The Glendower Legacy (31 page)

What was important, then?

The document. And the people who had it. And CANTAB had said out of reach … Stronghold. It had to be Stronghold.

He called Krasnovski back into the office.

“Get me the Montreal section man, please.”

Not yet midnight.

Fennerty and McGonigle, awake and blinking with the aid of pills, a trunkful of red flares, headed northward on the best road. They would switch places every couple of hours to ensure the pace.

In the Atlantic a submarine floated like a dead fish, gleaming darkly beneath the moon. The officer in charge had spent an hour decoding the oddest communication he’d ever received: there was no alternative but to request a confirmation. So far as he could tell, the highly secret maneuvers which were to have been carried out against a small, uninhabited island used for practice by the Navy were now supposed to become operational—that is,
real,
for Christ’s sake. So far as he could tell, there was only one possible conclusion, inescapable, but it was a tough pill to swallow … Behind all the bullshit and razzmatazz, it looked like the United States had gone to war!

Against
Canada …

In Montreal a fat man’s late evening dinner was ruined: his chief aide found him in a warm, fragrant, second-story Italian restaurant, tucking into pasta with dark sauce, a chilled bottle of Soave Bolla uncorked and waiting. Struggling into his overcoat, he hurried back to his office. He quickly had to validate an order, select the individuals to carry it out, and get word to them. It was, after all, no easy thing to carry out an offensive mission, mounted on the spur of the moment, within a sovereign nation so far from home. The instructions were long and detailed and required something akin to a miracle from the man in Montreal. He was however given considerable incentive: his career, and quite possibly his life, depended on his success. “Crazy,” he thought to himself as he began preparations, “it gets crazier all the time.” The telephone number in Halifax did not answer for nearly an hour … In the meantime he threw up twice.

Chandler was dreaming about something red and oozing, like oil sealed in a plexiglass cask, swirling and turning around and around itself. In his dream he was too close, couldn’t make it out, then seemed to be dollied slowly backward so that he recognized the slippery red things as hands with shredded stumps where fingers should have been. It was Brennan, mouth closed tightly, a silent scream trapped in his wide eyes, bulging … no, it was Prosser, an old man, hands chewed to the bone, blood smeared like warpaint across his old, sunken face. Or could it be Sir Redvers Redvers himself, not Prosser at all, but the old cad in the baggy tweeds, his man watching from a respectful distance as his master’s life dripped from hoses where his fingertips had been … Then Chandler felt the touch of cold steel on his own hands, heard the scream strangling inside his own mouth …

He jerked awake, his hand asleep in a cramped position draped around Polly’s shoulders, little needles stinging him. They were huddled in their few feet of space, jostling against naked, sharp-edged bits of the plane’s skeleton, muscles rigid from bracing themselves in the nasty passenger seats. Chandler blinked, eased his hand out from around Polly and shook the bad dream out of his mind. Christ. He took the measure of his situation: cold, draughty, hideously stiff, duffel bag clamped between his knees, a boggish taste in his mouth, generally dispirited, rather surprised he was still alive, harboring a headache being hammered into his skull by the twin engines roaring in the night.

Kendrick was bellowing something over his shoulder, his voice cracking against the unsettling racket of the engines. The plane bounced occasionally, without any warning, and when it did Chandler closed his eyes, forced a deep breath, and prayed he wouldn’t die, not this time. God, just save me this once and I’ll always be good …

“Fog,” Kendrick’s voice reached him. “I’m going to drop down … Hold on.”

Chandler heard the rain pelting the airplane, rattling what seemed like tin, and focused his eyes on the windshield in the odd glow of the instrument panel, saw the water beading up, streaking the glass as the plane slid on through the night. It was like batting your way through gray, wispy cotton: he could barely see the lights at the wingtips. With an involuntary gasp, he felt the plane sinking like a man on a funhouse slide, vapor filtering upwards, windswept past the little oval windows: each movement, whatever the direction, seemed to shake the frame of the aircraft, communicating an endless series of quivers and tremors which any sane man would assume would sooner or later result in the disintegration of the plane. Polly sagged against him, brushed at her face with a tight-gloved little fist. Chandler wondered what you’d do if you had to take a leak on this airplane …

He looked at his watch: they’d been flying for about two hours and he couldn’t imagine where they were: “Where the hell are we?” he bellowed hoarsely.

