Seventy Times Seven (5 page)

Frank shook his head and waved her in.

‘Got to go, Frank. I’ll call you later. There’s only a handful of us know anything about the Thevshi, and even less who he really is. Chances are the Provos won’t know what the hell to make of it. I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure he can handle himself.’

Chrysaor hung up.

Frank lowered the phone from his ear and turned.

‘Sorry to interrupt, sir,’ said Sheena.

‘I was finished anyway. What’s up?’

 ‘Been a few sightings of Lep McFarlane cutting around his old haunts. Just thought you’d want to know.’

Frank looked surprised. ‘Lep McFarlane! Really? I thought that little weasel was dead.’

Marie was standing at the main entrance of her two-storey Sixties apartment building using her foot to jam open the door. The small lobby behind her was in darkness and the concierge had clocked off for the night.

The cop standing on the step below was trying to act casual: hands on hips like he owned the place, still wearing his sunglasses even though it was dark.

Marie had hoped that Sheriff Bill Clay would drop her at the main gate, but he’d insisted on parking up and walking her all the way to her door.

She was staring at him with a vacant expression, not really paying attention any more. The guy sounded like he was reading from a book – like he was just out of cop academy. Wouldn’t matter if he was telling you your grandmother had been hacked to death by a psycho or you’d just won the lotto, it’d all come out the same. He didn’t listen either: liked the sound of his own voice too much, which she found odd as it only had one goddamn tone.

No matter how many times she’d corrected him, he still called her ‘Mary’ instead of ‘Marie’, so she decided to call him ‘Ball’ instead of ‘Bill’. So far he hadn’t noticed.

Marie was looking forward to a bath; she was tired and wanted to wash away the smell of institutions from her clothes. Must be the floor-polish they used or something, but the smell in the cop station reminded her of school. Local County probably had a contract with a cleaning firm that did all the municipal buildings, which would account for them all smelling the same.

She figured it was a good contract to have, then caught herself: Ball Clay was so dull he’d made her think about cleaning products?

Marie hadn’t eaten anything since lunchtime and her stomach was beginning to hurt. If she didn’t eat every couple of hours her blood sugar dropped and she got ratty.

The interview process had taken nearly eight hours and it was now well after eleven in the evening. At the station they’d offered to get her a burger brought in from across the street, but who the hell ate that shit any more?
Cops, obviously
, thought Marie.

They’d seemed genuinely disappointed when she turned it down. Even tried to persuade her that the burgers were the best in Tuscaloosa.

‘The guy uses real beef.’

‘As opposed to what?’ she’d wanted to ask, but that would have meant getting involved in another conversation, so she’d kept her mouth shut.

Sheriff Ball Clay was still talking.

‘Do you know any other tunes?’ Marie heard herself say.

At least it stopped him.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’m sorry my mind was elsewhere‚ which is really where I want to be too.’

‘You sure you don’t want me to see you up to your apartment, ma’am?’

‘No really! Please! I’ll be fine.’

‘Sure, well if there’s anything we can get for you, you just let me know.’

‘Do you do deliveries?’

He looked up at her with no expression on his big dumb face.

Marie sighed, ‘Do you do humour?’

‘Excuse me, ma’am?’

Marie was finished with trying to be nice. ‘Is this going to take much longer‚ Ball? We’ve been standing here so long my legs need waxing to get rid of the new growth.’

‘No ma’am, I’m nearly through. Here’s my card. Got all the numbers you’ll ever need on it.’ He handed a card to her that had his photograph on the front looking like he had someone’s finger stuck up his ass. ‘Just call the mobile, get straight to me. The whole force is carrying them these days. Makes you wonder how we managed before. We’re gonna sit right over there, in that there vehicle for the rest of the evening, make sure you’re okay.’

Just as Ball turned to point at the patrol car parked in one of the bays, someone came up behind him. The guy had to duck to avoid getting an elbow in his face.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Ball.

‘Sure,’ said the guy, flicking the cop a look.

Marie recognised the guy, but couldn’t remember his name; one of her neighbours from the floor below.

She smiled half-heartedly.

‘Hi.’

The guy nodded to her and mumbled back at her. ‘Hi.’

The guy didn’t really look at Marie as he squeezed past her – through into the lobby. The brown takeaway bag he was carrying smelled good: something Asian, Indian food maybe?

