The Storm Protocol

by Iain Cosgrove

  The remembrance of a beloved mother becomes a shadow to all our actions; it precedes or follows them. – Anon.

  ‘It’s funny,’ said Dale, as the green fields flashed past the windows, ‘but even though I've been trained vigorously in the use of firearms. Even though I practice regularly, and I’m a very good shot. Even though I do all these things, and know that the sole purpose of a gun is to kill.’

  He paused and then sighed.

  ‘Even though I am well aware of all those facts and accept them, I still never thought I would ever kill another man with a gun.’

  ‘You may not have,’ said Roussel. ‘There were a lot of bullets flying and only three targets went down.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose, but the law of averages would suggest that I killed at least one of them,’ said Dale.

  He paused again, this time for a little longer.

  ‘Did you ever kill someone?’ he asked Roussel eventually.

  Roussel looked at him sourly.

  ‘Before yesterday I mean,’ Dale clarified hurriedly.

  Roussel paused for a few seconds.

  ‘Back on the beat, when I was a new recruit in the Sheriff’s Department,’ said Roussel. ‘I was called to a disturbance outside a nightclub, or rather we were; my partner and me. The bouncers had already ejected the guy; he was drunk and disorderly. He’d been systematically harassing all of the single ladies at the bar; getting real mouthy and suggestive with them. So the owners called us in. When my partner and I got there, he was screaming and shouting and kicking the door, demanding to be let back in. The bouncers were standing off; they’d had enough. We told him to calm down. He shouted I’ll show you fucking calm. He bent down; the next thing, he’d got a gun in his hand.’

  ‘What did you do?’ asked Dale.

  ‘The first shot went between me and my partner; took the window out of the patrol car. The second shot hit my partner in the thigh. Scumbag didn't get time for another one. We’d been taught to aim for the big sections of the body. The bullet mushroomed and blew his heart clean out through the back of his torso. There was a full investigation, as there has to be with every firearms discharge on-the-job. There was never any question it was anything other than a justifiable homicide.’

  ‘Did you ever question yourself though?’ asked Dale.

  ‘Brian and me were partners for a long time before I joined CID,’ said Roussel. ‘We’re still good friends; play a lot of racquet ball, when we can find the time. Every time I see that scar on his thigh, where they had to rebuild his shattered femur, I give thanks to the Lord that I had the guts to pull the trigger that night.’

  Dale turned to me.

  ‘So, do you ever get used to killing?’ he asked.

  ‘Now there’s an interesting question,’ I replied. ‘Do you ever get used to killing? I can only give you my perspective, but I suppose it's like everything. The first one is always the hardest; then it just gets easier. I wouldn’t say you ever fully get used to it, I would say you more get desensitised to it; desensitised to death that is.’

  ‘So, could you pull your gun now and shoot both of us dead?’ asked Roussel.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  I laughed.

  ‘Well for a start, I was hoping you'd noticed that I wasn't just some crazed killer,’ I answered, slightly affronted. ‘But for me at least, I always needed a justification. Guido and Ernesto knew that, and in some ways I think they were happy with it too.’

  ‘So, are you claiming some morality behind your killings?’ asked Dale interestedly.

  I thought about it.

  ‘Morality might be the wrong word,’ I said. ‘Obviously, taking a life is wrong; certainly, if you follow the Ten Commandments, it’s a mortal sin. But I would always look deeper that.’

  ‘Give me an example?’ asked Roussel.

  ‘If I was asked to retire an individual,’ I said, ‘I would look at his track record and, see what he’d done. With most of the business arrangements I engaged in, the targets were killers, pushers, enforcers. So I would justify it to myself that I was saving innocent people from death, by killing.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a tenuous link, don’t you think?’ asked Roussel.

  ‘It’s a self-justification that has evolved over time,’ I said. ‘I can live with it.’

  ‘How did you get into that particular game anyway?’ asked Dale. ‘Not what you would expect from a lonely Irish Immigrant barely out of his teens.’

