Now and in the Hour of Our Death

by Patrick Taylor

  “Can you drive?”

  “Aye, certainly.”

  “Good. I need you to do a bit of driving for us.”

  Davy stuffed his hands into his pockets and said, “My oul’ da used to say, ‘never make a promise unless you know you can keep it.’ I’ll make you no promises until I hear what I’ve to drive for.”

  Eamon said softly, “Erin has a plan to take out Strabane Police Barracks.”

  No, damnit, no, a voice screamed in Davy’s head.

  “Tell us about it.” McGuinness leaned forward. “How? When?”

  “In a wee minute, Brendan. I need to hear what Davy thinks.”

  “You know bloody well what I think. I told you often enough back in our cell. I’m out. I don’t even want to drive you. I’m finished with all that shite.” Davy was hurt that Eamon would ask.

  “I’m sorry, Davy, but we need you.” An edge had crept into Eamon’s voice.

  “You can need away. I’m not doing it.”

  “Are you scared, McCutcheon?” He could see McGuinness scowling, him and his blether about letting bygones be bygones. Some truce.

  “No. I’m not scared. I’m not killing anyone, that’s all. And that’s final.” Davy turned his back on the others, strode over to his alcove, and sat on his cot. Christ, would Eamon not leave him alone? The man had followed him and stood in the opening.

  “I’m not asking you to kill anyone, Father. Brendan and the O’Byrnes and me’ll take care of that.”

  “Can you not get it through your head? As far as I’m concerned, I want no part of it.”

  Eamon ran one hand through his hair. “Can I tell you how it’s going to work? Please?”

  “I owe you that much. You got me this far. I’d still be in…”

  “That’s over and done. You owe me nothing, except to hear me out.”

  “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “Right. I’ll give you the bare bones. We’ve to use the farm van to get the attack team from here to a big shed about four miles away. They’ll pick up the explosives there and a tractor and an escape car. We’ll go into Strabane. The driver … that’s you, Davy, has to get the van back past here, across the border at Clady, and on into Lifford in the Republic, just over from Strabane.”

  Davy frowned. He was caught up already in trying to understand the details, and if he let himself get interested, the next thing he knew he’d be agreeing to help. “I don’t see why you need me,” he said. “Get somebody else to drive to your shed. Leave the van there.”

  Eamon scratched his cheek. “We could, but how would you get down to the Republic? We’ve only the van on the farm.”

  “I’ve no idea.” The words slipped out. “I thought you were going to take care of that.”

  Eamon laughed. “I’m trying to. Look. Once we’ve hit the barracks, the four of us will take the escape car across the wee bridge between Strabane and Lifford, but we’ll have to dump it there. The RUC and the soldiers can’t follow us into the Republic, but they’re bound to give the description to the Gardai. We’d not get ten miles in it. The idea’s for us to ditch it in Lifford and use the van to get to Castlefinn in Donegal. It’s only about ten miles from Lifford.”

  “Why Castlefinn?”

  “Sean Conlon’s sending a car there to meet us. It’ll take us all to Dublin. I had a yarn with Sean on the phone today. He sends his regards.”

  “Is he well?” Davy remembered his old CO with affection. “He’s still there with Army Council?”

  “He is.”

  “I’d not mind seeing Sean again, but why doesn’t he send the car to Lifford, then you’d not need the van nor me?”

  “He could, I suppose, but the Gardai will have the getaway car’s number, and there’s an off chance someone could spot us making the transfer from it in Lifford. There’d be an all-points bulletin out for that vehicle all over the Republic. We can’t take a chance Sean’s car would be spotted like that. It won’t matter if the van’s seen. We’ll be in Castlefinn in five minutes. No one will notice anything there. If the Gardai do get the van’s number, by the time they find it in Castlefinn, we’ll be well away in Sean’s car.”

  That made sense to Davy. He put the web of his hand up to stroke his moustache, forgetting he no longer had one. The action pulled the scab free, and he felt a tiny trickle of blood.

  Eamon moved closer. “Davy, I’m not asking you to make a bomb. I’m not asking you to carry a gun. All I want you to do is give us a lift, bugger off to the Republic, and pick us up when everything’s over.”

