“Hey, Mom,” John said, “how do you feel?” With his rifle over his shoulder, a pistol jammed into one side of his belt and on the other a large Bowie knife in its sheaf, he looked like a young Davey Crockett. He’s supposed to be in school, she thought with dismay as she watched him. He’s an academic, not Daniel Boone.
“I’m fine,” she said, trying to position her legs so that she could stand. For the last three days, they had been sleeping in a lean-to next to the hog pen. Most nights it didn’t make any sense with a perfectly good cottage and four perfectly good beds not a half a block away but then she remembered how quickly the invaders had come at them and how unprepared they’d been. And then the hogs didn’t sound so bad after all.
“Of course you are,” he said with a grin. “Archie’s not limping any more.”
“Thank God. I was this close to leaving his ass behind. I so don’t want to have this baby in a manger.”
John laughed and gave her a hand to pull her to her feet.
“He’s loading the backpacks now. Sophia and Regan are putting some food together. Archie says we’ll be there before dinner.”
“That’s good, because I have a bad feeling about what a full day’s exercise does to a woman who’s nine months pregnant.”
“Positive thoughts, Mom.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
An hour later, they all trudged out the front gate. Everyone but Sarah carried full packs. Archie wouldn’t allow Sarah to carry more than a walking stick and she was already too fatigued to argue with him. She let the thrill of finally being on the move again and the hope of a real bed that night carry her through the first hour. Archie insisted they go by way of the woods. It was safer but Sarah knew it would take them much longer too.
“Not at-tall,” Archie said. “Didn’t I tell the lad we’d be there by nightfall?”
“I don’t know what you told him,” Sarah said, gasping for breath and leaning on her stick, “but he told me dinner time, so which is it?”
“Does it matter?” Archie said cheerfully. “You’re doing fine, so ye are!”
“Liar. I’m barely putting one foot in front of the other. Why don’t y’all go on ahead?”
“Sure, you’re a witty one, Sarah Donovan,” Archie said. “You’ll be making the time go that much faster with your jokes and teases.”
Regan trotted up beside Sarah. In the three days since they’d buried her mother, Sarah could tell something was different about the girl. She was quieter, less prone to ignite. The sight of Sophia no longer seemed to set her off. Sarah had talked with her on and off about the recent compound attack but Regan always assured her she was fine. Sarah wasn’t convinced.
“You all right then, Sarah?” Regan asked, her eyes scanning the bushes and drystone walls as she walked.
“Fine thanks. And you?”
“Sure it’s not me who’s about to have a baby,” Regan said.
“Thank you for reminding me.”
Regan moved on ahead, holding the straps of the heavy pack on her back. They cut into her shoulders.
“What did you pack?” Sarah asked Archie as they watched Regan join John and Sophia up ahead.
“The basics. Guns, ammunition. A little food.”
“Are you sure the convent will take us in?”
“They have to,” he said shrugging. “It’s a convent.”
“Are you sure it’s still there?”
“It’s there.”
“And hidden.”
“Sure not to worry, lass,” Archie said, reassuringly. “There’s no one could find it. Not in a million years. We’ll finally be safe there.”
“Good,” Sarah said, moving a hand down to hold her belly and reduce the shocks of her footfalls on it. “I’m so ready to be somewhere safe.”
Chapter 33
Sinead stood in her office, Mac beside her and that useless excuse for a midwife cowering before her. It was literally unbelievable that they had been gone one night…one night!…and the stupid bitch had succeeded in botching one of their few remaining births. It took all Sinead’s powers of self-control not to slit the stupid cow’s throat. That and Mac’s hand on her arm.
“How the feck did it happen?” Sinead said between clenched teeth.
“These things happen from time to time,” Mrs. Reidy said, her eyes wide with fear. “It died inside her.”
“That is not acceptable!” Sinead shrieked.
“It was…prenatal,” Mrs. Reidy said. “The death did not happen during delivery.”
