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  “Broad daylight, then.” She wasn’t pleased.

  “The better to see all his secrets,” Bolan said.

  Chapter 11

  “The laird’s awake,” Ewan MacKinnon told the men who waited in the combination den and trophy room. “He’ll be down soon.”

  Gibson watched the ghillie leave and close the door behind him, letting several seconds more slip past before he spoke. “They’re either dead,” he told the others, “or they’ll bloody wish they were when I get through with them.”

  “Maybe they ran into the police,” Wallace said. “Them having guns and all. They could be sittin’ there in Fort Augustus, or gone up to Inverness for questioning.”

  “They would’ve called us, don’t you think? It’s going on nine hours since they left, for feck’s sake. You could drive to John of Groats and back in that time, with a meal and stop for petrol on the way.”

  The old man in the wheelchair cleared his throat, a rattling sound that never failed to set Gibson’s teeth on edge. Sometimes the loathsome noise preceded speech; at other times, it was a simple complement to breathing at the age of ninety-something, winding up a misspent life.

  This time, the wizened figure spoke.

  “We must accept that they are dead,” he told Gibson and Wallace, showing no emotion. “It remains to learn how they were killed, by whom, and what it means for us.”

  “Beyond losing two friends, you mean?” Wallace asked, bristling.

  “It is foolish to make friends in wartime. Soldiers are expendable, you realize?”

  Wallace was turning red when Gibson interrupted him. “He’s right, Graham. They went out armed to do a job, and bein’ gone this long tells me they failed. We need to be thinkin’ of damage control.”

  “And what you tell the laird, ja? He will not be happy when the police find guns and dead men in his pretty car, eh? Many questions will be asked.”

  “Jaysus!” Gibson was mortified he hadn’t thought of that. A sleepless night had left him groggy, prone to making grave mistakes. “We need to get in front of this,” he told Wallace.

  “How’s that suppose to work?” Graham replied.

  “Call the police at once,” the old man said. “Tell them you just noticed the car is missing. Thieves must have come in and taken it last night.”

  “Thieves came in through the gate?” Wallace replied. “You reckon they’ll believe that shite?”

  “You left the gate open,” the old man said. “It was a foolish thing to do. Perhaps you were drinking, eh?”

  “So it’s on me, is it?”

  “A simple error,” the old man said. “Would you rather be embarrassed, or in prison?”

  “Do it, Graham,” Gibson ordered. “Make the call.”

  Fumbling for his cell phone, Wallace asked them, “What about the boys, then? What am I suppose to tell the police about them?”

  The old man spread his liver-spotted hands, palms raised, as if it should be obvious. “They are the thieves,” he said. “Perhaps the car was to be used in robbery. Who knows?”

  “Stolen by men who work for us?”

  “Who knows this? Who can prove it?” the old man asked. “Keep your wits about you and be calm.”

  Scowling, Wallace moved off into a corner of the den and faced the wall as he dialed 999. A moment later, Gibson heard him muttering in conversation with the operator, who’d inquire as to the nature of his personal emergency and patch him through to the appropriate connection.

  “You still have an unpleasant task before you,” the old man told Gibson.

  “Right. The laird.”

  “The good news is that he still requires your services. If he dismisses you, he must begin the search again from scratch.”

  “He might do that, if we bring police to his doorstep,” Gibson worried.

  “Nein. He is a true believer in your cause, Herr Gibson.”

  “Yeah? Well that explains him, then. But what about yourself, eh?”

  “You know the proverb, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

  “So, who’s your enemy, again?”

  “Today,” the old man said, “it is the same as yours.”

  “England. I thought as much,” Gibson said.

  “We are two unlikely allies, I admit,” the German said. “You may be pleased to know that our collaboration will be brief. Schriftsatz.”

  “Meaning, because you’re old?”

  “It’s undeniable,” the wizened figure told him, smiling with a set of high-priced dentures. “I have survived this long, when all my friends fell, to strike a final blow. Do you believe in destiny?”

