Billingsgate Shoal (27 page)

There was a mere hint of moonlight, just enough to
guide me through the small door next to the big one. Once inside the
barn I softly closed the door behind me and stood and waited. I
breathed slowly through my open mouth, hearing the faint rustle of my
canvas jacket with each breath. I was being very quiet. I damn near
jumped out of my socks when I heard a loud flutter from above. Either
a pigeon or a barn owl. I crept forward between the rows and stacks
of hay bales. They were stacked like giant bricks, each two by two by
four feet and weighing eighty pounds. I snaked my way through the
walls of dried grass. I turned here and there. I didn't know where
the hell I was. After crisscrossing the barn for twenty minutes, I
sat on a bale and considered. There was nothing of interest on the
ground floor, which left the loft and the stable floor below. The
barn was a typical older one: built on a slope with a main door in
the end and another big doorway in the middle on the underside of the
slope which gave access to the stable floor underneath. But usually
there was a trap door or ramp connecting the two lower levels. It
took me another forty minutes of searching before I found it: a wall
ladder over an elongated trap door. It was the rungs that tipped me
off; I brushed by them as I felt my way along the wall and knew there
was a ladder. With my light I found the handle of the trap door, a
metal ring set in a recess. I switched off the light and raised the
door slowly. Nothing. Black as pitch down there. I didn't really want
to go. . . I flipped the light on quickly and looked down. There was
no monster lurking there. I stuffed the flashlight into my hip pocket
where I could reach it in an instant and started down. It was mighty
hard gripping the rungs with my left hand but I managed. The old
stalls were still there. Most of them were stacked high with hay, but
some weren't. Curiously, it was lighter down there than up above
because of the long narrow windows above the stalls. They were
rectangles of faint bluish light, like frozen ghostly fish swimming
around the edges of the barn. I crept out to the center aisle and
could see the stalls, perhaps eight on a side, receding away into the
darkness. I began with the nearest stall and worked my way along. My
watch said two-thirty. Each stall was taking about five minutes. If I
didn't get lucky I'd still be there at dawn. And how long would my
friend Rover stay zonked? Probably another hour at the most.

In the fourth stall, in the middle of the barn's
belly, behind and underneath a few bales and scattered mounds of hay,
I found it. Or rather them. First I felt the rough crate wood, and
could see the pale gleam of whitish wood in the faint light. I
switched on my flashlight. At the instant I did so I heard a sound
from the far end of the barn. I shined the light quickly in that
direction but saw nothing. Probably a rat, coon, or skunk. I cut the
light and waited in the dark ten minutes before going back to the
crates. Then I swept the hay off the uppermost one, and turned the
light back on. It had a double swirl symbol stenciled on it, and
underneath the symbol, stenciled in black paint, the words:

MILITARY ARMAMENT
CORPORATION
POWDER SPRINGS, GA. U.S.A.

Looking for a place to insert the crowbar, I noticed
that someone had already pried the crate open; there was an
indentation between the lid and side of the box where a big
screwdriver had been inserted. I pried off the lid. Inside the box,
which was the size of a small footlocker, were four weapons. They
were strange looking, unlike any firearm I'd ever seen before. They
were ugly, made of stamped dull metal. They looked like pistols, with
big squarish bodies and little teeny barrels sticking out the ends.
The grip projected downward from the middle of the pistol body
instead of the back end. Also in the box were eight clips (two for
each gun) and four big metal tubes about a foot long (longer than the
gun bodies). I picked one of these up; it was heavy and solid. Then I
saw the thread mount on the end of the tube. that matched the one on
the barrel extension on the gun body. I knew what it was then: a
silencer. I picked up one of the bodies. Used to fine shotguns and
pistols, I couldn't believe how cheaply made it looked. There was no
machining whatsoever. It was a rude collection of stamped metal and
spot welds. It looked as though you'd find it lat the bottom of a
Crackerjack box.

A knurled knob on the top of the body moved backward
if I pulled hard on it. There was a big spring in there, but no
external locking and safety lugs like those found on automatic
pistols. But this didn't look like an automatic pistol. It was, I
suspected, a machine-pistol, or submachine gun. And one with a
silencer too. `

Son of a bitch.

