The Armada Legacy

Chapter Eighteen

There were two basic possible responses to an unexpected turn of events like this. Ben didn’t consider the first one very long, because whipping round to lash the weapon out of the opponent’s hands wasn’t such a clever idea when he’d just heard the hammer go back with a small, sharp click-click. You couldn’t quite dodge or deflect a handgun bullet the way you could a knife bayonet in the hands of an idiot.

The second response was just to go very still and hope that nothing terminal was about to happen in the next few moments.

Ben went very still.

‘Lose the pistol,’ said a woman’s voice. It was a young voice, and might have been pleasant-sounding if she’d had something different to say. ‘Any tricks, this gun goes off and your frigging head goes off with it.’

Ben slowly moved his hand to his belt, grasped the butt of the Colt between thumb and forefinger, drew it out and tossed it away with a clatter.

‘Now get on your feet. Slowly does it.’

The gun muzzle stayed pressed to his neck as he stood. It still didn’t seem like a good moment for any sudden moves.

‘Now turn round,’ she commanded. The pressure disappeared from his neck as she took a couple of steps backwards.

Ben turned cautiously round to face her. She was as youthful as her voice: not much more than twenty-one or twenty-two, willowy with a pretty face and long black hair, tousled, a little gypsyish. Her dark eyes were watching him unblinking down the barrel of the .357 Magnum revolver she was clutching. The gun looked oversized in her hands. Ben could see the jacketed hollowpoint rounds nestling in the mouths of the cylinder chambers. There was no chance she could miss at this range. The expanding bullet would blow a hole in him that a boxer could poke his fist through, glove and all.

‘Put your frigging hands up,’ she said.

Now that they were face to face there was an edge to her voice that might have been anxiety, and Ben wondered whether she’d ever pointed a loaded gun at anyone before.

‘I know how to use this thing,’ she said.

‘I certainly hope so,’ he said. He put his hands up.

‘You hope so?’ she said. Her brow puckered up in a frown.

‘We wouldn’t want any accidental discharges. The old Model Nineteen has a light single-action trigger.’

‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘What do you want with Fergus Doyle?’

‘Like I told those other guys,’ Ben said. ‘I’m looking for something.’

‘Something?’

‘Someone. Someone who’s missing, whom I care about very much. If Doyle has her, I’d like to discuss business with him, man to man.’

She frowned again, scrutinising him intently. ‘What kind of business?’ she said suspiciously.

‘The ransom kind,’ he said. ‘Money. If he can give me back what he took from me, I can offer him something in exchange.’

A few months earlier, Ben had had Le Val valued for insurance purposes and the figure that had come back was a shade over 1.9 million euros. It was everything Ben had in the world. He’d already decided that was a small price to pay for Brooke’s return, and it was what he intended to put on the table.

The young woman made no reply, just stared at him as if slowly digesting what he’d just said. Before she could speak, from somewhere far away beyond the houses came a wailing of sirens, growing rapidly louder. Ben guessed that the Belfast police weren’t so jaded nowadays that they wouldn’t respond to the sound of a forty-five being let off in the street.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked her.

‘Tara,’ she replied after a beat. ‘Tara McNatten.’

‘If you’re going to fire that thing, Tara, you need to do it before the police turn up. It won’t suit either of us to be caught standing here.’

She glanced over her shoulder, not quite long enough for Ben to move for the gun. ‘Okay,’ she said, appearing to make a decision. ‘You want to see Fergus Doyle. I’ll take you to him. That way.’ She motioned with the gun.

‘What about your friends here?’ he said, looking down at the two captives lashed to the bollard, still struggling wildly to get free and moaning loudly behind their gags.

‘Those are no friends of mine,’ she said. Ben didn’t understand, but there wasn’t time to hang around discussing the finer points. The police sirens were getting close.

He started walking the way Tara was pointing. She followed a few steps behind, keeping her revolver aimed steadily between his shoulder blades. The first police vehicle screamed to a halt and they could hear raised voices and the crackle of radios. Tara guided Ben into the entrance of a winding passage that snaked along between grimy houses and rundown fences for a hundred yards before it opened onto another dismal street. Parked a short distance away was a silver Honda SUV. There was nobody else in sight.

‘That’s my car,’ she said. ‘You’re driving.’ She kept the gun carefully trained on him as he opened the driver’s door. He could tell she wasn’t too experienced at this, but one thing she was was thoughtful. If she’d tossed him the key before he got behind the wheel, he might have been able to get the vehicle fired up and speed away without her; instead she waited until they were both inside, him in front and her behind, and only then did she let him have the key. ‘Go easy,’ she said. ‘Keep to the speed limits. Any tricks and I’ll shoot.’

Ben started the car and pulled away. Following her directions he drove through the maze of streets and back out onto the main road, where they passed the police vehicles speeding in the opposite direction towards the scene of the shooting. Cops were like wasps. If you acted unconcerned about their presence, there was generally a pretty good chance they’d leave you alone. Ben drove the Honda at a steady, nonchalant pace and managed to get by the police without getting stopped.

After a few minutes they were heading out of Belfast. A thin rain started up again, slanting out of the grey afternoon sky. Signs for Dromore and Banbridge flashed past. ‘Keep going,’ Tara’s voice said from the back seat. Finally, she said, ‘Okay, next right,’ and Ben turned off the main road to wind along a few miles of narrow country lanes. ‘See that stand of trees up ahead?’ she said. ‘There’s a gate just after them.’

The gate led to a bumpy track and into a farmyard that had seen better days. ‘This is it,’ she told him. ‘Pull up by the barn over there. Stop the engine and give me back the key. Right. Now get out.’

Ben did as he was told, glancing around him as he stepped out onto the hardcore yard. He’d more than half expected to be greeted by a bunch of hard-faced guys toting sawn-off shotguns and pistols – maybe Flanagan among them, if he’d made it to the getaway van, still nursing his punctured glute and mad for revenge.

As it was, there was no sign of life in the place. A heavy silence hung over the dilapidated outbuildings and the old farmhouse. Ben was baffled, but said nothing.

Tara climbed out of the car, holding the .357 more loosely now but still watching him closely. ‘Over to the house,’ she directed him, and made him stand a few paces away as she unlocked the front door. It swung open with a creak and she motioned for Ben to go in first.

The farmhouse was sparsely furnished and the decor hadn’t been refreshed since about 1956, but it smelled clean. Tara walked Ben down a passage to a laminated door, from behind which he could hear the sound of a TV. Beyond the door was a small sitting room, dark with the curtains drawn. Tara waved Ben inside.

Sitting slumped and immobile in a chintzy elbow chair, half silhouetted by the glow of the television screen and the light of a dim table lamp behind him, was the room’s only occupant. The old man didn’t respond as they walked in. His eyes were closed, his jaw hanging slackly half-open with a trail of drool running down off his chin. His white hair was shaggy and unkempt, and his body looked wasted and withered under his clothes as if he’d been sitting there for years on end.

At first Ben thought he was dead, but then saw the very slow, very shallow rise and fall of his emaciated chest as he slept. The table behind him was almost completely covered with an array of tubs and bottles of medicines.

Tara padded over to the TV and switched it off. With great care and gentleness, she plucked a tissue from a box on the table and used it to clean up the dribble of saliva from the old man’s mouth and chin. Then she turned to Ben. ‘Here he is,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Fergus Doyle. My uncle.’