by Sam O'Brien
“Good man, Pat. And there’ll be something in it for you as long as they stay sealed.”
Pats eyes lit up. “I always said you were a decent fella. You don’t have to worry about a thing with me.”
Oliver watched the grin spread across the horse dealer’s round face. He could see Pat trying to work out how much he might get for letting them use his farm and simply keeping his big mouth shut. Another greedy fucker.
“Can I get a lift into Lexington when you’ve a minute?”
“You can indeed. As long as you make yourself useful and give me a hand to feed and muck out.”
Oliver rolled up his sleeves. A bit of hard labour would be just the job right now to clear the head and get a good sweat up.
He realised as he tossed fork-loads of steaming manure out of Painter’s stable into the trailer, that he had forgotten to call his mother to tell her about Painter being shipped to Limerick, or the stallion deal for Concrete Boot. When he had finished and set a nice fresh bed of clean straw for Painter, he called her.
“Hello?” His mother sounded frail and tired, her voice nearly a whisper.
“Hi, Mum.” There was no longer any need to specify which son was speaking. “Sorry I haven’t called in a while,” he said, wandering into a paddock away from Pat’s cocked ears.
“Oh, it’s so good to hear you! And how’s Rebecca?”
“Bec’s great, Mum. In fact, I’ve a surprise for you.”
“I could do with a bit of good news.”
Oliver felt bad. His mother must be lonely, after all that she’d been through, and here he was on the other side of the world pursuing his own life.
“Mum, we’re coming to Ireland in a month or so. Rebecca can only stay for a day or two, but I’ll be around for a few months, until the Breeding Stock sales start in November.”
“That is a wonderful surprise! I can’t wait. How are the horses going?”
He recounted the whole saga of Concrete Boot’s bad luck in running, the eventual stallion deal, and Painter’s disqualification and her impending Irish trip. He didn’t mention Marco’s name once.
“I’m absolutely delighted for you. You must be so proud of your horses – what a pity your trainer is such a crook.”
Oliver shuddered. Not just the trainer.
“He’s not that bad. To be honest, I think most of them are at it in some way.”
“What about the other one, Shadows of Guernsey?”
“Jersey, Mum, Shadows of Jersey.”
“I knew it was one of the Channel Islands.”
“Er, yeah. Well, he almost got lost in all the scandal and gossip about the other two. He won two sprint races last month, but we’re going to keep him for Saratoga in August. He’ll have some opportunities there. Should win a Grade One.”
“That’s nice. I really can’t wait to see you. It’ll be nice to have a horse around the place again. How long will you keep her here?”
He really hadn’t thought of that. “Oh, er, until she gets pregnant. Then she’ll ship to Argentina.”
“How exciting!” Her voice was filled with hope and optimism. “Oliver?”
“Yes, Mum.”
“I know I don’t really follow the racing or what you do, but I am very proud of you.”
“I know, Mum, thanks. I wish Dad could have . . .” he cut himself off.
“He would be proud of you, too, Oliver. So would Richard.”
“I’m sure you’re right. Thanks, Mum. I’d better go, things to organize.”
“Let me know when you have your tickets booked.”
“Will do. Bye, Mum.” He flipped the phone shut.
That evening, they flushed another two litres into Painter. The scan revealed that her uterus was starting to sag and retain a certain amount of fluid.
“Good,” said Rebecca. “Progress already.”
The filly accepted it all easily, and Rebecca decided that they would try the procedure without sedatives the following morning.
The next day Painter was treated twice more.
“OK, she’s ovulated. So if she cycles normally, twenty-odd days from now she should be spot on for the mission.”
“I’ll talk to the shipping agent tomorrow. Then I’ll call Mike and arrange delivery.”
“I suppose they’ll hardly Fed-Ex it,” she said, drily.
“Why use a courier when you have your very own pony express?”
“Do we need some kind of insurance for the trip? I mean, if we get caught before you call Huntley, we’re basically fucked,” said Rebecca.
