“Can they do it in a way that doesn’t kill him?”
“I think so.”
“Fine. Do it.” Someday Mike hoped to live in a world where he could allow second chances. He signaled to Tommy and the boy joined them on the bunk.
“What time is it?” Mike asked.
Tommy looked at his watch. “Ten o’clock,” he said.
Two hours. Two hours of waiting. The tension in the room was already so thick you could smell the fear and feel the expectancy like a living thing crawling on your skin.
Ryan stood up and went to the door. Mike stood up and followed him.
“Where do ye think you’re going?” Mike asked.
“I’m going to give absolution to a young soldier who had to do a terrible job yesterday.”
Mike glanced over to where Davey was sitting up and eating a piece of bread. It hadn’t occurred to Mike that there were men in the other barracks headed for the sick tent. He watched Ryan leave. When the door opened and Ryan stepped out, Mike saw that the low rain clouds already dimmed the sky.
It was going to be a long morning.
Mike returned to his bunk. The last thing he felt like doing was lying down but he knew he needed to conserve his strength. There was no telling what the day held. It was very possible he’d have a good dose of eternal rest before it was done. He watched Gavin and Tommy talking with their heads close. They were probably planning their futures. Gavin must have told Tommy about the lovely Sophia and all their plans for Ameriland.
Ameriland.
Mike thought of Sarah and his heart twisted painfully. Was the baby there yet? Were they safe? He ached to see Sarah’s face again, to hold her in his arms. How long had it been? He tried to count the days. Two on the road. Three days here in this hellhole.
“Tommy!” he called.
“Eleven twenty-five!” Tommy called back.
The whole barracks felt alive with anticipation. Mike realized at some point he’d stopped smelling the stench.
God, I’m getting out just in time.
Was it getting dark out there? He didn’t dare crack the door to check. None of them could do anything until they heard the explosion. He stood up and walked to the door and placed his hands flat against it.
On the other side of this door, I either live or die. On the other side of this door. And not just me, but my lad and all my hopes for the future, for Sarah and for the baby.
Should he say a few words? It seemed as if every face in the hut was staring at him expectantly.
So be it.
“You will have heard,” he said loudly, “that we have an event planned for today.”
A couple of the men laughed but most regarded him with deadly seriousness.
“And all of ye are welcome to take advantage of the situation as ye like. I’m reliably told that the sky will darken completely in just a few more minutes. And there will be a diversion to draw the guards from our door.”
The men spoke excitedly amongst themselves.
“I’ll ask ye to follow my orders until we’re out of the building,” Mike said. “And from there it’s every man for himself.”
“Is it very dangerous, then?” one man yelled out.
“Nah, Gerry,” another sneered. “What do ye think?”
Another small wave of nervous laughter rolled through the men.
“Aye, it’s dangerous,” Mike said. “Ye’ll be running for yer lives that’s for sure. Ye can stay behind and nobody would think less of ye.”
“I’d rather die with a bullet in me back then stay another day,” someone said.
The rest of the men chimed in their agreement.
“Those who’ll leave with us,” Mike said, “when I give the word, go in single file. Head for the front gate. It’s built to keep vehicles out—not men.”
“And once we’re out?”
“That’s up to you. Ye’re welcome to travel with us or go your own way.”
Personally, Mike didn’t think twenty-five starving men would be an asset as they tried to find their way back to Ameriland. But he’d deal with that problem when he had to.
And as he had learned the hard way so many times before, it might not be an issue.
He went back to his bunk and forced himself to sit and wait. He knew they had to be getting close. As soon as they heard the explosion, he would count to twenty to give the guards time to clear out and then he’d open the door.
The door to freedom and seeing Sarah again…
As he stared at it, the door suddenly pulled open. Mike’s insides clenched as he saw Father Ryan stand in the doorway speaking to one of the guards.
Mike whirled around to look at Tommy who was staring at his watch. He looked up at Mike with dismay.
