The Storm Protocol (13 page)

12
th
May 2011 – Two days after the Storm.

All that makes existence valuable to anyone depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people. – John Stuart Mill.

Dave smiled at the code word as he hung up, quickly becoming serious again as he cleared his throat.

‘They’ve secured the package, boss,’ said Dave. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Yea, great, let’s head over there,’ answered Black Swan, ‘and don’t forget to stop at Mocha-Mocha and pick me up a skinny latte on the way. Oh, and whatever you’re having yourself of course,’ he added, as an afterthought.

Twenty minutes later
, and with coffees safely procured, they pulled up outside an abandoned warehouse, deep in the countryside above Cobh. As he got out of the car and held open the rear door, Dave could smell the sea; could detect the faint aroma of salt in the air. He could almost feel the sand being blown onto his face, as he listened to the harsh shrieks of the seagulls competing for the tastiest scraps of garbage.

The w
arehouse itself was a small industrial unit. It had been built at the height of the Celtic Tiger and had never actually been used for storage or gainful productivity; it was utilised now for rather more unseemly activities.

At first, the violence
required from him in the course of his work had shocked and appalled Dave. Even when no violence was involved, the levels of threat and menace required to get anything done had been incredibly unsettling.

It was never nice to observe h
umanity at its most base level.

But as the months passed and blurred into years, he was shocked to discover that he was becoming used to it; no, had become used to it. He was numbed to the brutality and terror, almost unfeeling in some respects. It was a safety device; he knew that all too well.
You couldn't think about it that much; there but for the grace of God....

The Warehouse was completely empty
, apart from a cheap IKEA desk that sat in the middle of the floor, two chairs facing each other across the expanse of cheap oak veneer. The muscle duo, Anto and Kevin, stood at either end of the table. Dave’s friends of old from his first encounter with his new employer, now colleagues rather than adversaries.

Sitting at the table
, on the cheap plastic chair that faced the entrance, was a terrified young man. He was trying to look hard and nonchalant and failing miserably. He was dressed in the regulation Adidas three stripe top, G-Star Raw jeans and Nike high tops. His hair was shaved at the sides, spiked on the top and dyed a heavy shade of peroxide blonde. But any trace of bravado that may have existed on the street; the shape throwing for the benefit of his customers and his mates, was gone. At that moment, he looked exactly what he was; a small frightened teenager.

Black Swan ambled in behind Dave. He pulled out the remaining free chair and sat down opposite the callow youth.

‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked, evenly.

The youth gulped twice, but contented himself to just a single nod of understanding.

‘So, you can probably guess why you are here?’ said Black Swan.

The youth nodded again, this time with a guilty flick of the tongue on
to his lips.

Black Swan c
licked his fingers towards Dave, a signal to bring his things over to the table. He unzipped his bag and extracted a laptop. Opening the cover and hitting the power button, he waiting patiently as the machine executed all of its start-up routines. He clicked a few random buttons and then started typing; surprisingly fast and accurate for a man with such large fingers.

‘Do know how much you owe me?’ he asked.

The youth shook his head and dropped his eyes down, the universal acknowledgement of a guilty conscience.

‘Well I do,’ said Black Swan.

He pointed to his laptop.

‘Do you know what? You should really get yourself one of these,’ he said conversationally
. ‘That way, you’ll never be in this position again.’

He stared at the youth unblinkingly for a minute or so
, before shaking his head sadly.

‘You guys never learn. Don’t they teach you anything at school?’

The youth looked at him blankly. Black Swan remembered the schools he passed everyday; crumbling edifices rife with graffiti and decay; gangs of children in uniform, hanging around on street corners, smoking and drinking when they should be learning.

‘I’ll take that as a no,’ he sa
id, answering his own question.

He shook his head sadly.

‘Anyway, so here's the story,’ he continued. ‘You owe me two thousand, one hundred and seventy six euro and twenty three cent. You've got until Friday at three pm to deliver that money to me personally, do you understand?’

The youth nodded vigorously, like an ornamental dog on a parcel shelf in the back window of a car.

