Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

I rummaged in my cargo pants pocket and took out the mobile phone that Samantha insisted I always carry for a situation such as this. The question was whether it would work when I needed it. The pocket was soaked and the phone was slathered in wet reeds, petals, and pollen.

“Just fucking work,” I ordered it and turned it on. It lit up by force of will and I got a dial tone. Thank God.

I rang Samantha’s number.

She picked up.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” I said.

“Mi-? Where are you? Are you on a portable phone?”

“Yes.”

“Hang up now and call me from a landline.”

“It’s an emergency.”

“Ok, well then, um, be very careful what you say.”

“I don’t have time for that shit. Seamus is dead. You’re going to have to send a team of FBI agents to the Massachusetts National Guard base near Rowley on Route 1A. Right now. We broke in, it went wrong, and Seamus is dead. And there’s a witness. They’re going to pick up a soldier, Specialist David Ryan. If you want this operation to succeed you can’t allow him to talk to the cops. The FBI are going to have to convince them this is a federal matter. We can’t trust the cops not to blab. He’ll be waiting there for them. He’ll be prepped.”

“What on earth is going on? Are you hurt?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you later. It’s a fuckup. It’s going to be your call on whether it’s a fatal fuckup or not. If you ask me, I think we should abort the whole thing. But like the good trooper that I am, I’m going to square it so we have all the options. Ok?”

“You have to tell me exactly what’s happened,” she said, an imperative tone overcoming her concern.

“No time. Listen to me. Write this down. Get the FBI to the National Guard Base on Route 1A, the 101st Engineers. It’s near Rowley and the Parker River. Pick up Specialist David Ryan. You better bloody move it too. I’ve got to go to PI and make this right. You owe me big time for this. Big time,” I said.

I turned off the phone and looked at Ryan.

“Ok, pal, now listen to me, the cops are going to be over here in a few minutes. I’m an undercover FBI agent, I’ve infiltrated a very dangerous cell of terrorists. They are on the verge of blowing tons of shit up. Remember Oklahoma City? Stuff like that. The lives of hundreds of people are at stake. If you tell those cops that I shot Seamus, my cover will be blown and months of preparation are going to go up the fucking spout and I’ll be executed and the terrorists are going to get away. This is bandit country, the cops can’t be trusted. Only the feds. Ok?”

“I can’t lie to them, I-”

“Take it easy, mate, you don’t have to lie, not exactly, what you’ll say to the cops is pretty much what happened: three guys broke into the base, they took you with them, you got away, and you heard a shot. That’s it. They’ll take you back to the police station for medical treatment, maybe to a hospital, doesn’t matter. You tell the cops that you got away from us and you ran and you don’t know what happened to us. Ok?”

He nodded, but he still wasn’t convinced.

“Don’t feel bad about it. The FBI is going to be talking to you in an hour or so, you can tell them the truth. There’s probably going to be an agent called Harrington. You can tell him everything. But if you tell your buddies or your fiancée or the cops or anyone else that I shot Seamus, I’m fucked. The terrorists will find out what really happened tonight and they’ll kill me. Do you understand?”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because it happens to be true.”

He blinked rapidly, his eyes wide and inexperienced. The fear was dissipating.

“Ok, I think, I-”

“No, no thinking. You’ll either do it or you won’t, tell me which it’s going to be. Hurry up,” I said.

He thought for a moment, struggled with it, but obviously he wanted to buy the story, either that or he was a hell of an actor.

“Ok, I’ll do it,” he said.

“You better not be lying. My life’s at stake. Dozens of lives.”

“I’m not lying.”

He looked at the gun butt peeking out of my pocket. I clicked my fingers in front of his face. I needed the locus of his attention on me.

“Tell me what you have to do. Repeat it back,” I said.

“I don’t tell the cops shit, but I do tell the FBI.”

“Very good.”

I had him, but I had to be a hundred percent certain. I crouched beside him, looked into his eyes.

“Now listen, Ryan, I’m trusting you with my goddamn life, so you better not fuck up.”

“I won’t man, I owe you.”

“One last time. Don’t tell the cops, but tell the FBI.”

“I understand,” he said seriously. “It’s like when you have to do deep recon.”

“That’s exactly what it’s like. Good. I like that. Ok, I have to go, give me ten minutes and then you can start screaming for the police. Got it?”

“Yes.”

I stood.

The soldier looked at me. He wanted to say something. I waited.

“Thank you for saving me,” he said. “And good luck.”

“I’ll need it,” I said.

I took the.45 out of my pocket, threw it into the Parker River, and ran as fast as I could into the swampy undergrowth.

I headed north for fifteen minutes until I came to a wood. Here I adjusted the straps on my prosthesis again, caught my breath, got my shit together.

What now?

Go back to Gerry’s?

How?

Hoof it.

Plum Island is a long sandy outcrop that runs parallel to the coast of northern Massachusetts. On the maps it’s an island but in fact at low tide the island is effectively joined to the mainland by a marshy spit of land. From where I was, north of the Parker River, it wouldn’t be a difficult trek east across the marsh and up onto the west shore. I could easily make landfall in the Plum Island wildlife reserve, cut across the quarter-mile-wide island to the Atlantic side, and walk up the beach to McCaghan’s house.

That would take about an hour.

I thought about it and it seemed feasible, and I was about to get going but then, like the sleekit wee character I was, a new plan began to grow in my mind.

A better one.

A much fucking better one.

What was it that I’d said to her? I saved your operation tonight. That I bloody had and they owed me.

I stood and instead of going east to Plum Island I went west out of the woods and towards the highway.

Brambles, an old graveyard, and eventually the trees intersecting with Route 1A again. Perfect. Not far now. I turned north, keeping to the undergrowth by the side of the road. Just before the town of Newbury I stopped at a gas station that I’d noticed several times before.

It was after nine o’clock, so the gas station was closed for the night. Still, I staked it out in the forest until I was damn sure it was unoccupied. At a break in the traffic I ran across the road.

The gas station was deserted and the object of my mission, the pay phone outside, was in full working order. I could call Samantha now without a danger of our call being intercepted. I picked up a rock and after a couple of tries I smashed the big light illuminating the gas station’s forecourt.

I popped in a quarter and dialed Samantha’s number.

“Hello?”

“Samantha, it’s me. I want you to pick me up at the gas station south of Newbury on Route 1A. I’ll wait here for fifteen minutes.”

I hung up before she had a chance to say anything and then retreated into the shadows. Her burgundy Jag appeared a little over ten minutes later. She had pulled a coat on over her nightgown. Her eyes suspicious, her lips thin and furious. She opened the car door.

“North on 1A,” I said.

I got in, she turned the car, and we drove for Newburyport.