Dagger Magic

The third time, when the ring came to rest, Adam opened his eyes and immediately leaned forward to look underneath his hands. His ring encircled Horn Head.

"Three hits," McLeod murmured, looking pleased with his chiefs performance. "It looks like that's where we're going."

A little distractedly, Adam slid his ring back onto his finger and pulled the Nazi flag from his shoulders, handing it off to Peregrine to fold and return to its plastic bag.

"How far is that from where we are?" he asked, glancing up at Magnus and Aoife as he unwound Tseten's mala and dropped it back into his pocket.

"About two hours to where we can pick up the boat we've arranged," the Irish Second replied. "Aoife's nephew keeps a thirty-foot cabin cruiser at Portstewart. We had him run it over to Malin Head last night. From Malin, it's only about twenty-five nautical miles to Horn Head - say, another couple of hours."

"And it's nearly six now," Adam said. "That puts us on target around ten. What about dealing with the sub, once we locate it? At very least, I expect we'll need to blow some hatches to get in; and probably it would be best to just destroy it, once we've secured the cargo. I don't think it would serve either government's interests if its existence were to become known."

"We've provided for that," Aoife said. "Magnus had to call in some heavy-duty favors, but one of our contacts with the security forces has lined up some appropriate ordnance - nothing fancy, but it ought to do the job on both counts. Magnus can supply the know-how, of course."

"I did a stint with bomb disposal," Magnus offered, at Peregrine's startled glance. "That was back in my young and foolish days. Now and then, though, the experience does come in handy."

He turned to Adam. "There wasn't time for our man to deliver the goodies here, but he's going to meet us en route - which means we ought to get moving."

Rising, Adam acknowledged this information with a sober nod and began folding up his map.

"I can't thank you enough for all your help," he said, as McLeod signalled Peregrine to join him, already heading for the service porch, and their jackets. ' 'This operation would have been doomed at the outset without your assistance."

"Think nothing of it," Aoife said with a tight smile. "Forewarned is forearmed. If you hadn't been in a position to give us advance notice of the danger on our doorstep, Magnus and I and the rest of our people might have found ourselves with real trouble on our hands."

"I only wish I could have posted the warning sooner," said Adam. "As it is, we've still got a close race to run."

Chapter Twenty-Eight

THE sun was going down beyond the horizon, sparkling the calm surface of the harbor with flakes of copper fire. In the fishing village of Derrybeg, the copper glow was picked up and reflected back from the windows of the houses facing the water. Most of the working boats were still out at sea, leaving the harbor empty except for a handful of small pleasure craft anchored in the shallows. The only large vessel standing in at the dock was a forty-foot converted fishing boat with the name Rose ofTralee picked out in peeling paint across her stern.

Her skipper, one Dennis Plunkett, was lounging in the stern, leaning against the taffrail while he smoked a cigarette - a beefy, big-bellied man in his middle fifties, with a rusty spattering of freckles across his face and the backs of his hands. As he scanned the sky from east to west, pushing his captain's cap back off his forehead, he figured that maybe twenty minutes of daylight remained. Already the sky to the east was dotted with stars, with the full moon shortly to be on the rise.

He glanced down at his watch, then took a final drag on his cigarette and flipped it into the water past the diving platform fixed to the stern, just missing the inflatable dinghy tied there. A light footstep approached from behind, emerging from the cabin, and a tenor voice spoke to his back.

"It's getting late, Skipper. So where's this client of ours got to?'' With a shrug, Plunkett turned to address Liam O'Rourke, the younger of his two crewmen.

"He said he'll be here. After all, this is his party. And it's already half paid for, whether he shows or not."

O'Rourke heaved a sigh and ran a sun-browned hand through his bristle-cut thatch of light brown hair. A former girlfriend once had told him he looked like James Dean, and he had made every conscious effort since to live up to that image. After a moment he sat down on one of the stern lockers.

"I don't know," he said doubtfully. "This whole job begins to smell a little. I'd give a lot to know where Kavanagh's boss came by his information about this wreck we're supposed to be checking out tonight. I mean, you've been running salvage operations in these waters for nearly twenty years, but you tell me this is the first you've ever heard of it."