by Ian Graham
Pressing his back firmly against the white fiberglass wall of the superstructure, he crept towards the stairwell leading up to the Bridge. At the bottom of the steps he listened intently to the voices above, his hearing sharpened by years of training.
"You can do all of this, Mr. O'Rourke?" a Semitic voice asked.
"Yeah, boyo. We can do it all," O'Rourke said. "Everything, right up to the delivery of the weapons and getting your men into the country undetected. We can even get you the address he'll be at. All your boys will need to do is walk up and pull the trigger. It'll be like shootin' fish in a barrel."
Declan shook his head, an assassination? He'd known O'Rourke was greedy and could never seem to get his hands on enough money, a problem likely caused by his frequent visits to the horse track, but he'd doubted the man had the balls to pull off anything higher up the criminal career ladder than his midnight runs into international waters to pick up illegal cargo. Now, it seemed his intuition had been wrong. Clearly, the men aboard the Zarin vessel had been misled into believing O'Rourke was something other than a small time smuggler. O'Rourke's reputation around the Irish neighborhoods of South Boston was one of his own making and was better fiction than most paperbacks. All the man needed to do was change his name to Bad Bad Leroy Brown and the act would be complete.
O'Rourke's questionable accolades aside, Declan wasn't about to stand around as Sean Reid and the other members of O'Rourke's crew, which he'd nicknamed the Murphy Mouse Club, helped what were likely members of Hezbollah or the PLO commit a terrorist act. Not only were they likely to get themselves killed, but the potential for innocent bystanders to be harmed as well was past a likelihood and more of a sure bet.
"Then we have an agreement, Mr. O'Rourke," the heavily accented voice said, "but the target is not to be approached by your men and he must not see them. You are dealing with a man who is very experienced in military matters and if he sees you the operation will be over before it begins. My comrade here must be the one to end the miserable Jew's life."
"Aye, got it. We're not dense. What about the money?"
"Your money will be paid to you in two payments. The first when I confirm the weapons are undamaged and the men are in place where they should be and the second when the entire job is complete."
"That's grand, old son, pleasure doing business with you."
Declan slid quickly away towards the bow of the boat as the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs indicated the meeting was over. Ducking into the shadow created by two large crates, he watched as another Middle Easterner, this one with an AK-47, emerged from the cabin. Following him were a darkly clad but casually dressed man and a wild looking man whose appearance was like that of a guerrilla fighter. The man's complexion was light, his hair nearly blonde with an unkempt beard that clearly identified him as a Muslim, a bulbous nose and a camouflage jacket. Declan knew immediately that he was from the Russian Caucasus, he'd encountered men like him before. The Chechens, as they were widely known, were a combative and nationalistic people. Wherever they went, violence normally followed.
"Where is your cousin?" the casually dressed man asked the guy with the AK-47. "He was supposed to be keeping a lookout."
"I don't know. He was here. There's no way he would leave his post."
Declan immediately regretted his decision to take out the guard. Now the men knew something was amiss.
"What's going on?" a gruff voice with a hint of an Irish accent asked as Lorcan O'Rourke stepped through the doorway of the boat's cabin. O'Rourke was a tree of a man with curly blonde hair, a roughly shaven face and a pair of beady eyes that darted back and forth like a dog chasing a set of windshield wipers.
"The lookout we posted is missing." said the casual man with an air of accusation. As the man turned towards O'Rourke, Declan got a look at him. He was in his fifties or early sixties with receding black hair showing signs of graying, thick eyebrows and a broad forehead. From the look on his face there was no doubt that he was the leader of the group.
"The hell he is," O'Rourke hissed. "He's probably off taking a piss."
"Here," the AK-47 man announced. "He is here!"
The group of men rushed towards the call, O'Rourke following slowly, his weight refusing to keep step with his much more slender guests. Declan took the opportunity to make his escape. As he dodged away down the opposite side of the ship he heard the leader yell, "If you've double crossed me, O'Rourke, I'll have your head as a bow adornment!"
