Redemption - Leon Uris [324]
“You’re talking from both sides of your mouth, Rory.”
“Women have been trained objects. He is vain beyond vain. Enough for him to believe he is some kind of magnificent dashing figure. Caroline, on the other hand, is the unattainable woman. He’s now vain enough to think he can win her. What I’m trying to say is that, in actual fact, he’s navve about women, but he’s never been in the ring with anyone even close to Caroline.”
“And you think he’ll rendezvous with her, unguarded?”
“He has to. If they’re seen together by so much as a grocery store clerk or a maid or any of his own guards…his career goes up in smoke. So, if he is suspicious he simply won’t show up. If he does show up, it will be by himself. Moreover, we can watch to see if he has been followed.”
“Aye, aye, aye,” Atty said. “Where do they meet?”
“An abandoned hunting lodge in the hills, deep in the Earldom. Years ago she changed it from a hunting lodge to her personal hideaway and studio.”
Atty stiffened, realizing that Caroline had lured Conor there years before. Her cheeks reddened. Caroline had turned it into an exotic little playground…only for her husband and herself, Atty hoped.
“What about the gamekeeper?” she asked.
“She retired him a month ago. He and his wife are on an extended trip to America. I think she retired them the minute Brodhead lied to the Commission of Inquiry. Caroline has been planning this for a long time.”
“Go on.”
“Time is yet to be arranged. She gets there first and gets the fire going, carries an envelope of happy powder, lots of booze. Brodhead doesn’t hold whiskey too well, he’d never make an Aussie.”
“Or an Irishman.”
“She’s opting for a three-night party.”
“If she plays around, he’s going to get suspicious in a hurry.”
“Atty, Caroline is going to romance him, take him to bed and make love to him and gain his confidence. Having completely relaxed him, she’ll pick the right time.”
“She will be the shooter?” Atty asked.
Rory nodded. “She’s going to be the shooter.”
Atty was struck by Caroline’s daring and her sacrifice. “I’m deeply moved, Rory. The fact that she’s willing to go to bed with that bastard.”
“So am I,” Rory said. “She’s going to have him so tired, he won’t have enough strength to spit.”
“Well now, that’s quite a woman,” Atty said. “What about the weapon?”
“She’s going to use a little double-barreled Italian Lenetti. Three inches long, fits long, fits in the palm of the hand. It holds two 44-caliber slugs with soft lead noses. We tested the pistol in her basement. At close range it could blow a hole in a cruiser.”
“Backup weapon?” Atty asked.
“Kitchen knife.”
“What about tire tracks?”
“Too much rain.”
Atty became a little queasy but used her acting skills to display a professional manner. “We’ve a dead general,” she went on, “in a remote hunting lodge and I hope no one in Ireland on his side has a clue where he went. Now what?”
“Caroline leaves the lodge, ties a ribbon on the gate to signal that the deed has been done. She returns to Hubble Manor in her car. Two of our lads, who have been waiting in a duck blind about five hundred yards from the house, see the ribbon, come in, remove the body and clean the place up, then put him in the trunk of his car and drive fifty, a hundred miles south and give him a cement suit, either at the bottom of a dry well or a lake. Car goes in the lake.”
“Charming,” Atty said. “What can go wrong?”
“Just about anything,” Rory answered.
“And you’ll be long out of Ireland, in England or Scotland.”
“That’s the idea,” he said. “The plan is rough now, but you start hanging out at the Abbey Theatre. She attends every new play. Good contact point. The two of you are going to have to keep refining things.”
“I am terrified that I’m going to end up liking her,” Atty said.
“It’s not hard to do…. Sorry, I meant nothing nasty,” Rory said.
“Well, I am happy you’ll be out of Ireland.”
“Aye,” he whispered,