Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (37 page)

Just as some land was sacred, some seemed to foment trouble in its very soil, and South Armagh was such a place. Its entire history was one of betrayal and murder, of disappearances and deceptions that led to some of the bloodiest crimes committed on the entire island. The very geography seemed to encourage such acts. Slieve Gullion rose out of the mists of legend. The mountain was home, it was said, to the Irish hero Cuchulain. Finn McCool was reputed to have been lured into the mountain’s lake by the trickster hag, Cailleach Beara, and to have re-emerged from the lake, no longer a young warrior but an old, bent man. The mountain itself was ringed by the depressions of a ring dyke, ancient sentries guarding it since time immemorial.

It was some of the most beautiful country on the entire island, but like a woman whose countenance is exquisite but whose heart is cold, a man took up with South Armagh at his peril. From the beginning of its history, it had been a frontier zone, the no-man’s land between the English Pale and the gateway to the world of the Gael.

Certainly there was no piece of ground in the six counties more steeped in blood and violence. It was by far the most dreaded posting for a British soldier. The odds of dying in South Armagh were far higher than in other parts of the Six Counties—even rubble-strewn Belfast was relatively safe in comparison. A soldier’s closest companion in South Armagh was pure terror.

Republicans in South Armagh did not see the Troubles as a recent event but rather a continuation of the struggles of the past, one long war of attrition against an enemy who could no more understand their mentality than could an alien from another planet. At the heart of this culture of rebellion was a powerful folk memory, with tales passed from one generation to the next like a precious chalice. In an enclosed community, such tales became part of the blood and code, and the past was as real as the present if not, at times, more so.

It was a land of hard men and the king of the hard men was Noah Murray. The Murray farm straddled the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, a location that gave it certain advantages that Noah Murray had exploited to the full. He had built an empire on smuggling and it was said that much of his money found its way into IRA coffers. Any bit of country close to a border lent itself naturally to smuggling, but Noah Murray had taken it to a new level and become like a pirate king of old. To say he was respected in his area was to belittle the man’s stature, for he was feared to the extent that when his name was merely mentioned, even in private company, people went dead silent and averted their gaze. It was as though those who knew him suspected him of psychic powers and were certain he would know if they so much as breathed against him, much less said a word in criticism or anger.

Noah Murray lived with his sister on the farm and he was called ‘The Monk’ behind his back. No one had ever known him to have a woman in his life, and it was said he made his sister keep his house as clean and spartan as a monk’s cell. The Murrays had a long history in the Republican movement. Noah’s grandfather had fought in the 4
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Northern Division in the War of Independence. Noah’s father had been involved in several border skirmishes and was a member of the IRA himself. But even the IRA was a different creature entirely in South Armagh.

In fact, David had noticed in going over the files that many of the names that were on the security forces files from the 1920s were still on them now, with the legacy of the fight passed from father to son
ad infinitum
.

The Murray farm was isolated, its position on the border notwithstanding. High hedges surrounded the property and bounded the narrow track that served as a road into the house. It made surveillance both easier and distinctly more uncomfortable.

The morning was shrouded in mist. Crouched in a ditch just northeast of Noah Murray’s farm, David Kendall, secret agent, thought the espionage business was nowhere near as glamorous as Hollywood and spy novels made it out to be. In fact, it was fucking miserable most times, especially when you had slept the night in a ditch and been wakened by an inquisitive sheep,
blaaa
-ting in your ear just as the dawn broke. Then you had to piss in a bottle because you couldn’t afford to venture out of said ditch. All in all, not terribly glamorous.

Noah Murray had been under surveillance for some time, but despite the fact that the man was known to run more than one racket from his farm and a variety of bolt-holes around the countryside, they had never been able to get anything concrete on him. David had another motive altogether for taking a turn in this ditch, for the Redhands were planning to take their crazed campaign into the heart of Republican Armagh. Being that he was along for the ride, regardless of how insanely risky it was, he wanted the lie of the land in advance.

