by Dan Mahoney
“Now, enough of listening to me,” McGuinn said. “Where else did he murder girls?”
McKenna told McGuinn the details of Mulrooney’s extra activities in London, Bermuda, and Ottawa. He offered to provide the crime scene photos for each murder, but McGuinn didn’t want them. “Anything else I should know?” McGuinn asked.
“You should know that there’s probably many more murders, including two he’s done that I’m sure of. If I don’t get Mulrooney to Iceland with your help, I’ll be digging them all up for you.”
McKenna could see that McGuinn didn’t want to ask, but his Irish curiosity got the better of him. He wanted to know how much more McKenna knew, just in case he had to defend his organization later. “Which two?”
McGuinn’s question confirmed McKenna’s suspicions. Mulrooney had been a very busy lad when he had been working for the IRA. He had done more jobs for them, but the girl’s bodies hadn’t been discovered yet. “Well, you already know about Joseph Dwyer, don’t you?”
Apparently McGuinn did, but he didn’t deny that the IRA had ordered Mulrooney to kill Dwyer. “Go on.”
Then McKenna told him the details of Thomas Winthrop’s murder in Toronto. McGuinn’s only comment was, “Men, too? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what’s got into the man?”
“The devil, but I don’t want to waste time talking about that. What are you going to do to help me find him?”
“Don’t know yet, but don’t worry. I’ll be talking to Gerry and we’re sure to come up with some ideas. You going back to New York after the funeral?”
“No, I’m going to Dublin first.”
“Dublin? Why? If Mulrooney’s in Dublin, we’ll find him long before you could.”
“That’s one of the things I’m counting on,” McKenna said. “I’m going to Dublin to see the man Mulrooney’s been working for.”
“And who might that be?”
“Timothy O’Bannion.”
McGuinn looked shocked. “Timothy O’Bannion? You think the Republic’s minister for finance is heading the Irish Army Continuity Council?” he asked incredulously.
It was a good performance, but McKenna had seen better during his years spent questioning thousands of people under duress, both prisoners and suspects. He felt certain he had just told McGuinn something the man already knew. “Big surprise, huh?” he asked sarcastically, leaning back in his chair.
McGuinn eyed McKenna shrewdly, then shook his head and laughed. “I’ve underestimated you, McKenna. To tell you the truth, I’m not exactly shocked.”
“Then why the act?” McKenna asked, but McGuinn didn’t answer. He just shrugged his shoulders and gave McKenna an innocent grin.
What am I missing here? McKenna wondered. Somehow this guy knows that O’Bannion has been messing up the IRA’s plans, but he didn’t want me to know that he knows. Why?
Then it hit him. “How long does O’Bannion have?”
“Not long.”
“Whatever’s going to happen to him can’t happen until I talk to him,” McKenna insisted.
“You have no special place in your heart for him, do you?” McGuinn asked, studying McKenna closely.
I have to play this real careful, McKenna thought. For all I know, O’Bannion could be scheduled for death as we’re sitting here. “None whatsoever,” he said casually. “I consider it solely your affair.”
“When’s Meaghan’s funeral?”
“Friday morning.”
“All right, I’ll see what I can do. But if I were you, I’d get to Dublin right after the funeral.”
“Thank you, Martin McGuinn.”
“You should thank me, Brian McKenna, because now I’ve got some explaining to do about this delay. You see, Kevin Hughes and I go back a long time. He had a special place in his heart for Meaghan and I liked her myself.”
“You knew her?”
“When she was a wee lass. Darling girl.”
“So then this is personal?” McKenna asked.
“Every once in a long while I get some satisfaction from our work, so I won’t mind at all when this problem is settled. The man’s no good.”
“Why’s O’Bannion doing it?”
“He probably tells himself that he’s a patriot and that dealing with the Prods and the Brits is treason. But I think it’s just blind, selfish ambition. If we can achieve a settlement with Reynolds’s help, then Reynolds will be the Taoiseach as long as he likes. It’s common knowledge that O’Bannion would very much like that job for himself.”
That was good news for McKenna. He had found that ambitious men were more easily manipulated than true men of principle, and certainly more responsive to career-ending threats. McKenna thought that a little ambition was a good thing, but blind, selfish ambition was something else. He chided himself when he realized how pleased he was that he would be making O’Bannion’s final hours miserable.
McGuinn must have read his mind. “No, he won’t be missed,” he said, then stood up. “Give me a number where you can be reached.”
McKenna took a business card from his wallet and wrote his home number and his cell phone number on the back. He passed the card to McGuinn who pocketed it without looking at it. “Now put your hat back on, if you don’t mind,” McGuinn ordered.
“One more thing, and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about this.”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to the Springfield Road RUC station to see a constable we met at a checkpoint tonight. He’s going to show me around the Shankill.”
“Why would you want to be doing that?”
“Just trying to get an education while I’m here. Thought it best to see both sides of the picture.”
McGuinn thought that over for a moment. “What’s this constable’s name?”
“Roger Forsythe.”
McGuinn looked surprised for a moment, but then he smiled. “Sergeant Roger Forsythe, you say? Now that’s a piece of luck, isn’t it?”