There was just no stopping this cop. ‘One of our Trauma team will be in to talk to you first thing in the morning. They’ll take you through this whole situation; explain what happens if you need to go to court, make sure you’re familiar with the procedure, and there’s a couple of FBI agents driving down from Birmingham might want a word too, so don’t book any holidays just yet.’ He grinned like the finger had been taken out his ass . . . and something bigger put in its place. As he backed away he made a clicking sound with his tongue that made Marie want to reach out and strangle him.

It wasn’t just the tiredness that was making her feel this way: it was the lack of food.

‘You sleep safe, ma’am, you under the protection of the Tuscaloosa Sheriff’s Department now.’

‘Great,’ she replied and made the same clicking sound right back at him. ‘I was worried I’d have to take a sedative, but now I know you guys are looking out for me I’m sure I’ll be fine . . . If I do have trouble sleeping I’ll just run through everything you’ve just been saying: that should knock me out for a couple of days.’

Bill Clay smiled at her like she’d said ‘Thank you.’

‘You welcome, ma’am.’

Marie made sure the building’s main door was securely locked then turned and walked wearily through the lobby. She thought about checking her mailbox, but she didn’t even have the energy to do that.

The lingering smell of Indian food was making her mouth water. First thing she’d do was order some to be delivered, then mix herself a large whiskey sour and hope that the alcohol might blind her mind’s eye enough to stop the flashbacks.

Every time she closed her eyes she could see the creepy guy in the shades flying through the air with his chest ripped open. The ringing in her ears seemed to grow louder with each replay. And the bitch of it all was that her mind kept playing the scene back in slow motion.

She would run a bath and change into some fresh clothes and get drunk.

Marie was still wearing the sweatshirt from work that said ‘McHales’ on the front: she’d only just noticed it was speckled with tiny spots of blood. Who the blood belonged to was a question for another time. Her hair looked like shit too.

She pushed through the double doors into the main stairwell and climbed to the first landing, then stopped for a moment. It was the first time she’d been on her own all day.

She wished there was someone waiting for her in the apartment, someone she could offload to, tell everything she’d been through, how it had made her feel, how scared she’d been, then cuddle up and fall asleep, wrapped up safe.

Marie stood there in the dark empty stairwell with her head bowed and let a tear run down her face. She’d never seen violence like that before: for real, up close. The memory of it made her shudder.

It was much more brutal, much more savage than she could ever have imagined. And yet, at the same time there was something so matter-of-fact, so ordinary about it. That’s what had taken her by surprise and left her feeling sick to the stomach. Alive one minute, dead the next.

She’d seen footage once of a Viet Cong prisoner being shot in the head – watched in disgust as blood spurted from the hole in the guy’s skull while he sank slowly to the ground: his eyes still focused.

She had the same sense of repulsion now, but a hundred times worse.

The tears were falling freely.

Marie wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing like that, when she was startled by a sudden noise echoing along the lobby.

Someone was pulling at the main door.

From the din they were making it was obvious they were eager to get in, but didn’t have a key.

Marie tried to stay calm, but the day’s events had left her feeling edgy and vulnerable.

They were rattling the door, kicking it, trying to force it open: the sound amplified and distorted by the marble floor and solid concrete walls.

She flipped the light switch on the landing, but there was no bulb so she had to clamber up two flights of stairs in darkness: her heart pumping like it was going to burst out of her chest and grab her by the throat.

When she reached the third floor she pushed her shoulder against the heavy inner door.

It opened on to a long, covered balcony overlooking a large inner courtyard that served all of the apartments. There was a lit pool and flat grassy lawn with uplighters illuminating some of the bigger plants.

Marie tried the light switch there too, but it wasn’t working either.

She stopped.

There was a movement in the shadows halfway along the balcony.

Marie could make out the tall figure of a man standing outside her apartment door . . . standing there like he was waiting for her. It was difficult to tell – the light was so bad – but it looked like the guy from downstairs who had pushed past her at the main door a few minutes ago.

She wanted to turn and run, but whoever had been trying to get into the building had obviously succeeded and the sound of footsteps could be heard echoing noisily up the stairwell behind her.

Her only option was to move forward: meet the guy head-on and ask him what the hell he was doing standing outside her front door.

