Authors: Jason Johnson
‘And then we went looking for the right man and found out all about you, Aloysius. We got to learn what you’ve done, where you’ve been, your deadly wee business on the dark net. Most of it anyway. We evaluated you for a long time before moving in. We knew you were the man for the job.
‘But now the curtain is closing and I have a few bills to pay, one way or another. They want to know how much of this and that and the other is true, how much is a load of balls, and they will not be leaving any of us alone until they get what they need, I’m afraid. It was only a matter of time until we were rumbled, and that time is now.
‘They want me to know I cost them all millions and learned too much in the process, that I basically stole a pile of their information. They really do not like the fact I had the fucking nerve to do it in the first place, y’know? You talk about this mad thing in your head about Imelda wanting to bump you off because you know too much. You? Fuck’s sake, you wouldn’t believe what I know about the CIA and MI6 and what they’re up to and who’s who and what’s what. In their world, I have become a very dangerous man.’
And his words are making sense, and a pattern is forming. I can see how the Americans are sitting it out until the coast is clear, I can see how that clearly says they are taking him. I can see why Martin has been so careful to keep his illness such a close, close secret. Clearest of all, I can see how all of what he found was handed to him on a plate by people who are angry they didn’t know better. Wounded pride can make nations act in the wildest of ways, nations like the US, like the UK, like Ireland.
And, right on cue, I see now three vehicles I don’t like in this car park. I see there are men in all of them, and that all of the men are watching without speaking.
‘But,’ he says, walking now, ‘it’s left us with some good smarts, and a good reputation in places where we needed it. We might be the silly little guys to the big guys, Aloysius. But it’s like the cat and the lion, just a matter of scale, nothing else. And it’s no bad thing when the lion feels he has to keep an eye on the cat from now on because he knows the cat is as smart and sleek and as stout-hearted as he is.
‘So, aye, of course they’re watching us, watching us like hawks, but they don’t know the details of what’s ahead, and we do. And, Aloysius, my friend, you have a job to do.’
I’m about to tell him not to say any more when he makes the point.
‘You’re about to tell me they’re here,’ he says, stopping now, checking out what he can of my thoughts from my face.
My instinct is to run. To run at them. To run from them. Right now, immediately, fast as hell.
‘Take it easy, just walk with me back to the car,’ he says.
‘They’ll take you now, Martin. They know something’s changed. I’ve landed you in this shit and they’ll take you now while they can.’
‘They will,’ he says. ‘They’ll have had shotgun mikes on us, they’ll have heard everything I just said to you, in which case they’ll not want the man who’s going to kill me to be around for long either.’
We get to the vehicle and I open the passenger door for him, looking back at the cars. I spit on the ground, sending a message, marking my turf as I go to the driver’s seat, climb in, close the door, watch.
‘They will take me, Aloysius, and they will leave you here,’ he says. ‘They know who you are and they won’t feel the need to do you any favours. You will be stretched across the seat, maybe a drugs overdose. But they will leave you here, dead, unable to tell the story I just told you. You understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘I cannot live my last days in hostile custody, do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want you to take orders from me and I do not want you to bend or breach them in any way, is that clear?’
‘Okay,’ I say, and I feel the adrenaline fill my limbs, feel the courage scaling up inside, feel how all fear will now be wrapped up and brought along for the ride, be present yet with no active role to play.
‘Start the engine,’ he says.
And I do.
‘Lock the doors.’
I do it.
He goes, ‘There’s a 9mm and magazine under your seat. Flip open the catch beneath you and you’ll find them.’
And the three cars begin to move, fanning out, moving slowly through the lines of other cars as they approach.
He goes, ‘Got them?’
‘Yes,’ I say, and I lock one into the other, hands doing it from memory before I asked them.
‘I want you to knock off the safety catch and put it to the centre of the back of my head.’
And he turns, looking out his side window, as the cars close in.
I go, ‘Yes,’ and place the weapon against the back of his head, the steel against his skull.
The cars speed up. A side door opens, one man ready to leap out, desperate to stop this killing, desperate to get their hands on Martin and bring him in.
Martin goes, ‘Did you know what that Kris fella had done before you strung him up and watched him die?’
‘What?’
‘Did you know about the women-beating and revenge porn? It’s always troubled me, always made me wonder about you.’
Karson is out, dashing towards us, one hand waving, one holding a weapon close to his leg.
‘I knew,’ I say. ‘I always know what they’ve done. I’ve never killed a good man.’
