The Curse of Medusa

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lea checked into the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel on Dublin’s Golden Lane. She had friends in the city, but they weren’t part of this side of her life, and her remaining family was distant and scattered along the west coast.

She flicked the TV to a news channel and watched the terrible news flooding out of America. It looked like the attacks were restricted to Washington DC, which was a small mercy, but they still had no idea where the President was — or even if he was dead or alive. She knew Jack Brooke would be up to his neck in it and she hoped Alex Reeve was safe. For now, at least, there was nothing else she could do.

She glanced at her phone — no messages. She considered calling Hawke. Where was he in the world? She had no idea. She picked up the phone and began to dial his number, but then thought better of it. He hadn’t called her, after all. She put the phone down and watched people trundling up and down the street beneath their umbrellas.

The light was beginning to fade now, and the night approached. It was all very familiar. Every time she returned to Ireland it was like she’d never been away, but at the same time she felt like she was a little more different every time she came back. She glanced at her watch and saw it was almost time to meet Devlin.

When Eden had told her about McNamara’s murder, she knew she’d need help when she got back to Ireland. Daniel Devlin was her old commanding officer from the Army Ranger Wing. He was a good man but a better soldier, and these days he spent his time propping up the bar in Flynn’s on Harry Street.

She hadn’t seen him for more years than she could remember, and she wondered what she was about to walk into. She’d heard stories about his fall from grace, but taken them with a good pinch of salt. Now she was about to see him face to face her concerns grew stronger, but she had nowhere else to run. He was the only person she could trust to help her, and she just hoped that he was going to be up to it.

She made the short walk to the pub in less than ten minutes and as expected, the former commandant was halfway through a Guinness and regaling the half-empty room with his old army exploits. She wondered if he could stand, let alone help her track down McNamara’s killers… but then she stopped herself. Men like Devlin were hardened Special Operations military men and she had watched him do whatever it took on missions from Somalia to Kosovo. She was certain he could handle anything thrown at him tonight.

She approached him from behind, looking up at the muted TV set bringing the punters yet more news of the chaos unfolding in Washington DC.

“So how many’s that you’ve sunk, Danny?”

Devlin turned and his face lit up. “So you really did make it back home, Mrs Bale?”

“Sure I did… someone had to drag you out of here, you know. You drink too much — you know that, don’t you, Danny?”

Devlin shrugged his shoulders. “I drink to hide from myself, Lea.”

“Does it work?”

“No. I’m too good at finding things.”

“Same old tosspot, I see — and it’s not Mrs Bale anymore… we divorced.”

“Am I sorry to hear it?”

“No.”

Devlin laughed and clapped his hand on her shoulder. He ordered two more pints of Guinness up at the bar while Lea secured a table in the corner. She watched him at the bar, recalling the night they had spent together all those years ago in this very city.

He walked over to her, a drink in each hand and smiled warmly at her as he sat down.

“So what have you been up to, Lea — saving the world, if I made my best guess?”

She looked at him for a second and took a sip of the stout. “Something like that, Danny.”

He chuckled and shook his head from side to side. “I bet you are, too. Tell me though, why are you bothering me tonight? By the looks of that tan I’d say you’re not spending too much time in Galway…”

“I need your help,” she said, ignoring the fishing expedition to find out where she lived. “No other reason for me to get in touch with such an ugly bastard, is there now?”

He laughed, and glanced at her, his face growing more serious. “Nothing too nasty, I hope?”

She sat for a long time and said nothing. She knew the silence wouldn’t bother Devlin, and she was right. He sipped his drink and occasionally scratched at the silver stubble on his chin. Then she spoke.

“It’s about Dad.”

“Your father?”

She nodded. “You remember what I told you about him, right?”

He nodded. “He died when you were a girl… I remember. Very sad.”

Another pause. “You know, they told me I was crazy when I said I thought someone murdered him.”

“I remember, Lea.”

“But now it looks like I might be able to prove it.”

He gave her a sideways glance, eyes narrowing. “How’s that then?”

“Danny, listen — recently a close friend of mine in British intelligence…”

“Now that’s an aposiopesis if ever I heard one, young Donovan.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was going to say that he’s a very good friend of mine, and he knew Dad. Anyway, he got some information recently about one of his and Dad’s mutual friends — a Sean McNamara.”

“What sort of information?”

“He was killed, Danny. Someone broke into his cottage in Cork and garrotted him to death with the silk cord of his own dressing gown.”

