Rain on the Dead

‘The vest I’m wearing can stop a forty-four.’

‘You deserve a medal, jumping in front of me like that.’

‘That’s what I’m paid to do, sir.’

Cazalet clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Let’s all return to the kitchen and have a cup of coffee. It’s going to be a long night.’

On the Dolphin out at sea, the lights of Nantucket had faded when Kelly entered the wheelhouse with two mugs of tea and gave one to Tod, who was listening to a jazz trio.

‘Sounds good. Who is it?’ Kelly asked.

‘No idea. It’s Nantucket local radio. I was waiting to hear if there were any news reports.’

‘What are you going to tell the Master?’

‘I’ll think of something.’ He sighed. ‘Probably better get it over with.’

‘I’d like to hear that,’ Kelly said. ‘Put it on speaker.’

In a moment, they were connected.

‘This is Tod Flynn.’

‘I’ve been waiting to hear from you. Are you still in Nantucket?’

‘We’re at sea. Couldn’t contact the Chechens, and there didn’t seem to be any sign of action at the Cazalet house. Nothing on local news, either, so I decided the smart thing to do was leave.’

The Master cut in. ‘Then I have news for you. Yanni and Khalid are dead, bagged, and waiting to be flown away.’

Shocked, Tod made an instinctive response. ‘That’s impossible. How could you know that?’

‘Because I provided backup that even the Chechens did not know about. A woman sympathetic to our cause that I had in place. After I phoned you, I called her. She had seen you casting off to go to sea and smelled a rat, went after the Chechens herself, and was right behind when they entered Cazalet’s jungle of a garden. There was no time to warn them.’

‘So what happened?’ Tod asked.

‘The Chechens were butchered. Dillon shot Khalid, and the Gideon woman stabbed Yanni with a knife. When a CIA black unit arrived by helicopter, she slipped away.’

‘A hell of a cool customer,’ Tod said.

‘Yes, a remarkable lady – but to business. Admit it, you were doing a runner. You never even attempted to warn those boys.’

‘Okay, we were. We know Dillon from way back in the Troubles. Nobody messes with him, he’s a killing machine and the Gideon woman is the same. If we had tried to find them, we’d be lying dead next to the Chechens.’

‘Nevertheless, that was your charge. You owe me a quarter of a million dollars.’

Tod said, ‘We didn’t sign up for any of this. You lied about everything. It wasn’t our fault that things turned out the way they did.’

‘Don’t think you can shirk your responsibility. Everybody is accountable. But you can keep the money.’

Tod was astonished. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You and Kelly are men of a mercenary persuasion, as the song goes. Go home to Drumgoole, to your horses and the stud and your aunt Meg – she runs things there, correct? Oh, and you’ll be losing your niece Hannah; she just heard yesterday that she’s been accepted by the Royal College of Music in London.’

‘Damn you, how do you know all this?’

‘I know everything, Tod, I thought you knew that. I just want to make sure you realize that there is nowhere that you – and yours – can go that I can’t touch. Now, I have tickets waiting for you at the airport. When you get home, shave off the beards and it will be as if you never left Ireland, and I’m sure you’ll have plenty of friends to swear you never did. Good luck and try to stay sober. I’ll be in touch soon, and this time you are going to earn the money you have from me.’

He faded away, the Dolphin plowed on, rain bouncing off the screen. Kelly said, ‘Is he for real?’

‘Oh, yes, and a barrel of laughs, too. I admire his fine turn of phrase.’

‘Well, he’s going to want something for his quarter of a million bucks, God knows what. Here, you take the helm. I’m going below to try to get a little shut-eye.’

Sara Gideon lay in bed in a dressing gown, unable to sleep. Outside, the wind howled, rain rattled against the window. There was a knock at the door, which opened and Dillon peered in. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

‘Ferguson and Cazalet are downstairs and there’s an intermittent flow of information about the two people we knocked off. They’re Chechen brothers, but American, brought into the country as refugees with their grandparents, who have since died. Shouldn’t be long before we know everything about them.’

‘Wouldn’t be too sure about that.’

‘Why?’

‘It was all so wild, weird even. It was as if a piece of foolish nonsense came to an unlooked-for end.’

‘That’s really quite literary,’ Dillon told her. ‘Are you by chance regretting the fact that you had to kill that maniac?’

‘Not at all, he’d have finished us all off. Dammit, Sean, he got a shot off at you that just missed.’

‘And you put the knife in to save my life, girl,’ Dillon said. ‘So bless you for that.’

‘Anything else happening?’

‘Well, Ferguson’s spoken to Roper in London, and I’m sure he’s been put to work. You can feel free to contact him on your mobile if you want.’

In the Holland Park safe house in London, Major Giles Roper sat in his wheelchair in the computer room, wearing a dressing gown, a towel about his neck, his bomb-ravaged face shining with sweat. He was smoking a cigarette and drinking a glass of whiskey when Sara called.

‘My goodness, love, so you’ve been playing executioner again?’

‘No choice, Giles, not this time. Sean was his usual deadly self.’ She shivered. ‘Seconds, Giles, just seconds. It could have turned out so badly for all of us.’

‘Well, it didn’t, and that’s all that counts.’

‘So who do you think was behind them? You’re the best that I know at squeezing answers out of cyberspace.’

‘I have to agree with you, but these things take time. Besides, you have to remember that what happened tonight in Nantucket didn’t happen. Nobody heard a thing, nobody saw a thing. And if nothing happened, then no one can claim responsibility. I’m certainly not going to go online saying there’s a rumour that there was an assassination attempt on former President Jake Cazalet. Then everyone would know – and all the wrong sort of people would claim responsibility.’

‘So what can you do?’

‘Just wait and watch, see if anything unusual pops out. You never know. Anyway, get some sleep. I’ll see you when you get back.’