Frankly, the entire county made him twitchy. Just last month an innocuous-looking tractor had trundled up to one of the watchtowers that dotted the area and sprayed great arcs of petrol all over it. Then the man inside the tractor had thrown a match, sending the tower up in a whoosh of flame that lit the countryside all round. The guardsmen didn’t dare try to get out, knowing the PIRA would be waiting on the ground to pick them off. They had called for help and only managed to survive by taking turns wetting themselves down in the shower.

Watching the activities on the farm had not been dull. It was apparent that Noah’s smuggling operation extended beyond pigs, grain and cattle. His assets were hard to assess, and it was rumored that he had hundreds of thousands stashed in foreign banks and in the country under relatives’ names. He was also—if even half the stories could be believed—one of the coldest, most ruthless bastards David had ever had the misfortune to run across. People said he only loved one thing in the world and that was his blind sister, Kate.

It was hard to say how much Kate knew about her brother’s professional life. Word was he tried to shelter her from it as much as possible and that she turned a literal blind eye to the rest. As if thinking of the woman had conjured her out into the open, he saw her walking across the field. He was impressed by how well she navigated in her world, for she took care of many of the animals, including a few pet lambs. Mostly she walked the property alone, but today she had company. David peered through the binoculars and swore out loud.

Both women were headed directly toward him and he was unhappily aware that he was very familiar with one of them. There was no way out of the ditch without one of them seeing him, being that her eyes and mental acuity were both extremely sharp. He sighed. He liked Pamela Riordan a great deal but would just as soon not run into her at Noah Murray’s farm whilst on reconnaissance duty. What the hell was she doing meandering about Noah Murray’s land, baby in arms?

There was no way to avoid Pamela spotting him. He took his balaclava off, thinking she wasn’t likely to react well if he crawled out of the ditch thus disguised. Being that she was married to Casey Riordan, she might well have a pistol tucked in her sweater pocket.

She started a little when he came out of the ditch, for apparently she hadn’t spotted him. When he waved weakly she covered it with a laugh, as though some small rodent had popped out into her path unexpectedly. He could, he swore, feel her glare across the fifty yards of frosted pasture that lay between them. Now Kate was asking questions and looking around as though she sensed his disturbance on the air.

Pamela pointed to something on the horizon and started to talk in an enthusiastic tone whilst making a not entirely polite hand gesture at David behind her back. David took the hint and darted across the bit of pasture between the ditch and the surrounding trees. It could be, even though the girl was blind, that she would be well able to sense him if they came closer. Noah Murray wasn’t home, for he had seen him leave just after dawn with a lorryload of pigs destined to make a dizzying loop of a journey, with several different drivers.

David was familiar with the woods hereabouts for a variety of reasons—some professional, some personal. He ducked in and kept his feet to the drifts of dead leaves, slick with frost, so that his footprints would melt away quickly. He knew the twists of the road and followed them roughly, walking cross country and finding himself not surprised in the least when a car stopped on the roadway beside him. He glanced briefly through the tangle of brambles and stone, and then hopped the wall that ran for miles along the country lane.

Pamela was waiting, wrapped in a heather-purple sweater and scarf, passenger door open. She indicated with a nod that he should get in. He slid into the seat, glancing over his shoulder to the baby snugged into the back in his basket, blissfully asleep. The child looked as much like his father as it was possible for someone so small and possessing minimal teeth to look.

She drove off at once, bouncing down the narrow laneway and keeping a sharp eye out the windshield for stray sheep, meandering cows and snipers. Such was the countryside of South Armagh. The baby, seemingly immune to rough roadways, continued to slumber happily.

“David, if you don’t mind me saying so,” Pamela began without preamble of the small and polite sort, “you’re insane. The British Army is insane, the Special Forces are insane, 14
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Intel is insane if they think they can make inroads into South Armagh or even touch Noah Murray. I’ve met a lot of scary people in this country, but nobody quite like this man.”

“How the hell do you know about 14
th
Intel?”

Pamela sighed and raised an eyebrow at him as she slowed to go over a cattle guard. “David, please.”

