Thinner but otherwise unchanged, he still looked like the broad-shouldered, rusty-haired man Conor had once considered more steadfast than his own flesh and blood. He thought he'd grown used to the idea that the nemesis he'd loathed as a stranger wore the face of a friend, but confronting it now filled him with helpless grief—until the figure bent toward him, and his mocking eyes became visible in the computer glow. There was no friend called Phillip Ryan in the room now, or any loving husband named Michael Fitzpatrick. There was only this murderer, Robert Durgan—the man who had played with all of their lives like a maniacal púca, the shapeshifting goblin of Irish folklore.
"Welcome back, Conor." His accent—expressed in the same bell-like tenor Conor remembered—had always been a bit of a muddle. "Like chickens home to roost aren't we, the pair of us?"
"Are you here since . . . ?" Conor fumbled for words, forcing his ability for speech to catch up with his thoughts. "Have you been living here all along, for fuck's sake?"
Durgan smirked at him. "What a hoot that would have been, right? But no, sure I only turned up early this morning. I've been floating around in a cabin cruiser on the Shannon River Estuary for the past month. I thought it would be nice to spend my last night in Ireland on—well, actual land. I got the motorbike out of storage, rode up to check the place out and leave some groceries, and went back to the harbor to collect a few things off the boat. Imagine my surprise when I came back—Jaysus, here's Conor McBride in his old bed, fast asleep with his legs wrapped around my beautiful wife." Turning to Kate, he bent to her ear and began singing softly.
"As I went home on Thursday night as drunk as drunk could be.
I saw two boots beneath the bed where my old boots should be.
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me . . ."
He stroked the back of one finger along her cheek, and Kate squirmed in her chair, trying to avoid his touch.
"Stop. Shut up."
"Ah go on, darlin'. That's not how it goes." He pouted and caught her face in his hand, giving her chin a playful pinch.
"Get your hands off her." Trying to sit up, Conor strained against the cord wound around his wrists.
Durgan lifted himself from the table and casually laid a boot on his shoulder, pressing him back down to the floor. "Why? I've had me hands all over her from the minute I put the mallet to your head. Conjugal rights, mate. She didn't' complain."
With a quick jerk, Conor rolled away from the boot and swung his feet forward, bringing one of them up to land a hard kick on Durgan's thigh. Kate cried out as he stumbled back and tripped over one of the straight-backed chairs.
"Conor, don't. He's got a gun. And he's lying, anyway."
This time Conor managed to struggle up to a sitting position and then to his knees, examining her more closely. One cheek seemed red and swollen, and bruises had begun forming on her arms.
"I'm all right," she said, tears streaming down her face.
"Tell me," he begged. "Are you saying he—"
"I'm saying he didn't. He's still more interested in my money than anything else. We've been looking at bank accounts for the past hour. He's changed the passwords."
"Lucky break, her turning up here, since my own hard-earned money is unavailable. Lucky, but probably not a coincidence, no matter how much Kate wants me to think so. I'm hoping you can explain it all to me, Conor." Durgan righted the chair he'd toppled over, and with exaggerated care took Conor by the arm and lifted him into the seat before returning to lean against the table. "Did my friend Tony track you down on his own? Has the CIA decided they like you better than me? Nothing to say? Well, maybe this will help my wife chime in with something more sensible." Durgan strolled forward and struck Conor across the face, and then went on hitting him.
The blows themselves were endurable, but they rocked Conor from side to side and heightened the sickening pain at the back of his head. Closing his eyes only made the dizziness worse, and though he fought the growing nausea, breathing in shallow spurts, he eventually lost the battle. He twisted from the chair and heaved everything in his stomach onto his grandmother's hand-loomed rug.
He heard Kate screaming surrender and tried to tell her not to talk, but couldn't blame her when she didn't listen to him. He imagined he looked a pretty sorry sight, doubled over on the floor next to his own mess. She was terrified for him.
