“One of our members was able to gain some access to Odin Genetics. They found out the genetics edit for aggression was a fake, they were putting a code to make people open to subliminal commands.”
“You can do that in an embryo?”
“Our scientist in the Vatican say it’s possible.”
“Did your member bring back proof?”
“He was murdered. His body dumped over a cliff. We only discovered him a week ago washed up on the shores on the western coast.”
“Why haven’t you gone to the authorities on this? If you have even some allegations, the government could start an enquiry,” Bernadette said.
“I did. I went in to see the office of Public Security. I gave them our concerns, but it fell on deaf ears. They even had a member of parliament there.”
“Who was that?”
“Brendon Shannon.”
“Isn’t he the one spearheading the genetics editing bill?”
Sister Mary Margaret stared down at her hands. “I didn’t know it at the time. I should have checked. But yes, he is.”
“And you got no answer from them? From the people you met?” Bernadette asked.
“Oh, we got an answer all right. We were ambushed that very night. Two of the sisters I was with were quite badly injured in the attack. I had to send them to Paris to recover. I went into hiding as I was injured as well. The other Guardians brought me here under an assumed name so I could wait for you.”
“Wait for me? What do I have to do with this?”
Sister Mary Margaret held her gaze. “There’re some things we can foresee.”
“You can foresee the future?”
The sister shook her head. “Oh no, not at all, but from the moment we heard about the incidents in Canada and Father Joe told us you were involved, he gave a high probability that you would follow Cahal Callahan here.”
“How did you know that?”
“We looked at your profile. You’re of mixed race, from an Irish father and a Cree Native mother, the youngest of six children, which makes you a total over achiever. The last part we factored in because of your alcoholic father and being a woman in the RCMP in Canada, which is a militaristic style police force.”
“No idea where you get your ideas from,” Bernadette said.
“I studied psychology at Oxford then worked with MI-5 before I entered the convent and became a Guardian. I was trained in profiling, mostly for criminals, but it became useful for other fields as well, like in studying possible recruits for our force,” Sister Mary Margaret said.
Bernadette put up her hand. “You’re staring at the wrong person. I’m a lifer with that militaristic force you call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and I like sex way too much to give it up to be a nun.”
Sister Mary chuckled. “Sorry, thought I’d ask, so let’s get down to business. Do you want me to tell you how to find these people?”
“You know where they are?”
“Yes. Before our guardian was murdered, he sent out an encrypted message. We only broke the code last night,” Sister Mary Margaret said, shaking her head. “We have the location of where they are doing the secret genetics testing and the encryption code to get into their files. If you can get in there, get the files, you could expose them.”
“You mean going in totally illegally with no search warrant?” Bernadette said.
“That might be the case, yes.”
“Everything I find inside is of no value if I do it that way.”
“But you’re working with the Garda. You have detectives with you.”
“I love your angle, but I doubt if any Irish judge would go for it. Unless….”
“Unless what?”
“I think it’s better I leave that unsaid. Often the best lies are the ones left with the fewest to tell the tale,” Bernadette said. “Now, where is this place and who can I expect to find there?”
Sister Mary pulled an iPad from under her bed and brought up a map onscreen. “This is Leamaneh Castle in the west of Ireland, just twenty-five kilometers from the Cliffs of Moher. It’s been abandoned for many years. It sits on private land, and the owner is a subsidiary of Odin Genetics. They’ve surrounded it with an electrified fence to keep people out.”
“Great, anything else I should know?”
“Are you afraid of ghosts?”
“Only the ones on television. Who’s haunting the place?”
“A supposed vicious old queen named Red Mary, but no one’s died yet. Well since no one has entered the place, I guess that’s hard to say if it’s a certainty.”
“Ah, you’re making this sound like fun. Where’s the lab?”
“Under the main hall. At the back there is hidden door that leads down to it. They’ve been able to work there for years by tunneling from the buildings in the back. There is a complete self-contained living quarters down there for fifteen to twenty people.”
“And there’s a friendly ghost to go with the place?”
Sister Mary leaned forward and said in low voice, “Not so friendly. There are many haunted Irish Castles, but none this famous. Both the castle and Red Mary, the most famous of its residents, were well known in Irish folklore due to a bloody past. This was a stronghold of the O’Brien clan and passed to Mary MacMahnon. She was known as Maire Rua or Red Mary. She was named for both her red hair and extreme temper. Servants who displeased her were hung out of the castle windows, men by their necks and women by their hair. If castle maids were disobedient to her, she punished them by cutting off their breasts. Her nasty ghost is still believed to be haunting the castle.”
Bernadette felt her stomach churn and small shadow pass over her mother’s grave, but she steeled herself, swallowed hard and tried not to flinch. Deep inside, she disliked ghosts. Her mother had talked about them, so had her grandmother. Now, here she was in Ireland about to go visit one.
“Alright then, thanks for the lay of the land,” Bernadette said. “I should be going if I’m to get there in daylight.”
“You’ll need to go in the night,” Sister Mary said.
Bernadette rolled her eyes. “Is that when the ghost is asleep or awake?”
