The Secret Chord: The Virtuosic Spy - Book 2 (38 page)

Her instincts told her not to get tripped up in lies, but few were needed. The first was simply to pretend they had come to the house with the intention of being alone for the night. The second was more complicated. The only way to keep this villain from slipping the noose was to make him believe he should walk right into it. Kate rubbed her hands against her arms, tingling now as the sensation returned to them.
 

On the floor, his face still turned away from them, Conor shifted a little and groaned. She allowed herself a brief glance, hoping he'd understand what she was trying to do, and started her confession. "The CIA isn't sending anyone to help you. This whole thing is a plan hatched by the DEA when Conor and one of their agents went to India and found Tony Costino—"

Waving a hand at her impatiently, he dragged another chair forward and sat down. "I don't give a damn who hatched the plan. Skip the acronyms, and the history and all your bleedin' midnight strategy meetings. Just tell me what's supposed to go down tomorrow at the airport. I was told to meet a guy in the bar at ten o'clock. Who's he got coming with him?"

"That's the problem. Nobody is coming with him. He's a DEA agent and he doesn't even know the two of us are here. We—well, Conor, but I insisted on coming—we were planning to sit in a van outside, to see for ourselves when you showed up, to make sure you didn't get away again." Kate covered her face. "It's all so ridiculous. This was never going to work. Nothing was going to go down at the airport."

"Just me and him sharing a pint and a laugh? Not bloody likely. You're having me on."

Kate braced herself for the lie that mattered most. "We thought the idea was stupid too, but he didn't ask our opinion. No arrest was planned until the plane landed in Washington. The agent meeting you was just supposed to keep this fiction going that the CIA is bringing you in for something new. He's even got your new identity with an authentic passport, and the plane tickets." She paused before adding an apparent afterthought. "You were supposed to fly to Gatwick first."

"And what happens at Gatwick?"
 

He was listening with greater interest, just as she'd hoped. Kate shrugged. "Nothing. You wait for your next flight. Sit in the bar, hit the duty free store, they didn't care. It's completely hands-off until you arrive at Dulles. They'd let you wander around wherever you want rather than have you suspect anything. You could walk out the door and hop a bus if you wanted, which is the point I tried to make to everyone."

"Or catch another flight." He gave a soft laugh, rocking his chair back.
 

"I suppose," Kate said in a small voice.

He was quiet for several minutes, then threw a speculative gaze at the laptop and got to his feet. "The details for the new identity. What are they?"

"I don't understand. Why would you need—"

He gave her face a sharp slap. "You don't need to understand. Answer the question."

"I don't know the details, but Conor helped the agent create the identity. He has everything in a folder in his bag upstairs."

In his eagerness, he didn't bother to tie her up again. He took the gun from the table and bolted up the stairs while Kate threw herself on to the floor next to Conor. She gently rolled him on his back and he grinned up at her, eyes shining in admiration.

"In the name of God, woman. Where did you ever learn to do that?"

A
T
FIRST
,
IT
looked like her plan would work. Almost immediately, Durgan jogged downstairs with the folder in his hand and smirked at Conor, who still lay prostrate on the floor.

"Right, mate. Soak up a little tenderness while I start spending her money. The first item I'm going to buy is a plane ticket out of Gatwick."

He sat facing them with his back to the wall, waving the gun as a stern reminder, and then focused on the laptop. He was too preoccupied to pay either of them any attention, but readily agreed when Kate asked permission to help Conor.

"The smell coming off him is desperate." Durgan didn't take his eyes from the screen. "Clean him up but leave him tied and don't turn on the lights, and make us a cup of tea."

The kitchen, of course, was full of potential weapons. Kate went so far as to pull an impressive-looking meat cleaver from the drawer, but acknowledging the lunacy of thinking she'd be able to overpower a muscular armed man, she put the knife back and took out the teaspoons instead.

The darkness outside was now complete, and she had only the glow from the laptop guiding her steps when she returned to the living room. With a basin of soap and hot water and several towels, she cleaned up Conor and the floor around him, then got him across the room and onto the couch. She sat beside him, feeding him small sips of tea while they whispered together.

"Are you all right?"

