“No, no—”
He saw police run towards him. Some had drawn guns.
“They’re aboard, the killers—”
From high in the cockpit, the pilot of the Brianna saw the wild man below brandishing a pistol and ordered the mate to lock the cockpit door.
Faolin reached the cockpit as the door closed. Cursing, he pulled the M11 from beneath the police tunic and fitted a forty-round slice of bullets into the magazine. He fired a short burst at the door and destroyed the lock.
Everything happened at once.
In the passenger compartment — down the stairs and on the other side of the hatchway — a woman screamed as Tatty rose and displayed his machine gun.
Elizabeth whirled at the scream and saw Tatty raise the rifle. She was at the front of the compartment and was knocked to the floor by a large man rushing in panic to the passageway.
Tatty turned to face the hatch just as Cashel pushed through.
He fired a short burst.
Bullets struck Cashel in the chest and flung him back, through the hatch, into the surging wedge of police behind him. Several fell. There was blood on blue uniforms. The panicked passengers screamed and pushed towards the passage. More shots sounded from the pilot’s cockpit.
Faolin slammed into the cockpit. He started to speak but the pilot — a large, beefy-faced man — jumped up and leaped at him, pushing aside the machine gun as though it were a walking stick.
Faolin’s finger was glued to the trigger. The blow from the pilot set off an involuntary burst of fire that blew up part of the instrument panel.
“I got him! I got him!” the pilot cried.
Faolin brought the gun down in a sudden move; he gouged at the pilot’s eyes with the barrel.
The first mate backed away in horror: “He’s pointed at me, he’s pointed at me! Get the gun, get the gun!”
Faolin fired a short burst. The blinded pilot was flung back against the control board. More popping noises issued from the exploding instruments.
Faolin panicked and turned: It wasn’t working, it wasn’t working. And then he remembered the radio transmitter in his tunic.
At that moment, Devereaux pushed aside the body of Cashel blocking the hatch and entered the chaotic, screaming interior of the ship.
He saw Elizabeth stare at him, soundless, her mouth open as though to scream. And then he saw Tatty and fired at him without a thought.
The bullet struck a fat man behind Tatty who went down in blood.
Tatty fired a burst at the door and Devereaux fell back, out of the way.
Everything happened in the same second.
Lord Slough, who had led the party of dignitaries to the deck situated above the cockpit, appeared on the stairs near the shattered cockpit door.
Faolin turned to him and pointed the machine gun at him.
A policeman burst into the ship from the apron, firing blindly at the passenger compartment. He struck two women and wounded Tatty. Tatty cried out and squeezed the trigger. The clip was empty. The policeman fired once more and tore Tatty’s face off.
Faolin squeezed the trigger even as he turned to the new sound of firing coming from the hatch twenty feet away. One bullet struck Brianna Devon in the neck, behind her father. She fell without screaming.
The second, third, and fourth bullets sprayed the passageway as the gun turned. The fifth struck the policeman in the left shoulder. The force of the bullet flung him into the passenger compartment. He fell at Elizabeth’s feet.
She reached across his body for the gun. Her face was white, her eyes wide with madness and fear.
Faolin fired once more.
At that moment, Devereaux appeared again in the hatch. The force of Faolin’s blast split wood on the paneling in the passenger compartment. The smell of blood, smoke, and powder choked the ship. Screaming filled their ears.
Devereaux fired twice. The second bullet shattered Faolin’s jaw, splintering bone and sending fragments of tendon into his mouth. He choked on his blood and vomited suddenly in the incredible pain, and he squeezed off the last of the forty rounds.
Devereaux fired his last shot, sending the surging bullet into Faolin’s fallen body.
Lord Slough was crying aloud: “Brianna! Brianna!”
Blood bathed Brianna’s dress.
Elizabeth pointed the pistol at Devereaux. He turned and looked at her and raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. There was a click. She stared at him for a second then threw the gun at him.
As he ducked aside, he saw that Faolin was not dead.
The terrorist moaned, reached into his tunic. His hands were bloody.
Devereaux looked around him for a weapon. He could not see the gun Elizabeth had thrown.
Faolin drew out a box.
Devereaux saw what it was. He had seen such things. He had used such things. He suddenly smashed his hand against the glass box holding the fire ax. The glass shattered and cut him. Blood flowed from a dozen wounds.
He took down the ax and started up the stairs.
Faolin, his face twisted with pain and made grotesque by the red mask of blood, stared at him. He dropped the box and then reached for it again. They would still remember this moment, this—
Devereaux swung the ax down hard and severed Faolin’s outstretched hand at the wrist. Blood now spurted onto the carpeting from opened arteries and veins, and the bloody stump foamed with redness.
The severed hand lay half open, the box cradled in the nest of fingers.
Faolin died as he felt the shock of the blow.
26
Hanley made the report twice; first to the Old Man, and then repeated it to the National Security Council, at the insistence of the President of the United States.
Of course, not one word of the report was taken down; it was an oral exercise, for information and not for history. Hanley did not have to refer to notes. As usual, he remembered everything, from the moment Devereaux had met with him at the prizefight in Madison Square Garden to the moments of death aboard the Brianna.
It was an extraordinary story and no one interrupted at the Security Council meeting. And it was mostly true.
Of course, the Old Man had convinced Hanley that the decision to eliminate Devereaux would be… well… eliminated from the report. There was no point in bringing up such business; it only served to cloud the matter. And the fact that Devereaux appeared to be something of a hero to the British changed things. Hanley understood.
So Hanley made his report with only a few deletions. He even reported honestly about Green. Green had been a double agent for the CIA and he had taken part in at least two murders on British soil. He was currently being held for trial and would doubtless be sentenced to life in prison. Green had been a bad apple, a mole, and a murderer.
Of course, the chief of the CIA squirmed during the long recitation, delivered in a precise, dry tone by Hanley in the National Security Council meeting room. None of the story was very pleasant to the CIA.
During Hanley’s recitation about Operation Mirror, the President glared at the CIA man at the table; it was apparent that the CIA needed R Section just as much today as it had in Kennedy’s time, the President said at one point.
The CIA said nothing. They had considered protesting that a deal had been made with R Section, but that seemed absurd in light of what the CIA saw as the Section’s double-cross.
Because Operation Mirror involved illegal activities and crimes committed on British soil — the murder of Hastings, the murders of Blatchford and Johannsen and Ruckles, and the attempt to murder both Devereaux and Elizabeth Campbell — Devereaux had cooperated fully with British police, Hanley reported.