Never Never, page 20
“We needed more time to prepare,” Tommy said sadly. “We just got here.”
Sophia and Gavin joined them. Sophia cried quietly as she held baby Maggie wrapped in a sling across her chest.
“I’m so sorry, Sarah,” Sophia said. “Mike is the bravest man in all of—”
Sarah felt the anger she’d tried to repress for so long build inside her. She saw Shaun herding the other women back inside the castle wing. They trudged toward the stairwell in acceptance and dejection. Everyone was writing Mike off and already moving on! How had this happened?
“How did Saoirse get inside the castle?” she shouted.
“What…?” Shaun looked helplessly at the group and then walked over to them. “What are you talking about?”
“Saoirse was inside the castle last night,” Sarah said. “How did she get in?”
Gavin leaned toward Shaun menacingly. “She came through the secret tunnel, didn’t she?”
“I knew it!” Sarah said.
“All right, yes, but I never thought she’d come here,” Shaun said, rubbing the perspiration from his face.
“Mrs. Morrison told me and Tommy about the tunnel—” Gavin began.
Muffled sounds of gunfire filled the air—five shots like a series of cars backfiring one right after another. Sarah felt her knees weaken.
Mike…
But Shaun and Gavin were already running to the first stairwell leading to the castle interior.
“It’s coming from the clinic!” Shaun yelled.
* * *
The second soldier in the mouth of the tunnel seized up and clawed at the jamb of the door. The wound pulsated over his right eyebrow. Behind him, Fiona saw two more soldiers, their faces peering out of the darkness.
Without even looking she knew Declan had found the gun Mike left. She glanced at Beryl and knew there was nothing she could do for her. If the poor woman wasn’t dead yet she soon would be.
There were no more gunshots.
Fiona snapped her head toward Declan’s bed to see he was slumped backward on the bed, his gun hanging loosely from his fingers. A cold gush of dread rippled up her spine.
Noooooooo….
A moan from the dying soldier in the doorway forced Fiona’s attention back to the tunnel opening. She leveled the gun in her hands at the two soldiers in the tunnel.
“Drop your rifles!” she shouted but her words sounded like a terrified squeak. The two soldiers didn’t move.
“I need help!” Fiona screamed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the puddle of blood beneath Beryl grow wider and wider. “Help me! Somebody!” Her hands felt slick with sweat as she threaded her finger around the trigger. She felt the gun shake in her hands.
Please, let him not be hurt too badly. I beg you, please…
Suddenly the door behind Fiona flew open. Her shoulders sagged with relief and she dropped the rifle to the floor and ran to Declan.
Gavin aimed his rifle at the two soldiers.
“Drop yer weapons and get the feck outta there now!” he bellowed.
The two soldiers slid their rifles across the floor and stepped over the bodies of their two comrades.
Shaun moaned and ran to his mother’s body.
Fiona hovered over Declan, her hands hesitant to touch him. He lay on his bed, a bullet hole between his closed eyes.
Fiona uttered an unearthly howl of pain as she leaned over his body and snaked her arms around his bleeding head.
“No, no, no,” she moaned, sobbing, her hysteria rising higher and higher to echo off the tall stone walls.
* * *
Mike wasn’t surprised to see Hurley hadn’t come out to greet him. While Mike hadn’t specifically given orders to shoot him, it was understandable that the bastard might think he had. Three soldiers—their faces implacable—stood in front of the large tent that faced the castle. They carried guns but didn’t aim them at him.
Why would they? It was obvious he was readily sacrificing himself.
The wound in his shoulder throbbed deeply which kept him alert against the waning affects of last night’s pain medicine.
One of the soldiers stepped forward and patted Mike down. The other two shouldered their guns and glanced up at the parapet of the castle to see that they were being watched.
“The commander will see you,” one of the soldiers said, jerking his head to indicate the tent entrance.