  It didn’t seem much to ask. “Well, maybe…” Davy hesitated because, try as he might, he couldn’t see any difference between delivering a lethal weapon, the attack squad, and furnishing the bombs he’d made in the past for others to plant. In both cases, he was distanced from the killing but no less a part of it. “What’ll you do if I say no?”

  Eamon scratched his chin. “Davy, if you won’t drive, we’ll have to take the farm van, dump it at the shed, get Sean’s people to come to Lifford, and take our chances.”

  “I’d rather you did it that way.”

  Eamon looked straight into Davy’s eyes. “What about you? If we take the van, you’ll have no transport. We can’t come back for you. How’re you going to get to Dublin? You’ll not get there on foot.”

  “What?” Eamon was right, and Davy’d been so self-righteously concentrating on keeping his hands spotless, he hadn’t considered these implications.

  Eamon put a hand on Davy’s shoulder. “The Republic’s no safe haven for Provos on the run. Most of the ordinary people there couldn’t give a shite about what goes on in the North, want nothing to do with the likes of us. The government officially cooperates with the Brits. You’ll get lifted by the Gardai and stuck in jail while the Brits apply for extradition, unless, of course, you do what I’m asking.”

  Jesus Christ Almighty. Davy looked all around. Was he never going to get out of some kind of cell, like the one in the Kesh, this prison of a hiding place, and now the vice Eamon had him in? Carrot and bloody stick. Eamon wanted another favour, and Davy always found it hard to refuse a friend. But surely to God a friend wouldn’t use blackmail? That’s what it was. Drive the van, and Dublin was within reach; refuse, and Dublin and Canada—and Fiona—were out of the question.

  He had to choose. Fiona had said she loved his integrity. What price his precious integrity now? Every man has his price, Davy thought bitterly, and if he wanted her, he was going to have to pay.

  He looked Eamon straight in the eye and said, “Fuck you, Eamon, I’ve no choice, have I?”

  “I’m sorry, Davy, I really am.”

  No one spoke. Davy felt the ties of friendship breaking. “You’ve not the right to ask this of me.”

  “I know,” Eamon said. “But I have.”

  “And you’ll do it, McCutcheon.” McGuinness rapped. “You’re still a Provo volunteer whether you like it or not, and you’ll obey orders.”

  Davy spun on the man. “Fuck you.”

  McGuinness ignored Davy and spoke directly to Eamon. “You’ve had your word with McCutcheon. He’ll do as he’s bid. Now I want to hear the details.”

  Eamon looked long and hard at Davy, who could see the sadness in Eamon’s eyes. Eamon understood bloody well what he’d done. Davy knew it should have come as no surprise. He shouldn’t be feeling betrayed. Those committed to the Cause would sacrifice everything on the altar of their dreams; their lives, their loves, and their friends. Eamon looked away, took a deep breath, and said, “I told you the target. The Police Barracks in Strabane…”

  “Fuckin’ aye,” McGuinness said.

  “But you’ll need to hear the exact details, so the three of us’ll”—Eamon tried to look at Davy again, but Davy saw the glance and turned away—“go up to the farm after dark. I want everyone … including you, Davy … to hear the plan. The plan for Saturday.”

  CHAPTER 38

  VANCOUVER. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1983

>   Saturday was four days away, Fiona thought, as she hurried along Beach Avenue toward Jimmy Ferguson’s apartment. She hunched her shoulders against the wind, which churned the sea to foam and hammered whitecaps against the seawall. The gale growled and hissed and spat spume across the road.

  A gust screeched in from English Bay and tore past her to batter the Sylvia Hotel and blocks of low-rises. The apartments seemed to be cowering. She could taste the brine in it, and—she put a hand to her head—her hair must be a mess. Her umbrella had been blown to tatters. Its pale ribs looked like the bones of a long-dead fish.

  Beach Avenue was deserted; it had none of the usual cyclists and joggers, no walkers, no dogs, only cars, windscreen wipers thrashing, tires spraying sheets of water. She had not felt so isolated since her first year in Vancouver, before she’d made any friends, when she couldn’t stop thinking about Davy. As if she could stop thinking about him now.

