When he kicked the starter, the engine roared into life at once. He sat there for a moment adjusting things, then he crossed himself and rode away. The sound of the engine faded into the distance and after a while there was only silence.
At that moment in Dublin, Martin McGuiness was watching one of his men put the receiver back on the phone rest.
'The line's dead, that's certain.'
'That seems more than a little strange to me, son,' McGuiness said. 'Let's pay Liam a visit, and let's drive fast.'
It took McGuiness and a couple of his men forty minutes to get there. He stood watching while his men released Devlin and the girl and shook his head.
'Christ, Liam, it would be funny seeing the great Liam Devlin trussed up like a chicken if it wasn't so bloody tragic. Tell me again? Tell me what it's about, then.'
He and Devlin went into the kitchen and Devlin filled him in on what had happened. When he was finished, McGuiness exploded. The cunning bastard. On the Falls Road in Belfast City they remember him as a saint, and him a sodding Russian agent pretending to be a priest.'
'I shouldn't think the Vatican will be exactly overjoyed,' Devlin told him.
'And you know what's worse? What really sticks in my throat? He's no fucking Russian at all. Jesus, Liam, his father died on an English gallows for the cause.' McGuiness was shaking with rage now. 'I'm going to have his balls.'
'And how do you propose to do that?'
'You leave that to me. The Pope at Canterbury, is it? I'll close Ireland up so tight that not even a rat could find a hole to sneak out.'
He bustled out, calling to his men and was gone. Tanya came into the kitchen. She looked pale and tired. 'Now what happens?'
'You put on the kettle and we'll have a nice cup of tea. You know, they say that in the old days a messenger bearing bad news was usually executed. Thank God for the telephone. You'll excuse me for a few minutes while I go across the road and ring Ferguson.'
BALLYWALTER ON THE COAST just south of Dundalk Bay near Clogher Head could hardly be described as a port. A pub, a few houses, half-a-dozen fishing boats and the tiniest of harbours. It was a good hour and a half after Devlin's phone call to Ferguson that Cussane turned his BSA motorcycle into a wood on a hill overlooking the place. He pushed his machine up on its stand and went and looked down at Ballywalter, clear in the moonlight below, then he went back to the bike.and unstrapped his holdall and took out the black trilby which he put on his head instead of the crash helmet.
He started down the road, bag in hand. What he intended now was tricky, but clever if it worked. It was like chess really; trying to think not just one move, but three moves ahead. Certainly now was the time to see if all that information so carefully extracted from the dying Danny Malone would prove worthwhile.
Sean Deegan had been publican in Ballywalter for eleven years. It was hardly a full-time occupation in a village that boasted only forty-one men of the legal age to drink, which explained why he was also skipper of a forty-foot motor fishing boatMary Murphy. Added to this, on the illegal side of things, he was not only a member of the IRA, but very much on the active list, having only been released from Long Kesh prison in Ulster in February after serving three years' imprisonment for possession of illegal weapons. The fact that Deegan had personally killed two British soldiers in Derry had never been traced to him by the authorities.
His wife and two children were away visiting her mother
in Galway and he had closed the bar at eleven, intending fishing early. He was still awake when Cussane came down the street. He had been awakened from his bed by a phone call from one of McGuiness's men. Deegan offered an illegal way out of the country to the Isle of Man, a useful staging post for England. The description of Cussane which he had been given was brief and to the point.
Deegan had hardly put the phone down when there was a knock at the door. He opened it and found Cussane standing there. He knew at once who his nocturnal caller was, although the clerical collar and black hat and raincoat would have been enough in themselves.
'What can I do for you, Father?' Deegan asked, stepping back so that Cussane might come in.
They went into the small bar and Deegan stirred the fire. 'I got your name from a parishioner, Danny Malone,' Cussane said. 'My name is Daly, by the way.'
'Danny, is it?' Deegan said. 'I heard he was in a bad way.'
'Dying, poor soul. He told me you could do a run to the Isle of Man if the price was right or the cause.'
Deegan went behind the bar and poured a whiskey. 'Will you join me, Father?'
'No thanks.'
'You're in trouble? Political or police?'
'A little of both.' Cussane took ten English fifty pound notes from his pocket and laid them on the bar. 'Would this handle it?'
Deegan picked the notes up and weighed them thoughtfully. 'And why not, Father? Look, you sit by the fire and keep yourself warm and I'll make a phone call.'
'A phone call?'
'Sure and I can't manage the boat on my own. I need at least one crew and two is better.'
He went out, closing the door. Cussane went round the bar to the phone there and waited. There was a slight tinkle from the bell and he lifted the receiver gently.
The man was talking urgently. 'Deegan here at Ballywalter. Have you Mr McGuiness?'
'He's gone to bed.'
'Jesus, man, will you get him? He's here at my place now. That fella Cussane your people phoned about.'
'Hold right there.' There was a delay, then another voice said, 'McGuiness. Is it yourself, Sean?'
'And none other. Cussane's here at my pub. Calls himself Daly. He's just given me five hundred quid to take him to the Isle of Man. What do I do, hold him?'
McGuiness said, Td like nothing better than to see to him myself, but that's childish. You've got some good men there?'
'Phil Egan and Tadgh McAteer.'
'So - he dies, this one, Sean. If I told you what he'd done in the past, the harm he's done the movement, you'd never believe it. Take him in that boat of yours, nice and easy, no fuss, then a bullet in the back of the head three miles out and over the side with him.'
'Consider it done,' Deegan told him.
He put down the phone, left the living room, went upstairs and dressed fully. He went into the bar, pulling on an old pilot coat. 'I'll leave you for a while, Father, while I go and get my lads. Help yourself to anything you need.'
