Dagger Magic

Eamonn had drawn the Lady Gregory apart from the Rose of Tralee, standing in closer toward where the shore party were just preparing to ascend the cliff-face. Aoife and Peregrine were with him in the pilothouse. As an eight-foot shock wave smacked into the cruiser's starboard quarter, the big boat slued sixty degrees around, heeling over dangerously and then righting herself as she plunged into the trough at the wave's back.

Eamonn braced himself against the wheel, and Aoife managed to snag the nearest railing, but Peregrine lost his footing and tumbled through the pilothouse doorway, trying simultaneously to grab onto something and protect his head and glasses as he bounced down the ladder-stairs. Something slammed him hard in the ribs on the way down, and the world momentarily went red.

He came around gasping, his breath knocked out of him, with someone pulling at his clothes to hoist him upright. The boat was still rocking crazily, and his glasses were askew. Momentarily panicked, he grabbed his benefactor's sleeve and hung on.

"Easy, it's Aoife," said a familiar voice as he forced his eyes open to look at her. "I was afraid you might have broken your neck. Did you hit your head?"

Still gasping, he shook his head and righted his glasses.

His left side was aching as if he'd been bounced off the front of a bus. He took a deep breath, winced at the pain of it, and made an effort to drag himself upright.

"No, my ribs," he managed to whisper, grimacing as he slid a hand inside his waxed jacket to brace himself. "I think I maybe cracked a few. I'll be all right, though. What the hell happened? Are Adam and the others all right?"

"I don't know yet," Aoife said, pulling out her walkie-talkie. "I haven't tried to raise - "

She broke off short, suddenly alert and listening, rearing up on her knees to peer over the railing toward the shore. Somewhere above the ringing in his ears, Peregrine became aware of a deep, throbbing rumble, like the growl of a waking sea monster. He heaved himself up beside her as the moonlight picked up a leviathan surge of movement, black and silver, from out of the jagged archway left gaping in the cliff-face.

"Aoife, look!" came Eamonn's urgent cry, from up in the pilothouse.

But the two of them were already staring in disbelief as a lean and deadly shape began easing stern-first into the moonlight, contoured like a torpedo, until every feature was fully visible, from the white churn of foam about her tail-rudders to the dark hulk of the conning tower to the bristling bastions of her gun-turrets.

"Dear God, it's coming out," Aoife whispered, as Peregrine gave an incoherent exclamation of mingled awe and dismay. "Adam, where are you?" she demanded into the grid of the little radio. "Adam, are you seeing this? It's the bloody sub! Raeburn and his cronies must have gotten to it - and somehow they've got it moving!"

Adam was lying on his back, where the concussion from the explosion had thrown him. Aoife's voice reached him through a haze of static and numb shock. Cautiously, in case of broken bones, he eased himself up on his elbows, looking for the others as Aoife's voice came again, sharp with anxiety.

"Adam? Magnus? Can any of you hear me? What's happening over there?"

Sitting up at last, Adam spotted McLeod a few yards away, making a determined effort to pull himself together. Magnus was on his hands and knees, but looking none too stable.

"Everybody all right?" Adam asked, painfully delving into his outside pockets for the radio he knew must be there somewhere.

"Just shaken up," came McLeod's reply.

"Aye," Magnus agreed, somewhat shakily. "Just give me a second to catch my breath. What was that, a bomb?"

"I don't know yet." Adam finally found the little radio and pulled it out of his pocket, clumsily thumbing the transmitter button.

"Aoife, this is Adam. We're more or less intact. What's that you say about the sub?''

Her voice came patchily back to him. "It's backing out of the cave under its own power. Don't ask me how, but this Raeburn of yours seems to have found a way to reactivate it. If you've got any suggestions on how you planned to stop him, now would be a good time to clue me in."

Adam's gaze darted seaward and his jaw dropped in disbelief. A solid black shape like a humpbacked whale was backing slowly away from the base of the cliffs, accompanied by the low growl of laboring diesels.

"There's nothing I can do from here," he told Aoife, getting to his feet. "You'll have to pick us up. Have Eamonn bring the Lady G in as close as he can. We'll put the dinghy back in the water and come to meet you."

McLeod was already on his feet, and lumbered over to offer Magnus a hand up.

"What about our mystery man?" he asked, jutting his chin in the direction of the Rose's dinghy. "We can't very well leave him here, in the state he's in."

"I'll bring him along in his own boat," Magnus said, already heading for the second vessel. "Let's move!"