The Dead Yard Page 24

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “I had no idea he had shackled you and it will not happen again. . . . I want to let you know that I for one never doubted you.”

  “It’s ok,” I said, standing up and balancing myself.

  “No, it’s not ok. Goddamnit, you saved my daughter’s life.And I was moved by that more than you can ever know, Sean,” Gerry said, his eyes getting all watery. “Touched doesn’t want me to tell you this, but I feel so terrible about the way he’s been abusing you in the hospitality of my house. And he even wants to . . .” Gerry’s voice trailed off.

  He’d certainly piqued my bloody interest, though, and I couldn’t let it stop there.

  “What?”

  Gerry sighed. “Oh, I suppose it’s nothing really. But I wanted to let you know that he’s asked our friends in Belfast to check you out too. We should have word back in a couple of days and then the cloud will be gone permanently. We’ll do a proper induction ceremony into the Sons of Cuchulainn and after that, my boy, you’ll start to see how we really work. What the FBI don’t realize is that we’re not lunatics or chaos merchants, we’re smart, and we’re long-term thinkers, and we’ll get it right, you’ll see.”

  I hoped I wasn’t showing any emotion. There were two ways they could check me out back home. They could look into the police computer files, school records, that kind of thing and Sean McKenna would be fine. Six had sorted all that out for him. But the other way might be more tricky. If these “friends” actually went to the trouble of asking questions in the alleged neighborhoods where I used to live, went to the schools I used to attend, talked to the men I supposedly knew, well, then things could be quite a bit hairier.

  I shrugged and smiled.

  It didn’t matter to me anyway. I had already made up my mind. I was staying in until I butchered him and if it meant I had only a couple of days of safety, well, then that rapist-murderer had only a couple of days too.

  * * *

  We stood in the driveway while Gerry lowered the flags. The van was loaded up, and the two vehicles were ready. Kit was wearing a black trench coat that didn’t suit her, a wool sweater, and a Boston Red Sox wool hat.

  “How far up is this cabin? You look as if we’re going to the North Pole,” I asked her.

  Kit looked at me and smiled. She was goofy but she could get me killed, that girl. One blab to Touched about the army and I’d be dead meat.

  “You’d be surprised how cold it can get. You ever look at the weather reports in the papers? On days when it’s ninety degrees in Boston, a hundred degrees in New York, check out Mount Washington and it’s like forty.”

  Sonia laughed.

  “She’s exaggerating, Sean. It won’t be that cold. And the cabin isn’t even in the mountains. We won’t be anywhere near Mount Washington,” she said.

  Kit’s nose wrinkled up in a way that would have made the Ottoman eunuchs weep into their sherbet.

  And because she looked so beautiful I had to insult her.

  “That coat doesn’t really work on you, it’s trailing along the ground,” I said.

  “That’s what I told her,” Jackie said.

  “You two know nothing. It’s called a trail-duster frock coat.They’re, like, making this film next summer called The Matrix, Keanu is in it and that’s the whole look,” she said.

  “Again with Keanu,” Jackie groaned.

  I turned my attention to Sonia, who also looked radiant in a summer dress that shimmered brilliantly with the light behind her.

  “It’s in the woods though, right?” I asked.

  “It is in the woods, a very beautiful part of the state, I think you’re going to like it very much. We’ll have so much fun,”Sonia said happily.

  Sonia, it seemed, was unaware of the “surprise” that was going to happen to us when we got up there. The mysterious plan B.

  “Gerry said something about the fall colors.” “Oh, we’re far too early for that, but you never know. Anyway, since I’m the pathfinder I’d better go,” she said. She kissed Gerry and Kit, waved, and drove off in the Mercedes.

  “She’s not going with the rest of us?” I asked Kit.

  “Nah, she’s going first to get the cabin ready. I was supposed to go too, but there was no way,” she said.

  “She’s totally incorrigible,” Jackie said. He considered me a mate now to whom he could lightheartedly bitch about his crazy girlfriend.

  “Was it really bad last night, back at the flat?” I asked him.

  “I do not even want to talk about it,” he said.

  “What happened last night?” Kit asked. “Was it that woman you chased out of town?”

  My mouth opened and closed. Chased out of town? Who had told her that bald-faced lie? And what other unpleasant episodes had they kept from her?

  Hmmm. Exactly how sure were they of her and Sonia? And if her own father was ashamed to tell her about the horrors Touched had perpetrated, it might mean that she was pliable and not as committed as the three men. Good. I would choose to believe it that way. Maybe I could even like her without the guilty conscience.

  Kit tapped her foot. She was waiting for an answer. I looked at Jackie but he wasn’t ready for an off-the-cuff remark and I wasn’t going to help him out.

  “Nothing,” he said finally. “I had to clean up a big mess.”

  Kit looked at him suspiciously and let the matter drop.