There were two of these crates. Underneath those were
three more crates that were noticeably larger. I saw the familiar
logo on the sides: the interfacing triskelion of Colt Industries. I
knew that weapon: the Armalite M16, the standard assault rifle of the
U.S. Army. Joe and his friends at the State Detective Bureau had told
me enough about these to make it clear they were worth a fortune on
the black market. And finally, wrapped in a canvas tarp alongside the
wall were two bulky objects that were wound, mummy style, in
rust-inhibiting paper. I unwrapped one of the bundles enough to peer
at it. It was a medium-weight machine gun. The ribbed metal housing
over the barrels looked oddly familiar but I didn't know why. I
wrapped the big weapon up again and placed it back the way I found
it. I re-covered the crates and scattered the hay back over them.
Then, my light out and stuffed in my hip pocket, I went over to the
ladder.

Two rungs up, a light shone behind me. I blinked my
eyes twice to make it go away. Surely they were playing tricks on me.
Surely I was dreaming.

But I wasn't. I felt cold against the back of my
neck. It was steel, and pressed hard up underneath the big bone in my
skull that lies right behind the ear. It was the barrel of a gun.

"Dawn't move," said a husky voice,
"dawwn't!"
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I DIDN'T. I stared straight ahead at the boards of
the old barn wall. They were whitewashed, and I could see the faint
dried strokes of the coarse brush that had put on the whitewash,
probably about fifty years ago. I didn't move.

"Who are you?" I finally managed.

"Dawn't ask. I'd as soon put a bullet in yer
brain now, and who might you be?"

He had a brogue so thick you could cut it with a cold
chisel. The sound of County Mayo, or Clare; or whatever, coupled with
the weapons I didn't like. And that's when I disobeyed instructions
and moved. I moved like all get-out, too, and I'll tell you why:
Because I thought I was going to die right then. I thought I was
going to get blown away, and all that nicely applied old whitewash
was soon to be besotted with glumps of reddish tissue: skin, bone,
brains, and ocular fluid, as the strange visitor from County Kerry
(or Wicklow, or Donegal, or whatever) blew my head apart so bits and
pieces of it would fly out from homebase and affix themselves to the
wall. That's why I jumped for it.

And that's why I think people with guns pointed at
them try a lot of that "brave" stuff. They aren't brave;
they're scared. They're trying to survive. They know they are a
finger-pull away from death and it has a tendency to bother them. If
I could get free and manage to knock him off balance for a second I
could get the Bull-Barrel out from my pocket in a wink. And though
I'd never harmed a living thing with it, I knew I could give a
gentleman a third nostril at fifty feet. I was very, very good with
that little small-bore target pistol.

So I moved.

I flung myself backward off the ladder. From the way
he held the pistol and the fact that I had climbed two rungs, I
judged myself to be above the gunman by about two feet. As I left the
ladder I rolled to my left, and chopped down and back with the cast
with all I had. I felt the hand strike something semisolid and the
light wavered and flickered crazily around for a second. When I hit
the floor I rolled over to get up, my hand already working the pistol
from the windbreaker's pocket.

But that was as far as I got.

I felt a huge pressure on my upper chest, just below
my Adam's apple. I smelled shoe leather. I felt an iron grip on my
right wrist just above the hand. Jesus did it hurt. Then I felt the
cold pressure of the pistol barrel, again, on my neck. Only this time
it was jamned up under my jaw. The husky voice spoke. It was panting
a bit, but pretty level and very mean.

"Now lok," it said, "I'll not kill you
if you do what's right. But if you dawn't, yer a dead mahn, heer?"

I nodded.

He grabbed the Ruger pistol and jammed his flashlight
up under his right arm and held it shining down on me while he slid
out the clip. He flicked the rounds out one by one but very fast. I
heard a brief ka-chunk and knew he'd ejected the round in the chamber
too. He frisked my other pocket and grabbed the spare clip, which he
disarmed as quickly as the first. Then I was amazed as he handed me
back gun and both clips. With a swirl of hands and cloth he dropped
the rounds into his coat pocket. I heard them rattle as they fell,
like a beanbag. I still couldn't see the face. The light beam was
right in my eyes and he was behind it.

"Get up then."

I did. And I sat with my back against a hay bale as
he asked me my name and business, and why I was where I was, doing
what I was doing. I thought it best, since he had a Walther PPK
pointed at my chest, to tell him. But I made it a point to stall a
bit, to tell mostly of my life and job, and to say how I'd been
hunting a certain boat.