  ‘It’s surprising what people adapt to when they have to,’ I said. ‘When I left Ireland, I was a big thick naive Mick. My American streets weren’t paved with gold, as I’d been led to believe, they were paved with shit. So there I was, scratching a living working two or three jobs, when this Colombian gang surround me. I was dragged into an alley in Brooklyn on the way home one night. They worked me over nicely; left me for dead, or at least that’s what I thought at the time. Two kindly gentlemen happened to find me; father figures and Catholic like myself.’

  I laughed.

  ‘They helped me back on my feet, paid my hospital bills and then put a gun in my hand, and told me where the gang normally hung out. I was just going to fire a few shots over their heads; frighten them a little, as I told them who I was, and why I was there, naïvely not realising they'd be packing heat. I had to kill them all. It’s a dog eat dog world, and since then I’ve had a ten course barbecue.’

  ‘The story the CIA man told us,’ acknowledged Dale.

  I nodded.

  ‘Of course, the Mancini's had me from there. Illegal alien, legal alien; what’s the difference, when you are facing time on multiple murder charges? But that day in the pharmacy everything changed. To use that dog analogy again, every dog has its day.’

  ‘So, can you teach an old dog some new tricks?’ asked Dale with a smile.

  ‘Let's hope so,’ I said.

  ‘How do you feel about the Mancini’s now?’ asked Roussel.

  ‘Well it's funny. Maybe I’ve just got too jaded and cynical, but I don't blame them and I don’t hate them. Getting rid of me is really just an expedient business proposition for them. They would regard it just the same as if they were changing their accountant. To be honest, yeah, they may be vain narcissistic old men with huge egos and as mean as stray dogs, but they were like fathers to me when I needed it the most.’

  ‘So, have you given any more thoughts to the other issue we have?’ asked Roussel.

  I looked at him with a puzzled expression.

  ‘Who do you think this guy Black Swan might be? Why does he have such a hard-on for you?’

  ‘I have given it a lot of thought,’ I said, ‘but I’d appreciate hearing what you guys think?’

  ‘Well, as you said yourself,’ said Roussel. ‘For the Mancini's, this is business; maybe a little bit of regret, but mainly business. But for Black Swan this is personal. In some way or other, in some other life, you have seriously pissed him off.’

  ‘Do you know what?’ I said. ‘I’ve been looking at it in the same way, and I came to the exact same conclusion. But for the life of me, I cannot think of who he might be or, what it could be that I’ve supposedly done to him. Our paths can’t have crossed for at least twenty to twenty five years. I’ve had nothing to do with Ireland during that time. I’ve racked my brains, and I just cannot remember a single possible matching scenario, either person or place.’

  ‘What about historic grudges; against your family maybe?’ queried Roussel.

  ‘No, I don’t buy that,’ I said. ‘We had a very simple and happy life.’

  ‘What about your parents?’ asked Roussel.

  ‘Mum was universally liked,’ I said. ‘If she’d had enemies, they would have liked her too.’

  ‘What about your Dad?’

  ‘He died when I was fairly young,’ I said. ‘I don’t remember him around much. He was gone most of the week, and a lot of the weekends too. Even most Christmases, he was only th
ere sporadically.’

  ‘Well, this might be something or it might be nothing,’ said Dale suddenly, ‘but your dad’s name was....’

  He consulted his notepad.

  ‘....Richard, right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, in the register of marriages, births and deaths, they have no record of him at all.’

  I was stunned for a second.

  ‘Isn’t there a possibility that they just couldn’t find the documents?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Dale. ‘Although I think it's highly unlikely. After all, they went to the trouble of trying to cross reference the records for your mother and your father. If they’d found anything, they would have definitely attached them.’

  ‘They must be somewhere else,’ I said flatly.

  Dale held up his hand.

