Run Before the Wind

by Stuart Woods

  She walked quickly through the park, thinking, even in January, that it must be the most intensely gardened piece of ground on earth. She was certain that she was being followed. At the southwest corner she stood next to the call box. Ten minutes later it rang. She picked up the phone. “Yes?”

  “Look down the street toward the Shelburne Hotel. There’s a green van. Do you see it?”

  The van was there. “Yes.”

  “Get into the van; the back door.” The caller hung up.

  She walked quickly to the van and opened the rear door. She was grabbed by two hooded men, yanked quickly inside and pushed roughly to the floor. “Be quiet and lie still,” a muffled voice said. She arranged herself as comfortably as possible on the metal floor. One man kept his foot on her back. The van drove for nearly half an hour, as best she could tell, making many turns. Finally it stopped, doors slammed, and she heard the rattle of a garage door. The van moved a few feet forward and she heard the door rattle again. She emerged from the van in a dark place that smelled of oil and grease. The two men marched her quickly through a door, down a hallway, and into another room. A man of about fifty, gray-haired, heavyset, sat facing her in a straight chair. She recognized Michael Pearce immediately from his photographs. So this was the wild revolutionary, the one the Provos had found too hot to handle. The only light filtered through drawn drapes.

  “What, no hood?” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter if you see my face,” the man said. There was a touch of the North in his accent. “Unless you have the right answers, this place is your last stop.” He nodded to one of the men, who removed his hood and began searching her. His hands lingered on her thighs and at her buttocks and crotch; she stood very still. He felt her breasts, then pinched her nipples, hard, and stood back.

  “She’s clean,” he chuckled.

  She caught him, roundhouse, full in the mouth with the back of her hand, staggering him. He pushed off the wall toward her, swearing and spitting blood. The gray-haired man simply held up a hand, and he stopped.

  “Who are you?” he asked her.

  “You don’t need to know my name,” she said. “All you need to know is that the Bishop sent me here.”

  “Who’s the Bishop?”

  “Call him and ask him. You’ve got the number.”

  He rose and left the room, leaving her with the two guards, one of whom was dabbing at his lips with a handkerchief.

  “Bitch,” he said. “I’ll have you for that.”

  “You’ve had all you’re going to,” she replied. “Touch me again, and I’ll put your eyes out.”

  The man came back and sat down. “So you want to join the Brigade, do you?”

  “Not a bit of it,” she said. “Not yet, anyway. All we want is transport to a training camp and an education.”

  “What sort of education?”

  “Arms, explosives, the lot. Whatever’s going.”

  “You expect us to pay for your training?”

  “We’ll pay ourselves. You’ll get twenty-five thousand pounds when we’re on our way. We’ll make another, similar contribution to the camp.”

  He laughed. “So you’re those two. I read your notices; pretty funny, they were. Amateurs.”

  “Effective amateurs, I’d say. We won’t be amateurs for long.”

  “Where is it you want to go?”

  “I hear Libya’s nice this time of year.”

  “One of you is hot. That’s going to make it more difficult.”

  “What we’re paying should cover it. We want proper passports. I believe you can do that.”

  He nodded. “You’re well informed. All right, we’ll run you out of here in about a week. You’ll fly to Lourdes on a charter flight; we’ll get you to Rome from there and then to the camp. Where are you staying?”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “All right, be in the lobby of the Burlington Hotel tomorrow at three with passport photos of you and your mate. One of the lads will pick them up and tell you the day of your departure. You’ll have the passports and the name of a contact the day before you leave. We’ll want the money tomorrow.”

  “You’ll have the money when we’re in Lourdes safely. I’ll telephone you the location.”

  “Don’t you trust your brothers?”

  “Of course, it’s just that you’ll be so much more concerned with the quality of the passports and our well-being if you’ve something to gain by our safe arrival in Lourdes.”

  “Half tomorrow, the rest on your arrival.”

  “I’ll give your man five thousand tomorrow with the passport photographs, the rest you’ll get as I’ve said.”

  “Half tomorrow, the rest later; take it or leave it. Who else can you go to?”