“No, they have cameras all around the place. You’re better off during the night. Dress in black, approach from the west side, not the road. They don’t have cameras on that side and the fence there is often turned off. Go slow and do it at midnight. They’ll never expect that.”
“And what of Red Mary?”
Sister Mary shrugged. “I expect she never sleeps.”
“Of course, that’s just lovely,” Bernadette said with a smile. “I think I best be on my way.”
“Yes, I guess you must. Now, go with my blessing, not that you’ll need it. You’re a headstrong woman who sees her own way through danger. You’ll be fine.”
“Another of your profiles, is it?”
“No, my own intuition,” Sister Mary Margaret said. She leaned forward and gave Bernadette a strong hug.
Bernadette felt the power of the woman. There was no telling how old she was; she’d thought forty, but a tough forty.
She walked out of the nursing home into the late morning sun and texted to Sullivan that she had a strong lead. Twenty minutes later his car pulled up and she jumped into the passenger’s side.
“What have you got?” Sullivan asked as she got in.
“I have our next adventure. Castles, ghosts, and the answers to our case. I think you’ll need a Guinness,” Bernadette said.
Sullivan looked at his watch; it had just gone past eleven. “I believe you’re right. It’s been a brutal morning. A good pint would be excellent right now. I know just the place.”
50
Sullivan found them a pub on the outskirts of Dublin in a small village. The Guinness was the temperature that Sullivan liked, and Bernadette found a lager that suited her. They sat with their pints; Sullivan took his first good pull of his Guinness and looked expectantly at Bernadette.
“You’ve kept
me in the dark all the way here, so spill.”
“I know where to find the secret lab of Odin Genetics,” Bernadette said. She gave him all the information she’d received from Sister Mary Margaret.
“And that helps us how?”
“I was told there is a secret file that claims what they’re really up to. The nun and her companions who tried to talk to Brendon Shannon to warn him of Odin Genetics were attacked after the meeting. They barely got away with their lives.”
Sullivan drained half his pint and looked at Bernadette. “I trust no politicians, and Brendon Shannon I trust the least of all. But how are we to get into this place? I doubt I’ll get a search warrant for a hidden place in a haunted castle. I’d be thrown out of the judge’s office in an instant.”
“I have an idea,” Bernadette said as she leaned forward. “What if you were searching the place for an escaped prisoner, like Cahal Callahan?”
“Splendid, how does that get you the information off the laptops?’
“If Cahal is there, you arrest him, if not you perform a search of the place for him. While you’re doing that I get into computers, use the code I have and download the information.”
“Which is totally illegal and cannot be used in any court?” Sullivan said with a raised eyebrow.
Bernadette leaned closer, “yes, true, but I could send the information to several newspapers and a blogger I know back in Canada. Odin Genetics would be finished.”
Sullivan shook his head, “this is a slippery slope you’re on.”
“We have no other choice. You’ll never get this information to the courts, the defense lawyers would scream blue murder, but, in the court of public opinion, we could stop them.”
Sullivan sighed deeply and stared at his pint, “how is it that Bishop and I happen to be in the area?”
“You’ve had a sighting of the escaped convict, Cahal Callahan,” Bernadette said with a smile.
“And how did I get that information then?”
“I’d call it in as an anonymous caller,” Bernadette said. “There must be a pay phone somewhere out the village near the castle.”
“You’ll find a leprechaun long before you’ll find a payphone in rural Ireland, my dear girl. This part of the country has advanced with the times,” Sullivan said. “I have a throw-away phone, so your caller ID won’t show on the Garda incoming line. I’ll make sure the notification comes to me. I’ll also book myself out to a search of bombing suspects in the western townships and I’ll be there when the call comes in,” Sullivan said handing Bernadette a new phone.
“We have a plan then?” Bernadette said.
“You’re plan sounds better than better than what I have, which nothing. I’ve been looking at reports all morning. We’ve looked at every piece of CCTV footage we had from yesterday. The bombers were good. They worked like a team of football players by using people to walk in front of them to hide them and then dropped the packet off. Once they were clear, they set the bomb off. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“And there were no causalities?” Bernadette asked.
“Nothing more than cuts from broken glass. The bombs weren’t laden with fragments, just made to give the maximum amount of noise with a sound wave that broke glass. It’s like they are trying to scare more than injure.”
Bernadette took a sip of her pint and looked away for a second. “You know, this may be a crazy analogy, but this seems like an old-fashioned Buffalo Jump scenario.”
“A what?”
“You’ll have to bear with me on this,” Bernadette said. “On the prairies in western Canada, there’s this cliff that the native tribes of Canada used to chase buffalo off of for several thousand years. They lit fires on a path to channel the herd, then made loud noises as they chased them. The buffalo had only one way to go—over a cliff to their death.”
“You’re comparing terrorist bombers to Indians chasing buffalo?”
Bernadette nodded her head. “Sometimes, old tactics are new again. Someone is trying to form public opinion. Have you had any calls from anyone asking for anything?”
“Someone calling themselves The Real IRA has called and said they are to blame.”
“Did they make any demands?”
“Nothing, no demands, but there’s rumors of two bloody great bombs.”