She wished she could remember his name.

As she drew near he started speaking.

‘What kept you?’ he asked.

Marie stared at him for a moment.

‘I was having a little “me time” in the lobby,’ she replied. ‘And I couldn’t find the off button for the sheriff.’

The guy held up the brown paper bag.

‘You hungry?’

His voice was familiar, but somehow didn’t match the face.

‘Is it Indian?’ asked Marie.

‘Thai.’

It was only then that Marie realised.

‘Do you know how to mix a whiskey sour?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Do you know how to pour a beer?’

Marie started to get the keys out of her bag.

‘You’ve had a shave. Makes you look . . .’ She paused for a second and smiled. ‘Older.’

Four intruders.

Danny knew they were coming long before he felt the cold, hard barrel of a Browning L9A1 pressed firmly into his cheek.

He’d been expecting a response. Holding a gun to the head of an E4A operative in the church – even if he’d had no intention of pulling the trigger – wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done. It was bound to provoke a reaction.

Seeing Lep McFarlane again had thrown him; made him drop his guard and act like an idiot. He’d lost control and that wasn’t good.

Not only would there be a reprisal, but it opened him up to the possibility of charges: ‘possession of a firearm’, ‘threatening a member of Her Majesty’s security forces’, any other shit they wanted to throw in the mix. But Danny knew that’s not how it worked in the real world: he was fairly certain the security forces – particularly the covert ones – preferred hand-to-hand in the street, rather than face-to-face in a law court. Prosecuting him would take too long, with no guarantee of a conviction, and the E4A operative – the guy in the church – wouldn’t want to make an appearance in court. Not only would it be an admission that they were conducting close-surveillance operations, but the officer’s cover would be blown, and that was not an option. Far better to send in a team: deliver an unofficial response in person and let him know the security forces weren’t to be messed with.

Danny reckoned that’s what was happening now. It was confirmation that he was under surveillance – otherwise, how did they know he was staying the night at Órlaith’s?

He heard the front door crack open, and the sound of footsteps as they padded swiftly up the stairs. He heard the warning creak from the top step as each of them passed over it.

The bedroom door eased open and three of the men entered the room. The fourth he guessed had gone to the bedroom next door where his sister-in-law lay sleeping with her seven-year-old daughter Niamh.

Through half-closed eyes he could just make out their shadowy outlines as they moved quickly to take up positions, strategically placing themselves so as to prevent any means of escape: one by the window, one by the door, and one holding the Browning against his cheek.

On an invisible signal, the two others raised their weapons and pointed them at Danny.

His 9 mm was just a few inches away under his pillow, easily within reach – but Danny knew if he made even the slightest movement they would shoot him.

The three men had Heckler sub-machine guns fitted with suppressors clipped over their shoulders; all were wearing balaclavas pulled down over their faces and none of them was in uniform.

If – as Danny suspected – they were SAS, he was in the shit. E4A were police: what the hell were the army here for?

He’d been arrested plenty of times over the years, always in the middle of the night: questioned well into the early hours, and always released without charge. Special Branch in particular were determined to get something on him, but never could. The authorities had very little to go on except their own suspicions. The reason for the arrests had changed from pragmatism to harassment, with no specific purpose other than to intimidate him – but Danny knew instinctively that tonight was different.

The shouting started.

‘Rise and shine fuckwit. C’mon you dirty Irish cunt. Up. Up. Up. Move it or get a bullet in the head.’ The one holding the gun in his face grabbed Danny round the back of his neck and started to pull him up out of bed.

‘C’mon move it! Get your dirty Fenian arse into gear.’

Danny let himself be hauled to a standing position.

He reached over to pick his glasses off the bedside table, but his arm was quickly smacked down with the butt of the Browning.

Danny was naked except for his jockey-shorts.

Having no shoes on – for him – was like having two weapons less: he couldn’t do much damage with his bare feet. At some point he would have to fight back: retaliation was inevitable, but the last thing he wanted was for the fight to start in the bedroom where there was no room to manoeuvre.

‘Under the Geneva Convention I’m allowed to get myself dressed,’ said Danny, ‘and put on my glasses.’

‘Get your murdering Irish arse down the fuckin stairs now,’ was the reply.

Órlaith appeared just outside the bedroom door with sheets gathered around her and a gun pressed against her back.

