Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (14 page)

“Yer Granda’ loved such nights, said he could feel his own sap risin’ in the spring an’ ‘tis true that the man couldn’t keep himself still, nor sleep much in the springtime. He was a fine man. Ye’ve the look of him about yer wee mouth. Pure Riordan stubbornness in the set of it.”

Conor stretched up, tilting his chin to Casey as if to emphasize the point his father had just made.

A rift valley opened in the luminous clouds, exposing Vega low on the horizon. His Daddy’s star, deep blue and twinkling in the restless night air.

“Look there, laddie,” he turned so that Conor faced the horizon. “’Tis yer grandda’ sayin’ hello to ye.”

To love someone with this immediacy was a little bit like being hit hard, when you weren’t expecting it in the least. To be this afraid suddenly, so that the world seemed unbearably dangerous to someone so small and fragile and new.

He couldn’t hold his son and not see, in some measure, the face of the daughter they had lost. Their time with her had been so brief, but he remembered every detail of her, how her tiny face looked like a translucent petal not ready to open fully. How perfect each finger and toe was, how like shafts of sea-drowned pearls her small bones were. And how, in the short hours they had been allowed to spend with her, he felt as though he had lived and died a thousand times and had seen the reflection of those feelings in his wife’s face.

He always knew her age, and could see her as she would be now, an eager little girl proud and proprietary of her new brother. He thought of all the stories he would never tell her, the advice and wisdom he wasn’t able to pass down, and hoped that she was with his Da’ where she could have all those things that he so cherished from his own childhood.

“Take care of her, Da’, an’ watch over us too while yer at it, if ye wouldn’t mind,” he said softly.

He stood in the night, under the stars, until his son fell asleep, secure in the strength and love of his father’s arms.

Chapter Eleven
Dirty War

David sat at his desk and looked out over the night lights
of Belfast. He had been sitting thus for over an hour in an attempt to marshal his thoughts and decide how to write out the events of the last several weeks in an official report. What to tell, what to leave out? It was always a fine line, a judgement call on an operative’s part. Some things had to be told in order to reassure one’s superiors that one was actually doing one’s job in a satisfactory manner. Some things had to be hidden so they didn’t suspect one was doing one’s job a little too well.

He sighed, tapping his pen against his forehead. There was so much he could not even begin to describe, how he felt an utter stranger to the life he had left behind in England, how some days he thought with the facet of his mind which had become ‘Davey’. In order to be effective, one had to become the ‘other’ until that other felt more natural than your own self did. Many days this life was the real one, the one you had put away seemingly the outer shell, the shed chrysalis left behind and, David thought, hollow at a distance.

Originally, David had been run undercover with the Military Reconnaissance Force, his youthful appearance and air of innocence a useful tool. But the MRF had become too corrupt, with agents gone native and no controls effectively exerted. The entire thing had blown up when it came out that a group of them had headquartered in a massage parlor and were dabbling in business that had little to do with espionage or intelligence gathering. David had disgraced himself in an entirely different manner and almost gotten himself killed one night down in South Armagh.

There were several intelligence agencies operating in Northern Ireland and little communication or cooperation between any of them. There was Special Branch, the elite of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. There was MI5, and even MI6—supposedly restricted by its charter to intelligence gathering outside of the United Kingdom—had a dirty finger in the Northern Irish pie. Once the MRF was disbanded in disgrace it had left a hole in the intelligence chain and thus, 14
th
Intel had been born. They were a handpicked crew, the upper echelons staffed with SAS officers. Nominally, he was attached to 14
th
Intel but his position within it had been left deliberately murky. Essentially he was on his own, and so if he got himself into a bad situation there would be no calling in the cavalry to rescue him. It hadn’t been stated outright, but was understood nevertheless. Truth was, he preferred it this way, as terrifying as it could be at times. It did blur the lines, but at least it kept him free from the turf wars that the various intelligence companies engaged in as often, if not more, than the ones they conducted with the sectarian forces. Even there things were very murky, because it was clear to David that some high-end people were in bed with the more radical factions of Loyalism and screwing around freely.

