Midnight Runner - Jack Higgins [72]
Dillon straightened and said dryly, "Yes, I was a great loss to the theater. There's one thing you both should know, however. For various reasons, this trip isn't sanctioned by Ferguson. I'm doing it on my own, so whatever you do, you'll be doing it for me, Billy."
"So how will you get tooled up? You won't be able to take arms through to," Harry said.
"I still have my contacts over there, Harry. A phone call will do it."
"Well, bring this little bugger back in one piece. It grieves me to say it, Dillon, but since we met you, he's developed a taste for this sort of caper."
And Billy Salter, a London gangster, four times in prison, a man who had killed in his time, a lover of moral philosophy, smiled coldly.
"Well, you know what Heidegger said: 'For authentic living, what is necessary is the resolute confrontation of death.'"
"You must be cracked," Harry said.
"Let's just say I have a better chance of finding what is necessary in than at the Flamingo Club in Wapping on a Saturday night."
T wenty-four hours later, Harry delivered Billy to the Brancaster Aero Club, Joe Baxter at the wheel of the Jaguar. Billy was wearing a black leather bomber jacket and Joe Baxter carried his bag. Billy leaned on the rail, looking at the planes.
"I wonder which is ours?"
A small man was leaning on the rail nearby. He had a bag at his feet and was also wearing a bomber jacket and a cloth cap, from which black hair escaped. His glasses were tinted and he had a dark moustache.
He said in a faultless upper-class English accent, "That's yours over there, old chap. Beechcraft. Smashing plane. The red-and-cream job."
"Looks good to me," Harry said.
"Well I'm happy you're happy." Dillon turned to greet Daniel Quinn. "Morning, Senator. If you're ready, we'll get out of here."
Harry said, "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself."
Dillon picked up his bag. "Right, gentlemen, let's get going," and he went through the gate in the fence and led the way to the Beechcraft.
The flight to Aldergrove airport outside was smooth and uneventful. They went through customs and security and Dillon led the way to the long-term parking lot.
"Shogun four-door, dark green," he told the other two and gave them the number. "Somewhere on the fourth floor."
It was Billy who discovered it. Dillon reached under the rear and found a magnetized key box, with which he opened the rear door. He lifted the trap inside, where tools and odds and ends were kept. There was a tin box, and when Dillon opened it, it proved to contain three Walther PPKs, each with a Carswell silencer and spare magazine. There was also a field medical kit with Royal Army Medical Corp on the lid.
He took one Walther and said to the others, "Help yourselves."
Billy hefted his in his hand. "Feels good, eh, Senator?"
Quinn gazed down at his Walther. "Strange, Billy, it feels strange."
"Where are we staying?" Billy asked as they drove away.
"Well, not the Europa. There's a nice enough hotel just up the road from it, the Townley. If you like, I'll show you around a little. But remember, Senator, at all times you're a bluff, honest Yankee tourist, right? As for you, Billy, if we're going down the Falls Road, keep your mouth shut. They don't like the English much."
"You know it well?" Quinn asked.
"Particularly the sewers. I used to play hide-and-seek in there with British paratroopers more years ago than I care to remember."
"And that's a bleeding showstopper if I ever heard one," Billy said.
L ater, Dillon was driving along the Falls Road. They'd eaten at a small restaurant in a side street, visited a couple of bars, and then he'd taken the other two on the grand tour.
"So this is the famous Falls Road. Hell, it looks so normal, just another city street," Quinn said.
"Well, this one's run with blood in its time," Dillon said. "Plenty of pitched battles between the Provos and the British troops." He was quiet for a moment. "It was a hard way to live."
"So why did you?" Quinn said. "Why did you do it?"
Dillon lit a cigarette, one-handed, and didn't