‘For God’s sake! What the hell is going on?’

‘Phone John McGovern, Órlaith, tell him something bad is about to happen.’

‘It’s three in the morning,’ mumbled Órlaith, still half asleep. ‘Lawyers are not nocturnal: I’m sure he’d love to help, but only during daylight hours.’

Danny would have argued the point, but there was no time.

‘Yer man here is trying to deny me my human rights,’ he said, leaning over to pick up his shoes.

‘Up straight‚ fucker,’ barked the soldier holding the Browning. ‘Human rights are for human beings, c’mon get a fuckin move on.’

Suddenly Danny’s head was yanked up and he was pushed towards the door. One of the other soldiers stepped in front of him and caught him hard in the stomach with his elbow.

Danny fell winded to the floor: he hadn’t landed a punch and already he was down. As he struggled to catch his breath Danny felt another crack on the side of his cheek from the heel of the soldier’s boot. Almost instantly he could taste the metallic saltiness of fresh blood in his mouth. Another onslaught of punches and kicks left him curled in a tight foetal ball.

He heard Órlaith screaming: ‘Leave him alone you fucking animals.’

Danny was being pulled to his feet.

‘Okay, okay‚ I surrender. Take it easy for Christ’s sake, I surrender,’ he said, trying to stall the soldiers long enough to get his breath back.

He was hurt, but not too badly.

Once they got him outside there would be no witnesses; they could do what they liked. If he was going to make a move, now was the time – while he still had some strength left.

Outnumbered and with the odds heavily stacked against him there was no chance of winning the battle, but at least he wouldn’t be the only one with a headache in the morning.

Danny glanced over his shoulder and bowed his head slightly to Órlaith.

‘For Sean.’

Órlaith knew by the tone of his voice what was about to happen and tried her best to smile back at him. ‘Do your worst, Danny,’ she said with a rueful smile.

Suddenly Danny feinted to the right, spun quickly on the balls of his feet and smacked one of the soldiers on the side of the head with the knuckles of his tightly clenched fist. As the soldier recoiled Danny brought his knee up with a sudden jerk and caught the guy hard in the groin, at the same time flicking his head forward. There was a dull crack as the top of his forehead connected with the bridge of the soldier’s nose and sent him crashing to the floor.

The speed of the attack had taken the others by surprise and given Danny a small advantage, but it wouldn’t last. He had to throw everything he had at them as quickly as possible.

One of the other soldiers was already on him. Danny flicked his elbow up to parry a blow and caught the soldier square on the jaw with a well-timed right hook. The soldier was knocked backwards against the bedroom wall.

There was a sudden explosion of violence as the remaining two soldiers retaliated. Danny managed to sidestep a machine gun swung in a tight arc, avoiding the full impact. But it still caught him a glancing blow on his left cheek. He could feel someone kicking at his legs trying to knock them away from under him.

He managed to get a couple more jabs in before another blow to the side of his face sent him crashing heavily to his knees.

Órlaith was trying to pull one of the soldiers off him. Danny heard the sickening thud as she was punched full on the face, the force of the blow knocking her unconscious to the floor.

A sudden burst of rage helped Danny to rally momentarily. He struggled to his feet and lashed out at the soldier standing immediately in front of him, but with little effect.

He was aware of the soldier’s forehead lurching towards him, but could do little to stop the impact.

A flash of white light exploded inside Danny’s head as their two skulls cracked together. He staggered backwards unsteadily for a few paces before falling dazed to the floor.

The dull rhythmic pounding in his ears obscured any other sounds in the room. Niamh stood beside her mother with tears streaming down her face. Through a hazy prism Danny saw his hand reaching out to her. He could just make out the figure of a soldier heading towards her. Danny heaved and groaned like a wounded animal.

‘
Leave her alone
.’

But a dark abyss had opened beneath him. He could feel himself slowly pitching forward, and tumbling in.

Danny was aware of an uncomfortable sensation in his wrists. He tried raising his hands, but a sudden stab of pain made him stop. His hands were tied behind his back with a thin nylon cord: bound so tightly that even the smallest movement made it cut deeper into his flesh. Trickles of warm blood seeped from the raw wound‚ down between his fingers and onto the ridged steel floor below.

