Passport to Peril

Fifteen

When she hit the outskirts of Dingle town she slowed down. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead and trickled down her arms to the backs of her hands. She was past fear now; she had lived with it too long and was now running on momentum and adrenalin. Somewhere in front of her was David. Somewhere behind her was Father Farrell — no, not Father Farrell, not even Farrell, but that would do until she knew his real name. Somewhere behind her was Farrell. She had not caught a glimpse of the car in a long while, and her first thought had been that the false priest had been unable to persuade his driver to match her speed. Now, the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that the car behind her had stopped. Farrell would not want an innocent citizen for company if he caught up with her. So he would make the driver stop the car, and then those hands, those horrid hands, would reach out for the man’s throat...

That would explain why the car had dropped back out of sight. And she knew he would do the deed without a second thought. He would probably yearn to do it, for that matter. She had seen the light in his eyes, had heard the wildness in his voice when he told her how he would kill her, told her all of it in heart-stopping detail. She had cheated him out of the thrill of a murder, and he would be hungry to kill, anxious to take any life, and the man who gave him a ride would have been sacrificed to that hunger.

So he’d have a car of his own now. And what sort of car? She hadn’t recognized it. It was one of those British automobiles designed like a 1954 Ford, and all of them looked quite alike to her. But whatever sort it was, whatever make, it was probably faster than the Triumph. It was certainly larger and likely to be more powerful.

So she didn’t have much of a head start.

She went to his rooming house first, hardly daring to get out of the car but knowing it was the first place to look for him. She rushed up the stairs, calling his name, and got no answer; finally someone else, English and irritated, told her he had gone out.

She went to the cafés, the pubs. And found him at last in a pub a block off Strand Street, sitting in an armchair and drinking a pint of stout. He gaped at the sight of her and got up from the chair.

“Hurry!” she shouted. “Come with me, there’s no time!”

“What on earth happened to you, Ellen? And what—”

“I’ll explain later, there’s no time, you’ve got to come.” She was frantic. “I’ll explain, please, hurry, there’s a car out front, hurry, there’s no time—”

A man on the other side of the room was out of his chair now, walking their way.

Koenig.

“Hurry!” she shrieked. She grabbed his arm, pulled him toward the door and the waiting car. “You drive,” she said. “You’re used to it, driving on the left, listen, I’m all flustered, I can’t think straight. Listen—”

“I’ll say you’re flustered.”

“David, drive. Drive as fast as you can. Drive out of town, drive to Tralee. Oh, God, Koenig’s got a car, he’s heading for it. Go, David. For God’s sake...”

She stopped then, stopped because there were no words left, stopped because she had run out of breath, stopped because he had at last given up trying to get an explanation and was, thank the Lord, driving the car. He swung onto Strand Street, headed east, out of town.

He said, later, “Tralee?”

“Yes, I guess so. That direction, anyway. And as fast as you can.”

“This isn’t exactly the fastest car on earth.”

“I know.”

“I’ll do what I can. Ellen, are you all right? Is everything...”

“I’m all right.”

“I looked for you. When you ran yesterday I didn’t know what to think. Are you sure you’re okay now?”

“Yes.”

“And will you tell me what this is all about?”

“In a few minutes.” She turned in her seat, looked out through the rear window. She could not see Koenig’s car yet.

“I’ll explain it all,” she said. She took a deep breath, held it, let it out very slowly. “In just a few minutes, David. I have to catch my breath. And oh, I have some things to tell you, and they won’t be easy to tell...”

She sat back in her seat, a cigarette in her hand. She had finished, and he had not spoken a word throughout the recital. She was waiting for him to say something. The little red car was flying along the road to Tralee. David was a good driver, and he had the throttle wide-open and his hands poised lightly but firmly on the steering wheel. He drove intently, his eyes darting from the road to the rear-view mirror to the road again, his concentration absolute.

For a hysterical moment she thought that he had not believed a word she said — that he was convinced she was insane and was humoring her. She could prove it, she thought. She could get her passport from her purse and peel off the photograph and show him the microfilm. She could prove it if she had to, and—

But he said, “You poor kid. You poor, frightened kid.”

“I’m all right now.”

“What you must have gone through. It’s a miracle you’re alive, Ellen. A miracle.”

“It’ll be more of a miracle if we’re both alive in another few hours.”

“Are they behind us?”

“I can’t see them, but with all the twists in this road they could be fifty yards behind us and I wouldn’t know it.” She turned to face forward once again. “Have you caught a glimpse of them in the mirror?”

“Not yet. But Koenig has an American car, I saw that much. We’ve got an advantage on the winding roads, but we’re dead if we ever hit the straightaway for any length of time. That’s where his car’s power will come in handy. Do you have a map handy?”

“In the glove compartment. Farrell used it yesterday, to find the oratory. David?”

“What?”

“You’re not... mad at me?”

He looked at her. “For what?”

“For what I thought. That you — you know.”

“Why should I be mad at you? It was the sensible way for you to figure it from where you stood.”

“No it wasn’t. I should have known better.”

“You added up two and two and got four. Anything else would have been a surprise. To tell you the truth, it’s remarkable that you tumbled to Farrell at all. He had a perfect setup, Ellen. He never had to win your confidence. All he had to do was appear before you and act priestly, and he had it made. It might have been tougher for him if you were a Catholic. But now many priests have you known personally?”

“None.”

“Exactly. All you had was a general image of what a priest was, and any time he deviated from that image you would only think that he was an offbeat sort of priest, a little more colorful than the stereotype. No, I can’t blame you for trusting him before me. You’re just lucky to have tumbled to him at all.”

