Midnight Runner (32 page)

"It must be my winning personality. Where's the good Rupert?"

"Around."

"Terrible people he employs. Newton and Cook." He shrugged. "Total rubbish."

"I agree."

"I see you've got the Eagle parked here."

"You know about that?"

"You usually keep it at the Dauncey Aero Club six miles away, but you use your own airstrip here when it suits."

"Yes, I had one of the staff at the club fly it down for me yesterday."

"Where would it be this time? Isle of Wight again?"

"Is there anything you don't know? Where Rupert is, for example?"

"I'm sure he'll tell me at the right moment."

The tapestry parted and Rupert emerged, gun in hand. "Which is now."

Carl slipped beside Dillon and the rumble in his throat was infinitely menacing. Dauncey turned his Walther on him and Dillon raised a hand. "Shoot the dog and I'll kill you myself."

"Leave it, Rupert," Kate said.

Dillon fondled Carl's head. "There's a good boy," and the dog rubbed against him. "Go on to your mistress now." He pointed, and Carl went and sat by her.

"Now what?" Dillon asked.

"Oh, something special, I think. Shooting's too good. That's for people like Billy Salter." She smiled.

"If I can interject," Dillon said. "Billy's still alive. Sorry about that, Kate. Everything's going wrong, isn't it?"

There was a kind of rage in her eyes, but only for a moment. "So I'll have to shoot him again."

She slipped her hand between the cushion on which she was sitting and the arm of the sofa and took out an old German Luger.

"This has been in the family since the First World War. Paul taught me how to shoot with it in the woods when I was quite little."

Dillon had his hands on his hips. He could have reached for the Walther in his belt and shot Rupert Dauncey that instant, and her, too, for he saw she had the safety catch on, and yet he held back. In a way, it was mesmerizing, being face-to-face with the most beautiful woman he'd ever known, a woman he now realized was totally unbalanced. And yet, like a bad dream, he had a part to play, had to see it through.

"You owe me, Dillon, you owe me for the three brothers you killed."

"Ah, well, I always pay my debts." He was a little mad himself now. "By the way, the safety catch is on." She examined the Luger and remedied it. "Will that do?" he asked.

"Not really. Rupert?"

She turned the Luger on Dillon and Rupert laid his gun on the library table, opened a dresser, and took out a roll of masking tape. "Turn around."

Dillon did as he was told and Rupert bound his wrists behind him.

"Get his gun," Kate Rashid told him.

Rupert took it from the pocket under Dillon's left arm and laid it down. "That's better," she said.

"Not if he carries another one. I bet I know where it is." He felt under the back of Dillon's flying jacket and found the second Walther. "There you go, sweetie."

"So now what?" Dillon asked.

"I think I'll take you for a flight," she said. "Show you what a good pilot I am."

"That should be interesting." Dillon nodded. "I'm a great pilot myself, but I'm always willing to learn. Are we going to France for lunch?"

"For Rupert and me, perhaps, but it'll be a somewhat shorter flight for you."

"Ah, like that, is it?"

"Absolutely. Let's get moving."

She left the Luger on the coffee table and Rupert prodded Dillon in the back. "Just do as you're told and I promise we'll make it painless."

They went out and Kate Rashid draped Dillon's Burberry around her shoulders, put on the rain hat, closed the French windows on Carl, and followed.

I
t was light now, the sky somber with heavy gray clouds, and visibility was poor. The rain was relentless as they followed a path through the beech trees and came out to the meadow and approached the Black Eagle.

"Lousy flying weather," Dillon said. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Oh, yes." She took the keys from her pocket and unlocked the Airstair door and opened it. The steps came down and she went up. Rupert gave Dillon a push.

"Up you go."

Dillon moved awkwardly because of his bound hands. Rupert pushed him down the aisle and sat him in one of the rear seats by the window. There was a toilet and luggage space behind him and an inflatable life raft.

"Now be good."

