Touch The Devil

by Jack Higgins

  “Just over an hour ago. He said he’d ring back.”

  “And gave no explanation why he didn’t make the rendezvous with the Northern Fleet trawler?”

  “None, Colonel.”

  “Have you checked the British papers?”

  She nodded. “Not a word of anything remotely similar to what Barry intended. There is an urgent communication from our London embassy, marked for your eyes only, Code Three. Perhaps that contains relevant information.”

  “Let’s go and see.”

  Belov went out, and she followed him down to the coding room where she went to get the tape and the photos. The operator inserted it into the machine, Belov keyed it to his personal code. The machine chattered briefly, and the decoded information appeared on a printout sheet, which Irana tore off and handed to him.

  The message gave Belov the fullest briefings on the Brosnan affair and also contained a full profile of Devlin and Anne-Marie Audin, illustrated by the photos he held in his hand.

  He handed the lot to Irana. “What do you make of that?”

  She read the report and frowned. “But there’s something about this in the latest edition of the morning paper, Colonel.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ll show you.” They went back along the corridor to her office, which was next to his. The Paris morning papers were on her desk. She hunted through them and finally said triumphantly, “There you are. Stop Press. Prisoners drowned trying to escape from Belle Isle prison. Martin Brosnan and Jacques Savary.”

  Belov took the paper from her, sat on the edge of the desk and read it. “This man, Savary, was quite a character,” he said. “I thought his name sounded familiar.”

  “And Brosnan must have been a handful too,” she said.

  “Yes, it could have developed into a troublesome situation if it had come to anything.”

  The phone rang on her desk. She picked it up, spoke briefly then turned to Belov. “Barry.”

  Belov took the phone and didn’t waste any time. “You’re in Paris?”

  “So it would appear,” Barry said cheerfully.

  “My apartment in thirty minutes,” Belov said and put down the phone.

  Barry stood at the railing of the terrace of the apartment on the Boulevard St. Germain and looked out across the river. “They really do you very well, your people,” he said as Belov came through the open window and handed him a Scotch and soda.

  “Never mind that sort of nonsense. Explanations, Frank, that’s what I want. What went wrong over there?”

  “Not a thing.” Barry helped himself to a cigarette and sat down in a wicker chair. “Couldn’t have gone better.”

  Belov was astonished. “You mean you actually did the job? But that’s not possible. There hasn’t been a word in the English newspapers.”

  “Security clampdown,” Barry said, “which makes sense if you think of it. Anyway, all that’s important is that I do have that rocket pod.”

  “Then why didn’t you make the rendezvous with the Northern Fleet trawler?”

  Barry chuckled. “Nikolai, this may come as a shock in view of our long relationship, but I don’t trust your lot, and it occurred to me that if I once boarded that trawler with that very valuable piece of merchandise I might very well never get off again. You do follow me?”

  “Nonsense.” Belov was genuinely angry. “Haven’t I always treated you fairly? When have I ever let you down?”

  “Not you, old son, the sods back at headquarters I’m thinking of,” Barry said. “This one is big, Nikolai. The biggest thing you’ve ever handled. You said that yourself. Maybe too big.”

  Belov took a deep breath. “What do you want?”

  “A plane ready and waiting whenever I need it. A Cessna will do. I’ll fly her myself, of course.”

  “Where to?”

  “Back to the Lake District. No problem. I’ll find some suitable abandoned strip near where I want to be. I’ll leave the plane there.”

  “And what about British air traffic control? They like to know who’s flying in their air space.”

  “Oh, I’ll be long gone by the time they discover where I put down.”

  Belov nodded reluctantly. “All right. There’s a small flying club near Croix, just outside Paris. We’ve found it useful in the past. I’ll see a suitable plane is ready and waiting for you. Now, what other nasty surprises have you in store for me?”

