Irish End Games, Books 4-5-6

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  “The people might just be in out of the rain,” Mike said. Ahead was a slight widening in the road which opened onto a small two-story mud and stone thatched house. There were no bicycles out front to alert the uninitiated to the fact that this was the local meeting place, but somehow Mike knew it was.

  “Did you find something?” Sarah asked, frowning.

  “I think I found the village pub.”

  “It looks like an abandoned house. From the last century.”

  “Aye. To your jaundiced American eye, I can see how it might,” Mike said with a grin as he put the Jeep into park. “Why not come with me this time? In a village like this, I reckon it’s safer inside than out here on the road.”

  “Maybe they’ll have tea,” Sarah said, throwing off her rug and reaching for the car door.

  “I’ll wager they will,” Mike said.

  *****

  How Mike knew that this abandoned shack was the village’s popular brewery was a mystery to Sarah. She was just grateful that he did. If she’d been on her own, she’d have passed right on by. That was probably the whole point.

  Mike kept his hand on her elbow as he pushed open the door to the house at the end of the village street. The rain had started to come down harder and Sarah was grateful for the shelter of the pub even though her nostrils were met with a dank mildew smell that had her hesitate on the threshold. There were no fewer than half a dozen people in the room, clustered around a polished wooden bar, behind which stood a bartender. The man wore a Nike t-shirt and a baseball cap.

  “Feck me,” he said loudly. “Trade!”

  The five people at the bar turned to see what he was looking at and openly gawked at Mike and Sarah as they came in. Sarah smiled at the faces of the four men and two women. Two lanterns anchored the opposite sides of the bar, throwing shadows around the room. The tension was palpable but Sarah felt Mike move away from her toward the bar as if coming upon this secret bar in post apocalyptic Ireland were an everyday occurrence.

  “Do ye have ale?” Mike asked the barman, his big voice booming out friendly and confident. Sarah knew Mike didn’t feel quite so hail-fellow as his voice might indicate and she was grateful for his acting abilities.

  “Aye, mebbe,” said the barman, a sour-faced man in his fifties.

  “That’s grand,” Mike said. “And a cup of scaldy for the missus?”

  Sarah watched all eyes shift from Mike to her as if Mike had requested double lines of cocaine for them both. Mike went to a table and pulled out a chair for Sarah, but his eyes never left the occupants and the smile never fell from his face.

  She sat heavily on the wooden chair and ran her hands absently over the deeply scarred table. She wondered if this table had been here since the Middle Ages but of course that was ridiculous. Mike went to the bar. The two women were still openly staring at her. She smiled at them and one possibly smiled back. After a moment, Mike returned with a large steaming earthenware mug with a teabag floating in the water.

  “No milk or sugar,” he said and then patted her hand. He had work to do.

  Sarah dunked the teabag absently and forced herself to appreciate that she was dry and that however unsuccessful she and Mike were today, they were at least doing something to find the boys. Although the roof was thatched, she could hear the rain pounding away on it and the windows. There was a good fire blazing in the grate to her left and she felt the warmth on her knees. She shook the rain from her jacket and draped it on the back of her chair.

  From where she sat, she could hear Mike in full blarney form chatting up the bar occupants and the barkeep. It always surprised her that fellow Irishmen were just as likely to fall victim to the lavish bullshit that is a true Irishman in full story-telling form. You’d think they’d see you coming for a hundred kilometers but no, human nature being what it was, the Irish were as susceptible as anyone else for buying a lie.

  “Is there any news, d’ye ken?” Mike asked from the bar as he tipped back his lager. Real beer was rare these days unless the proprietor had perfected the art of the microbrewery which she’d heard some actually had.

  “That’s usually what we ask strangers for,” one of the men standing beside Mike said, narrowing his eyes at him.

  “Aye, to be sure,” Mike said goodnaturedly. “All I know is about the plague that’s stalled outside our own good shores and naught else.”