Devlin winced and put his pint glass down. “Now, I asked you right at the start if it was anything too nasty. You could have given some kind of warning — that’s put me right off me Arthur’s.”

“This is serious, Danny.”

“It bloody sounds like it!”

Lea rubbed her eyes. “That it is, Danny — that it is…”

“So what’s this got to do with you and me?”

“Whoever killed him was looking for something. That was obvious because the whole place was trashed, but they didn’t find it.”

He gave her a look. “And how do you know that?”

“Because just before he was killed, he sent Rich — my intel friend — an email.”

“While he was being garrotted?”

“Sure. Turns out he’d set up an automatic emergency send function on his mobile phone. You can send a pre-written message out to any number of contacts just by holding down the volume button on your phone.”

“And how many contacts did this message go to?”

“Just one — Rich.”

“And it said..?”

“It said if he was reading this message, then they had come for him at last, that they were the same people who had killed my father, and that what they were looking for they would find on the side of the sun.”

“On the side of the sun? I don’t understand.”

“That’s because you don’t speak Irish.”

Devlin rolled his eyes and laughed. “Don’t start that again.”

“On the side of the sun is Taobh na Gréine in Irish, Danny.”

“Still not with you.”

“I can tell you never went on a self-catering holiday as a kid…”

“I grew up in South Africa, Lea, you know that. Just tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

“My parents’ holiday cottage was called Taobh na Gréine, Danny — a lot of those places are called that. McNamara’s emergency message was telling Rich that the men who killed him and my father are searching for something, and that whatever they were looking for, Dad must have hidden in his cottage.”

Devlin smiled. “You see, now — now — I’m right up there with you. All I need to know is why you’re telling me about this? Surely you can hire a car and drive to the cottage without recruiting an old soak like Danny Devlin?”

Another pause. “There’s something else.”

“I bloody knew it! Am I going to need another drink?”

“McNamara and Dad were both doctors, Danny. Not your average GPs but research specialists. The message hinted that what the killers were searching for might have something to do with their later research work. That’s all.”

“That’s all?! It’s more than enough to be going on with! Garrotted doctors in cosy cottages? Until now I used to think it was a weird day if it stopped raining, but now I see I was wrong.”

“Danny, will you help me?”

“Lea, you know that…”

Without warning, bullets drilled through the windows at the front of Flynn’s and blasted shattered glass into the room with the force of a hurricane. The handful of drinkers dived for the floor and crawled over the broken glass on their way behind the bar. More bullets shredded through the woodwork and peppered the bottles of whiskey, vodka and gin neatly lined up behind the bar. A mix of glass shards and alcoholic mist rained down on those sheltering beneath.

Lea and Devlin leaped from their table and slammed themselves against the far wall. She peered around the corner through the wrecked entrance of the pub and saw three men in ski masks standing behind a black Peugeot 508 estate car. Each of them was carrying what looked like a MAT-49 — a blowback operated submachine gun used by the French Army.

The gunmen swaggered across the narrow pedestrian area toward the ruined pub.

“Like father like daughter, hein?” one of them shouted, and laughed. It sounded to Lea a lot like a French accent.

“Out you come, little piggies,” said another, also French.

Devlin looked at Lea. “Don’t know about you, Donovan, but I think that’s one invitation I’m going to turn down.”

The men sprayed more lead into the small pub, tearing up the word-work around the old bar into a thousand splinters. “Time to die, little piggies.”

Lea didn’t think so. “Is there a back way outta here, Danny?”

Devlin nodded. “Just through there.” He nodded at the back of the bar. “That door leads to a side entrance, but I don’t like our chances. It’s a narrow alley and we’ll get cut to shreds before we’ve got ten yards if they see us go down there.”

“Then let’s hope they don’t see us go down there because I think it’s our only chance!”

Devlin dusted himself down. “If you’re up for it then count me in. I’ve never been beaten by a woman yet and I’m not going to start now.”

They made a dash for it, taking advantage of the night’s darkness and the shadows to reach the end of the narrow lane with their lives intact. Behind them, they heard the gunmen demolishing the small pub with their submachine guns and laughing wildly.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Devlin said, “but I really hope those guys are after you and not me.”

Lea gave him a look. “Oh, they’re after me all right.”

He looked at her, worried. “Listen, it’s not going to take them long to work out we’re not in there, so let’s get moving.”

Lea took a breath. “But to where, Danny?”

Devlin winced as another burst of gunfire echoed down the lane. “Sounds to me like we’re going to need some back-up.”