“You know him?”
“Not personally, but we make it our business to know our enemies. Know quite a bit about Forsythe, but he’s something of an enigma to us. Seems to me he’s only an enemy by birth, not choice.”
“Tell me about him.”
“Comes from what they used to call a good Protestant family until the Forsythes started favoring middle-of-the-road politics. Now they’re just about ostracized. Went to college in England, but quit school to join the British army. Wound up in One Para and—”
“Sorry, but what’s One Para?” McKenna asked, interrupting.
“First Parachute Regiment. Very famous unit in the British army, although most of my comrades consider it an infamous unit. They’re the British army’s troubleshooters, served in all of Britian’s small wars, police actions, and colonial insurrections since World War II.”
“Including this one?”
“Yes, including this one. Matter of fact, they’re one of the British regiments stationed here now. Anyway, Forsythe was with them here, in the Falklands, and in the Gulf War. But in ninety-two, maybe ninety-three, he got out and joined the RUC. They promoted him to sergeant a couple of months ago, caused quite a bit of controversy in their ranks.”
“Controversy? Why?”
“You have to understand that the RUC has a history of beating prisoners, something I can tell you from firsthand experience is true. But nobody gets beaten when Forsythe’s working. He’s a tough guy himself and he’s not afraid to open his mouth. He won’t stand for the beatings, so he’s not too popular with quite a few of the other peelers.”
“Beating prisoners isn’t policy, is it?”
“Used to be, but now the Brits are dead set against it. Makes them look bad to the international press. We suspect they used their influence to get Forsythe promoted in the RUC as well as in the UDR. He’s now also a captain in the Ulster Defence Regiment, a company commander.”
“So Forsythe joined the UDR after he left the regular army?” McKenna asked, not too surprised. Sta
ying in the reserves after joining the NYPD was also a pretty common practice.
“Course he did. Regular Prod behavior. He’ll wind up collecting two pensions in his old age if he survives and we don’t win. Truth is, we think he has more to worry about from his own people than he does from us.”
“His policy on beating prisoners?”
“No, more than that. He won’t stand for any of his men being in the paramilitaries. If he finds out, it’s either quit the paramilitary or get sacked from the RUC. Matter of fact, we were considering sending him a list of the ones he doesn’t know about.”
McKenna wasn’t shocked to learn that some of the RUC constables were in league with the outlawed paramilitaries they were supposed to be combating. The fact that McGuinn knew who those constables were didn’t surprise him, either. McGuinn seemed to know quite a bit for a spokesman.
McGuinn looked at his watch in a way that told McKenna that there would be no more information forthcoming and that the meeting was definitely over.
Without another word, McKenna stood up, put his cap back on, and once again plunged himself into darkness.
Twenty-Two
After leaving McGuinn, McKenna was escorted back to his place in the van and they were off at once. They traveled for fifteen minutes without a word. McKenna assumed that the same three people who had taken him to the meeting were in the van with him, but he couldn’t say for sure. He was again seated next to the woman; one of the people in front had opened a window and the wind had brushed her long hair across McKenna’s face a few times. Because of the speed at which they were traveling, he also knew that they were on the motorway.
McKenna decided that it was time to get them talking. “Would you mind dropping me off at the Springfield Road RUC station?” he asked.
There was no answer, but McKenna could feel the tension he had just generated. For some reason he felt comfortable about that, so he waited a minute before he added, “Martin knows I’m going there.”
There was still no comment from his escorts, so after a few more minutes it was McKenna who felt uncomfortable. Maybe I’m overdoing it, he thought. No reason to make these folks nervous. “Of course, you can drop me off wherever you like,” he said.
“That’s just what we intend to do, Detective McKenna,” the woman said.
“Of course. No reason to go out of your way.”
McKenna felt the van slow down and leave the motorway. He felt the motions of a few more turns before the van stopped.
“You can take your hat off in another minute,” the woman told him. He heard the side door open. “Now, stand up, please, and I’ll help you out.”
McKenna did as he was told. Once outside, she left him and got back into the van. McKenna heard the door close and he felt foolish standing there with the hat covering his eyes, but he made no move.
“There’s a phone on the wall across the street,” one of the men in the front of the van said through his open window. “You can use it to call a cab.”
The van took off and McKenna removed the hat. He was standing on a sidewalk in a dark residential neighborhood. There wasn’t a person on the street and only a few lights showing in the houses. Across the street was a small, closed grocery store with a lighted phone booth hanging from the outside wall. McKenna walked over and saw stickers from three different cab companies attached to the side of the phone booth. He didn’t know where he was, but he knew that he didn’t want to be there. He picked up the phone, put in a coin, and dialed.
It was ten minutes before midnight when the taxi stopped in front of a pub a half block from the Springfield Road RUC station.
“Why are we stopping here?” McKenna asked the driver.
“It’s not yet a good time to stop in front of the station,” the driver said, turning in his seat to give McKenna an astonished look. “It’s the changing of the shift, so the peelers and the soldiers will be real jumpy.”
“So?”
