Cry of the Hunter - Jack Higgins [75]
Fallon glanced down. There was blood coursing over his chest. He looked vacantly at Stuart and said, ‘I’m going home, Phil. I’m going home. Don’t try to delay me, old man. I haven’t much time.’
For a moment Philip Stuart stared helplessly at him and then a peculiar expression appeared on his face. Walking slowly like a man in a dream, he moved to the bar that stretched across the road and raised it.
Fallon drove straight through without looking back. He felt strong and powerful again. He had done it. He was back across the border and he was going home. The road dipped and he splashed through a ford and swerved into a side road on the other side.
Below him was the valley and down there beneath the mountain a solitary light gleamed. He pressed his foot against the boards and the car flew through the night like some great bird returning home. He braked hard at the bottom of the hill, his wheels skidding in loose gravel and turned into the final road for home. The gateposts jumped out of the darkness to meet him. He braked again and swung the wheel but his hands had lost their strength. The van lifted on two wheels, spun in a half-circle and crashed against a gatepost.
The door opened to his touch and he fell out on to the ground. For a moment he lay there and then he scrambled wearily to his feet and began to walk towards the cottage. The light in the window seemed to grow brighter and there was a sound of voices. The door was flung open and a long shaft of light picked him out of the darkness. There was a sudden silence.
Fallon stood there, swaying slightly, his feet braced apart. He was aware of the coldness of the rain as it fell on his bare skin and somehow, he had lost a shoe and a stone was cutting into his foot. His eyes were dazzled by the light so that he had difficulty in seeing properly. He recognized O’Hara and Doolan was standing at his shoulder and then they were pushed aside and she was there. For one long moment he looked at her and tried to smile and then he took a single, hesitant pace towards her and fell forward.
He opened his eyes and saw O’Hara bending over him. ‘We’ll avenge you, Martin,’ he said. ‘We’ll not forget.’
Fallon began to laugh. It all seemed so stupid and meaningless now - words, just words. And then O’Hara was pushed aside and Anne was kneeling in the rain and he was in her arms. He tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, that she was the thing that had been missing in his life.
It was no use. She was crying and he wanted to comfort her but he felt very weak. It had all been such a damned waste – his whole life had been wasted.
She was crying steadily now, her arms tightly wrapped around him. He smiled contentedly and turned his face towards the warmth and then it was cold – very cold and everything was slipping away from him. It felt as if a great wind was trying to lift him up and carry him away to the other end of time. For a little while longer he clung to her and then he let go and turned his face towards the darkness.
A Biography of Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins is the pseudonym of Harry Patterson (b. 1929), the New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy thrillers, including The Eagle Has Landed and The Wolf at the Door. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Patterson grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. As a child, Patterson was a voracious reader and later credited his passion for reading with fueling his creative drive to be an author. His upbringing in Belfast also exposed him to the political and religious violence that characterized the city at the time. At seven years old, Patterson was caught in gunfire while riding a tram, and later was in a Belfast movie theater when it was bombed. Though he escaped from both attacks unharmed, the turmoil in Northern Ireland would later become a significant influence in his books, many of which prominently feature the Irish Republican Army. After attending grammar school and college in Leeds, England, Patterson