The Judas Gate

by Jack Higgins

  Roper informed Ferguson of everything while the Falcon was still on its way, and Ferguson was astounded. ‘This is one of the most sensational coups in the history of my department.’

  ‘Do you envisage repercussions, General?’

  ‘No. Algeria is not well-disposed towards Al Qaeda, and Hakim was notorious for his deeply secret covert operations where no questions were ever asked. I think this will simply be regarded as one that went badly wrong and in one of the worst places in the country. The whisper of an Al Qaeda connection will kill it stone dead. It never happened, Major.’

  ‘Tell that to Shamrock, flying off into the blue with Dillon’s bullet in him.’

  ‘And dying, if that young woman is right,’ Ferguson added thoughtfully.

  ‘Which leaves us with Professor Hassan Shah,’ Roper told him. ‘What’s to be done there? Do we arrest him?’

  ‘Not at the moment. We know how badly things have gone wrong – and so will he by now. Al Qaeda’s tentacles spread far. Call in Billy right now. Tell him he’s to stick to Shah like glue.’

  ‘Should I put out a red code travel restriction so he can’t leave the country?’

  ‘No. I’ll rely on Billy, and also Shah’s confidence in his social and governmental position.’ Ferguson shook his head. ‘You know what really gets to me? He’s the kind of eminent lawyer you would have expected to get a life peerage.’

  ‘I see your point, General. I suppose he’ll have to make do with a thirty-year sentence for high treason instead.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Ferguson said. ‘But give Billy his orders now.’

  * * *

  The Citation X landed at Belfast City just after noon, Chuck Alan sitting alone in the cockpit. He parked as instructed, went in the cabin and opened the door. He found Justin dozing. He shook his shoulder lightly and Justin’s eyes opened. He seemed puzzled for a moment, as if unaware of where he was, and the sweat on his forehead was more obvious.

  He smiled suddenly, ‘Hi, old buddy, are we there?’

  ‘Belfast City,’ Alan said. ‘You don’t look too good.’

  Justin sat up, reached for a napkin and wiped his face. ‘I’m good, Chuck, just fine.’ He reached in the rucksack, found the medical kit and the morphine pack. He extracted a phial and jabbed it in his left arm.

  ‘What in the hell are you doing?’ Chuck Alan demanded. ‘What’s going on, boss?’

  ‘Morphine’s going in, Chuck, it kills the pain, which is good if you’ve been shot, which I was back in that stinking marsh.’ Justin was obviously light-headed now.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what I’ve been involved with or what happened back there this morning. I don’t think I’ve heard machine gun fire like it since Iraq, but I think you should probably be in the hospital.’

  A man in ground-crew overalls peered in. ‘We’ve brought your Mercedes from the VIP car park Major Talbot. They presumed you needed it.’

  ‘Well, that’s damned nice of them.’ Justin picked up his rucksack with his right hand and said to Alan, ‘You should be at Frensham.’

  Justin went down the steps carefully, like a drunk, and walked to the Mercedes, where the ground-crew man held the driver’s door open for him. He put the rucksack on the passenger seat, slid behind the wheel, switched on the engine and lowered the window.

  ‘Bon voyage, old buddy, happy landings.’ He drove away, was waved through security without a search, smiling and calling hello to various officials who knew him well. A few minutes later and he was part of the busy city traffic of Belfast.

  Chuck had to hang on for another hour for his departure slot, and waited in the private lounge, drinking black coffee and going over it all in his mind. He finally did the right thing and called the house number he’d been given for Talbot Place. A man’s voice answered.

  ‘It’s Chuck Alan, Mr Talbot’s pilot. I was hoping to speak to his mother.’

  ‘I’m afraid she’s out. I’m the estate manager, Jack Kelly. I thought you were in Algeria?’

  ‘We’ve just got back.’

  ‘Is there something wrong? I know Justin was up to no good.’

  Chuck hesitated. ‘Look, this is my boss we’re talking about.’

  ‘Just tell me the worst,’ Kelly ordered.

  Which Alan did, and when he was finished, said, ‘I know it sounds difficult to believe—’

  Kelly cut him off. ‘Not where Justin’s concerned. I’m going to change your orders. You do have your Talbot credit card?’