  “I’m trying to,” Gibson replied.

  Wallace was coming back to them, closing his phone. “It’s done,” he said. “One of ’em’s comin’ out to look around and ask his questions. Should be here within the hour.”

  “So, we’ve got our story straight, then?” Gibson asked him.

  But before Wallace could answer, Macauley entered. He was wearing tweed, as usual, together with his normal frown.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, then seemed to read their mood. The frown deepened as he inquired, “What’s wrong?”

  BACK AT THE LODGE, Bolan and Beacher were awake by half-past five, checking the television news, but most of it came out of London, via BBC. The Scottish channel—STV—had weather, sports, some politics, a teenage hiker’s rape and murder outside Aviemore, but nothing on the shooting of two TIF commandos at Loch Ness.

  “Looks like they missed it,” Beacher said.

  “That kind of luck can’t hold,” Bolan replied. “Assume they took one of Macauley’s cars. He’ll have to think about what happens next, whether they’re found this morning or a year from now. The guns raise questions he can’t answer honestly. He’ll need a cover story.”

  “So, you’re thinking he’ll report it?”

  “Or have someone on his payroll do it,” Bolan answered. “Not the shooting. If he knows about that, he could try to sanitize the scene. But if he only knows his car and men are missing—”

  “He’ll report a theft,” Beacher finished his thought. “Of course.”

  “It’s what I’d do,” Bolan said. “Buy some time while he’s erasing any links between himself and two dead shooters.”

  “And he’s hunting us in the meantime,” she said.

  “Not us, specifically. But someone, sure.”

  “That doesn’t trouble you?” she asked.

  “He doesn’t know us,” Bolan said, “or where to find us. We have the advantage.”

  “But—”

  His cell phone interrupted her, a shiver on his hip. Bolan said, “Hold that thought” and answered it, to find a photo on the LED screen. He was looking at the old man from Macauley’s dock, in what may well have been a passport photo. Next up was a candid photo of the same man, decades younger, in a military uniform. The silver death’s-head on his black peaked cap identified him as a member of Adolf Hitler’s so-called “elite” SS. Bolan didn’t recognize rank depicted by the oak leaves on his collar, but he showed Beacher the photographs, then scrolled past to the text from Stony Man Farm.

  “He’s Jurgen Otto Dengler,” Bolan told her, summarizing. “Formerly Standartenführer—the equivalent of colonel—in the old SS. Born August 13, 1913, in Bavaria.”

  “My God,” she said. “He’s ancient.”

  “Joined the Nazi Party on his eighteenth birthday, 1931, and graduated to the SS two years later. Came up through the ranks by 1940 to work with something called the Sonderkommando Kuensberg, one of the looting units that started in France, then shifted to Russia in 1941. Sought for war crimes after VE-Day, but the ODESSA network helped him slip through Spain to So
uth America. Apparently, he lives in Switzerland these days.”

  “Except when he’s in Scotland,” Beacher said. “And he is here because…?”

  “No word on that,” Bolan replied. “Officially, he’s wanted by Mossad and Interpol, but no one’s really looking for him. Age and all the Swiss red tape have given him a pass.”

  “A Nazi colonel with a looting unit,” Beacher said. “I see how he’d wind up in Switzerland. He’s probably got gold and jewels and God knows what else stashed in vaults and decorating some chalet. But why risk coming out to hobnob with the TIF? And why Loch Ness?”

  “We ought to ask him,” Bolan said.

  “I doubt he’s granting interviews,” Beacher replied.

  “Something could be arranged.”

  “You’re set on dropping in to see the laird, then.”

  “Can you think of an alternative?” Bolan asked.

  “I’m still working on it. Give me time.”

  “We don’t have much to spare,” he said. “Whatever Dengler and Macauley hope to find, it stands to benefit the TIF, otherwise Gibson and his people wouldn’t be involved. If we don’t stay on top of it, it could slip through our fingers.”

