The
Storm Protocol
by
Iain Cosgrove
First published in 2013 by Iain Cosgrove
All rights reserved
© Iain Cosgrove, 2013
The right of Iain Cosgrove to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental
Front Cover Image © Rolf Zaska, 2013
ISBN: 978-0957417526
DEDICATION
To my family; the bedrock on which my foundations are built.
To Jane – Always.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the support and encouragement of my wife Jane, who repeatedly told me that all I needed was a work ethic and a healthy dose of luck!
This is a novel and as such, it is a work of fiction. Therefore, certain liberties have been taken with real locations, events and places so that they fit with the story. The interpretation placed on them is mine and mine alone; hopefully the finished story will be worthy of the subtle changes.
Prologue – The Gathering Storm
Chapter 1 – Awakening
Chapter 2 – Salvation
Chapter 3 – Enigma
Chapter 4 – Presumption
Chapter 5 – Discovery
Chapter 6 – Concealment
Chapter 7 – Brothers
Chapter 8 – Domination
Chapter 9 – Whisperings
Chapter 10 – Proof
Chapter 11 – Adversaries
Chapter 12 – Enforcement
Chapter 13 – Collective
Chapter 14 – Rivals
Chapter 15 – Survival
Chapter 16 – Home
Chapter 17 – Glimmerings
Chapter 18 – Corroboration
Chapter 19 – Resurrection
Chapter 20 – Nostalgia
Chapter 21 – Soothsayer
Chapter 22 – Diversion
Chapter 23 – Rebirth
Chapter 24 – Quest
Chapter 25 – Unmasked
Chapter 26 – Happenstance
Chapter 27 – Genesis
Chapter 28 – Convergence
Chapter 29 – Diffusion
Chapter 30 – Answers
Chapter 31 – Ambush
Chapter 32 – Rebellion
Chapter 33 – Alliance
Chapter 34 – Regret
Chapter 35 – Anticipation
Chapter 36 – Deficient
Chapter 37 – Resolution
Chapter 38 – Retribution
Chapter 39 – Remembrance
Chapter 40 – Imperfect
Chapter 41 – Aggression
Chapter 42 – Avarice
Chapter 43 – Dialogue
Chapter 44 – Rejection
Chapter 45 – Hypothesis
Chapter 46 – Clandestine
Chapter 47 – Conspiracy
Chapter 48 – Exposure
Chapter 49 – Expectation
Chapter 50 – Reflection
Chapter 51 – Clarification
Chapter 52 – Revelation
Chapter 53 – Congregation
Chapter 54 – Destination
Chapter 55 – Acceptance
Chapter 56 – Confrontation
Chapter 57 – Armistice
Chapter 58 – Culmination
Chapter 59 – Anticlimax
Epilogue – After the Storm
Prologue – The Gathering Storm
10th May 2011 – The night of the Storm.
Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains; but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them. – Jean Paul Richter.
A storm was coming, I could feel it. The air was charged with particles of electricity that crackled with unspent energy, portents of the thunder and lightning to come. A patchwork of uneasy stratospheric alliances danced overhead, woven into the very fabric of the atmosphere. The moisture hung like a fog in the humid air; heavy and overpowering, like the purple velvet curtains that were pulled roughly closed across the large French doors of the ballroom behind me.
The swing seat was creaking softly, as I rocked myself imperceptibly backwards and forwards. The veranda had been the main selling point for me, the final seal on the deal. I’d lost count of the number of modern houses I’d viewed, but as the car had glided down the long unkempt driveway, the huge white mansion had emerged from the early morning mist in all its pomp and colonnaded splendour. She’d hooked me from the start. She was a faded princess, decaying and slowly dying, but I didn’t care. She was a bit like me really. She had seen a lot of life, and her well worn patina showed on every wall and floor.
Louisiana was about as far removed from my normal sphere of operations as it was possible to get, and this had been the other hook to reel me in. It had been very expensive, but money was about the only thing I had in plentiful supply.
My mum had loved Gone with the Wind, especially the grand and ostentatious Tara. She had made me promise, almost as many times as we’d both watched it, curled together on the battered leather sofa, that I would buy her a place like that when I was a millionaire. A couple of times, especially toward the end of her life, when our communication was as distant as the ocean that separated us, I made the promises again. Advanced senility had made her a stranger, but even so, I clung to those promises like a life jacket, and even began to believe them myself.
In the half light of the dusk, I could just make out the family cemetery that had come with the property. Apparently, it had put off a lot of the potential buyers, but I loved it. Generations of the Roussel family were buried in the plot, differentiated through the decades by nothing other than the dates on their simple granite headstones. I chuckled slightly as I remembered the look on the face of the local stonemason. I had commissioned a new headstone.
Mary O’Neill, beloved mother, died 21st March 1990.
