The Storm Protocol (15 page)

‘That's the one,’ said
Sean. ‘And I don’t have to tell you how driven, focused and downright scary that character was. He was almost psychotic in the range and scope of his behaviour. In short guys, let’s just say the nickname of
the Bullock
is well chosen.’

Inspector Ryan let the murmurs of chat grow into a hubbub of conversation for a few minutes
, before holding up his hand for quiet again. As the noise died away, he spoke into the ensuing silence.

‘So in summary,’
he said. ‘We have two very powerful and equally vicious gangs, vying for the supremacy of our streets. Secrecy is paramount to both organisations. It is incredibly difficult to get intelligence on either of them.’

He paused.

‘In short gentlemen, we have a very tough job ahead of us.’

13
th
May 2011 – Three Days after the Storm.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. – Friedrich Nietzsche.

The first thing that struck me, on landing back in the country of my birth, was the duality of language. I had completely forgotten, being so long in the US, but it was strange and vaguely unsettling to see the Irish words on the airport signs, as well as the English.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but Dublin Airport certainly wasn't what I had expected. I knew I was Irish; my birth certificate said as much. I remem
bered the tears that had fallen, as the Emerald Isle had receded to a dot on the horizon. I remembered all the rebel songs; the ones I had sung, emboldened with one too many pints of Guinness, in the ludicrously overpriced and maudlin Irish bars of New York. I even remembered a smattering of the hard learned
patois
; prided myself on it in fact.

But somehow this a
irport; this gleaming cathedral of steel and glass just didn't feel like the gateway to my home country. I knew some of it was me. I’d been away for twenty four years, so some things were bound to have changed. I was certainly different, but some of the Irishness, the
ceol agus craic,
seemed to have been stripped from the place.

Walking down towards the baggage reclaim, you could've been in any airport in Europe. The two employees I
’d met so far were both of eastern European origin; I’d had difficulty understanding what they were saying. In fact, the only Irish person I’d encountered so far was the guy at passport control.

The official had been very stern and had fixed me with an unblinking stare. For a second, I
’d felt as though he could see right through me. My first instinct had been to run away. Don’t be stupid, I’d said to myself, he doesn’t know anything. Just as the doubt was forming in my brain, the man had relaxed and smiled.

‘Coming home?’ he
’d asked, with a welcoming grin.

I
’d smiled back in return.

‘Something
like that,’ I’d said. ‘We’ll see how it goes.’

Walking
on through the baggage claim and straight out through the green
nothing to declare
, I continued on. Travelling light, with only a rucksack, I headed out of the terminal building and down to the coach park.

I hopped onto the
train-link
; the coach that connects the airport with Connolly and Heuston railway stations. The journey was long and uneventful. I recognised none of the roads or buildings, as we drifted inexorably onward toward our final destination. Dublin wasn’t my place; it wasn’t where my particular angels and demons dwelled.

As the c
oach pulled up outside Heuston station, I felt the first jolt of familiarity. Like a reconnection of sorts; small though it may have been, it was definitely there. I walked through the grand colonnaded entrance and was reminded briefly of my last visit to Dublin; my one and only visit, in fact.

I had come up with Mum on the train. The eighth of December was the day when the country people converged on the capital,
the big smoke,
to do their Christmas shopping. I remembered the jostle of the crowds, the large tree with lights strung across the street like a mantle of stars, and the Christmas decorations in Switzer’s department store window; a regular treat for the kids.

After buying my ticket, first-class, I couldn't relax until I was safely on that midday train to Cork. I jumped from leg to leg and only finally started to calm as the leviathan
slowly enlarged from the dot on the distant horizon, and glided to a stop with a reptilian hiss. I placed my bag on the rack above my head, sat back in padded comfort and closed my eyes for a few minutes.

The brakes suddenly released and the train jerked a few inches forward, startling me, before slowly building speed.

Inevitably my mind strayed back to the night of the storm. My god, I’d gone through the emotional mangle that night, and suddenly I was standing back in that spot; I could even feel the rain on my body.

#

I experienced the feeling again; the distinct and immediate euphoria I’d felt, after I read the words written in the box marked
father
: Thomas Eugene Mary O’Neill.

