Dagger Magic

Aoife wormed across the deck on her elbows as far as the foot of the ladder that led up to the pilothouse.

"Eamonn, are you two all right up there?"

"Aye, thank God for steel bulkheads," came a voice from above. "Though heaven only knows what my insurance adjuster's going to say, when we get back to port!"

Magnus had taken cover behind the shelter of the superstructure, his own pistol now in hand, and was working his way toward one side, keeping his head well down.

"I don't think we need to ask any more questions," he muttered, getting his feet under him. "I don't care whether they're Nazis or the bloody IRA, they aren't meant to have firearms. Let's see what they've got."

Rearing up from cover, he squeezed off three quick shots over the forward bulkhead and ducked back down from a fierce blaze of return-fire. Bullets ricocheted and fiberglass flew in splinters.

"I guess that answers your question," McLeod muttered, keeping his head down. "Why do the bad guys always wind up with the biggest guns?"

He started to rise, then flinched back with a sharp imprecation as a bullet burned past his left cheekbone. The spiteful chatter of automatic weapons-fire continued, coming in fits and bursts.

"Are you all right?" came Adam's sharp inquiry.

"Aye, just a scratch."

"Somebody needs to teach that feckless bastard the difference between quantity and quality," Magnus said, as the strafing abruptly petered out.

"Maybe he's out of ammo," Adam said hopefully.

"Don't count on it," McLeod muttered.

Cautiously he lifted his head. The response was a short, resurgent salvo that sent him diving for the deck. As he did so, Magnus reared up again and squeezed off a double round of two in the direction of the muzzle-flashes, immediately ducking down again. When the echoes subsided, there was only silence.

The two policemen traded glances.

"Either he's playing possum, or you've hit him," said McLeod.

"Only one way to find out," Magnus replied - and heaved himself to his feet, weapon poised.

Too late to prevent it, his fellow Huntsmen tensed in dread anticipation, McLeod ready to lay down cover-fire. When the silence held, a collective sigh of relief whispered among them and Magnus ducked back down.

"That's appears to be round one to our side," Adam said, "unless, of course, this isn't our quarry at all. Eamonn," he called up to the pilothouse, "take her in slowly. We'd better board and see what the damage is."

As Eamonn cautiously brought the Lady Gregory alongside the Rose, the two policemen took the opportunity to reload.

"How the devil did you get to retirement age taking chances like that?" McLeod demanded.

Magnus pulled a wry grin. "Just lucky, 1 guess."

"Better keep some luck in reserve," McLeod recommended. "It isn't bullets I'm most worried about."

He and Magnus went aboard the Rose first, weapons at the ready, Adam following cautiously with an electric torch. They found the gunman sprawled on the deck amidships, an assault rifle trailing loose from his lax fingers. The right side of his face was bloodied from a crease-wound above his right ear.

"Well, this could well be one of our common, garden-variety, home-grown terrorists, after all," Magnus muttered, kicking the rifle away from the man's hand. "That's Libyan shit - a Kalashnikov AK-47 - all too easy for them to get. I'll check below to make certain he hasn't got any buddies."

While McLeod kept the gunman covered, and Magnus went below, Adam knelt down to check the wound.

"He seems to be concussed, but there isn't much bleeding," he reported. "He'll keep until we can get the rest of this sorted out."

With an unsympathetic grunt, McLeod leaned down to confiscate the rifle, recoiling in the next instant as if he had been stung.

"Bloody hell!" he muttered, kicking the weapon farther out of the way. "Adam, look at this."

As he lifted the gunman's hand by the cuff of his jacket, light from Adam's torch touched off a glassy glint of red from the gold ring worn on the third finger of the right hand. The intaglio device incised on the underside of the stone was one all too well known to them in recent years: the snarling, tufted head of a big cat.

"So much for home-grown terrorists," Adam murmured. "And that explains the warning about an old enemy."

"Aye, we should've guessed as much,"McLeod agreed.

"Not necessarily. Lynx involvement is not inconsistent, given their previous Nazi connections, but Tseten was convinced that other forces are at work here - and I'm inclined to believe him. I'd guess this man is hired muscle - which is not to say he mightn't have been dangerous on other levels. Whoever the real boss may be remains to be seen."

"Adam?" came Magnus's voice from below. "Could you come down here?"