Let the wretched soul in.)

  Ó a Dhia déan trócaire orainn. (God have mercy upon us.)

  A Mhic na hÓighe, go bhfaighe ár n-anam. (Son of the Virgin, receive our souls.)

  “And let it be soon,” he whispered. “Please God, let it be soon.”

  40

  The nursing aide squinted down at the lunch tray longer than was strictly necessary for the purpose, lips pursed in concentration. Conor imagined she was groping for encouragements that would prove more effective than those she’d already tried. He felt a bit sorry for her as she looked at him with sad reproof.

  “You’ve not touched a bite of it.”

  She was a stout, rather adorably earnest young woman, with an elaborate cornrow hairstyle that decorated her head like a work of art. The disappointment in her voice pricked his conscience, but not enough to matter.

  “Don’t take it personally, Jeanie,” he said. “Anyway, I drank the tea.”

  “You always drink the tea,” she protested. “But, you can’t live on tea.”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  An awkward silence followed, but Jeanie was made of stubborn stuff. She had shown that to him a few times already. “At least you’re out of bed, sitting up in a chair. That’s more than I hoped for. What about a walk to the solarium? Are you strong enough for it?”

  “Probably, but I’m not interested.”

  “Which is what you say about bloody everything.” Jeanie gave him a close look, as though willing him to stand up and walk. “It’s a gorgeous London afternoon, and you can see the park just coming on to bloom. It’s lovely.”

  It was easier to concede the round than continue arguing. With a sigh of acquiescence, Conor followed his nurse from the room.

  Kings College Hospital was sprawled across a number of interconnected buildings. They walked down three corridors, crossed an enclosed walkway connecting to a separate wing, and took an elevator to the top floor’s solarium. By the time they stopped next to a window overlooking the park, he was completely spent and breathing hard.

  “You got me that time,” he said, dropping into a wingback chair. “Fair play, but bring the feckin’ wheelchair when you come back for me.”

  “I’ll bring it with a supper tray on it.” The young woman’s pretty brown eyes danced with self-satisfaction. “We’ll see how you get on, and maybe I’ll let you ride on it yourself. Now, enjoy the sunshine.”

  Conor settled into the chair, ignoring the view. “They’re not paying you enough to deal with the likes of me, Jeanie.”

  Reflexively, he tried to clear the gravelly scrape from his voice before remembering the effort was pointless. The incision from the tracheotomy had healed, but the hoarseness persisted and appeared likely to do so indefinitely.

  Laryngeal nerve damage. In delivering the diagnosis, the Kings College physician could not suppress a sniff of disdain—his editorial comment on what passed for quality workmanship in rural Kashmir.

  “I’d like to see you do as much with a jackknife and a hookah pipe,” Conor had observed, sarcastically.

  He felt a protective appreciation for the ingenuity of the doctors who had saved his life. While the outcome might have been unwelcome from his own viewpoint, he was not so churlish as to resent the effort that achieved it.

  Of course, Frank deserved his place on the hero’s platform as well. His phone calls to the right people had engineered a medical evacuation the villagers in Bunagam would talk about for years, and the rapid transfer from Delhi to London was an additional testament to his network of influence.

  Now that Conor had been more or less delivered to him on a platter, he wondered what further use Frank would make of his privileged connections and to what purpose. He had as yet made no visit to his ailing protégé’s bedside, but a few weeks earlier, two men had appeared in Conor’s room, flaunting IDs with sinister aplomb and announcing the start of his operational debrief.

  Fortunately, they made the mistake of trying to begin when he was still too sick to cooperate. With an abrupt entrance, the angelic Jeanie had sabotaged the interrogation just as it was beginning. Reading the exhausted alarm in his eyes, she had promptly found a doctor to order the two men from his room.

  With that miscalculation, the agents forfeited their advantage. Conor had time to form a strategy of his own—namely, to lie—and he exaggerated his weakness until he felt well enough to do it convincingly. When the interviews began again, the agents committed a second tactical error. One of them revealed that Sedgwick was still missing. He preferred not to think too deeply about what that meant. For his immediate purpose, its significance was in knowing that his version of events was the only one on offer. At least for now.

  Frank’s absence from the proceedings was noteworthy, but Conor felt sure he was reading the transcripts. Although his interrogators had seemed initially satisfied with his answers, two days earlier they’d arrived with a third agent who administered a polygraph test. That seemed a good indication of how his recruiting officer regarded the web of deceit he was spinning.

  His head slipped sideways, resting against the wing of the chair. He got little therapeutic effect from sleep these days. The guttural cries that inevitably shocked him awake were as disturbing as the dreams prompting them. The nursing staff responded to his night terrors with unflagging compassion, but the embarrassment of having to be comforted like a child afraid of the dark only added to the torment. Because he worked so hard to avoid sleep, he was perpetually on the verge of it. He fought to resist its pull now, but the chair was soft and the sun, warm. His eyes closed; his mouth dropped open.