‘Ok, you’re free to go,’ said Black Swan. ‘Remember, Friday at three pm.’

He extracted something from his pocket
, as the young man got up to leave. It was a black leather glove. He slipped it on deliberately, making sure all the fingers were fully inserted and comfortable. The youth saw none of this; his attention was firmly fixed on the two bouncers, and on how quickly he could traverse the ground between the table and the exit. As the teenager came around the side of the desk, Black Swan flexed his fingers, regarding the moving digits thoughtfully.

‘Just one more thing,’ he added
, as the youth drew level.

Black Swan
got up and waited; he could sense the hesitation and the fear, as the young man slowly turned towards him. He saw the angry blobs of acne; the immature flecks of hair on the upper lip. Christ, this guy was only a kid.

The punch, when it came, was so fast that the young man barely saw it, catching him full in the centre of the face. It lifted him clean off the ground, to land with a thud on the solid concrete floor. Black Swan walked over, and as the teenager writhed in pain, measured a savage and accurate kick into one of the boy’s kidneys for good measure.

The youth contracted into a moaning foetal position on the floor. The blood from his broken nose pooled out onto the dark green painted concrete surface, reminding Dave obscurely of traffic lights.

Black Swan leaned over and lifted the boy’s chin. He stared into the bloodshot and tear-stained eyes.

‘Nobody steals from me,’ he stated softly.

He said each word slowly and distinctly, emphasising the pause after each one. He took off the glove, put it carefully into a zip lock plastic bag and slid it back into his pocket. He then indicated for Dave to follow him.

‘Anto, dump this crap where you found it,’ he said, ‘and make sure it doesn't get any more damaged than it is now. I want to make sure I actually get my money back.’

#

They had been driving for a while in companionable silence, when Black Swan looked up from his newspaper. Dave could see he was forming his thoughts, and it was no surprise when the relative tranquillity was broken.

‘Dave, do you think I’m too hard on them?’

‘Not my place to say, boss,’ said Dave.

‘But do you?’ he asked. ‘I know it may not seem like it at times, but I do value your opinion.’

‘I think you'll do what you wanna do, regardless of what I think,’ answered Dave with a smile, hoping to rob the statement of any offence. ‘But to be brutally honest with you, boss, if you
do
want my opinion then, no, I don't think you’re too hard on them. Without you, the snivelling little pricks would have to work for a living. If they want to try and steal from you, then they know what’s coming.’

Black Swan nodded
, as if satisfied by the response.

‘What is the date today?’ he asked, completely changing the tack of the conversation.

‘Twelfth of May,’ said Dave.

‘I
knew it was,’ said Black Swan. ‘When were we supposed to get an update from the Louisiana operation?’

Dave considered his answer.

‘That would be yesterday, boss,’ he responded at last.

He had forgotten all about Scott; shit.

‘That's what I thought. You said he was reliable and you said he was good. That little cock sucker better not be holding out on me. Your neck is on the line on this one, Dave,’ said Black Swan.

It was a promise not a question. Dave knew that from old.

Dave glanced at his boss in the rear view mirror and held his gaze for a couple of seconds; long enough for Black Swan to break the connection first.

‘You can hold me accountable all you want
, boss,’ he said. ‘But the simple answer is that if he hasn't checked in, there must be a good reason for it. This guy is good, and I’m not just saying that. He knows what side his bread is buttered, if you get my drift. He’s looking for a long term contract.’

‘So
, where the fuck is he?’ asked Black Swan. ‘Send him a text or ring him. I need an update by tonight. I’ve been waiting for this for twenty five years, I shouldn’t have to baby sit these fuckers; or you, for that matter.’

Ten minutes later, Dav
e pulled into the garage of Black Swan's townhouse in Montenotte. It was part of an old Georgian terrace; four storeys over a basement, massive high rooms, classically proportioned and decorated to the absolute highest specification. No expense had been spared in the renovation of the house, or the mews property at the back, which had been converted into a four car garage. Dave parked the Mercedes next to the Ferrari F430 and Porsche 911 Turbo; boy’s toys that were rarely taken out and used. They were status symbols of wealth and success; just there for show really.