Al
most immediately afterwards, I received the proverbial kick to the solar plexus. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach; the sick realisation that I’d probably killed my own son. I felt myself descending into a gnawing chasm of hopelessness and despair, but something at the back of my mind refused to let me fall into the abyss; kept telling me that something wasn't right.

I forced my wounded brain to seize on the practicalities and then, in an instant, I knew what it was that was wrong. Kathleen had never known my confirmation name. It had been a standing joke between us. Apart from the fact that I’d been embarrassed to have a woman’s name, she hadn’t told me hers either, so it had been pure stubbornness on both our parts.

I tried to make sense of the discovery; tried to make sense of its significance. If she hadn't known my confirmation name, then she couldn't have added it to the birth certificate. If
she
hadn't added it, then it followed logically that she hadn't had anything to do with the birth certificate at all.

Seizing on that suddenly empowering information, my brain started connecting all of the dots. If she hadn't been party to it, then in all likelihood it was a fake and in all probability, Alan Murphy was the assassin after all.

My brain started recalibrating; I could feel the cogs working. I could hear them whirring, as the emotional baggage was ruthlessly dumped out, and the cold calculating killer was slipped effortlessly back into place. I could feel the anger rising, but it was a cold hard edged anger; I could sustain this for days if I needed to.

As I stood there, gazing up at the sky, I’d felt the pressure of something on the back of my neck. As I thought about it now
, with the benefit of hindsight, I realised that all the pent up emotions I’d experienced in that fateful minute or so had been funnelled into that split second.

At last, my subconscious seized on something; at last it could react in a way it was trained to do. The truth was
simple; reaction to danger was like breathing for me, it just happened naturally.

I heard the first part of the whispered statement.

‘Guido....’

The rising wind whipped the rest of it into the driving rain. While the
O
was still forming in his mouth, I whirled around, instinct and experience telling me I had the benefit of surprise, but only milliseconds to act.

As I spun, I caught the outstretched hand of my attacker with my left hand, just below his weapon. My right hand, still holding my o
wn gun, came around in a blurred arc of speed, hitting the would-be assassin square on the side of his neck.

Still keeping hold of my now dazed assailant, I stepped in and whipped my hand across his chest. I swept my right heel backwards through the base of his ankle, taking the leg completely out from under him, and his balance with it. As he lost his footing, I kept up the pressure of my arm across his chest and he passed the point of no return, hitting the floor with a bang; I could hear the whoosh as the air was forced from his lungs.

Following up my advantage, I dropped my knees savagely into his chest. I heard a couple of cracks and a sharp, injured intake of breath. Grabbing my assailant’s weapon hand and holding it tight, I placed my own gun against the sinews of his wrist and fired a single shot.

I felt the hand go limp, and at the same moment heard the agonised scream.

‘Arrrgghhhhhhhhh!’

I let go of the arm, and watched dispassionately as the gun dropped out of the now powerless fingers. Getting up off his chest, I waited until the agonised shrieks had dissipated and had been replaced with shouted profanities; he was now ready to talk, even if he didn’t want to.

I knelt beside him. He was frantically trying to stem the blood loss from his shattered stump.

‘Who sent you?’ I asked conversationally.

‘Suck my dick,’ said the man, in a voice strained with pain.

‘Who sent you?
’ I asked again, more pleasantly and conversationally this time.

‘Are you fucking deaf?’ asked the man.

‘Piece of advice,’ I said pragmatically. ‘In future, never give your target any chance at all.’

I placed my pistol to the man's forehead and pulled the trigger
, without even pausing.

Most people, when they fire a weapon, close their eyes instinctively. I had trained myself to do the opposite. I didn’t want to miss a millisecond. I saw in an instant the expression change from panic to realization to acceptance. I felt rather than saw the track of the bullet; saw the explosion from the back of the head, the blood spraying like paint carelessly slopped out of a tin. The faint rustle of clothes as the already lifeless body settled back onto the ground.

This was not some grotesque killing ritual. I did not do it through any sadistic pleasure, but purely because it could be the difference between life and death; my life and death.

My survival mechanism started to kick in. I glanced at the house, filled with my meagre personal belongings, overlaid on someone else’s past. I glanced at the gleaming rental car and a plan started forming; the same instant reaction to situations that had kept
me alive for twenty odd years. I caught a glimpse of the future; of myself strolling into New Orleans Airport and booking a one way ticket to Dublin.