‘Good,’ he says. ‘Today you will.’
I go, ‘Yes.’
He says, ‘You will shoot twice.’
I go, ‘Yes.’
Karson’s panting, one second from Martin’s window. Karson, armed and primed, black top and jeans, clean and sober. He looks only at me, pulls on the handle, shakes his head, goes, ‘Aloysius, wait, wait.’
Martin says, ‘I have no crushing final words or any of that shite, only thank you, trust Imelda and run like fuck.’
Karson, lifts his weapon, points it right at me through the window, other hand still waving, knocking, ‘Aloyisus,’ he goes, ‘don’t do this. If you shoot him, I’ve no choice but … ’
And as I tilt the weapon and go, ‘Thank you, Martin,’ I see the reflection of him closing his tired eyes.
The first bullet pushes through flesh, brain and bone, through the window and into Karson’s face in one hard, bloody instant. The second bullet does the same, catching the American as he is thumped back, as he drops.
Martin’s head has slammed into the glass, fallen back.
As others are getting out, as the three cars surround the front of the vehicle, I toss the gun and hit reverse. The windscreen shatters, scattering fragments into my face, I drop down. The BMW four-by-four punches over the kerb behind, roars up the bank and cracks into the fence. I feel the traction kick in on four corners as we pull further back up into the field, reversing fast towards chewing cattle.
I slam into first as another bullet smashes indoors, hitting the wheel at twelve o’clock.
I grab Martin, pull him upwards, push him into the seated position and it’s enough to confuse and draw the fire for the second I need. Martin is hit in the face as I blast forwards, back down the slope, ramming into a shooter who is too late to get out of my wide way. He vanishes under the front as I romp further down, is crushed with a bounce, and now hammering between two of the cars, walloping them from my path, off my ground.
More shots, the side and the back and I’m tearing through the car park, stunned citizens leaping out of the way.
In seconds I’m on the slipway, heading south on the motorway, gunning for Dublin.
One car peels out behind, a red VW Golf, slaloming through a scattering of cars and closing fast.
I chunk up the speed, eighty to one hundred, and the Golf is gaining. Martin is slipping onto the floor, his head at the handbrake, spilling blood, as I push deeper into the engine.
The machine raises its game without protest, ticks calmly to 120 mph, and the Golf is feeling the pace. But it’s still strong in play as we hit 130, as I speed past the cameras, lights flashing.
A long, wide bend and I see a clear stretch, the Golf tenaciously on the trail. The driver hits full beam, something to catch my eye, to show fury, and I know that with time, with lightness and agility, as we swoop in and out of cars in our way, it will reach me.
Closing.
Closing.
Moving in now.
And as they come close behind I tip the wheel right, glancing into the middle, chewing up the white lines, a plane at take-off.
Closing, closing again, and I put on the hazards, seeking distraction, seeking to confuse the picture.
And I see two men inside, not speaking, cold faces. And I see now the driver wears a seatbelt, the passenger does not, fresh back into the car after trying to kill me.
The faintest squeal of a police siren in the background.
I hit the fog lights, feigning braking, and there’s barely a blink.
I push flat, flat to the board, and we’re moving to 140 mph.
We’re flying, zooming, roaring past everything on and around this road.
I check my seatbelt, hold myself steady.
I brace.
I tighten up.
I clear my mind.
I loosen.
I relax.
And I ram the footbrake with all I have –
Silence.
Lightness.
Lights flashing.
A muddle of nice, full emotions.
Conscious that the quiet in my ears is total, that the volumes of the road have rolled away, that no birds are singing underneath.
A flicker on the satnav screen seems to take a long time, happens in slow motion. The 9mm pistol arcs gracefully in front of Martin’s face as he turns to me, definitely grinning, definitely spinning blood around the cabin.
And there is the certainty now that something hard is about to happen, and it will happen in something like a split second.
A slap like hard wind, like a tornado now, into my back. Air bag explodes, a face into concrete, seeing flashes, and we spin, spin, spin.
My head hits the window, the back of the chair. Martin’s face hits me, one of his legs now, kicks my chin. There’s noise, rapid beeping from the dash. Some system frantic and panicked.
I blink hard, breathe in, taste my own blood on my face. Feels like we’ve stopped moving, or we’re about to stop moving. I look at the road, at the scenery, everything jerking into view, falling into place like some shoved jigsaw.
And now the picture has stopped moving.
