Death in Dublin

by Bartholomew Gill

  Would Dan-Oh reload? Sure, if he’d thought to carry another clip, which Ray-Boy doubted. They were heavy, bulky, and unnecessary for the surprise hit and a quick escape that the prick had obviously planned.

  Raising the gun, he aimed at the black smudge near the top of the rattling door and squeezed off a round that bucked into the lift motor, which exploded in a shower of brilliant sparks and stopped the door.

  But Dan-Oh, having seen Ray-Boy lift the gun, now bolted from cover and, firing once more, dived under the narrow opening at the bottom of the door, with Ray-Boy—bam! bam!—touching off his last two remaining slugs.

  One went out the open door, the second ripped a fist-sized gap in the corrugated metal door and sprayed the yard with shrapnel, Ray-Boy hoped.

  Moving as fast as he could with the slug in his thigh, he dragged himself to the next bay and punched the button to raise the overhead door. But nothing happened; it didn’t work. Nor the next nor the next.

  The motor that he’d shot must have shorted out the circuit breaker. But it didn’t matter much, he realized, since he knew where Dan-Oh would go to ground. Eventually.

  What did matter, however, was Ray-Boy’s crew, who could no longer return to the warehouse.

  After phoning them, Ray-Boy picked up the broadsword and limped toward the office, suspecting he’d need a little something for shock value. If only to keep them on edge.

  After he plastic-bagged and boxed his trophy, Ray-Boy returned to his room, where by the light of a pocket torch, he removed the breastplate and his clothes, bandaged his leg as well as he was able, and put on the set of street clothes he used when visiting his bank—a conservative gray pinstriped suit, white shirt and pearl-gray tie, black brogues, with even a hankie in the pocket.

  In the mirror, he removed the ring from the septum of his nose, which caused it to bleed a little, as always. He then gave his brogues a few swipes with a polishing rag and tossed the mattress off the cot, which covered a small armory of weapons.

  What would he need? It was hard to tell, but certainly the rocket launcher and two charges just to get out of there, and the rifle that he’d used so agreeably the other night on the Glasnevin Road. It would be his weapon of revenge.

  And also something to match his suit of clothes. Say a Beretta .222—smallish, light, but not without a killing punch. Slipping it into the pocket that the tailor had fixed under the left-side placket, Ray-Boy limped down the length of the building with his weaponry in tow toward the office.

  There, Ray-Boy placed the scrambler in his mouth and made the final call, he assumed, from the building that he’d called home for nearly two years.

  It made him feel a bit nostalgic as he moved through the darkened building to bay seven, where he kept a Land Rover for just such an emergency.

  Raising the launcher to his shoulder, Ray-Boy loosed a charge that blew through the door with a stunning report and created a gap just large enough for the Rover. Which he considered an omen of such note that he decided to place the launcher beside the rifle in the well by the back gate of the vehicle.

  Slowly and carefully he backed the car out into the laneway. A flat would not do now, not here where the explosion had already drawn the attention of two people in the car park of the chocolate factory. They had walked to the edge of the lot.

  But what was the chance of a punct with thick, new, knobby tires on a car that could take him just about anywhere?

  The thought cheered him, since it hadn’t been the money, really, that made him agree to the proposition that had ended his father’s sorry life and might also kill him too. No. It was the doing of it, and doing it right.

  Like the heads. The heads were a brilliant touch, just the thing to make all the other Celtic bullshit, which otherwise would have been incredible, work.

  Of which Ray-Boy still had a bit to do himself. But he knew where that would happen, planning being his forte. In everything.

  Out in the car park of the chocolate factory an hour earlier, Hugh Ward had watched the bay door begin to open. He saw a man bolt from under the narrow aperture, then twist around to fire a small handgun back inside before rolling to the edge of the loading dock platform. There the blast from the exploding door blew him off into the laneway, where he lay for a moment or two, before scrambling up and sprinting right at Ward, who only then saw it was the man Sweeney had called Stu on the railway platform. The tall and thin man with blondish gray curly hair. In his forties, but fit and tanned.