Dave held the rear door open like he always did. Black Swan got out and walked over to the corner of the garage. Pressing the recessed button on
the wall, a subtly hidden down-arrow illuminated above what suddenly became recognisable as a set of lift doors.

When Black Swan had bought it, one of the major modifications to the house had been the installation of an underground passageway between the mews and the main living area.

The lift arrived with the traditional
ping
. The stainless steel doors glided noiselessly open and Black Swan got in. Dave waited until the lift was on the subterranean floor. He could picture his boss ambling along the stark and brightly lit passageway, like the baddie out of a James Bond movie. All he needed was the white cat.

Dave smiled to himself
, as he walked across to the small kitchen area in the corner of the garage. He filled the kettle and switched it on. Then, extricating his phone from his pocket, he got down to the business in hand.

He thought about texting
,
okay you little cock sucker, where are you?
Then he thought, no, that is probably taking the boss just a little bit too literally. He eventually decided on
where are you, we need a sit rep
?

When he felt stre
ssed, Dave tended to resort to army speak. He hit the send button, put the phone down on the kitchen counter and started making a cup of tea.

While he crushed the teabag against the side
of the cup, he was oblivious to what was happening to his message, as it silently streaked across the mighty Atlantic Ocean; borne on celestial motorways of copper and fibre. As he threw the used tea bag into the sink, and extracted the milk from the fridge, he had no idea that the message was nearing its destination; zipping from cell to cell, as it triangulated the position of its target device. And as he poured the milk into the golden liquid, he was unaware that the message had reached its final destination.

The two evidence clerks looked at each other in surprise; the received message was making the smart phone buzz liked a trapped wasp in the bottom of the sealed evidence bag.

12
th
May 2011 – Two days after the Storm.

I'd like to believe that we've learned something from our collective past and that, at the end of the day, good will always outweigh evil. – Anon.

James Murray was an eternal optimist, but on days like these, the pessimistic side of him returned with a vengeance, and he wondered why he bothered. He was hunched down low in his seat; not that it really mattered, these idiots would never be able to spot him. They were about as observant and aware as a group of primary school children.

As he watched, another exchange took place; surreptitiously hand-to-hand, money one way, small packet the other. That was the problem really, the sheer quantity. He had been sitting there for about four hours and in that time he had seen thirty four transactions. Thirty four packets of misery
, disguised as temporary release. Thirty four families exposed to heartbreak and potential bereavement, and all in the name of profit.

It was around this time in an operation, generally about half way through, that the activist in him became awakened. He always wondered to himself; what was the point in eliminating supply? That was just treating the symptoms. You needed to eliminate the demand; that was the cure.

He smiled fondly, as he remembered back to the time when his rampant optimism could barely be contained; before the drab and squalid reality threatened to drain his spirit away. His first interview for the drug squad, after two years in uniformed patrol, had been a good case in point.

‘So just for my benefit, how precisely do you pro
pose to eliminate demand?’ the inspector had asked, dangerously softly.

James
had stumbled from one badly thought out scenario to another, his face reddening by the minute. The inspector had allowed his embarrassment to build and continue, giving him no quarter under a relentless gaze, until at last he held up his hand decisively, stopping James in mid sentence.

‘We are the Gardai,’ he’d said. ‘We deal in facts and not in conjecture. We deal in cold hard reality
, not in supposition. We focus on what we can do, not what we'd like to do, or what we can’t do. So, we go onto the streets and we eliminate the supply, because that is all we can do by law.’

After his ineffectual performance, James had been convinced that his interview
had been a wash out, and that his drug squad career had effectively ended before it had begun. So, it had been with shock and some small measure of surprise, that he’d been notified of his new assignment.

‘He very much admired your principles and your passion,’ the female drug squad officer had said. ‘He said he wished his other operatives had more of both.’

What she hadn’t mentioned was the inevitability of it all. How the principles and passion seeped slowly away, and the full extent of the constant and never ending battle with the ugly underbelly of society became abundantly clear. The dealers they removed from the street corners of the estates were like Russian soldiers at Stalingrad; for every one gone, two more stepped up to take their place.