Mike was grateful he wasn’t bound. At least not yet. If there was a hope in hell of getting out of all this, he’d need the use of his hands. Although even if he were to somehow overpower Hurley—with a fecking army on the threshold of the castle and no food inside to last a siege—it still wouldn’t do any good in the long run.
He forced himself not to look up at the castle. He knew Sarah wasn’t watching and if Gavin was, it would only weaken Mike to see him. As a soldier held the tent flap open for Mike, he walked in. There was a lantern in the center of the tent. Two of the tent corners were reinforced with transparent plastic panels that allowed the weak Irish sunlight to light the interior.
Hurley sat at a small table. He was a large man with a bulbous bald head. His well-developed arms strained inside his uniform sleeves. He appeared to be studying a map. He did not look up when Mike entered.
An unearthly fury seemed to erupt from the soles of Mike’s feet that blotted out the fear, the unknown, and the gnawing agony in his shoulder.
“Is it possible I might know now why you are here?” Mike asked, biting off every word. One of the soldiers moved to flank him. He grabbed Mike by his shoulder. Mike flinched as the pain came alive in explosions of agony. The soldier twisted him around and jammed the butt of his rifle into Mike’s stomach.
Mike gasped and sagged to his knees. The pain radiated out from his solar plexus setting his entire torso on fire.
“Get out,” Hurley said. For a mad moment, Mike thought he was talking to him.
He grasped the side of the table and hauled himself to his feet. The soldiers disappeared out the door of the tent behind him.
“I apologize for that,” Hurley said. “But my men know I don’t like being interrupted at my work.”
Mike would have answered if he’d had enough breath but he was still recovering from the gut-wrenching pain of the stomach blow.
He tore his eyes away from Hurley’s face and looked around the tent to see if there was something—anything—that might help him fight this lunatic. So far, all he saw was a military nutcase with an agenda—and a hundred soldiers backing him up.
“You’re wondering how we know each other,” Hurley said, watching Mike slowly straighten as he recovered from the attack. “I visited you once before. At your fort.”
So it’s true. He’s the bastard who attacked the compound last fall. The bastard who killed Kendra. And shot Declan.
“But where our connection truly matters,” Hurley said, “is through my brother, Bill.”
Mike shook his head as if to clear it.
“I’m told you hung him this last summer.”
Ever since the lights were snuffed out by the first EMP five years ago Mike had killed more men than he could count. But Bill Hurley’s death at his hands was one he had absolutely no qualms about. The man was an evil murdering rapist and while Mike had taken no pleasure in hanging him, he hadn’t had any trouble sleeping afterward either.
How did Hurley know about it?
“Your brother was tried for the rape and murder of two of our compound women.”
“So you don’t deny you hung him from a tree outside the convent of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow?”
An ice pick of fear drilled its way into Mike’s gut.
Hurley knew the name of the nunnery. A convent so secret even the Vatican had forgotten about it. A convent impossible to find unless you’d been there before.
Chezzie.
Chezzie was the only one who knew what happened that day. Chezzie was the only one who had left.
And the only one who knew the way back.
“I can see by your face that you figured it out on your own,” Hurley said. “The man you let get away came back to seal all your fates. Poignant, really. And a valuable lesson to go forward with: never leave any unfinished business. That is if you had a life ahead of you to go forward with. Which you don’t.”
Mike forced himself not to react. He urgently needed to move, to cross his arms, to shift his feet—to control the welling sense of futility and dread building in his chest.
“You’re probably wondering why I would believe the word of a liar and a felon. That’s a reasonable question,” Hurley said. “And it is why I had the charge confirmed by people I’m sure even you would acknowledge as credible.”
Mike felt a hopeless shudder wrack his body.
The bastard’s been to the convent.
“I’m not at all surprised the convent stayed untouched for so long. It wasn’t at all easy to find.” Hurley eyes were alive with menace. “Let’s just say it’s not untouched any longer.”
Mike’s heart was pounding at the thought of the kind of evil he must be in the presence of. “If you hurt them—”
Hurley lunged to his feet and knocked the table from between them, his face red with rage, spittle flinging from his lips.