His eyes were wide open, but he could see nothing. No chinks of light penetrated the darkness. A black hood tied securely round his throat was making his breathing choked and difficult. Danny writhed around the floor and kicked his legs out in an effort to free himself from the bindings, but it only made the pain worse and he soon stopped.

He had to concentrate: bring his breathing under control, try to work out where the hell he was.

He knew he was in the back of a truck or van, but where they were heading was anyone’s guess. Whoever was driving seemed to be deliberately aiming for every bump and pothole in the road.

Several times Danny tried to sit upright: but the rocking motion and sudden jolts made it impossible for him to keep his balance.

The image of Niamh standing beside Órlaith with tears streaming down her cheeks flashed into his mind. The expression of fear on her young face made Danny feel ashamed. He realised in that moment that he was tired of it all, tired of the beatings, and the killings and the bombings and the shootings. He was tired of the effect it had on his family. He knew how much stress it was putting on Órlaith. The strain of not knowing where he was, or who he was with, or if she’d ever see him alive again, showed clearly: she looked much older than her years. Her eyes used to sparkle and gleam, but now they were dull and lifeless . . . like his mother’s. Danny couldn’t recall the last time he’d made either of them smile or laugh.

He thought of his mum’s face when she’d heard that Sean – her eldest boy, her first-born – was dead. Even now, eight years later, Danny couldn’t bear to let the image form in his mind. His mother’s life had crumbled to ash: her spirit and soul were buried in the same grave as Sean. She had pleaded with Danny not to get involved. She’d begged him, on bended knee, but Danny was set on revenge. The only promise he had made was not to join the IRA. That didn’t exclude him from associating with them, working for them, killing for them. As far as she was concerned her pleading had counted for nothing: now she could barely bring herself to speak to him. When he called her she’d hang up without saying a word, as if the thought of losing another son was too much to bear and it was easier, somehow, to pretend that he’d never existed in the first place.

But she didn’t understand: no one did. Danny blamed himself for Sean’s death.

He had been playing football in the street with his pals the night that Sean was murdered.

Sean had pulled up in a stolen car, wound down the window and shouted for Danny to come over, but Danny’s mind was on the game. He’d run over to the car, but barely listened to what Sean was saying.

‘Promise you’ll look after Ma and Órlaith for me.’

‘Do it yourself.’

‘I’m serious‚ Wub, promise me.’

‘Whatever you’re up to just don’t get caught, then I won’t have to.’

‘Swear to me.’

‘I swear.’

Sean grabbed a handful of Danny’s sweatshirt and pulled his head through the window of the car. ‘Take care, our lad!’ he said as he kissed Danny on the forehead.

Danny broke free and pushed back from the car.

‘Hands off, you’ll get me lynched.’

‘What’s the score?’

‘Five nil, but we’re a man down.’

‘Five nil! Is it girls youse are playing?’

‘Aye, very funny,’ shouted Danny over his shoulder as he headed back to the game. ‘Just don’t get caught.’

He hadn’t picked up on the clues. Sean never came looking for him, so why had he done so that night? In retrospect Danny realised Sean was there to say goodbye. He must have known something was wrong and that he wasn’t coming back. The question was: who else knew?

Danny felt guilty that he hadn’t said goodbye properly. He felt guilty that he hadn’t tried to stop Sean from driving off. He felt guilty that somehow all of it was his fault.

Once he’d tied up the loose ends surrounding his brother’s murder, it would be time to make things different.

All he had to do was survive this.

Without warning‚ the van suddenly slewed off to the right and skidded to a halt. Danny could feel the skin on his elbows chafe and burn as he slid along the ridged metal floor and crashed into the far wall.

For a few minutes everything was quiet. Then an icy blast of cold air swept over Danny as the van’s rear doors were thrown wide open. He was grabbed roughly by the arms and dragged out onto the road where he stood trembling, not with fear, but with cold and exhaustion. The hood was ripped from his head. Two men stood in front of him, one of them fixing a suppressor to the end of a 9 mm.

‘We’re in the middle of nowhere so nobody’s going to hear this thing pop anyway, it’s just that my friend and I don’t like loud bangs,’ said the one holding the gun.

Danny could hear the sound of babbling water from a nearby stream and could smell the fresh air of the countryside. As he looked around it struck him that these might be the last things he’d ever see, or hear, or smell.