Ireland was as good a place as any to find out who I was.

#

As I watched the green canopy flash past the carriage windows in a blur of movement, I realised that I was back in the present again. I picked up the bottle in front of me and took a swig. I wasn't even sure why I’d got myself a beer. I didn’t like drinking during the day, but there was a strange and unfamiliar feeling in the pit of my stomach. I thought about what it could be. It took me a while to work out what it was
, and then it struck me with a slow realisation; it was anxiety.

In my game, if you were anxious, you didn’t live very long. But this was dif
ferent. As the countryside unfolded past my window, I knew that I was getting closer and closer to old memories; ghosts that maybe should be allowed to sleep easy and undisturbed.

Extracting my hand from my jacket pocket, I placed my keys on the table top in front of me. I picked up one and looked at it. This key had been on my key ring since I was fifteen. It had born witness to my first serious kiss, my first serious relationshi
p, and later, my first killing. I wasn't even sure why I had kept it for so long; or the house it belonged to, for that matter.

I'd never been able to bring myself to sell it, but I’d never been able to bring myself to rent it out either, so I had a management company look after it for me. They checked it out on a regular basis; made sure there were no leaks or disasters, forwarded on the mail and kept it clean and tidy.

In a sense, I think I’d mothballed my previous life. It was easier to wrap it up and preserve it; ring fence it, if you like, than it was to come face to face with something unsavoury or unsettling about my new life.

Mum had a way of making me face things, even in death, that I really didn’t want to know or recognise about myself. I hadn’t dealt with her leaving me; I didn't want to get rid of anything from her life, but I didn’t want to face up to her death either. It would be an interesting reunion.

13
th
May 2011 – Three Days after the Storm.

Where thou art, that is home. – Emily Dickinson.

I picked up the beer bottle and turned to look out of the window, trying to forestall the memories. I took a long swig, shuddering as I swallowed, and watched the forty shades of green flashing past in an emerald blur. It wasn't just tourist bullshit; it really was a very lush and green country.

The further I got from Dublin, the further back in time the countryside seemed to regress. The names of the towns resonated from my youth; Portlaoise, Te
mplemore, Thurles, Mallow, town-lands of an earlier time.

Where I'd found Dublin modern and soulless (it could have been any modern European capital city)
, I found these towns timeless in their Irishness. The old-fashioned shop fronts, the whitewashed stone cottages; for every mile of track I travelled, I found the republican rebel spirit seeping back into my bones. I knew why I’d come back, but I also knew why I’d been reluctant to come back. I knew the pull would reassert itself, but I had to find out. I had to know for certain, and the only place I could think of to start my quest was where it had all began; where I had begun, in fact.

I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes again. I couldn't remember the last tim
e I'd had a decent night’s rest. Sitting there, feeling the rhythmic clacking of the train on the rails, a metronomic lullaby that would normally send me to sleep, I just couldn’t make the leap from the conscious to the unconscious world.

Somehow at the last minute, the questions would shake me awake and assault my impending dreams. Sitting on this train on my way home, I
knew why.

It was the spectre of family.

A small ghostly tendril was reconnecting me to the past; a past I had tried to forget, like it was a dream.

Of course
, I’d never had a family; never married, never even had a serious relationship. How could I? I killed people. Yes, maybe they were low life scum-bags who deserved it, but they were people too. They were sons of mothers.

I would not have been able to regularise the two lives; would not have been able to cohabit the pleading entreaties of my victims
, with the soft, innocent laughter of my children. The two were just incompatible, and yet, the unspoken question was out there.

The thing was; fatherhood was a mystery to me. I had no frame of reference. My own father had been austere and distant.

Richard O’Neill had been a man of his time. And he had died before the possibility of a relationship between us had even emerged. So most of what I knew about fatherhood, I’d learned from my mother; possibly not the best seat of learning for a boy to become a man. I thought then about Kathleen; I wondered if she had ever married, and then chided myself for my first thought of her being a jealous one.

I knew I was torturing myself. I knew no good would come from idle speculation. But then, there were very few
good
thoughts in my head. Happiness to me was experienced in brief diversions; it wasn't a state of mind.

