The Fellowship, page 14
part #5 of Rick Fuller Series
“Smithson’s Private Investigators,” I shouted using my best Belfast drawl. “Would ye, like my card so? Yees wife already has it.”
“Fuck that,” shouted the guy. “And fuck yees, too.”
Finally, he got the Nissan’s engine to fire and I was bathed in the red of brake lights. The front drive wheels squealed as the guy hit the gas and I was showered with pebbles as the Japanese marque snaked into the gloom.
Within minutes I was back in darkness and silence, shaking my head in disbelief.
Slipping my phone back into my pocket, I considered what I had just witnessed.
Deceit is a terrible thing. Lies and treachery hurt as much as any bullet. I saw it in Des’ face when he found out that Anne was seeing another man.
As I turned my attentions back to the task of assassinating two members of what was left of the PIRA, I considered myself lucky that I’d never had my heart broken by betrayal.
Well, not so far.
Des Cogan’s Story:
Lauren, Mitch, and the new girl Sellers, all arrived back at the car together. I’d been sitting in the passenger seat with my foot up on the dash, muttering the odd Hail Mary and hoping for a miracle or two. As the big American dropped his frame into the driver’s seat, my leg jarred with the car’s motion and I instantly felt needles of pain shoot through my nervous system.
As I was three hours away from a second pain killing injection, I reckoned that the chances of the big man upstairs being about to work his magic in that department were slim to none.
I twisted my frame to look into Lauren’s face and instantly saw that my second prayer wasn’t high on the Almighty’s list of priorities, either.
She swallowed hard. “They’ve had him in a suitcase,” she began. “A solid type, you know the kind I mean.”
“Go on, hen,” I offered, my guts churning. “Spit it out.”
She looked into my eyes and I thought I detected tears forming.
“We saw them lift the case from the Passat, then we lost them for a while. Then… well then, we picked them up again standing by a Mercedes van with a large caravan attached. They…”
Lauren’s voice faltered, but Sellers was in. No emotion, detached.
“We saw them pull the child from the case, but the boy appeared lifeless. The two players were shaking him. A woman came into shot. Young, early twenties, fair haired. We think from the van. She took the child from the two males and started CPR. She looked like she knew what she was doing but the CCTV frames per second here is poor, hence the guesswork. It’s impossible to say if the kid was alive or dead but he was definitely carried into the Merc.”
Sellers checked her watch. “That was exactly twenty two minutes ago.”
I looked into our latest recruit’s face. She had no connection to Grace or Kaya, no emotional attachment to anyone involved in the whole sordid mess, but even so, she was a cold fish.
“You think the kid is dead, don’t ye?” I said flatly.
Sellers shrugged. “Like I said… impossible to say. But if you put me on the spot, that would be my prognosis.”
I felt my blood run cold. My anger threatened to engulf me. My hands were shaking as I felt for my phone.
“Registration?”
“Irish plates,” said Lauren quietly. “5534DAZ.”
I turned to Mitch. “Let’s go, big man. We’re going to find these fuckers. And when we do, they’ll wish they’d never been born.”
Rick Fuller’s Story:
Satisfied that the husband of the year and his bit on the side were long gone, I settled back into my spot and waited for Fin to arrive with our targets.
No sooner had I found cover, then I heard the sounds of a vehicle approaching, its headlights flashing through the trees.
The change in engine note as the vehicle slowed was obvious.
The last thing Fin needed was my big boat race looming large from the undergrowth, so I couldn’t risk a look see. I just had to wait for the car to draw to a halt.
Leaving the MAC10 in my bag, I pulled my Browning from my belt, slipped off the safety and took a deep breath. For this job to work, timing was everything.
The second the car stopped, I had to be at the rear passenger door, gripping the handle, ready to dish out the good news.
As the crunch of rubber on gravel filled my ears, I saw it was Fin’s red Ford.
Stepping forward, I lifted my left leg over the broken fence and planted it firmly before raising my right. As I twisted my frame, I saw that Fin had missed our agreed stop and pulled the car some ten strides further up the layby.
My hackles rose, and all my bells and whistles went off. This was either the work of a fucking amateur, or the shit had hit the fan.
I was out in the open so had no choice but to stride forward, my path lit by the tail lights of the Ford.
Ten paces, four seconds. Four precious seconds. Four seconds as a sitting duck.
I was six feet from the boot, when the rear door flew open. In one swift motion, a long leg slid out, one hand gripping the door pillar, and a bull of a man with a shiny shaved head pulled himself into view. He had blood on his shirt and a big fuck off Desert Eagle in his fist.
He instantly raised the weapon to fire.
I stepped to my right and dipped my frame to make his target smaller and harder to hit. As I bent my knees, I saw the tremendous muzzle flash from the Israeli weapon and felt the intense heat from the massive .50 round as it flashed past my face and buried itself into one of the trees behind me.
Baldy had most of his body hidden by the car. He had cover, I did not. And, just to add to my woes, the driver, who was most definitely not Finbarr O’Rourke, was stepping out of his door waving what looked suspiciously like a Mini Uzi machine gun.
These boys meant business.