  Jackie smiled at me and fidgeted with a gun in his pocket.A small-caliber revolver. So both he and Gerry were packing heat. But that was ok too, I wasn’t worried.

  Having lowered his flags and put them away, Gerry walked over.

  “Ok, lads and lasses, we better go. I told Touched I’d pick him up by six and the afternoon is wearing on.”

  “Where is Touched?” I asked him.

  “Oh, he went up to Portsmouth already, Kittery actually, Kittery, Maine,” Jackie said.

  “We’re meeting him there?” I asked. “Yes, well, we are. We have a slightly tricky but ultimately rewarding task to accomplish. Important for you, Sean, in particular. I think this will be an opportunity for you to show Touched that paranoia is perhaps not the most agreeable of notions.”

  Gerry locked the house and we piled into another big McCaghan Construction van. Jackie driving, Kit and Gerry squeezed into the other seats of the front cabin. Only a half-partition between them and me in the back. Gerry had locked me in, I’d noticed, but it didn’t faze me. If I wanted to escape I could easily cry for help any number of times in the slow drive through Newburyport before we got to the highway. True, Gerry could have shot me with his silenced 9mm, but it was moot, I wasn’t looking to escape, I was looking to bide my bloody time. . . .

  It was nearly dark when we arrived in Kittery—a small town just across the water from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

  We drove into a landing place for boats and, sure enough, there was Touched, large as life, twice as nasty, looking sinister in leather jacket, boots, and a brown shirt.

  “There he is,” Kit said happily.

  Yeah, good old Uncle Touched.

  He slammed the side of the van and, using his own key, opened it and got in the back next to me. He nodded a hello and I nodded back, but when he noticed Kit his good humor departed.

  “Gerry, what the fuck is she doing here?” he asked.

  Gerry looked shamefaced.

  “I couldn’t keep her away,” he said.

  “Jesus Christ, Gerry, I thought we discussed this,” Touched said. “She was supposed to go with Sonia and get the cabin ready.”

  “We did discuss it—” Gerry began but Kit cut him off.

  “First of all, Touched, it’s not ‘she,’ my name is Kit. And second of all, you are not the boss of me, and third of all, how come you’re bringing along Sean, who’s been with us for less than a week, and not me? How come? I’ll tell you how come. Because I’m a girl and you’re a fucking sexist pig,” Kit said loudly.

  “Keep your voice down for
one thing. And for two, just because you’re Gerry’s daughter doesn’t mean I can’t give you orders. I am the boss of you and you’ll do as you’re fucking told,” Touched said.

  Kit stared at him, then at her da. Touched clenched his fist. Another time, another crowd and he would have belted her.But Kit slipped in one of her devastating apology/seductress smiles. Touched quivered, cracked, relented.

  “Well, anyway, I guess now that you’re here,” he said, “I suppose I have no bloody choice.”

  “No choice,” Kit said triumphantly.

  Touched looked at Gerry. “Did you tell Kit and Sonia about Sean’s wee dose of house arrest?” he asked.

  Gerry coughed. “Er, no, I’m afraid I did not have an occasion for that, we were all so busy and what with the packing and everything,” he said.

  Touched sighed. “Kit, it’s like this, we had a bit of a close call yesterday and now Sean is under close watch. He knows it and he approves of it, so he doesn’t get access to firearms and you’re not to be alone with him. Understood?”

  Kit looked at me strangely, a little intrigued by my new status, but she obediently nodded.

  “Better brief them, Touched,” Gerry said.

  Touched cleared his throat and grinned excitedly.

  “Ok, folks. This is what we call a target of opportunity. I know what you’re thinking, we should lie low for a few weeks after all that’s happened in the last couple of days. But it’s exactly the opposite. We have to prove to the real Provos in Ireland that even in the face of a couple of setbacks, we can hit fast and hard and effectively,” Touched said, explaining nothing at all.

  “Yeah, but what’s the mission?” Kit asked.

  “The mission for you is to do nothing, Kit. I’m handling it.Me and Gerry will do all the work, the three of you do what we say and stay out of it. Me and Gerry are old hands, we know what we’re doing.”

  Touched reached into his jacket and gave Kit and myself each an old Webley revolver.

  “These are just for show, they’re not loaded. Gerry and me will do any shooting that’s necessary,” Touched said, but I checked the gun anyway in case there was one in the chamber.

  “What about me? I can help. I got mine,” Jackie said.

  “Jackie. Don’t you do a goddamn thing without my say-so.

  Understood?” Touched said.

  Jackie nodded.

  “The mission, explain the mission,” Gerry said.

  “Ok then. I’ve got a motorboat and we’re going to that yacht over there in the harbor with the two masts and the yellow paint. It’s called the Elizabeth Regina. We’re going to go on and get someone and get off it again. Simple as pie,”Touched said.

  “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.