The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf Read online

  “They’ll send a team out from Dublin.”

  “Specialists?”

  Ford nodded. “With the death of a former guard, they’ll spare nothing.”

  “But, as we agreed—I hope we’ve agreed?—there’s the remainder of the cargo.”

  “It can be done, and tonight. But we must act quickly.”

  Yet again the son conferred with Rehm, this time joined by the youngest man.

  Ford was tempted to reach for the Webley, but he had his plan.

  After a few moments, Rehm tugged the ring off Breege’s severed finger and slipped it in the pocket of his pea jacket. Standing, he said, “As long as Commodore Dorfmann is going to cooperate with us—I see no illogic in cleaning this place up. You two”—he pointed to his sons—“put the bodies in the trunk of the car.”

  Ford raised a hand. “No—please. Grant me this one thing. My wife will stay with me. I will hold her. I will put her in the car and take her aboard the boat. And I will commit her to the deep. Completely.” He pointed at the finger that was now on the side table. “It is the sailor’s way, and I will ask you for nothing else.”

  Rehm cocked his head. “Who is in charge here, Commodore? Ye’ or I? Could it be that we had this discussion before, much to my chagrin?”

  “You are very definitely in charge, Colonel, but she stays with me. Completely.” Again he pointed to the table.

  With deliberation, Rehm folded the handkerchief over the finger and handed it to Ford. “Remember now—any misstep and we will begin with ye’.” He held up his own gloved hand that concealed a prosthetic device. He had lost all the fingers on his right hand, joint by joint, while being interrogated during the war. Or so he had told Ford in 1945.

  “And you remember, Angus—without me there is nothing.” Ford waited until the two sons had returned from placing O’Grady’s body in the boot of the car. He wanted all of them to be present before he made his move.

  When they returned he stood towering over the smaller men. Ford reached down for Breege’s body, his right hand pushing into the gap between the cushion and the side of the chair. And there he felt it—the butt of the Webley.

  Pretending to have to struggle with her mere seven stone, Ford eased the handgun under her body. As he lifted Breege, he made certain her pleated, woolen skirt draped his hand. With his thumb, he eased off the safety and swung her toward the door; he wanted to get as close as he could to the car, which he now heard start up, before opening up on them.

  Passing the young woman, he looked into her dark eyes and wondered if she were actually Rehm’s daughter, and he suddenly felt sorry for her. Here, over fifty years later, the killing of the Second World War was continuing, and it should stop. Was Rhem’s old life or even his own and Breege’s worth her death, no matter how she had been raised by her obsessed father? No matter from whom and by what means Rehm and his true cohorts of a bygone generation had obtained their treasure?

  But Ford suspected she and the others of Rehm’s family were no better than their father; otherwise they would not be with him and wouldn’t have killed Kevin O’Grady and Breege. In so doing, they had sealed their fates.

  The smart thing, if possible, would be to shoot the young men first, then the daughter, and finally Rehm, who posed the least threat. But if he got the chance, Rehm would die. Without him, none of this would have happened.

  Both right doors of the right-hand-drive car were open; the car was running, and the bonnet pointed down the hill. Standing by the doors, the two young men had their weapons at the ready.

  Rehm now walked between the car and Ford, who was still carrying Breege and the Webley beneath her, saying, “Malcolm will get in the back first, Clem. Then you and your wife will be next. Dugald will sit on the other side of you. That way your wife can remain in your lap, and you won’t have to worry about the doors. I’ll drive. Heather will sit in front with me.” And you will be covered from three directions, went unsaid.

  With the strange machine pistol still in his good hand, Rehm waited until the elder son had followed his orders and slipped into the back on the other side, before he stepped toward the driver’s door. That put the open rear door, as a shield, between Ford and Rehm. Heather, the daughter, was now moving around the bonnet, which left only Dugald behind Ford with a clean shot. It was time to act.

  Ford began lowering himself and Breege through the open rear door, the Webley still fully concealed under her skirt yet free to fire at the eldest son, who was now seated on the other side of the car. “Could you give me a hand with her?” Ford asked. “The position is awkward.”