It wasn’t even a case of the right hand being unaware of what the left was up to. That was far too simple for Northern Ireland. There were hands without number here, and no knowing to whom they were attached, nor for how long, nor why. David had never seen a war zone so confusing. And it
was
a war zone, despite what the government and military mouthpieces said to the contrary.

Though that stance begged the question—if this wasn’t a war, but merely a police action, why the hell had they brought in the army, the SAS and MI5? The government wanted to be seen to be actively doing something, but wanted no blood on their hands. Soldiers were trained to obey orders. The risk in not obeying was either court martial or death if disobedience occurred in a combat situation.Yet when the soldiers obeyed orders, and the resulting fallout was a black eye, they were left to take personal responsibility for their actions, as the government and army brass distanced themselves from the poor squaddies they played as pawns on their political chessboard. For boys that were often away from home for the first time, and wet behind the proverbial ears, this was more than confusing. It was a betrayal that would erode their view of life and country for the rest of their lives. David knew this only too well, for it had done just that to his own view of his country and her dealings in Northern Ireland.

The Catholic/Nationalist community had long accused the British forces of being in collusion with the Loyalists but the official voices had ballyhooed this as rampant paranoia or media huckstering. David feared it was neither. No one trusted anyone—and with good reason.

They were an odd people, the Northern Irish, unfathomable, hard as nails at times—hard faces, hard voices, hard lives. He had never seen a people more family oriented or who would take a bullet for a friend without hesitation. Their loyalty to tribe was half the problem. It was next to impossible to break that code, to get in under the wire. And even if you did, something would always be wrong—your accent too generic, your views not quite on target, your way of communicating and understanding revealing you as ‘other’ to a people who lived on trip-wire instincts.

Northern Ireland was, of course, too close to Britain. A part of Britain officially, though unofficially David knew they never really had been. The planting and partition of Ireland might be one of the most grievous historical errors any country ever made. But Britain could not admit she had a war within her own borders, and this effectively tied the hands of the army and intelligence services.

Everyone here was playing their own game, fighting a turf war that had nothing to do with bringing peace to this war-torn province. Everyone wanted a piece of the action. At times, to David, it seemed like a enormous game, without any hard and fast rules. Everyone looking to either snatch or broker power, to play the propaganda war, to justify criminal butchery by claiming it was provoked.

A half hour later he only had three things written down. First, his contact with Jimmy Sandilands and the information that had come from that association. Then the surveillance results from Boyd’s office and home. There was next to nothing there; Boyd seemed to be a suspicious bastard by nature. David was certain Boyd didn’t scent anything wrong with David, because he was blind where he chose to be. Lust would do that to a man. He shook off the distaste that he felt when he saw the look in Boyd’s eyes or felt his breath on his neck.

The last item on his list was one over which he hesitated. He felt a marked antagonism toward involving the Riordans in anything official, of committing their names to paper, or admitting he had any contact with them. He never had put Patrick’s name to any document, and he would not. It seemed a sacrilege to do so, as though he were laying something fragile and beautiful in front of strange eyes that would not see anything but information to be used against either himself or Patrick.

He laid the pen down and stood up. The last of the light was gone and deep night lay over Belfast, softening the lines of the hard little city. It might, in the view of the world, be a bit of a provincial backwater, but he was more at home here than he had ever felt in London. Sometimes he forgot that he had another country, that people here saw him as foreign, as other, as the enemy. It was a dangerous sort of amnesia and he ought to know better than to indulge in it.

