”Jake, do something.” Beth started crying.
McGill protested, “Ian, put the gun down. This has gone too far. Only O’Rourke was supposed to die, not everyone on my team. Where does it stop? You already killed the mechanic in Dallas, then Dave. Now you want to kill Jake and Beth too?”
“We agreed. You agreed. From the beginning — that we couldn’t leave any witnesses,” Collins said. “Have you forgotten our objective is not to be discovered? Think about what this would do to our cause. No witnesses.”
Jake stood, wavered unsteadily, and interrupted, “Dave? What about Dave? I thought it was an accident.”
Beth stood next to him, holding him steady.
McGill turned to Jake. “No, it wasn’t. Ian killed him. You know how Dave was always talking to himself out loud. Ian heard him, he heard him call you, and then he shot him. He dropped the wreckage on top of him to conceal the gunshot wound temporarily. The coroner called this morning and told me what he had found, a bullet in the heart.”
Jake lowered his chin and shook his head. “You son of a bitch.” He could hear Beth sobbing. “Why the beer?” he finally said.
McGill’s eyes looked puzzled as he faced Jillian. “Yes, why the beer?”
Jillian brought two new bottles of beer. “Tell him. Tell them your great plan.”
“Sit down, both of you.” The hammer clicked in place when Collins cocked it.
After Jake and Beth sat, Collins walked to the middle of the room, still pointing the gun at Jake and Beth. “Well, it’s like this. There’s going to be an accident. A terrible automobile accident. Alcohol related, I’m afraid. It seems that a young NTSB investigator and his fiancée will have a little too much to drink on this St. Patrick’s Day, then they’ll go for a joy ride up in South Carolina in his sporty black GTO. The car his girlfriend drove down from Atlanta. He will drive a little too fast and lose control and crash. You Americans and your obsession with cars.
Collins pulled the hammer of the Beretta back. It made a click. “Now drink up.”
Kaplan stood underneath the second-floor balcony. He grabbed a five-gallon fishing bucket from the garage and placed it upside down under the ledge to give him the extra height he needed to reach the balcony. He stood on the bucket and jumped up, catching the bottom of the balcony with his fingertips. He hung there for a few seconds while he scanned the alley and the other back yards, then he pulled himself up to the balcony.
When he could see over the bottom of the balcony, he noticed the kitchen was empty. He heard voices coming through the French doors from the living room. He pulled himself onto the balcony, over the railing and then stood with his back against the wall.
He listened. He heard McGill and Annie arguing. A cautious glance through the glass. The room was dark and he could barely make out the figures down the long hallway near the front door. But what he saw struck him as odd and out of place. Jake and Beth were sitting on the couch drinking beer.
Then he saw the big man step forward with a gun and tell them to drink. He could see McGill yelling at Annie. Then he saw Annie walk behind Jake and Beth and pour beer on their clothes.
Kaplan turned his head away from the glass, standing flush against the wall, still listening and thinking hard, trying to comprehend what he just saw. He saw a couple walking down the alleyway. He tried to act casual, like he belonged there, but still remain hidden from view from inside the house.
Just as he decided to take another look inside, he heard someone below calling his name.
CHAPTER 50
Jake refused to drink. “I won’t do it. I won’t make this easy for you. You want me dead, then just shoot me, asshole.”
Collins grabbed Beth and pulled her to her feet by her hair. He pulled until she was on her toes, then he jammed the silencer against her cheek.
“You don’t drink, I shoot her. Are you ready for that? Can you watch her head explode, knowing you could have stopped it?”
“Okay, okay, just let her go.” Jake lifted the first bottle of beer.
Collins held Beth’s head back while Jillian poured beer in her mouth. She gagged and gurgled.
Jillian said, “Drink it, if you know what’s good for you.”
Beth spat the beer in Jillian’s face.
“You bitch.” Jillian slapped her across the face.
Collins yanked her head back while Jillian poured more beer in her mouth. Then he held Beth’s mouth shut and Jillian clamped her nostrils closed with her fingers.
Jake jumped to his feet and turned toward Collins, but Collins was fast — very fast, and Jake was looking down the barrel of the Beretta’s silencer.
“Sit down,” Collins growled as he pushed Jake down by his left shoulder.
Jake winced. “Just drink it, Beth.”
Beth swallowed hard.
Collins relaxed his grip.
Beth spun around and shoved her knee into his groin.
Collins backhanded her across the cheek, splitting her lip open. She fell to the floor dazed.
Jake lunged forward, but Ian was ready and punched him hard in the nose. Blood spurted from both nostrils. Jake fell back and dropped to his knees.
Collins said, “Now we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. I suggest you spare yourselves the pain.”
Jake acquiesced. “All right, we’ll drink, we’ll drink.”
Collins sent McGill to get more beer. While McGill was in the kitchen, Collins sent Jillian to get the other two pistols, both Beretta 92s with M9-SD sound suppressors, his weapon of choice. He watched as McGill came from the kitchen with beer bottles in each hand.
But something else caught his attention.
Something outside the window, a fleeting shadow that moved across the balcony. It was quick and barely noticeable, but Collins saw it. It wasn’t the kind of shadow a passing cloud or an airplane or even a bird would make, but rather the kind of shadow a human would make. Then the shadow disappeared upward.
Jillian walked back into the room. Collins turned to her. “Give Pat a pistol. You two keep an eye on them, I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
Without answering, Collins walked into the kitchen. Scout jumped down from the bay window, ran down the hall and up the stairs. He followed the cat to the foot of the stairs.
He looked back at Jillian and McGill and said, “I’m going to get the keys to the GTO. They’re probably in her purse upstairs. Then I’ll go get the car and we can get this over with once and for all.”
He disappeared up the stairs.
McGill rubbed his hand across his forehead and looked at Jake, then at Beth, then at Jake again. He hung his head and said, “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry it had to end this way. I tried to get you to back off. You were just doing your job, but I couldn’t warn you. This wasn’t part of the plan. Things got out of control.”
“What’s this all about, Pat? What are you involved in?” Jake asked.
Jillian interrupted, “That’s easy. Laurence O’Rourke devastated our families. He’s responsible for the death of Pat’s parents. He raped my mother and killed my father. Don’t you see? He had to die. All of his proclamations of peace and for the peace process — all lies. He’s a spy and a murderer and he had to pay.”
Jillian stared at the floor, memories of long ago dredging up painful emotions. She wiped away a tear.
“I don’t really have many memories of my parents. O’Rourke robbed me of that,” McGill said. “When I was very young, my parents went to eat lunch at a little café in a tiny town called Claudy, near Londonderry where we lived. O’Rourke was trying to gain acceptance into the IRA so he planted a bomb in the café, thinking no Catholics would be in there.