No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(46)

He paused, waving again, staring at the silhouette in the driver’s seat for a reaction. The car’s lights flashed against the wall and he started forward blindly, without looking. He leapt out of the way as another vehicle came around the turn much too fast for the space. A horn honked, and the idiot was gone.

Jesus. Never again. I’m never doing this again.

He darted across the space and opened the passenger door, taking a seat and pulling out the digital recorder he’d been given four hours before.

He said, “They came, and I managed to get their table, but they didn’t eat.”

“Did they talk at all?”

“Yes. I don’t know what about, but they did talk.”

“How long?”

“Maybe twenty minutes. The older guy seemed pissed. He left early.”

The man grunted and said, “Okay.” Nothing more.

The waiter screwed up his courage and said, “You’re still going to pay me, right? I mean, it’s not my fault they left. I took a huge risk.”

The man looked at him, and he felt the same fear he had when he’d agreed to this stupid idea. Like his bladder wanted to release right there in the car. He said, “Never mind. You keep the money. We’re even.”

The man tossed a bundle of bills in a rubber band into the waiter’s lap and said, “Go.”

When he was halfway out the door, wanting desperately to get back to the safety of his job, his new employer touched his arm. A light caress that brought him up short. The man said, “You understand what will happen if anyone hears about this, correct?”

He looked into the black eyes, devoid of any emotion, and understood the man never made a threat. Only a commitment. In abject fear, he felt his bowels want to release. He said, “Yes, yes. Of course. Believe me, I want nothing to do with this.”

The man nodded and he fled the parking garage before Black Eyes could change his mind. He emerged back onto G Street and felt more secure, the people swirling around him. He speed-walked back to Ebbitt Grill, questioning why he’d ever agreed to do the eavesdropping.

It was the damn accent. All jovial and safe.

He wondered what the entire affair had been about, but not enough to investigate. No way would he investigate. The waiter would work at Old Ebbitt Grill for another five years, never knowing his part in the greatest manhunt since Osama bin Laden. Every March 17, when the patrons wore green and the bar descended into chaos, he would be reminded of the man with black eyes.

And he would fear the man’s return.






30




Seamus McKee looked at the rotten wood doors covering the hole in the ground and felt a twinge of remorse. This place was decidedly less comfortable than the last, but there was nothing he could do about it. The connection made to his grandfather was too big to ignore, and he needed a clean break. Collecting favors from ancient men who still considered the fight a virtue, moving to the old country was the answer. Which meant a broken-down, abandoned farmhouse in the Irish countryside, complete with a root cellar.

A very nasty root cellar.

He leaned over and pulled up the door, a split-wood affair lying on the ground, vines creeping over to reclaim the land it housed. He splashed the light of a torch onto the stairwell leading down and heard a scraping. He walked halfway down and shone the torch into the cellar, the beam hitting the woman. She flinched from the blade of light, still groggy from the drugs used to get her here. There was a smear of crusted blood on the outside of the hood where he’d struck her, the rough cloth stuck to the skin. He watched to make sure the sack puffed out from breath. His eyes tracked to her partner, his hood also stained, but the spot much larger. He saw breathing, but it looked labored, which scared him. Nick was the prize. If he died, the whole enterprise might fall apart.

He went to the third captive, the only one not drugged or hooded, and was sickened at the cowardice. Like a roach looking for food, the man started crawling toward him, his bound legs and hands scraping the dirt. Reminding Seamus of the groveling men who’d sold out their progress in the peace talks. Reminding him of those he hated.

In a hoarse voice, the man said, “You promised me I’d get treated better. I told you what was planned, just like you asked. I’m trying to help this negotiation.”

Seamus said, “Have you checked on your mates yet? Made sure they’re okay?”

The man paused, clearly unsure how to respond. He said, “I thought I’d be punished for that.”

Seamus said, “You disgust me. Make no mistake, if either of them die, I will punish you.”

He tossed down four liter-size bottles of water and a satchel full of medical supplies. He said, “I come here again, they’d better look improved.”

He walked back up the stairs and returned the cellar to darkness. He closed his eyes, breathing the clean farm air, smelling the dew and hearing the birds chirp. Reminding him of what he was fighting for.

He heard a vehicle approach and looked past the farmhouse, across a field bounded by a large creek, seeing a lorry bouncing down the tiny lane a hundred meters away, the ribbon of asphalt paralleling the far side of the water.

The house was as dilapidated as the root cellar door, slowly falling into chaos as the forest began to reclaim what it had lost decades ago. It had no running water or electricity, but with a little help from a generator, it provided enough protection from the elements. More important, the farm was deep inside Ireland, just outside the small village of Macroom and thirty minutes away from Cork City. The nearest structure was an old water mill a half mile upstream, now defunct. With the creek at their back, and the only access a gravel road to their front two hundred meters away, across an open field, a vehicle couldn’t approach without early warning. The house was a clean break from anything his grandfather would know and the perfect place to run the endgame.