  He filled her thoughts, and she needed a friend to talk to, but Becky wasn’t there to help. She’d called this morning to say that it looked as if a decision might have to be made soon, and it was going to be a difficult one. The doctors were already wondering aloud about whether the family wanted to keep her dad on the ventilator. It wasn’t going to be easy for her friend.

  Fiona leaned against the wind and kept plodding along the deserted street, wondering if she’d been right to arrange to meet with Jimmy’s daughter, Siobhan.

  Screwing her eyes against the wind, she peered at a wooden sign on the sea-wrack-strewn lawn of a cold, concrete, and glass low-rise. Nineteen fifty Beach.

  She pushed the button beside an address plate reading 407. MR. AND MRS. JAMES FERGUSON.

  A man’s voice came from a speaker. “Fiona?”

  “Is … is that you, Jimmy?” She’d been expecting to hear Siobhan.

  “Aye. Siobhan’s here, too. Come you on up out of that bloody awful weather.”

  A buzzer whirred.

  Fiona pushed through the door. When she’d gone to the Kesh to tell Davy she was leaving him, all the gates had been electrically controlled. Last Sunday, Davy and the other escapees must have opened them somehow.

  She crossed a tiled hall into an elevator and pushed the 4 button. She’d hoped to avoid seeing Jimmy. She’d hardly known the man in Belfast, even though he’d been Davy’s best friend. When Davy’d been captured, she’d debated going to see Jimmy to ask him about what had happened, but soon the story had been all over the media.

  “An attempt on the life of the British prime minister has been foiled, although the bridge at Ravernet near Hillsborough has been destroyed and several soldiers killed.”

  She’d been sitting alone at her sister’s house eating supper and watching the six o’clock news on April 18, 1973. Her forkful of beef stew had stopped halfway to her mouth.

  “An IRA terrorist has been arrested. David McCutcheon…”

  No.

  “… of Conway Street, Belfast, was injured while attempting to escape. He has been taken to hospital and remains under observation and under police guard.”

  She’d tried to visit him in the Royal Victoria Hospital, but an army major had refused to let her see him. By then, she’d steeled herself to read the news accounts.

  It seemed Davy had been waiting in a farmhouse to detonate a bomb under Harold Wilson’s car as it crossed a bridge en route to Government House in Hillsborough. She’d learned how Wilson’s convoy had been turned back before it reached the ambush and how Davy, trying to halt the pursuing soldiers, had set off the explosives, but to no effect. He’d been captured, and from the Provo point of view the operation had been a disaster.

  Davy would have succeeded, according to the story, but for the heroic sacrifice of a Lieutenant Marcus Richardson, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, who had uncovered the plot and alerted the Security Forces but been killed during the operation to protect the prime minister.

  She’d bumped into Jimmy several days later. He’d explained that the young army officer had been working undercover in the Falls Road district. Posing as an expatriate Ulsterman, he’d claimed to be an explosives expert from the oil fields of Alberta who had returned to Belfast to help in the struggle.

  Jimmy’d been angry that day. He blamed himself for introducing Richardson, who had assumed the alias of Mike Roberts, to Davy and, worse, as far as Jimmy was concerned, to Siobhan. Davy had recruited the young man to help in what was to have been Davy’s last attack. Siobhan had fallen deeply in love with him.

  Meeting Richardson had led to disaster for Fiona and Siobhan.

  The lift doors opened. The fourth-floor hall was carpeted in nondescript brown, the walls papered in a lighter shade. It smelled of apartment, veiled cooking odours, and the nose-irritating fumes of carpet cleaner. Fiona saw Jimmy waiting in the doorway of 407.

  “How’s about ye, Fiona.” His lower jaw twitched as he stood aside to let her in and closed the door. “Here, gimme your coat and that oul’ umbrella.”

  Fiona shrugged out of the sodden garment and gave it and the battered brolly to Jimmy, who hung the coat in a hall closet. He looked at the umbrella. “I think this should probably go out.”

  “So do I.”

  “Leave it in the hall. I’ll see to it later. Come on in and take the weight off your feet.”

  “Thank you.” Fiona followed Jimmy along a hallway into the living room, where Siobhan stood waiting. “Hello, Fiona,” she said. “Have a seat.”

