Now and in the Hour of Our Death

by Patrick Taylor

  He stumbled on a rut, clutched for support, and grabbed for Eamon’s arm. “Sorry. This bloody leg of mine.”

  “It’s all right,” Eamon said, moved ahead, then stood waiting.

  Davy rubbed his thigh, the one he’d nearly blown off when, as a boy, he’d been training here in Tyrone, the one he’d smashed jumping from the farmhouse window in Ravernet. He limped to where Eamon stood.

  “Look, Davy,” Eamon said, as he’d tried to say several times since Wednesday, “I’m sorry about me having to rope you into this.”

  “So am I, Eamon.” His regret was as much for a lost friendship as it was for knowing that tomorrow he was going to be part, no matter how distant from the action, of a Provo attack. “But let the hare sit.”

  Light streamed out through the open door.

  “Come on,” said Eamon, “let’s get inside.”

  “Right.” Davy walked on. He had no desire to sit through the final preparations, but the photographer who’d come to the grave on Tuesday had promised that Davy’s forged documents would be delivered today, and he wanted to be sure they had arrived; otherwise, he’d have stayed alone in the old grave and let the rest of them plan to their heart’s content. He walked into the kitchen and waited for Eamon to close the door.

  “Evening, Davy,” Erin said from where she stood at the range pouring boiling water into a teapot. “Cup of tea? No? Then make yourself at home. Sorry the place is a bit cluttered.”

  Davy looked around and saw a pile of anoraks, overalls, gloves, and balaclava helmets on the tabletop. Provo uniform for any attack. Once the firing was over and the attackers safe, the outer garments would be discarded along with the weapons. No residual traces of burned gunpowder would cling to the clothes or hands of the assailants.

  Three bulging rucksacks stood beside the kitchen door. Erin pointed to them. “You’ll be taking those in the van tomorrow, Davy. We’ll all need clean clothes and toilet things once we get to Dublin. The one nearest the door has a clatter of ham sandwiches and some bottles of ginger ale.”

  Jesus, she sounded as if she’d been making preparations for a picnic. Some bloody picnic. If they managed to escape the devastation of that bomb blast, he wondered if they’d have any stomach for sandwiches and ginger ale. Still, when they opened the bag with the food in it, the van would be on the way to Dublin. Davy couldn’t help but smile.

  He looked over to Eamon and saw him staring at a khaki army-surplus knapsack covered in what looked like smudged coal dust leaning against one of the table’s legs.

  “Would you take a wee look at this?” said Eamon, handing Davy the knapsack. “Sorry, it’s a bit grubby, but Cal had to pick it up from under a heap of coal.”

  Davy took the bag, undid the strap holding it shut, and opened the flap. “Holy shite.” Inside, he could see an ammeter, wires, a battery, the handles of a pair of wire strippers, and a flat wooden box. He’d seen enough of those boxes in his time. Fulminate-of-mercury detonators. Fuse-making equipment. “Here.” Davy thrust the bag at Eamon. “I want no part of this. That’s your armourer’s job.”

  “He can’t do it, Davy,” Erin said quietly. “He’s in hospital. He got crushed by a cow last night. Doctor O’Malley came out, said Sammy had a punctured lung, might have pneumonia. He’s in Altnagelvin in Derry.”

  “It’s nothing to do with me.” Davy stepped back. “Not a bloody thing.”

  “But,” Erin said, moving closer to Davy, “you’re an armourer. You can build a fuse, show Cal how to set it.”

  “I can,” Davy said, wondering how many fuses he’d made, how many lives his bombs had destroyed, “but I won’t.”

  No one spoke. He saw Erin stare at Eamon.

  You can stare away, girl, Davy thought. I’m not budging. He answered his own question about how many. He could identify by name or by their faces only a handful of individual people he’d killed; but it was the faceless others, the ones he’d used to think were no business of his because he only made the devices, which haunted him more.

  “What do you mean, ‘you won’t?’” McGuinness snarled. “You’ll do as you’re bloody well told.”

  Davy’s eyes narrowed. “No.” He’d not make another bomb. He’d not. “Do you hear me? No.” He was panting.