"She's not trained for this," he reminded himself, sorrowfully. "I never should have brought her." This was before Conor began paying attention to what Kate was saying—before he realized he had underestimated her again.
"Untie me first.”
"Nice try. You're hardly in a position to make demands."
"It's not a demand." Kate sighed. "This cord is hurting me. You have a gun, and you've made sure he's not going to get up anytime soon." With effort, she kept her eyes on her captor and away from Conor, who lay motionless, his face to the floor. "You're not afraid of me, so why do you have to keep hurting me?"
"Oh, Michael, if you ever loved me . . ." He affected a whining falsetto that cracked into an unpleasant laugh. But then, he untied her.
Despite his pointed reference, she had not addressed him as Michael. She hadn't addressed him as anything. She didn't know what to call the monster that had appeared at the foot of Conor's bed like a ghost in a nightmare. The man she'd once loved now seemed a familiar stranger, but as she'd been reminded earlier, some things hadn't changed. There had always been a certain expression—one of tense, fearful hunger—that he'd never been able to hide when he needed something from her. A similar sort of tension stiffened his face now, an awareness of his vulnerability. He knew nothing, and his ignorance offered the only advantage she had.
If she told the story carefully, she and Conor might live long enough for help to arrive. Either the Garda would discover them on their evening rounds between the farmhouse and Durgan's house in Dingle, or Sedgwick would arrive. His flight had been scheduled to land a few minutes earlier, and it wouldn't take him long to suspect something.
Her instincts told her not to get tripped up in lies, but few were needed. The first was simply to pretend they had come to the house with the intention of being alone for the night. The second was more complicated. The only way to keep this villain from slipping the noose was to make him believe he should walk right into it. Kate rubbed her hands against her arms, tingling now as the sensation returned to them.
On the floor, his face still turned away from them, Conor shifted a little and groaned. She allowed herself a brief glance, hoping he'd understand what she was trying to do, and started her confession. "The CIA isn't sending anyone to help you. This whole thing is a plan hatched by the DEA when Conor and one of their agents went to India and found Tony Costino—"
Waving a hand at her impatiently, he dragged another chair forward and sat down. "I don't give a damn who hatched the plan. Skip the acronyms, and the history and all your bleedin' midnight strategy meetings. Just tell me what's supposed to go down tomorrow at the airport. I was told to meet a guy in the bar at ten o'clock. Who's he got coming with him?"
"That's the problem. Nobody is coming with him. He's a DEA agent and he doesn't even know the two of us are here. We—well, Conor, but I insisted on coming—we were planning to sit in a van outside, to see for ourselves when you showed up, to make sure you didn't get away again." Kate covered her face. "It's all so ridiculous. This was never going to work. Nothing was going to go down at the airport."
"Just me and him sharing a pint and a laugh? Not bloody likely. You're having me on."
Kate braced herself for the lie that mattered most. "We thought the idea was stupid too, but he didn't ask our opinion. No arrest was planned until the plane landed in Washington. The agent meeting you was just supposed to keep this fiction going that the CIA is bringing you in for something new. He's even got your new identity with an authentic passport, and the plane tickets." She paused before adding an apparent afterthought. "You were supposed to f
ly to Gatwick first."
"And what happens at Gatwick?"
He was listening with greater interest, just as she'd hoped. Kate shrugged. "Nothing. You wait for your next flight. Sit in the bar, hit the duty free store, they didn't care. It's completely hands-off until you arrive at Dulles. They'd let you wander around wherever you want rather than have you suspect anything. You could walk out the door and hop a bus if you wanted, which is the point I tried to make to everyone."
"Or catch another flight." He gave a soft laugh, rocking his chair back.
"I suppose," Kate said in a small voice.
He was quiet for several minutes, then threw a speculative gaze at the laptop and got to his feet. "The details for the new identity. What are they?"
"I don't understand. Why would you need—"
He gave her face a sharp slap. "You don't need to understand. Answer the question."
