Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (95 page)

Boyd ordered the band out of the van and David was chagrined to see that some of them were little more than boys. If this didn’t come off as planned, if anything went wrong, he would be directly responsible for their deaths.

He tried not to see their faces nor smell their fear. It made it too personal and he knew that was the road to certain disaster. Boyd nodded to him and he started his walk up the side of the van, the longest in some ways he had ever taken though few steps were involved. He hardly dared to breathe. Packing this much in explosives was a tricky proposition, akin to walking a high wire when your shoes were made from blown glass.

The driver’s door was open, the light creating a small hollow vacuum at the center of the night. He set the briefcase down with the gentle delicacy normally reserved for the newly born and let his breath out a little.

He could feel Lenny right behind him, the man’s body heat, thick and swampy, encroaching into his space. He was going to have to wire the explosives, so that Lenny wouldn’t suspect his true mission here.

“Listen, man, could ye back off a wee bit? I’d not like to blow the both of us to kingdom come an’ yer makin’ me nervous with yer hoverin’.”

Lenny gave him an arch look and backed away, heading toward the rear of the van and the roadway. It was ominously quiet, with only Boyd’s oily tones coating the night. The members of the band were silent and David had to will himself not to turn. The very air was taut with menace.

There wasn’t a great deal of time to do this, but he would never be able to live with himself if he didn’t disconnect the wiring and the van blew up before reaching the border guards. He took a deep breath, steadying himself though the sweat was beading on his forehead. From the rear of the van he could feel Lenny’s stare and knew the bastard distrusted him to do the job. He eased the wires back out of their housing just a touch, enough so there was no contact point.

There—it was done. He clipped the briefcase shut and pushed it back under the driver’s seat. It was then the gunfire started. He crouched low and ran for the back of the van, peering into the dark where the bullets were sharp red traceries splitting the fabric of the night. All was confusion, Boyd shouting to cease fire, but the man with the gun—Lenny—wasn’t listening. It was too late anyhow, for David’s sight had adjusted in time to see the last member of the band topple forward into the ditch.

He thought he might be sick, but he had become so accustomed to senseless violence that it no longer affected him as it once would have. It had all gone to smash and now there were five innocent men lying dead in a ditch because of this disturbed bastard.

He didn’t even realize he was moving until his fist hit Lenny’s face, a satisfying crunch of bone and blood. His arm was grabbed and held back before he could land another blow, for he would not have stopped on his own until he had put the bastard to the ground.

“What are ye doin’?” Boyd demanded, keeping his hold on David’s arm.

“What am
I
 doin’? It’s him that’s focked up the entire plan, isn’t it? I thought the aim was to blow up the van when it reached the border, not kill a bunch of boys that had barely the whiskers to shave.”

The air was charged with violence, that particular scent of sweat and testosterone that made the very particles around a man throb with the need for action, for blood against his knuckles, something to relieve the crimson tide that surged in his body.

“Aye, it was, but plans change.” Boyd turned away from him then, leaving David speechless with fury. He had been used as a dupe. And now there was the blood of five innocent men on his hands.

Lenny grinned at him, a fine spray of blood drying on his face and into his clothes. David did not return the smile, cover be damned. For he knew now without a doubt, that there would come a time and place where this man would kill him, or he would have to be the one to kill.

Quite frankly, he looked forward to the day of reckoning.

Chapter Sixty-nine
June 1975
Butterfly

Later, he would think he had been tired
, had been focused on other things, had been aware of his surroundings but in a hazy, dreamy way that had been more about what awaited him at home than what was happening in his own vicinity. He knew better, always had. Still he was merely a man and a man sometimes was weary, sometimes had better things to think about, sometimes forgot. He shouldn’t have forgotten, but he did.

Pat was wrapping up the day’s work
, including a stack of paperwork that made him feel as if he were one of the lesser lawyers in
Bleak House
. Kate had already left for the day, putting a cup of tea to hand for him before exiting through the back to the mysterious person who drove her to and from work each day. Pat had watched out the door with no small curiosity about who it was that Kate relied upon. All he could determine thus far was that it was not her brother. He was familiar enough with Noah Murray’s face to know it wasn’t him. He was certain the man must know of his sister’s activities though, for Noah wasn’t the sort to allow so much as a mouse to move in his vicinity and not take note of it. Pat had been half waiting for months now for him to show up and threaten to part Pat from his ability to breathe.

He was ready to lock up, his cup rinsed and put away, the paperwork still unruly but with some progress made, when David entered the back door as though a banshee were after him. David’s face was pale, dark dyed hair rumpled and sweaty. Pat had never seen him so rattled. It didn’t do a great deal for his own equilibrium to see the man so.

“What the hell is it, man? Ye look as though ye’ve seen a troop of ghosts.”

“You need to come with me. I can’t tell you why right now, so don’t ask me.”

The look on David’s face told Pat he was worried about listening devices. Therefore he didn’t ask questions, merely retrieved his coat, locked up the front door and exited through the back with David.

Once in the car, a Citroën that had seen far better days, David merely gave him a steely look and shook his head. So the car was possibly bugged as well. Pat sighed. Sometimes it felt as though the entire city was monitored by one huge listening device—which considering all the towers, was more or less the truth.

They went north beyond the city, David driving with his usual suicidal intent, so that Pat wasn’t certain if his panic was due to what lay ahead or merely a certainty that death was rushing at them full throttle, about to come through the windshield.

They traveled the coast near to Ballycastle, a stretch of beauteous rocky headlands which were lost on the occupants of the car. David bypassed the town, following farther along the coast as the road narrowed.

When they slowed at last, Pat could see the hazy outlines of the great rocky upthrust that was Rathlin Island. David pulled down a narrow pathway where they bumped and jolted all the way down to the sea. There a small motorboat was waiting, bobbing on the waves.

