Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

Seamus nodded.

“If you’re up to it, that is,” Jackie said.

I’d had just about enough of this wee skitter. I put my hand on his shoulder, grabbed him.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“You being a cripple and all, you just might not be able to handle it,” Jackie said, and I could sense him grinning in the blackness.

“Jackie, if you want another beating, you’re going the right way about getting one. What will you say to Kit this time, you tripped over a paving stone and you’re suing the town council?”

Jackie brushed my hand off him and squared himself for trouble.

“You had the advantage on me that time. This time I’m sober, so you just try it, pal,” he said.

“I’ll knock ya back to cow-fucking County Sligo,” I said, holding the sledgehammer in both hands, ready to swing in case he was dumb enough to try anything.

“Go on then, give me your best shot,” Jackie said.

Seamus reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a revolver. He pointed it at me and then at Jackie.

“If you two don’t fucking cut it out, I’ll shoot the pair of you right here,” he said. It wasn’t a serious threat, but the gun got our attention. This was escalating things. It took the wind out of the exchange. I eased my grip on the sledgehammer.

Jackie spat on the range floor.

“Tell him not to touch me,” he muttered.

“Tell him to watch his mouth,” I said.

“Enough. Let’s go,” Seamus ordered.

We walked over to the armory. Now that we were closer we could see a frail beam of light leaking under the door.

Unnerving. It looked as if there was a bulb on inside the room.

“What do you make of that, Seamus?” I asked, pointing at the light and dropping my voice into a whisper.

“Somebody left the light on from the weekend?” Seamus suggested.

I nodded.

“I suppose,” I said.

Seamus examined the door handle. It was, as Touched predicted, a metal handle connected to a wooden door. Three or four good smashes should do the trick. I lifted the sledge hammer and brought it crashing down on the handle. It gave first time.

A voice from inside the armory screamed and a split second later an alarm went off: flashing emergency lights and a loud continuous bell.

Jackie pulled the armory door open. A long, narrow room filled with boxes in metal cages and guns in racks. And a thirty-year-old soldier, bald, fat, frightened green eyes, wearing fatigues, sitting on a stool, holding a clipboard in one hand, the other having just pushed a big red button on the wall. He made a grab for a weapon next to him on the floor. I chucked the sledgehammer at him and it caught him on the chest, knocking him off his stool backwards into a box of stun grenades.

I lunged for and grabbed his Colt.45 sidearm, lying in a holster beside the chair. He tried to get at me but I elbowed him in the face, took the gun out of the holster, slammed home the dislodged clip, pointed it at his head. He put his hands up.

“I surrender,” he said.

I turned to Seamus and we looked at each other, horrified, for a moment.

“What do we do now?” Jackie asked Seamus in a panic.

“He’s seen us,” Seamus said.

“I haven’t seen anything,” the guy replied, closing his eyes.

“He’s bloody seen us,” Jackie wailed.

Seamus reached into his pocket, brought out his hip flask, and took a drink. He wiped his mouth.

Just then, across the bog and the cottonwoods, and over the shrill alarm bell, we heard the distinct wail of a police siren. It might be connected with us, it might not.

“That button you pressed, who does it alert?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said and he meant it.

“We got to get out of here,” I said to Seamus. “Peelers are coming.”

Seamus looked as if he were about to pass out. His skin was pale and he was sweating. The last few weeks had been too much for him. He couldn’t take the bloody stress. At least not sober.

“Take him with us. Touched will know what to do,” Seamus said.

“Slow us down,” I said angrily.

“We’ll take him with us. Do as you’re told, this is my show,” Seamus screamed.

“What about the explosives, Seamus?” Jackie asked.

“Why don’t you tell him all our names?” I said to Jackie and motioned the soldier to follow us out of the armory.

“Forget them. Let’s just get the hell out of here,” Seamus said.

“Come on, you,” I said to the soldier. “Keep your hands above your head.”

We ran across the range and I put the gun in the soldier’s back as we jogged down the corridor. He was definitely older than me. Overweight, shaking, terrified. Jackie going ape-shit at him didn’t help matters:

“Jesus, what the fuck were you doing in there? This place is supposed to be empty,” he said.

“I had to do the inventory,” the soldier replied.

“You’re only supposed to be here on the weekends,” Jackie said furiously.

“The colonel’s coming this weekend, we had to have it checked out and-” the guy began but Seamus interrupted the explanation:

“Shut up. It doesn’t matter how it happened. It has happened,” he said.

We sprinted down the corridor and ran outside just as a cop car pulled in on Route 1A in front of the base.

“Over the wire,” Seamus said. “Come on.”

We ran to the rear fence.

“You, over it,” Seamus told the soldier. All four of us scaled the fence. The state troopers shone a powerful searchlight onto the base but we were well clear at the back. We crouched low.

“They won’t see us,” Jackie whispered.

We flattened ourselves into the reeds, Seamus pushing the soldier’s head down to the ground. The spotlight passed us by and returned to the front of the base.

“Over here, over here,” the soldier screamed, jumping up and waving his arms. The peelers shone the light at the back and spotted us.

“Halt, you there,” one of the cops yelled.

“You bloody fool,” I said as Jackie and I pulled the soldier to the dirt.

Seamus took out his gun and shoved it into the soldier’s cheek.

“Try that again and you’re going to die,” Seamus said.

“For Christ’s sake, come on. Let’s go,” I yelled at Seamus. Seamus put his gun in the soldier’s back, shoved him, and the four of us ran into the marsh that led down to the Parker River.

The cops fired a warning shot into the air and came tearing after us. They’d either have to run wide around the base or cut across the front fence, through the car park, and then climb the back fence. But even so, they’d be on our heels pretty goddamn quick.

“Gotta ditch the army boy,” I said to Seamus as we waded through the boggy grass.

“He’s seen our faces, you idiot. We take him to Touched,” Seamus said furiously.

“We’ll never get away, they’ll have copters after us in a minute,” Jackie said, sobbing a little.

“Get a grip, Jackie. Come on. It’s totally dark. If we can make it to the Parker River, we can wade in, float downstream into the wildlife refuge at the bottom of Plum Island, we’ll be ok,” Seamus said.

It wasn’t a bad plan at that. The water wasn’t cold or fast moving. It might work.

“Better move fast then,” I said.

Seamus nodded, encouraged by my approval.

“And you, no funny stuff, or I’ll fucking shoot ya,” he said to the soldier.

We waded through swamp, and then solid water and then swamp again.

After about ten minutes we could hear many more cops behind us. Three or four backup units had been called in, maybe a dozen cops altogether. Seamus, the soldier, and myself were still together but Jackie, the fittest and fastest of us, was a couple of hundred yards ahead now. He looked back to see if he should wait but Seamus waved him on. In another minute he was gone completely.