  “You take it or leave it. The Bishop would be very unhappy to learn that you’d passed up twenty-five thousand for the cause because of stupid bargaining.”

  The man looked annoyed. “All right, done, but you’d better understand you won’t be out of our reach in Lourdes if we don’t hear from you.” He nodded to the two men. “All right, lads, take her back to the Green.”

  “And you’d better understand that we’re going to be very nervous about anyone following us while we’re in Dublin. Such a person could get himself shot.”

  The man rose. “Miss, I couldn’t care less where you go in Dublin. Just have the five thousand ready tomorrow at three. If you have any problems, you know the number, but watch yourself. If you lead the Gardai to any of our people I’ll see you done. They don’t cure death in Lourdes.” He left the room.

  When she returned to the hotel he was pacing the lobby. “Okay? Is it okay?”

  “Not here,” she said. “Upstairs.”

  She was grimly quiet in the elevator. As soon as the door to the room was closed, she threw the newspaper at him. “You stupid bastard,” she hissed at him. “Nobody would’ve cared that you’re gone; nobody would’ve cared that I’ve gone; nobody would care if they knew we’d gone together; they’ve no idea who did the bank, and we’ve enough money to blow up the world, but you … you killed your own brother, and now they’re looking for you!”

  His eyes were wide. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She picked up the newspaper and shoved it at him. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  He looked at the paper, his jaw slack, his eyes glazed, then he sank down onto a bed.

  “Why did you do it?” she demanded, her voice tight. “He would never have done anything to hurt us. Never.”

  Denny looked up at her, surprised. “Do it? Do Donal? Me? You must be mad.”

  She stared at him blankly. “You didn’t kill him?”

  He met her gaze. “I never even touched him. I wouldn’t, Maeve.”

  She looked at him and knew he was telling the truth. Her mind was working quickly, now, and it could come to only one conclusion. She sat down next to him on the bed and put her hand on the back of his neck. He was beginning to cry softly. “It’s Mark Robinson, then,” she said. From what the paper said, it was someone who knew what he was doing. Robinson’d know. Nobody else could have had a thing against Donal. Nobody.”

  The two of them were quiet for a long time, but for Denny’s sobbing. Finally, he composed himself and took a deep breath. “Maeve,” he sighed, “when we finish the training, I’m going to do Captain Robinson.”

  She nodded. “I’ll help you,” she said.

  35

  MY FIRST DAY BACK at the yard there was talk of Donal O’Donnell, and of Denny. Mark made a point of telling Finbar, within earshot of the other workers, everything we knew. Everybody had liked Donal, and while shocked, everyone seemed willing to think that Denny O’Donnell had killed his twin brother. The police had implied that to the newspapers, announcing the details of Donal’s death and that they wished to interview Denny in that connection. Finbar said he would give time off for the funeral, and Mark willingly agreed.

  The depression I felt over th
e break in my relationship with Connie was lifted by the sight of the boat. The laid teak decking was now completed, and somehow, for the first time, the whole thing looked like a yacht instead of a building project. I now felt what Mark must have been feeling all along; the boat, the whole project, was beginning to live for me. I could stand on the new decks and imagine that she was surrounded by salt water instead of a tin shed. If there had been a moment when I had wanted to abandon the project and leave Mark to carry on alone, it was gone in that instant.

  Mark joined me. “She’s going to be something, isn’t she?”

  “She sure is. We’ll launch in June, then?”

  “I reckon.”

  At the end of our work day I took Annie’s shopping list and started toward the supermarket in Douglas, as I often did. I was the last to leave the yard. No more than a couple of hundred yards from the gate I saw a man standing next to his car; the bonnet was up, and he was waving for me to stop. I pulled in behind him. As I got out and started toward him, another car pulled in behind mine. It was a green Volkswagen. I turned to see who else had stopped to help, and I was grabbed by two men and hustled off the road into some tall reeds at the river’s edge. The third man, the one in the stalled car, joined us. He was carrying a lug wrench.

  “Is it him?” the third man asked.