“Well, I sincerely hope we’re about a hundred and fifty feet above the water, but you never can be sure, you’ve got to let instinct take over on a night like this—”

“Oh,” Chandler moaned. “We could get killed—”

“Definitely. But, then, I’ve never been killed yet, either. Look at it that way.”

“Ah, where else are we?”

“We oughta be just about ten miles from the Nova Scotia coast, on the Atlantic side … Halifax off there to the left.” He waved an arm in the general direction.

“What if we run into another plane?”

“We’d crash, probably die … burn up or drown, something in that line. Why?”

“Natural curiosity.” Engines throbbing, head aching: why pursue the conversation? What difference did it make anyway? They’d live or die.

“Morbid, I’d call it.” Kendrick shifted his weight, the leather of his chair squeaking. He drummed on the instrument panel.

“Halifax, Nova Scotia,” he pondered. “Is that where we’re going?”

“Can’t hear you when the engines are running,” he said, laughing abruptly like bursts from an automatic weapon.

“Are we going to goddamn Halifax or not?”

“Oh no, no,” with much hilarity, or what passed for it in Kendrick’s circle, as if no thought so amusing had cropped up in years. “No, not Halifax.”

“Come on, Kendrick, you’ve got us at your stupid mercy. Be a sport, where the hell are we going?”

“Another hour or so, up around the top of the island, Cape Breton, up thataway. Can’t fly overland, though. No flight plan … We got to just mind our own business, stay low, just get where we’re going, make the drop and get out …”

“The drop? What the fuck are you talking about, the drop? You’re not dropping anything you’ve got on board this crate, you can be damned sure about that, my good man.”

“Don’t break out in a sweat, Professor! It’s a figurative expression meaning that we’ll land, I’ll see to your departure, and I’ll then leave.”

“You’re going to leave us?”

“Calm down, man. Mr. Prosser’s taken care of everything.”

The plane dropped another seventy-five feet before Chandler could see at all and then only odd pinpoints of light flickered against the mound of the land mass. Cape Breton. He’d never been there, knew nothing about the place other than the warning of a lady traveler he knew: “It’s not worth anything until mid-June when it becomes quite wonderful if you like rusticity.” Well, it was a hell of a long way from mid-June, and he shivered at the temperature in the plane. Wind shrieked outside in the darkness like the hounds of hell scraping at them, trying to rip their fragile craft from the sky.

Polly woke finally, spoke thickly: “Are we dead yet?”

“A little longer. We’re going to crash-dive in the raging surf where Smilin’ Jack here plans to abandon us—everything’s fine.”

She yawned, pulled herself upright: “I want a glass of water.”

“No.”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Sorry.”

“Are we there yet?”

“Shut up, little girl.”

“Jesus! Is that the water down there?”

“Mmm.”

“It’s
right
there.”

Kendrick let out another banshee cry: “Get those belts fastened! Won’t be long now.” He had turned on hooded yellow lamps which illuminated the fog still blowing across their path, and below them the frieze of waves strained to meet the pontoons and undercarriage, the curling water looked solid, like tortured cement ready to rip the plane to pieces at first touch. The water was a solid wall, close enough for scraping …

Down, they kept dropping down, his stomach lifting, the gap between plane and water tightening, thinning, fog whisking past the windows, ahead of them only water and absolute blackness where he supposed Cape Breton waited. How the hell did Kendrick know where he was? The question terrified him … Polly was gripping his arm, her eyes peeled wide and fixed on the oval window beside her: he saw her face in profile as he leaned forward, and put his mouth next to her ear, whispered something he couldn’t hear himself, and kissed her soft, peach-fuzz cheek …

The seaplane smacked into the water with a shudder and a screech of metal fatigue, was hurled upwards and sideways, seemed to float dangerously away then smashed back against the flat, rockhard water, skidded, skipped again like a child’s skimming stone, then it keeled forward precariously—or so it damn well seemed to Chandler—before settling back against the waves, in a kind of trough of its own making, slowing down, the metal continuing to groan and howl but quieting down as it rushed onward.

When the plane was at last dead in the water, Kendrick turned around and grinned weakly, face white in the ghastly instrument glow. “Little roughness tonight,” he said apologetically. “But the important thing is, we’re here, eh? Safe and sound, eh?”

“Do put a sock in it, will you?” Polly croaked, her mouth dry.

