Dark Justice

EPILOGUE

As the Lear lifted off at Belfast after midnight, Dillon took out his Codex Four and called Roper. There was an instant reply. He said, “Don’t you sleep?” “Not all that much. Where are you?”

“In the Lear. Just lifted off from Belfast.”

“Is Billy all right?”

“Saved my bacon. He’s just tipped his seat and gone to sleep. What about Ferguson and Hannah?”

“He’s been feverish and is now drugged up to his eyeballs. I’m very comfortable in the corner of his room. As I said, sleep doesn’t come naturally to me anymore.”

“And Hannah?”

“Oh, Dawson did marvelous work, but the truth is she won’t be what she was.”

“Will any of us?”

“So what happened?”

“We got a superb drop in the fog by the boys, then we checked out the Kathleen. You were right about that, so I did as you suggested and we went on to the castle.”

“And?”

“We left McGuire and O’Neill in a bad way. I got Kelly permanently. Ashimov almost finished me, but the boy wonder shot him and saved me.”

“And the others?”

“They cleared off to the harbor and the Kathleen. I let them make it beyond the point, then used the Howler.”

“That must have been quite a sight.”

“You could say that. I was sorry about Novikova. She saved my life in Iraq.”

“Only because it suited her.”

“I suppose you’re right. We took a Land Rover from the castle, then drove straight up through the border to Belfast. There’s nobody there these days. All the old barriers are still there, but no troops, no police, you drive straight through. What in the hell did it all mean?”

“Come home, Sean,” Roper told him. “Just come home.”

“Very comforting,” Dillon said. “Give Ferguson my love.”

He sat there, thinking about it all, then opened the bar box, took out half a bottle of Bushmills and poured some into a plastic cup.

Billy, eyes still closed, said, “You’re big on moral philosophy, Dillon. Do you believe everything’s for the best in the best of all possible worlds?”

“Billy, old son,” Sean Dillon said, “believe that and you’ll believe anything.”