  As he came closer and closer, Ward slumped down farther in the seat, debating what he should do—take him down or follow him.

  And Ward saw he was hurt, as he bolted past the Opel. Blood was pouring down one side of his face, his ear, his neck. His eyes, which were some light shade of blue, were a bit glassy.

  In the rearview mirror, Ward watched him use an electronic key to enter a rather new Volvo sedan. The lights flashed on, the car sprinted forward, then wheeled toward the road.

  Ward reached for the ignition key, not the lights, and he waited until the car had bolted out into traffic. Only then did he move forward.

  CHAPTER

  13

  IT WAS DUSK BY THE TIME MCGARR, MCKEON, AND Kara arrived at the Garda heliport near Dublin Airport.

  Sweeney—McGarr could see from the large car that was pulled up beside the dispatcher’s shed—had already arrived. As arranged, McGarr dialed in Sweeney’s number and waited for him to answer.

  “Took yiz fookin’ long enough.”

  McGarr did not respond.

  “And there you had the dead cert part. Me? I’m at sixes and sevens, I am. Every last bloody cent I could get me hands on in short notice, and every marker, favor, and good deed I’ve done in the past was called in. McGarr, you there?”

  McGarr made a noise in the back of his throat.

  “Relatives, friends, and—I’ll admit it, the church—put what they could into the pot. And then, then, I had to get me hands on bloody bonds, which took some bloody doing on short notice, I’ll have you know. Fifty fookin’ million quid in bearer bonds, the kind you, me, or your poxy granny could take to Switzerland, the Republic of Eire”—he pronounced it “err”—“or the Cayman Islands and have it accepted with due groveling and no questions asked.

  “Where’s the fookin’ chopper? I’m getting out.”

  “Don’t,” said McGarr. “We’ll wait until Bernie’s filed a flight plan and gone through the motions inside.”

  “Yiz haven’t done that already? Christ, you’re making a balls of this thing, and we’re not even off the ground.”

  McGarr would later remember glancing down the runway toward the west, where a lowering sky was obscuring the sunset, and thinking how ominous that sounded. Which was his last-second thought. “Have you spoken to them again?”

  “I have, yeah?”

  “Did they give you some idea of a direction? Bernie will need a heading for the flight plan.”

  “Nah, shit. They’re a bunch of gobshites and wankers altogether. The most I could get out of him was head northwest, and once they see us in the air, they’ll give us a bearing.

  “Wait.” McGarr could hear Sweeney strain and then the rumpling of paper. “It’s twenty-three degrees northwest, which means nothing to me.”

  McGarr repeated the number, and McKeon got out of the car and approached the dispatcher’s shed.

  From the backseat, Kara reached out and caressed the back of McGarr’s neck.

  “What the fook do I do now?” Sweeney asked.

  “Hang on.”

  “Janie, do you see that fookin’ sky? Have yiz not heard the reports? We’ve got to get this sideshow up, up, and away. Instanter.”

  Leaning back into her hand, McGarr wondered how much Sweeney had drunk. Or if he had been drinking at all. Could he be always on the qui vive, like this? Was there a real Sweeney?

  “Who’s that with you? The person in the back with her hand on your…neck?” he demanded.

  McGarr ignored h
is deep wet laugh and the unmistakable pop of a cork from the neck of a flask.

  Inside the shed, McKeon found the dispatcher at his tea in the storeroom behind the office. They had timed it perfectly. “Seamus Flavin, old man, how be thee?”

  “I’m in great form altogether, Bernard.” His hand swept the table, which was set rather formally with an actual plate, stainless-steel utensils, and a cloth serviette. There was a microwave off to one side, and the dish appeared to be some thick beef or mutton stew. Steam was rising from the teacup. “What can I do for you?”

  “I won’t keep you from your tea, but didn’t I dig out me hours this morning and see I’m getting low. And wouldn’t you know the minute I’m found wanting, they’ll be needing me services with me no longer qualified.”

  The man’s brow glowered. “But have y’not checked the weather, Bernie? It’s closing in. We’ve a falling barometer and predictions of fog. And it’s late.” He glanced at the clock on the wall, which said half five. “Can’t you take her up tomorrow?”