"I don't know the details, but Conor helped the agent create the identity. He has everything in a folder in his bag upstairs."
In his eagerness, he didn't bother to tie her up again. He took the gun from the table and bolted up the stairs while Kate threw herself on to the floor next to Conor. She gently rolled him on his back and he grinned up at her, eyes shining in admiration.
"In the name of God, woman. Where did you ever learn to do that?"
At first, it looked like her plan would work. Almost immediately, Durgan jogged downstairs with the folder in his hand and smirked at Conor, who still lay prostrate on the floor.
"Right, mate. Soak up a little tenderness while I start spending her money. The first item I'm going to buy is a plane ticket out of Gatwick."
He sat facing them with his back to the wall, waving the gun as a stern reminder, and then focused on the laptop. He was too preoccupied to pay either of them any attention, but readily agreed when Kate asked permission to help Conor.
"The smell coming off him is desperate." Durgan didn't take his eyes from the screen. "Clean him up but leave him tied and don't turn on the lights, and make us a cup of tea."
The kitchen, of course, was full of potential weapons. Kate went so far as to pull an impressive-looking meat cleaver from the drawer, but acknowledging the lunacy of thinking she'd be able to overpower a muscular armed man, she put the knife back and took out the teaspoons instead.
The darkness outside was now complete, and she had only the glow from the laptop guiding her steps when she returned to the living room. With a basin of soap and hot water and several towels, she cleaned up Conor and the floor around him, then got him across the room and onto the couch. She sat beside him, feeding him small sips of tea while they whispered together.
"Are you all right?"
"I think so. It's like being drunk. As soon as you've puked, you feel a lot better." His smile was brief. "Don't let on, though. Let him think he's pummeled me witless." His face darkened as he looked at the bruises on her cheek. "Kate, what did he do to you?"
"I'm okay. Don't worry about me." She took Conor's arm and held tight, desperate to keep him from flying at Durgan in a suicidal rage. "Let's focus on getting through this. Sedgwick will find us. He just needs time to get here."
"Well, you've bought that for us. I hope it's enough." He regarded her sadly. "But if not, Kate—"
"Right. Done and dusted." Durgan snapped the laptop shut and got to his feet. Kate was almost happy for the interruption. She hadn't liked the enigmatic expression in Conor's eyes.
"Come on, and get him up, too." Durgan yanked her from the couch, aiming his gun at Conor. "We're getting out of here."
Kate stared at him. "You're leaving? Now? And taking us with you?"
He'd clearly made a more elaborate plan than she'd intended. She didn't know whether to argue or not, since the alternative to going with him might be even more dangerous, as Durgan confirmed with his next command.
"Get him up. If he can't manage, I'll shoot him right now. He doesn't matter that much."
Conor had fallen back on the sofa with his mouth hanging open, playing possum. At least, she hoped he was. She scrambled to lift him, suggesting under her breath he might give her a little help. They were leaving before the cavalry arrived. They were out of time.
35
Conor stopped at the last bend in the steep, M-shaped promenade and braced his hands on the wall to peer down at the deserted Dunquin jetty. Under a blanket of starlight the water lapped against the concrete ramp, and he heard the lazy, slopping rhythm as each wave rolled forward.
"Are you mental? It's a tricky run even in daylight, but in the dark? You'll have all three of us killed before you're done."
"I can do this run with my eyes shut." Durgan met Conor's incredulity with a smug grin. "You're forgetting I worked the ferry all summer, once I'd lost my old job, and I've still got the keys." He jangled them in front of Conor's eyes. "Plus, my wife can tell you what a dab hand I am with a boat, right, darlin'?" He sent Kate ahead of him with a push, and gave Conor a sharp poke with the gun. "Keep walking."
The directive was easier to obey now that his hands were untied. Conor had been pressed into driving the rental car with Durgan next to him and the gun firmly planted against his ribs, while Kate sat in the back seat. He'd been surprised when they'd turned away from town to head west, but he soon understood at least part of Durgan's strategy when he threw a pen and paper into the back, ordering Kate to provide phone numbers for her father and grandmother.
