Without Mercy Read Online Free PDF

didn’t stand a chance, but the force of the blast, a great wind, drove her across the stern rail as the shattered boat lifted and then dove down to its last resting place. She plunged headfirst into the water, lucky enough to slide to one side and miss the propellers. She went under, and surfaced, turning as the sea swallowed the Kathleen. An undertow sucked at her as if greedy to take her with it, and frightened and dazed, she screamed and kicked out toward the cliffs of the point.
    There was a trench in the seabed at that place, fully fifty fathoms deep, so that as the Kathleen descended rapidly, there was turbulence on the surface, waves driving toward the small beach, increasing in force and taking her with them.
    In the moonlight, she saw Ryan plunging knee-deep in the water to reach for her. She cried out, he grabbed, waist-deep in water, pulling her close.
    “I’ve got you.” He waded onto the beach, pulling her behind him. He held her close as she gasped for air. “Who was with you?”
    “Belov . . . Tod Murphy.”
    “And Kelly and the others?”
    “There was a shoot-out at Drumore Place. I don’t know. You must take me there.”
    “Jesus, woman, you’re in no fit state to go anywhere. There’s blood on your face. You must have taken a hell of a battering.”
    “I must find out what’s happened to Major Ashimov. I must.”
    And it was Kelly he was worried about. After all, if Kelly was still around, there was the IRA to consider.
    He patted her shoulder. “I’ve got the Land Rover at the top of the steps. I’ll take you now.”
    Yuri Ashimov knew none of this, for he was unconscious, facedown at Drumore Place, not dead, in spite of the two bullets Billy Salter had pumped into him, thanks to the nylon-and-titanium vest he’d been wearing beneath his shirt. An invention of the Wilkinson Sword Company, it was efficient enough to block even a .44 bullet. On the other hand, the shock to the cardiovascular system usually caused unconsciousness for a while.
    Lying there, he stirred and groaned, moved a little and pulled himself up. He shook his head to clear it, remembering firing his pistol at Dillon, knocking the AK from his hands, thinking he’d got the bastard and then the shot catching his shoulder, spinning him round, and his last memory, Billy Salter’s face as he’d fired the heart shot. There was a chair nearby; he reached for it, pulled himself up and sat down. He heard a footfall and one of Kelly’s men, Toby McGuire, appeared in the archway.
    “What happened to you?” Ashimov asked harshly.
    “I was waiting in the summerhouse. Somebody jumped me. Knocked me out with a rifle stock.”
    “Where is everybody?”
    “Kelly’s dead and O’Neill. I was up and around when Dillon and the other guy came out on the terrace. I kept out of the way, but I heard what they were saying.”
    “And what was that?”
    Toby McGuire took a deep, shuddering breath and told him about the Kathleen and what had happened.
    Ashimov sat there thinking about it. “So that’s what he said about Major Novikova? If she wasn’t willing to take the risks, she shouldn’t have joined?”
    “That was it. Then he said to this guy Billy, ‘I expect our day will come.’ ”
    “Oh, it will.” Ashimov nodded. “You can count on it. So they went?”
    “He said he had all the keys to the cars in the courtyard. Two hours to Belfast and then home, that’s what he said.”
    “Right.” Ashimov rose, picked up his pistol from the floor and put it in his waistband.
    McGuire said, “What happens now? It’s a right mess.”
    “Yes, it is. But we made some contingency plans, we’ll be all right. The main thing is that you’re still on board. Is that understood?”
    McGuire looked baffled. “Right, Major.”
    “It isn’t so much what I say, it’s what the man in Dublin says. The Provisional IRA will take care of the cleanup here. There’ll be a new team to take over from Kelly and you’ll be a part of