Melting into the shadows of the anchored ships moored along the dock, Declan walked towards the bar where the rest of O'Rourke's crew was waiting. He stepped into the narrow alley between the bar and another shanty-like building and pulled open the door leading into the kitchen that he'd kept from latching behind him with a folded piece of paper. Silently, he walked through the kitchen to the hallway where the restrooms were located and exited into the bar. The only thing that had changed since he'd ducked out the back door fifteen minutes earlier was the number of beer bottles that sat empty on the table in front the Murphy Mouse Club.
"Hey, did ya hear the one about the priest who went into the bar…" one of them said to the others.
"Enough of your lame jokes already, Boyle!" someone from the other side of the table challenged.
"Ah screw you, Cam!"
Declan took his seat at the end of the bar where the beer he'd ordered sat untouched. Turning sideways in the bar stool, he looked at the mouse club as they sat there razing each other. The crew of the Saint Malachy's Revenge was ten men strong, but only five of them plus first mate Sean Reid were part of the mouse club. The other four, in which Declan included himself, were respectable men whose past lives or immigration status prevented them from finding better employment.
Suddenly the door to the bar burst open and Sean Reid entered followed closely by O'Rourke. Declan took the first sip of his beer as he looked at the angry face of the Revenge's captain. Maybe the Middle Easterners had fired them and he'd stopped the assassination plot without having to lift a finger. He snorted a quiet laugh knowing he was simply not that lucky.
"Alright, which one of you decided to have a go at the lookout on the boat? If you fess up now I promise it'll be better for you in the long run." O'Rourke said, the malice in his tone contradicting his statement.
"Hell, it wasn't us Captain. We been sittin' here all along, ain't we boys?" Ethan Boyle said. Boyle was the second highest ranking crewman besides Sean Reid and had been with O'Rourke for more years than he could probably count. His thick eyebrows, broad forehead and dark complexion gave him the look of an Italian though he swore he was of Irish decent.
"Hell, it was probably him, Captain," Cameron Kelly, Boyle's near twin, said pointing at Declan, who casually took another sip of his beer.
Sean Reid turned his six foot, physically fit frame towards Declan and walked over, a suspicious look in his eyes. With reddish-blonde hair, a pale complexion and freckled skin there was no doubt as to Reid's ancestry. While Declan couldn't verify it, it was rumored, mostly by Reid himself, that he had once been connected with the Provisional IRA. "You decide to take a walk on the pier tonight, McIver?"
O'Rourke floated to his first mate's side followed closely by Cameron Kelly. "He sure as hell did. Went out the back doors there and was gone for quite a while." Kelly said.
"Is your name McIver?" Reid asked the obviously drunken Kelly who responded only with a hiccup.
"It's like you said," Declan answered. "I took a walk. The beer in here tastes like urine and the air doesn't smell much better. But I don't know anything about a lookout and I sure didn't have a go at one."
O'Rourke let out a belly laugh. "I believe him. That stupid Arab out there must've slipped and fell on his arse. This, boyos, is an illegal immigrant," O'Rourke said slapping Declan on the shoulder. "He wouldn't be out doing anything that would bollocks up the sweet gig he has here. Cash payment and no questions asked."
The mouse club laughed as if they'd just heard
the most hilarious joke ever told. Declan smiled and said, "Aye, right."
"Time to be shipping outta here men," O'Rourke said. "We got a three hour cruise back to Boston."
The mouse club all rose from the booth they'd been seated in and filed out the door followed by O'Rourke. "Put it on our tab, Harry!" O'Rourke yelled to the barkeep that was half-asleep at the opposite end of the bar. The man grumbled a response. Putting his beer down, Declan stood to leave. As he turned towards the door, he met face to face with Sean Reid.