  “And stalled is exactly where it’ll stay,” one of the women said. “The Brits are shooting any craft found in the water between here and Wales, so they are.”

  The other woman spoke up, “I thought it was the Irish Garda doing the shooting.”

  “Sure does it matter who’s doing the shooting?” one of the men retorted and they all laughed.

  “We’re looking for our lads,” Mike said. “Young fellows, been missing now about two weeks.”

  “Misplaced your boys, did ye?” the bartender said as he refilled Mike’s glass and palmed the gold coin Mike deposited on the smooth bar top.

  “One’s tall with red hair,” Mike said. “His mother would say he looks like me. T’other is young. No more than fourteen.”

  The bar was quiet. One of the women spoke.

  “Nay, sorry. There’s nobody new gone through here excepting yourselves.”

  “Oh, well,” Mike said, polishing off his beer and placing the tankard down on the counter with a sharp smack. “We’ll be off then.”

  “Are ye looking in every pub from here to Galway, then?”

  The men all laughed.

  “Aye,” Mike said. “If we have to. I thank ye for your time.”

  “Good luck to ye, squire,” one of the men said to Mike. “These are hard times. Harder still to lose a child.”

  Sarah felt her eyes smart when he said that. Up until that moment they were just strangers in a bar but suddenly she felt like they were all connected, like they’d all felt pain and loss in the last four years. And she felt his pity and his empathy. She stood up and pulled her jacket back on.

  “Thank you, everyone,” she said. “You’ve been very kind.”

  Mike was by her side and slipped a hand around her waist as they turned to the door.

  “Oy, hold on,” one of the women said as she pulled away from the bar. “One of the lads you’re lookin’ for wouldn’t happen to be a Yank by any chance, would he?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sarah stood on the dock and stared across to where Wales must be. She held her arms tightly to her chest and let the cold wind whip her hair about her face. She didn’t care about pain now or discomfort or hunger or anything else.

  She knew where he was. A miracle had blossomed into an answered prayer this morning when one woman in one pub they just happened to visit turned out to be the wife of a man who had seen John less than a week ago…and taken him across the sea to the United Kingdom. She watched the seagulls dive-bomb the waves for invisible prey.

  Nothing else mattered now. She knew where he was. She didn’t yet hold him in her arms but she knew where he was. Mike came up behind her and blocked the worst of the sharp gale from blasting the warm penumbra created by her radiant hope.

  “I can’t believe we’ve found him,” she said as she stared at the horizon.

  Mike didn’t answer. She tore her eyes from the water and the promise of Wales on the other side and turned in his arms.

  “They won’t take us across, will they?” she asked.

  He winced and gave a half shake of his head like he was trying to believe it himself.

  “The plague,” he said.

  “But why did they let John cross then?”

  “The pilot said it was his last crossing. John just happened to time it right.”

  “Lucky us.”

  “Well, it is lucky us, love,” he reminded her. “We know where he is and now it’s just a logistics problem to be solved.”

  “So how do we solve it?”

  He looked out at the water himself.

  “Like anything else,�
�� he said. “With money.”

  In the end, Sarah knew, as much as she wanted to jump in the water and start swimming to the other side, she needed to plan. It was hard. Knowing John was in Wales—in Fishguard, more precisely—was immensely helpful because now they only had one small fishing village to take apart brick by brick for what surely must be the only fourteen-year old American boy there. But she also knew that they didn’t just need passage over; they needed passage back.

  And, of course, there was still Gavin to be found. If it turned out that the reason John was in Wales was because Gavin was there too—well, then they would all just settle in Wales until the travel ban was lifted.

  Even Sarah knew the pilot was a poor choice to confide in—as nice and as friendly a fellow as he appeared to be. He knew who they were and he knew what the stakes were. First, he’d be a fool to help them and risk his livelihood by breaking the law, and second, while he might not rat them out, he’d be an even bigger fool to lie to the authorities for them. No, they needed someone who didn’t care who they were or what their goals were. Someone who was just interested in the gold coins Mike had to pay for the deed.