“I don’t understand it,” Tommy said. “It’s ten past twelve. It should be getting dark by now.”
Ten past twelve and no explosion and no eclipse.
“What is it, Squire?” one of the men yelled. “What’s happening?”
Ryan stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
This can’t be happening, Mike thought. We’re ready to go!
“What’s the matter?” a voice called out. “Why is it still daylight outside?”
Ryan walked to Mike and pulled him aside. His face was flushed and Mike saw the man’s hands trembled where he held Mike’s arm.
“There’s a problem,” he said. “They’ve brought a prisoner into McKenna’s.”
“What the feck do I care about that?” Mike said in frustration, his eyes going to the door as if the daylight he’d seen might somehow be explained away.
Ryan looked at him with misery in his face.
“I’m sorry, Mike. It’s Jaz.”
Chapter 41
Mike picked Ryan up by the front of his shirt and threw him against one of the bunks.
Gavin was on his feet. He grabbed the priest and spun him around to face him. “Ye bastard, if you’re the reason she’s—”
“I had nothing to do with it! If you’d just listen to me!” Ryan said, cowering in front of Gavin.
“Speak,” Mike said. But his stomach turned painfully. What difference did it make now? The escape was off and, worse, Jaz was in the grips of that swine McKenna. How could things have gone so wrong?
“They were doing a perimeter sweep outside the walls—”
“Who told ‘em where to look?” Gavin snarled at the priest.
“I…they just do it periodically. I did not tell them she would be there! I swear on my Savior’s life.”
“Like that means anything coming from you,” Mike said.
“Why…if I was going to betray you,” Ryan said in frustration, “why would I tell you about Jaz before you’d attempted your escape?”
He had a point. But Mike was too heartsick to think about the details of how it all went so wrong. He glanced at the other men in the hut. They were staring at him, looking very much like he felt. Astounded, speechless, angry.
Mike ran a hand across his face. Was this their last chance? Had they just blown their window? And gotten Jaz killed in the process? Just thinking of her in the hands of McKenna made Mike want to bolt from the barracks. Dear God.
Ryan addressed Tommy. “The light was fading when I came across the camp. Is it possible you were off by an hour?”
Tommy just stared at him.
Mike looked between the two of them. “Answer him!” he barked.
Tommy looked at his watch and then at the door. “I might have made a mistake.”
“A mistake, how?” Mike asked. “Like being off on the time?”
“I only have a fecking watch!” Tommy said. “And my memory of the date. I’d planned to take Jaz to the far wall back in Ameriland. Just the two of us…” He looked away miserably, his eyes filling with tears.
“Lad,” Mike said wearily, “nobody is blaming ye for getting it wrong. But could it still be happening an hour later?”
“Aye. It could.”
“Can
we still do it, Da?” Gavin asked. “Without the distraction? Can it still work?”
He wanted it so bad. Mike saw the naked need in his son’s face and knew that need was mirrored in his own. They had to get out. But if the desperation to act was going to get them killed…if there was perhaps a better time down the road if only they waited…
“I don’t know, Gav,” he said, his mind in a whirl, trying to push the image of Jaz from his mind, of Sarah. And, God love her, poor Fiona too wherever she was.
“We have to, Da. That bastard has Jaz. You know what he’s doing to her.”
“Please, Mr. Donovan,” Tommy said. “I’ll go out there alone but you know they’ll shoot me before I take two steps. Please let’s do it together.”
They’ll shoot all of us before we take two steps, Mike thought. It was madness. Without a diversion, the darkness wouldn’t be enough.
“Can you get in to see her?” he asked Ryan.
Ryan shook his head. “They only tolerate me. I have no special status with them.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Mike said. “It’ll be the death of all of us.”
“Then let me go,” Tommy said.
“Aye,” Terry said. “And me. This is a living death anyway. At least we’ll have tried.”
“Don’t say that,” Mike said. “There’ll be another chance.”
