The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf Read Free

visible along the sides of his temples white, not blond. But there was no mistaking the face, the eyes, the gestures. And the hand.
    Ford tightened the binoculars to his eyes and reached for the automatic-focusing button.
    Which was when the mast lights were extinguished.
    Ford flicked on the night-seeing capability, but he had not even accustomed his eyes to the greenish-yellow, infrared image, when a hooter aboard the schooner began blaring. At first Ford supposed it was some warning system, telling thecrew that the bottom was too shallow or the anchor had lost its grip. Or that fuel or gasoline was leaking.
    Until he saw the man in the cap and pea jacket reach inside the companionway and retrieve what looked like a scanning device. With it, he began sweeping the beach, the hills, the hamlet of cottages and houses that bordered the harbor, the pub, and finally the quay, the jetty, and the castle. He stopped there with the device virtually pointed at Ford.
    Ford heard a command shouted from the boat, and then a klieg light—as bright as burning magnesium—swept him standing there in the open window of the castle, and then returned.
    Like a large, old, slow animal caught in headlamps, Ford stood there, blinking. Only then did he realize that one of the electronics systems aboard the schooner must have detected the infrared illuminator in his binoculars, and Rehm had then used the scanner to locate him.
    Ford switched off the infrared, and stepped into the shadow of the castle wall. But too late. Or was he imagining all of it. Or getting soft, as the Irish spoke of senility. No, damnit—the arc light was still emblazening the open window. What to do?
    Flee—back to Breege and see if he could get her out of the house and to some safe haven at least for the night, and then off the island altogether in the morning. Rehm would see him, of course, the moment he got beyond the wall that surrounded the castle. Clare Island was treeless, and Ford could only hobble on his gimpy knees. And realizing how truly helpless he was, they would swoop down on him like the predators they were.
    Instead, Ford chose a different course. Demonstrating the daring that had marked his naval career, he stepped back into the light and trained the binoculars on the boat. There he found Rehm—he was sure of it!—staring back at him with another pair of glasses.
    Rehm then lowered his binoculars, and Ford watched and read his lips as he said, “It’s him. The Sea Wolf,” before the klieg light was switched off.
    Ford had to wait until his eyesight returned before making his way down from his precarious perch in the dark castle.Once outside, he paused to look back at the schooner in the harbor, still scarcely able to credit what he had seen. Even with all his years of strict vigilance, Ford had been caught out nearly from the moment the bastard had dropped anchor. If he couldn’t now hear the chop rushing past the boat’s long white hull, he might again think it a cruel dream. Or a hallucination.
    Breege, who was guiltless, was his first concern. Not that Ford himself felt any guilt. If anybody, it was Rehm who had been the criminal and a special class of being—a kind of devil. Witness the fact that he had hardly aged. Ford should have stamped him out when he had the chance, those many years ago.
    The black curtain of the storm had descended, and Ford only managed to keep to the muddy path that was lined with bogs because he knew it so well. He tried to think of his options. Years ago, when he fully believed in the possibility that Rehm would one day arrive, he had developed a complicated escape plan. Now he could scarcely remember the details. And how to get himself and a blind, frail woman off the island at night in the midst of a storm?
    The wind was howling about his ears, and a cold rain stippled his face whenever he turned to the west. In the far distance, he could see the yellow lights of his snug cottage. How he longed to sit himself down