Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

“How?”

“You’ve got to make some excuse and drive into Belfast and call the FBI. They’ll come and they’ll arrest all of us and, Jesus, we’ll do time for kidnap, but at least it won’t be murder, and that poor lad will go free,” I said.

“Why do I have to do it? Why do I have to betray everybody?” she asked. Indignant that the act would fall to her, but not, it seemed, outraged by the act itself.

“I can’t do it, how could I, like this,” I explained.

“Yes, you could, you could run away right now. I could say you hit me and knocked me down and you could run. You could get to the outskirts of Belfast in a couple of hours and I wouldn’t have to tell on anyone.”

“Kit. Look at me. Don’t be ridiculous, with these bloody cuffs on and a prosthetic foot I wouldn’t get a quarter of a mile, Touched and Jackie would find me and kill me.”

Kit let go of my hand and stood up.

“We better be getting back now,” she said coolly.

In that coolness was ambivalence and ultimately death. I hadn’t closed yet and I was running out of time.

“Haven’t you been listening? Only you can save his life.Tell them you want to get supplies, take Sonia’s car and drive into Belfast, go to the police station and tell them to contact the FBI.”

She turned her back to me so I couldn’t see her face and her emotions. Her shoulders were shaking in big sobs. I remained quiet. Letting it all sink in.

She wiped her face, looked at me.

“Even if I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t; the FBI would come here and they’d kill us all like they did with Waco. I wouldn’t be saving anybody’s life. We’d all fucking die,” Kit said.

“No, you wouldn’t, you’d be ok, we’d all be ok.”

“My dad would go to prison and I’d go to prison,” she said, tears rolling down those white rose-hip cheeks.

“You wouldn’t go to prison. You wouldn’t serve a day. I promise you that, Kit. And your dad would get a deal too.Touched is the one they want,” I insisted.

“How do you know? How can you promise anything?”

I stood up and put my arms around her.

It had to be the truth.

The truth would show her that it wasn’t bullshit. That although I had deceived them all, I wasn’t lying about my feelings for her. The truth would be a clear light illuminating the way out of this quagmire, this goddamn nightmare.

The truth would free me and her from the history that was weighing us down, breaking us, sinking us.

And besides, she’d already proven to me that she could keep a secret. She hadn’t told them that I’d been in the British Army, not even when Touched said I was on probation or when we’d gone to the Elizabeth to get a general from that army. She’d already joined me in the conspiracy against him. She was flaky, she was young, but she was loyal to her own system of morality. I was asking her to do a betrayal but it was for the right reasons and with the best of intentions. And I could tell she hated Touched. If I handled this right, it wouldn’t be me versus Gerry.It would be me versus Touched, and that contest I could easily win.

Especially this way. This would be the trump card, me put- ting my life in her lap. This would push her over the abyss.

I backed away, put my hand under her chin, and tilted it up to face me.

“Kit, I promise you, the authorities will be lenient with you and your dad. I personally will see to it.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, puzzled.

“The woman Touched murdered was working for British Intelligence and the FBI,” I said.

“How-”

“Because I am too. They put me in that bar in Revere in the hope that I would run into you and win your trust. They got me that crappy job in Salisbury working with another British agent. I was brought here specifically to infiltrate your group, to stop you carrying out atrocities, to prevent a further escalation of violence in Ulster, and to help save the peace process. Everything I’ve done is for Ireland and for a peaceful future.”

Her lip quivered, her mouth opened, but she said nothing.

“It’s true, Kit. I’ve been associated with the FBI in one form or another for the last five years. My name’s Michael, not Sean. Everything I’ve told you about myself is made up. But everything I’ve told you about me and you is true. I love you and it happened the way I said it happened. That night in Revere when they tried to kill your dad. I care about you, Kit. I want you to do the right thing. If you let Touched kill Peter, it’ll destroy you. It will ruin your life before it’s even begun. You’d be killing yourself and your father and Sonia and Jackie. All of us will die because of Touched’s insanity. He’s a fucking twist, Kit. He is touched. He was so crazy that they exiled him. You know what he would do to me if he found out I was an inside man for the Brits? That woman in Newburyport would consider herself lucky she wasn’t me.”

Kit walked backwards away from me, as if I’d punched her in the stomach. All the color out of her face.

“You, you, you’re a liar,” she said in such a quiet voice that I wasn’t sure she was speaking at all.

“I did lie, Kit, I had to. But you yourself said the ends justify the means. Remember that? We can save Peter, we can save your father and all of us,” I said.

“You lied to me.”

“I had to. If I hadn’t, there would be no one here to stop this madness. Kit, come on. You know it’s the right thing to do.”

“What?” she muttered.

“Listen to me. Pay attention. Say you’re having your period and you need tampons, Touched won’t question that; get the car, drive into Belfast, and call the police. Tell them to come after midnight when everyone’s asleep. There won’t be any gunplay. We’ll all get arrested and-”

“You won’t get arrested,” she interrupted.

“No, I won’t. But Touched will and he’ll go to jail for life for his many fucking crimes and the rest of you will get a few years and be out again. Think of the alternative. Peter dead and the rest of you, haunted forever by a senseless killing, on the run from the police. And it won’t stop there. Touched will kill and kill again until he’s caught. He’s like a virus. That twisted brain will keep on killing and infecting other brains with his evil. It’ll be too late for your father then, he’ll be an accomplice and he’ll get locked up forever, or worse.”

“We’ll all be locked up now under your plan,” she said softly.

She was forcing herself to be controlled, her eyes big and broken and on the edge of an emotional abyss. How could I do this to her? How could I? Easy. I’d really no other choice.

“No. Only for kidnap. Nothing else,” I said quickly. “I’ll testify that it was Touched’s plan and everyone else went along under duress. A few years, Kit. That’s all. Believe me.”

“Believe you?” she said, her voice breaking.

“Yes. Believe me, you have to do it. It’s the right thing to do. The way of life is better than the way of death,” I said, but she still couldn’t take it in.

“Your real name is Michael?”

“It is. I am from Belfast, but I’ve been living in America since 1992.”

“Working as a policeman?”

“No. It’s complicated. It’s a complicated situation. Can’t you see? I’m risking everything by telling you this. You get that, don’t you? I’ve taken my life and put it in your hands like a fallen bird. You can save it or you can squeeze it out. My life is the bird in your hands.”

“I don’t know, Se-Michael,” she said, wavering.

“I need you, Kit. I need you to do this for me. And I need you because I love you and I want to spend my life with you. I want to make you happy.”