Reaper

by Hurley, Graham

  “What’s happened?” the man said quietly, without turning round.

  Connolly hesitated. “She’s dead,” he said at last.

  “Oh.” The man nodded. “You’ll be off, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK.” The man tensed a moment, seeming to see something, then relaxed again.

  Connolly stared at him, expecting some other comment, good luck perhaps, or fuck off. But the man said nothing, squatting on the rush matting, waiting patiently for whatever happened next. You’re finished, Connolly thought, you’re a dead man. Whoever’s out there, whoever reached in and took Jude, will have you next. He smiled at the back of the man’s head.

  “Bye,” he said, “Tiocfaidh Ar La.”

  Ingle awoke with a start, pitch darkness. He reached out and found the light switch, blinking in the sudden glare. Three of the miniatures were lined up on the bedside cabinet. Through the empty bottles, he could see the face of the digital clock. The clock said 2:41.

  Ingle sat up in bed. The thing was quite clear to him now. It had taken more time, and more Scotch, than it should have done, but now he had it. Or most of it. He reached for the telephone, keyed an outside line, and dialled the number on the ATU Duty Desk. It was manned round the clock. Even Sundays.

  A voice answered, a woman. Ingle introduced himself, using the special code, changed weekly.

  “I need advice,” he said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Someone in the diving world. Someone who knows a lot about explosives.”

  There was a pause. Then another voice, a man. “You’ve a choice,” he said, “SBS or one of our own blokes.”

  Ingle frowned a moment. SBS was the Special Boat Squadron, the Royal Marine equivalent of the SAS. They spent a lot of time on and under warships, and they knew a great deal about explosives.

  ‘SBS,” he said.

  “Thanks,” the voice said drily.

  Ingle grinned. “No offence,” he said. “Your bloke needs his sleep.”

  “You’re phoning now?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a brief pause. Ingle could hear pages being turned. Then the voice came back. Ingle reached for a pen.

  “0202 747551,” the voice said, “it’s a Dorset number.” There was a pause. “Good luck.”

  The phone went dead. Ingle emptied the last millimetre of Scotch in one of the bottles and dialled the Dorset number. To his surprise, the number answered on the second ring. Another man. Less sleepy than he should be.

  “Yes?” he said briefly.

  “My name’s Ingle. I work for Special Branch. I’m sorry to phone you so late.”

  “That’s OK.” Slight pause. “What do you want?”

  Ingle hesitated a moment, then said he had cause to believe an attack might be pending on one of the ships in the Task Force. He paused again.

  “Would that be feasible?” he said at last.

  The man came back at once, clipped, businesslike. “Yes,” he said.

  “What would you need?”

  “Explosives. Expertise.”

  “How much expertise?”

  “Fair bit.”

  Ingle nodded, still nursing the empty bottle, thinking of the man Buddy. “What about gear?” he said at last, changing the subject. “The right kit?”

  “Wouldn’t be a problem. Given the right contacts.”

  “Detonators?”

  “Easy.”

  Ingle nodded again, gazing at the curtains. Hideous pattern. Turquoise zig-zags. Yuk. “What’s the maximum setting?” he said slowly. “On a timer?”

  There was a brief silence. For once, the man at the other end was having to think. Then he came back. There was real interest in his voice.

  “You wouldn’t need a timer,” he said, “not if you were clever.”

  “No?”

  “No. You’d use a remote signal. Simpler. Safer.” He paused. “More fun, too.”

  Ingle frowned, not keeping up. “Fun?”

  “Yeah.” The other man laughed. “Have you ever seen the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour?”

  Buddy knew he was in trouble when he heard the double splash behind him. The splashes were loud, real weight, real impact, and he knew at once what they meant. He’d been detected. They’d sent in divers of their own. And now they were going to find him.