An image of Kathleen started to form. Sixteen years old, bouffant hair, shoulde
r pads and rainbow legwarmers. She was not conventionally pretty; she was not doll-like and petite. She was a big girl; certainly larger than average, but there was an attractiveness about Kathleen. It was something she wore, like an aura or a cloak. Call it vivacity or maybe sexual energy, but something had called to me on that very first night.

We had gone out together for a couple
of years, but Ireland and especially Cork were too economically ruined to support two completely unskilled teenagers. I stuck it out for as long as I could, taking jobs in fast food joints and on building sites, but inevitably, at the end of the month, my expenditure always exceeded my income.

At the time, there was a lottery for visas to America. It was like having your very own
Wonka’s golden ticket; a key to unlock the country where the streets were literally paved with gold, or so they said. There were fifty thousand of these lifelines available, and I became one of the lucky ones.

When I’d first broached the subject with her, she had been so excited, and it was only halfway through the conversation that I
’d realised why. She thought I was talking about both of us going.

It was one of those conversations where both of you are sharing it, but yet it seems to be going in two different directions; at completely crossed purposes. The further it went, the harder it was for me to steer it back and eventually I just had to tell her out straight.

We had shared a lot over those months; relationships are about the only things that flourish in adversity. So when I told her that I’d got the green card and that I was going alone, I was prepared for the shrieks, the screams, the anger and the hurt. But I had not been prepared for that look. It was empty and devoid of hope, with a tinge of shock and hurt; like a loyal dog that has just been savagely kicked.

It had been impossible to retrieve our relationship from the ashes of that conversation. She had tried once to dissuade me, and when that hadn’t worked, she had begged me to take her. I had shaken my head sadly; at that stage of my life, I could barely look after myself, let alone someone else.

I had half hoped she would be there to wave me off at the docks, but was not surprised when she wasn’t; it was a lifetime ago.

I felt a shiver run through me
, as I remembered the house. That was another ghost I had to confront; another spectre I had to lay to rest. My father had been a successful solicitor; killed in a car accident when I was five. Luckily, he’d had an exceptionally good life insurance policy, as well as a decent pension set aside for my mother.

W
e had been forced to move from south to north; from a crumbling but substantial property on Merchants Quay to a much smaller house in a less affluent neighbourhood. Even when I had gone to America, and she had been moved to sheltered accommodation, there was still enough money left from the policy to pay for the nursing home. It had helped to assuage my guilt and it also enabled me to hold onto the house. She posted me a copy of the will that she’d made the day I left, leaving the whole of her estate to me; before the Alzheimer’s took over and she didn’t even know who she was.

Yes, there were a lot of ghosts to lay to rest.

With a jolt, I realised we were pulling into Kent station. As I dragged my bag onto the platform, I felt a strange wave of youthfulness wash over me; it was like I was twenty again, which in a sense I was.

I had never experienced Cork as a mature adult. As I walked out
through the doors and onto the Lower Glanmire Road, a wave of memories and nostalgia hit me like a tidal wave. I hadn't expected to feel so reconnected with the place. I thought about who I was, and then forced myself to think about the situation I found myself in. Certainly over the last month, there were a lot of dangerous people out there who wanted me dead; I needed to focus.

I joined the queue at the taxi rank, surprised at how many people had been on the train. There had certainly been many more than I’d expected.

I watched as the line slowly dispersed. I wasn't racist; how could I be living in New York, the most cosmopolitan of all cities? When I’d left Cork, you would barely find an Englishman on the streets, let alone a black man, but now every second taxi driver seemed to be coloured. It seemed that Ireland had indeed come a very long way in twenty odd years.

It was more by luck than judgement that as I came to the head of the queue
, I heard a familiar refrain and smiled at the greeting; this one was definitely Irish.

‘How we doing, b
oss?’

‘Great thanks, you?’
I replied.

I could almost feel my own accent flooding back; it had been so long since I’d heard the Cork lilt and if I was truthful with myself
, it felt good. I settled myself into the front seat with my small bag stuffed between my legs.

‘Where to b
oss?’ my new friend asked.

‘Grattan Hill,’ I said, the words feeling alien in my mouth.

‘Sure, you could walk it from here,’ said the taxi driver.

He noticed the look on my face.