But in the constant battle for control of both the str
eets and neighbourhoods of the south, he held onto something that some of his more jaded colleagues had long since lost. The inspector had seen it, but had not commented on it; he didn’t have to, it shone out of everything that James did. He had pride; personal care and attention to whatever he did, no matter how trivial or inconsequential it seemed to others.

He glanced down at his watch; after half a day
, he’d had enough of this. Sufficient evidence had been collected over the past few hours. As usual, he had painstakingly catalogued and noted every transaction, accompanying each full handwritten page of text with at least three photographs. His reports were normally detailed and accurate novellas. When he made an arrest, it always stuck. All he needed now was to execute the bust. He saw another customer approaching.

‘May as well bust the two of them at the same time,’ he said quietly
to himself, under his breath.

His hand was on the door handle
, when the radio sprang into life in a burst of static.

‘Six-
six come in, this is control,’ said a disembodied male voice; almost impossible to place out of the half dozen radio operators.

James thumbed the microphone.

‘Hey control, this is six-six,’ he responded quietly.

‘Six-six
, you are requested to return to base immediately.’

‘Control, can it wait?’ asked
James. ‘I’m in the middle of a bust.’

He heard a couple of short bursts of static and then the bellow.

‘Murray, get your arse back here now!’

The first voice had been unrecognisable
, but he knew the second one immediately.

He let go of the door handle, settled back in the seat and took a few deep breaths to calm himself. He hated leaving a job unfinished. Switching the ignition on, he watched with interest as the new transaction continued. Unfortunately, it seemed that demand was as high as ever.

He drove back towards base through the post apocalyptic streets of the large sprawling estate. When he’d started working this particular beat, the socialist liberal in him had been outraged. As far as he’d been concerned, the state had a duty of care to these people. And yet the powers that be seemed to have abandoned these housing estates to lawlessness and mob rule.

The more he worked amongst the people though, the more he started realising that it wasn’t necessarily th
e fault of the state. Yes, the social welfare system both encouraged and fostered a lack of work ethic and ambition in people, most of whom accepted their cheques with a weary fatalism. But the urban decay; buildings set alight and cars burned out. That was all down to the populace; these people were doing it to themselves. And they weren’t doing it for high ideals, views and principles. They weren’t trashing their community because of a cause that they believed in. No, this was just mindless vandalism and intimidation.

The young men and women were accepting the
social
in one hand, while they smashed their own homes and their community with the other, and for what? As far as he could see, it was for no reason other than boredom. He just couldn't understand that type of mentality.

He pulled into his assigned parking space, noting with interest the increased number of cars in the car park. The drug squad was based in Anglesea Road Garda Station; not the most salubrious area of Cork, and he idly wondered where the extra vehicles had come from.

He smiled at Janice on the way in. They had been flirting on and off for a few months; since the last Christmas party, in fact. They were both afraid to take it further. They were reaching that age; not yet desperate, but not wanting to cast off potential relationships as casual and carefree either.

‘Hey Janice,’ he said. ‘What’s the story?’

‘Boardroom, third floor, they’re waiting for you,’ she said curtly, without looking up.

He walked past the desk, wondering what he had done to offend her, when he heard an exclamation.

‘You can't go upstairs looking like that,’ she gasped, as she tore off her headset and ran around the desk.

To his chagrin and horror
, she proceeded to style his hair with her fingers; smoothing down his locks the way his mother had done, when he was a child.

‘That’s better,’ she said, standing on tiptoes, before kissing him on the tip of his nose.

She winked.

‘Knock them dead, tiger!’ she added
with a smile.

As the lift ascended to the third floor, he thought about what had just transpired and realised there was still a huge amount about women that he didn't understand. Maybe he needed to start finding out. He made a mental note to ask Janice out on a date as soon as was reasonably possible, and then parked the information in the non-work recesses of his brain; he had other things he needed to concentrate on right now.