  He swam faster, losing a little depth, increasing his breathing rate, adjusting the flow valve to feed more of the precious oxygen to his tired muscles. The darkness pressed in around him, adding to this terrible sense of isolation. They must have heard me fixing the clamp, he thought. They must have picked up the scrape of the dagger. He was out of date on the systems they used, but he imagined they must now have some precise means of locating intruders, some hi-tech refinement on the crude old techniques of sonar pickets, and blokes on deck watching for bubbles. These are the eighties, he thought. They’ll have field sensors, or magic eyes, or some kind of electronic moat ringing the ship at the touch of a button. They’ll know exactly where I am. They’ll know exactly what I’ve done. And if they don’t kill me now, it’ll be a state trial, and a footnote in the history books when they come to chronicle this silly fucking war. Buddy Little, patriot extraordinaire. The man who tried to sink half the Task Force.

  He swam on, listening to his own heart beat, wondering whether it might be better to double back, and relocate the clamp, and extract the detonator, and surface by the carrier, and give himself up. In mitigation, he’d claim extenuating circumstances. He’d tell them the truth. He’d say he’d been under stress, engaged in a war of his own, hopeless odds, pitting the best marriage on earth against armies of medical scientists. All he’d ever wanted, he’d tell them, was his wife back. Have you ever met these bastards, he’d ask them, have you ever tried to reason with these guys in the white coats? Hopeless, all of them. Givers-in and takers-away. My wife. Her body. What right did any of them ever have? To tell him it was hopeless? That she’d never get better? What kind of medicine was that?

  He swam on, pursued by demons, his own body beginning to weaken in the icy water, knowing that the moment of compromise was long gone, that he was committed to this deal of his, this deal he’d struck with the men across the water, the Queen’s enemies, and that there was no turning back. The divers behind him might find the charge. Equally, they might not. Either way, when the Fleet left, he’d still be out there, with his flag in one hand, and his little control box in the other. Old times’ sake, he thought, the phrase looming out of nowhere, the blackness in his own head. Old times’ sake. My times. Jude’s times. Our times. Not their times. Not the service. Not the blokes. Not the eight years he’d spent in uniform. No. Important, that. Jude. For her. Yeah.

  Buddy hit the piling, not seeing it. The impact drove the rim of the mask into his face and tore the regulator from his mouth. He swallowed water. He felt himself beginning to sink. His fingers reached down for the weightbelt and released it. Freed, he kicked upwards, the first stirrings of tide pressing him onto the big concrete piling. He pushed at it, tearing his hands on the razor-sharp barnacles. He opened his mouth, feeling his lungs beginning to burst with the pressure inside, letting the oxygen bubble out. Then he broke surface, gasping for air.

  He wiped the water from his face, tasting his own blood. Looming over him was the bow of a boat. He peered at it in the darkness, hearing the lap of the water against the hull. He reached out and touched it. It was a big boat, metal, with a heavy timber fender skirting the hull. He swam along it, up the harbour, very slowly, getting his breath back, looking for bearings. Then he had it. The boat was the Gosport ferry. He was off course, about a hundred metres, the tide probably, or his own mania. Either way he had to get back, up harbour, back to the marina. He reached for the release on the rebreather, and pulled it, feeling the weight of the big cylinders leaving his shoulders, Harry’s gear tumbling down to the bottom of the harbour. Easier now, he thought. Might even make it.

  Fifteen minutes later, exhausted
, he found the yacht. He hung in the water beside it for a minute or two, his arm crooked round the ladder at the stern. Eva’s face hung above him, pale, in the darkness. She’d been worried, she said. She’d been wondering what had happened. Buddy removed his flippers and his mask, passing them up. Then he slowly climbed the ladder, back onto the yacht.

  Down below, the curtains drawn, Eva closed the door and poured hot water into a mug of coffee. There was a bottle of brandy, too, and a glass. Buddy lay full length on the bunk, soaking it through. His left hand was covered in blood, and Eva bent to it, staunching the flow with a tea towel, asking him how it had gone. Buddy simply nodded.

  “OK,” he said. “It went OK.”

  A little later, wrapped in blankets, warmed by the brandy, his wet suit folded into one of the forward lockers, he mentioned the other divers.