The driver looked even more astonished at McKenna’s cavalier attitude, but then he took it in stride. He gave McKenna a contemptuous look that told him that he considered most foreigners, including the well-dressed Yank sitting in his rear seat, to be generally stupid. “This your first time in Belfast?” he asked.
“Yes, it is,” McKenna answered.
“Well then, I’ll drop you off now if you like, but I don’t think you’ll be politely received at the moment.”
“No, you’re right. I think I’d rather wait.”
“Good idea. If you’ve business in the station, why not conduct it when the peelers aren’t so …” The driver searched for a word, apparently unsure of where McKenna’s sympathies lay when it came to the RUC.
“Cautious?” McKenna offered.
The driver smiled. “I was going to say rude, overly suspicious, and very obnoxious, but cautious will do.”
It didn’t take McKenna long to come up with the reason for the RUC’s cautious attitude during shift changes. If the IRA wanted to kill as many constables as possible in one action, why not blow up the station at the change of shift when there were twice as many of them inside?
From his seat in the rear of the taxi, McKenna could see the station to his left. The building was impossible to miss, an impressive three-story gray concrete blockhouse that was completely out of character with the residential Catholic neighborhood it dominated. The defensive arrangements included security cameras and guard towers, and the entire building was fenced off with razor ribbon. All the windows were protected by steel shutters and both the front door and the garage door were made of steel as well.
McKenna thought the structure looked more like a prison than a police station, but he could see that the security arrangements were necessary; the building was pockmarked with scars that he presumed were made by bullets fired from passing cars.
McKenna’s inspection was cut short by the arrival of a squad of troops from a side street on his right. They were on foot, advancing in staggered defensive formation, and very cautious. Half of them crouched and covered the rooftops with their weapons while the other half ran to a new position of cover to permit their comrades to advance.
McKenna watched, fascinated by the precise battle techniques exercised in a residential neighborhood that seemed to offer no glimmer of resistance. The couples standing in front of the pub seemed not even to notice the troops, ignoring them totally and continuing their conversation even when two of the troops detached themselves from the squad to cover them with their automatic weapons.
The couples were used to the routine, but McKenna found it hard to be that blasé when another two soldiers approached his taxi from opposite sides, their weapons pointed at him and the driver. They said not a word, but McKenna couldn’t help but notice that both soldiers had their fingers on their triggers.
Like the couples outside the bar, the driver seemed nonchalant as the rest of the squad took up defensive positions on both sides of the RUC station. He nodded to the soldier covering him and shut the engine off. But he couldn’t resist turning in his seat to give McKenna a smug, knowing grin. “See what I mean?” he asked.
“Sure do,” McKenna answered, hoping to end the conversation.
But the driver had more digs to get in. “If you hadn’t taken my advice, it’s my guess that right now you’d be pressed against that wall over there with a rifle in your back,” he said, motioning with a nod of his head in the direction of the RUC station.
“Tough place to live, isn’t it?” McKenna asked, fascinated at the scene unfolding in front of him.
“It’s not that bad, once you get used to it. Mind your own business, I always say. Trouble only comes to nosy folks or those who wants it.”
Not exactly, McKenna thought. There’s always innocent victims, people like Meaghan Maher. Many of them, people caught in crossfires or blown up by accident.
McKenna’s ruminations were cut short by more activity at the RUC station. The steel garage doors were pushed open by two constable
s and a moment later armored Land Rovers converged on the building from all directions. They made the turn into the garage at high speed with tires squealing. A minute later, fourteen of the vehicles were inside and the garage doors were closed by the constables. McKenna had looked for Forsythe among the constables in the Land Rovers, but they were going too fast for him to make out anyone.
McKenna thought it was time to go, but the driver didn’t. “It’ll just be another minute and things will be back to normal,” he told McKenna.
What’s normal here in Belfast? McKenna couldn’t help but wonder as he watched the couples outside the pub. They were still talking away and hadn’t expressed the slightest interest in the activities of the RUC and the soldiers.
McKenna glanced up at the soldier outside his window and looked with some difficulty past the barrel of the gun pointing at his head and into the young man’s eyes. The soldier dispassionately returned his gaze, leading McKenna to believe that the man would shoot without thinking at the first perception of danger.
McKenna suddenly thought that it wasn’t such a good idea to stare at the young soldier, but rather that his time would be better spent checking his fingernails and the shine on his shoes. Which was exactly what he did until the garage doors opened again and ten Land Rovers were driven out, once again at high speed. Then the soldiers abandoned their positions and ran into the garage. The constables pulled the doors closed behind them and the change of shift was complete.
The driver started up the engine and drove the half block to the front of the RUC station. McKenna paid him and got out. As the taxi pulled away, McKenna took a few moments to gather himself. He noticed that the constables manning both guard towers had some kind of automatic weapons pointed at him through the portholes. He went to the front door and tried to open it, but it was locked. There was a doorbell attached to a speaker mounted on the door and McKenna was just about to ring it when a voice sounded through the speaker. “State your business.” Since he hadn’t rung the bell, McKenna figured that the voice belonged to one of the constables watching him from the towers.