  When the son reached forward, his light blue eyes flashing up at him, Ford said, “Angus?”

  “Yes, Clem?” Rehm was now positioned behind the wheel.

  “This is for Breege.” Ford pumped a 9 mm round into Rehm’s son’s head.

  As a ruse, Ford staggered back into the drive with Breege, saying, “Why? I don’t understand—he shot me!” Spinning round, he turned Breege’s back toward the nearer young man and fired at his chest, knocking him flat on his back.

  Rehm had begun to get out of the car, his one good hand reaching for the top of the open door to pull himself up. But Ford, pivoting on his heels, squeezed off two quick shots that shattered the door window and thwacked through the sheet metal of the roof. He then raised the gun slightly and fired the three remaining bullets at the young woman, who had dived toward the cover of the doorway of the house.

  Tossing Breege’s body into the back beside the elder son, Ford slammed the door shut and lunged for Rehm’s one good hand that was reaching for the machine pistol. He caught it just as Rehm’s finger wrapped the trigger, and the burst of automatic fire from the three joined barrels was frightful. In a wild arc it blew out the windscreen, peppered the night sky, and—with Ford now directing the barrage—raked the cubby of the house where he had last seen the girl. With the clip spent, he braced a foot against the side of the car, stiffened his arms and swirled his shoulders. Rehm tumbled out into the gravel of the drive.

  But Ford’s legs were too long for the position of the seat, and he could only manage to release the hand brake before a spray of fire from the woman’s assault rifle pocked the car. A jagged fragment slammed into Ford’s upper right arm, breaking it, he was sure.

  But the car was moving down the steep, switchback drive to the dirt road below. Driving now with his left hand, he could just see the bright orange oilskins of the girl plunging down through the cabbage field that bordered the steep drive. She was firing as she ran.

  Bullets pinged off the bonnet. The windows on the left side suddenly exploded and rained slivers of glass over Ford. But leaning away, he took only a shard of bullet low in the left leg.

  It was then that the car made the road. Flooring the accelerator, Ford bolted toward the harbor that was four long miles away. And where he also knew what he would do. If he could.

  CHAPTER 6

  THERE WAS NO light in Packy O’Malley’s tiny cottage by the harbor, but his fishing boat was still tied to the jetty wall, as it had been earlier. It meant that he was either at the pub or up in the hotel. Ford could use Packy’s help, but at the same time, he did not want to involve anybody else or have to do any explaining. Stopping the car beside the boat, he doused the lights and dragged himself out.

  Ford was now bleeding profusely from the arm wound. Tugging the belt from his trousers, he bound his upper arm and pulled the cinch tight above the puncture. He had thought the leg wound only a scratch, until he attempted to move toward the back door and discovered his left leg numb from the knee down. He had to pretend he could feel it to walk.

  Peering out into the harbor at the large, white-hulled North Sea schooner rocking on her anchor, he also caught sight of the vessel’s launch. It was plunging wildly on a line that was sprung from the quay wall. Would Rehm and his daughter now flee with their dead or wounded? Or would they try to track him down, get what they could from him, and finish him off? In a way
he hoped they would try. To make a clean sweep of them or him would be best for everybody. And now—tugging open the back door and seeing poor Breege—Ford’s anger surfaced with an intensity that made him dizzy.

  But he had dropped the Webley when he had lunged for Rehm, so he would have to take them by surprise. Which was not likely, given his condition. Also, he was now weak, and without the use of his right arm, it took him whole minutes—five at the very least—to pull Breege’s tiny body out of the backseat, where it was tangled with Rehm’s elder son, almost in the position of lovers.

  Loading her onto his good shoulder took more time. Any moment Rehm and the daughter might arrive. They were sure to have seen the donkey in the haggard and the cart nearby. Or even the daughter alone. She had seemed athletic, and with the storm at her back and rage pushing her on, she might sprint the four miles—much of it downhill—in no time at all.

  Once here in the harbor, they would spot the car easily. Ford had dared not park farther than a few feet from Packy’s boat. Now his weak knees were nearly buckling, as he tried to keep hold of Breege. And down they went when he tried to step into the boat.

