Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

Kit looked at me, her gloved hand patting me on the leg. She smiled. Her eyes the color of a glacial lake. Not a cold, uninviting glacial lake. More of a cool lake on a warm day. Let’s say it’s summer in the Alps and you’re sweaty and hot from hiking and you-

“Sean, did you hear what I said?” Touched asked, shaking me out of my reverie.

“You want to know how I feel about the Brits in Ireland?” I muttered, snapping my head away from those hypnotic peepers.

“Aye.”

“I think the Brits should stick to their own country and get out of Northern Ireland. And if the bloody Protestants don’t want to live in a united Ireland then they can fuck off back to Scotland where they came from,” I said with just enough but not too much passion.

Touched nodded and put the car into gear.

He accelerated away from the remains of the church and we drove over the metal swivel bridge and off the island. To the left was the swampy Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, to the right Joppa Flats and Newburyport Harbor. Touched lit a cigarette, began another little speech.

“Sean, apparently you did wonders in Revere, but I have to see for myself. This is going to be a test. This isn’t going to be your only test. But if you don’t do well today, you’re out. Generous redundancy package, couple of handshakes, no hard feelings. If you do well, I’m going to recommend you to Gerry. Simple as that. There’s going to be four of us. Me and Seamus will run the show. You and Kit just shut the fuck up and do nothing. I’m not even sure I agree with having Kit here but-”

“We’re not going to get into that again, Touched, like, come on,” Kit said, interrupting him angrily.

Touched coughed on his cigarette. If this was any other wee girl but Gerry’s daughter he probably would have turned round and slapped her.

“Ok, Kit, keep your fucking hair on,” he said and threw his fag out the window and angrily lit another.

He put the radio on and flipped through the stations, looking for one playing country, not an easy task in Massachusetts. Finally he dug one up on the AM band and, more relaxed, winked at me in the rearview mirror.

The drive.

Nobody talking.

Touched singing along to the radio. The ocean on our left, North America on our right. Swamps, mudflats, marshes. Kit looking out the window. Touched packing heat. Seamus, too. Slowly down route 1A. Many places along the way with pull-offs, deserted little lay-bys. Easy for Touched to stop the car with any kind of excuse. A play like this:

“I just need a quick piss,” Touched says.

Suggests we all get out. I have to get out too, or it will look suspicious. As soon as I’m out of the car, Touched checks the highway, looks left and right, pulls his piece, shoots me in the belly to put me down. Shoots me in the head and then another one right in the eyeball to be on the safe side.

Kit’s screaming. Seamus holding her back. He explains it to her or tries to. They search the body but they don’t find anything. They fill my pockets with gravel, stones, anything really, take me to the swamp and dump me in.

Kit gets in the car, sobbing, hysterical.

“Why, why did you kill him?” she asks.

“Fucking British agent, Kit,” Touched says. “I could tell immediately. Your da thought it was important that you were there to see me top him.”

“Oh God,” Kit says…

I looked out the window, waited for the car to slow, for the indicator to come on. But it didn’t. We drove through Rowley, over the Parker River bridge, and down to Ipswich. Some of my fear had gone, but the adrenaline pumping through me still kept me off kilter and alert.

“I’d like to tell you a little about what’s happening, Sean,” Touched said from the front as he tried to drive round a slow-moving RV.

“Tell away.”

“First of all, we’re going to go get some ice cream and then we are going to go to a town in New Hampshire called Derry. There’s two towns in New Hampshire right beside each other. One is called Derry and one is called Londonderry. As you know, Sean, but Kit and Seamus don’t, back in Ulster the Prods call Derry ‘Londonderry’ and the Catholics call it ‘Derry.’ So obviously settlers from there came here and they couldn’t agree what to call their new town and so both Derry and Londonderry are right next to each other. Interesting places, I was up there yesterday.”

So what? I was thinking but Touched came to the point.

“As a spite to the Protestants we are going to rob a bank in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Recon on it for the last week. It’s 1950s America. One security camera. Rush in the morning, very slack in the afternoons. Two part-time clerks and a manager. After we get our ice cream I am going to give you all one more chance to back out. And that’s it. Ok?”

I nodded. Kit nodded. Touched looked at us in the mirror.

“By the end of the day, both of you are going to be men,” Touched growled as he pulled into the White Farms Ice Cream stand that Kit had pointed out the night of the hit on her da.

“All right, Seamus, you go up and get us four butter crunch with chocolate sprinkles. Here’s a twenty, if she’s nice give her a two-buck tip, got that?”

“Four butter crunch with sprinkles, two-buck tip. I’d rather have rocky road if that’s ok?”

“Butter fucking crunch,” Touched insisted.

Seamus slunk out of the car and walked up to the ice-cream stand. There was a queue of about a dozen people ahead of him, so it might be a while. Touched turned the car and the air-conditioning back on.

He turned to face us.

“Seamus is ok. Don’t worry about him. He’s been a bit shaken up since the attempted hit on Gerry, but he’s ok. You saw him that night. Fucking outstanding. He’s solid. Not like some others I could mention.”

“He seems fine to me,” I said.

“I’ve had him teasing info out of you, and I’ve asked around. You’re ok, Sean, and I think your heart’s in the right place. I want you, Sean. I like you. I think we could use you. Your country could use you.”

I looked at him. His eyes were cold now. Serious. How stupid was I supposed to act? Would Sean know what Touched was asking him to join?

“Will it mean killing people?” I asked.

“For you it will not. Not you. Certainly not initially. British companies, businesses. Maybe military or governmental officials, and you won’t be involved in that unless you’re completely comfortable. Me, Gerry, and Seamus will take the high-risk assignments. Maybe Jackie later.”

“You’re not the Provos, are you?”

“We’re not, we’re our own group. The Sons of Cuchulainn. Back in the heyday there used to be about a dozen of us in two cells. Now it’s basically Gerry’s family and a few others. We’re down in numbers but not in clout. I really think we can make a difference. Gerry is fucking loaded. We have resources up to the roof, we just need young guns, new blood. The IRA have never even tried a campaign in America. Chickenshit traitors that they are.”

“They tried to kill Gerry.”

“Aye, but they won’t try again. They’re on cease-fire now, so they can’t.”

“So who’s your enemies?”

“Nobody knows about us yet. Probably only a couple of files in the FBI. Those files will get bigger. The Brits will get involved. But we’re going to be smart. Cell structure, untraceable. Even if the FBI are doing surveillance on Gerry, none of it’s going to get back. Hoping to have two or three cells in place by Christmas,” Touched said.

“What’s the point, what’s the goal?”

“The point is to take the war to the enemy. What I’m going to tell you is very confidential. This goes for you too, Kit, no blabbing.”