“Well, I don’t blame you, miss,” he said, his voice kindly, as he extricated himself from the confines of the pilot’s bucket, levering himself up and out, crouching where they were. “Spot of rain out there, I’m afraid.”

Kendrick dragged a package out from the rear recesses of the plane’s passenger area, hugged it to him and backed wobbling past them, unlocked the hatch and opened it and pushed it all the way back against the fuselage where it clicked into a bracket. Rain blew in fine, sniping, gusting sprays through the opening, spattering their faces. Kendrick, holding tight to the packet, squeezed through the narrow doorway and climbed down the ladder, swearing at the rain and his burden until he was out of sight. Chandler hunched down and went on hands and knees to the opening. Rain lashed at him: he covered his eyes, peering down. Suddenly, with a swoosh of air, the contents of the package began to inflate, becoming a rubberized raft: when it was filled, a great awkward balloon larger than he was, Kendrick struggled with a flap which he hooked around the strut. Still swearing, he fitted the telescoping handles of the oars together, then made them fast with straps which held them secure inside the shell of the craft.

Moving slowly he began the climb back up. Chandler gave him a hand, hoisted him into the cabin.

“Miserable bloody raft,” he sighed, smiling happily at his exertions: a man in his element, Chandler reflected, contrasting the pilot with himself. He sat down on a toolbox and wiped his face with an oily rag close at hand. “Now to be specific, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you just exactly where we are and what’s going to happen. We’ve just come in across the Cabot Straits toward the northern shore of Cape Breton; off to our right, up around the corner of the Cabot Trail is Pleasant Bay, to the left is Aspy Bay—we’re head on toward Cape North … but I’ve put you down at an island, not Cape Breton itself. Got it?

“All right, then. Sorry about this rain but once you’re in the raft you’ll see we’re only about forty yards from the beach. It’s sandy all along this little inlet, rocks curving out to the sides but you won’t get involved with them, not if you do as you’re told. Just head straight on in, use your light …” He stopped and pulled a large, square, red, rubber-cased, highpowered flashlight from beneath him, patted it affectionately, like a pet. “This little baby will see you through, you’ll be fine … there’s a little weather, a little movement in the backwater, so it’ll take you a few minutes to get there, but you’ll be all right, just try to keep from falling out of the raft because getting back in could be a problem. Cold and dark in the sea on a night like this,” he concluded, sounding as if he were quoting.

Kendrick pulled a plastic flask from his coat pocket and Polly took the first nip of brandy. Chandler followed, Kendrick gurgling happily as if it were water. “Now, then, once you reach the beach, you’ll have to get to the house as soon as you can, if you want to avoid pneumonia—it’s up on top of the cliffs, but there’s a good path, about a hundred yards down the beach, to the left, cut out through the bracken and rock, you’ll find it, just follow it up the hill—once you’re on top, you’ll see it, big monstrous place called Stronghold, faces out to sea with cliffs in the same direction, just like this side … the place is empty.” He took something out of his pocket, pressed it into Chandler’s hand: “Here’s the key. Put it in your pocket and enjoy your stay …”

“Stronghold,” Polly said.

“Foggy, wet place, very private, quite a nice spot, actually, if you like seabirds and storms and being alone …”

Chandler backed into the hatchway on his hands and knees, felt with his foot for the first rung of the ladder, then descended with considerable trepidation, making sure each foot was anchored securely before lowering the next. Everything was rapidly getting very wet: his face, glasses, hair; it was like standing in a flood. He clutched the large flashlight, clung to the handguard, slowly groping downward, refusing to look into the swirling black water. The flashlight was on and the light created a halo of spray, beyond which there was nothing but darkness, the sound of the water lapping against the pontoons. “Don’t stop, man,” Kendrick shouted from above. “Fuck yourself,” Chandler called back, afraid to look up, afraid he might lose his concentration and slip on the oily wet metal.

At the bottom he hung from a strut and clambered into the treacherously bobbing, raking lifeboat. Kendrick lowered Polly, holding her hand as she went over the side; Chandler stretched, reached back up for her as she came closer, felt her hand grab his firmly. Then she was in the boat beside him, wiping rain from her face. Lithely, Kendrick came down carrying the duffel bag: “Stow this damn thing,” he said, heaving it to Chandler. “Now get the light pointed in the right direction …
inland,
don’t you see, there we go.”