He had long understood that his country was not innocent here in Ulster, that in fact Britain had much to answer for in the formation and continuation of the Troubles. In light of recently gained knowledge, he had to admit it was far worse than he had ever imagined. In England, only the glory of the Empire was taught in the schools. History was never taught in its fullness, hidden were the truths of man’s unending cruelty to man, his subjugation of other races and the blood that bought colonies and kept them. What he had learned through his time with the Redhand Loyalists told him it was entirely within the scope of possibility that British military forces actively fanned the sectarian flames in Ulster to detract from their own culpability.

It was, he thought, as Voltaire had so succinctly put it,
‘History is no more than accepted fiction.’

It hardly needed adding that the accepted fiction was inevitably written by the victors.

He returned to the desk, picked up the paper with Casey Riordan’s name on it and ripped it into pieces. Some things were worth saving, war notwithstanding.

Chapter Twelve
June 1973
Father to Son

Casey sighed with relief as he stepped into the warm water
. It had been a long day, filled with a variety of difficulties: a stone mason who didn’t seem to realize the workday didn’t start at noon, a shipment of stone that was only half of what he’d ordered, and a set of painters who had argued from the minute they’d arrived until he had threatened to knock their heads together.

He kept Conor snugged tight to his chest as he lowered himself into the water, their shared nightly bath had become a ritual for the two of them. The warm water helped make the lad sleepy and Casey savored the quiet time alone before handing him off to Pamela to be fed and put to bed for the night. He settled with a sigh of contentment into the warmth, the baby splaying small hands in startlement as the water closed over his dimpled bottom and lower back.

He kissed the rounded curve of his son’s head, breathing deeply of his scent: milk and talc and the sweet, green smell that was all the laddie’s own. Conor clutched his tiny fists into Casey’s chest hair, causing him to draw a sharp breath.

Every inch of him was a wonder, and it boggled Casey’s mind to think he himself had once been this tiny, this vulnerable. From the near transparent shell-like ears, to the ten perfect wee fingers and the incredible velvet of his skin.

There were times that he noted the contrasts between his own scarred, hairy body and the delicacy of what had been created between him and Pamela. It never failed to humble him and yet people had babies every day, did they not? But not this baby, one much hoped for and often despaired of. They had tried for such a long time, and been sore grieved by the death of their daughter, Deirdre. And then another girl had been lost during his internment and he had begun to wonder if they were fated never to have their own children. For a bit it had seemed there might not be a chance for another child, as the tenuous threads of their marriage had been strained to their limits, then the miracle of this child, and a fragile new beginning between his parents.

He dipped a flannel washcloth in the water and poured a bit of the soap Pamela had made for the baby onto it. A waft of lavender, the dusty, sunny scent of chamomile, and the sweet summer fragrance of geranium billowed up on a vaporous cloud. He washed the baby slowly, paying particular attention to the crease of the neck. He had been nervous at first of handling the baby, his hands being bigger than Conor’s head, but it had become natural within days, as though Conor were an extension of his own flesh—which he was, both literally and figuratively.

This time each night had become a time for rambling talk, of stars and trees and small gossamer creatures. It was hard to talk sense to someone so soft and tiny, and so Casey allowed his whimsy to take flight and knew that should anyone else overhear he was likely to feel a fool, but with only Conor listening, it seemed right. He remembered his father telling him how it was with one’s own children.

“Ye’ll understand when ye’ve yer own babby,” his father had said. “Ye can tell them all yer soul in safety an’ so ye find that ye do. Ye wish ye could give them the wisdom of the world an’ keep their innocence intact at the same time, but of course ye cannot an’ that’s one of the hardest things about bein’ a parent.”

“Did ye feel that way about me?” he had asked, for he’d just received a rousing lecture on the virtues of celibacy not twenty minutes previous—for getting caught by the nuns with his hand on Theresa O’Dell’s budding breast in the custodian’s closet.

His father had reached over and ruffled his hair. “Aye laddie, I still do—every day. When I look at ye, I see a young man, but I still see the wee lad I held in my arms an’ rocked to sleep nights too.”