  McKeon shook his head. “It’s all the better—instrumentation, night flying, the whole megillah. More like the real thing.” He turned to the office, where the flight plans were kept. “The Sikorsky’s gassed up, I assume, ready to go.”

  “Like all of them,” Flavin said defensively. “All of the time. It’s my job, and don’t say I didn’t warn you. In fact, I’ll note it down.” He began to rise from his chair.

  But McKeon held out a hand. “Tuck in, tuck in—I’ll do it for you.”

  Flavin looked down at the dish, nodded once, and sat. “And safe out and back.”

  “Please, God,” said McKeon, who moved to the door and signaled to McGarr, before reaching for a flight plan. “I’m putting it right here under the conditions, Seamus—‘Warned by dispatcher foul weather and darkness.’”

  “Good lad.”

  Out on the tarmac, McGarr said into his cell phone. “Okay—we’ll get out now. Quickly. And have your driver pull away.”

  McGarr got out and opened the back door for Kara, who was wearing stout boots, slacks, and a waterproof anorak with hood. “Just in case,” she’d said.

  Which had caused McGarr, who hadn’t thought about the possibility of having to deal with the elements, to dress similarly in his oilskin fishing jacket, half boots, and fishing hat, all waterproof.

  Sweeney, however, was as always wearing the rumpled mac. Pulling himself out of the large car, he shambled around to the boot, which had popped open, his gait at once pigeon-toed and bowlegged, which caused him to lurch from side to side.

  His head was slightly bent, as though having to tote around his massive body was a burden that he felt with each lumbering step. Or that he was constantly glancing down at his feet to make sure they were following the choreography that he had devised for them. Which was, McGarr knew all too well, intricate and Byzantine. Or perhaps Celtic? There was no way to know.

  McGarr tried to see into the car, but all the windows, including the windscreen, were obscured, and the interior lights had not switched on when the door opened.

  Reaching down into the boot, Sweeney grunted and pulled out a packet about three feet by four feet but only four or five inches deep. Spinning around, he had to put a foot to the side in order to steady himself. “Here ’tis. Fifty fookin’ mill. Take it, please.” He thrust the container at McGarr, who did not raise his hands.

  “Then you.” He swung the packet around to Kara, who with a smile of surprise accepted it. “Now you’ll be able to tell your kids you once had your hands on fifty big ones.”

  Reaching back, Sweeney pulled out a metal case into which, McGarr assumed, he would fit the bonds. When the lid of the boot was closed, the large car rolled away. “And haven’t I heard about you, darlin’ girl, and not all good. But then again”—Sweeney swung the meaty features of his pocked and rumpled face to McGarr—“I hear about myself constantly. Daily. The scandalous things people”—he jabbed a finger at McGarr’s nose—“presume about me are patently outrageous when, it’s now turning out, we’ve been on the same side all along.”

  “Speaking of presumptions, Mr. Sweeney,” Kara said, resting the packet by her feet. “I’ve seen and held cartons before, but I’ve never glimpsed just what a bearer bond looks like.”

  “Ach, why not. We’ll do it in the ship. I’ve always wanted to do it in a ship.”

  There were fifty sheets in all, each composed of ten U.S. $100,000 notes with perforated edges that could be torn off and redeemed, or converted into another form of currency by the bearer, hence the name. Their color was green.

  “Lightweight, easily transportable, and utterly negotiable,” said Sweeney. “Fools though these Druid cunts may be, they’re a savvy lot when it comes to ransoms. Though, I’ll hazard, they’ll fall out with each other the moment this arrives in their possession.”

  They watched as McKeon, who had entered the cockpit, now toggled several switches, adjusted his headset, and activated the solenoid of the starter motor.

  “Sure,” Sweeney had to shout, “with this lot and a good”—he held the word for a moment, his rheumy eyes glancing up and fixing McGarr’s—“woman, why even you might consider retirement. A world tour. The Costa del Sol.

  “Are you armed, man?”

  McGarr only regarded him.

  “With you along, I left mine at home. But, of course, I can’t be armed, villain that I am. Drink?”