  ‘I sure do.’

  ‘Cancel your departure, put the Citation in for a flight check, refuelling and so on, and then go down to the Europa, book in and await further instructions. I don’t know how this business is going to turn out, but you could be needed. Understand?’

  ‘Perfectly, Mr Kelly, I’ll get moving on that at once.’

  Jean Talbot had been up the mountain again with Nell, hoping that the strong wind blowing in from the Irish Sea would clear her head of the dark thoughts that had filled it since Justin’s departure. She was surprised to see Kelly’s old Morris driving towards her on the lower track. It stopped. Kelly got out and came towards her.

  She knew it must be trouble of a sort, and hurried to meet him. ‘What is it? Justin?’

  ‘Get in the car out of the wind and I’ll tell you.’

  She took the passenger seat, Nell scampered in the back, and Kelly got behind the wheel as it started to rain.

  ‘Jack, what’s going on?’ And then the thought hit her and she turned pale, ‘Oh, dear God, he’s dead?’

  ‘No, but I understand he’s been shot.’

  ‘Then where is he?’

  ‘It would appear he’s driving down from Belfast.’ Kelly started the Morris and coasted down to the road below.

  She took a deep breath to pull herself together. ‘What’s been going on, Jack? I’ve heard half of everything for too long. Who is my son, really, what kind of man?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s ever known that,’ Kelly told her. ‘The little Protestant bastard who was really a Catholic bastard, a boy who had to survive a bigger bastard, Colonel Henry Talbot. But forget all that. The serious trouble he’s in started after he left the army and went to Pakistan and Peshawar.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘He and our happy band of brothers from Kilmartin were selling illegal arms over the border to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Selling arms became also agreeing to train people in their use. Al Qaeda, discovering what he was doing, blackmailed him into working for them.’

  She said, in horror, ‘You’re asking me to believe he would go along with that?’

  ‘He didn’t have a choice, Jean, and certainly not at first. The trouble is he found he liked it. Action and passion are everything to him. You know your own son.’

  She nodded, calmer now. ‘Just how bad is what he’s done?’

  ‘He’s led a Taliban group, some of them including British Muslims, in battle against American and British forces.’ ‘And killed people?’ ‘A great many, I’m afraid.’

  ‘This can’t be happening.’ She shook her head. ‘Why hasn’t he been arrested?’

  ‘The authorities don’t know who he is. I do, because the other year he confided in me. He’s controlled by a man in London called the Preacher, and Justin has a codename, Shamrock. Dillon and Daniel Holley, whom you met, are working for General Charles Ferguson of British Intelligence, trying to find out who Shamrock is.’

  ‘So where does Algeria come in?’

  ‘False information was fed by Al Qaeda sources to Ferguson that Shamrock was known to be in a pretty unsavoury part of Algeria. Justin devised the plot, which was to draw Ferguson’s people to hunt for him, unaware that they were the hunted themselves.’

  ‘And this is what he’s back from – and with a bullet in him? Where is he?’

  ‘Like I said, he’s on his way from Belfast City Airport, driving his Mercedes SL.’

  They were on the coast road now and she seemed to have recovered
. ‘What do you suggest? Do we go looking for him or do we just wait for him to turn up?’

  The problem was solved, for Jack’s mobile sounded at that moment. It was Hannah. ‘The strangest thing, Jack. I went down to the pub for a few things and noticed Justin’s Mercedes by the church lych-gate.’

  ‘Is he in it?’

  ‘No, I found him sitting on the bench beside Sean’s grave.’ ‘But it’s raining, for Christ’s sake.’ ‘I know. Could he be drunk?’

  ‘I wish he were, but I’m afraid not. We’re on our way, I’m with Jean.’ He explained what was happening and put his foot down so that they were there in fifteen minutes. They found Hannah with a raincoat over Justin’s shoulders and Father Cassidy holding an umbrella.

  ‘Justin, dear, what are you doing?’ Jean said.

  ‘Hello, Mum, just paying my respects to Sean and all the brave young men. A bloody sight braver than I could ever be, eh, Jack?’ And then he started to cry, slow and bitter tears.

