her and there was no response from her. Last thing, he lifted the Kalashnikov rilfle up from the carpet and held it loosely in his hand as he stood at the door and looked on her.
He went to stand by Kevin’s bed, to kneel and kiss the boy's cheek and then he went out through the kitchen where he took the food that she had made him, through the larder window, under the shadow of the farm buildings, through the cover of the hedgerows, up into the mountain. He would sleep, and after he had slept he would think on a meeting with Mossie Nugent.
He listened to Hobbes on the secure telephone. The voice was distant and without emotion. He'd taught Hobbes. Hobbes was his creature.
'… Yes, I confirm it, they're back and they've their heads down. The weather? Well, it's foul, it's like it always is. They've the right clothing, they're well dug in. I appreciate it isn't a picnic, but it's what they're trained for, Ernest. They've a meeting scheduled with Song Bird, sometime in the middle of the day. They had the camera on the farmhouse all night, saw nothing, not sight nor sound of him. The dog didn't even bark. He's there, somewhere, that's certain. It's only a matter of time.'
Wilkins stood in the Emergency Operations room and held the telephone tight against his ear. He was shaved, showered, and dressed.
His concession to a crisis was that his suit jacket was on the hanger at the back of the door and his waistcoat was unbuttoned and held together by the chain of his watch.
'You're not pushing them too hard?'
'They know they'll get a good kick from me if they don't manage the business, Ernest. She's in great form, as you'd expect. She's satisfied with Brennard, says he's standing up well. Actually, that's like getting an Oscar from her…'
'There is the back-up.'
'It's our show, Ernest, and if we can manage it on our own then that is how it will be, that's what I've told her. Quite frankly, I hope we piss all over those policemen.'
'Safety must come first.'
He put the telephone down. Bill was doing the duty watch, and had been late in with all the familiar excuses about roadworks on the Hammersmith flyover… If it went wrong, if it wasn't safety first and it failed, then, by God, oh yes, Hobbes was for the jump, oh yes. .. and for himself, if it went wrong, the Cornish cottage, and the endless damp, and oblivion.
'He's back, Mossie, and I'm chancing my neck telling you.'
'Why's that?'
'He's like a mad bull, all strung up. He's not the Jon Jo I knew.'
'No reason for me to be feared of him.'
'He's talking about touts, he's asking about Patsy Riordan.'
'That was settled.'
'He's asking whether Patsy Riordan was the real thing.'
'What's that to me?'
'He's on the mountain, it's like it's festering in him, that there's a tout.
He won't move till he's satisfied.'
'Why's you telling me?'
'This is friend's talk, Mossie. Get yourself the hell out of here if there's things you can't answer. Watch yourself, God knows where he'll come from, but don't be there if you can't take the questions.'
'I can answer anything,' Mossie said.
He walked back to his car. The O.C. wound his window up and powered away. Nugent climbed back into his car. The Reilly girl was on her Da's tractor behind him, filling the road with the trailer. He waved at her. Old Reilly had always wanted boys and he'd to make do with girls, and they all of them drove the tractor like it was a feckin'
Ferrari. She squeezed the tractor and the trailer away past him. The O.C. had been waiting for him. They all knew when he went to work, what time, and they all knew the route he took. The place in the road was a sharp dip and old Reilly never could bother himself with the hedge trimmer and the thorn and holly grew high on each side. The O.C. had chosen the place to intercept him where he would not be seen, not by a watcher on the mountain. He sat in his car. He felt the fear gathering round him. Tomorrow was the monthly pay day. Five hundred pounds to a Building Society account held in the name of Mossie Nugent.
But if the bitch didn't help him to run then there was nowhere for him to run to.
He drove to the Housing Executive renovation on the west side of Dungannon. The fear in him was a screw, and tightening.
Hobbes' stage.
The Task Co-ordinating Group listened.
He felt the hostility from around the table and relished it.
'He's on the mountain, gentlemen, he's where I said he'd be. It's only patience that's required now. Sooner, hopefully not later, he will call for my Song Bird, and that will lead my operatives forward, with the support of back-up… I don't want any fancy ideas about a military or a police operation onto Altmore. You'd need a flight of helicopters and two brigades of infantry to search that place, and you'd have to step on top of him to find him. We're doing it the right way, gentlemen.
Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, we'll have him. Are there any questions…?'
Rennie said, 'He's good, is Jon Jo. You blunder in and corner him and he'll fight like hell. I hope, Mr Hobbes, you've told that to your amateurs. No, I don't have any questions because I have a funeral to be getting to…' * She led him down the stairs of the Five area. He’d slept after his shower, didn't know whether she'd slept. He thought she looked great, whether she'd slept or not. There was the brightness back in her cheeks and the bruise on her eye was going last and there was the lush colour in her hair. He thought she looked great and that it didn't matter, not to him.
They went out through the door. The cold hit them. It was his reflex, to take her arm and steer her round the rainwater puddle. It was what any young man did for any young woman. She looked at him. It was days since he had seen it, the shyness trace.
'You alright, Bren?'
'I'm fine.'
'Did you sleep a bit?'
'Sure, seemed like for ever.'
Cathy said, 'You shouldn't take it hard, Bren…'
'Skin of a rhino, Miss Parker.'
'It's just that…'
'It's not worth talking about.'
'Are you understanding?'
'Starting to.'
'It never works…'
Bren unlocked the car and held the door open for Cathy. 'Manual of Office Romance, Security Service Eyes Only (Attention of Field Staff), Page 29, Paragraph 8, Section 3, Sub-Section C: Don't. Full point. Got you, Miss Parker, loud and clear.'
She bent down into the car. 'It gets in the way,' she said.
He leaned over. He kissed her on the cheek. 'Can we talk about something else…?'
It was a hotel up the road and beyond the roundabout where Detective Sergeant Joseph Browne had been shot to death. Jimmy had booked the room. The back-up was to be Rennie's men. He thought there would be a team in the car park… He reckoned there would be a second team in the lobby of the hotel, watching the front doors and the corridors off to the bedrooms… He drove into the car park of the hotel. The room was booked, the courier had been sent down to do the check-in and take the key and the key had been given to Bren. He took Cathy's arm again and hurried her across the car park.
They were the couple, good-looking boy and fine-looking woman, hurrying to a hotel bedroom with a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door.
The wrist of the O.C. throbbed under the plaster cast.