‘You’re the boss,’ he said, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

The d
river pulled out onto the busy road, leaning on the horn and swearing meaningfully out of the open window.

‘Jesus, where did this arsehole get his license?’ he asked loudly, gest
uring ahead. ‘And look at this fucking guy. You could drive a bus through there, boy!’ he shouted angrily.

I tried to sup
press a smile; it seemed taxi drivers were the same the world over.

‘So, what has you in Cork, boy?’ asked the driver, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was at least ten years his senior.

‘Just visiting,’ I said.

‘From America
, is it?’ said the driver.

He pronounce
d America funny; the first three syllables, and then a pause before the last one, with his voice rising all the time. To me, it sounded quite comical; to an American, probably less so. In the US, they took their country name very seriously.

‘Yes, I got a green card; I was lucky and left durin
g the eighties,’ I replied. ‘This is my first time back in about twenty five years. I even missed my mother’s funeral,’ I continued softly.

‘I wouldn’t hang ar
ound, if I were you,’ said the taxi driver, either ignoring me or not hearing the last remark. ‘This country is fecked. Half the place is living on welfare and the other half is paying for it. On top of that, the Blacks, the Indians, the Chinese and the eastern Europeans are all coming over here. If they don’t work, they’re claiming welfare, and if they do work, they’re pricing all of us decent people out of a job. This country is fecked,’ he said again, as if emphasising it.

I smiled; yep
, definitely the same the world over.

‘This is you, b
oss,’ he said, pointing ahead.

I’d been paying attention to the driver, not my surroundings. I looked straight ahead and drew a sharp breath inwards. It was as if someone was playing with the zoom on a camera. Everything was blurry and then; wham, suddenly all brought into sharp focus.

I paid off the driver with a healthy tip.

‘Thanks m
ate,’ he shouted, as he drove off; gratuities were a way of life for me now, legacy of living in New York.

My hands shook as I tried to get the key in the lock. I could feel my knees knocking. I was just about to turn and push
, when I heard a loud clearing of throat to my left. I looked across, suppressing the urge to run. It was Mrs Walsh, my mother’s neighbour. I was not in the mood for small talk; not now anyway.

I didn't have a mirror, but I didn’t need one. I knew the man standing beside her was unrecognisable from the teenager she used to shout obscenities at.

‘Are you from the management company?’ she asked.

I moved my head noncommittally, hoping it would cover either a positive or a negative response.

‘It’s just you’re not the normal guy,’ she said, stating the obvious.

‘I’m not from the management company,’ I answered. ‘I’m moving in for a week or so.’

‘Oh how nice! It will be lovely having somebody next door again,’ she said. ‘It has been so depressing, living next to an empty house for so long. Don’t get me wrong, he makes sure it is kept lovely, but it’s not the same without someone living in it.’

She held out her hand.

‘Maeve Walsh,’ she said by way of belated introduction. ‘But you can call me Mrs Walsh,’ she added, with an impish grin.

I had to think for a couple of seconds.

‘John O'Reilly,’ I replied in return, ‘but you can call me John.’

‘Welcome to Grattan Hill, John,’ said Mrs Walsh.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But if you don't mind, I’m going to get myself settled inside. It’s been a long journey; a long flight.’

‘Off you go, young man, don’t let me keep you,’ she said. ‘Just remember, if you need anything
, I’m just next door.’

I darted inside, maybe a little too quickly. I closed the door and leant back against the cold wood, closing my eyes as I did so. That had been really weird.

Even though I'd known she wouldn't recognise me, it was still peculiar to talk to my old neighbour like she was a stranger. Even if she could be a poisonous old busy-body sometimes, she had been very good to my mum, especially towards the end of her tenure in the house. I would tell her later who I really was, when the tiredness had abated.

The house itself was like a time warp. I remembered everything. I'd seen a documentary once
, where they re-created rooms for celebrities in their childhood homes. I felt like one of them at that moment; it was uncanny how familiar it felt.

I threw the keys on the table and sat down heavily, so I didn't fall down. I pulled my iPhone out of my trouser pocket, selected camera mode, and then the camera roll. I flicked through the pictures
, till I came to the one I wanted. I'd taken it at an angle to try and block out the bloody and jagged hole in the forehead. I turned the phone on its side and tapped thoughtfully with my forefinger on top of the case.