"Your father may not think you're worth the price. Cheap little caffler would light a smoke in his pocket before he'd share one. Your old hag of a grandmother is a different story, I'll bet. She'll open every bank box in Zurich for you."
It was an eerie journey along the dark winding road with the wide expanse of Dingle Bay on their left. The wind picked up as they continued west, roaring at full gale when they rounded the bend at Slea Head at the tip of the peninsula. By the time they reached the remote, isolated harbor at Dunquin and parked the car near the ferry's ticket kiosk, Conor had guessed the rest of the plan. Stalling, he'd continued to play up his head-injured condition, stumbling and falling at every opportunity until Durgan crouched down to growl a threat into his ear.
"Do you think I have any use for you at all, Conor? The only reason you're still alive is because I know she'll lose her rag as soon as I shoot you. I'd rather not deal with hysterics just now, but I will if you make me. So, you can get down this ramp and help her put the inflatable into the water, or I can send you on to kingdom come. Your choice."
The "inflatable" was a twenty-foot boat with a small outboard motor, used for transporting passengers out to the ferry, which sat anchored in deeper water a hundred yards from shore. Conor and Kate began hauling the boat from the corner of the jetty while Durgan kept the gun trained on them, smoking a cigarette at the water's edge near the end of the ramp.
"Do you know what's going on?" Kate whispered.
"Kidnapping the heiress, take two," Conor quipped, hoping to dampen some of their edgy fear. "See the outline in the distance? An Blascaod Mor, the Great Blasket. Still has a few broken down houses, but the people living in them got evacuated in the early fifties. The island is uninhabited now, except for day-trippers and sheep during the summer. The tourist ferry stops in October, and they usually take the last of the sheep off by the end of the month, so I imagine it's well and truly deserted by now."
"And he's going to dump us out there," Kate said. "Leave us and demand a ransom for telling my family where we are."
"Seems to be the general idea." Conor got a tighter grip on the ropes of the inflatable, deciding it would be unwise to shatter the illusion about the "we" part of her theory. "He figures if he ties us up and throws us into one of the houses, nobody will find us for a good while."
"What are we going to do?"
"I'm working on it."
"We need to get the gun away from him."
Conor wiped the sweat from his forehead and glanced at her, eyebrows raised.
"Okay,
I know. Easier said than done." Kate gave the boat a half-hearted shove. "At least my story worked. He's still planning to go to the meeting tomorrow. Sedgwick will have to be at the airport, hoping he'll show, and I'm sure he'll find a way to make Durgan confess where he's put us. Worst-case scenario is we get locked away on an island for a day."
This was far from the worst-case scenario, but Conor said nothing to spoil her brave composure. He was keeping a watchful eye on Durgan, looking for any chance to disarm him, but the man was alert to every twitch of muscle, and eager for an excuse to pull the trigger. There didn't seem to be a move he could make that wasn't suicidal.
The inflatable carried them to the ferry, and once onboard Durgan made Kate tie up Conor again, then brought her into the wheelhouse while they got underway. When the ferry had moved far from shore, he allowed her to return to the back deck, locking the wheelhouse door behind her as she exited.
"He said our only escape would be to jump overboard and drown.” Wearily, she fell onto the bench next to Conor and began working at the knotted cord around his wrists. “How long does it take?"
"Drowning?"
"The ride to the island," Kate clarified patiently.
"Usually about twenty minutes. He'll go a bit slower in the dark."
She looked out at the inflatable boat, secured to the rear and trailing along in their wake. "What if we leap out onto the dinghy, start the motor and cut the rope?"
Conor smiled. "It's at least twenty feet back. Can you leap that far?"
"I'm not sure," Kate admitted. She rubbed at his chafed wrists, bending her head to kiss them, and her shoulders began to shake. "I guess I'm not too good at this."
The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3 Page 63