Leaning in so close that Declan could smell the cabbage on his breath, the first mate said, "I know it was you who took down that man on my boat. I just don't know why. But I'll tell you one thing, I catch you with one pubic hair out of line from now on and the RUC, the IRA or whoever the hell it is you're running from are gonna find you real quick. You might have Captain O'Rourke fooled, but not me. I can send you right back over the sea. Or put you under it. Your choice, and don't you doubt it for a second." He pushed a stubby index finger into Declan's chest, turned and marched out. Declan watched as he left. He'd survived well enough so far by staying completely off anyone's radar, but it looked like that was about to change.
Chapter Two
8:06 p.m. Eastern US Time — Thursday, April 24th, 1997
Barr's Bar — Corner of Adams St. & Dorchester Ave.
Boston, Massachusetts
The weapons the terrorist leader had spoken of came aboard another vessel marked Zarin two weeks after the first meeting in Provincetown and just as Declan expected, the Saint Malachy's Revenge was there, three hundred miles off the coast of Rhode Island to meet them. In the shipment were ten Heckler & Koch MPS machine pistols, suppressors for each of them, ten Glock 19 handguns, and a type of specially designed hollow points that Declan recognized as subsonic ammunition. Whoever the men aboard the Zarin vessel were planning to kill, they were planning on doing it very quietly. With his reputation still on the rocks, he had barely been able to make a move aboard the Revenge without the dead fish green eyes of Sean Reid looking him up and down like the picture of Ms. April on the calendar hanging in the bridge.
Along with the weapons eight men, including the casually dressed leader and the wild looking Chechen, had left the Iranian freighter and boarded the Revenge, hiding in the ship's hull until long after they'd passed back into US waters and were safely docked alongside the Marine Industrial Park the Revenge called home. Like Provincetown, it was the men that came aboard that bothered Declan more than anything else. While no good could come of illegal weapons or most of the Revenge's other cargo, loading and unloading it before watching it leave the docks in the possession of some of Boston's toughest thugs was just one of the many pitfalls of being an illegal immigrant in need of employment. Plotting assassinations with what were likely international terrorists was an entirely different matter and one that Declan simply wasn't going to let happen. He hadn't decided exactly what he was going to do about it yet, but he was going to do something. Perhaps he would pass whatever information he could gather to the police or tip off higher ranking members of the Boston mob, who despite being quite despicable themselves, still had a degree of honor and might step in to hand O'Rourke his head. Either way he was going to do something.
Sitting at a table in the corner of Barr's Bar several blocks south of downtown Boston, Declan waited in anticipation of finding out where the men had been taken and exactly who it was they were there to kill. With baseball season not ratcheting up for another few weeks and American football having ended a few months prior, the bar was empty for a Thursday night. Inside the joint was the size of a hotel room, long and narrow with the bar on the right side of the room and tall tables and chairs along the left wall. If the neon signs in the windows had left any question as to who the owners favorite baseball team was, the interior banished all doubt. Team pictures of the Red Sox lined the wood paneled walls in even rows and above and below each picture was signed memorabilia from players who had been in the corresponding year's roster. The stench of smoke hung in the air and filled Declan's eyes with saline. At the end of the bar, near the front door, were two women with tan leathery looking skin and clothes that hung off of their skeletal looking bodies, each taking long drags from cigarettes followed by sips from amber colored longnecks. With the exception of the two women only the bartender, a healthy looking brunette wearing a t-shirt jersey and a bored look, occupied the bar.
"Working hard tonight?" Declan asked her with an amused smile as she approached him carrying a cold Guinness.
"Harder than I want to be but you can thank my dead beat ex-husband and the two kids he left me with for that," she responded as she placed the bottle down in front of him.
Sensing a story that he wasn't sure he wanted to know the rest of, he smiled and said, "My friend should be here shortly. This guy will want to eat. Any chance I could get a menu?"
"This look like a restaurant to you?" she asked indignantly. "All we serve is peanuts, pretzels, cheese curds and microwaveable chicken wings."