I flip open the door, seeing double, our vehicle’s nose lathed down flat by the crash barrier. We have been rammed and spun by our friend behind, we have been slammed into the steel, we have been skidded along.
I walk, legs shaking, and realise I have the weapon in hand, that I auto-found and auto-took it from among the broken glass and big dead body in that murdered vehicle.
There is some of a man in the middle of the road, limbs ripped, clothes, skin torn off, a long thick trail of blood telling me hit the tarmac fifty feet before he stopped moving.
The Golf has no nose, no glass, has rolled, is back on all fours, engine revved to the max and pulling itself apart, all lights flashing like a jackpot.
The driver is intact, airbagged, eyes closed, nose bleeding. The siren wail is rising in volume, cars pulling to a stop three-hundred yards behind.
He opens his eyes, his world spinning. He looks, tries to figure out who, what or why. Or anything. But nothing is working for him.
I raise the weapon and shoot him twice through the side of the head.
Now my legs are trying to take me somewhere, trying to walk me or run me in some direction, for some reason, for some purpose I can’t think through.
And it’s all just turning upside down and I thought I had the weapon in my hand but I don’t and I don’t know.
March 2017
I’M STRETCHING out my back, arching it, pulling on muscles all bunched together. I do the same with my legs, pointing and pushing my toes, realigning myself, slowly regrouping, reloading, and I open my eyes.
Imelda Feather’s head has flopped back into the corner of the armchair, one of those chairs for the elderly, one of those with the high, straight backs that feel so good to sit against. Her mouth is a little open as she snores gently.
It’s a hospital bed I’m in, a curtain all around us, the walking and low chatter of relatives and friends beyond. I’m wearing new pyjamas, a new dressing gown folded up on my bedside table.
‘Hey,’ I say, and she’s out cold. I rub at my face, feel a jab of pain from my lower back, see I’ve got a tag around my right wrist.
I strain my eyes and realise I’ve got a little headache, a gentle, delicate hurt that I don’t want to annoy in case it gets worse.
The tag reads ‘Marcus Tempo.’
‘Hey,’ I say, louder now, and she’s not for moving, only for breathing in deep, only for dozing hard.
I watch her and think of Martin, her friend, our friend, shot in the head. And there’s something sad about her now, crunched up in that old woman’s seat, lonelier and lonelier as the days click by, as the pillars of her life get knocked over one by one.
But I can’t think of this. I need information.
I look around my bed. She’s left a newspaper further down and I pull up a leg, slide it towards me, grab the pages. I fuck the newspaper at her and she jolts in her seat.
‘Jesus,’ she goes.
‘Wake up.’
‘Fuck,’ she goes, ‘how long was I out?’
‘No idea. I just woke up. What time is it?’
She looks to her watch, pulls her head back to allow her eyes to read it.
‘9:14,’ she says, ‘and that’s morning time.’
I go, ‘Christ.’
‘Indeed,’ she says, sitting up, waking up.
‘What’s the story?’
‘What do you remember?’
‘Everything up to the crash. My back hurts. Head and back.’
‘You were hit pretty bad,’ she says.
‘Cops?’
She shakes her head and I nod.
And she shakes it again and the eye contact says it, the words too heavy to bring forward just now, too risky in case they make a mood that gets in the way of the next thing that must be done.
She’s thinking his name, Martin, and I’m doing it too. She knows I killed him. She knows I had to. She has the strangest form of anger written into her half-slept skin.
‘First thing’s first,’ she says. ‘So listen to me, okay? Full attention.’
‘Okay.’
‘There was a drug deal, a handover, a couple of million worth, going on at that garage yesterday.’
‘Okay.’
‘Russians and Romanians, okay?’
‘Right.’
‘It went tits up. Someone tried to pull a fast one with the cash. Guns came out. Martin was getting into his car and one of them ran for him, to get his vehicle, to escape. They killed him, stole it, rammed into the others, took off down the motorway.’
‘Right.’
‘Bit of a smash a few miles down the road. Another bit of a shoot up. A couple of other cars, innocent people caught up in all of that.’
‘Right.’
‘You were one of them. The guards know the whole story. They know you’re doing a bit of undercover work with the government, that you have nothing to do with this. You’re cleared to go. You’ll never hear of this again, okay?’
‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘Good work Imelda. What about the Americans?’