“My men raped and killed every person at the convent for the crime you committed against my brother,” Hurley said as he closed and unclosed his fists and a violent tic pulsated over his left eye. “You think you are the law? This country is mine. Justice and punishment are mine. And mine alone.”
Mike no longer heard him. His mind was buzzing with the inability to think beyond the man’s words of death and torture.
It can’t be true. Even if the bastard was sick enough to do it, surely his men…Flashes of enraged, destroying armies down through history—the Celts and Vikings rampaging and killing, destroying and massacring innocent villagers—formed in Mike’s mind.
His stomach roiled as his mind tried to reject the image of the convent being assaulted in this way. Mother Angelina…the good sisters…no, it couldn’t be…
“I have waited two weeks to bring you to justice, Donovan,” Hurley hissed as he drew a long knife from his belt sheath. “Two weeks to see you pay for your crimes.”
Mike took a step backward. His hands were untied. He had that. Hurley was big but they were evenly matched for size. If he could somehow get the knife…hold it to his throat…use him to get past the guards without being shot in the back. If he could just…
Hurley coughed a hacking explosion that sounded like a frontal attack in its own right. The coughing seemed to escalate his fury. His face was swollen red with fury.
“Guards!” Hurley shrieked. “Secure the prisoner!”
Mike turned as two soldiers filled the door of the tent. He lashed out with a fist and felt them grab his arms. Stepping into the two soldiers, Mike tucked his head and drove it into the face of the nearest man, hearing the cartilage crunch like the sound of dry twigs underfoot.
An explosive pressure erupted behind his ear and Mike felt darkness pressing in as they dragged him to the ground. Two more soldiers stepped into the tent. One pulled a short cord of rope from his belt.
Mike saw stars glittering in his periphery as he tried to clear his vision.
“Tie him,” Hurley snarled, now standing next to Mike. The soldiers tugged Mike’s hands behind him and cinched them tight. Hurley grabbed Mike by the hair and jerked his head back, exposing his throat.
“We’re going to hang you in full view of the castle. But first you’ll accommodate me for the wait I endured by allowing your friends to hear your screams.” He jabbed the tip of the knife into Mike’s throat. The two soldiers stood behind Mike, holding him firmly. The pressure of the knife pressing into him erupted into an electric jolt as the blade pierced his skin. Mike gasped.
“And we won’t finish until the whole world is screaming along with you.”
34
“Take him outside,” Hurley said.
“Yes, Commander!” The four soldiers grabbed Mike by the upper arms and dragged him to the tent door. He fought to walk even if it meant he was walking to his own execution. The agony from the men yanking on his shoulder worked to clear his head.
Was there a chance? A ghost of a chance? Mike didn’t look at the castle. He found himself praying Gavin wasn’t watching.
Once outside, the two soldiers on either side of him hesitated.
“Tell your people if anyone fires down on us,” Hurley said, “we’ll kill everyone inside starting with the children.”
“I have no control over what they do,” Mike said, his jaws clenched tight.
“Bring him over here,” Hurley said stifling another cough as he walked closely behind one of his soldiers, clearly using him as a shield against a direct shot from the castle.
The group walked twenty yards away from the front of the castle and behind a large yew tree.
Mike saw Hurley’s problem and likely his soldiers did too. The bastard couldn’t torture him in full view of the castle without risking being shot. But torturing him behind a bush took all the fun out of it.
Fighting to ignore the shooting pain in his shoulder and his throat, Mike pulled himself to his full height.
“Need a fecking battalion to hold me, do ye?” Mike said, his voice acidic with disdain.
“I don’t need to prove meself to my men,” Hurley said hotly. But he coughed again.
“Are you sure?” Mike looked at the soldier holding him. “Because from where I’m standing—”
“Shirrup, you!” the soldier—a young man in his early twenties—said to Mike, but he stole a look at Hurley.
And Hurley saw it.
