Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

Only her.

It will be terrible. I promise. The owl of Minerva will fly afraid. And miles from here a black bear will stand on her back legs and sniff the air, alarmed, smelling the carnage coming to her on the soft south wind. Yes.

And I smile in my sleep and dream it close.

Haze smothers a distant mountain. The sun excites a million trees. Butterflies and blue jays fluttering above the window ledge and more birds in the discased vacuum around the house. Cirrus clouds, vapor trails, the sky the blue of a hangman’s suit.

I flex my fingers. Sit up, rub at the handcuff around my right ankle.

I’m a city boy. I don’t know the names of trees, but there are several different types, from the valley bottoms to the hilltops, absorbing the topography in a blanket of green, brown, and black. An occasional firebreak or clearing or winding trail.

The air is filled with oxygen. We are not in the high country or I would feel it. We’re in the forest and in fact we are near water. Saltwater. We’re close to the coast or a broad bay or an inlet. I can smell the Atlantic. Something that gives me comfort when every morning I wake in a different room and I’m a different person in a different type of jeopardy.

I haven’t been plain, uncomplicated Michael Forsythe for five years-back in the good old days. Not that they were ever any bloody good.

I check the handcuff and the cast-iron bed for a weak link.Nothing.

But knowing that we’re near the sea helps. That, and the message I left in the Elizabeth Regina. And, above all, the feeling that this is going to be the day.

Aye.

Today, I wake under discipline of war. Today, I will take the fight to the enemy. Peter Blackwell has forty-eight hours before Touched will murder him and I have only the same time before doubts concerning my identity arrive from Belfast.

So now is the time to act.

Bearings are the first key. From the bed, a limited view of woods and hills and an old disused railroad line almost completely recolonized by nature, and indeed, in the trees behind an outhouse there’s an old railway car minus its bogies and roof. But the cabin itself is not the humble dwelling one associates with the presidents on our low-denomination bills. This place is enormous. It bends round in an L shape and there are two floors and at least three different outbuildings. I wouldn’t call it a cabin, it’s more a log-hewn summerhouse. I don’t know how many acres of woods go with the place, but I’m sure we’re talking many millions of dollars for the entire estate.

That also gives me hope.

If the feds had been looking for a humble little Unabomber hut that was off the books, we’d be fucked; but this monstrosity couldn’t have escaped the notice of a tax-hungry local authority. It might take them a while to get here, but eventually they would, hopefully not to find the two rotting corpses of the kid and me.

In the kitchen below me a cheerful voice begins singing in Quebecois French.

“Sur le pont d’Avignon, l’on y danse, l’on y danse. Sur le pont d’Avignon, l’on y danse tout en rond.”

She hasn’t a care in the world.

Doesn’t Sonia know that Touched will kill that boy as easily as chopping wood? Are they all in goddamn denial about what they’ve done?

A knock at the door.

“Come in,” I say.

Kit enters wearing a black dress and DM boots. She hasn’t slept well, and her eyelids are heavy and dark. It only accentuates her loveliness. She’s carrying a tray with breakfast.Fresh croissants and coffee.

She closes the door and sits on the edge of the mattress.She puts the tray on a little table next to the bed.

“Touched told me that we were going to have to keep you under restraint for a day or two. Apparently you said something on the boat that made him suspicious. I didn’t hear you say anything, but he’s always… Anyway. I’m really really sorry, Sean,” she says and takes my hand in hers, squeezes it.

“Touched is crazy, he’s completely crazy,” I tell her.

“Jackie and Dad both pleaded your case, but he didn’t listen to them,” Kit says, and her fingers are cold and soft in my rough, scarred palm.

“Is this breakfast?” I ask.

“Oh yeah, of course, Sonia made these croissants from scratch, they’re delicious, and there’s maple syrup if you want to dip them. It’s local. And then there’s coffee.”

“Thanks, I’m quite hungry,” I say.

I take a sip of coffee. It’s hot and good.

“Nice.”

“I made it,” she says, pleased.

“So, uh, where’s the boy?” I ask her.

“He’s out in the smokehouse. He’s ok. He’s, like, frightened, as you would expect him to be, but Sonia and I brought him breakfast and we told him that it was only going to be for a day or two and then we’d let him go.”

I shake my head from side to side.

“Touched is going to kill him. I guarantee you that,” I tell her.

“No. He wouldn’t do that. Even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t, Dad wouldn’t let him. And Dad’s in charge,” Kit says, but she bites her lip a little nervously.

“Kit, Gerry knows and Touched knows that he’s going to have to die. The State Department and Her Majesty’s fucking Foreign Office will not humiliate themselves by doing a deal with terrorists just to save a general’s son. And when the deadline passes, Touched will not let him go. He’ll kill him or he knows the Sons of Cuchulainn will be finished.”

Kit’s brow furrows and I can see she’s digesting what I’ve told her. But now is not the time to push it. Plant the seed now, fertilize it later.

“Where is here by the way? Where are we?” I ask.

“The cabin, silly.”

“Honey, I know, but where’s the cabin?”

“We’re about ten miles from Belfast, Maine. Of course, when he was looking to build somewhere, Dad had to buy land up here because of the local connection. We should take you into town, show you this Belfast, and you can compare it to yours. There couldn’t be two more different places on the planet Earth.”

“I’m sure. That sounds like fun, I’d love to go into town.Could we go today?” I ask eagerly.

Kit shakes her head sadly. She takes a knot out of her bob and hunts for a hair clip to keep the fringe out of her eyes.

“Nah, I don’t think so, I don’t think Touched would let me take you,” she says.

“Oh, that’s a shame, well, you could always ask anyway, he can only say no,” I suggest.

“Maybe,” she says.

“So how often do you guys come up here?”

“Two, three times a year.”

I fake a groan and take a sip of the coffee.

“What’s the matter?” Kit asks.

“It’s nothing. My leg hurts a little bit.”

“Your good leg or your…” she asks delicately.

“The handcuff around my ankle’s been cutting off the circulation and the cramp has been killing me. You couldn’t do me a favor, could you, Kit?”

“What? Anything.”

I touch her wrist. She shivers.

“Well, I know Touched doesn’t want me going into town for obvious reasons, but you could just ask him if I could go for a walk, you could come with me and if he wanted to, he could have my wrists handcuffed for extra security. I’m really sore, I really need a walk to stretch my legs. It’s pretty painful.”

I bite into the croissant, dip it into the maple syrup, and take another mouthful.

“This is very good.”

“I’ll tell Sonia you like them.”

“And will you ask Touched if I can go for a walk? I’m in total agony.”

“When do you want to go?”

“After breakfast.”

Kit gets to her feet.

“I’ll see what I can do, we’ll apply moral pressure. All of us think it’s disgraceful the way he’s treating you.”