‘They’re helping us clean it up. The whole thing is too embarrassing for them. They’re telling their own people that a few of their guys went rogue, got pissed in Ireland, some shite like that. They can’t be dragged into this. Exposing aggressive US undercover work in Ireland would be a hammer blow to the CIA, even the president, and the Yanks will do anything to avoid that. Between us, we’re sorting out a couple of Ruskies and Romanian guys who will take some of the rap. They’ll confess to owning that 9mm you masterfully flung over the road, say that one of the dead guys did the shooting, all do a spell, get transferred, get out, get well paid. It’s a dirty deal but it’s a deal all the same, been done before. The Americans have a list of names for these sorts of occasions. And it means this thing ends here. Forevermore, no US bodies can in any way be linked to what happened here, understand?’
‘Understood,’ I say. ‘I don’t remember throwing the gun over the road.’
‘You threw it onto the back of a lorry on the other side of the carriageway. Your plan to hide it, I’d guess,’ she says. ‘Mustn’t have worked.’
‘No. It went off when it landed. Driver pulled over, retrieved it.’
‘My prints … ’
‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘Trust me, okay?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘okay.’
‘Martin’s funeral is tomorrow morning,’ she says, ‘and you will not be able to go.’
‘Understood.’
‘Now stop being a fucking prick because you are creating problems we do not need to have,’ she says.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘And don’t ever insult me by not trusting me again, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘And if you ever try to lock me in your bathroom again, I will hit you ten times as hard as I already did with that laptop.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Wanker.’
‘You near knocked me out, Imelda. I was either going to have to knock you out or run, and I couldn’t knock you out.’
She goes, ‘I’d like to see you try and knock me out, you prick.’
I go, ‘Right.’
‘Now get the fuck up,’ she says. ‘We’re getting out of here.’
And as I go to move, my back fires pain through me, my neck too, way more serious than I thought.
‘Get up, you big girl’s blouse,’ she says. ‘You can rest at your flat for a few days. I’ve a pile of pills for you.’
*
The pain is searing every bone in my body now. Every bone, tooth, hair. Pain in every vain, in every organ. My heart feels exhausted, as if it might just give up. My whole engine is knackered, like I’ve run a hundred miles, like I’ve blown up a hundred balloons. It’s all maximum fucked by the time I get out of her car and stagger my way, leaning heavy on her, up the steps and into the flat.
I fall on the bed going, ‘Jesus Christ, get me some of those pills.’
The high speed motorway shove, the inhuman jolt, has made me feel my age. My mind wants to move ahead, my body needs me to hang back. I’m learning that it isn’t always mind over matter, that as the matter wears out it gets only more significant to the mind.
She brings me a cup of tea as I’m stretching myself, spreading out in my fresh bed, seeking an optimum position of comfort.
Imelda sets it down.
Then a hand, hard, slapping me on the face. Again, on the nose.
‘What the
fuck?
’
‘Where’s Martha McStay?’
A punch in the gut.
The agony is unreal.
‘Imelda—’
‘Where is Martha McStay? No one fell off any fucking roof in Belfast.’
And another sting on the face, the full hard palm of her hand.
‘Stop it,’ I say, my hands up to protect me. ‘I’ll tell you.’
She stands there, watching me, intently, fresh fury written all over her.
‘She’s being held,’ I say, ‘she can’t escape. One call and she’s dead, okay?’
‘Held? Who the fuck is holding her?’
‘I can’t tell you. She’s as good as dead, okay?’
Slap.
‘Fuck you, I can’t tell you.’
‘Where is she been held?’
‘Dublin. It’s safe, Imelda. I had to do it that way.’
‘Explain.’
‘I’d lost faith in you. You ordered it over the fucking phone. I knew we were being listened to. Her being alive was my security in case I got arrested, okay? I couldn’t work out if you were on the level or not.’
Slap.
‘Fuck off.’
‘Where is she?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Who has her?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Then you’re in for a bad time.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It mightn’t look like it, but I can handle a bad back and a few digs, Imelda. Belt away, I’m saying fuck all.’
She watches me, takes stock. She goes into the kitchen, gets her bag, returns, gives me my phone.
‘Do it,’ she says. ‘Finish the job.’
‘Get out,’ I say. ‘Leave me the pills, go away, come back tonight. It’ll be done and I’ll have proof. You don’t need to know any more.’
She pulls some hair behind her ears, mulls this over. She pulls pills from the bag, throws them onto the side table beside the tea.
‘Do it,’ she says. ‘Do it and your job is complete and I’ll help you get away and do whatever it is you’re going to do next in your life.’
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘thank you.’
‘Don’t fuck me around again,’ she says, going for the bedroom door. She pulls it open, stops, says, ‘Who was it who said you were being watched?’
