Shadows in Death (In Death #51) - J.D. Robb Page 0,108
damn well wanted.
“Robbie, it would make my job a lot easier, if you would take the family—everyone—into Tulla until we have Cobbe in custody.”
He gave her an easy smile, and a pat on the shoulder. “We’ve sent the children off with the Garda, and some of the women with them to keep them behaving. As for the rest of us, well, it’s our land, our home, you see. So here we stay. And it’s Roarke himself.”
Leaving her, he walked to embrace Roarke.
“Podock, security.” The black man, built like a monument to fitness, offered a hand. “We have Trace at the main farm and Ando at Nan’s house.” He grinned a little. “She said we were to call her Nan if we were going to be in her kitchen.”
Abernathy moved in. “Inspector Abernathy, Interpol. I expect four agents to arrive within minutes.”
“You can station one in each outlying house, two in the main,” Eve said. “Cobbe will most likely head in from the south, and we’ve got less than two hours to set this up. We’ll stay in constant communication. If we’re wrong about his direction, if he aims for one of the other houses, we’ll converge. Since you already know the ground, Podock, you can direct the agents when they arrive.”
She turned. “Aidan.”
Roarke’s cousin, a big man with a thatch of straw-colored hair under a battered cap, bent to kiss her cheek.
“Welcome back to the homeplace.”
“Yeah, well. I need my team outfitted. I need them to look like farmers. I need them to look like they’re doing whatever you would all be doing if this was a regular day.”
“Oh, sure and that’s easy enough.”
“Is Sinead at the farm—the big house?”
“She is that, along with Mary Kate and Kevin and Rory, and Seamus. It wasn’t easy to move Nan along, but we managed it. I got my Rosie to move as well, using the baby and the one on the way. But for the rest of us, we’re staying.”
“Let’s just take a minute, all of you, because that’s all I’ve got. I get this is your place, your home, but this man’s a professional killer. We’re the cops, and you’re not. We’re here to stop him, arrest him, and to protect you and your property. How are you going to defend yourself against a professional killer with hundreds of bodies, hundreds of dead? Do you have weapons?”
“Well now, we have these,” Aidan said and bunched his fist. “And come to that, we’ve axes and picks and shovels, knives, oh, and that baseball bat young Ryan bought himself when we visited you in New York City last. We’re Irish, you see. We’ve fought on and for the land for all time.”
“Axes and shovels,” she muttered. “We need to get to the main house. Baxter, Trueheart, you’re with Aidan. Callendar, you’re their geek.”
“The grass is all spongy,” Callendar commented.
“Well, we’ve had a bit of wet weather.”
Grinning, she lifted her face to the rain. “I like it.”
“It’s this way. Those are fine boots,” he said to Baxter. “They’ll be mucked up in no time. We’ll see what we have for you.”
“Santiago, Carmichael, with McNab, second house. Jenkinson, Reineke, Peabody, Feeney, Roarke, with me. Abernathy, take your choice.”
“I’ll stick to the main.”
“Commander?”
“The same. Commander Whitney.” He held his hand out to Robbie. “This is beautiful land.”
“It is all that. Is it your first time in Ireland then?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, sure you must come back for holiday,” he said as they walked on.
“They’re treating it like a game,” Eve said to Roarke.
Roarke shook his head. “They’re not. It’s not your way, but it’s theirs. It’s complicating things, Christ knows, but you can count on them.”
“Feeney’s got stars in his eyes.”
“He’s an Irishman at the heart of it, isn’t he? You know he’ll be steady as a rock when you need him.”
They walked through the light rain as the walk gave her a chance to study her ground, to look for potential attack points, escape routes.
And all the while she heard one of the cousins talking to Feeney about where Feeney’s people were from, if he had any cousins in Clare.
She ignored the cows when they crossed the next field—what choice did she have? But she kept an eye on them, just in case.
Smoke drifted into the sky—gray against gray—from the chimneys of the big stone house.
She spotted a couple of horses. “I need them to get the horses inside. Maybe he rides, or he’ll try to. Or just kill them.”