  “Number one, the exchange takes place in Ireland, south of the border, of course.” Belov started to explode, and Barry shook his head. “I won’t have it any other way. Anything I’ve ever done can be construed as political, so I can’t be extradited. I’m safe there. An old aunt of mine has an estate ten miles outside Cork, on the coast. Very suitable place to do business. I’ll let you have details, naturally.”

  Belov put up a hand. “I wouldn’t dream of disagreeing. Just tell me the rest and let’s get it over with.”

  “Two million,” Barry said. “That’s what it’s going to cost you.”

  Belov looked horrified. “Two million. You must be crazy.”

  “No, just thinking of retiring. I’m not getting any younger, old son.” There was a heavy silence. He said, “I have got it, Nikolai, believe me. No matter how much of a security clamp-down exists, your contacts in West Germany should be able to confirm what happened for you.”

  “True.” Belov said. “I’m not able to speak on the money, though. I’ll have to consult Moscow. I’ll let you know.”

  “By tomorrow morning,” Barry said. “I don’t want to hang about.”

  Belov said wearily. “You’re a bastard all the way through, Frank. I’ve always treated you fair and you do this to me. I should have known.”

  Barry helped himself to another whisky. “You learn something new every day.”

  Belov went into the living room and returned with the transcript of the message from London. “Better read that.”

  Barry finished reading and smiled. “Well, would you look at that now?” he whispered.

  Belov said, “Have you seen the Paris papers this morning?”

  “No, should I have?”

  Belov tossed a newspaper across. “Noon edition. Makes interesting reading.”

  The story was there in full, together with photos of Savary and Brosnan. Barry read it through quickly. “Brosnan dead? That doesn’t seem possible.”

  “It comes to us all.”

  “Not Martin Brosnan. You didn’t know him like I did. Tried to kill me once.”

  “What for?”

  “Oh, let’s say he didn’t approve of the way I carried on our particular war at that time.”

  Belov shrugged. “Old history, none of which has any relevance now that he’s dead.”

  “But Devlin isn’t,” Barry said.

  Belov frowned. “You think he’s a threat?”

  “He could give the Devil points, that one.” Barry got up and walked to the railing. “I wonder what he’s up to right now, or what’s more to the point, where is he?”

  “Somewhere in the area of St. Denis last night, waiting to receive Brosnan—must have been,” Belov said.

  “That’s right, and the Audin girl with him. So where are they now?”

  “Back in Paris, perhaps.”

  “Easy enough to find out. She must be in the phone book.”

  Five minutes later, the phone rang in Anne-Marie’s Paris apartment. Her daily maid, who was in the kitchen, dried her hands and went to answer it.

  The voice at the other end spoke excellent French, with a slight accent. “Mademoiselle Audin?”

  “No, Monsieur, she isn’t here. Who’s speaking?”

  “Paris-Match,” Barry said smoothly. “It’s important I get hold of her. Do you know where she is?”

  “But of course, Monsieur. She phoned me here only an hour ago to say that she would be spending a few days on her farm.”

  “Farm?” Barry laughed warmly. “Sounds very unlike Anne-Marie.”

 
; “Oh, it’s just a small place, Monsieur, near Nice, in the hills above Nice. A village called St. Martin. One old shepherd, a few sheep. Mademoiselle Audin uses it to get away from things. That’s why she hasn’t a telephone there.”

  The maid was the kind of woman who obviously couldn’t stop talking, and Barry cut her off. “Never mind,” he said. “I’ll wait till she gets back,” and he hung up.

  “So what do you intend to do?” Belov demanded.

  “I think I’ll take a plane down to Nice. After all, it only takes an hour. Scout this place of hers out. See if she’s got Devlin there with her.”

  “Why not let it go, Frank? As soon as I get your money confirmed from Moscow, you can be away. Why bother with this Devlin?”

  “Old scores to settle there,” Barry said. “And in any case curiosity was always my besetting sin. You might say I have a compulsion to find out what the bastard’s up to.”

  “Have it your own way,” Belov said wearily.