  Fiona sat in a comfortable armchair, one of a sectional suite, and glanced round. One whole wall of the apartment was a rain-streaked picture window overlooking Burrard Inlet. On another wall, the Ferguson’s had hung a couple of Irish scenes, a watercolour of a mallard at Lough Sheelin and a pretty pastel of the Mourne Mountains, small reminders of home.

  “It’s a ferocious day, so it is,” Jimmy said, parking himself in a second chair. “Even the ducks is flying backwards.” He laughed, a high-pitched hee-heeing noise. “You must be foundered, so you must.”

  “I’ve certainly been warmer.” She shivered and rubbed both hands together.

  Jimmy clucked sympathetically. “Would you like a wee cup of tea in your hand? A hot Irish?” Jimmy asked.

  “Tea would be grand.” Fiona smiled. She’d almost added, “so it would.” She could feel herself wanting to slip back into the Belfast dialect. The harshness of Jimmy’s speech reminded her of Davy’s deeper brogue, and it was comforting.

  “Coming up.” Siobhan left.

  Fiona saw the grace of the younger woman. As she walked along the hall, she seemed to glide in a gentler version of a model on a catwalk. Her blonde hair fell to her waist. It was quite gorgeous.

  She heard clattering from the kitchen. “Please don’t go to a lot of trouble on my behalf.”

  “It’s no bother. I’ll just be a wee minute.” There was a hint of a laugh in Siobhan’s contralto. “Do you want one, too, Dad?”

  “No thanks, love. I’ll need to be running away on soon.”

  They sound so easy with each other, Fiona thought, the way it used to be with her own parents before they’d turned their backs on her. She looked at Jimmy, who shot his jaw sideways. Hearing his laugh, seeing the little man’s nervous tic, brought her back to the Falls Road, where for a while she’d tried to rebuild a little family with Davy.

  “Look, I know you come to have a yarn with Siobhan, and I don’t want to get in the way, like, but I just, I just thought I should have a wee word with you. Maybe I should’ve never phoned and upset you?”

  “It’s all right, Jimmy. I’m not upset.” Liar, she scolded herself. “It’s far better to know now than to have Davy suddenly appear.”

  “Aye. It would’ve given you a hell of a shock. I near took the rickets myself when I heard.” Jimmy smiled. “I hope he gets here soon. I reckon he’s still out, you know.”

  She felt as she had yesterday morning after she’d turned on the machine: caught hopelessly off-balance, confused, upset that the life she’d thought was
finally settling down had been thrown so far off course—and wanting so much for him to be out, to be coming to her.

  “Why do you think that, Jimmy?” she said quietly.

  “I seen the news on the telly this morning. The reporter said some lad called Bobby Storey, he’s one of the Provo highheejins, and four of his mates was picked up. They was hiding in the Lagan, underwater, trying to breathe through hollow reeds, but the telly never said nothing about Davy.”

  “Why would they mention him? Davy wasn’t an important Provo.”

  Jimmy rolled his eyes. “I tell you, a man what tried to off the British prime minister would’ve his name in the headlines if they’d got him. They’d be crowing it from the rooftops. I’ll bet you he’s still out, and the longer he stays out, the better the odds he’ll get here. You mark my word.”

  Jimmy was watching her, gauging her reaction. He must wonder if she still cared for Davy. It was none of his business, but she’d find it difficult not to tell him how she felt if he was blunt enough to ask. She mightn’t know the man well, but he had been Davy’s best friend, and somehow talking to Jimmy was like talking to Davy by proxy.

  “I’d be quare pleased to see him again, so I would. Him and me was mates, and you don’t make that many good mates in a whole lifetime.” Jimmy hee-heed. “I’d love to take oul’ Davy out for a jar. The pair of us hasn’t had a pint together for donkeys’ years.”

  “It has been a very long time, Jimmy.” She tried to keep her voice level.

  She saw how Jimmy was looking at her, his head cocked to one side. “You’d not be too sorry to see him yourself, would you, dear?”

  “Dear.” If a Canadian had called her “dear,” she’d have bristled, but coming from Jimmy it was only Irish affection. “You’re right, Jimmy.” She smiled at him. “Not one bit.”

  “Great, I thought I might have dropped a right clanger.”

  “To tell you the truth, it was a bit more than a clanger.”