“Lucky?” She frowned. “I don’t know if it was lucky or not. Suppose I had played along with him because I didn’t know any better. I’d have gone on to Berlin and then home. I might have helped him by doing his dirty work for him, but I wouldn’t even have known that.” She glanced nervously at the rear window again. “At least I’d have got out alive.”

“Uh-huh. Of course, Koenig would have stuck a knife in me, somewhere along the way...”

“Oh, I forgot!”

“And you wouldn’t have got off alive in the long run, anyway. He couldn’t leave you around. You’d know too much, and if anything ever went sour they could trace you and get back to him through you. No, I’m afraid you would have had an accident arranged for you in Berlin, Ellen.” His voice hardened. “From what you’ve said, he’s a man who likes killing. History’s filled with men like that. They only kill for a reason, but somehow they can always find a reason. You’re lucky you found out what was happening, and lucky you got away from him at Conor Pass. If you can be lucky one more time, we might get out of this.”

She didn’t say anything. Shakily she got two cigarettes from her purse. They were the last of her cigarettes. She lit them both and gave one to David, then crumpled the pack and tossed it out the window.

“Littering,” he said.

“Fifty-dollar fine in New York.”

“No fine here, but criminal. And criminally wasteful, unless you’ve got more cigarettes.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, neither do I. We could have shared one and kept another for later. I don’t suppose it matters. Is that a car behind me?”

She spun in her seat and leaned over it to look out the window. A big car, American, was hurtling toward them.

“It’s him,” she said.

“Koenig?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“No, there’s somebody with him. I can’t see the car now, it’s around the bend. Wait, there it is again. It’s not Farrell. I don’t know where he is, but that’s a woman with Koenig. Probably his wife, or whatever she is. The one who was going to use my passport.”

“Can you still see them?”

“Yes. No, not now.”

He swung the wheel hard to the right, spun off on a narrow unpaved road. The road dipped down a hill, then curved off to the left.

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “but the Tralee road’s no good, not with them that close to us. The road’s too straight and we can’t get enough speed out of this buggy. They’d be on us in no time.” He took a sudden curve without slackening speed, and the car careened wildly but held the road. “These little monsters are good on roads like this one,” he said. “They’re built to take it. I wonder if he saw us turn off.”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t looking just then, I don’t know.”

“Be a sweet piece of luck if he didn’t. If he stayed on the Tralee road and passed us by. Of course, this road probably does a loop-the-loop and deposits us right back on the Tralee road anyway. Have you got that map yet?”

She got it and opened it.

“Try to figure out where the hell we are and where we’re going. I think we can forget about Shannon. Farrell’s too smart to leave that open. He’ll have got to a phone by now, and there will be men waiting in and around Shannon for us. If we can find a way, I’d just as soon bypass Tralee completely.”

“And go where?”

“I don’t know. Cork or Dublin — there are consulates both places. The embassy in Dublin, for that matter. Just so we stay away from them. That’s the only thing that matters.” He drew on his cigarette, blew out a cloud of thick bluish smoke. “Like the IRA flying columns in the Tan War. They didn’t have to win battles. All they had to do was stay in the field. As long as they existed, they were a thorn in the side of the British. They had to hit and run, but most important they had to preserve themselves. That was their most important objective.”

“And it’s ours, too?”

He nodded. “Right. It doesn’t matter how soon we get the film to the proper authorities. There’s no rush. Farrell and his men can’t get anywhere until they get us. You’ve got the film, and they’re stuck without it. As long as we can keep away from them, as long as we can stay alive, we’re ahead of the game.”

“David...”

“What?”

“Koenig saw us turn onto this road.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I just saw him behind us. He’s a good way back. The last hill, there was a long view of the road behind us, and I saw him.”

“You’re sure it was his car?”

“Positive.”

“Check the map. Where does this road go?”

She found the road. “I think this is it. It doesn’t go anywhere in particular. It passes Tralee about seven or eight miles to the south—”

“Good.”

“—and then goes to some place called Castlemaine. From there you can take a big road north to Tralee or south to Killorglin...”

“Forget that. Does the little road continue?”

“Uh-huh. It goes to Farranfore and Scartaglen, and then it sort of trickles off. I don’t know how good this map is. But there are other little roads from Scartaglen.”

“It’s our route, then. Wherever it goes. It doesn’t really matter where we go, just so we stick to the back roads. Just so the gas holds out. We’ve got about half a tank, and I think we ought to get close to thirty miles to the gallon.”

“That much?”

“I think that’s what the ads say. No, wait a minute, we won’t get anything like that.” He stopped talking long enough to spin the car precariously around a hairpin curve. “If this weren’t so harrowing, it almost would be fun. Remember the roller coaster when you were a kid? Where was I? Oh. We’ll get about twenty to the gallon, driving like this. Wide-open throttle and plenty of hills, twenty will be good. Half a tank — I wonder how much a tank holds? Maybe ten gallons. So figure we have five gallons, which means we can go a hundred miles before it’s time to look for a petrol station.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know. I suppose we worry about that when we come to it. How are you fixed for money?”

“Not much cash. Some traveler’s checks. You?”

“Not much cash and no traveler’s checks. My money’s in my room. This is a fine mess you’ve got us in, Stanley.”

“I know.”

“Can you see Koenig behind us?”

“No.”

“I wonder if there are any special buttons on the dashboard. We could leave a smokescreen behind us or an oil film on the road. I’d love to send Koenig spinning off the side of a cliff, phony wife and all. Sean Connery always has a batch of buttons to push. All I can see are the windshield wipers and the headlights. I wish to hell we weren’t out of cigarettes.”

“So do I.”

“We’re going to make it, Ellen.”

“Are we?”

“Our strength is as the strength of ten because our hearts are pure. But I wish we had a faster car. And a couple of machine guns in the back seat.” His voice softened, the flipness suddenly gone. “We’ll make it, Ellen. We’ll make it.”