“Of course we just have your word for that, don’t we? And of course you’d say that!”
“The body is available for—”
“As if we have the facilities to do an autopsy! As you well know we don’t! I’ve a mind to kill you just for suggesting it!”
“Sinead,” Mac said in a soothing tone—that same tone that enraged her.
“There’s more,” the midwife said, now openly trembling.
Sinead had been in the process of turning away from the woman. “What are you talking about?”
Mrs. Reidy swallowed and looked at Mac as if for support.
“One of the men,” she said, “told me there was another death in the non pregnant women’s tent.”
Sinead just stared at her.
“A death?” Mac said, taking a step toward the woman. “Who? How?”
“That I don’t know,” Mrs. Reidy said, clearly glad to be speaking with Mac instead of Sinead. “Someone died. That’s all I know.”
“Get out,” Sinead said. The woman was backing out of the door as Sinead spoke.
Sinead looked at Mac. “I blame you for this.”
“I wasn’t even here!”
“You can’t control those men. You assured me the women would be fine in our absence.”
“I never said anything like that!” Mac said, clenching his jaw. “Besides, how do you know it’s not another suicide?”
“How can this be happening to me? First we lose the wankers we picked up in Dublin, then one of our only babies dies, and now one of the nonpregnant women too. I cannot get a fecking break!”
The van had disappeared three miles from the baby camp when they passed through the nearest village. Mac’s guess was that the bastards had stopped for a pint with their new cash. Whatever the reason, Sinead wasn’t happy. It didn’t bode well for the felons taking orders in the future.
“Go see if the stupid bitch got it wrong,” Sinead said. “Find out from the men if—”
A knock on the door made them both turn. The man named Dickie who’d driven the van from Dublin, opened the door.
“There you are, ye wanker!” Sinead said stomping over to him. “What the feck do ye mean driving off like that? Did we not make clear yer purpose here? And that’s not to be drinking half the day. If you feck with me, I swear—”
“Oy, squire,” Dickie said to Mac, “tell the bitch to shut her gob. We brung ye a present.”
Mac heard shuffling in the hall outside and pushed past Dickie to see the other three men from Dublin holding a young woman, her eyes wide with terror over the gag they’d put in her mouth.
“We had ta shut ‘er up,” Dickie said shrugging. “Her wailing was driving us around the bend.”
“You…you found her in the village?” Sinead said.
“Aye,” Dickie said. “She was herding a goat so we just…grabbed ‘er.”
Sinead started at the struggling girl and then Dickie. “Well done. Dr. Mac will see that you and your friends are rewarded for your initiative.”
“Initiative?” Mac said, unable to hide the anger in his voice. “I thought we said we weren’t going to soil our nest so close to home?”
“That was before our own women started dropping like flies,” Sinead said. “See that she’s secured, Mac, and that the men know to watch her closely.” She smiled at Dickie. “They always try to run right after we bring ‘em in.”
“Sinead, I don’t like this—” Mac said.
“I don’t give a shite what you like!” she shrieked. “I don’t like the fact that we only have one baby due to be born in the next four months! Now get the feck out of here, and get ready to go out first thing in the morning.”
“On the road? We just got back!”
“Now!” she screamed. “Get yer arse to the convent and bring back every living female you find—girls, babies, nuns, I don’t give a shite! Just do it!”
**********
Fiona watched four men dragging a struggling girl out of Sinead’s office. She’d taken Ciara outside to play an hour earlier and had seen Sinead and Mac return. She watched the couple go into Sinead’s office. Sinead was clearly unhappy. Fiona prayed it wasn’t because Megan’s little one had died. Her thoughts turned to Megan and she sent a prayer out to her and to God.
Please let her get pregnant soon. Please.
She watched the four men. They were new. She’d never seen them before. They looked somehow rougher, if that was possible, than the ones already in the camp. Where had they come from? Who were they?