  ‘Well, I do have a reason for mentioning it. You know how fond I am of tenuous and circumstantial information. And when you think about it, there is something very odd about Scott Mitchell and his attempt to pass himself off as Alan Murphy, your long lost boy. Whoever is behind this scheme is targeting something very specific here; the relationship between a father and a son. Tie that back in with the lack of information about your father. It’s just too much of a coincidence not to warrant a follow-up.’

  ‘Are you saying there’s something dodgy about my father,’ I said with affront.

  ‘I’m not saying anything of the sort,’ said Dale. ‘I’m just saying it warrants further investigation.’

  ‘Do you have a family lawyer?’ asked Roussel suddenly.

  We both looked at him blankly.

  ‘A solicitor, you mean?’ I asked. ‘Looks after legal affairs?’

  He nodded.

  ‘When my parents passed away, they left an awful lot of documentation behind them. I asked the lawyers to hold onto it all for me for a small fee. Couldn’t bear to go through it all at the time,’ he said, a little sadly.

  I snapped my fingers.

  ‘Damn it Roussel, you’re right,’ I said. ‘There was a box of papers that the solicitors wanted to send me at the time my mother died. Like you said, I couldn’t face it then, it was just too raw. I have no recollection of what I told them to do with it all.’

  ‘They might still have it?’ inquired Roussel softly.

  ‘Carpe Diem,’ I said softly.

  ‘What?’ they both said together.

  ‘Seize the day,’ I added. ‘You believe this could shed more light on my father, which incidentally I don’t. But you are both experienced investigators, so I can’t ignore it. We are only about fifteen minutes away from their offices. What’s a little detour, to sort this out once and for all?’

  I pulled over to the side of the road, and scrolled through my phone, until I came to the number I wanted. I always kept my phone contacts completely up-to-date. It had saved my life more than once.

  Just over ten minutes later, we were heading back into town. I had managed to secure half an hour with one of the managing partners.

  ‘You guys stay here,’ I said, as I parked up across the street. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

  I walked into reception and gave the receptionist my biggest smile.

  ‘Thomas O’Neill to see John Maguire,’ I said brightly.

  ‘Certainly, Mr O’Neill,’ she said to me. ‘Come this way.’

  She led me down the corridor into a large, generously equipped boardroom. A dusty storage box sat on the table with the lid removed, and some of the files had already been spread over the large expanse of mahogany.

  ‘Mr Maguire will be with you shortly,’ she stated. ‘Would you like a tea or coffee in the meantime?’

  ‘Just some water if that’s okay,’ I answered. ‘Many thanks.’

  I started shifting aimlessly through the files.

  ‘It’s still the best way to read documents I think,’ said a voice behind me. ‘Words written down on a sheet of paper, just like God intended.’

  I turned around to get a good look at John Maguire. He must have been in his late sixties. He was probably only working now because his name was above the door; Molloy and Maguire solicitors. He had a pleasant roundish face and a beaming smile, but with that unfortunate affliction that some men get as they grow older; the legion of grey hair circling the scalp, with nothing on top.

  He shook my hand warmly.

  ‘I'm with you,’ I said. ‘I can't read anything on a computer screen. I have to print it out.’

  He nodded with understanding, and then stared at me questioningly.

  ‘I’m looking for some documents pertaining to my father,’ I said, rather formally.

  ‘Which documents would those be?’ he asked politely.

  I thought about it for a minute or so.

  ‘I’ll know them when I see them,’ I said.

  ‘As you wish,’ he said. ‘I’ll unpack, you can sort.’

  First thing out of the pile was my mother's death certificate. I’d seen a lot of death, and it hadn’t affected me in the slightest, but this particular document brought a lump to my throat. I knew why of course; still a lot of unfinished business.

  There were numerous other documents, relating to the original purchase of my current house, and the sale of the old house on Merchants Quay, but strangely enough, on both documents, my mother was named as the sole owner. I scratched my head.

  Then out of the blue, I pulled another document out of the pile; my mother's birth certificate. I gave it a cursory glance over and then put it to one side. I was about to pick up the next document, when something made me go back.

