"Something bigger than that," McLeod replied, already drawing the Browning Hi-Power from his belt and snapping back the slide to chamber a round.
Aoife wormed across the deck on her elbows as far as the foot of the ladder that led up to the pilothouse.
"Eamonn, are you two all right up there?"
"Aye, thank God for steel bulkheads," came a voice from above. "Though heaven only knows what my insurance adjuster's going to say, when we get back to port!"
Magnus had taken cover behind the shelter of the superstructure, his own pistol now in hand, and was working his way toward one side, keeping his head well down.
"I don't think we need to ask any more questions," he muttered, getting his feet under him. "I don't care whether they're Nazis or the bloody IRA, they aren't meant to have firearms. Let's see what they've got."
Rearing up from cover, he squeezed off three quick shots over the forward bulkhead and ducked back down from a fierce blaze of return-fire. Bullets ricocheted and fiberglass flew in splinters.
"I guess that answers your question," McLeod muttered, keeping his head down. "Why do the bad guys always wind up with the biggest guns?"
He started to rise, then flinched back with a sharp imprecation as a bullet burned past his left cheekbone. The spiteful chatter of automatic weapons-fire continued, coming in fits and bursts.
"Are you all right?" came Adam's sharp inquiry.
"Aye, just a scratch."
"Somebody needs to teach that feckless bastard the difference between quantity and quality," Magnus said, as the strafing abruptly petered out.
"Maybe he's out of ammo," Adam said hopefully.
"Don't count on it," McLeod muttered.
Cautiously he lifted his head. The response was a short, resurgent salvo that sent him diving for the deck. As he did so, Magnus reared up again and squeezed off a double round of two in the direction of the muzzle-flashes, immediately ducking down again. When the echoes subsided, there was only silence.
The two policemen traded glances.
"Either he's playing possum, or you've hit him," said McLeod.
"Only one way to find out," Magnus replied - and heaved himself to his feet, weapon poised.
Too late to prevent it, his fellow Huntsmen tensed in dread anticipation, McLeod ready to lay down cover-fire. When the silence held, a collective sigh of relief whispered among them and Magnus ducked back down.
"That's appears to be round one to our side," Adam said, "unless, of course, this isn't our quarry at all. Eamonn," he called up to the pilothouse, "take her in slowly. We'd better board and see what the damage is."
As Eamonn cautiously brought the Lady Gregory alongside the Rose, the two policemen took the opportunity to reload.
"How the devil did you get to retirement age taking chances like that?" McLeod demanded.
Magnus pulled a wry grin. "Just lucky, 1 guess."
"Better keep some luck in reserve," McLeod recommended. "It isn't bullets I'm most worried about."
He and Magnus went aboard the Rose first, weapons at the ready, Adam following cautiously with an electric torch. They found the gunman sprawled on the deck amidships, an assault rifle trailing loose from his lax fingers. The right side of his face was bloodied from a crease-wound above his right ear.
"Well, this could well be one of our common, garden-variety, home-grown terrorists, after all," Magnus muttered, kicking the rifle away from the man's hand. "That's Libyan shit - a Kalashnikov AK-47 - all too easy for them to get. I'll check below to make certain he hasn't got any buddies."
While McLeod kept the gunman covered, and Magnus went below, Adam knelt down to check the wound.
"He seems to be concussed, but there isn't much bleeding," he reported. "He'll keep until we can get the rest of this sorted out."
With an unsympathetic grunt, McLeod leaned down to confiscate the rifle, recoiling in the next instant as if he had been stung.
"Bloody hell!" he muttered, kicking the weapon farther out of the way. "Adam, look at this."
As he lifted the gunman's hand by the cuff of his jacket, light from Adam's torch touched off a glassy glint of red from the gold ring worn on the third finger of the right hand. The intaglio device incised on the underside of the stone was one all too well known to them in recent years: the snarling, tufted head of a big cat.
"So much for home-grown terrorists," Adam murmured. "And that explains the warning about an old enemy."
"Aye, we should've guessed as much,"McLeod agreed.
"Not necessarily. Lynx involvement is not inconsistent, given their previous Nazi connections, but Tseten was convinced that other forces are at work here - and I'm inclined to believe him. I'd guess this man is hired muscle - which is not to say he mightn't have been dangerous on other levels. Whoever the real boss may be remains to be seen."
"Adam?" came Magnus's voice from below. "Could you come down here?"
As Adam glanced in that direction, McLeod held up a hand in warning and got to his feet, raising his pistol at the ready beside his head as he moved toward the opening. Magnus' white head emerged from the doorway before McLeod could do more, and the Irish Second held up both hands, his weapon in one of them, and gave them a sheepish grin.
"Sorry, I just realized how that must've sounded. We've got another man below, but he's unconscious - drugged, I think. He may be one of the crew. There's something else you ought to see, though - and maybe have Peregrine take a look, if his talents run the way you've described."
Leaving McLeod to guard their unconscious prisoner, Adam summoned Peregrine to come aboard, then headed down into the cabin. Peregrine had been standing by anxiously at the rail with Aoife, who was scanning the shore with binoculars, but at Adam's summons he moved to the gap in the rail and leaped across to the Rose, stepping cautiously around McLeod's prisoner, to follow. He found Adam kneeling beside a man sprawled in one of the cramped berths below. Magnus was backed into the tiny galley, eyes closed.
"He isn't dead; just sedated," Adam said softly, glancing back at Peregrine. "See what you can pick up in here. I can almost taste the residuals."
Closing the cabin door behind him, Peregrine leaned against it and let his gaze sweep around the cramped room, immediately zeroing in on the scarred table adjoining the ship's galley. A faint, telltale shimmer in the air in this part of the room hinted at the presence of powerful resonances.
He drew a long breath to center and let his deeper sight take over. The shimmer grew more distinct, resolving into the ghostly image of a tall man with fair hair. With it came a palpable aura of restless ambition and consuming malice.
Hardly daring to breathe for fear of losing the impression, Peregrine groped hastily for his pocket sketchbook and began to sketch. As oftentimes before, the very act of drawing served to fix and clarify the image. Temporarily oblivious to everything else in the room, he worked with rapid concentration, only venturing to look down at the page when he judged he was finished.
The face that gazed back at him was that of a lean, fair-haired man with chiselled lips and sharp cheekbones flanking a patrician blade of a nose. It was a likeness Peregrine had seen before in photographs, but never in the flesh. Even so, he was in no doubt as to its owner's identity.
"Francis Raeburn!'' he said aloud.
Instantly Adam came to join him.
"What did you say?"
Instead of repeating himself, Peregrine mutely held out the sketch he had just made. Adam stared at it intently, then handed the sketch pad across to Magnus, who had roused at their words.
"This begins to make more sense," Adam said, gesturing for Peregrine to open the cabin door. ' 'Now I think I understand the Nazi connection, given that Raeburn is the son of David Tudor-Jones. What I do not understand is how Raeburn hooks in with Eastern esoterica - though I expect we're going to find out."