  The nightmare hadn’t started yet, but a quality of dread was building in his slumbering mind when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. He exploded into consciousness with a yell, coughing in ragged whoops. The face in front of him recoiled in surprise.

  “Jesus and Mary,” Conor gasped. “You’re after giving me a cardiac.”

  “That wasn’t the intent, I assure you.” Frank Murdoch lifted a precisely sculpted eyebrow. “Good Lord, you sound ghastly. I’ll fetch some water, shall I?”

  By the time Frank returned, Conor had recovered on his own, but he accepted the glass and tried to meet his visitor’s scrutiny with disinterest.r />
  “What are you doing here?”

  Frank smiled. “Hardly an enthusiastic greeting. You’re not pleased to see me? How wounding, particularly when I’ve come with such happy news. Although from your appearance I question their judgment, Kings College Hospital is quite happy to release you at the end of this week. They will be escorting you to the street at eleven o’clock on Friday morning.”

  “Into whose waiting arms?” Conor asked.

  “I leave that entirely to you, dear boy. The captains of British intelligence view your contract as fulfilled. You are free to revel in whomsoever’s arms you please.”

  Careful to hide his surprise, Conor put the glass down on the table beside him with a slight frown. “You’re letting me leave?”

  “Well, what more could we ask of you?” Frank reached into a calfskin briefcase sitting next to his feet. “You’ve provided a debrief simply saturated in colorful detail, and your polygraph examination merely confirmed what I already knew . . . ” As he straightened, holding a thick manila folder in his hands, the playful humor vanished from Frank’s face. “That we trained up an agent with talents for fabrication and evasion that have far exceeded our modest expectations.”

  With lips pressed together in fury, Frank tossed the folder at him. Conor ducked and fumbled to catch the papers as they bounced off the chair and spilled into his lap.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “My question as well, Conor,” Frank jeered. “What am I to do with this steaming packet of shite? It is hardly more use to me than it is to you.”

  He rose to his feet and went to the window. Conor glanced at a few of the pages before dropping the pile onto the floor and addressing Frank’s slender back. “So, I passed the polygraph test. I would have thought that counted as proof of sincerity.”

  Frank didn’t respond. He didn’t move a millimeter. It was a side of the man Conor had not previously seen. He wondered if the tantrum was genuine or another piece of manufactured stagecraft.

  “Look, I’m sorry if the story isn’t as exciting as you’d like.”

  “I don’t require it to be exciting,” Frank said, still facing the window. “I do require it to be true.”

  “And what makes you think it isn’t?” He immediately wished he hadn’t spoken. Frank had goaded him into engagement. There was no quick end in sight now. Slowly, with his head tilted to one side, the agent turned from the window.

  “What happened at the beginning of February?” he asked.

  “In the beginning of February, I was sick as a dog with tuberculosis.” Conor gave the pile of papers a kick. “If you don’t believe the transcript, you can talk to the doctors here.”

  “How did you contract it?”

  “I don’t know.” Conor sighed. “I got breathed on. It’s India, Frank.”

  “Where was Curtis Sedgwick?” The questions were coming quickly now.

  “In Dubai, I suppose.”

  “Why?”

  “I assumed it was to do with Ahmed Khalil’s business, but really, I’ve no idea. He didn’t say.”

  “He stopped filing reports at the beginning of February. Why?”

  Conor summoned up a scowl of incredulity. “Jesus Christ, do you need a picture drawn? He fecked off. Ditched me. He said he had a tip that Thomas was going to meet his gunrunners in a Kashmiri village near Srinagar. I figured we’d go there together but then he dumped me at the train station, said he had to go to Dubai, and I never saw the bastard again.”

  “Why didn’t you report it?” Frank demanded.

  Pulling an insolent pout, Conor shrugged. “Not my job. Besides, I was in a hurry to get to Kashmir.”

  “Where you achieved nothing.”

  “I . . . ” Conor faltered. The bald truth of the accusation knocked him off stride. “Where I achieved nothing,” he finally confirmed.

  “Never saw your brother,” Frank persisted. “Or any of his associates.”

  “No. The car I hired broke down somewhere around Bunagam. I guess I was still walking toward it when I keeled over. Somebody dragged me into the village, called in the Americans, and they found your card in my pocket. And there you have it.”

  “Bullshit.” Frank’s tight-lipped fury had subsided. The blunt observation came with a puzzled shake of his head. “It’s admirably consistent. Pitch-perfect in its delivery—almost flawless. And it is an audacious raft of bullshit from beginning to end.”

  “Whatever you say.” Conor rested his head against the chair and closed his eyes. It was the third time he’d run through this part of the story. He wondered if it would be as tiring if he were telling the truth. Frank sat down again, crossing his legs and studying him.