“Go! All of ye!” Hurley yelled. “I’ll deal with him. Anderson, you and McKinney get ready to enter the castle through the tunnel. Everyone else group at the tower gate and prepare to enter. Tell them we’ll dig Donovan’s heart out with a rusty spoon if they don’t raise the drawbridge.” He looked at Mike as he spoke and his eyes were flat.
“Yes, Commander. And once we’re inside?”
Mike held Hurley’s eyes and steeled himself. It didn’t matter what the bastard said, he told himself. They’re just words. They’re just words.
“Kill everyone.”
Mike swallowed down the bile of his fury and his fear. He pulled against his bonds behind his back but they were solid. He felt them cut into his wrists as he twisted against them.
Because he knew he couldn’t wait for Hurley to make the first move, Mike was on the balls of his feet when the ground suddenly vibrated and pushed him skyward. The roar of the explosion was delayed by seconds and then obliterated by screams by the time Mike found himself splayed across a hawthorn bush ten feet from where he’d been standing. With his hands still behind him, he’d had nothing to protect his face and the sharp and jagged branches jabbed into his neck and chest.
Mike pushed himself onto his feet. The bush was coated in globs of red gore. He looked down to see where the wound was and instead saw the decapitated head of the young soldier who’d just told him to shut up.
Smoke and fire erupted in tall columns where Hurley’s tent had been. A bomb? It was definitely an explosion. But coming from where? Mike saw Hurley sitting on the ground and shaking his head as if in a stupor. But unhurt.
The knife was on the ground.
Mike knew he had only a split-second where Hurley was dazed and unarmed. A moment that wouldn’t come again.
He lowered his head and aimed for Hurley as the man attempted to stand. He hit him solidly smashing into the lower half of Hurley’s jaw. Hurley went down with a loud thud spitting teeth. Before Mike could kick away the knife, Hurley lunged for him and wrapped his fingers around his neck.
Mike felt the thundering pain in his wounded shoulder like a hundredweight around his neck, pulling him down and smothering him against the iron necklace of Hurley’s hands. He twisted his hips to flip the bastard on his back but Hurley unclenched from his neck just long enough to smash his fist into Mike’s face.
Fireworks went off inside Mike’s head as he absorbed the blow. His hands were trapped under him and behind his back. Hurley hit him again but Mike turned his jaw and the blow slid off his face, catching his nose instead and breaking it.
Hurley straddled him and punched him one fist over the other. The knife had to be under them or next to them. Hurley was too determined to kill him with his bare hands to worry about the knife. Not with a helpless victim under him with hands tied. Mike took two more punishing blows. He tried to move away from the punches but his thinking was getting foggy. The darkness was trying to claim him. He wanted the darkness to claim him. He felt the ground with his fingers, his head rocketing sidewise with the viciousness of Hurley’s attack.
Mike’s fingers found the blade.
Not giving himself time to react to the agony exploding in his face, Mike tightened his grip on the handle of the knife. He slashed at his bonds, feeling his wrists tearing too.
Hurley punched him again, once, twice before Mike raised his chest up and slammed him hard with his head. When Hurley recoiled, jerking backward, Mike whipped his arm out from behind him and stabbed blindly at Hurley’s side. He felt the knife go in and then stop as it banged into the resistance of a rib. The man howled and scrambled away from Mike. The cut was bloody but not life-threatening. Hurley held his side and glared at Mike like a wild animal—his eyes darting from left to right as he tried to gauge Mike’s movements.
“Brady!” Hurley screamed. “First Prefect! To me, now!”
“Everybody’s too busy dying, arsehole,” Mike said, his mouth full of blood. He let it drip from his lips, afraid to take his eyes off the man in front of him. The fingers holding the knife felt slick. He clutched the knife and got to his feet.
“Brady!” Hurley yelled again. Now his eyes went from Mike’s face to the knife.
Somewhere on the other side of the tree at the castle, Mike heard rapid gunfire.