“But not for Jaz,” Tommy said. “He’ll have killed her by morning.”
“You know it’s true,” Ryan said.
Mike looked at him as if surprised he’d weigh in. “So you think we should go?” he said sarcastically.
“The timing will never be better,” Ryan said. “Diversion or no diversion.”
We’re all going to die today, Mike thought as he stared into Ryan’s calm, cold eyes. But maybe they’re right. Maybe there’ll never be a better time to die or a better reason.
“Fine,” he said in a tight voice. “We’ll go.” He felt the tension ratchet up even higher in the room.
He turned to the men. “But know upfront all of ye that it was a slim chance before and it’s slimmer now. Are ye all sure?”
“We’re sure,” one man said. “Lead us out of this hell.”
Before Mike realized what was happening, one of the men stood up and locked his arms around Carey while another slashed Carey’s throat with a shiv. A loud gurgle came from Carey’s mouth as he collapsed on the floor.
“Jaysus, Joseph and Mary!” Mike said, stunned by the sudden brutality of it.
“Sorry,” the man with the shiv said. “I misplaced me knock-out drops.”
Mike whirled around in time to see Father Ryan standing in the opening of the door, the light outside fading fast. The priest looked from Carey’s body to where Mike stood. Their eyes met. He smiled sadly and shook his head slightly, then turned to go. That was not in the plan.
Suddenly, Ryan’s eagerness to help, his unsubstantiated visits with Jaz—even the claim that she’d been captured—all of it became clear to Mike that they had been set up.
Bastard! When will I ever learn?
“Grab him!” Mike shouted as he lunged for Ryan. But it was too late. The priest slipped outside and was gone.
Chapter 42
What now? Would Ryan go straight to McKenna or would he talk to the guards first?
The room was silent. Before Ryan had slipped out the door, Mike could see how much darker it had become outside.
“Da? What do we do? Should we go?”
“We wait. Tommy, what time is it, lad?”
Tommy held his wrist near the lantern. “Ten more minutes it should be fully dark,” he said.
“We don’t have ten more minutes, Mike!” Terry said, his face etched with fear. “That bastard priest could alert the whole Irish Garda in ten minutes.”
Mike stared at Terry. “What did you say?”
“I said Ryan could alert the whole—”
“Exactly,” Mike said. “What sense does it make that he’d tell them now? He’s had twenty-four hours to tell them what we’re up to.”
He walked to the door and stood facing the group. “We wait,” he said grimly. “When I give the word, everyone knows what to do. Right?”
Ten minutes seemed interminable. Mike said a prayer for Sarah and the baby. In case it was too much to ask that he would see her again, he prayed instead that these men would hold up and that they wouldn’t all be killed. He prayed that God would spare Gav. Finally, he let out a long sigh and lifted his bowed head.
“Time, Tommy?”
“One seventeen precisely.”
“It’s time. Single file,” Mike said. “Stay low and head for the front gate. It’s only set up to bar vehicles, so you can slip right through the guard posts. Without an explosion to distract them, they’ll be on us straight away so stay in the shadows as much as you can. All you’ll have is the unexpected darkness for cover, and it won’t last long so make the most of it. Good luck to you.”
Beside him, Mike could see Gavin standing tall and straight with a look of grim resolved on his face. God, protect him, I beg you.
Mike grabbed the handle, took a long breath and eased the door open a crack. It was already very dark outside. He opened the door wider, expecting any minute for the guards to appear. The punishment for opening the door was death. Instantly.
He held his breath and pulled the door open wider. He could hear shouting and laughter in the distance. He stood in the opening of the door. There was no guard. In fact, all the camp guards had abandoned their stations at the barrack doors.
“It will be safer if we don’t all stay together,” Mike said. “Remember once you’re out the front gate, head for the woods and not the main road. Now go! Everyone, now!”
Mike stepped outside and watched as the men emptied the barracks and disappeared into the darkness.