  “It is,” said another man. I recognized the red-bearded fisherman whose nets we had once run over in Toscana, Red something, he was called. I looked quickly about me. We were now completely hidden from the road, and it was nearly dark. I yanked one arm free and took a wild swing at Red, but I missed. The other two quickly pinned my arms. Red took the lug wrench from the other man and stood before me. “You’ll answer for Donal O’Donnell,” he said.”

  For some reason, the fight with Denny O’Donnell ran through my mind. Now, as then, I knew there was no way out of this unless I made it myself, and my chances didn’t seem good. I kicked at him and connected. My foot caught him in the pit of his stomach and sent him backward onto the ground. I struggled wildly to free myself from the other two, but they held on doggedly. Red was getting to his feet. I managed to come down hard on the instep of one of the other two, but although he yelled in pain, he still held on. Red was coming at me with the lug wrench.

  Suddenly, we were bathed in an intensely bright light. “Stand where you are!” a deep voice shouted, and there was a click of metal like a gun being cocked. I could see nothing but the circle of light, and neither could the others. “Gardai!” The voice shouted. “Don’t move.” Everybody froze. “What’s happening here?” the voice asked.

  “Ah, just a bit of personal business,” Red said nervously. “Personal, is it?” the voice asked. “With a bit of steel in your hand?”

  “We was just fixing the motorcar,” Red replied.

  “You, in the middle,” the voice said to me. “Step away from there.”

  I quickly jumped a couple of steps away but was still in the beam of light.

  “It appears to me that you meant to harm this lad,” the voice said.

  “Ah, no, ‘twas nothing like that, now,” Red said back. “Just a bit of personal bother.”

  “Well, I know you,” the voice said to Red, “and if there’s any more bother with this lad I’ll be paying you a visit, do you hear me?”

  Red nodded. “We’ll be going, if it’s all right.”

  “Move, then.”

  They moved, and quickly. Both cars were driven off in record time. The light came closer to me, then flicked off, leaving me blinded. “You all right, Mr. Lee?” The accent suddenly changed from Irish to English. I was confused.

  “Yeah, I guess so, but if you’re a policeman I think you should arrest those fellows; I’ll bring charges.”

  “I’m not a policeman; my name is Primrose, Major Primrose. We spoke on the phone.”

  Derek Thrasher’s security man. I sagged with relief. “Jesus, I’m glad to see you.”

  “I’d stopped to check on my man opposite the yard, there.” He pointed up the hill. “Come on, let’s get you back to your car.”

  We walked through the reeds back onto the road. “What are you going to do about this?” I asked. “Should I report it to the police?”

  “No,” he said. “I shouldn’t think so. Our mutual acquaintance would rather avoid that. Anyway, those blokes think I am the police and that I know them. They’ll back off, I think. Do you know them?”

  “Just the one with the beard. His name is Red something. He’s an illegal salmon fisherman.”

  “Ah, good, I’ll have a word with a friend of mine in the Gardai, perhaps have his boat looked at. He won’t be back around; I know the sort.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Don’t worry about it further,” he said, opening my car door for me. “You’re in good hands.”

  It certainly seemed that way. I thanked him and drove off toward Douglas, trembling as the adrenalin died away. I was lucky not to be lying in those reeds with a broken head.

  I drove through the gates of Coolmore Castle and headed toward the cottage. As I passed the castle I saw Lord Coolmore getting out of his Mercedes. He waved me down.

  “I read about Donal O’Donnell,” he said, leaning against my car. “I’d rather not read about things that happen on my land in the newspaper. I’d rather be told.” In the dark I couldn’t see his face well, but he didn’t sound happy.

  “I’m sorry no one told you, Peter Patrick,” “I replied, but we were a bit too shocked to think of telling you, I suppose.”

  He nodded. “I know the papers are saying Denny O’Donnell did it, but I shouldn’t be surprised if some of the local lads think Mark had something to do with it, seeing the body was found near the cottage.”

  “I’m afraid some of them do think that,” I said. I told him about what had happened to me an hour before. “A … uh, policeman arrived at the right moment.”