  From his mac, Sweeney removed a large silver flask and offered it to Kara, who had turned her head and looked away.

  At the corner of her jade-colored eye, McGarr could see a tear forming.

  “You?”

  McGarr shook his head.

  “And you—you’re drivin’, and get on with it.”

  As the helicopter lifted off into the overcast and now windy night sky, Hugh Ward watched the man called Stu lower the binoculars he’d been holding to his face before tossing them into his car and walking briskly toward the busy airlines passenger terminal that was lit by banks of brilliant lights.

  Ward debated what to do—follow him or wait until he returned to the Volvo, which was parked illegally and would get clamped or towed, were he not to return soon.

  After five minutes, Ward got out and checked the number of the tax stamp of the car, not daring to enter the rather new car that a small sticker on the driver-side window said was equipped with an alarm.

  Back in the old Opel, Ward called Swords, who ran the number through the Garda database. “You won’t believe this. The coincidence. It’s owned by an outfit called the Kells Corporation, one of eight vehicles including a light truck.”

  “Address?”

  “Thirty-seven Coolock Road.”

  It was the location of the warehouse.

  “What about the large car, any luck with that?”

  “Some. The list of possible owners runs to four pages of small type. What we’d need would be the tax number.”

  A tall, uniformed Garda dressed for the worsening weather now approached the Volvo, turning his head to the side to take in the license plate, then training the beam of his torch on the tax stamp. Looking into the car itself, he shook his head, evidently upon seeing the binoculars on the seat, Ward supposed. They were an open invitation to the smash-and-grab thieves who frequented the car parks of the city.

  The Guard checked his wristwatch and moved on to Ward’s car. “Sorry, sir, you’ll have to move along. No parking here.”

  “What about that car—somebody special?”

  “I’m giving the driver five minutes.”

  “What about five for me?”

  “And not a minute more.”

  Ward explained to Swords then. “The Kells Corp. What can we find out about it—ownership, the principals, capitalization, etc?”

  “If it’s Irish, everything.” Which was the advantage of no longer actually being in the Garda, where such a search—through government commerce and tax files, which could be hacked into—would be improper
and illegal without a court order. And just not done by anybody wishing to hold on to a job.

  Then after some small talk, they rang off.

  Moving back out into traffic, Ward turned the car south toward the warehouse off the Coolock Road.

  Dublin Airport, from which the Garda helicopter took off, lies fewer than ten miles north of Dublin city center and three miles west of the Irish Sea, where, the moment that the helicopter moved out over the water, they encountered a thick fog.

  “I don’t like,” said McKeon to McGarr, who was now seated beside him in the cockpit. “I’m fully qualified to fly by instrumentation, but I can never get used to it.” He pointed at the Plexiglas bubble of the helicopter canopy, which, in spite of the airship’s powerful lights, was an impenetrable gray mass that only once in a while broke to reveal just how fast they were flying—145 knots by a digital display on the control panel.

  “Any luck with a heading?” McGarr asked Sweeney, who had abandoned his safety harness and was kneeling on the cabin floor a foot or so behind them. Kara had remained in a passenger seat.

  “Just comin’ on, I’d say. Hello, hello! Fuck! You’re breakin’ up. Hello.” There was a pause, then, “That’s fookin’ better.” He listened some more. “What does that sound like?” Sweeney held his cell phone to the roof of the cabin and the rhythmical beat of the rotors.

  Then, back on his ear. “You happy?”

  Yet another pause. “What? Iona. Iona’s in fookin’ Scotland, arsehole. How can we get there?” Cupping a hand over the speaker, Sweeney asked McKeon, “What about Iona? How far is that?”

  McKeon shrugged and reached for the mouse on the computer display unit. Clicking through several screens he found an area map with radius bands in fifty-mile increments from their present position, which was indicated by a glowing phosphorescent dot. “The better part of two hundred miles.”

  “Can we make it there and back?”

  “Punch in Iona, Peter.” Using the keyboard, McGarr complied.

  McKeon clicked on “Fuel,” and the screen came up with 91 percent. “Just. With little leeway for a head-wind or dicking around.”