Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

An FBI agent jumped unnecessarily onto the first gunman, crashing him over the bar and into the Cork barkeep. Two other agents fired at the blond assassin, missing but almost killing an innocent tourist who had wandered in off the street to see what all the commotion was. Smoke, cordite, chaos, and Gerry’s bodyguard, Seamus, keeping the coolest of everyone, crouching, taking good aim, firing just to the left of the kid’s determined face.

It had lasted almost fifteen seconds, but it couldn’t last much longer.

The kid fired the final bullet in his clip, hitting an FBI guy right in the center of his Kevlar vest.

And at that, a senior FBI man with a mustache stood on a table and screamed to make himself heard: “Everybody fuck-ing freeze. You’re all under arrest. This is the FBI. Stop shooting. Drop your guns, drop your guns, drop your goddamn guns.”

The blond-haired kid finally saw sense and put his hands up. Seamus dropped his gun and put his hands up too.

Kit, writhing, turned round to look at me.

“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered. “Away from the bloody peelers.”

“How?”

“Stairs to the basement and up through the barrel hatch,” I said, wildly improvising.

“My dad?” Kit whispered.

“Is going to be arrested, everybody is, let’s go,” I said. “We can slip out through the smoke.”

The senior FBI agent yelled commands over the ringing in our ears: “Drop those guns on the floor and put your hands on your heads. Everyone else freeze. This place is surrounded by the FBI.”

The blond kid put his hands on his head and two agents knocked him to the floor, pinning him. They grabbed Seamus and Gerry and attempted to render assistance to the injured assassin.

“This is our chance, in all the confusion,” I whispered.

“Ok,” Kit said.

We slipped down the steps into the basement. I didn’t know if they even had a hatchway for delivering the kegs, but Kit did.

“It’s over here,” she whispered. “There’s a stepladder against the wall.”

I grabbed the ladder, climbed it, and pushed open the hatch into the glare of the sun setting over Boston Harbor. I clambered onto the sidewalk and helped Kit up.

“What about my dad?” Kit asked.

“He’s fine, he’ll be going downtown for having that gun,

though,” I said.

“Who are you?”

“I only came for a bloody drink.”

“Who are you?”

“Sean McKenna.”

“You two, you better hold it right there,” a Boston cop yelled from behind one of the trash compactors.

“We’re FBI,” I said and reached in my pocket for my driving license, which I couldn’t let Kit see because it was still for Brian O’Nolan.

The cop walked over and when he was close, I lowered the license, let him bend down to look at it, smashed my fist into the side of his head, kicked his legs from under him, and kicked him twice on the ground, blows that probably hurt me more than him-with my stabbed foot-but which rendered him briefly unconscious.

Kit looked at me, appalled but also excited.

“Let’s go,” I yelled, and we ran down an alley into the back streets of Revere.

Within a minute we had disappeared into the holiday crowd, but just to be sure, Kit found a parked Toyota Camry, wrapped her jacket round her arm, broke the side window with her elbow, yelled in pain, opened the door, kicked the plastic off the ignition system, sparked the starter, turned to me, and said:

“I’m a little bit… um, can you drive?”

“Ok, honey,” I said and drive I did.

Route 1 out of Revere. Kit distracted, on the mobile phone, trying time and again to call her dad and her dad’s lawyer and finally getting through to Sonia, whoever Sonia was, explaining what had happened and asking Sonia to call her back.

Kit ignoring me completely. Not that I cared-I was focused on not getting us killed in the hellish evening traffic heading out of the city.

“Where are we going?” I asked when she finally seemed

done with her phone calls.

“Plum Island.”

“Can we drive there?” I asked, remembering that this was also the name of one of those islands in Long Island Sound.

“Of course. Forty-five minutes.”

“Where is it?”

“Route 1 to 133 to Route 1A, it’s at the mouth of the Mer-rimack River.”

Kit’s mobile rang.

“Dad, Daddy, is that you? Oh my God. Ohmygod. Oh my God.”

Apparently it was. Kit started to cry, and I gave her a tissue we’d found in the glove compartment. She blew her nose. Wiped her eyes.

“Daddy, where are you?” she asked into the phone.

Gerry told her and Kit seemed reassured.

“I’m going back to Newburyport; a nice boy called Sean is driving me, he sort of saved me, he’s from Ireland.”

Gerry must have been suspicious, because Kit gave me a winning smile.

“It’s ok, Daddy, I’m totally fine. He’s nice. We’re heading home. What about you, are you hurt? Did you tell them about your blood pressure?”

Gerry said something and Kit laughed. She put her hand over the receiver.

“He’s fine,” she told me.

“Good,” I replied.

Gerry said something else that sent her into hysterics. She put her hand over the mouthpiece again.

“He says he’ll be out tonight because he’s got something rarer than a tap-dancing dodo,” Kit explained, the tears gone from her eyes now.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A Massachusetts concealed carry permit,” Kit said and chuckled at her father’s unfunny remark.

Gerry gave her a few instructions and told her he loved her.

“I love you too, Dad,” Kit said and hung up.

Kit turned to me and smiled.

“They’re all ok,” she said.

“Ok, good. I’m glad,” I said and gave her a quizzical look.

“What’s that expression about?” she asked.

“Well, this may be a perfectly normal event to you but I’m a stranger in these parts, so you wanna tell me what the fuck happened in there?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I suppose it was a gang thing,” Kit lied.

“A gang thing? Jesus. Does that happen in Boston a lot?” I asked.

“No, not really, but sometimes it does. It doesn’t usually come down to violence.”

“How come your dad had a gun?”

“Oh, he, like, runs a construction company, gets a lot of threats from the mafia and stuff, he’s allowed. But I don’t think this was anything to do with him. Just wrong place, wrong time.”

“Well, I must say you’re taking it pretty well, been in anything like this before?” I asked.

Kit said nothing but her face was hard and wary.

“It’s certainly a first time for me,” I said, as gentle a probe as I dared.

“First time for me, too,” she said and patted me on the leg.

She was being comforting but also taking the piss. Still, the physical contact was welcome. A lot of attractive women were finding me extremely tactile these days. That unwashed combination of prison cell, banana plantation, riot, sunblock, and cheap beer must be an irresistible mix.

“Terrifying,” I said, and Kit nodded. “I mean, Jesus, it was terrible, oh my God, it was really terrible,” I added, hamming it up.

But Kit was bored with me. She didn’t want to pretend that this was her virgin encounter with serious violence. She tried to look away. Her lip began to quiver and she looked for her fags. No, not bored, it was all just too much to deal with right now.

A good idea to change the subject.

“Well, you’re not going to tell me that that was the first car you ever broke into,” I said.

Kit pressed the button to open the Camry’s sunroof.

The scent of pollen.

The night air smeared with stars.