  ‘This is odd,’ I said to the aged solicitor. ‘Check out my mother's maiden name?’

  I pointed to the area on the document.

  ‘Maiden name?’ he responded, looking at me with a puzzled expression. ‘Your mother was never married.’

  If he had shot me, I wouldn't have been more surprised.

  ‘What do you mean, she wasn't married?’ I asked, almost in a whisper.

  ‘I’m not sure I can put it any plainer, young man,’ he said. ‘She wasn't married. There is no marriage certificate, no mention of a husband, no joint accounts, nothing.’

  I scrabbled around on the desk. He looked at me in alarm, as documents started to go flying. At last I came up with the document I needed, holding it aloft like a trophy.

  ‘My birth certificate,’ I said. I almost ripped the document, I was so eager to unfold it. I read the single word, beautifully scripted in fountain pen. And then, as the full impact of the word sank in, I flopped down onto one of the chairs. He plucked the document from my nerveless fingers, his lips echoing the word that was repeating over and over in my own head; unknown.

  ‘How can that be?’ I asked finally, in a choked whisper.

  He pulled up a chair and sat down facing me.

  ‘You’ve got to remember,’ he said kindly. ‘Ireland was a different place back then. In some ways you’re lucky that you and your mum were able to stay together. In most cases, children born out of wedlock were forcibly removed and put into care homes.’

  Both he and I instinctively shuddered at the thought.

  ‘But hold on a second,’ I said triumphantly. ‘I have a copy of my birth certificate which states that my father is Richard O'Neill.’

  He shook his head a little sadly.

  ‘Back then, when the mothers were getting copies of the certificate,’ he said. ‘They would ask for the father's name to be filled in.’

  I didn’t like the way he accentuated the word father.

  ‘Sometimes, all they had to do was ask, other times a small quantity of money would change hands.’

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  ‘But I met him, I knew him,’ I said.

  ‘Did you really?’ he asked. ‘In those days it wasn't unheard of for cousins of the mother to play the part, or even brothers.’

  ‘So the man I knew as my father could have been my uncle or my second cousin?’ I ask
ed.

  ‘He could,’ he answered. ‘I’m sorry, young man.’

  He patted my shoulder.

  ‘I thought you knew; that you were seeking information on your father to track him down. I didn't see it as unusual. I thought you were on a quest to find him, and were looking for some specific information.’

  ‘Yeah, that's pretty ironic isn’t it,’ I said, a little sourly. ‘I come searching for my father, and find out I really do need to be searching for my father.’

  I stood up abruptly.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Maguire, for taking the time to see me at such short notice.’

  He shook my hand and looked at me with concern.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘Thanks again.’

  ‘Take care of yourself, Thomas,’ he said.

  I walked back into reception and asked the receptionist if I could use the restroom. She pointed at a different door on the other side of the corridor and handed me the key.

  I sat down in one of the cubicles with my head in my hands and did something I had not done for almost thirty years; I cried.

  When I exited the front door of the building some five minutes later, the outpouring of emotions had hardened my resolve like steel in a forge. Someone had made this personal. Now it was personal for me too; bad move on their part.

  Chapter 40 – Imperfect

  21st May 2011 – Eleven days after the Storm.

  There is always a ‘but’ in this imperfect world. – Anne Bronte.

  The steering wheel danced and twitched in his hands as the large low-profile tyres continually fed back to him what the car wanted to do.

  At this stage of his life, Ben could afford pretty much any car he wanted and he had test-driven most, but the Mazda was still his favourite. Full four seat practicalities, allied to a free revving rotary engine. Couple that with an almost ideal forty nine to fifty one percent weight distribution, rear-wheel drive and perfect temperament. It was the easiest car to push to the limit that he had ever driven, and no matter how much punishment he dished out, it would absolutely never fight him back. It didn't have a lot of torque, but if you kept the revs high, and your foot planted, you could have a serious amount of fun.