Cry of the Hunter - Jack Higgins [6]
‘And that’s the only philosophy that can ever achieve the impossible,’ O’Hara said.
Fallon leaned forward. ‘You’d better give me what information you’ve got,’ he said. ‘Where are they holding him?’
Doolan nodded and smiled. ‘That’s about the only bright spot,’ he said. ‘We do have some secret information. They’re still holding him in Castlemore, but a friend on the inside gave us a tip this morning. They’re going to move him to Belfast tomorrow night on the nine o’clock mail train. The whole thing’s being done very quietly.’
Fallon nodded. ‘Because they expect the glory boys to try something foolish.’
‘You’ll want the address of our local headquarters in Castlemore,’ Doolan said.
Fallon shook his head. ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘In the first place, I wouldn’t feel safe working with a local group. There’s still a reward of two thousand quid on my head. No – I’ve got to do it on my own. It’s the only way.’
O’Hara nodded in approval. ‘You’re right, Martin. It’s the only way, but you’ll be needing a hidey hole of some sort.’
Fallon smiled. ‘I’ve one or two of my own. Reliable ones from the old days.’ He stood up and moved across to the window and looked out into the night.
‘When will you go?’ O’Hara asked.
Fallon lit another cigarette. ‘In an hour or so. I’ll cross the border before morning. I can catch the milk train for Castlemore at Carlington.’ He moved back to the fire and said, ‘I’ll give myself three days at the outside. If we get away with it I’ll bring him straight here. No sense in getting him arrested on this side and put in that fine new detention camp they’ve got.’ O’Hara nodded and Fallon sighed and said, ‘I’ve been happy here, O’Hara. Happy for the first time in my life. If I ever get the chance I’ll pay you back for doing this to me.’
O’Hara half-smiled and shook his head. ‘No you won’t,’ he said. ‘You’re not the sort. Besides, you’ve never been happy here.’ His eyes challenged Fallon calmly, surely, and Fallon suddenly knew that what the old man said was true.
He threw his cigarette into the fire and left the room. He quietly opened the bedroom door and went in. Mrs. Rogan slept peacefully, her face calm and tranquil in the lamplight. Fallon opened a wardrobe and taking out a tweed suit, changed quickly. When he was ready, he took a battered rain hat and an old trench coat from a hook behind the door. For a moment he stood at the bedside looking down at the sleeping woman and then he turned down the lamp and moved to the window.
A bare half-mile away through the darkness was the border. Within a few hours be would be in great danger. The rain hammered endlessly on the glass and the wind called to him as it moaned through the trees. A sudden spark of excitement moved within him. He smiled softly in the darkness and turned and quietly left the room.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN the milk train pulled into Castlemore, Fallon was sleeping in a corner, his hat tilted over his eyes. An old farmer who had shared the compartment with him from Carlington, gave him a nudge and he came awake quickly and murmured his thanks.
The station was almost deserted and few passengers alighted. As he walked towards the barrier porters unloaded the milk churns noisily at the far end of the platform. A young policeman in the uniform of the Ulster Constabulary, revolver strapped high on his right side in black leather holster, chatted idly with the ticket-collector. His eyes flickered in a disinterested fashion over the passengers as they passed through, and he yawned hugely and lifted a hand to his mouth.
Fallon paused in the station entrance and looked across the square into a drift of fine rain. It had been easy. Almost too easy. He had crossed the border under cover of the darkness and rain, with no trouble at all. A brisk walk of half a mile had taken him into Carlington. Now here he was, back in enemy territory with almost every hand against him, and yet it was different somehow. There was not the old feeling of excitement, of tension. There was a flatness