  She cradled his head for a moment. ‘It’s all right, love, it’s all right, just let’s get you home.’

  He nodded and reached for Kelly and grabbed him by the coat. ‘Only no hospital, Jack. This is good old Ulster, where all gunshot wounds must be reported to the police. You’re the expert, you know that.’

  ‘Don’t worry yourself, boy,’ Jack Kelly eased him up and, as Justin groaned, said, ‘Where are you shot?’

  ‘Left side and straight through. I don’t know how the hell Dillon did it. It was dawn light, so it was appalling visibility and pouring with bloody rain, just like this. A snap shot was all he managed, but it was enough. The man’s a bloody marvel. He’s done for me. Natural justice, in a way, when you think what I did to his uncle.’ He started to laugh helplessly.

  They got him into the back of the Morris, Jean holding him. Hannah joined her husband in the front and called Dr Ryan on her mobile, then alerted Murphy at Talbot Place. He was waiting anxiously at the front door and, seeing the situation, got Colonel Henry’s wheelchair out of the cloakroom. He and Jean crowded into the lift and took him up to his bedroom. Kelly and his wife followed upstairs, and Hannah got bath towels and spread them on the bed so they could lay him out.

  Justin seemed quiet now, and Jean panicked. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Murphy said, ‘He’s passed out, his pulse is weak, but it’s there. Dr Ryan is on his way, so just leave me to do my job. I’m the nurse here. Go and have a cup of tea or something.’

  He produced scissors and cut open Justin’s battle blouse and eased him out of it. Fatima had used two wound packs and they were swollen with blood.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Jean said.

  ‘Just take her away, Jack, until the doctor gets here. You stay, Hannah,’ Murphy said.

  Kelly tucked Jean’s arm firmly in his. ‘Let Murphy do his job. During his years as a nurse in Belfast, he worked on more gunshot wounds than most battlefield surgeons.’

  He took her down to the study and gave her a brandy in spite of her protests. ‘Drink it down, it will help.’

  She did as she was told, the warm glow steadying her, but refused another. ‘Tell me what Justin meant when he said that what Dillon had done to him was natural justice.’

  Kelly was caught and it showed in his face. ‘Oh, he was just rambling.’

  ‘Come off it, Jack, you’re hiding something. It can’t be any worse than what I’ve heard already, so spit it out.’

  ‘Mickeen Oge Flynn’s mishap … I was with Justin that night, he was out of his mind with rage about everything after the funeral. Dillon had been on the phone from London to Mickeen, and Paddy O’Rourke overheard. It was mentioned in PIRA circles and the news passed to me. I told Justin because, in his circumstances, I’d no choice.’

  ‘And what did he do?’

  ‘Insisted he and I go and speak to Mickeen, which we did, and found him under the car and working. Justin just lost it.

  He was shouting at Mickeen, demanding to know what Dillon had been talking about.’

  ‘And there was an accident?’ Jean Talbot sounded so weary.

  ‘Exactly, the jack was raised, Justin was—’

  ‘Stop it, Jack,’ she cut in. ‘What happened to that old man wasn’t any accident, you know it and I know it.’

  Kelly couldn’t help himself and blurted out, ‘All right then, but Dillon believes that it was an accident. Mickeen’s had serious brain surgery, he’s in a coma. Dillon’s had him flown over to a private hospital in London, but there’s every chance he’ll never regain consciousness.’

  ‘And that’s supposed to be good, is it?’ Her face was white and strained. ‘So it lets Justin Talbot off the hook, is that what you’re saying?’ She shook her head. ‘What kind of world has it become when I’m surrounded by deceit and lies at every turn?’

  She turned, wrenched open the door, ran out, and found Dr Ryan just being admitted at the front door by Hannah.

  It took Larry Ryan only fifteen minutes to examine the wound; they all waited for his verdict.

  ‘No question, the bullet’s passed straight through, which is fine, but he should be in the hospital.’

  Jack Kelly said, ‘How many times did you say that to PIRA volunteers who went to you for help in time of trouble, Larry – and we were grateful to you.’

  ‘That’s a kind of blackmail, Jack. I’d remind you I could get struck off.’