Now Mac emerged from the building and caught up with the men. Fiona had many times found herself thinking she was seeing a humane side of Mac, but here was a vision of him as he really was. While the defenseless girl kicked and punched at her captors desperately, Mac never once looked at her as he spoke to one of the men.
Don’t be fooled into thinking he’s any different. If he were, he would’ve helped us before now.
Mac looked up and noticed Fiona watching him. He hesitated and then directed the men to the door in the fence—the door that led to the world where rape and abuse lived. Fiona clapped a helpless hand over her mouth as they dragged the girl through the door.
Was Julie in there? The men had come for Julie—and her baby—not three hours after she’d delivered the stillborn. Exhausted and heartsick, Julie hadn’t resisted them as they took her away. The rest of the women in the tent watched her being shuffled out the tent door. The next morning, when Fiona asked Eloise the cook if she’d seen her, she said that Megan was fine and had made friends.
Nothing on Julie.
If Sinead felt Julie was no more service to her, would she have let her go? Could Julie even now be wandering the countryside trying to find someone to listen to her about what was happening in the camp?
Or did they just kill her?
Ciara sat at Fiona’s feet, digging in the dirt with her hands. Fiona hadn’t had much hope that the child was benefiting from the exposure to sunlight and fresh air. But she didn’t know what else to do. Ciara had stopped eating and was growing weaker.
As Fiona stood looking over the courtyard, her hand on her belly, she prayed for Julie and Megan, for Jill and Bridget, for the women from the compound who’d suffered daily rape for five months now, and for the poor girl they’d just taken through the fence. She prayed also for her darling Ciara and for Declan, that he was alive and searching for her. And lastly she prayed for the baby inside her—who represented her hope that she would see his father again some day—the baby whom she hadn’t felt move in three days now.
Chapter 34
Mac stood by the van and turned to survey his recruits. All four of them observed him with disrespect or outright dislike. Normally that wouldn’t matter. Mac had been in the service and liking his sergeant hadn’t been a thought that ever entered his head.
These bastards didn’t have to like him. The one that worried him the most was Dickie—a natural leader, he was loud, assertive and, unlike the others, seemed to have an agenda. The other three were here because it beat whatever disgusting life they’d had in Dublin.
“You three get in the back,” Mac said, pointing to Dickie and two of the other men. “You drive,” he said to the one called Chezzie.
“Hold on, squire,” Dickie said. “I thought I’d drive. Chezzie’s still drunk from last night.”
And so it began. Mac knew Dickie had thrown him a bone at the same time he’d begun to assert himself. Mac could either throw down with the bastard right now before the trip even started or he could present himself as the reasonable sort and allow Dickie his point.
He didn’t think there was much point in coming off as reasonable to these berks.
“Chezzie drives,” Mac said, tossing the keys to the youngest member of the group, a pocked-marked teen who admitted to being imprisoned for murdering his sister.
As Mac climbed into the front seat of the van, it occurred to him that having Dickie sit behind him was possibly a strategic error. But it was too late now. They had a long uncomfortable trip ahead of them.
Sinead had given clear directions to the convent, which was south and in the middle of the countryside, with no road access and near no town or village Mac had ever heard of. They’d have to travel the last two miles on foot to reach it.
He’d done his best not to show Sinead how much the idea of raiding the convent upset him. If he knew her at all, he knew the direct approach never worked. He had no intention of finding the convent. He may have done some pretty despicable things, but attacking and dragging nuns off to be raped by the likes of the scum in this car was not going to be added to the list. He realized it wasn’t much considering the things he’d already done, but it soothed him to know there was a line he wouldn’t cross.
And nuns were that line.
They drove out of the camp and Mac gave directions to head due east. Normally, they’d take the highway N20, but it was clogged with too many abandoned cars. In the long run, taking back country roads would be faster.