"I think so. It's like being drunk. As soon as you've puked, you feel a lot better." His smile was brief. "Don't let on, though. Let him think he's pummeled me witless." His face darkened as he looked at the bruises on her cheek. "Kate, what did he do to you?"

"I'm okay. Don't worry about me." She took Conor's arm and held tight, desperate to keep him from flying at Durgan in a suicidal rage. "Let's focus on getting through this. Sedgwick will find us. He just needs time to get here."

"Well, you've bought that for us. I hope it's enough." He regarded her sadly. "But if not, Kate—"

"Right. Done and dusted." Durgan snapped the laptop shut and got to his feet. Kate was almost happy for the interruption. She hadn't liked the enigmatic expression in Conor's eyes.

"Come on, and get him up, too." Durgan yanked her from the couch, aiming his gun at Conor. "We're getting out of here."

Kate stared at him. "You're leaving? Now? And taking us with you?"
 

He'd clearly made a more elaborate plan than she'd intended. She didn't know whether to argue or not, since the alternative to going with him might be even more dangerous, as Durgan confirmed with his next command.
 

"Get him up. If he can't manage, I'll shoot him right now. He doesn't matter that much."

Conor had fallen back on the sofa with his mouth hanging open, playing possum. At least, she hoped he was. She scrambled to lift him, suggesting under her breath he might give her a little help. They were leaving before the cavalry arrived. They were out of time.

35

C
ONOR
STOPPED
AT
THE
LAST
BEND
IN
THE
STEEP
, M-
SHAPED
promenade and braced his hands on the wall to peer down at the deserted Dunquin jetty. Under a blanket of starlight the water lapped against the concrete ramp, and he heard the lazy, slopping rhythm as each wave rolled forward.

"Are you mental? It's a tricky run even in daylight, but in the dark? You'll have all three of us killed before you're done."

"I can do this run with my eyes shut." Durgan met Conor's incredulity with a smug grin. "You're forgetting I worked the ferry all summer, once I'd lost my old job, and I've still got the keys." He jangled them in front of Conor's eyes. "Plus, my wife can tell you what a dab hand I am with a boat, right, darlin'?" He sent Kate ahead of him with a push, and gave Conor a sharp poke with the gun. "Keep walking."
 

The directive was easier to obey now that his hands were untied. Conor had been pressed into driving the rental car with Durgan next to him and the gun firmly planted against his ribs, while Kate sat in the back seat. He'd been surprised when they'd turned away from town to head west, but he soon understood at least part of Durgan's strategy when he threw a pen and paper into the back, ordering Kate to provide phone numbers for her father and grandmother.

"Your father may not think you're worth the price. Cheap little caffler would light a smoke in his pocket before he'd share one. Your old hag of a grandmother is a different story, I'll bet. She'll open every bank box in Zurich for you."

It was an eerie journey along the dark winding road with the wide expanse of Dingle Bay on their left. The wind picked up as they continued west, roaring at full gale when they rounded the bend at Slea Head at the tip of the peninsula. By the time they reached the remote, isolated harbor at Dunquin and parked the car near the ferry's ticket kiosk, Conor had guessed the rest of the plan. Stalling, he'd continued to play up his head-injured condition, stumbling and falling at every opportunity until Durgan crouched down to growl a threat into his ear.

"Do you think I have any use for you at all, Conor? The only reason you're still alive is because I know she'll lose her rag as soon as I shoot you. I'd rather not deal with hysterics just now, but I will if you make me. So, you can get down this ramp and help her put the inflatable into the water, or I can send you on to kingdom come. Your choice."

The "inflatable" was a twenty-foot boat with a small outboard motor, used for transporting passengers out to the ferry, which sat anchored in deeper water a hundred yards from shore. Conor and Kate began hauling the boat from the corner of the jetty while Durgan kept the gun trained on them, smoking a cigarette at the water's edge near the end of the ramp.

"Do you know what's going on?" Kate whispered.

"Kidnapping the heiress, take two," Conor quipped, hoping to dampen some of their edgy fear. "See the outline in the distance?
An Blascaod Mor
, the Great Blasket. Still has a few broken down houses, but the people living in them got evacuated in the early fifties. The island is uninhabited now, except for day-trippers and sheep during the summer. The tourist ferry stops in October, and they usually take the last of the sheep off by the end of the month, so I imagine it's well and truly deserted by now."