  “Two of them,” he said, “enough to stuff us.”

  He sniffed, swallowing another mouthful of brandy, his responsibilities at an end. Eva frowned. “What divers?” she asked.

  Buddy explained about the two splashes. The guys in the water. The noises they must have picked up. The search they’d now be completing. Odds were they’d find the charge. Bound to. Eva laughed. “They’re rubbish,” she said, “your divers.”

  Buddy frowned, taking offence.

  “No they’re not,” he said, “they’re bloody good. Best in the world.”

  “I meant garbage. Waste.” She smiled. “The stuff they chuck overboard.”

  She explained she’d been watching the carrier throughout, using the glasses he’d left. Half an hour or so after he’d gone, she’d seen two men with something heavy stagger to the edge of the flight deck. Whatever it was, they’d left it, returning with another. Then both objects had gone overboard. The splashes had been audible from the yacht. She remembered them quite clearly.

  “Rubbish,” she repeated, “Abfälle.”

  Buddy looked at her, wondering whether to believe her or not, admitting in his heart that it was probably true, but knowing – worst of all – that the feeling inside him was one of disappointment.

  “Great,” he said, reaching for the bottle again, “I thought they might have found the bloody thing.”

  Connolly followed the road, away from the cottage, away from the shooting, moving very slowly, a yard at a time, crouched low amongst the rocks. Every step he took, the mountainside became steeper, the footing more uncertain. Soon, he knew, he’d have to cross the road.

  He glanced over his shoulder. The farmhouse was a hundred yards behind him now, big and solid in the moonlight. There’d been no more firing, no more fingers of flame from the darkness. Whoever it was, he thought, whoever had been out there, whoever had killed Jude, must have gone. They’d got what they’d come for. They’d tasted blood. And now they were away.

  Cautiously, keeping as low as he could, Connolly climbed up to the road. The road was still wet from the rain. He paused a moment, then ran across, into the shadows on the other side. There were trees here, a stand of pines, and then the mountain climbed away again, up into the dark.

  Connolly crouched beneath the trees, catching his breath. He’d no idea what lay at the end of the road. He knew only that he had to get away, to find a phone again, to find Buddy and deliver Jude’s message. After that, the thing – his life, the future – was a total blank.

  As he got to his feet, a sudden gust of wind, up from the valley, shook the rain from the branches overhead. The raindrops pattered around him. He shivered, moving again, up the mountain, still following the line of the road, one cautious foot in front of the other, silent on the thick carpet of pine needles.

  He didn’t hear the man behind him. Didn’t see him, or even sense him. All he felt was a hand over his mouth, and something hard in the small of his back. He tried to struggle, to twist free, but the grip simply tightened. He fell full length, his face pressed against the damp earth, a knee in his back, something metallic nudging the skin behind his right ear. A hand reached down and pulled him over. He looked up. There was a face in the darkness, an oldish face, hair swept back. The man was wearing a leather jacket. He was holding a gun. The gun was pointing at Connolly’s mouth. It was a big gun. It looked like the gun he’d used on Charlie, the gun he’d left in the house. He blinked, knowing that this was the end, that he was going to die, the way Charlie had died, the bullet tearing into his skull, dissolving his brain into a thin mist of blood and bone. He relaxed, lying back, closing his eyes. I’ve deserved this, he thought, I’ve had it coming. He held his breath, trying not to be frightened, knowing that he owed himself a little dignity, a little grace. Nothing happened. He opened his eyes. The gun was still there. The face, too, quite impassive.

  “Where’s Scullen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The gun wavered a moment. The man began to frown. There was a silence.

  “You’re English,” he said, “your name’s Connolly.”

  Connolly nodded, blinking.

  “Yes,” he said blankly, “it is.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  It was nearly dawn by the time Ingle found Buddy’s cottage in the New Forest. He’d taken Kee along with him for company. Kee was asleep.