“Well then, we best get to work,” Bernadette said. “I’ve got to find myself some black clothes for tonight’s mission.”
“I know just the place; I’ll drop you off there,” Sullivan said.
“Great, let’s make tracks.” Bernadette said.
“But not towards the cliffs like buffalo,” Sullivan said with a grin.
51
Sullivan dropped Bernadette off at a shop that sold hunting and camping gear. She found the black clothes she was looking for that included a woolen cap and a rain jacket. She felt like she was embarking on a Navy SEAL mission. With that in mind she picked up an all-black tactical hunting knife with a black sheath, and then she picked up one more knife, a Smith and Wesson boot knife. Finding a small black backpack, her shopping was complete.
If I can’t have a gun, I’ll be loaded with a double team of knives, she thought to herself as she headed to the cash register to pay for everything.
She walked back to her hotel, picking up lunch on the way, munching on a sandwich and soft drink as she walked down the street. One block away, with the hotel in sight, she had the sense she was being followed. Walking to the other side of the street, she slowed her steps and used the store windows to see her reflection.
A young lady dropped her head and began to hurry away. Bernadette turned and headed after her. The girl walked quickly down the street, looking behind her every few steps to see if Bernadette followed her.
Bernadette didn’t break into a run, wanting to see if the girl would do that first. As the girl got close to a corner, she looked ready to run. Bernadette could see it so she quickened her steps.
The girl broke into a full run at the corner. Bernadette put on speed. She’d exceled in track and field as child. If she kept her quarry in sight, she could run all day. Few subjects she chased could match her stamina. Even with the backpack on her back she had an easy pace and was gaining on her.
The young lady looked behind her with terror in her eyes. Trying to pick up speed, her steps went out of sync. She fell.
Bernadette ran up beside her and extended her hand. “You need a hand up?”
“You’re not going to kill me?” She was slight and tall with sandy blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She wore jeans, boots and a woolen jacket. She had the looks of a fashion model if she’d had a chance.
“Nope, hadn’t planned on it,” Bernadette said. “What’s your name and why are you following me.”
“My name’s Claire McCann, and I wasn’t following you.”
“Why did you run from me then?”
Claire’s shoulders dropped. “Okay, I was following you. But I mean you no harm.”
Bernadette looked her up and down. “Doesn’t seem much chance of that. What do you want then?”
“My boyfriend, his name is Burnell Quinn. He’s one of them.”
“One of who?”
“You know that group that calls themselves the People of the Goddess,” Claire said.
“The what now?”
Claire shook her head. “That’s the translation of Tuatha De’ Duanann in Gaelic.”
“What’s your boyfriend’s involvement with them?”
Claire pulled out a vaping device and ignited it. She blew out a stream of vapor into the air and looked at Bernadette. “He thinks he’s being trained to be an assassin. He’s a total lad, he is. Thinks he’s grand stuff, but he’s an idiot.”
“And you love him and want to look out for him?”
Claire smiled. “Yeah, I’m stuck on the little shit. I tell him that all the time.”
“How did you know who I was, by the way?” Bernadette asked.
Claire�
�s eyes dropped down. “Burnell had a picture of you on his phone. The whole lot of them has it in for you. Cahal Callahan wants you dead. He put a price on your head. The first one to kill you gets some kind of special favor with that bloody masked man they call their leader.”
“I’m so glad I’m considered a prize,” Bernadette said.
“Sorry about that.”
Bernadette shrugged. “How do you think I can help you?”
“I’ve heard you’re good in a fight. The whole lot of them were right pissed that you killed off Sean and Jamie that were after you.”
“They took themselves out. Now, how exactly do you know all of this? You could be an accomplice to all of their crimes with your knowledge. Did you know that?”
Claire shook her head. “I hear all their stuff because of the pub I work in. The whole lot of them come in there and gab about their exploits.”
“Why haven’t you gone to the police with all your knowledge?”
“It’s all talk, isn’t it? Well, I thought it was until I saw all the bombing on the telly and heard about the deaths of Sean and Jamie on the news.”
“So, now you know they’re serious?”
“They are that. They call themselves the deadly ancestors. My Burnell thinks he’s the reincarnation of an ancient Irish warrior. The more people he kills, the greater his abilities will become. I really thought this was just some shite you see on a video game. But then, I saw he had a photo of you—I took his phone when he wasn’t looking and sent your picture to my phone, hoping I might find you.”
“You wanted to warn me they are out to kill me, is that it?”
Claire stared down at her foot, “Well…yeah, and to talk some sense into my Burnell.” She looked up. “He’s a good lad, he is. He had a promising career in computer programming, would’ve got a job with Google here in Dublin if he hadn’t gotten mixed with these arses.” Claire reached up and took Bernadette’s arm. “Please, when you see him, talk some sense into him. Here’s his photo. Do you want a copy of it on your phone?”
“Whoa, I’m not on any rescue mission for some wayward boy who thinks he’s an ancient hero. I have no idea where to look for him anyway.”
Deadly Ancestors: A Bernadette Callahan Mystery (Bernadette Callahan Detective Series Book 5) Page 25