I was in the proverbial brown stuff and this was no time for fancy shooting.
Launching myself right, back over the fence and into the trees, I attempted a forward roll that went horribly wrong. I caught the right leg of my jeans in some brambles which meant I found myself lying on my back rather than standing on my own two feet.
My follicly challenged friend opened up good style with the Eagle and rounds slammed into the ground around me.
I rolled to my left, found my footing, took three steps back and tucked myself behind a nice sturdy tree.
Now, it was a different ball game. I had darkness and cover and it was the two players who had a big fucking problem.
I raised the BAP two handed, cupped the grip with my left hand and got off three rounds the way I had practised many thousands of times. A double tap to Baldie’s chest and one to his head.
The boy’s legs folded underneath him and he disappeared from view behind Fin’s Ford.
The driver instantly opened up with the Uzi.
Stupidly, he had the thing switched to fully automatic. Its impressive rate of fire makes the Uzi a very useful weapon if you want to hit lots of targets in a short space of time. But, just like the MAC10 I had sitting somewhere in the woods, it’s an up close and personal weapon on full auto. Lethal in an enclosed space, dangerous in a drive-by, but with the shooter standing ten yards away, pointing it one handed, and with me tucked nicely behind a mature oak, he may as well have thrown the fucking thing at me.
Less than three seconds later, there came the unmistakeable click of an empty weapon.
I stepped forward, Browning in the aim, and eyeballed the guy.
“Drop it.”
“Fuck you,” he spat. “You’ve just killed my brother, ye bastard.”
The boy had a thick Southern Irish brogue, was my height, but at least twenty years younger, with broad shoulders and powerful arms. His right hand still held the Uzi, in his left jeans pocket was a spare mag.
I could almost hear his mind working.
His best chance was to spin his body around and back vault over the bonnet of the car, fall behind the engine block and reload.
If he’d been facing a bank robber, or a street thug, that may have been a safe option, but if he tried it with me, I’d slot him before you could say, Fosbury flop.
My Browning was pointed directly in the centre of his chest.
“I’m only going to ask once more son. Lay the Uzi on the roof of the car… nice and slow.”
The boy stayed where he was and curled his lip.
“You deaf, ye hun bastard ye?” he said. “I told yees to fuck off.”
I dropped the Browning a couple of inches and put a round smack bang in the middle of his right kneecap.
I never was one for patience.
Three strides and I was back over the fence. The boy had dropped the empty Uzi and was screaming all kinds of obscenities at me. I picked up his weapon, rested it on the roof of the Ford where I’d wanted it, walked around to where his pal had fallen and dragged him between the Ford and the trees. Once he was out of sight of any further lovers of outdoor sexual activity, I tore off his blood stained shirt, stepped over to screaming boy, stuffed a good chunk of it in his mouth and gave him a crack with the butt of the Browning.
He was instantly away with the fairies and the night was once again blissfully quiet.
Turning my attention to the car, I could now see that the front seat passenger was indeed Finbarr O’Rourke. He was slumped forward, his seatbelt holding him in place. He had three obvious bullet wounds, two, all having been fired from behind him, one exiting each kneecap and a third embedded in the back of his skull.
Textbook PIRA punishment.
Years of dealing with the Provos made you extra careful, and as there was obviously nothing I could do for the poor sod, I left him where he was.
Something had gone horribly wrong. Fin had been a deep cover operative for many years. His persona had worked for him all that time, but somehow, he’d been compromised within twenty four hours of meeting yours truly.
Now, call me old fashioned, but that smacks of people in very high places telling tales where they shouldn’t, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Fin’s decision to steal the AK’s rather than broker the deal, hadn’t rattled a few highly placed cages.
Fin had been kneecapped, a vicious and unbelievably painful experience, and therefore, as we’d only recently discussed, he could easily have told these boys all he knew. I needed to know exactly what that was, particularly the location of the handover of the AK’s. That, and if the numbers back at the ranch had increased any.
Brannigan Junior appeared to be coming around some and began clawing at his makeshift gag, his body needing big lumps of oxygen to try and sort out his pain receptors. I stepped over to where he lay, pulled the Uzi’s spare mag from his pocket and increased his problems ten-fold by giving his injured knee a good whack with it.
Bullets and the magazines that hold them are heavy. It was like being cracked with a small crowbar.
The boy screamed into his gag and rolled about the floor like a Premiership striker in the penalty box, blood seeping through his fingers as he gripped his ruined knee.
I got in his face. “Who’s at the farm now? How many?”
The boy did some shouting and questioned my parentage, but nothing more. Figuring that time was on my side at this particular moment, I waited for his pain to subside enough for him to remove the gag of his own accord.
Finally, he managed it and lifted himself up on his hands so his back rested against the Ford’s front wheel.
He examined his outstretched leg, as blood pooled around it, shimmering in the moonlight.
“I need the hospital,” he said.
“True,” I offered. “And I need a wagon load of AK’s.”
The boy snorted his derision. “Fuck you… not a hope. They’ll be gone… long before you can get to them.”
I nodded slowly. “And in about twenty minutes, so will most of your bodily fluids.”