  Ingle pulled the car to a halt beside a square of outbuildings to the left of the cottage. The buildings were painted white, breeze block with a dark tile roof. Stables, thought Ingle, remembering the article again. He nudged Kee. Kee opened one eye and grunted. He had a headache from the whisky. He needed more sleep. He was less than eager.

  “We’re here,” Ingle said briefly.

  The two men got out of the car. Ingle led the way to the front door. To the east, behind the cottage, the sky was lightening by the minute, a cold grey dawn beneath a ledge of cloud. Ingle glanced at his watch. It was 6.35.

  He rang the front door bell, then knocked. He rang again, hunched against the cold in his long black raincoat. He hadn’t washed or shaved, hadn’t bothered. His hair fell lank around his shoulders. He still stank of whisky. There were noises inside, footsteps along the hall. A light came on. The door opened.

  Ingle stepped inside without an invitation, pinning the man in the hall against the radiator.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  The man looked at him. He was wearing a red dressing-gown and not much else. His hair was thinning, and he wasn’t tall, but he had big hands, and he was solidly built.

  “Reynolds,” he said, “Gus Reynolds. Who the fuck are you?” Ingle looked at him a moment. Kee was beside him, stifling a yawn. If it came to violence, it might take longer than he’d like. He reached inside the coat for his ID.

  “My name’s Ingle,” he said, “Special Branch.” He paused, softening his voice. “I phoned.”

  Gus blinked, outraged, half past six in the morning, private property, this tramp disturbing his sleep.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “Do you know Buddy Little?”

  “Yes. I told you. On the phone.”

  “Where is he?”

  Gus looked at him, catching up fast. He’d led a blameless life but – like most divers – he’d never had much time for authority.

  “Why?” he said.

  Ingle glanced down the hall. Kee closed the front door.

  “Anywhere we can talk?” he said. “Anywhere cosy?”

  Gus hesitated a moment, then shrugged, pulling Jude’s dressing-gown more tightly around him, knotting the belt. He led the way into the kitchen, and switched on the light.

  “This going to take long?” he said. “You want tea?”

  Ingle nodded, wondering if the offer stretched to toast. He hadn’t eaten properly for twelve hours. He was starving. Gus plugged in the kettle.

  “Why do you want to know about Buddy?” he said again.

  Ingle shrugged. “General inquiries,” he said. “Nothing serious.”

  Gus looked at him, one hand on the teapot. “This hour?” he said. “You’ve gotta be joking.”

  In
gle nodded at Kee. “We work flexitime,” he said, “it’s part of the contract.”

  There was a long silence. Gus dropped tea bags in the pot and sorted out some cups. Ingle looked round. There were three or four photos, up on the shelves. All of them featured the woman in the article. In colour, she looked quite tasty. Two of the shots showed another guy, shorter, close-cropped hair, open face, big smile. Ingle picked up one of the photos. It had been taken abroad somewhere. There were palm trees in the background and the back end of a camel. The man was wearing knee-length shorts, red and blue. He was powerfully built, wide chest, real shoulders. He had his arm round the woman. The woman was wearing a white bikini. From the look on their faces, they’d just spent half the day in bed.

  Ingle turned to Gus. “This him?”

  Gus glanced at the photo. “Yeah,” he nodded, “Morocco. Honeymoon.”

  “Nice lady.”

  “His wife.” Gus reached for the kettle. “The best.”

  “Had an accident, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tragic.”

  “Yeah.”

  Gus poured boiling water into the teapot. Ingle watched him. “So where is he?” he said at last. “You still haven’t told me.”

  Gus said nothing, stirring the pot. Then he turned round. “Buddy’s my best mate,” he said, looking Ingle in the eye. “I want to know what kind of trouble he’s in.”

  Ingle shrugged. “If I knew,” he said, “I’d tell you. Fact is, I don’t know.”

  “But he might be in trouble?”

  “Yeah,” Ingle nodded, “he might.”

  “Serious trouble?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Something he’s done?”

  “Something he’s involved in.” Ingle paused. “Might be involved in.”