The grey sedan flashed through his mind. So did the hammer. “We won’t, Bec. We’ll get away with it because nobody’ll see it coming: nobody would think it possible. The stress’ll keep us sharp.”
Chapter 54
Two days later, they finished work on Painter and let her out in a small paddock to de-stress and enjoy herself.
The same afternoon, Oliver finalized everything with the shipping agent. Painter would be sent to Chicago O’Hare Airport and put on a direct cargo flight to Shannon. As she was the only animal on the plane, her sky-stall crate would be loaded last and unloaded first. All the paperwork was taken care of by a small bloodstock agency in Lexington, which specialized in sending horses across the Atlantic. They would also arrange the tickets and passes for Oliver and Rebecca to accompany the horse. Oliver stressed that he did not want to use a professional flying groom; as Rebecca was a vet, there was no need to provide one.
“Oh, having a vet on board isn’t compulsory any more, but it is advisable,” said the matronly woman, called Darla, who dealt with Oliver’s enquiry.
She tried to persuade him to wait until after the summer sales, so Painter could be placed on a horse specific flight and save considerably on costs.
“We don’t have the luxury of time,” Oliver explained.
“Shucks, that’s a pity,” she drawled.
“But we’ll probably have a big shipment of mares after the November sales.”
“Oh, that’s no problem. We always have plenty going to Europe at that time of year.”
“Good, then book me ten places provisionally.”
“Can do. They’ll be stalls, mind. No crates on those flights; they all fly economy, except for the stallions.”
“That’ll do nicely.”
“That’s all great. I’ll call you with exact dates and times in a week or so, then book the truck to collect you. We’ll have someone meet you at the airport to make sure it all goes off smoothly.”
“Excellent,” said Oliver, relieved.
After he hung up, he realized that he wasn’t quite so relieved after all. In fact, his nerves were jangling. It was getting very real now.
Rebecca got home that evening to find her fiancé sprawled on the sofa, sound asleep in the dark. She kicked off her boots and settled beside him.
Oliver woke with a smile as she ran her fingers through his hair.
“I was dreaming about you,” he said, still drunk with sleep. “Us, actually.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he kissed her. “I don’t know about you, but I’m glad we’re getting out of here. I know it’s been forced on us, and what we’re doing is risky, but . . .”
“It doesn’t feel wrong,” she interrupted.
“Exactly. I want us to start a new life in a new place.”
“Away from all the shit.”
“That would be nice, but . . .” he looked doubtful. “There’s always shit. It just depends on how much.”
She sighed. “Ain’t that the truth.”
Chapter 55
Three weeks later, Oliver waited in the car park of Lexington’s Fayette Mall in Rebecca’s SUV. It was sweltering outside and the air-conditioning was blasting cold air from the vents, but he was stressed and stuck to the leather seat. He looked at his watch: three-twenty. They were late.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and he passed the time looking at the multitudes of people; young couples,
families, and giggling gangs of teenagers, as they all made their way into the vast shrine to consumerism.
A police car rolled past the entrance doors, once, twice, three times. Oliver sweated profusely and craned his neck for a grey sedan; the spectre of Huntley perched like a monkey on his back. On the fourth pass, the car stopped as a cop appeared from the mall clutching take-out drinks and a bag of cookies.
A tap on the door jolted him. He nearly vomited when he saw Tomo standing there with a lopsided smile breaking up his pitted skin and hard features.
Oliver lowered the window a crack. “Do you have it?”
“Yeah,” he said, lifting a duffel bag he had in his right hand.
Oliver let the window fully down to take the bag, but Tomo strolled round to the other side and jumped in, casually looking about. He tossed the bag onto Oliver’s lap. “It’s all there: four keys, four cans.”
“Cans?”
“Yeah, canisters. And no hard feelings, eh? I was just doin’ a job. Business. Fuck, you could be a nice guy, for all I know.”
Oliver looked at him sideways. “I understand. We’re all just trying to do our jobs and get on.”