He winced in pain as he shuffled himself further upright. “And if I ain’t back at the farm soon, my Dad will come lookin’. Him and plenty more. You’re a dead man. Just like that treacherous cunt in the car.”
I shrugged. “I’ve heard it said before.”
The boy’s left eye was closing from the belt with the Browning. Even in the limited light he looked pale. Yet he didn’t look scared.
I changed all that by putting a second round into his right ankle.
“How many at the farm?” I bawled.
The Irishman was convulsing with the pain, shaking involuntarily. Shock, blood loss, fear, all conspiring against his undoubted bravery. His lips trembled, mouth open, eyes wide, but no words came.
I pointed the Browning at his left ankle.
“How… fucking… many?”
“No… no… don’t,” he stammered. “Fucks sake… Five… six, maybe.”
With things moving on apace now, I tried a different approach. Let him talk about a subject we all love. Money.
“Why do you boys want to sell the IRA’s crown jewels, eh? What do you want with all that cash?”
The boy swallowed.
“It ain’t my money. It’s going to my old man and his mates from back in the day, the old guard. They’ve been talking about selling those guns ever since Good Friday. The IRA have had enough.”
The boy threw up, spat out some remnants of food and looked me in the eye.
“Look, Cork, Dublin and Belfast are all full of tourists these days. And tourists want to have fun. They want the good things in life, not fuckin’ bombs and bullets.”
“Such as?”
He screwed up his face.
“Come on. What do you think? Paddy O’Donnell had it right, until some fuckers topped him, eh? The face of the people, and all the time making millions on the side. My Dad did Paddy’s bidding for years. He says it’s his turn now.”
I pricked my ears up at the mention of O’Donnells name. I don’t know why I was surprised. All these fuckers pissed in the same pot.
I shook my head.
“So now he’s dead, you guys are going to fill the gap, is that it? Street hookers, cocaine, heroin. Just what Ireland needs more of.”
The boy snorted.
“Who are you, fucking Mother Theresa? My Dad took the chance of hiding those guns… took the risk, for years. He figured it was our turn. O’Donnell would have done the same, for sure. Turn them into cash, turn them into real assets.”
“But O’Donnell paid the price.”
“So, there’s a gap in the fuckin’ market… Look, I need the hospital.”
The boy was a proper little entrepreneur, eh? It seemed Lauren’s good work on the streets of Belfast had changed the face of the city’s criminal community. That was no surprise. I’d seen it happen often enough in Manchester. Slot one dealer and before you can say Ecstasy, another one is up and running. That said, I did wonder if Cartwright already knew that O’Donnell was connected with Tommy Brannigan… but time was ticking, so I ploughed on.
“How did you know Fin was going to double cross you?” I said.
“Dad got a visit. Some bloke in a fancy car… and you can shoot me all yees want, but I can’t tell yees who he was, cos I don’t know. I ain’t never seen him before.”
“Was it you who killed him? Did his kneecaps?”
The boy pulled his face. “What does it matter? Look, we needed answers. How would you have got them?”
“Like this,” I said, and put a third round in his left ankle.
The body’s tolerance to pain works in unusual ways. It reaches a certain level, then peaks. The boy lay there breathing heavily. His systems all closing down inside. He was alive… but it wouldn’t be long.
I knelt by him.
“I want the location of the handover, son. Give it me and you go quick.”
He mumbled something incoherent, then finally focused on me.
Now, I’ve stood in all kinds of places, from jungles to stinking ditches interrogating prisoners of all colours and nationalities. In the field there is no time for finesse, no time for niceties. This was no different. I didn’t enjoy the process, it was pure necessity.
Moments later, the boy gave me what he knew, and it was all over in a heartbeat.
He didn’t even beg.
I rolled him over the fence on top of his brother. Then, after checking for any signs of a boobytrap, I pulled Fin from the car, dropped him in the same spot and covered the three corpses with branches and leaves. It would be a while before they were discovered. The creatures of the night would begin to uncover them eventually.
Maybe the next time my favourite courting couple came to this lonely spot, they might notice the unpleasant fragrance in the air.
So, this job was about drugs and money and my nemesis, Patrick O’Donnell, had once again reared his ugly head. Criminals and their wares never seemed to be too far away from any conflict.
One phrase the boy used rattled around in my head. It wouldn’t let me go. It sat there as if on a loop of tape and it made my guts churn. ‘My Dad did Paddy O’Donnell’s bidding for years,’ he’d said.
The big question was, just how many years, and exactly what bidding?
I leaned against Fin’s old car and did the maths. Back in 1996, the brothers would have been children, but the father would have been in his thirties or older. I knew that the team that travelled to England and murdered my wife back then, were at least three strong. The investigators found two sets of spent cartridges at the scene and witnesses reported a woman sitting in a car at the end of our road. O’Donnell had paid his price, but what if the man sitting in his front room right now was one of the others?
I did my best to put that to the back of my mind, but if I got the chance, I was definitely going to ask the question.
Lauren North’s Story:
The mood in the car was solemn. I couldn’t get those jerky images of Kaya being carried into the van out of my mind.