It sounded silly, but I felt by that one act, I had kept at least a tiny bit of my promise to her.
I would often wander through the vibrant flower filled plots, watching the sun set in the distance, remembering happier times. Occasionally, if the impish mood was upon me, I would also speculate on the relationships between the many deceased, and try to guess at their causes of death.
But it was my own death I was contemplating tonight.
At first, the anxious thoughts had been easy to dismiss. I was not a coward and never had been. But now, in the cold light of a May evening, I knew it was only a matter of time before they found me.
Looking back on it, I would not have done anything differently. In truth, I couldn’t have done anything differently. I was a marked man, simple as that. I knew better than anyone that the Mancini brothers did not have a retirement plan. I used to action their pension arrangements myself. You couldn’t just stop working for them. And I had been their most trusted lieutenant, welcomed into the inner circle, party to all manner of unsavoury and dangerous information.
At first I had thought this would save me; would make me untouchable. The note I’d left Guido had outlined my reasons for leaving and why I would not be a threat. The following day, I’d been sitting on a mottled and musty bedspread in a
run-down motel, just off interstate 95. I’d been intently reading the plain white folder that was my only luggage, when an image flashed into my head. It was a picture often repeated during my long employment, an image of a man in the grip of unrequited anger and intensity. Only then did I realise the plain unequivocal truth; in writing that simple note, I had signed my own death warrant and sealed it with my own blood. They did not do rejection.
I had been an enforcer for the brothers for two decades, so I knew where people would instinctively hide and conversely the best ways to stay hidden. They had called me the Street or Street for short; as stark, brutal and uncompromising as the neighbourhoods we ruled. It was a moniker that stuck with me throughout my career. It had originally appealed to my youthful and impetuous ego and I’d loved it. It implied status and power and pretty soon people forgot my given name and I didn’t encourage their memories of it.
So the new owner of Augustine Mansion had been registered as Thomas Eugene O’Neill; hiding in plain sight. The young Thomas had been a bright eyed and innocent twenty year old, when I’d first docked in New York all those years ago. Kathleen had begged me to stay in Ireland, and when that hadn’t worked, she had begged me to take her with me. I had promised that I would send for her when I’d made my fortune, both of us realising that the likelihood of either happening was extremely slim.
I’d taken any and every job that I could; all of them unskilled, low-paid and rarely guaranteed. But just when I thought that weeks of breadline existence would turn into months and then years, a savage beating at the hands of a Latino gang ultimately changed the course of my life.
Guido and his brother Ernesto happened upon my inert body, lying in a pool of blood in an alley in Brooklyn. They intimated a way that I could get revenge and then provided the means and the opportunity for me to do it. And in that one action, they inextricably bound us together for eternity; the holy trinity. I never once questioned aloud how they managed to be in a position to find my badly beaten body so conveniently; I already knew.
Not that I minded.
I gained immediate respect and wealth beyond my wildest dreams. But I was always respectful, to my employers and to my targets. I was a professional. I did not do torture; it was not my thing. I would calmly explain what it was that the brothers wanted, and what would happen if they did not get what they wanted. Most of my targets understood and most of them complied. The ones that did not, died; it was as simple as that. And not in a hail of bullets either, always a single shot to the head. In New York, it was known as the Street shot; my very own urban legend.
So, who would the brothers send to tidy up this particular loose end? Even though I could almost feel the white heat of their anger, I knew how realistic they were. They didn’t have anyone in their current stable that was as good as me, and they knew that I knew it too. They would not make a mistake and they would make sure the job was done properly. I was forty five years old, not the enforcer of old. It would be someone I didn’t know; a man from the outside, a new recruit to do their bidding. One thing I did know. He would be a twenty-something mirror image of me; of that I was certain.
My hand strayed to the underside of the table. I had duct-taped my favourite 9mm in place, hidden from casual view by the dainty lace table cloth, a delicious irony. If he found me, it would be a case of the best man winning, and I would not go down without a fight. I wasn’t afraid; I had long ago said any goodbyes that needed saying, and I was sick of running.
Forked lightning lit up the sky, followed by a tremendous rolling roar of thunder, jerking me out of my sentimental reverie. Huge drops of rain started splashing down on the driveway. You could hear the staccato beats on the roof of the veranda, like a thousand manic drummers. But as I watched the celestial lightshow play out, I glimpsed a different type of light on the horizon.
A car was moving steadily up the driveway, the headlights flickering as it passed the willows that lined the long ornate lane. The driver was uncertain of the lie of the land; the car was moving very slowly, and it only speeded up when the driveway opened out onto the gravel parking area in front of the house.
As the young man got out of the car, I immediately knew he was the one; the angel of death. He had an aura of invincibility about him, an arrogance that only youth and supreme self confidence can bring. It was indeed like looking into a mirror that faced back in time.
