The Armada Legacy Read Online Free PDF

haven’t seen my friend Brooke this morning, have you?’ Amal called after her through the open door. He had to make an effort to raise his voice over the din of the television. The kitchen was now reverberating to the opening theme of the local RTÉ news.
    ‘Eh?’ Mrs Sheenan screwed up her face with a hand cupped behind her ear, then glanced back at the television. ‘Shall I turn it down?’ she bawled, making a move for the remote control. ‘You’ve an awful quiet voice.’
    ‘I was asking—’ Amal began.
    He stopped mid-sentence as he realised what had just come on TV. He burst out of his chair and hurried towards the kitchen, his hangover suddenly forgotten. ‘No!’ he yelled. ‘Don’t turn it down!’
    Too late: Mrs Sheenan had pressed the mute button. Amal stopped in the doorway and gaped at the screen.
    The soundless television picture was of a wrecked car on a winding country road, in the middle of a rugged, empty landscape that looked shockingly familiar to Amal.
    The black Jaguar had skidded into the opposite verge and smashed into a huge rock. Wreckage was scattered across the road. Teams of police were milling around the vehicle, blue lights swirling in the early morning mist.
    As Amal went on staring in increasing horror, he saw a team of paramedics loading a bagged-up body on a gurney into the back of an ambulance. A close-up of the car showed what were unmistakably bullet holes punched through the black bodywork. The rear window was shattered and the rear wheels shredded, the tyres clearly blown out by the gunfire.
    ‘No, no, no, this can’t be happening,’ Amal murmured. He blinked his eyes tightly shut and then opened them again.
    It was happening.
    Mrs Sheenan gave a derisory snort. ‘There you go. Another eejit gone and killed himself.’
    The silent picture changed to a shot of Sir Roger Forsyte, followed by one of Sam Sheldrake. ‘Turn the sound on!’ Amal yelled. Flustered, Mrs Sheenan fumbled with the remote. Now the picture showed the face of a stocky-looking man in his forties whom Amal didn’t recognise.
    At that moment, Mrs Sheenan managed to get the sound back on.
    ‘… found a short distance from the vehicle, has been identified as Wallace Lander, forty-two, a former British soldier employed as a driver by Sir Roger. Early reports suggest that Mr Lander was gunned down by at least two automatic weapons, killing him instantly. Police sources have confirmed that both Sir Roger and Miss Sheldrake remain missing, presumed kidnapped by the attackers.’
    Amal slumped in a kitchen chair and numbly absorbed what he could. It barely seemed real to him. The empty, bullet-riddled car wreck had been discovered before dawn that morning by a night shift worker returning home from a local packing plant. Police had traced the Jaguar to a luxury car hire firm in Derry, and confirmed that the vehicle had been leased to Sir Roger Forsyte’s company, Neptune Marine Exploration. Forsyte was known to have been en route from Castlebane Country Club to nearby Carrick Manor, his temporary base in the area, when the attack took place. Witnesses had reported seeing the Jaguar leave the country club shortly before ten o’clock that evening; it was estimated that the incident had occurred at approximately 10.05 p.m.
    Amal’s breath was coming in short gasps as he anticipated the mention of a third passenger. Any moment now, Brooke’s face would be on the screen, with the news that she’d been found dead like the car’s driver, or snatched by the kidnappers. But there was nothing at all.
    An idea came to him, like a flash of white light. Maybe Brooke had changed her mind at the last minute – maybe she hadn’t gone off to the party at all, but had got out of the car and taken a taxi back to the guesthouse, assumed he was already in bed and not wanted to disturb him? The wild notion suddenly seemed utterly convincing. Headache and nausea forgotten, he leaped to his feet, ran upstairs and hammered