“So let’s get out of here.”
He got the door of the companionway open and called across to the truck. “Michael, they tried to jump us.”
“Are you all right?” Ryan called, opening his door and sheltering behind it.
“Fine. Cover us. We’re coming through.” He pushed Kathleen out. “Keep behind my back, girl,” and he turned, looking up at the wheelhouse, and fired a quick burst into the air when he saw a movement up there at the window.
Kathleen reached her uncle in safety. “Get back into the rear cabin. You’ll be safe there.” She did as she was told and he called to Keogh, who was sheltering behind the passenger door. “What happened?”
Keogh told him. “So you were right after all.”
“I usually am. A bad habit.”
IN THE WHEELHOUSE it was several minutes before Grant reached the bridge by a circuitous route involving the engine room hatch. He was very pale, eyes wild, blood staining his left shoulder. He pulled off his jacket, found a piece of engine room rag, and tried to bandage his shoulder.
“That little bitch shot Fox. She had a gun, then Keogh killed Dolan and had a go at me. What do we do now?”
“I don’t damn well know, do I?” Tully answered.
He went to the stern window, killed the wheelhouse light, then opened the window keeping in the shadows and peered down. He saw the truck doors standing open like wings and realized Ryan and Keogh must be standing behind them. He took careful aim at Keogh’s side, aiming below the door in the hope that he might get lucky and catch feet or ankles. He emptied his revolver, firing six times. The response was terrible, as both Ryan and Keogh fired a long burst back, dissolving the wheelhouse windows into a snowstorm of flying glass.
Tully and Grant went down on the floor fast, but Muller wasn’t so lucky, several rounds catching him in the back. He fell, the wheel started to spin, and Tully crawled to it and, half crouching, pulled it round, then secured the wheel with the chain lock.
“That’ll hold for a while.”
“But how long for and what do we bloody do?” Grant asked.
“I don’t know, do I?”
IT WAS TEN minutes later that the radio crackled and Ryan said, “You there, Tully?”
“Yes, there’s still three of us,” Tully lied. “Muller, Grant, and me.”
“Are you going to be sensible?”
“Why should I be? You need me more than I need you, Ryan.” The Irish Rose rolled heavily as the wind howled in. “Unless you can handle a ship like this and I don’t think so, especially not in weather like this.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“I don’t know. Only one thing’s certain. You can’t touch us up here if we keep our heads down and we can’t get at you. I’d call that stalemate.”
“So, what do you suggest?”
“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”
“He’s right,” Keogh called across to him. “No way of storming the wheelhouse. They’d have every advantage.”
“And even if we did and by some miracle succeeded in knocking them off, where would be the advantage?” Ryan said. “Could we sail this thing on our own, you and me, Martin? I doubt it.”
“Keep pointing it at Ireland is about the best you could do as long as the engines kept going.”
“With no one to handle them?” Ryan shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
NOTHING HAPPENED FOR some fifteen minutes and then Tully’s voice crackled over the radio.
“Ryan, are you there?”
“What do you want?”
“We’re three miles off the Down coast.”
“Still aiming for Kilalla? You could still land us there, take the other fifty thousand, and go your way and no harm done.”
“I don’t believe you. You’d shoot me like a dog after that’s happened. It’s not on and Kilalla is miles away north of here, anyway.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“I can turn this tub round and put out to sea again any time I want.”
“And we sail on forever like the Flying Dutchman, you up there in the wheelhouse and us down here?” Ryan said. “And where would that get us?”
“Nowhere from your point of view.” Tully went off the air again.
“It’s no good,” Keogh said. “I’ll have to try and rush the ladder and you can give me covering fire.”
“Covering fire? Are you mad or what?” Ryan said. “You wouldn’t stand a chance and you know it.”
CROUCHED DOWN IN the wheelhouse, Tully said to Grant, “How’s the arm?”
“It hurts like hell, but it was only a crease. I’ll survive.”
“With you in the engine room and me up here we could still sail back to England, couldn’t we?”
“I suppose so. What are you suggesting?”
“I’m going to try him with an offer one last time.”
TULLY’S VOICE SOUNDED over the radio. “Ryan?”
“What do you want?”
“I could turn out to sea like I said, we could go round in circles till the diesel oil runs out, then we’d just drift until someone called the Coastguard and they came to investigate and then the fat would be in the fire for all of us.”
“True enough,” Ryan said. “So what do you suggest?”
“Why not cut your losses? There’s the big yellow inflatable behind you in the stern with a good outboard motor. We’re only two miles off the coast now as far as I know. You could make it easily now that the wind’s dropping.”
“And leave the gold to you?” Ryan demanded. “So what do we get out of this?”
“Your lives,” Tully said.
“And you trying to pick us off as we get in the inflatable.”
“I can’t even see it from the wheelhouse. The truck’s in front of it. Think about it. I’ll give you five minutes and then I’ll turn this thing around.”
He went off the air and Kathleen said angrily, “We can’t do it, Uncle Michael, not after all we’ve been through.”
“I know, girl, I know.” He turned to Keogh. “What do you think, Martin?”
“I don’t think we have much choice.”
“So it’s live to fight another day?” And then Ryan smiled that unholy smile of his. “Of course there is another possibility, which is to make sure Tully doesn’t get the gold, either.”
Kathleen gasped and Keogh said, “And how would you do that?”
So Ryan told them.
A MINUTE LATER he called Tully. “All right, you’re on. Give me a few moments while Keogh checks that you really can’t see that inflatable because of the truck and I’ll come back to you.”
In the wheelhouse, Tully laughed hoarsely and turned to Grant. “It’s worked. The bastard’s going to go. We’ve won.”
“If he means it.”
“Of course he does. No other way out. Nothing for him here now.”
Ryan’s voice sounded again. “Okay, Tully, everything checks. I’ll see you in hell one of these days.”
The transmission ended and Tully laughed exultantly. “I’ve beaten the bastard. Fifty million pounds and it’s all mine.”
“All ours you mean?” Grant said.
“Of course.” Tully smiled. “We need each other, so let’s get this tub turned around.”
SHELTERED BY THE truck, Keogh and Ryan slid the inflatable over the stern rail and tethered it by its line. Keogh went over first and got to work on the outboard motor. It roared into life instantly with a strong heartbeat.
“Over you go, girl,” Ryan told Kathleen.
Keogh helped her in and the inflatable tossed this way and that in the choppy sea, the stern of the Irish Rose rising up and falling again just above them.
“Come on, Michael, for God’s sake,” Keogh called.
“Not before I leave Tully his going-away present.” Ryan held it up. “A half pound block of Semtex and a one-minute timing pencil.” He pulled open the stern deck hatch, dropped the Semtex inside, and closed the hatch again. He was over the rail on the instant, untied the line, and Keogh gunned the motor.
They were perhaps fifty yards away when the stern of the Irish Rose exploded into the darkness in a vivid tongue of flame. The end was incredibly quick, the ship tilting, the prow rising dramatically, and it slid backwards under the surface, vanishing in seconds in a hiss of steam.