"Ah yes. I saw you on the docks at Plymouth—"

This stunned me.

"Ah yes, I've had my eye on you, sir. Let me see
your wallet. Be quick with it."

He examined it and flung it back. I saw the faint
outlines of his profile as he sat and looked at me. He was thick and
not very tall. He wore a hat. He breathed heavily. I yearned for a
glance of the jaw or cheekbone in profile. . .something my
physician's eye could latch on to for future identification. But no
luck. This man was a pro. The way he'd gotten the drop on me while my
hands were on the ladder (and not a sound to tip me off), the way
he'd countered my moves against him and emptied my pistol, the way he
held the light and gave instructions, they all spelled experience in
a certain line of work that I was obviously still amateur at. And his
sidearm. I didn't know that much about handguns, but from everything
l`d gathered, the Walther PPK was the pro's piece. It was the mark of
the experienced spy, saboteur, policeman—especially overseas.

"Hmmph! Adams. . .an English name. Oh well."

I squirmed on the hay bale.

"Now look here, Doctor Adams, you mind what I
say. You stay away from heer. You stay cleer of that dock in
Plymouth. My friends and I won't like it if you interfeer. Are you
taking careful notion now of what I'm sayin?"

"Uh huh."

"Now rise and go—and—"

He didn't finish his sentence. He lunged at me and
grabbed me by the upper arm.

"Shhhhh! Hush I say," he said in a coarse
whisper. "You stay put, or so help me Katie you'll pay! Did you
leave the trap open?"

"I think so."

The stocky man, still in shadow, moved with
incredible speed. He flung the beam of his flashlight to the rear of
the barn.

"Then hide there, yah. Quick now, or we're both
for it!"

He doused the light as I went behind a big pile of
bales and waited. In less than three seconds I could hear the whine
of a heavy transmission. The squeak of brakes sounded above. I heard
the soft thump of the trap door being shut, the almost metallic sound
of heavy shoes on wooden rungs, and then the man was beside me again.

"Heer it, mahn?"

I nodded and said a low yeah.

"And we're trapped," I whispered.

"Naw! Keep close. And no funnies, heer?"

I followed his heavy breathing farther back to the
end of the barn cellar. Then I remembered that it was from this part
of the cellar that I'd heard the sound earlier as I was opening the
gun crates. No doubt it was my captor, not the skunk or coon I had
supposed. Almost instantly we were making our way through a small
door and up a ramp of gravel to the outside. We left the vicinity of
the barn and made our way halfway up the wooded slope that overlooked
the building.

"They'll find my satchel in those bushes,"
I said, pointing. "They're sure to find it—"

"Naw, laddie. I've taken it up the slope. You
see, you gave yourself away with the flashlight game with the dog,
don't ya know . . though you put him to sleep right nicely. Come on."

Within thirty feet of the car he handed me my
satchel. "Now go, Doctor Adams. Go back to Concord and stay
there if your own personal safety means a damn to you. . .heer? If
you get in my way again I promise you I'll not be so kind."

Then he was gone, moving with that amazing speed,
silence, and agility that was so odd for a thick man. I looked back
down at the barn. It was dark, but I could see faint sweeps and
flashes of lights in the windows. The van near the big door breathed
and purred at idle. Twice I heard anxious loud whispers and the
knocking of wood and doors inside. I saw a shadowy figure kicking at
the dog, who was whining softly. I heard the opening of the van's
doors, and a soft slamming of them too. I dragged myself up the rest
of the slope to my car—Christ I was tired!—and glassed the
building once more. The lights winked out inside the old building,
and the van's headlights went on, shooting narrow white cones of
light out onto the dirt road. It moved away slowly, then gained more
and more speed as it receded into the distance. I poured coffee and
downed it, then went back to the car, backtracked my way down to the
main road, then onto the Mass Pike and headed east for home. I was
hoping to run across the van so I could follow it, but they'd
probably taken another route and had too big a jump on me. I didn't
know if they were loading more weapons into the building or taking
the ones I had seen out. They had used the same door I had used
initially and which I had seen them use earlier. This was puzzling
because the guns were hidden in the stable. floor, but then I
realized that the small door through which we had escaped was ill
suited for vehicles, and the big one was inaccessible because rain
had made a huge gully in the sloping gravel drive.