For a second it looked as though the red-haired nun was going to say something in reply but then she thought better of it.
"So what do we do now?" Meg said finally, standing there in the rain, her long hair hanging in stringy tangles around her face.
"The kid wasn't a killer," said Holliday. "He was a delivery boy."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"He was taking us to someone," answered Holliday. "I intend to find out where and to whom."
20
"I knew it," said Holliday angrily. He was looking through the big Steiner military binoculars he had taken off the dead kid. He and Sister Meg were lying on the stony bluffs above the Bay at the Back of the Ocean, the rough, curving beach that ran along the western shore of Iona.
He handed the binoculars to Meg, pointing and keeping his head low just in case someone was watching. It was still raining and they'd both given up any thought of drying out a long time ago. Drawn up on the beach itself was an old red-painted dory, its bow turned toward the flat, featureless ocean, the stern pulled up on the sand, a big old Mercury outboard flipped up on the transom.
An unidentified man was huddled in the back of the boat, protected by a small tarpaulin that was probably meant for the motor. From their vantage point Holliday could see that the man in the dory was wearing a black windbreaker that was a mate to the one they'd taken off the body in the swamp. Presumably another employee of Blackhawk Security, which was something else to think about: Who the hell was Blackhawk Security and why were they trying to kill him?
"Sean," said Meg, surprise in her voice as she looked through the binoculars. "That's the Mary Deare."
Holliday nodded, his jaw set in anger. "If Sean is his real name," he said, looking out to sea. Without the binoculars the little ship was nothing more than an indistinct blob on the rain-filled horizon. With the Steiners he could make out individual patches of rust and primer paint on the hull. The Mary Deare was lying about a mile from shore anchored fore and aft, waiting. For what? The only logical answer was that O'Keefe's old ship had left the little port on the east shore of Iona and come around to the west shore for a rendezvous with the red dory.
The red dory, on the other hand, was waiting in the pouring rain for Ian Andrew Mitchell to arrive with his freshly captured prisoners. Somebody had it all neatly planned out. But why go to all the trouble? Why not simply wait until they returned to the ship on their own? It wasn't as though they had anyplace else to go.
"I don't understand any of this," said Meg, passing back the binoculars. Holliday took them from her and slipped them back into their case.
"Somebody's trying to stop us any way they can," said Holliday. "Your boyfriend O'Keefe is working for whoever's got us targeted. Odds are we were supposed to go back aboard the Mary Deare without anyone seeing us. Whoever was waiting on board would torture us to find out what we know and then drop us into the ocean."
"Sean is not my boyfriend, and I find it hard to believe he'd do a thing like that," said Meg.
"You can have whatever the hell kind of fantasy you want," said Holliday. "The harsh reality is sitting in that red dory wearing the same Blackhawk Security windbreaker as I am," he added. "And he already has done a thing like that."
"All right," answered Meg. "What are we supposed to do about your so-called harsh reality?"
"Fake it," said Holliday.
They argued back and forth for five minutes and then Holliday and Meg stood up in full view and walked slowly down the shallow-sided dune below the higher bluff, Meg in the lead, Holliday close behind her. Seeing movement on the bluff, the man in the red dory looked up and peered into the gray curtain of rain. He stood, the tarpaulin around his shoulders, one hand shielding his eyes. Holliday and Meg reached the bottom of the sloping dune and walked toward the boat drawn up on the shore. As they walked both Meg and Holliday kept their heads down.
"You promised you wouldn't hurt him," reminded Meg, keeping her voice low as they stepped toward the boat, their feet digging into the wet, gritty sand.
"Not unless he tries to hurt me first," said Holliday, wishing the nun would shut up and let him concentrate on the next few seconds.
"You really are some kind of bastard," said Meg bitterly.
"Hey!" the man in the dory called out. "There was supposed to be two of them! Where's the other one?!"
Holliday and Meg kept on walking toward the boat. All he needed was another ten feet or so.
"Hey!" the man in the dory yelled again. He swept back the tarpaulin and reached for the sling under his windbreaker. He was armed just like the first one.
Holliday used his left arm to sweep Meg out of the way. She stumbled and fell to her knees. He fired the little Beretta.380 through the slit he'd made in the pocket of the windbreaker with the Swiss Army knife, trying for the left shoulder and arm, hoping to immobilize the shooter. The Beretta had an eight- round, single-stack magazine and one in the chamber, nine rounds in all. Holliday kept firing until the man fell down, dropping forward over the transom of the dory and flopping out of the boat and onto the beach. Any blood was invisible against the black of the windbreaker. The man was writhing on the sand, his left hand clutching his right elbow. He wouldn't be signing any contracts for a while but he'd live if they got him to a hospital within the next half hour. Holliday had fired seven rounds and hit the man with four, one in the elbow, one in the meat of the upper arm and two in the shoulder. Three out of the four were through and through; the fourth was still lodged in his biceps. His face was pale and his teeth were chattering. He was going into shock.
"What have you done?" Sister Meg groaned, stooping down over the wounded man. Holliday pushed her aside and removed the sling and the submachine gun. He laid the MAC 11 on the sand and rolled the man over, none too gently. The man screamed.
"You're hurting him!" Meg said furiously.
"Good," said Holliday blandly. The man was carrying a Beretta identical to the one Holliday had shot him with. "Push the boat into the water. I'm going to drag this one up beyond the tide line." Holliday grabbed the man by his collar and started hauling him up the beach.
"We can't just leave him here!"
"We're sure as hell not taking him with us," said Holliday. He reached the tide line, marked by a line of drying kelp and driftwood, and let the man drop. He walked back to the boat, ignoring Meg, and heaved on the transom. As the boat slipped into the water Holliday levered himself over the gunwale and dropped down onto the flat wooden bench. He eased the outboard over the transom and started looking for the starter.
"What are you doing?" Meg asked, staring at him, a little wild-eyed.
"Leaving before your friend Sean figures out what's going on and calls in the cavalry," said Holliday. "If you're coming, you'd better get in."
Holliday found the electric starter and punched it, one hand on the throttle arm. Small waves were already moving the old clinker-built fishing boat into deeper water. Meg hesitated for a second longer, then waded out into the water and threw her backpack into the boat. She grabbed the gunwale and boosted herself up and in. The engine caught with a coughing roar. Holliday twisted the tiller arm and pointed the dory out to sea.
Katherine Franklin Sinclair, widow of the late Angus Pierce Sinclair, the onetime ambassador to the Court of St. James in London, and mother to Senator Richard Pierce Sinclair, sat at a corner table in the Senate Dining Room having lunch with her son. Katherine was enjoying the bacon-wrapped scallops and her son was having a tuna sandwich, toasted on white with a side of fries.
The Senate majority leader was at a table behind them and the head of the Armed Services Committee was eating a cheeseburger one table over. Heady stuff, but if Kate Sinclair had her way it was going to get a lot better on November 8 next year, the date of the next federal election.