He moved to the Airstair door and closed it one-handed, facing Dillon and still menacing him with his gun. At the same moment, the port engine burst into life, followed a little later by the starboard. The plane started to roll forward, Kate Rashid increased speed, then lifted up into the rain no more than fifty feet above the row of beech trees at the end of the runway.

She climbed very quickly to three thousand feet. Way below, there was gray cloud, in some places black and heavy with more rain and mist, as they crossed an area of marshes and coastal beaches and headed out to sea.

All this Dillon could see from the window at the same time that he was extracting the knife from the inside of his right jump boot. He got his hands round the handle, positioned the knife, and the razor-sharp edge sliced through the masking tape immediately. He replaced the knife in his boot, pulled away the tape, and sat waiting.

She turned and said over her shoulder, "Now, Rupert," went down to about two thousand and reduced speed.

Rupert lifted the locking bar and opened the Airstair door. There was a rush of air. He leaned over, the Walther in his left hand, and pulled Dillon up and forward.

Kate Rashid glanced over her shoulder again and she was laughing. "You can rot in hell, Dillon."

Dillon said, "For God's sake, no," and half-slipped to the floor.

"Now don't be silly, old friend, make it easy on yourself. Just get up." Which Dillon did, at the same time he was drawing the Colt from the ankle holster, ramming the muzzle into the side of Rupert Dauncey's head, and pulling the trigger.

There was an explosion of bone fragments and blood, the hollow point cartridge doing its work, and Dauncey dropped the Walther and fell back against the side of the door. Dillon pushed and sent him out into space. He grabbed at the Airstair door and closed it.

He turned and found that Kate Rashid had put the Eagle on automatic and was reaching for her purse. She took out a small pistol, but he lunged, wrestled it from her, and tossed it to the back of the plane. She was hysterical with rage and clawed at him. Dillon slapped her face.

"Stop it! Pull yourself together! It's over." She was in the left-hand seat of the dual-controlled plane and he clambered into the right. "Take us back."

"To hell with you."

"All right, I'll do it."

Dillon switched from the automatic pilot to manual control, banked to port, and started toward the coastline, two or three miles away.

Unlike most planes, the Black Eagle sported an ignition key. She reached for it now and switched it off, then pulled out the key. The engines stuttered to a halt. She pushed open the quarter-light in the window beside her and tossed the ignition key out.

"There you are, Dillon. We'll go to hell together."

"That was very stupid. But it's surprising how far you can glide in one of these things."

She looked out at the mist as they descended to the distant shore. "We'll never make it. We're going into the water, and even if you could land this thing on water, a light aircraft like this will only float for a minute and a half."

"Very true, but there's a life raft back there--and I do happen to know how to land on water. Do you?"

"Damn you, Dillon!"

They were down to six hundred feet, and he said, "Let me tell you. Keep your landing gear up, full flaps. Light winds and small waves, land into the wind; if it's a heavy wind and big waves, land parallel to the crests."

And then they were close, there were small waves, and he landed into the wind. They bounced across the waves and settled.

"Come on," he ordered, and scrambled out of his seat, made it to the door, and opened it. He moved to the luggage compartment, got the life raft, and tossed it out. It started to inflate automatically.

He turned to call her again and saw her leaning out of the cockpit and picking up Rupert Dauncey's Walther, which had slid along the side because of the incline of the plane.

"I told you I'd see you in hell," she cried.

As Dillon ducked, she fired wildly. The round plucked at his right sleeve, and he flung himself out of the door into water of mind-numbing coldness and struck out, grabbing for the raft's line. He hung on and turned. The Eagle had tilted more now, the tail up, the port wing under the water.

She was still there in the cockpit, screaming at him, one hand gripping the open quarter-light, and then the tail lifted high and the Eagle simply slipped beneath the surface.

He made it to the life raft and hauled himself inside. There were two paddles and a couple of survival boxes he didn't bother to open. He slid the paddles through the oarlocks, no other emotion left in him except a stubborn need to survive.

He started to row toward the shore, distant in the mist and rain. It was a long way off, but not as far as Kate Rashid had gone.