Later, back on the Highlander, they sat on the stern deck under the canvas awning, rain bouncing off. Ferguson said, “So, what’s the plan?”

“Roper tells me the Mona Lisa’s due off the west coast of the Isle of Man tomorrow. And guess who’s flying up there in a Berger International plane? Marco Rossi.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Ferguson said.

“I’ve been saving it up for you. I think it means he fancies a passage by night to Drumgoole.”

“That could very well be. When we get there, what do you intend?”

“I told Roper, I’ll blow the damn boat up, and don’t ask me what about the crew. They’re all what the Italians would call animali. With any luck, Rossi could even be on board.”

“You really are yourself alone, Dillon. I wonder about Derry Gibson.”

“Wonder what?”

“He could give us a lot of trouble. This Red Hand of Ulster – where do they get their absurd names from?”

“It’s their simple Irish minds, Charles. I’d have thought you’d have recognized that, your sainted mother being a Cork woman.”

“All right, I take your point. But this Derry Gibson thing. It could lead to greater civil war than ever, Catholics and Protestants.”

“What would you like me to do? Shoot Gibson?”

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“That’s good,” Billy said. “He’s Wyatt Earp, I’m Doc Holliday, and you’d like Derry Gibson and Rossi standing up in coffins in the undertaker’s window, like in Dodge City, hands folded, eyes closed.”

“You know something, Billy? I couldn’t have put it better myself.” Ferguson got up. “It’s me for an early night. I’ll see you in the morning. I just have one question. Getting in close to the Drumgoole area – won’t the locals wonder who we are?”

“Not if we take out the nets that are in the hold and drape them around the deck. There are lots of fishing boats off the Down coast.”

“Good enough,” Ferguson said, and went below.

Billy said, “He’s such a gent, but you know what? I reckon he’s harder than Harry, and that’s saying something.”

“He’s the kind of man who got us the Empire in the first place,” Dillon said. “Mind you, he’s right about Derry Gibson. I’ll give it some thought.”

“You mean you’d consider knocking him off?”

“Why not? I’ve killed for worse reasons. I once saved his life, you know. We were in a sewer in Londonderry, being hunted by Brit paratroopers, even though we were on different sides. I told him then to keep running and not come back or I’d kill him.”

“And now?”

“Looks like he’s come back. Come on, let’s go to bed,” and Dillon led the way below.

The following morning, rain drifting in, Ferguson went up on deck and discovered Dillon swimming in the sea, sporting with two seals, Billy leaning on the rail, watching.

“He’s mad,” Billy said.

“Yes, I’ve been aware of that for some years.”

“I mean, talk about freeze your balls off.”

Dillon swam to the ladder and hauled himself up. “The grand appetite it gives you, Charles.” The ship-to-shore radio crackled in the wheelhouse. “Take that, Charles, it could be Roper. I’ll get dressed.”

It was Roper. “Ah, it’s you, General. Just updating you. Rossi’s plane lands at Ronaldsway on the Isle of Man at eleven this morning. The Mona Lisa is five miles out and scheduled to move to the Down coastal area later this afternoon. The weather isn’t good, so I’d say it wouldn’t be in the Drumgoole area until tonight. I don’t know. The weather makes it uncertain.”

“Right. Thanks, Roper.”

He turned as Dillon entered the wheelhouse and filled him in. Dillon had a look at the chart. “I’ve done this kind of run before, so I know what I’m doing, but the weather stinks. Look at it, Charles.”

The whole of Oban was draped in mist. “Bleeding awful,” Billy said.

“All right.” Dillon nodded. “Let’s allow for him landing at eleven, being driven across the island, and then some sort of boat running him five miles out to the Mona Lisa. It’s two o’clock at the earliest before he boards and she turns for Ulster, but with that weather…” He shook his head. “What do you think, Charles?”

“Three o’clock at the earliest.”

“All right. We’ll leave at two, then. For the moment, let’s get back ashore for a full Scots breakfast… and by the look of it, seasick pills for Billy.”

The flights from London to Ronaldsway had been bad enough. Rossi, the ex-Tornado pilot, always liked to take over the controls for a while, but it was rough and the crosswinds at the airport had been treacherous, although he’d managed the landing himself. A local Rashid employee met him with a car and took him across the island to a small village, where a motor cruiser waited.

It had a crew of two and set out to sea immediately, pushing out from the shelter of a small pier into the rough waves, obscured by fog. It took them an hour to find the Mona Lisa. They pulled alongside the Spanish trawler, its nets draped high over the stern. The two ships collided twice, and men leaned over with grappling lines. Rossi took his chance and jumped over to the other boat. He turned and waved to the motor cruiser, the captain waved back, and then he motored away.

Three or four men at the rail eyed Rossi up and down. He ignored them and went toward the wheelhouse. The door opened and a man emerged in a reefer coat and seaman’s cap, heavily unshaven, an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

By any estimate, he would have been termed a nasty piece of work. He looked Rossi over with a kind of contempt. “I’m Martino, the captain.”

“And I’m Marco Rossi, your boss.”

A couple of the men laughed and Martino lit his cigarette. “Should I be impressed?”

Rossi reached, grabbed his left ear, his thumb well inside, and produced his Walther and rammed it hard under the chin.

“Now, you have the option of continuing to be employed by Rashid and make a lot of money, or I blow your brains out now, up through the mouth and into the brain. Explodes the back of the skull. Very messy.”

Martino tried to smile. “Eh, senor, there’s a mistake here.”

“Not mine, yours. Screw with me and you’re finished. Do we understand each other?”

“Perfectly, senor.”

“Good. Then let’s get on with it.”

He walked into the wheelhouse and the crew looked at Martino, who nodded, so they went about their tasks.

Around the middle of the afternoon the Highlander was ploughing through a turbulent sea, down from Oban, a couple of miles off the Isle of Man into the Irish Sea. Dillon was at the wheel, Billy at the chart table and Ferguson below.

The mist was so heavy, the driving rain so intense, that it was more like evening, a kind of early darkness, and Dillon could see one of the Irish ferries, red-and-green navigational lights already visible.

Ferguson came into the wheelhouse with three mugs of tea on a tray. He put the tray down on the table and looked at the chart, then switched the ship-to-shore radio to weather and listened.

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Better let me have the wheel, Dillon.”

Dillon didn’t even argue. Ferguson altered course a couple of points, then increased his speed, racing the heavy weather that threatened from the east. The waves grew rougher.

“Jesus,” Billy said. “I’m scared to death.”

“No need, Billy, he knows what he’s doing. I’ll go down to the galley and make some bacon sandwiches.”

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