  Christ, if they tried to force him by saying they’d not help him get to Dublin unless he made the fuse, he’d get there by himself. It didn’t matter if Eamon said it would be nearly impossible to go it alone. Davy’d said he’d drive the van. He’d made that compromise. He wasn’t making any more, no matter what that decision cost. He’d promised Fiona the raid on Ravernet in ’73 would be his last, and he’d never broken a promise to her. If he did, all his telling himself he’d changed was meaningless. He’d have changed all right, but with his last shred of integrity gone, he’d not be the man Fiona could love.

  His breathing slowed. “I mean it,” he said more calmly. “I’ll not do it.” If the attack couldn’t go ahead, he’d not be one bit sorry. “Gimme my passport and let me be.” Davy waited to see what would happen.

  “It’s not here yet, Davy,” Eamon said. “The fellow should be bringing it any minute.”

  “I’ll wait,” Davy said.

  He saw Erin look at Eamon and Eamon shrug. After three years in the same cell, he must know how bloody-minded Davy could be. Cal seemed to be smiling. Was that because he’d realized if Davy wouldn’t make the fuses, the attack couldn’t go ahead? Davy wondered just how much the man’s heart was in the thing, how much stomach Cal had for killing.

  McGuinness’s voice was cold. “I told you I didn’t care what you did after we got to Dublin.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re for Canada, aren’t you?”

  Eamon must have told him. Davy stared at the man. Mind your own business, McGuinness. Keep out of this.

  “And you think there’s no Provos there? That we couldn’t find you? You and whoever you’re going to see? Jimmy Ferguson that housepainter friend of yours? Some woman?”

  Davy felt a vessel in his temple start to throb. Was McGuinness threatening Fiona? Davy’s fists bunched. He stepped up to McGuinness. “I’ll kill you.”

  “I thought you’d given up killing,” McGuinness sneered. “You make that fuse or…”

  “Or what?” Davy’s hand shot out and grabbed the front of McGuinness’s sweater. “Or what?” He felt someone’s hand on his arm.

  “Back off, Davy.” Eamon, still holding the knapsack in one hand, thrust himself between Davy and McGuinness, who sidled out of range and toward the door. “Sometimes Brendan gets carried away.”

  “He’s going to get his bloody head carried away.” Davy’s hands tightened. How dare the bastard threaten Fiona? How dare he? Davy couldn’t control his breathing. He struggled to break Eamon’s grasp.

  He heard a vehicle being driven into the farmyard.

  Erin grabbed a blanket from the sofa and draped it over the stacked rifles. “Get you three into the hall,” she snapped as a car door slammed. “Move it.” Someone hammered on the back door. Erin moved toward it and shoved McGuinness out of the way. “Bedroom,” she hissed, then yelled, “Hang on. I’m coming,” as she waited for the three men to leave the kitchen.

  Davy stood in the hall and listened. He heard the scrape of the lower half of the back door and muffled voices. A woman’s and a man’s. Police? Soldiers? The scraping again, footsteps tapping across the kitchen tiles. Erin pulled the hall door open. “It’s all right,” she said. He could see she held a buff envelope in one hand. “It was your man from Newtownstewart. He’s sorry he was so late, but the job took longer than he’d expected.”

  His passport. Davy shot a grateful look to Eamon, who smiled back. “Thanks, Eamon.” Davy stretched out his hand to Erin to take the envelope. He wondered what a passport looked like. He’d never owned one, never been out of Ireland in his life. That envelope held his ticket to a new life, and the first step to it was a small document with his photograph in it.
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  Davy felt himself being jostled as McGuinness shouldered his way past to grab the envelope and stride to the range. Davy charged across the kitchen, hand reaching for the package. “That’s mine, you bastard,” but he was forced to halt when McGuinness opened the lid of the range and held the envelope over the flames.

  “Nobody can make you fix the fuse. Is that right?”

  “Fuck you.” Davy didn’t care if he was swearing in front of a woman. “Fuck you. Give it to me.” He grabbed for the envelope.

  McGuinness moved it out of Davy’s reach. “The fuse,” he said. “Now.”

  Davy glanced from Cal to Erin to Eamon. All stood, arms folded, tight-lipped. There’d be no help from any of them. He felt like an apostate facing implacable inquisitors. It was as if the last nine years had never happened, as if he had never sworn not to make another bomb as long as he lived. And if he wired the timer, it would set off five hundred pounds of ammonal. The destruction would be hellish.