He didn't know what to expect, but
boardroom
sounded unsettling at best and ominous at worst. He had the feeling that he would need to be alert and switched on.

As he walked, a slow measured plod like a condemned man toward the gallows, the carpet on the third floor deadened the sound of his heavy workman’s boots. At the end of the corridor, he stopped. Raising his hand to rap his knuckles on the heavy hardwood door, he was startled to find it fly open in his face.

‘Ah, Detective Murray, there you are,’ said Inspector Ryan. ‘At last we can get this show on the road.’

The only thing that had changed about Inspector Ryan in the three years that James had been working in the drug squad was his lack of hair. He had lost none of the drive, passion or determination to make a difference. He was a whirlwind; a man whom it was genuinely hard to keep up with, even if he was precisely double your age.

James followed Inspector Ryan into the room; nobody ever got ahead of him. His eyes scanned the outer reaches of the large boardroom table. He could see all his colleagues; members of both the Cork County and Southern Region drug squads.

They were seated along one side of the table. There were no free spots in their ranks, except for the place at the far end, which was obviously reserved for Inspector Ryan. He glanced to the other side; two seats free among the unrecognisable suits.

Maybe it was not obvious to outsiders, but to James it was as plain as day that they were Gardai. They exuded that slightly imperious confidence and presence so common in police officers; possibly visitors from another jurisdiction?

This could get interesting.

James took his seat, nodding politely in turn to the sharp suited gentlemen that were sitting either side of him. He waited with interest, as Inspector Ryan resumed his place at the top of the table. The man next to James passed him a marker pen and a thin cardboard strip that was pre-folded in the middle. He glanced around, realising that names and ranks had been written and placed as nametags in front of each person. He dutifully scribbled down his own and was just placing it in front of him, when the lights dimmed slightly and the projector came on.

All the heads in the room swivelled toward the bright square of light. James fervently hoped it wouldn't be death by
PowerPoint. In fairness to the inspector though, he generally used the projector only for items of criticality. James hoped the visitors were of the same vein.

‘Ok, I think we have everybody we need,’ said Inspector Ryan. ‘Before we kick off and for the benefit of everyone involved, I’d like to give all of you the background as to why we are here. Then I will hand over to Chief Inspector Brown from Dublin to see if he has anything to add.’

He indicated the man sitting to his right.

‘Just in case there is anything I’ve missed,’ he finished.

He paused and then clapped his hands once. He then hit a button on his laptop and the first slide appeared. W
elcome to Cork,
it said simply,
in large letters.

‘Is everyone happy with that?’ he asked
, into the body of the room.

‘Inspector Ryan, if I
may just say a brief word?’ inquired a plumy voice, halfway down the right hand side.

James leaned forward and peered
at the nametag; Fergal Lynch, secretary at the Department of Justice. He remained hunched forward, immediately interested. It was not often they had a representative from the Department of Justice. It would be intriguing to see what he had to say.

‘Gentlemen,’ said the s
ecretary loftily, as he stood to address the assembled throng. ‘As you are all well aware, there is a distinct separation between the Gardai and the Department of Justice.’

He surveyed the room quickly.

‘And rightly so,’ he added hastily, noticing some of the expressions.

‘But as you also know, the Department of Justice holds the budget for the Gardai
, and as such, I would like to think we have even a minor influence over some of the policies and operations,’ he finished briskly.

Assuming a much more sombre expression, he continued speaking
, as the politician lurking just below the urbane surface slowly emerged.

‘Drugs are a scourge
, eating into and undermining the very backbone of our state. Nowhere in the country is this highlighted more starkly than Cork.’

H
e said this with added emphasis on the last word.

‘
I don't think I need to remind anyone in this room, that the current minister for Justice was elected from Cork South-Central.’

He had their full attention now.

‘I'm not saying it's critical that this operation should succeed, but I think it would be politically expedient to make this a triumph of co-operation.’

He paused and you could have heard a pin drop in the room.

‘Make no mistake,’ he said emphatically. ‘In the current climate, our budget is being ruthlessly and forensically analysed; the minister needs to see results.’