  It took forever, it seemed, for Ford to pick himself up and drag Breege into the small cuddy cabin that provided some shelter from the storm. Propping her against the fiberglass wall, he tried to close her eyes and firm up her mouth, which was drooping open pitifully.

  It took more time to find a pencil and for Ford to gain use of his arthritic good hand. Across the chart of Mayo waters that was fixed to a shelf near the wheel, he wrote in labored letters:

  Packy—bury her beside Peig. Yourself, so nobody will know. No stone. I’ll take care of that later, if I can. If I can’t, I thank you for every good turn you’ve ever done us in our lives. I’m leaving you a little something by way of a pension. And let the O’Gradys know they’ll be seen after as well. My apologies to the Island.

  Clem

  Burying Breege was something that the rough but loyal man would do for a friend.

  When Ford straightened up, he thought he saw—yes!—a flash of orange down by the long boat on the quay, fifty or so yards away. And another figure dressed in dark clothing and dark hat. Reaching for Packy’s cabin binoculars, he focused them in.

  It was Rehm riding in the back of Ford’s ass rail with the assault rifle strapped over a shoulder. The daughter was running beside the donkey, driving it on.

  Rehm now leaned down and the second son, the one Ford had shot in the chest, appeared behind the cart. Ford couldn’t believe his eyes. He had shot him point-blank; he could not have missed.

  Reaching the quay, they stopped the cart, the girl pulling the assault rifle off her shoulder, and screwing something down on the muzzle of the gun. She then broke into a jog, passed by the cart, and made straight for Ford, the boat, the car, and Packy’s cottage.

  If she caught him in the tiny cubby cabin, she would kill him like a mouse in a box. Or, worse, she would take him aboard the schooner to get from him what they had come for, one way or another. And doubtless it would be the other. They wouldn’t spare him now.

  Ford panicked, his eyes darting about the small space. He would not allow himself to be tortured.

  The engine. Perhaps if he were to open the hatch and crawl in, she might not think to open it. But there was Breege. Once she discovered Breege’s body, she would search the boat; yet it was his only chance.

  Wrenching open the hatch with his one good arm, Ford hooked the binoculars back up on their peg, then tried to lower himself—all six feet six inches—past the top of the engine and into the darkness on the port side of the hull. But with the use of only one arm and one leg he fell on top of the hard spikes of the injectors. Summoning what little strength he had left, Ford worked his body through the mechanics, wires, and pipes of the boat. Until—miraculously, it seemed to him—his left hand, reaching out, slid into something smooth and soothing.

  Fish? Yes, of course. In fact, herring, he could tell by the feel of the scales. Packy’s new boat, which had been financed in part by the Clare Island Trust, was cold-molded. Constructed of thin strips of wood bonded with epoxy, it was light but strong and required only minimal bulkheads. Packy must have run into a school of herring and taken so many that they had nearly spilled into the engine compartment.

  Slowly, silently—in a way almost like swimming—Ford now wriggled his large body in among the cool, soothing herring to a place where, he judged, he would not be visible from either deck hatch.

  All the while he listened to the sounds of the woman at work—kicking open Packy’s cottage door and (what was that sound?) spraying the interior with silenced bullets. It was the phut! phut! phut! that Ford remembered from the war. A few moments went by before he heard a thump on deck, and the boat listed slightly under her weight.

  At the cuddy cabin, she cursed, then squeezed off another half clip, the bullets punching through the fiberglass and epoxy and—Ford imagined—Breege’s corpse. For which she would pay, Ford vowed, if he survived the night.

  Finally there was the engine compartment hatch, which she raised and fired off a volley to left and right. And the fish hatch, where she did the same. But Ford had positioned himself between them, and the angle was impossible.

  “You old bastard!” she shouted into the blast. “You son of a bitch! I know you’re fucking here someplace, and we’ll be fucking back! Sooner than you think.”

  With any luck at all, thought Ford; he only hoped he’d be present to meet them.

  She then stepped toward the cabin, where he heard her rip the chart that he had written on from its brace. In a leap she was off the boat. A whole minute went by, before Ford heard a loud pop from the direction of the launch.