  “I usually do, hadn’t you noticed? One thing you can do is give me an address in Nice where I can pick up a little muscle if I need it. Nothing fancy, no nonsense about using their brains. Fist and boot men, that’s what I want. Can you handle that?”

  Belov nodded. “Yes, as it happens we have excellent connections in Nice. I can give you a suitable address.”

  “Great, I knew I could rely on you. I’ll be in touch as soon as I get back.” He grinned and slapped Belov on the shoulder. “Cheer up, old son. It might never happen.”

  TWELVE

  The small farm high on the hill above St. Martin looked rather medieval. It had a tower at one end, and a roof covered in red pantiles, faded by the sun. Devlin looked down to the village, far below in the valley, the single ribbon of road that zig-zagged up the hill to the farm. The heat of the afternoon sun was warm on his back, and he stretched lazily, turned back to the farm, and went into the kitchen.

  Anne-Marie stood at the wood stove, preparing dinner. She wore a tweed cap, open-necked shirt, and overalls tucked into boots.

  “How do you like it?” she demanded.

  “A man could be happy here or go stark, raving mad.” She laughed, and he said, “What about Martin?”

  “Still fast asleep when I looked in.” She put the pan on the stove. “I’d like to have taken a picture, but I didn’t want to risk waking him. He looked different.”

  “How different?”

  “I don’t quite know how to put it. Very young.”

  Devlin lit a cigarette and sat down, shaking his head. “Sure and you’re kidding yourself there, girl dear. There are no young men, not in Martin’s generation or yours, for that matter. All the hopes, all the aspirations disappeared a long time ago, swallowed up by the swamps of Vietnam and the brickfields and back alleys of Ulster.”

  She wiped her hands on a cloth and said gravely, “Yes, I’m afraid you’re very probably right. The belief that life is a romantic affair is an essential ingredient missing in our generation. We learned, too young, that dishonesty is necessary for survival.”

  “What’s that, the thought for today?”

  Brosnan stood in the doorway wearing a woolen shirt and jeans. He badly needed a shave and his hair, still almost shoulder length, was tousled.

  Anne-Marie said, “You look like a…”

  She searched for words, and he laughed. “Like what? A thoroughly dangerous convict on the run?”

  “No chance.” Devlin threw a newspaper across to him. “Anne-Marie’s been down to the village store. Noon edition just in from Nice. You’re dead and that’s official.”

  Brosnan read the item through and showed no particular emotion. Anne-Marie said, “Don’t you feel anything?”

  “Not really.” He ran his hands over his face. “What I could do with is some fresh air and a sense of space. How about a look over this sheep farm of yours?”

  She turned to Devlin. He nodded. “Go on, get out of it,” he said, “the both of you. I’ll make myself a cup of tea and read a book or something.”

  Brosnan and Anne-Marie went outside, and he looked up toward the high hills, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Those sheep up there?”

  “That’s right. Spanish mountain sheep.”

  “A hell of a pull up those slopes to reach them.”

  “Oh, Old Louis, that’s my shepherd, doesn’t mind. He’s been doing it all his life. I’m a little more up-to-date myself though.”

  She opened the barn door, and Brosnan saw a motorcycle up on its stand. “You mean you go up there on that?”

  “That’s what it’s made for. It’s Spanish as well. Montesa dirt bike. They’ll do half a mile an hour if you want over rough ground in bottom gear. On the other hand, I usually do go rather faster than that.”

  “Okay,” Brosnan said. “Show me.”

  “If you like.”

  She pushed the bike off its stand, wheeled it outside and mounted, kick-starting expertly. The engine roared, and he climbed on the pillion and put his hands round her waist.

  “Okay, let’s see what you can do.”

  She let in the clutch and they roared away.

  The Montesa did everything she said it would, taking the slopes with a satisfying growl as she opened the throttle. When they ran out of track, she took to the hillside, climbing higher and higher until they went over a ridge and found sheep before them, scattered across the parched grass, grazing peacefully.

  Finally, she braked to a halt beside a small whitewashed cottage, with a roof of red pantiles, in a slight depression surrounded by olive trees. To one side a wild and beautiful ravine dropped steeply.

