Brute Force

111

Box-cutter's head had been shaved so the gashes down the back of it could be glued back together. The back of his neck was covered with dressings.

His feet, however, were undamaged. A boot flew into my stomach. I buckled to absorb it but it still drove all the air from my body. He grabbed my feet and started hauling me towards the door. I tried to keep my head off the floor as my chest slid across the marble. All that was left where Lynn had been lying was a small pool of blood-streaked saliva.

Light now flooded the area around the entrance to the house; Mairead was obviously still in Spielberg mode.

Box-cutter brought out a blade and cut me loose then forced me onto my knees by the threshold. Lynn was getting the same treatment a couple of steps below me. His face was no more than a few inches from mine. He looked into my eyes. 'Nick, for God's sake don't tell her . . .'

Box-cutter gave him a heavy backhander across the cheek.

I didn't know what he was on about but I'd go with it. This wasn't over yet: neither of us was dead.

Mairead sneered from behind the camcorder. 'You still think you're in with a chance, don't you?'

Box-cutter grabbed as big a handful of my hair as he could, pulled back hard and ground the muzzle of his weapon deep into my neck. I could still make out Lynn's face at the very edge of my vision.

She bent down beside me and treated me to a waft of her lemony perfume. The tips of her perfectly manicured nails brushed my face. Her other hand pressed a pistol into mine.

'There is a single round in the magazine. You will load the round, point it at his forehead, count to ten and then pull the trigger.'

She gobbed off in Russian and the weapon came away from my neck. Box-cutter was clearly used to doing as he was told. Lynn was also released and we were left on our knees facing each other.

She lifted my chin. 'Liam Duff told me how my father died. He saw his body when it was brought up on deck. Blown almost in half by detonator cord.'

She stood and started filming once more.

'Kill me, Nick. Just promise me you won't tell her . . .'

I finally saw where he was going with this. Actions weren't going to get us out of this, he was telling me. But words might.

I jerked up my head. 'It didn't stop with Lynn, you know. It went higher.'

Did I detect a momentary hesitation?

'Right to the top. There was a source – a PIRA source. Someone senior in the leadership. It wasn't just the Bahiti . . . he gave us Loughgall, the Eksund, the whole organization . . .'

I heard a strangulated sound coming from Lynn. 'Nick, no, no . . .'

Mairead lowered the camcorder. Her brow furrowed, but only for a split second. She wasn't hooking into this as fast as I'd hoped.

'Kill us and you'll be looking over your shoulder forever. Release us and I'll tell you. In fact, I'll do better than that. You can film my confession. I'll do the whole thing on camera. Not that dinky little thing – a proper, grown-up camera in Dom's TV studio. I'll give you chapter and verse on the Eksund, the Bahiti, Loughgall, Enniskillen. And I'll name the source. But I want to see all four of them alive. Let them go and I'll tell you. I'll tell everyone. The name of your traitor will be broadcast across the world, and the British government will be seriously compromised.'

She still wasn't convinced.

'Think about it, Mary. The leadership knew they had to go the political route. But they also knew that people like your dad, the diehard Republicans, wouldn't see it that way. They'd see it as surrender. So they had to be dealt with before the leadership could become respectable and have their pictures taken kissing babies.'

I was getting to her. Her face said it all.

'I know – shit, isn't it? But get us to Dublin, release the others and I'll tell you everything you need to know.'

Lynn choked with rage. He was good at this. 'You bastard, Stone!'

For a second, our eyes locked. He knew, I knew. We understood each other. For the first and last time.

With a roar, he grabbed my hand and pulled the semiautomatic from my fingers.

For a moment, everybody froze. Mairead stood there, silhouetted against the light, still filming.

Lynn pointed the pistol at her and pulled the trigger.

There was silence. It wasn't made ready; the round was still in the mag.

Then the loud bang I'd been expecting finally came, and blood and brain tissue spattered my face. A red flower bloomed on his right temple and he fell forward across the steps.

Box-cutter shoved his pistol back into his jeans and turned away.