Tomo opened the bag fully, and Oliver gazed at the four transparent plastic tubes stuffed with white powder. Each was about three inches wide and about a foot long. They were sealed perfectly: vacuum-packed with a thin film of plastic.
“I was told they had to be watertight,” said Tomo.
“Yeah, yeah. Looks good to me. Shut the bag.” Oliver glanced around.
Tomo laughed. “See ya later.” He slipped out, gently closed the door, and got into a blue Ford Taurus that passed by.
Oliver drove to the apartment, picked up Rebecca, and they set off for Four Oaks Farm.
She opened the bag to check the canisters.
“They’re a good shape and size, we shouldn’t even hurt her inserting them, but that’s the least of our worries.” She paused for a moment, deliberating. “I won’t be able to sterilize them at the clinic, it’s too risky.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“I’ll have to soak them in a bucket of iodine solution, rinse them with saline, then immediately insert them.” She cursed under her breath. “I wish we didn’t have to do this in daylight.”
“Me, too, but the truck’s coming at seven pm. It’ll take most of the night to get to O’Hare for the morning flight.”
“Are you sure Pat won’t interfere?”
“It’s Sunday afternoon, he’ll be safely planted on a bar stool, talking horses to whoever’ll listen.”
They got to the barn and Rebecca set the four canisters to soak in a bucket of warm water and iodine. She then set two bags of saline in another bucket.
Oliver led Painter into the stocks and Rebecca administered a larger dose of sedative. Then she started the filly on a course of intravenous antibiotics and painkillers.
“We’ll start her now and give her another shot at the airport. Probably need more sedative as well.”
Painter’s head drooped and she almost wobbled on her feet. Rebecca bandaged her tail with a roll of clean gauze, so every hair was tucked away and would not touch off the package during insertion.
Rebecca cleared the table and laid a sterile drop sheet on it. Then she placed another drop sheet on a bale of hay, on which she put all her equipment.
“OK, here goes. Fingers crossed,” she said.
Oliver winked at her. “No problem, Dr. Liddell.”
Rebecca looked momentarily sceptical, then she pulled on a set of long gloves, grabbed the tube and a bag of saline, and flushed all three litres into Painter. When the bag was empty, she let it drop to the ground and the liquid began to flow back like fuel siphoned from a car.
“That should stretch her out another bit. Now for the hard part.”
She changed her gloves, putting on clean long polythene gloves and short latex ones over them, to give her hands a better grip on the slippery canisters. She took one out of the iodine, placed it on the table, rinsed it with saline from the second bag, applied lubricant, cradled the canister in her right hand and very carefully entered Painter’s vagina. She felt the open cervix with her fingers.
“Hold tight, grab an ear in case.” She looked at Oliver.
He closed his hand around the animal’s left ear and prepared to squeeze hard in case she struggled, but Painter was in another world. Her eyes were partially closed.
Rebecca put her fingers into the cervix and opened them out. With her left hand, she reached in and pushed the canister up inside Painter. She met with resistance – it wasn’t exactly a camel through the eye of a needle, but it wasn’t a perfect fit either. After some coaxing, the cervix stretched and the canister slid inside. She withdrew her right hand and used it to push the object all the way in. It was a kilo in weight and so dropped over the pelvic brim and caused the uterus to sag downwards slightly. Painter opened her eyes for a second, vaguely registering the strange sensation, before drifting off again.
Fifteen minutes later, the other three packages were in place.
“Jesus, it’ll take ages when we have ten mares,” said Oliver.
“It won’t be too bad. They’ll all be old and saggy inside.”
Rebecca then quickly examined Painter.
“It’s tight as a drum in there. We can’t let her wake up too much or she’ll start to contract. It’ll be a miracle if she doesn’t start to panic and show distress during the flight,” she said, removing her arm.
Oliver led the groggy beast back to her stable. Time was ticking by, so Rebecca hastily started clearing everything up. Oliver helped her, and within a few minutes they had the place looking clean. They packed everything into Rebecca’s SUV and threw a blanket over all the equipment. She parked it beside Pat’s house and locked it.