He reached into the back and removed his light linen jacket, making no attempt to shelter from the massive raindrops. By the time he had shrugged himself into the suit and made his way slowly to the veranda, he was literally dripping wet. It was a sublime performance of machismo.
He was trying to impress me.
‘Hi there,’ he said slowly, and I suppressed a smile.
They’d even sent a Paddy. It fitted in with the twisted sense of humour that the brothers often displayed.
‘Hi there,’ I said in reply. ‘Lost?’
‘Maybe,’ he replied.
I gestured to the chair opposite me.
‘Please sit down,’ I said, my newfound southern hospitality kicking in. ‘Can I get you a drink of anything? Iced tea? Coffee? Something stronger?’
‘I’ll take a beer if you have one,’ said the stranger, settling himself into the chair opposite me, watching the drips pool on the polished teak of the veranda floor.
I headed for the kitchen and returned in a couple of minutes with two bottles.
‘Domestic okay?’ I asked him, as I handed him the chilled Miller.
He laughed.
‘Not domestic where I come from.’
‘No, right enough not,’ I replied. ‘And where would that be exactly?’
‘Oh come on,’ he said, giving nothing away. ‘Same place as you; Ireland for sure, no?’
I nodded an affirmation. He was quick, I’d give him that.
‘So, what can I do for you?’ I asked.
‘I think you know who I am,’ he said.
God, he was brazen. And there was something else behind the eyes. It was well hidden, but it seemed to be almost a sense of joy, even exaltation; like he had finally arrived, or was about to.
‘So, I think you know well why I’m here,’ he finished enigmatically.
He wasn’t holding back, that was for sure.
I decided to play him along for a while.
‘You have the better of me, young man,’ I said. ‘Maybe introductions would be in order first?’
He seemed to relax slightly.
‘My name is Alan, Alan Murphy,’ he said, tipping his beer bottle toward me in a substitute for a handshake.
I held up my own beer in a silent return salute.
‘Pleased to meet you Alan, my name is Thomas,’ I replied.
‘I know who you are,’ he said.
It was not the answer I had been expecting.
‘Ok,’ I said, finally relenting, as I sat back down directly across from him. ‘We both know why you are here. I’m not going to beat around the bush any more. But let’s be adult about it. You can walk away now and neither of us will get hurt.’
‘I’m not walking away from this,’ he said slowly. ‘After all the effort I put into finding you? You’ve got to be joking.’
He put his empty bottle deliberately on the table and then in an instant his hand darted inside his jacket.
So, it comes down to this, does it?
For a split second, I contemplated a future without running; being able to walk down a street without constantly scanning the crowd; a normal life. But it was only a split second.
Two decades of mental training kicked in and almost before I was aware of what I was doing, the gun appeared in my hand. A flash of lightning lit up the tableau, and I saw a flicker of uncertainty on the young man’s face, before the impact of the single shot sent him backwards out of his chair. He tumbled awkwardly down the veranda steps, to land in an untidy and ungainly heap.
I walked down to where his body lay, unheeding of the lashing rain. He was
stone dead; after two decades as a harbinger of death, I recognised it immediately. But this time it seemed unfair somehow. I felt cheated.
It had been too easy.
I opened his jacket to extract the weapon, but instead, his hand was grasping a plain white envelope. I gently prised his fingers off it. The outside was stained and greasy; easy evidence that the contents had been removed and replaced over and over again.
I extracted the letter and smoothed it open. Small sections of it leapt out at me. Dear Mr Murphy, it began. A sentence further down the page had been highlighted. We think your search may be over.
As the rain started smudging and blurring the ink all over the paper, I realised that there was another document still left in the envelope. I pulled it out and as I did so, I immediately knew what it was. An Irish birth certificate, with its ornate harp logo at the top, was unmistakeable. I looked across at the name of the mother, already half guessing what I would find; Kathleen Murphy.
I stood there as the rain obliterated the documents in my hand. I had seen the name of the father, standing out in stark capital letters; mocking me. I felt nothing. I was numb. The lightning crackled and the thunder roared, and still I stood there; unmoving, unyielding.
I didn’t see the dark suited figure sidle up behind me, as agile, nimble and silent as a cat. I only felt the pressure of the barrel on the back of my neck, as the lightning lit up the body at my feet for one last time.
‘Guido says goodbye,’ he whispered in my ear, as the thunder roared overhead, punctuated only by a single sharp crack.
Chapter 1 – Awakening
10th April 2011 – One month before the Storm.
Death; the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening. – Sir Walter Scott.
I placed the steaming mug gently onto the kitchen table. I was always careful to centre it onto the white ring, a mark that had etched itself indelibly into the soft veneer of the cheap pine. I often idly contemplated cleaning it off and then always managed to find something better to do.
The Storm Protocol Page 1