'That's kind of you,' Cussane told him.
He lit a cigarette and read the evening paper for something to do. Deegan was back in half an hour, two men with him. 'Phil Egan, Father, Tadgh McAteer.'
They all shook hands. Egan was small and wiry, perhaps twenty-five. McAteer was a large man in an old reefer coat with a beer belly heavy over his belt. He was older than Deegan. Fifty-five at least, Cussane would have thought.
'We'll get going then, Father.' Cussane picked up his bag and Deegan said, 'Not so fast, Father. I like to know what I'm handling.'
He put Cussane's bag on the bar, opened it and quickly sifted through the contents. He zipped it up, turned and nodded to McAteer, who ran his hands roughly over the priest and found the Stechkin. He took it out and placed it on the bar without a word.
Deegan said, 'What you need that for is your business. You
get it back when we land you in the Isle of Man.' He put it in his pocket.
'I understand,' Cussane said.
'Good, then let's get going,' and Deegan led the way out.
Devlin was in bed when McGuiness rang him. 'They've got him,' he said.
'Where?'
'Ballywalter. One of our own, a man called Sean Deegan. Cussane turned up there saying he was a friend of Danny Malone and needed an undercover run to the Isle of Man. Presumably Danny had told him a thing or two he shouldn't.'
'Danny's a dying man. He wouldn't know what he was saying half the time,' Devlin said.
'Anyway, Cussane, or Father Daly as he's now calling himself, is in for a very unpleasant shock. Three miles out, Deegan and his boys nail the coffin lid on him and over he goes. I told you we'd get the sod.'
'So you did.'
'I'll be in touch, Liam.'
Devlin sat there thinking about it. Too good to be true. Cussane had obviously discovered from Danny Malone that Deegan offered the kind of service he did. Fair enough, but to turn up as he had done, no attempt at disguise beyond a change of name... He might have assumed that it would be morning before Devlin and Tanya would be found, but even so... It didn't make any kind of sense - or did it?
There was a light mist rolling in from the sea as they moved out, but the sky was clear and the moon touched things with a luminosity that was vaguely unreal. McAteer busied himself on deck, Egan had the hatch to the small engine room off and was down the ladder and Deegan was at the wheel. Cussane stood beside him, peering out through the window.
'A fine night,' Deegan observed.
'Indeed it is. How long will it take?'
'Four hours and that's taking it easy. It means we can time it to catch the local fishing boats going back to the Isle of Man with their night catches. We'll land you on the west coast. Little place I know near Peel. You can get a bus across to Douglas, the capital. There's an airport, Ronaldsway. You can get a plane to London from there or just across the water to Blackpool on the English coast.'
'Yes, I know,' Cussane told him.
'Might as well go below. Get your head down for a while,' Deegan suggested.
The cabin had four bunks and a fixed table in the centre, a small galley at one end. It was very untidy, but warm and snug in spite of the smell of diesel oil. Cussane made himself tea in a mug and sat at the table drinking it and smoking a cigarette. He lay on one of the bottom bunks, his hat beside him, eyes closed. After a while, McAteer and Egan came down the companionway.
'Are you all right, Father?' McAteer enquired. 'Cup of tea or anything?'
'I've had one, thank you,' Cussane said. 'I think I'll get some sleep.'
He lay there, eyes almost closed, one hand negligently reaching under the hat. McAteer smiled at Egan and winked and the other man spooned instant coffee into three mugs and added boiling water and condensed milk. They went out. Cussane could hear their steps on deck, the murmur of conversation, a burst of laughter. He lay there, waiting for what was to come.
It was perhaps half an hour later that the engine stopped and they started to drift. Cussane got up and put his feet to the floor.
Deegan called down the companionway, 'Would you come up on deck, Father?'
Cussane settled his hat on his head at a neat angle and went up the ladder. Egan sat on the engine hatch, McAteer leaned out of the open wheelhouse window and Deegan stood
at the stern rail, smoking a cigarette and looking back towards the Irish coast two or three miles away.
Cussane said, 'What is it? What's happening?'
'The jig's up!' Deegan turned, holding the Stechkin in his right hand. 'You see, we know who you are, old son. All about you.'
'And your wicked ways,' McAteer called.
Egan rattled a length of heavy chain. Cussane glanced towards him, then turned to Deegan, taking off his hat and holding it across his chest. 'There's no way we can discuss this, I suppose?'
'Not a chance,' Deegan told him.
Cussane shot him in the chest through the hat and Deegan was punched back against the rail. He dropped the Stechkin on the deck, overbalanced, grabbed for the rail unsuccessfully and went into the sea. Cussane was already turning, firing up at McAteer in the wheelhouse as he tried to draw back, the bullet catching the big man just above the right eye. Egan lashed out at him with the length of chain. Cussane avoided the awkward blow with ease.
'Bastard!' Egan cried, and Cussane took careful aim and shot him in the heart.
He moved fast now. Pocketing the Stechkin Deegan had dropped he launched the inflatable with its outboard motor which was stowed amidships. He tied it to the rail and went into the wheelhouse where he had left his bag, stepping over McAteer's body to get it. He opened the false bottom, took out the plastic explosive and sliced a piece off with his pocket knife. He stuck one of the pencil timers in it, primed to explode in fifteen minutes and dropped it down the engine hatch, then got into the inflatable, started the motor and moved back to shore at speed. Behind him, Sean Deegan, still alive in spite of the bullet in his chest, watched him go and kicked slowly to keep afloat.
Cussane was well on his way when the explosion rent the night, yellow and orange flames flowering like petals. He glanced back only briefly. Things couldn't have worked out better. Now he was dead and McGuiness and Ferguson would