They assembled their bags, with a bale of hay and large drum of water for Painter, along with Rebecca’s small bag of veterinary medicines. She took sterile gloves, lubricant, a bag of saline, needles and syringes, more antibiotics, painkillers, oxytocin, sedative, and a bottle of liquid for a lethal injection.
“We’re not going to be needing this,” said Oliver, handling the bottle of T-61 barbiturate and potassium mixture.
“I know, hon, but if she freaks out mid-flight, and starts kicking all around her, we may have to euthanise her for the safety of the plane.”
Oliver looked flabbergasted. “Jesus, she’s doped up to the gills.”
“I know, it’s just in case.”
Oliver felt like throwing the bottle out, to remove temptation, but if she really did damage the plane, another beating from Tomo would be the least of their worries. He made two cups of coffee and they waited in the tack room for the truck to arrive.
It rattled up the driveway at seven and pulled up to the loading ramp. Oliver coaxed the drunken horse into the truck. As she gingerly walked up the ramp, he could have sworn he heard a clunk from her insides.
* * *
The young agent ripped off the headphones, rubbed his eyes, and yawned. He went downstairs with the device in his hand, poured a coffee, and sat at the kitchen table opposite agent Rosen. “Shit, I’m tired. This is getting long.” He yawned. “Anyway, there’s something you should listen to.”
Rosen looked up from the reams of paper scattered on the table.
“What’s up, Mitch?”
“See what you think.” He played the excerpt from the disc. “What the fuck is that about?”
Rosen shrugged, then he flicked open his notepad and scanned the pages. “Hmm . . . I have a feeling, Mitch. Yesterday, I got word that McMahon’s booked on a cargo flight out of O’Hare today. With a horse. Better check it out. Do me a favour. Call Kimble, tell her to get over there ASAP. Nothing obvious, just get it checked.”
Mitch yawned again and picked up the phone.
* * *
On the way to Chicago, Rebecca gave the horse more injections and offered her some water.
It wasn’t
until they parked in a loading bay and let down the ramp that the full roar of a modern airport hit Painter. She whinnied and pawed the ground with a front leg. Oliver spoke softly to her as she flicked her ears about and tried to rid herself of the fog of sedative.
“We need to load her quickly,” Oliver bellowed at the cargo attendant, who seemed utterly bewildered by the spectacle. He sprung into action and opened the door of the sky-stall crate. It was a large shiny aluminium container that had the back end removed. It had a small sliding door at each side, to allow the handlers access, and was big enough to accommodate two horses, but the partition had been removed to allow Painter the full area to herself. It was on the back of a flatbed lorry, and the driver backed it up to the ramp of the horse truck to make the changeover almost seamless.
Oliver turned Painter round in the truck and encouraged her to take a few steps. She ambled onto the ramp, sniffed the curious object, and snorted a jet of air from her nostrils onto the clean wood-shavings that covered the floor of the sky-stall, causing some to flutter about. Once inside, she took a mouthful of hay from the net hanging at the front of the container, but had no interest in chewing. She let it fall from her mouth and pawed the ground again.
As soon as the door was fitted and Painter enclosed with him, Oliver pulled a syringe from his pocket and deftly delivered the contents into her jugular vein. She instantly stopped pawing the ground and picked another morsel of hay from the net.
He looked at the empty syringe and wondered if he should take a shot, too. This was going to be a long trip.
The container was driven to the loading elevator and hoisted up to meet the lip of the hold on the Boeing 757 cargo plane.
Soon the whole crate was inside, strapped, and bolted to the floor. Take off in forty minutes.
Rebecca poked her head in the front door. “I’ll take over, you go clear Customs and Immigration.”
He took his small bag with him and trotted down the stairway to the tarmac, where a stern- looking female Immigration official waited to escort him to the terminal building. Ten minutes later, he bounded back up the steps brandishing a stamped passport. Then Rebecca grabbed her bag and did the same.