As he and Gavin headed for the foreman’s office, he tried to make sense of what had happened. What had made the guards leave? What the hell’s happened?
The answer came as they approached the foreman’s office and huddled against the wall of the nearest barracks. Behind the office were the guards’ dormitories and a half a dozen buildings dedicated to munitions and vehicle repair. From the alley beside the foreman’s office, Mike and Gavin could see all the guards gathered around what looked at first like a campfire. As they looked on, they could see it wasn’t a campfire at all. It was a man on fire.
As they watched, the man jumped and waved his arms as a pillar of flames licked his clothes and wreathed his head. His howls of anguish could be heard above the shouting of the guards.
It was Ryan.
“Da…”
“No time,” Mike said harshly to him. He stood and ran the twenty yards to the foreman’s porch where he stopped. McKenna stood on his porch, his hands on his hips, a cigar clamped in his mouth as he watched the fiery spectacle. Mike estimated it would be three steps to the stairs and another five up onto the porch. And every second of that time, McKenna would see him. It would give him more than enough time to pull a gun or a knife. But the rage of seeing this monster watch Ryan burn to death like he was some after-dinner entertainment surged into Mike’s brain and he charged the porch and up the steps, roaring, his arms outstretched to strangle the bastard before he took another fecking puff on his cigar.
McKenna—arrogant enough to think he could enjoy the night air without a gun or a guard—tried to turn away. Mike lunged at him, his heavy hands around the foreman’s neck and driving him backward against the door with the full force of his weight. McKenna grabbed at Mike’s hands, his cigar still in his mouth, his eyes narrowed in shock and fear. Mike released one hand long enough to cram the lit cigar down McKenna’s throat and wait while he swallowed it, fighting for breath, for air, his hands clawing at Mike’s arms.
Gavin ran onto the porch and swung the door open to McKenna’s office while Mike backed him into it. The bastard’s face turned slowly purple as he gasped and fought for breath, smoke seeping from between his
lips. Gavin slammed the door and went to the desk, snatched up a handgun and strode back to Mike. He stuck the gun in McKenna’s ear and pulled the trigger. Mike staggered backwards as McKenna went limp in his hands.
“We need to find Jaz!” Gavin said, jamming the gun in his belt buckle. “Da! Let’s go!”
Mike’s arms were still stretched out as he watched McKenna, his head splattered in chunks around the room and down the front of Mike’s shirt, crumple to the floor.
“In here!” Jaz screamed. “Oy! Gavin, is that you? I’m in here!”
Mike shook himself and saw Gavin gathering up rifles and handguns. He tossed a rifle to his father and then grabbed up a set of keys from the desk.
Gavin jammed the key in the door of the first cell down the short hall and jerked it open. “Tell me he didn’t rape ye, Jaz,” Gavin said as she rushed into his arms, “because we can only kill the bastard once and I already punched that card.”
“He didn’t,” she said. “Probably doesn’t even like girls.” Her face was battered black and blue, one eye already swollen shut.
They heard the sound of gunshots coming from outside and Mike snapped his head in the direction of the porch. If the guards had finally chosen to put Ryan out of his misery—
Suddenly the ground rumbled and the feeling of force jolted them off the floor, knocking tables, desks, pictures and chairs around the room. Mike fell to his knees, the sound of the explosion reverberating in his head. Another explosion erupted immediately after the first. And then another. He staggered to his feet, grabbing the wall for support. Gavin was helping Jaz up and together they rushed to the front door to peer out.
The guards weren’t laughing now. They were running. Ryan had begun his immolation near the ammo dump. And now he’d finally found his way home.
“Jaysus,” Mike said in a whisper.
Gavin shoved two handguns into Jaz’s arms. “It’s Father Ryan,” he said to her.
“Good man,” Jaz said grimly. “In the end.”
“What now, Da?” Gavin said. The three stood on the porch and Mike could see that daylight was beginning to return.
Irish End Games, Books 4-5-6 Page 70