  “I see two possible explanations for lying,” Frank said after several minutes of silence. “One is guilt, the other fear. Let’s take the last one first, shall we? What is it you fear, Conor? Are you afraid of me, for instance?”

  He opened his eyes and looked at Frank. “Should I be?”

  “I should think not. I should think you’d realize that I of all people am in a position to protect you.”

  “Protect me?” Conor snorted. “How’s that been working so far, do you think?”

  Frank uncrossed his legs and bent forward, pitching his voice to an icy, even tone. “Let me make this plain for you. MI6 is releasing you. I have no authority to detain you further. If you feel strong enough to drag yourself to the airport, you can even leave tonight and go where you like. Be advised, however, that despite your lack of cooperation, this work will go on. I will ensure that it does. I will eventually learn the truth, and I will get what I want.”

  “You make it sound quite personal, Frank.” Conor held his gaze without flinching. “Why does this interest you so much, I wonder.”

  “My interests, personal or otherwise, don’t concern you,” Frank said. “But if I discover that your lies have been a ruse to mask complicity in the betrayal of this mission, there is no hole on earth that can hide you from me, and I will—”

  “What? Torture me? Kill me? Or let someone else do it?” Conor fired the questions with intentional force, hoping to surprise a spontaneous reaction in the coldly controlled face. It worked, but not in the way he anticipated. Frank’s mouth dropped open in amazement—dumbfounded, guileless, and utterly innocent.

  “For the love of God, why would you think that?” he said in a strained voice, as though the question was painful to ask.

  Feeling the tension ebb away from him, Conor dropped forward to brace an elbow on his knee, shaking his head. He didn’t think it. If Sedgwick was wrong and MI6 wasn’t mixed up with Durgan, it was still almost certain he had a friend inside it, but his instincts told him Frank didn’t know a thing about it. For whatever reason—and it did seem oddly personal—the agent was clearly still committed and invested in the mission of tracking down the elusive “wizard” he had been talking about from the beginning.

  Instincts can be wrong. He’d pointed that out once to Thomas. The thought occurred again now, but even though his brother wasn’t there to convince him, he decided to trust his gut. It was time to tell the truth. When he lifted his head, Frank was still watching him.

  “I won’t believe that you and I are enemies, Conor.”

  “We’re not.” Conor sat up with a sigh. “But I have them, Frank. A fair number, actually, and I think you and I share at least one in common. There’s a few would like to get at me for what I did to them and a few who think I’ve got something they want, even though I don’t.”

  Conor thought about the compromised mission in Gulmarg. Sedgwick was missing. Was he still alive? Was Walker? And what about Costino? If he had escaped, he and Vasily Dragonov were no doubt concerned about a certain twenty million dollars that had disappeared. It had been lifted from the DEA’s account, and surely by now they’d noticed it wasn’t in Dragonov’s. Conor had the password for the South American account, but what was the likelihood of the arms dealer believing he had no idea which cou
ntry—let alone, bank—Thomas had chosen for the deposit?

  “And there’s one man who thinks he’s been betrayed and lied to for years, and he’s right about that.” Conor paused a few seconds before crossing the point of no return. “Your wizard’s name is Robert Durgan—at least, that’s one of his names—but I don’t know who or where he is or how to find him.”

  “What happened at the beginning of February?” Frank asked again, gently this time.

  “At the beginning of February, I found Thomas, and by the end of it . . . I’d lost him again.”

  41

  The morning sun was climbing to its zenith, strengthening as it ascended. It poured a lemon-colored light into Frank’s office, drawing a liquid glint from the polished wood of his desk. The chaos of London traffic five floors below was no more than a faint rumble in the background, giving the room an impression of tranquility. Conor sat in front of the desk and watched the relaxed figure behind it lean back into a tall leather chair, swivel slowly, and eye him with an air of speculative appraisal.

  “I don’t think I care for your looks,” Frank said, flatly.

  “That’s surprising,” Conor replied. “I was pretty sure you did.”

  A slight flush colored Frank’s aristocratic cheekbones. He flicked his eyes over Conor and looked away with a sniff of impatience. “I refer to your present appearance. Wraith-like. You’ve gained no weight during recovery, and I think the physicians have exaggerated the state of it. Did they even look at you before chucking you into a taxi this morning?”

  “Well—”

  “Your skin has quite a sallow look about it.”

  “Sallow?” Conor held out a hand and looked at it, curiously.

  “And your voice still sounds as though you’ve come off a debauched night of whiskey and cigarettes. Is it painful?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it sounds dreadful.”

  Conor rolled his eyes. “Jaysus, Frank, you’re very hard to please. Did you ask me here just to dissect me? I was under the impression you would have something for me.”