Good people.' He smiled. 'You can join the Rangers anytime.'
Linda Foley and Kathleen Burke smiled back tiredly. They had now done just about as much as they could for the time being, they considered. Linda's beeper went off and she shrugged in resignation and went to answer the call. As she was leaving, she turned around and made a gesture of success.
Kathleen was played out. She looked at Fitzduane and not at the monitors. It was unscientific rubbish, she knew, but she could just see the difference. The man now had an aura. He was fighting back.
'How long is it going to take to get him fully back into action?' said Kilmara.
'That's an impossible question,' said Kathleen, taken aback. 'And premature. He's still critical.'
'Only his body,' said Kilmara.
Kathleen looked at him. 'Four months, six months, a year,' she said. 'He's been badly hurt. It depends a great deal on the individual. Who is he, anyway? Apart from the odd farmer who trips over his shotgun, gunshot victims are an uncommon occurrence in this part of the world. And then there are you people.' She gestured at Kilmara and the armed Rangers on security duty. 'Men with weapons in my hospital. I don't like it. I would like to believe it is necessary. I would like to know why.'
Kilmara gave a slight smile. 'I'll tell you over a cup of tea,' he said, 'or maybe something stronger. You've earned it.'
They found a small office beside the nurses' station. A nurse brought in two mugs of tea and Kilmara produced his hip flask. Kathleen would have killed for a shot, but she was still on call. Kilmara topped up his tea, and the aroma of Irish whiskey filled the air. He really did not know why anyone drank Scotch.
'Your patient, Hugo Fitzduane, is an anachronism,' he said. 'The first Fitzduane to come to Ireland was a Norman knight seven hundred years ago. I sometimes think Hugo has more in common with him than with the twentieth century. Hugo still lives in the family castle and retains values like honor and duty and putting his life on the line for causes he believes in and people he cares about.'
Kathleen leaned across and read Kilmara's name tag. 'And what's your connection with him, Colonel Kilmara?'
'He served under me in the Congo,' said Kilmara. 'You fight beside somebody and you get to know what they are like. We became friends. Hugo left the army and became a combat photographer and went from one hot spot to another, but we stayed in touch. A few years ago, he decided he had had enough, but then he ran into something pretty nasty on his own island. It was a terrorist thing and he put an end to it with a little help from my people. There was a lot of killing. After it, he just wanted to settle down in his castle and raise a family. He is quite a gentle man at heart.'
Kathleen nodded, her mind going back to Fitzduane's desperation, then his transformation when he realized his son was alive. She knew she was calloused by the day-to-day realities of her job, but she had been touched by what she had seen.
'So he has a wife?' she said.
Kilmara shook his head. 'That didn't work out,' he said. 'Hugo looks after Boots.'
'And now we come to the matter of why this gentle knight living in isolation off the west coast of Ireland should be struck down by assassin's bullets,' said Kathleen. 'This was no training accident.'
'It was no accident,' agreed Kilmara. 'And I suspect it is no deep mystery, either. The counterterrorist world is characterized by action and reaction. If you get involved, you are always at risk. I think this is a simple revenge shooting for what happened three years ago. These people thrive on vengeance.'
Kathleen shuddered. 'Warped minds. It's sick. But it's been three years. Why wait so long?'
Kilmara shrugged. 'That we don't know as yet. But delayed revenge is more common than not. The target starts off taking extensive precautions and being alert to every nuance. And then time passes and he starts thinking the threat is less likely and he lets his guard down a bit. And so it goes. And there is also the saying…'
'‘Revenge is a dish best eaten cold,’' completed Kathleen.
'Just so,' said Kilmara.
Kathleen studied Kilmara. Here was a man who had seen and tasted much of what life had to offer, she thought, and had come to terms with it. Here was a man whose daily currency was lethal force and who hunted other men. And who was a target himself. What a terrible existence.
'How do you live with all this,' she asked, 'the fear and the violence and the knowledge that any day some stranger might strike you down?' She regretted her words as soon as they were uttered. It was a remarkably tactless question and a clear manifestation of her fatigue.
Kilmara laughed. 'I don't accept sweets from strangers,' he said, 'and I play the percentages. And I'm very good at what I do.'
'But so was Mr. Fitzduane, you have implied,' said Kathleen.
'Kathleen,' said Kilmara, 'when you have got his attention, Hugo is the most dangerous man you are ever likely to encounter. But he can be a little slow to start. His values get in the way of some of the more direct requirements of this business. But when he is motivated, he makes me look like a wimp.'
Kathleen found it hard to reconcile the horribly wounded man in ICU with any element of menace at all, but Kilmara spoke with quiet certainty. Then a disconcerting thought occurred to her.
'The armed guards you've placed here,' she said. 'Do you expect more trouble? Would these terrorists try again in such a public place?'
Kilmara took his time replying. He did not want to create a panic in the hospital. On the other hand, Kathleen did not look like the panicking kind and he owed her more than a little for what she was doing for Fitzduane.
'The kind of people we are dealing with will do anything anywhere,' said Kilmara. 'That is one of the rules of their game. There are no limits. Zero. Zip. Nada. None. That's what keeps me young,' he added cheerfully, 'trying to outguess the fuckers.'
'So you think they will try again?' said Kathleen.
'Possibly,' said Kilmara slowly.
'So we're all at risk,' said Kathleen, 'as long as your friend remains in this hospital.'
Kilmara nodded. 'There is an element of risk,' he added, 'but let's not go overboard on it. There will be heavy security.'
'Jesus Christ!' said Kathleen, quite shaken. 'Who are these people? Why can't you find them and stop them?'
Kilmara emptied his hip flask into his mug. 'Terrorism is like cancer,' he said. 'We have our successes, but the enemy mutates and we're still looking for a cure. It is a long, open-ended war.'
'I guess the sooner we get your friend recovered and out of here, the better,' said Kathleen.
Kilmara lifted his mug in a mock salute. 'Way to go, Kathleen,' he said. 'Now you're getting it.'
Kathleen gave a thin smile.
6
January 18
Fitzduane opened his eyes.
What had awakened him? Who was out there? He must react. He had dropped his guard before and look at what had happened.
The imperative to move coursed through his body and was counteracted by his painkillers and sedation.
Still the warning screamed at him.
Sweat broke out on his forehead. He tired to rise to a sitting position, some body posture from which he could react more forcibly than when lying down helpless and defenseless.
The effort was terrible. His body did not want to respond.
He drove it into submission and slowly he could raise his head and bandaged torso, but he was too weak. He screwed up his eyes as the pain hit, and a low cry of agony and frustration escaped from his body.
He heard a voice, and it was the voice of a friend. There was no threat. He was safe. Boots was safe.