  “Here, Davy.” Eamon held out the coal-stained knapsack. Eamon’s voice was hard, unforgiving.

  Davy hesitated, “Eamon, I…”

  “Take it.”

  Flames flickered from the open range and caressed the envelope in McGuinness’s hand.

  “Don’t,” Davy yelled.

  “Then get to work. Now.” McGuinness had a fleck of spittle at the corner of his mouth.

  “Please, Davy,” Erin asked, her voice softer, kinder. “For Ireland…”

  Those two words, the justification for 2,510 dead since 1969, God knew how many mutilated.

  “And Fiach,” she whispered.

  Bugger Ireland, and Davy was sorry for Fiach, but neither was cause enough.

  “My arm’s getting tired, McCutcheon.”

  Davy hauled air to the bottoms of his lungs, held his breath, thought of Fiona’s eyes and what he must do to see those eyes again, exhaled, stretched out his hands, and took the khaki bag from Eamon.

  “We can’t make you?” McGuinness laughed, a dry, mirthless noise like dead leaves skittering across a concrete yard. “The hell we can’t.”

  Davy walked slowly to the table, pushed the pile of clothes to one side, sat, set the bag on the table, and began to remove its contents.

  Ever since Jimmy had sent her photo, he’d been striving to get to her, but hadn’t let his yearning make him kill. Not Mr. Smiley, not the guards racing across their car park last Sunday even though he’d had a gun, a gun that was still under his pillow. He’d been proud of himself for holding his fire. She’d be proud when he told her. But he couldn’t tell her, ever, if he didn’t get to Canada.

  Davy stole a glance to where McGuinness stood holding the envelope. It was too far. If he tried to rush the man, his passport and his hopes would vanish.

  He’d have to make the fuse, and when he got to Vancouver, he’d have to tell Fiona and hope to God she’d understand, forgive him. He wondered if he’d be able to forgive himself.

  Davy laid the makings in a rough circle in front of him. Two fulminate detonators, a battery, kitchen timer, lengths of insulated copper wire, electricians’ tape, wire strippers, and an ammeter.

  He lifted the first detonator, a thin copper cylinder with two wires running from its top, and held one wire to each of the ammeter’s terminals. The needle flicked across the dial. The other detonator made the instrument react as violently. So they were in working order, damnit.

  He attached a long piece of loose wire to one detonator and married it to a similar connector on the other. The wire was long enough so that each fulminate cylinder could be pushed through sacking surrounding two separate bags of ammonal. He used a Western Union pigtail splice for each joint and wrapped the bare copper with electricians’ tape.

  Nine years ago, lying behind a hedge beside a back road in the Hills of Antrim, he’d fiddled with this selfsame kind of wiring. It had detonated an iron pipe under a farmer’s car, a simple iron pipe filled with the urea-nitrate-aluminium mix he’d made at home from pints of his own boiled urine.

  He ran a second wire from the right-hand detonator to the anode of a nine-volt battery. The dry cell had enough voltage to power a large torch or generate the spark to blow the ammonal. He’d not used a battery on another job back in ’74, just a hand-lit fuse and four sticks of TNT. The blast had killed a ticket collector who had had two little daughters in Fiona’s class. Davy’s hand shook as he picked up the kitchen timer. He’d need a metal screw.

  “Have you any screws and a screwdriver?”

  “I’ll get them,” Cal said.

  Davy waited. He’d run a screw through the face of the timer at the twelve o’clock position and connect it to the wire from the detonator. One more strand from the timer hand to the battery’s cathode would complete the circuit. The timer could be set for whatever number of minutes was required, and when the time had elapsed, the hand would strike the screw and complete the circuit.

  Simple, effective, and deadly, unless—unless he left a gap in the circuit. And he could if he insulated the wire from the detonator before he attached it to the screw. He looked across to McGuinness. You think you’re so fucking smart, you bastard. I’ll bugger you up yet. And nobody was going to get killed by one of Davy’s devices.

  He smiled.

  “Happy at your work, are you, McCutcheon?” McGuinness sneered.

  Davy ignored him.

  Cal stood at Davy’s shoulder. “Here you are.” Cal handed Davy a screw and screwdriver and sat beside him to watch.