David decided it might be better if he didn’t know. This woman often seemed frighteningly well informed.

“What is it about Noah Murray that gives you special pause? After all this is the land of the hard man. What’s one more?”

“He doesn’t have a conscience. Only when it comes to Kate does he have a soft spot, and even then I think it’s limited. I saw some of the things he did when I was still working for the RUC—there aren’t words to describe the brutality that went into some of those deaths. He owns this countryside. Surely you know that, and he has a grip on the people here that’s almost unimaginable. He rules through absolute fear. I’m sure you know a great deal more than me about how well armed the PIRA are down here.”

He did indeed know more, and all of it made him very uncomfortable about what the Redhands wanted to do. It was, as Pamela had so succinctly put it, insane.

“Then surely you ought to be keeping your distance as well.”

“I don’t go into the house,” she said soberly. “Kate is used to it. She isn’t anyone’s fool and knows what her brother is. She can use a friend, and so can I.”

She pulled the car over into one of the overgrown lay-bys that served as stopping points or a passing lane in the countryside. David looked out the window, surprised at the vulnerability in Pamela’s tone. Away from them the pastures tumbled, shimmering with frost, the green beneath richer for the contrast. Horses were miniature figures on the horizon, shaped delicately in pewter and roan, bay and chestnut. Closer were the omnipresent sheep, soft rolling bundles of fleece and plaintive calls. An amber haze of sunlight fell, thick and sweet, over it all. It was a bloody gorgeous country, David thought, feeling a sharp ache in his chest for all that had gone wrong here and would continue to go wrong.

They sat quietly surveying it, the sun’s warmth an unexpected balm through the windows. The baby shifted and cooed softly in his sleep. David wondered what someone so new would dream of, what soft thoughts occupied someone so tender and fragile, someone so loved and protected?

“I miss Lawrence,” Pamela said suddenly and David turned to her. He had forgotten how direct this woman was, even about deeply emotional topics. It was a trait, however, that he found refreshing in this country of subterfuge, where he was rarely allowed the luxury of truth. He waited, for he had a sense that it had not been a statement made merely for its own sake.

“I miss him,” she continued, “and I know Casey does too. I know Casey is having a hard time because he didn’t know what was happening to Lawrence, and couldn’t save him from things he did not know about. But I know,” she fixed David with that lucent green gaze that reminded him of James Kirkpatrick in no small degree, “that there is nothing I can do that will bring him back. I also know how much harm might be done by trying.”

“Pamela, I—”

She held up a slender hand to forestall him, her silver wedding band turned to gold in the sunlight.

“David, I don’t want false promises. They never serve in this country. Just understand that my husband is a man in the finest sense of that word. He believes in protecting and providing for the people in his care, even if those people are gone from him. I understand that, I do—but I am more concerned with protecting the here and now.” She glanced back at her son and David did likewise. He still slumbered, cheeks flushed rosily, long thick lashes like fans against his skin.

“I understand,” he said, uncertain of how much Casey would have told her.

Point made, she pulled back onto the narrow road. They drove the rest of the way in silence, comfortable enough with one another for this to be acceptable. He watched the wee towns go by, the high, dark hedges dotted with frosted berries, the lanes that twisted and wound and ultimately petered out on the doorstep of an abandoned cottage or a tumbledown of stones that had once been a church. A beautiful country indeed, though ‘a terrible beauty’ as Yeats had once said.

She stopped short of her own property, near the head of a crooked lane with which David was very familiar. He raised his eyebrows at her but she merely smiled in return. While it was true that she couldn’t risk taking him any further and this spot was appropriately isolated so that neither of them would be compromised, he was starting to think the woman might be a witch, what with her knowledge of a variety of things he had thought closely-guarded secrets.

“David,” she said softly, and he turned back, facing her in the last of the day’s sun. Her face was lit with shades of red and violet. She looked up at him, eyes wide and deep with emotion. “Please take care for him in this thing you’ve got him involved in. He cares too much, and that blinds him to danger at times.”