  “It’s not a matter of trust, ye ken,” Mike told her as they stood and watched the horizon. “For our purposes, we can’t afford to trust anyone.”

  “I know,” Sarah said. “Just pay them what they want. I don’t care.”

  He rubbed her back and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.

  “Will ye not let me go alone?” he said into her ear.

  “I’m not letting one more loved one out of my sight.”

  He laughed. “You might have your hands full laying down that particular law to your boy when ye have him back.”

  “Hands full or not. He’s never leaving me until they haul me out feet first. Nor this one either.” She placed a hand on her stomach and Mike covered it with his own larger one.

  “Aye. It’s a pact then,” he said and bent down to speak to Sarah’s stomach. “If we let ye come out, it’s on the express understanding that ye’ll not be going anywhere until we’re dead.”

  Sarah laughed. “You got that right.”

  *****

  The man was shaped like a hunched over shellfish, his back curved over onto himself, his face a gristle of beard framing bad teeth. All the virtues of the man were on display for the world to see, Mike thought grimly as he held up two gold coins in the Rosslare fishgutting shed.

  “For passage there,” Mike said in a low voice. The floor was still slick with last month’s catches. With the Garda patrolling this close to shore, no one was comfortable even taking a dingy out, let alone to where most of the normal fishing sites were.

  These days, whatever was caught from the pier was what got sold or traded. Nobody was taking a chance on getting shot for a load of mullet.

  Mike glanced at Sarah, huddled in her heavy coat in the corner of the shed. Her eyes glistened in the dim light. He could feel her excitement even from fifteen feet away. They were that close. Tomorrow they’d wake up in the same town where John was. By lunch, they’d have him back again. Bob’s your uncle and Nancy yer fecking auntie.

  “It’s twice the risk for me,” the weasel of a man said. Ned, he’d said his name was. “First to get there and then home again. And it’s the homeward stretch what’s the most dangerous.”

  Mike watched the man’s eyes flick downward to where Mike kept his wallet and his meager cache of gold coins. He’d happily give them all to the little turd if he wasn’t completely convinced that they were all that stood between him and Sarah and home. What if John or Gavin were in a situation that required a bribe? You couldn’t be too careful or too surprised these days. And while he had nothing to trade save the labor of his body, Mike had a little gold in a world where it still meant something.

  Not a whole hell of a lot and not what it used to…but something.

  Mike frowned. “If I double it?” he asked. He knew the man wanted to think he’d manipulated Mike and giving in too happily would just prolong the exercise.

  “Aye, that would be grand, Squire,” Ned said, licking his lips as Mike brought out another gold coin. He snatched it from Mike’s fingers.

  “Meet me at the boat ramp at midnight,” he said and began to move toward the door. Mike put his hand on the man’s shoulder. His jacket felt damp as if months of saltwater had become entrenched in his very clothes.

  “That’s only three hours from now. We’ll stay with you.”

  “Nobody trusts anyone any more,” Ned said, shaking his head as if saddened by the fact.

  “Aye, that’s true enough. And for good reason.”

  “Sure that’s the truth of it.”

  Mike could feel the man’s boney shoulder relax beneath his fingers and he reminded himself that he too had a story and likely a sad one.

  “I’d buy you a drink while we wait.”

  The man’s eyes flew open in surprise. He shook his head in disbelief.

  “Have ye had many people befriend ye, I wonder?” Ned said to Mike.

  Mike considered the question and glanced at Sarah. Her face was clear, her brow unclenched. A smile played loosely on her lips. She knew their trial was culminating in her dearest dreams being realized, thank you God.

  “Aye,” Mike said. “People have been kind.”

  “They go one of two ways, have ye noticed?”