  Davy put the screw through the face at twelve o’clock. He attached a wire to the timer’s hand and wrapped its loose end in electrician’s tape. “Don’t put that there wire near the battery until you’ve set the timer,” Davy said.

  “Why not?” Cal asked.

  “Because the timer hand’ll be resting against the screw. You’d have a complete circuit, and the whole bloody lot’ll blow.”

  “Right.” Cal peered closely at the timer. “Not until I’ve set the time.”

  Davy lifted the battery. “See that there?” He indicated the cathode. “After you put the detonators in the ammonal and set the time, strip the insulation from that wire and attach it there.”

  “There?”

  “Right. And if I was you, I’d set the time for twelve minutes. That’ll give you a couple of minutes extra to make the connection.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Now,” said Davy as he picked up the electricians’ tape and ripped off a short length, “I’ve just to connect the first detonator to the screw, and that’s the job done.” He began to wrap the shiny copper filaments with the insulating tape that would prevent the current flowing to the screw. No current—no explosion.

  Fuck you, McGuinness. Fuck the whole bloody lot of you. Davy knew he was taking a chance. When the attack squad fled to the van in Lifford, because the bomb hadn’t gone off, Eamon might decide not to take Davy to meet Sean Conlon in Dublin.

  Davy looked up at Eamon, saw his face, serious but honest, and hoped Eamon would not be so vindictive. Anyone could make a mistake. And even if he was abandoned—he glanced at McGuinness and the envelope—Davy’d have his passport. Somehow he’d get to Canada. Somehow. And he’d have no more deaths to burden him.

  He hesitated and wondered about McGuinness. That bastard wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone he suspected might have betrayed the Provos. He’d have an ArmaLite in the escape car. If the bomb failed, he’d put two and two together. He’d be blazing mad, unpredictable, and dangerous. Davy thought about the .25 under his pillow. He’d stick it in his pocket tomorrow. Just in case.

  “Are you not near finished yet?” McGuinness asked.

  “In a minute.”

  “Aye. Well make sure you do it right. You’ve fucked up before. This one had better work.”

  “It’ll work.” Davy lifted the wire that would make damn sure it didn’t.

  “I know.” Davy heard the venom in the man’s voice. “Because, look…”

  Davy
stared across the room and saw McGuinness slip the envelope into his inside jacket pocket.

  “You’re not getting this until after it’s blown.”

  Davy stopped insulating the wire. He glanced at the screw and across to McGuinness.

  “No explosion, no passport, McCutcheon.”

  You bastard. You bastard. Davy stripped the tape free and wound the shiny copper wires around the screw. The fucking circuit would be live after all. “It’s done,” he said.

  “Good,” said McGuinness, “and when it works, I’ll give you your papers … after you’ve picked us up in Lifford tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 45

  VANCOUVER. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1983

  “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, / Creeps in this petty pace…” Fiona spoke the lines from Macbeth as she strode along Kits Beach and looked across Burrard Inlet to the evening sky above the North Shore Mountains.

  The moon’s rise heralded the coming of night, and after she’d slept—and she hoped she would sleep—she’d wake on a Saturday morning with the day to kill before Tim came. Tomorrow her hours would indeed be petty as she tried to make them pass before facing him.

  The light faded, and she saw the half-moon hanging, a silver semicircle in its own frame of delicate blue. Between the moon and the knife-edge-sharp crest line of the brooding mountains, layers of mist were stained the soft pink of the inside of an oyster shell.

  She guessed it was nearly seven o’clock, almost three in the morning in Ireland. Since Jimmy’s call, she had become well practised in working out the time differences between here and there, and Davy.

  If it wasn’t raining, the night sky in Ireland would be velvet and pierced by starlight. Davy might still be there, and she hoped he was somewhere safe and warm and fast asleep.

  He used to sleep beside her, breathing quietly unless the snores of him would have drowned the roar of a pneumatic drill. She smiled, thinking of how she’d make him roll onto his side, and he’d grunt, and snuggle against her, and stop his racket.

  As the sky’s colours faded, the moon’s brightness slid behind a layer of thicker cloud, and her shadow faded on the rippled sand. The looming mountains melded into the darker sky, and she remembered a night when she’d taken Davy to the Hollywood Hills to watch the moon rise over Belfast Lough.