Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

“Who are we getting?” Kit asked.

“The Elizabeth Regina is owned by Peter Blackwell,”Touched said significantly.

Kit, Jackie, and I looked stupidly at one another.

“Surely you know who he is, Sean?” Touched said.

“Sorry, Touched, no clue,” I admitted.

“Peter fucking Blackwell is a full general in the British Army. He was commander in chief of the British Army in Northern Ireland for full four years. Four years. Two tours.Target number one for the Provos for four years and they never got him. He’s on leave from Germany now, but still, he has to be very high on everyone’s list back home. As high as Thatcher, some people might say,” Touched said triumphantly.

I couldn’t help looking at Kit for a moment. She knew that I’d been in that army too. But Kit didn’t bat an eye. Good for her.

“What’s he doing over here?” I asked Touched.

“Intelligence wins the day, Sean. I found out that his boat the Elizabeth Regina was entered in the Kittery Twenty-Four-Hour Race that begins the day after tomorrow. He flew in yesterday, he’s spending the night on the boat, his crew joins him in the morning, and then he goes off racing. Except that he doesn’t. We get him first.”

“What do you mean, get him?” Kit asked.

“We lift him. We kidnap him,” Touched said.

“You should tell them why,” Gerry whispered.

“We grab him and on a stolen cell phone we call the State Department and tell him that unless Hannity, Buchanan, and O’Reilly are allowed to go to a third country unhindered then we’ll kill Blackwell. If they release the Newark Three, then we let him go and it’s kudos for us, if they don’t release them we kill Blackwell and again it’s kudos for us.”

I looked at Kit, but her face was turned away. Was she upset? What was she thinking?

The plan was ok but no Manhattan Project. Hannity, Buchanan, and O’Reilly, the Newark Three, were a trio of IRA hoods who had been in an INS detention facility in New Jersey awaiting extradition back to Ulster. They were smalltime gunrunners, so I suppose Touched and Gerry thought it was just about possible that the British government would pressure the State Department into letting them go in return for General Blackwell’s safe release. Possible, but not probable. The Brits had a long-standing policy of not negotiating with terrorists.

Still, the underlying assumption was correct. It would be a win-win for Touched. If they didn’t release the three, he killed the general and got big respect from every dissident republican in Ireland. If they did let the three out, again big fucking respect.

But even so, a high-profile kidnapping that could go horribly wrong in many ways was more a sign of weakness than one of strength for the Sons of Cuchulainn.

“Won’t they trace your call?” I asked.

“No, they won’t. Thought of that. I got a couple of nicked phones from my mate in the Hampton Beach casino. I’m only making one call and then I’m throwing the phone away. If they release the Newark Three, we’ll hear on the radio, and if they don’t we’ll hear that, too.”

“We wouldn’t really kill the general in cold blood, would we?” Kit asked, her face controlled, calm.

“Damn right we would. He’s a war criminal. A British occupier. We’d have to, Kit. It wouldn’t be a murder, it would be a sanctioned execution,” Touched said.

“So far it’s been all hits against us. Revere and Seamus and the FBI snooping on us, but now we’re striking back, we’re taking the war to the enemy,” Gerry added.

“Would you kill him, Dad?” Kit asked.

“Time is pressing,” Touched said before Gerry could answer.

We got out of the van and went down to the boat Touched had rustled up from somewhere. A large, long boat that in Ireland we called a dory. Tied to a wharf, it was still a little tricky to get in it, especially for Gerry. But eventually, when we were all nervously aboard, Touched pulled the outboard and it whirred into life.

Portsmouth Harbor was packed full of ships and boats. To the right was the Piscataqua River and to the left was the Atlantic. The Elizabeth Regina was not the biggest boat in the harbor, but it was still large. A two-masted schooner, about sixty-five feet long.

Not the sort of thing you could afford on army pay. The general obviously had money.

Touched steered us closer, the dory struggling against the current and Gerry’s weight. Kit was next to me, shivering. She had removed her trench coat and was dressed in only a thin black silk sweater. I put my arm round her and she didn’t refuse it and Jackie, bless him, didn’t mind.

Since I was near the back, Touched handed me a pair of binoculars.

“Is he still moving about, Sean?” he asked me.

I looked through the binocs and, sure enough, I could see a figure belowdecks futtering around.

“Aye.”

“And there’s only one person, Sean?” Gerry asked.

“Yup. I think it’s just one guy, but I don’t know how on earth you could know that for sure,” I said.

“Don’t get smart, Sean, I’ve been watching the bloody boat for the last four hours. It’s one guy,” Touched said.

“One old guy. One unarmed old guy,” Gerry said.

“How do you know he’s unarmed?” Jackie asked.

“There’s no way he would have been allowed to enter U.S.territory with a gun on his boat,” Gerry said, discounting the possibility of a flare gun, boat hook, ice axe.

“Which is not to say that he is not armed and not dangerous. He will definitely be the latter and maybe the former. So if it comes to trouble, Kit, you hang back, looking menacing; Sean, your job is to look after Kit; me, Gerry, and Jackie will handle the old man,” Touched said.

Closer. There was music coming from the boat.

“Hey, that’s Radiohead,” Kit said to me.

“Sounds like the general’s up with the kids,” I said skeptically.

Whether he was into Radiohead or not, he had very helpfully placed half a dozen fenders along the port hull of the Elizabeth so that other boats could easily moor alongside.

“Masks on,” Touched whispered. We pulled on black ski masks and gloves. It wasn’t completely dark yet, so if anyone was passing in a fishing boat or a dinghy they’d certainly notice us.

Unfortunately, no one was passing.

Touched cut the dory’s motor and we drifted for about twenty feet until we were against the Elizabeth’s hull.

“Fend off,” Touched whispered to Jackie. Jackie had no idea what Touched meant but he put up his arm anyway to stop us crashing into the side of the boat. We were near the ladder at the stern and Jackie had the presence of mind to nudge us along so that we could climb it rather than having to haul ourselves up over the rail. Gerry probably couldn’t have managed that in any case.

“Up you go, Jackie boy,” Touched said.

Jackie climbed the ladder and pulled out his gun. There was no sound from the subdecks. I went next, then Gerry. The whole stern of the boat bobbed in the water when he came onboard; but again nothing from belowdecks. Kit next.Touched last.

Touched led us to the cabin entrance and he opened the sliding hatchway that led down below. I followed him into the forecabin. A large luxury yacht, fitted out for at least a dozen crew, not really a racer, more of a cruiser because it had a big heavy cooking stove, a drinks cabinet, even a library up against one wall. Radiohead coming from a CD player.

A door opened at the rear of the boat. A young man in a bathrobe humming to the music. Curly-haired, blond, early twenties, maybe even younger, an Eton pugilist’s nose, a handsome face with deep green eyes.

He froze when he saw us.

“What the fuuu…” he said in complete terror.