  Mike laughed. “Aye. I’ve noticed.”

  “I’m glad for your luck in finding your lad,” Ned said. “And I’m glad for mine in finding you. Do ye think it works that way?”

  “I don’t know. “How about that drink?”

  “Ye’ll not needing to be asking me twice. Come. We’ll drink to the success of your quest. And then we’ll be off.”

  “Will we need more than we have on us?” Mike and Sarah had parked the Jeep in the woods and stripped it of anything valuable. They hid their food, guns and other belongings in the woods to be retrieved when they came back with John.

  “Warm jackets, like ye have,” Ned said, squinting at Sarah. “Waterproof boots by any chance?”

  Mike shook his head.

  “Nay, never mind. The crossing’s not that long and ye’ll have as long as ye like on t’other side to dry off.”

  That sounded fine to Mike. They left the shed and walked down the slippery pavers that fronted the docks. It had rained on and off all day but the sky was mostly clear now, although the moon was hidden behind a bank of clouds. As Ned had pointed out earlier, moonlight would not be their friend tonight.

  The bar that Ned led them to was more like a lean-to with a couple of tables and chairs set out of the wind. Mike tucked Sarah into the one free table with Ned and brought back two lagers and a hot tea. The tea wasn’t real tea but it was hot and the lagers were watered down homemade ales without hops. It wasn’t the first time that Mike realized that coming together with people in a pub was not so much about what they were drinking than it was the fact that they were doing it together. The four men standing at the open-air bar looked at them over their shoulders with suspicion at first but soon lost interest.

  Mike settled down at the table and Ned lifted his wooden tankard.

  “To finding your lads,” he said and drank deeply.

  “Can I ask you how you survive here, Ned?” Mike said. “Now that the fishing’s depressed and there’s no ferry across, how do you live?” He leaned across to give Sarah’s hands a squeeze as they cupped her hot mug of tea.

  “Well, that is an ever-changing proposition,” Ned said. “To be sure. What worked yesterday, doesn’t work today. What works today, likely won’t work tomorrow.”

  “Do you have family?” Sarah asked.

  “I do. A wife I love dearly who lives in Blackwater and a lass. The lass is…” Ned made a face and blew out a long exhalation. “She’s simple-minded,” he said at last. “A great beauty and a pride to me every day of my life.” He spoke with determination as if ready to dispute or fight anyone on the subject.
r />   “I’m sure she is,” Sarah said.

  “Me wife does washing. I gut fish for a penny a pound or for an outright trade. This crossing?” He indicated the two of them across the table from him. “This’ll put my family right for the next six months.” Mike couldn’t see well in the half light but he thought he saw the man’s eyes moisten.

  “Sure, it’s a hard life these days,” Mike said. He looked at Sarah and gave her a small smile. They had so much to be grateful for. The bairn, each other, all the comforts of the compound at Ameriland when so many others were struggling for the basics.

  Sarah seemed to read his mind for she reached out and touched his hand on the table.

  “Have ye eaten yet tonight?” Mike asked Ned. “We’d be proud to share a meal with you.”

  “Nay, there’s naught but bilge in this place. But once you lot come back—with your lad,” he said looking quickly at Sarah. “I’d be proud to have ye come to Blackwater. My Keira is a fine cook.”

  “We’d like that,” Sarah said.

  An hour later, it was time to go. Mike felt the chill of leaving the semi-shelter but he stamped his feet to get the blood circulating and rubbed his hands up and down Sarah’s back.

  “Won’t be long now,” he whispered into her hair as they followed Ned toward one of the many boat launches.

  “Watch your footing, mind,” Ned said to them over his shoulder. “It’s slick here.”

  Mike slipped his arm around Sarah’s waist and moved down the ramp. He could feel her excitement through her jacket as she hurried beside him. The motorboat that waited them was small. Smaller than Mike had imagined it would be and that worried him. Even from the shore he could see the waves were choppy.