It was true, he did find himself discussing everything with Conor, from God to the squirrel that had gotten into last year’s flower seeds. Tonight, however, it was time for a less philosophical discussion. As charmed as he was by this tiny bundle, still a man had other needs in his life which tended to be ignored when there was an extra tenant in the marriage bed.

“See, son the thing is yer goin’ to sleep in yer own bed tonight come hell or high water an’ that’s an end to it. A man has certain needs, an’ to be blunt, yer interferin’ with the fulfillment of mine.”

One seaweed eye squinted balefully at him.

“Ah, don’t even try it on me, laddie. I’m a veteran of this particular war. Yer Mammy’s an expert at those looks.”

Conor’s only response was to release a trickle of hot liquid down his father’s chest.

“Well, ye’ve made yer point,” Casey laughed, “but yer still sleepin’ in yer crib tonight an’ make no mistake of it, boyo.”

Conor merely gnawed on his wet fist and loftily ignored this threat.

“’Tis a grand thing to have a woman that ye both love an’ desire, an’ I could wish no more than that ye’ll know such a thing yerself one day. An’ I’d hope that yer own child will have the good grace to allow ye some leeway in achievin’ those desires.”

Other than a brief ‘
unh
’, Conor tactfully refrained from comment on this notion of his father’s. Casey decided a direct plea might be more effective.

“’Tis rumored that a man can actually go blind from a lack of such things. Ye don’t want to be responsible for yer own father losin’ his sight now do ye, boyo?”

Casey couldn’t have sworn to it, but it did look as though the lad rolled an eye at him.

“Alright, I admit it’s not likely but yer lookin’ at a desperate man here, son.”

Conor appeared to give this some thought, returning to a reflective chew of his fist.

Casey suddenly realized that he and the baby were no longer alone. Pamela was standing quietly in the doorway, a towel cradled across her forearms.

“Oh, Jewel, I didn’t hear ye come in.” He flushed slightly, wondering how much of the conversation, one-sided as it might be, she’d heard.

She had a very tender smile on her face as she bent over the tub, lifting Conor out of Casey’s arms and wrapping him snugly in the towel. The minute he smelled his mother, Conor began the snuffling bleat that precursored the lusty howl he put forth when he was hungry. She bent and kissed Casey’s wet curls.

“The two of you are beautiful together.” She looked at him from over the head of the increasingly indignant Conor, and said, “I’m taking this one to feed him and put him in his crib. So if a desperate man should find himself in the bedroom in, say, half an hour, I’ll meet him there.”

It was a full three hours before either of them arrived
at their appointed meeting, as Mr. Guderson had unexpectedly shown up and needed Casey’s help with fixing a tractor engine, and after that task had been finished he stayed for the cup of tea Pamela offered while Casey fixed her with a frustrated glare. She returned the glare in full measure and asked Mr. Guderson if he’d like a slice of pound cake to go with his tea.

When at last he took his leave of them, Casey was looking things too unlawful to be uttered.

“I’ll be up in a minute, Jewel,” he said, shutting the door behind Lewis’ back. She knew he would do his nightly check of doors and windows, a habit long ingrained in him by a life in Belfast’s rough interior. But after the watcher in the woods episode, she wasn’t inclined to argue with his concern.

The evenings had been chilly, but the bedroom glowed with a delicious warmth. Casey had slipped up the stairs partway through Mr. Guderson’s visit, leaving her alone to endure the lecture on the proper care of sheep. Now she saw that he’d come to light the fire. A sense of heightened expectation had her shivering, but not with cold.

“Oh Lord,” Casey said, coming in behind her. “I did think the man would never leave. For someone who rarely has more than two or three surly words for a person, he was in rare form tonight. Pound cake!” he snorted. “If I lose my sight altogether, be it on your head woman.”

She unbuttoned her blouse and Casey slid it off her from behind.

“How much time do ye estimate we have?” he asked, in the tone of a man who feels doomed to celibacy for the foreseeable future.