Death of an Adept

In the car park, silent under the winter stars, the passenger door of the Mini Cooper opened to disgorge two male figures kitted out in snow-camouflage coveralls, ski masks, and infrared night-goggles. Though their brief was to prevent any untoward interruption of what their employer had planned, hopefully by ensuring that no one became aware of anything amiss, both carried long-barrelled pistols loaded with anaesthetic darts - and both were prepared to use the silenced Lu-gers they wore bolstered as backup, if lesser force failed.

As the second man quietly pressed the car door closed and the Mini Cooper moved off silently along a single-track road, quickly disappearing from sight, his partner was already melting into the shadows near the end of the thatched cottage fronting the car park. With a glance in that direction to mark the location, the second man vaulted a closed gate in the fence and positioned himself behind one of the larger stones marking the northern avenue. When he had settled, he whispered briefly into the slender curve of a miniature microphone close beside his mouth.

Back at the construction site, inside the darkened RV, Klaus Richter pressed a headset to his ear, nodding as he whispered a brief reply, then turned to his employer, who was sitting in the front passenger seat beside Barclay. Like the men he had just spoken to, all of them wore snow-camouflage.

"Erich and Gunther are in position at the upper car park," he said quietly. ' The Mini is taking up position at the bottom of the road to meet the horse-box when it arrives. Otto will drive it in."

"Excellent," Raeburn replied. "Then we'll begin securing the site. Barclay, why don't you give him a hand?"

As Barclay headed aft between the two front seats and Rich-ter opened the RV's side door, Derek Mallory swivelled his chair and moved his medical bag aside to let Richter pull out two zippered duffel bags, one of which he handed to Barclay before the two of them disappeared up a path leading around the dark outcropping that was Cnoc an Tursa.

Behind Mallory, the white-robed Taliere was seated on the long couch that stretched across the back of the RV, head bowed in the shelter of the robe's hood. He did not stir as Raeburn donned a headset and then came aft to pull on a similar white robe over his heavy winter clothing. When Raeburn had returned to his seat, silently gazing out at the road where the horse-box was expected, Mallory also drew on a white robe, settling less patiently into the growing chill to wait.

After perhaps five minutes of this, when Taliere stirred enough to smother a slight cough, Mallory glanced at his watch, then back at the old Druid.

"It's getting late," he murmured. "If those rustic colleagues of yours have gotten lost…"

Taliere's expression could not be read in the darkness, but his voice was sharp with disdain.

"They know the island," he muttered. "They will be here."

Before Mallory could frame a reply, Raeburn held up a hand and hissed for silence, listening intently to his headset.

"The horse-box is on its way up," he whispered, laying the headset aside. "We'd best be ready to greet our honored guest."

He and Taliere were waiting in front of the RV as a battered white Land Rover towing a horse-box slowed and stopped a few yards past the entrance to the construction area, followed by the Mini. After a slight pause, the Rover reversed the dark bulk of the horse-box neatly into the space to the left of the RV, with the noses of the two vehicles lined up. One of Rich-ter's men was at the wheel, and alighted from the driver's side as soon as he had killed the engine and set the brake.

As the Mini tucked in neatly ahead of him, also disgorging its driver, the Rover's two other occupants disembarked rather more tentatively, though they let themselves be guided to the rear of the horse-box by the Mini's driver. They were brawny specimens, already attired in the capacious white woollen robes deemed proper for the night's work, and looked palpably relieved when Taliere appeared from between the two vehicles. Inside, the hotse-hox, something large and heavy shifted restlessly in the confinement of the narrow space, churning straw underfoot.

"Let us waste no time," Taliere whispered, touching each man's arm in reassurance. "You know what to do."

He stood aside to watch as they folded down the tailgate of the horse-box, bidding one of Richter's henchmen assist in spreading a quilted rug on the ramp to muffle the sound of hooves. The animal attached to the hooves was a fine black Angus bull, its eyes rolling white in the surrounding darkness as its handlers entered the compartment and backed it down the ramp, clinging to its halter and a ring through its nose.