"Some of each will be grand," Declan said.
The bartender looked at him funny for a moment as if she was trying to place his accent but turned away as the sound of the front door opening drew her attention.
Declan watched as a man entered. With his eyes moving suspiciously over the three other people in the joint and finally resting on Declan, a broad shouldered man with a large beer gut wearing a faded green t-shirt and khaki cargo pants walked over. Brendan Regan was part of O'Rourke's crew, but not part of the inner circle mouse club.
"Picked a place far enough from home, didn't ya?" Regan said as he slid his biggish body into the booth, sucking in his gut as he did so and taking hold of the bottle of Guinness in front of Declan. "I see you got me a beer. Thanks."
"Don't mention it," Declan said with a short laugh. Despite the man's obnoxious nature, there was something likeable about him. Like himself, Regan was a decent enough person who was just trying to get by in a world that threatened to leave him behind. Several brushes with the law as a younger man had left the gentle giant with little in the way of employability and with his physical shape not being good for much of anything besides a human shield; the highest pay he could obtain was from the likes of O'Rourke.
"What did you find?" Declan asked.
Regan put down the beer bottle and looked across the table. "Look man, I'm not sure why you care about this stuff. I mean you're poking into stuff you shouldn't be. I know O'Rourke's a scumbag but you should try doing what I do; don't think about it and go to church on Sundays. I always feel better come pay day."
Declan didn't respond.
"You got a good thing going here, even if you don't know it. You know how hard it is to find a job in your situation if you're not a Mexican willing to work for three pesos an hour?"
"I care because I know what these guys are capable of," Declan answered. "The wild man of Borneo that got off the boat? He was a Chechen. I've dealt with these guys before and I'm telling you there's no amount of life that means anything to them. Men, women, children, they don't care who they kill and with the amount of weaponry they brought along I'd say they're planning something a lot bigger than a simple hit and run. Now what did you find?"
Regan took another long sip of Guinness before answering. "Jesus man, you've dealt with these guys? What the hell does that mean? I thought you were from Ireland and I ain't ever seen anything like what got off that boat in Ireland."
"I am from Ireland, but I left there and got here the roundabout way." Declan said giving only the briefest hint of his past. In fact, he'd spent nearly two years during the Soviet-Afghan war in the mountains of Afghanistan training alongside a unit of Spetsnaz soldiers who had been paid handsomely by his superiors in the Provisional IRA to train a top secret terror team codenamed Black Shuck.
"Alright, whatever man." Regan said finishing off the beer and signaling the bartender for another one. "If you're that hell bent on this do me a favor and leave my nam
e out of it when O'Rourke and Reid come to fry your ass, will ya?"
Declan nodded. "Aye, no problem."
"Fine then, I've been talkin' to everyone on board with at least one good ear. The crates were taken to a warehouse on Caspian Way near the docks and the men are holed up in some fleabag motels nearby. Apparently they don't trust O'Rourke not to sell their stuff to the highest bidder," Regan laughed.
"What about the target?"
"Yeah, the target, if you only knew what I had to do to try and find that out," Regan laughed holding up his left hand which was sporting a heavy bandage. "Had to near cut my thumb off. I ran for the bridge and got into the first-aid kit while we were docked, stole a few peeks around. Apparently Boyle and Kelly have been tailin' someone for a week now… that's why they ain't been on board. I can only assume it's the target and that they're using Boyle and Kelly 'cause they blend in better around here."
"Yeah, that much I figured. Did you find a name?" Declan asked.
Regan grimaced. "You're getting in over your head here, man."
"Save me the sanctimonious routine, Brendan. Neither of us wants to get caught up in this type of thing. O'Rourke's a fool. If he goes through with this we're all likely to end up in a bad way. Do you really think these terrorists are just going to let anyone who knows what they've done walk away? 1 doubt it. More than likely the run we make to get O'Rourke's second payment will be when both the Revenge and its crew end up on the bottom of the Atlantic."