  “But what is it?” Beacher challenged him. “Some kind of Nazi secret weapon from the forties? It would be a rusted-out antique by now.”

  “Dengler wasn’t a weapons guy,” Bolan replied. “He was a looter. Probably a murderer, on top of it, but basically a thief. Thieves steal. We know that tons of Nazi loot has never been recovered.”

  “Right,” Beacher agreed. “In Zurich or wherever Dengler hangs his hat. Maybe in Paraguay or Argentina. But the Highlands?”

  “One more thing to ask about, if we can get our hands on someone from Macauley’s camp.”

  “We’re going back, then,” Beacher said, sounding resigned.

  “But after breakfast,” Bolan said. “I need a little something for the road.”

  WALLACE WAS DISTRACTED as the DeepScan chugged its way past Urquhart Castle’s ruined battlements, northbound. There were no tourists at the castle yet since it was only just past 7:30 a.m. His thoughts went to ancient days when quarrels were settled with swords and axes, hand to hand.

  People were still dying around Loch Ness, it seemed—but these days they disappeared, as well.

  He tried to imagine what had become of Colin MacGregor and Jimmy the Cat Raeburn, but it didn’t compute. They’d gone to tail a car that had made Gibson suspicious, and they’d never made it back. So…what?

  Wallace assumed both men were dead. There was no reason in the world that he could think of for the two of them to leave without a parting word, much less to steal the laird’s Mercedes-Benz. Somehow, they’d stumbled into deadly trouble without calling to report.

  And then?

  Whoever killed them hadn’t left them sitting on the roadside in Macauley’s car. Because that would have been too obvious, perhaps? Or was the disappearing act part of some larger strategy? And if so, to what aim?

  Police killed people, sure, though it was fairly rare in the UK. Wallace had never heard of coppers making anybody disappear after they’d killed him, though. That was a gangster kind of deal, or something spies might do.

  The thought of gangsters led him back to Frankie Boyle, steaming in Glasgow over recent losses and the termination of his contract to provide arms for the TIF. Would Boyle send someone north to get a little payback? Wallace hadn’t thought of it last night, and couldn’t put it on the radio to Gibson at the manor house, but when they made it back to shore that afternoon he’d definitely float the possibility.

  And if it wasn’t Boyle…then he was back to zero. No feckin’ clue, he thought in frustration, to help him solve the riddle that was haunting him.

  He’d left before the police reached Macauley’s place that morning. With MacGregor and Raeburn missing, he’d tapped a couple other boys to help him man the DeepScan, Danny Bain and Alfie Drever. That left four men at the house with Gibson and the laird, disguised as workmen, and he’d given thought to calling reinforcements, but it might look bad, with the law sniffing around.

  It was a tough call, whether he should hope the police found MacGregor and Raeburn, or they didn’t. Wallace didn’t care for unsolved mysteries, but if the men—make that their bodies—were discovered, it would only raise more questions. At the moment, local constables would be concerned about a rich man’s stolen car. But if they found the Benz with guns and bodies in it, it would mean involving CID inspectors, maybe even MI-5.

  No good could come of that. It wouldn’t take the big boys long to suss out Laird Macauley’s tie-in to the Tartan Independence Front, and once that information got around it would be every hapless bastard for himself, he figured. The end of everything, most likely. Living underground. The money tap shut off. No guns from Frankie Boyle.

  In his frustration, Wallace felt a surge of anger against Raeburn and MacGregor. Miserable idiots running off to God knew where and getting killed, with no thought for the trouble it would bring to everybody else around them. Wallace would’ve liked to kill them both himself, for that, but as it was he simply clenched his fists and watched the hulk of Urquhart Castle pass on their port side.

  His mind was drifting when he heard a shout from Danny Bain, belowdecks. “Graham!” Bain hailed him. “Come’n have a look at this, then!”