His hope was that they’d find something along the way. They drove for an hour in silence. Two of the men were snoring, which explained it. Usually—even in the short time he’d known the recruits—they were a loud and profane bunch. The one time Mac looked at them, he saw Dickie staring right back at him, the gleam in his eye a clear challenge. After that, Mac didn’t turn around again.
Just before lunchtime, Mac directed Chezzie to stop the car. Everyone got out to relieve themselves on the side of the road. This had to be the ugliest section of Ireland, Mac thought, as he stared at the bleak, tree-less and rock-strewn pastures. Rusted barbed wire ran post to post along the roadside of the pasture. Tufts of wool hung from the wire in spots which surprised Mac. There didn’t look to be enough grass to support sheep.
“So what’s the plan, squire?” Dickie asked.
Mac knew Sinead had spoken privately to Dickie, praising him no doubt for his “initiative” in procuring the village girl. Mac wondered if Sinead had promised him a reward for his efforts today? Perhaps a new set of teeth.
“There’s a village up ahead,” Mac said. “We split up and see what we can find.”
“I thought we were going to a convent,” Dickie said.
“We’re going wherever I say we’re going.”
Mac couldn’t chase away the idea that Dickie was Sinead’s mole—instructed to watch Mac and report back. But that was insane. Dickie was just a toothless degenerate who’d been lucky to please Sinead on a bad day.
“I don’t think the boss lady will like that, squire.”
“Quit calling me that. And your job isn’t to think what Mrs. Branigan’s desires are.”
Mac blushed and hated himself for it, especially since Dickie led the pack in roaring laughter at Mac’s unfortunate word choice.
“Split up!” Mac shouted. “Meet back here in thirty minutes.”
Mac strode toward the village, praying they’d be as lucky today as these bastards had been when they found the village girl. If they could fill the back of the van with even three captives, they could turn around and return to camp. Three new childbearing women would keep Sinead happy for a good long while.
Dickie took Chezzie with him and disappeared into the village while the other two followed Mac. Like all these villages after the bomb dropped, it looked deserted. Most people, ill equipped to live off the land these days, had fled to the cities or to find family they could congregate with. Typically, only the
elderly with no kin or the depraved looking to prey on them remained.
Mac felt the comfort of the pistol in his shoulder harness. Handguns were rare enough in Ireland any time and he had to admit he wouldn’t be nearly as bold without it. Especially considering his traveling companions.
They paused at the entrance to the village. The road leading in to it curved gently until it was crowded by apartments and domiciles perched on top of shops. The shutters were drawn, the doors tightly shut.
“Knock on the door,” he said as they arrived at the first house. “Say you’re looking for your sister. Lost in these parts.”
The other two men walked up and pounded on the door. Nobody answered. They knocked on the doors of several more houses, but no doors opened. It occurred to Mac that walking down main street and going door to door was probably not the best way to kidnap women. He sighed in frustration and motioned for the men to go back to the van.
He had to bring someone back. Even one woman would be reason enough to skip the convent visit.
As he followed the men back to where they’d parked the van, he continued to glance up at the windows that hung over the street. He thought he saw a shadow pass across one and a curtain flutter in another.
Yeah, pretty stupid knocking on doors. He remembered bemoaning the expense of what they’d paid to the Garda last year to find women for them but he had to admit now it was probably worth the money.
As soon as they turned the last corner, he could see Dickie and Chezzie were not back at the van yet. He frowned. Had they had better luck? He thought they were going to come at the village from the other end or from the back but he hadn’t seen them.
“You go on,” Mac said. He jogged in the direction behind the village. There was no road there but only maze-like spaces filled with scattered garden sheds, one-car garages, junkyards, and overgrown gardens. The area behind the village front was strewn with rusty wheelbarrows, broken bicycles, and abandoned furniture.
He heard voices and instinctively ducked to avoid being seen. There was a dirt footpath that seemed to lead behind all of the back yards. The closer he got, the clearer it was that the voices he was hearing belonged to Dickie and Chezzie.
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