"And he's going to dump us out there," Kate said. "Leave us and demand a ransom for telling my family where we are."

"Seems to be the general idea." Conor got a tighter grip on the ropes of the inflatable, deciding it would be unwise to shatter the illusion about the "we" part of her theory. "He figures if he ties us up and throws us into one of the houses, nobody will find us for a good while."

"What are we going to do?"

"I'm working on it."

"We need to get the gun away from him."
 

Conor wiped the sweat from his forehead and glanced at her, eyebrows raised.
 

"Okay, I know. Easier said than done." Kate gave the boat a half-hearted shove. "At least my story worked. He's still planning to go to the meeting tomorrow. Sedgwick will have to be at the airport, hoping he'll show, and I'm sure he'll find a way to make Durgan confess where he's put us. Worst-case scenario is we get locked away on an island for a day."

This was far from the worst-case scenario, but Conor said nothing to spoil her brave composure. He was keeping a watchful eye on Durgan, looking for any chance to disarm him, but the man was alert to every twitch of muscle, and eager for an excuse to pull the trigger. There didn't seem to be a move he could make that wasn't suicidal.

The inflatable carried them to the ferry, and once onboard Durgan made Kate tie up Conor again, then brought her into the wheelhouse while they got underway. When the ferry had moved far from shore, he allowed her to return to the back deck, locking the wheelhouse door behind her as she exited.
 

"He said our only escape would be to jump overboard and drown.” Wearily, she fell onto the bench next to Conor and began working at the knotted cord around his wrists. “How long does it take?"

"Drowning?"

"The ride to the island," Kate clarified patiently.

"Usually about twenty minutes. He'll go a bit slower in the dark."

She looked out at the inflatable boat, secured to the rear and trailing along in their wake. "What if we leap out onto the dinghy, start the motor and cut the rope?"

Conor smiled. "It's at least twenty feet back. Can you leap that far?"

"I'm not sure," Kate admitted. She rubbed at his chafed wrists, bending her head to kiss them, and her shoulders began to shake. "I guess I'm not too good at this."

"
Whisht
, Kate. You're talking rubbish again. You're the only one who's done anything useful at all, so far." Conor cupped her face in his hands. She was not crying but shaking badly, which worried him. "Are you all right, love? Are you cold?" He opened his jacket and wrapped her up against him with his cheek on her head, protecting her from the sea spray irregularly showering them, rocking her slowly until the tremors stopped.

"You'd be able to tell me, wouldn't you?" Conor thought carefully before continuing, knowing he needed to ask, afraid of saying it wrong. He hadn't the slightest idea how to address something like this. "If he'd done anything to you. You could talk to me? If he did, I mean. I'm not trying to make you if you can't, or if you haven't anything to tell . . ."

Kate put her fingers to his lips. "He wanted to, but he couldn't."

The comment was not at all what he'd expected. Conor pulled back to squint at her, which made his head pound even harder. "What do you mean, he couldn't?"

"Exactly what you think I mean. I heard you yelling for me, but I was barely awake when he got to the bedroom, and he was on top of me before I could move. He groped and pawed, but that was all he could do." She turned to gaze behind them at the mainland, which grew ever more shapeless and indistinct as it retreated. "He had issues, even when we were together. I guess he still does. Sometimes—a lot of the time—he needed me to help him, and I would. This time, I didn't. He was embarrassed, so he started hitting me. The first few were pretty hard, but they were better than the alternative. I expected him to go on until he'd knocked me out, but he didn't. He wanted to get at my bank accounts." She shivered, huddling against him. "If anything else had happened, I
would
be able to tell you, I promise. Do you believe me?"

"I do. Of course, but I'm . . . a little surprised." Gobsmacked, to be strictly accurate. Holding her close, Conor chewed on his lip and looked through the dripping window of the wheelhouse door, trying to channel his helpless rage into something more effective. Inside, Durgan stood tall and confident, making small adjustments to the steering. Conor began to sketch the outline of a strategy of last resort.