Pat felt his initial worry upgrade itself to a full blown case of panic as they got out of the car. He looked at David for explanation. While he did not share his brother’s phobia of the sea, he wasn’t so fond of it as to be delighted at the thought of taking a wee craft out onto those treacherous waves.

“It’s your brother. He was taken this afternoon. I’ve had someone keeping a watch because I had intelligence that led me to think he might be in some danger.”

Pat didn’t need to know more than that. He got into the boat without further question, David tossing him an oilskin coat that lay in the bottom. He had a good idea who had an interest in taking his brother and why. David cranked the motor and they roared off into the fading light, the sea choppy and grey beneath its frail hull.

Rathlin Island sat six miles off the Antrim Coast across a rough stretch of water poetically called the Sea of Moyle. In terms of time, the island lay much farther away. It seemed of another century altogether. Enormous cliffs of limestone and basalt loomed up from the dark sea and small white dots swarmed the cliffs. The island was home to colonies of puffins and guillemots, kittiwakes and falcons, thousands upon thousands of them. The noise of them came across the water, audible even over the thrum of the boat’s motor, ghostly aerial specters that belonged to the world of air and water and rock. Pat shivered, his hair and any skin that wasn’t covered with the oilskin coat already soaked and salted.

It was on Rathlin that Robert the Bruce had hidden, having fled the wrath of the English after the battles of Methven and Dalry. It was here as well that there had once been a thriving industry during the Neolithic Age, making axes from a fine blue stone called porcellanite. Like most sites in Ireland, it had its share of blood history as well, with the English massacring the women and children of the MacDonnell clan who had once sought refuge upon the island and had been hunted down with no more impunity than if they had been seals or otters.

The tall cliffs were pocked with caves, some huge, some barely large enough for a man to crawl into, some long collapsed beneath the weight of the stone above. Some were stranded high up the cliff walls, relicts of a time when the great glacial seas had been far colder and far deeper. A natural stepping stone as the island was between Scotland and Ireland, the caves had become a refuge for men on the run, women forced into hiding and even—it was said—the Children of Lir. Though personally Pat thought, looking at the foreboding shadow cast by the cliffs, the tale about the devil living here seemed more likely than a band of enchanted swans.

David began to yell over the roar of the motor, reasonably certain that even the British Army couldn’t manage listening devices on the open sea.

“I have someone keeping an eye out because I was worried something like this might happen. I got a call early in the afternoon, that your brother wasn’t where he was meant to be. Being that that’s totally out of character for him, I knew something was wrong. Then someone called in to the local police that they’d seen something that looked odd being brought ashore here. I know certain lads of a particular organization occasionally use the caves here to hide contraband of various sorts, the ones high up and hard to access. I suspect they may have brought Casey here. But I think they’ll not have used the caves high up. It’ll be the ones at sea level we need to search.”

Pat didn’t need to ask why they would use those caves. For when the high tide came in, which it would do within the hour, a man, if he couldn’t move under his own power, would either drown or be bashed to death against the cave walls. Then the body would be swept to sea and conveniently disappear. If the man were already dead, it would solve the same problem.

He took a deep breath, swallowing a spray of sea water and trying very hard not to visualize what it would take to render his brother unfit to crawl from a cave with the high tide surging in.

David had slowed the boat and was running parallel to the cliffs, eyeing the rocky foreshore with no small worry.

“Here,” Pat said.

David gave him a questioning look and Pat shrugged, shoulders tight as stone.

“I don’t know why. Just a feeling that we should start here. We have to ask if anyone has seen anything, otherwise we’ve not a clue to go on, and precious little time.”

David nodded and eased the boat into the small shoal area. They climbed a set of rock hills and found themselves in the small settlement Pat had noted, within moments of tying off the boat. The village was very little, only a huddle of six cottages, faces turned inward like malcontent sheep, each cottage thickly thatched and whitewashed, with wind-blasted backs and chimneys currently puffing smoke as it was nearing teatime for the occupants.

Pat knocked at the first door and got no answer, though it was clear there was someone inside the small house as there was a visible twitch of a lace curtain. Next door was the same.

“Somethin’ has happened here alright, or they’re accustomed to treating strangers with a cold shoulder. Meaning they’re either paid to keep quiet or scared into it.”

On the fourth door, Pat pounded hard enough to wake Robert the Bruce himself, should his spirit still be lingering round. An old man, who had evidently forgotten to put his dentures in, popped his grizzled head out of the top of the half door.

“D’ye think I’m deaf or are ye only tryin’ to make me so?”

“I want to know if ye’ve seen anyone or anything unusual today, someone who normally wouldn’t be around the island, or didn’t belong.”

“Well, there’s yerself,” the man said, and spit casually to the side of the door.

Pat drew in a short, impatient breath through his nose, eyes black with anger.

“Listen, tell me if ye’ve seen anything or I’ll make certain yer missin’ more than yer teeth before I’m gone.”

The old man eyed Pat up and down, taking in his size and general air of ferocity.

“Ye’ve not the most charmin’ way of askin’ a question, but aye, I’ll have seen something today that was out of the ordinary way of things. It’s best if I don’t go into details”—he flashed a look at the cottage across the way and Pat turning, saw another curtain twitch—“but if I were you, an’ lookin’ perhaps for a man, I’d head to the point out there.” He nodded curtly toward the headland some distance up from the huddle of cottages, visible nevertheless. “I was out walkin’ the cliffs earlier an’ saw some men that had no business hereabouts except of the wrong sort, if ye take my meanin’. They had a man amongst them that didn’t seem to be there voluntary like. ‘Twas a distance off, ye’ll understand, but he seemed to be like yerself in appearance.”