  “Old Louis uses this as a base when he’s up here. Sometimes stays for weeks. He doesn’t like it down there.” She nodded to the valley, far below, St. Martin drowning in the late afternoon heat.

  “I know what he means,” Brosnan said.

  She tried the door, and they went in. There was a living room and kitchen combined and a bedroom. The floors were stone flagged, the walls crudely plastered, but inside it was cool and dark as it was intended to be.

  “He must be farther up,” she said.

  She lifted the wooden lid of a water cooler, took out a bottle of white wine, and found two glasses. They went back outside and sat on the bench against the wall. From somewhere lower down, there was the hollow jangle of a bell, remote, far away.

  “That’s the oldest ram, Hercules,” she said. “Leader of the pack, or should I say the flock?”

  She filled his glass and her own and stood there, looking down at the valley. “My favorite time of day. Everything seems to hang fire.”

  She turned briefly to him and smiled, and he realized, with a sense of discovery and as if it were the first time, that she was beautiful.

  “People lived here once,” he said. “In another world. Now they don’t. Some of that lingers on. I suppose that’s what your Old Louis is trying to recapture.”

  She sat down on the grass in front of him, ankles crossed. “What happens now, Martin?”

  “To us, you mean?”

  She shook her head with a kind of impatience. “No, to you.”

  “Well, first there’s Frank Barry to take care of. The object of the exercise, after all.”

  “Let him go, Martin. There’s no profit in it. He’s a walking dead man. Next week or next year,” she shrugged, “somewhere, someone’s waiting for him. He must know that himself.”

  “Very probably, but I’d prefer to be that someone myself.” Brosnan was quite calm, no evidence of emotion at all on his face. “This is personal, but then you know that?”

  “Norah?” She shook her head. “You used to talk about her a lot, remember? From the sound of her, the last person to want you to pursue this thing.”

  “Perhaps,” Brosnan said, “but then Norah was always too good for this life. She never made that most important discovery of all.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “That it’s not just a matter of the bastards l
ike Frank Barry. Most people let you down, one way or the other in the end. A fact of life.” There was an edge of bitterness in his voice when he said that.

  She said, “Like me, you mean, or Liam, or Jean-Paul?” She put her glass down carefully, trying to control her anger. “And what about Martin Brosnan, who hauled an old man out of Belle Isle with him when it would have been a damn sight easier to do it on his own?”

  “I owed him,” Brosnan said. “We shared a cell for four years. He sustained me with his wit and his humor and his wisdom.” He laughed harshly. “That’s ironic, isn’t it? A gangster who’s spent most of his life on the wrong side of the law and still he has real virtues.”

  She got up and walked to the edge of the ravine and looked down into the valley again. When she turned, she was calmer. “All right, let’s move on from Frank Barry. After that, what happens?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Ireland, I suppose. The only place left where I’m safe.”

  “Back to that struggle of yours that was so important? My life for Ireland. Thompson guns by night and never wanting it to stop?”

  “The only game we’ve got, you mean? When I picked up a rifle that night in Belfast, that first night, I was trying to stop people killing other people. Afterward, I found myself on a course there was no turning back from. Remember what Yeats said? Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.” He shook his head. “Too much blood, my love, too many dead. Nothing’s worth that. No more causes for me.”

  “So what will you do?”

  “The Brosnans came from Kerry, remember? I bought a farm there a few years ago. Sheep mostly, just like this place.” He laughed. “I like sheep. They don’t take life too seriously.”

  “So you’d like to go back there?”

  “It’s quite a place. Sea and mountains, green grass, soft rain, fuschia growing in the hedges, glowing in the evening. Deorini Dei—the Tears of God, they call it.” He laughed softly. “And the prettiest girls in all Ireland.”

  He had stood to stretch himself and found her watching him, the shadow of pain in her eyes. He moved close and reached for her hand. “You’d fit into the scene admirably.”