  Jean said, ‘Please, Larry, anything you can do.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘Damn Justin, he was always a wild man, but just for you, Jean.’ He turned to Murphy, ‘You’re as good as I am at handling wound trauma. Keep a close eye on him. I’m going back to my place to pick up everything we’ll need to set up a hospital bed.’

  He went out and Murphy said, ‘Why don’t you all go and have a cup of tea, pull yourselves together so we can sort everything out when Doc Ryan’s back.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Jean began.

  ‘He’s right, Mum,’ Justin murmured. ‘Sorry about all this. I always was a bloody nuisance.’

  The Falcon had landed at Farley an hour and a half later than the Citation X had in Belfast. On the way in, Dillon stopped by Rosedene to check on Mickeen.

  Professor Bellamy wasn’t there, but Maggie Duncan was, and had a bit of news as they stood looking in at Mickeen through the window. He looked exactly the same as when Dillon had last seen him, lying very still with all the paraphernalia attached to him.

  ‘He’s moved a little, according to the staff on night duty. A line in his saline drip was pulled out, and they’ve reported sounds.’

  ‘What kind of sounds?’ Dillon asked her.

  ‘Nurse Perry said she’s heard long, low sighs in the middle of the night.’

  ‘What does Bellamy think?’

  Her practical Scottish nature came to the fore. ‘Wee signs of hope, Sean, that’s all he will say. It could be worse, though.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘I’ll be seeing you.’

  At Talbot Place, Justin’s bedroom had been adapted as much as possible to hospital standards. His double bed had been replaced by a single to facilitate the nursing. He wore a hospital smock and there was a saline drip on the pole beside the bed, a portable machine on the other side measuring heart and pulse rates. Ryan had stitched both the entry and exit wounds, assisted by Murphy, and Justin, heavily bandaged around his waist, was propped up, the top of the bed inclined behind him.

  Ryan had used local anaesthetic for the stitching, and Justin sat there, drinking glucose through a straw and looking surprisingly well. Murphy was sitting beside his bed when Jean came in.

  ‘Go and get something to eat. I’ll spell you,’ she said, and Murphy got up and left.

  She leaned down and kissed Justin’s forehead. ‘It’s not so sweaty,’ she said. ‘Larry’s done a first-class job on you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see he’s taken care of.’

  It was a careless and throwaway remark and in a way typical of him. ‘
He’s taking a great chance, Justin. It’s a criminal act in the eyes of the law. He could be struck off, his career ruined.’

  ‘Okay, Mum, I take your point. Dammit, he did enough for men on the run during the Troubles, so now he’s doing it for me.’

  ‘When I hear you talking like that, I think I never really knew you. You use people, Justin, then throw them away.’

  ‘That’s a nice turn of phrase.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t tell me you’re turning against me, too? I mean, here I am, the wounded hero—’

  She cut right in on him. ‘Don’t give me that, Shamrock, because I only see the young British and American soldiers you’ve killed – and for what? Because Justin Talbot enjoys war in all its blood and gore more than anything else in this life. When I look at you, I see the body count, and if that wasn’t enough, I see Mickeen Oge Flynn lying under a car and that car collapsing on him.’

  ‘It was an accident,’ Justin said.

  ‘That was no accident.’ She shouted the words, carefully spacing them. ‘I’ve spoken to Jack.’

  A moment later, the door burst open and Murphy came in, Jack Kelly behind him. ‘Is everything okay?’ he said.

  ‘No, it’s not. Apparently, you’ve been shooting your mouth off, Jack,’ Justin said to Kelly. ‘We can’t have that. I think you’re maybe forgetting your place.’

  ‘Justin, for God’s sake,’ Jean said. ‘After everything Jack’s done, to talk to him like that.’

  ‘It’s all right, Jean,’ Kelly said. ‘I always worried there was too much of his grandfather to him. He was Colonel Henry to the life for a minute there.’

  He went out. Justin said, ‘So now you’ll go after him and say sorry? Well, I’m damned if I will.’

  She took a deep breath, turned and went out, leaving the door swinging. Justin reached and opened the locker on his right side and found his rucksack. The pain on his left side was intense. He cursed, found the half-bottle of brandy and turned the cap with his teeth.