  He nodded. “Good. The red-headed fellow sounds like Red O’Mahoney. I know a fellow who knows him. I’ll have a word. You shouldn’t be bothered by that lot again.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Will, if anything else like this happens—if anything else at all happens—I think it would be best if you came to me first, do you take my point?”

  “All right.”

  “Mention that to Mark, too, would you? I haven’t seen him for a bit. I think I can be of assistance in seeing that you have no more local bother through the completion of the boat, but remember, if anything else should happen, see me first.”

  We said good night, and I drove on. I wondered if he really meant that, should we find another dead body on the foreshore, we should come to him first.

  36

  BLACKIE MacADAM spent the afternoon of New Year’s Day in a sauna club in Kensington, sweating out his Parisian excesses. He would have to be dry for a few days in order to make his deadline of the fifth; there was a weekend in between and that shortened his working time. Late in the afternoon, on nothing more than a hunch, he called an acquaintance, a librarian at the Times.

  “What can I do for you, Blackie?”

  “I want to know if a bloke has been in the papers during the last month or so.”

  “Public figure?”

  “Hardly. Name’s Pearce”; he spelled it. “Patrick Fitzgerald Pearce.”

  “How much of a search am I doing, Blackie?”

  “Twenty quid’s worth if you can do it quick.”

  “I don’t know; fellow’s a nobody, after all; could take time.”

  “Don’t stretch it, mate, I know bloody well what you’ve got in your head; you’re not going to be poring over the stacks until midnight.”

  “Know anything at all about him?”

  “There might be something to do with a company called Avon-dale Enterprises.”

  “Avondale, eh? Give me your number.”

  Blackie hung up and gave in to the ministrations of a tiny Japanese girl, who walked up and down his back for twenty minutes, pressin
g on the low ceiling for leverage. He tried not to think about booze, not even hair of the dog. The girl had hardly finished when there was a call for him.

  “Got it, Inspector.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Pearce was an accountant with Avondale; he made The Observer a short time back when he turned over a set of books to the public prosecutor which dropped Avondale right in it for exchange control violations.”

  This was interesting to MacAdam, but not very. He had a feeling there was more to it; thirty years of snooping told him there was something sexier here. “Come on, mate, there’s more to it than that; let’s have it.”

  There was a chuckle. “Too bloody right there’s more. Avondale is Derek Thrasher’s.”

  “Boy wonder Thrasher?”

  “The very same. Thrasher’s in it for possible criminal charges on moving lots and lots of twenty-pound notes across the Channel. They might already have charged him, but he’s gone to ground; nobody’s seen him since or has the foggiest where he is.”

  Now the light went on. He knew where Thrasher had been less than twenty-four hours before: in the bedroom of a Paris flat, listening to Blackie MacAdam talk with the Greek/Arab/Jew. Something else occurred to him. “Didn’t the Provos park a car bomb outside Thrasher’s offices a while back?”

  “Right, and Pearce is Irish, but there doesn’t seem to be a connection.”

  “Anything else?”

  “A statement out of the prosecutor’s office, but nothing more about Pearce. I doubt if he’s ever had his name in the papers before; certainly not since.”

  “Your twenty will be in Monday’s post.” MacAdam hung up. Oh, yes, very sexy. He had a feeling there would be more than 500 quid in this for him before he was done. He eased himself into a hot tub and let the Japanese girl scrub his back. The booze seemed less important now.

  On Saturday MacAdam drove down to Streatham, a grim, South London suburb, and found the house where Pearce lived, not far from Streatham Common. He wanted a look at the man, and he didn’t have to wait long. Pearce came out of the house looking sleepy (not an early riser; it was past two) and walked a block and a half to a pub, the Bramble. MacAdam followed him, collecting a newspaper along the way. At the bar Pearce ordered a pint of Guinness and a sandwich and read his own paper. MacAdam made himself comfortable at a table and ordered a sandwich. Pearce chatted with the barman, stole an occasional glance at MacAdam, and nursed his pint until closing time at three, either too cheap to buy another or, for an Irishman, amazingly uninterested in drink.