  Gripped suddenly with cold, he coaxed his hands into the pockets of his anorak where he felt something. It was Breege’s severed finger. Grasping it tight, he believed he could still feel her warmth, and, he imagined, they were together again as one, if only in spirit. Which was as much as he could hope for, as he felt himself fading.

  PART II

  Seoinini

  CHAPTER 7

  CLARE ISLAND WAS just as Peter McGarr remembered it—a bright green and treeless eminence rising from the sea, the last and largest of the three hundred and sixty-five islands in Clew Bay, so said a sign in the Roonagh Point ferry terminus. It was as if the land had raised a three-by-five-mile, fifteen-hundred-meter shoulder against the fury of the ocean. Today it was mounting a thundering offensive against the Mayo coast.

  Under a brilliant early-summer sun that had been swept clean of every cloud, mist, or color but a blistering robin’s egg blue, Clew Bay was a boil of turquoise wave. Approaching the breakwater and harbor, the boat that had been sent to fetch McGarr bobbed like a cork in a cauldron. Only the skill of the captain—playing one engine off against the other—kept it from dashing its side into the jetty.

  But there it waited, two yards maybe three from the wall, until the captain waved an arm. “Are yeh comin’ aboard?”

  McGarr nodded.

  “The feck are yeh waitin’ for?”

  Hesitating, half hoping conditions would change, McGarr launched himself off the jetty and over the rail. Only the mate, catching him, prevented an ugly fall. The boat then lurched away from the wall, and again McGarr nearly went down.

  “Pig of a blow last night,” the mate confided. “As you can see.”

  McGarr had been seeing nothing but for the past two hours. His Dublin office had paged him while he was fishing Lough Eske in nearby Donegal. It had been early morning—around 7:00—and McGarr had only just returned to the lodge for breakfast, having fished the dawn for the salmon that were entering the lake. Two and a half hours later, he arrived at Roonagh point, only to be made to wait two more by the owner of the “water taxi.”

  “The price is forty-five bloody quid for guards, God, or gombeen men,” the owner of the concession had said when McGarr had rung him up. The alternative was the twice-daily ferry, which
would have meant a six-hour wait.

  McGarr now had a feeling that it was the captain he had spoken to on the phone. For a forty-five-pound skiting, he should get more than a sea-sickening, eight-mile crossing. Already his stomach was feeling queasy.

  In his early fifties, McGarr was a short, well-knit man with an aquiline nose and pale gray eyes. What little hair he had left was a lustrous red and curled at the nape of his neck. Having been on holiday fishing in Donegal when the call came through, he was wearing a short-brimmed khaki cap, windbreaker and trousers to match. On his feet was a pair of stout but supple walking shoes which, he knew, would be well suited to the rough terrain of Clare Island. He had spent a summer holiday there several years before. Apart from the blousyness of the jacket that concealed a 9 mm automatic, there was nothing to suggest his occupation.

  “Rough day,” he said by way of making conversation.

  But the curly-headed captain with the ginger beard and weathered face did not so much as glance his way.

  “Was it you I spoke to on the phone?”

  Still the man did not reply. He was wearing a bright yellow rain slicker and bib overalls.

  Could he be deaf? No, he had shouted to McGarr on the jetty.

  “So—what gives on Clare Island?”

  That got him. Shoving forward the throttle levers, the man cut the speed of the boat that pitched and heaved yet more violently as it lost momentum. The captain’s eyes were hazel and angry. “Hear me—I couldn’t care less who you are or why you’ve come, you’ll bring me no bother. Now, I’ll have me forty-five pound or it’s back to the mainland with you.” He tapped the flat top of the control console.

  McGarr did not move. He could imagine the flap if this “captain” returned to the island without him. McGarr had been summoned by the superintendent of the Louisburgh barracks because of “a homicide and maybe some others. Whatever happened, we got one dead, three people missin’, and there’s blood and…mayhem everywhere.” To McGarr’s knowledge there had not been a capital crime on Clare Island in recent times, and its forty or so families would need the reassurance of an official presence.