‘An American,’ I say. ‘One I met in Amsterdam.’
Imelda nods, ‘The one who was shagging your transsexual friend?’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘Karson.’
‘He’s CIA,’ she says. ‘Sent to get close to you a while ago, after they began doubting what Martin was telling them. He’ll have been trying to recruit you, find out what was going on.’
‘You think?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘He will have seized the moment, laid a trust bomb, made you feel like he was only about the truth, while discrediting me. As you might understand, Aloysius, I know how that works. He will have met you again sooner or later.’
I say, ‘He did meet me again, Imelda, at the service station.’
‘And did you kill him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. The Americans are brushing it up. Go to sleep. I’ll see you later.’
She closes the door, arms the alarm, exits the flat. I take stock, of myself, of my room. She has neatly laid out new clothes on a chair, new socks, underwear, jeans, T-shirts, sweaters. There are new shoes underneath. It’s a seat waiting for a man. And I see now a new grey suit wrapped in cellophane, and four new shirts hanging from the otherwise-empty rail at the side of the room, more shoes below it.
I go, ‘Jesus.’
I check the phone. Twenty-one missed calls from Tall Marianne. Text messages saying ‘Call me,’ over and over and over again.
Shit.
I take some painkillers, sink them with the tea.
Shit.
Tall Marianne answers, I go, ‘You okay?’
She says, ‘No. You know anything about Karson?’
And I do, I know what she needs to know about him, that I shot him twice in the face with the same bullets that killed Martin. But none of this can ever be known, never will be known. I have to lie to her now, lie thoroughly, completely, forever, and I hate it.
‘No,’ I say.
‘He went to Ireland,’ she says. ‘He said he would look you up, but he’s vanished.’
‘Never heard from him. When was this?’
‘Suddenly. Two days ago. Some university thing.’
‘Sorry,’ I say. And I want to tell her that maybe he’s gone for good, that maybe this is his way of dumping her, but I reckon I’ll leave that conversation for another call. ‘I’ll ask around,’ I say.
And she’s quiet. I can hear she’s about to cry – a love lost.
‘That fucker,’ she says.
‘I’ll ask around,’ I say it again, ‘and get back to you.’
‘Please do,’ she says, and ends the call.
I flick down for Wayne’s number, tired now, sore and emotional and with a lot of thinking to do, a lot of resting and thinking and I’m looking forward to it.
I call him and there’s no answer. He has her, Martha McStay, in a rented house in Drumcondra. Imelda could never know that Wayne has helped me, that he understood how things had all gone crazy and confused for me, that he was a kindred lost, hard soul. Imelda had threatened to sack him for allowing me to get the better of him, only she knew I would fight her on it. She told Wayne to take some time out, and I hired him in the gap.
I had brought Martha McStay to Dublin, called him on the way. He bunged some landlord some cash, secured the property where I dropped them off together.
‘Don’t talk to her,’ I had told him. ‘She’s fucking clever. Just keep her invisible. I’ll be back either to kill her or free her. It all depends on how this shit with Imelda goes.’
And he said, ‘No problem.’
A man like that needs no instructions on how to keep a prisoner, on how to keep one immobile and quiet.
Wayne’s phone rings out again for the second time, but he will know I’ve been looking for him. I need him to know that I will be coming round to kill her as soon as I can.
I feel the pills, heavy doses of Tramadol, already beginning to work, to soothe and sing to all those back muscles, and I stretch again, feel my mind starting to lie down, to talk slower to me, to talk lower.
I’m thinking of where all this will go, if I will get out as cleanly as Imelda thinks I will. I think how even if I do, I turn forty-one next week and I still haven’t found anything that looks like any kind of career path.
My mind sliding from grip now and I’m thinking back on those insane secret days of Operation Dante in Israel and Gaza, and tell myself I am programmed not to let those memories in.
I’m thinking now about my father, or the man who killed my father, about him stretching and swimming, holding his breath and hiding from the world, living away from the fact of what he left behind. And I’m thinking now of Martin’s daughter Kiera, lost to religion, to the furthest, hardest extremes of superstition in the caliphate.
I wonder if it is right to do the right thing, to want to steal someone away from a life of insidious, bloody myth, to barge into someone’s life and feel you’re the proof of something, to even just go there to die for rightness, to even just be clear, 3-D-right, for once in a lifetime, about your actions.
I close my eyes and hope for the best for her, for him, for me, for everyone in this world.