  Wallace found Bain at his place before the DeepScan’s several color monitors. As he approached, Bain pointed at something on the screen connected to the seabed scanner.

  “What’s that, then, do ya reckon?” Bain asked him.

  Wallace leaned in close to get a better look. He understood enough about the gear to judge the size of most objects displayed, ranging from fish to sunken logs and rowboats. This thing was roughly torpedo-shaped and lay at rest on the bed of Loch Ness. If Wallace was reading the monitor’s scale correctly, the object measured… Jaysus, he thought, could that be right? More than two hundred feet from end to end?

  It could. It was.

  “Is that the monster, then?” Bain asked Danny.

  “Better,” Wallace replied.

  He left Bain perched before the monitors and hurried back to the companionway, then up the metal steps to reach the wheelhouse. Henry Bell half turned to face him, sitting on a swivel seat with one hand on the DeepScan’s wheel.

  “You seen a ghost, or what?” he asked Wallace.

  “I’ve seen the future,” Wallace told him. “Hold ’er here, while I raise Fergus at the big house.”

  “Aye,” Bell said, rising to draw the throttle levers back and leave the engines idling down below.

  Wallace knew what to say, the message he had to send announcing contact, without giving anything away on-air, where hostiles might be listening.

  “DeepScan to base,” he said into the microphone, surprised to hear the tremor in his voice. “DeepScan to base. We have contact.”

  DAYLIGHT MADE a world of difference, evoking brilliant colors as the Camry rolled through Fort Augustus, past the Highland Club, and off along the B862 around the south tip of Loch Ness at about 8:30 a.m. At first, a range of greens predominated, then a world of browns and grays took over on the moors, with purple sprays of heather visible along both sides. There were more sheep in evidence, joined here and there by brindled Highland cattle or Aberdeen Angus.

  “I still think this is risky,” Beacher said, as they approached Loch Tarff, winding along its eastern shore with close to zero visibility on looping turns.

  “You’re right,” Bolan agreed. “But every move we make up here is risky. We’ve got tourist creds established, with the hotel and the marriage cover. Strangers drive all over here throughout the season. It’s the best that we can do.”

  “I could have checked with the police,” she sai
d.

  “And asked them what? ‘Have you found any corpses since last night, in a Mercedes?’”

  “I’d have tried to be a bit more subtle,” she replied.

  “We’ve got it covered,” Bolan told her. “Boleskine House is famous. It’s on every tourist map they sell in Fort Augustus. Driving by won’t make us suspects.”

  “But we’re only driving by,” she emphasized.

  “That’s right. Then heading back up country to Macauley’s spread.”

  “There’s still no way that I can talk you out of that?” she asked.

  “The DeepScan’s working on the loch,” Bolan replied. “That’s four men from Macauley’s staff accounted for, plus two last night. If he’s got backup coming in, they should be here this afternoon. I’ll never have a better time, with fewer guns on-site.”

  “And the police? You said someone will likely call them to report Macauley’s car missing.”

  “I’m guessing that they’d phone it in first thing,” Bolan said. “With Macauley’s bankroll, there’ll be no delay in sending someone out to take a statement. Put a ‘be on the lookout’ on the Benz, and that’s a wrap.”

  “Until they find it,” Beacher said.

  He nodded. “Right.”

  “And when they do?” she prodded.

  “Cops identify the shooters, if they’re in the system. That should turn a spotlight on the TIF, and maybe on Macauley.”

  “I doubt the CID could get a search warrant from that, much less permission to arrest Macauley.”

  “Is that what you want?” Bolan inquired.

  She frowned and said, “I want him out of action.”

  “Right,” he said, and let it go at that.

  They drove through Whitebridge, eight miles out from Fort Augustus. Bolan’s guidebook told him that the village claimed a hundred residents, living within a five-mile radius of small shops and the picturesque Whitebridge Hotel. The year-round residents who aren’t involved in farming drove to work each day in Inverness, a fifty-mile round-trip commute.