Loch Ness

by Donovan Galway

  “Maybe he’s about and maybe I never heard of him. Why should I tell you boys which it is? Mind you, the last bloke answered wrong didn’t live long enough to regret it.”

  John took a deep breath to try and speak without his nervousness showing. “Look. We don’t know him. We don’t really need to. We just happen to be researching people who have traveled to New Zealand off and on over the past few years. Just a few anonymous questions. If that’s a problem—”

  “It might be for you.” He opened the door and looked past the nervous pair to scan area. No other threats perceived, he beckoned them in. The short, stout man appeared to be in his forties though his leathery face, likely the victim of a lifetime of cigarettes and alcohol, seemed to carry an extra decade or two. He said nothing to them until they were in and the door was closed. Neither John nor Mac dared ask what had become of his left hand. Both silently assumed it had been blown off but knew the implications of suggesting such a thing to an Irishman.

  “Sean!”

  “Aye?” came a voice from the back room of the tossed flat.

  “Two fellows here to see you. Not the Guarda.”

  The door of the bathroom opened and a tall man came toward them. He walked slowly with more of a brazen swagger than a cautious gait as he toweled his hands dry. In contrast to his one-handed friend, Sean had a young face and boyish eyes contradicted by prematurely gray hair. Streaks of silver graced the thick head of steel-gray locks which should have belonged to a man twice his age. He studied John more than Mac as he looked John eye to eye. “I don’t know you.”

  “No. You don’t. I’m John Nagle and I was just hoping to ask you a few questions.”

  “I don’t answer questions.”

  “I understand,” John said, sensing the mood in the room. “I’m sorry we bothered you, Mr. O’Callaman.”

  Mac could not contain himself. “But we were just wondering why you went to New Zealand all those times.”

  Before they could expect any form of reply, Sean dropped the hand towel and pressed the pistol that was concealed beneath it into John’s neck. “Now why would that concern a couple of Yanks? You are a Yank, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, Jesus!” John gasped, struggling against his instinct to struggle.

  “Y-y-yes,” Mac stammered. “I mean we’re both Americans.”

  The old man who’d answered the door came up behind Mac. “I was wondering how they knew where we went. You fellows wouldn’t happen to be friends of Liam now would you?”

  “I was thinking the same thing, Lefty,” Sean said as he pressed the pistol and came close enough to John’s face to smell the fear in him. “Is that it? Is Liam Preston hiring Americans now?”

  “I don’t know a Liam any more than I know Lefty,” John dared reply.

  “We’re studying. That’s all.” Mac said. “We’re just scientists.”

  Sean looked at him, then at John, with a new light. He lowered the gun though keeping it at the ready as he stepped away. “Scientists? What would scientists be wanting with me?”

  “They may be F.B.I.,” Lefty said.

  Sean smiled for the first time. “I don’t think so. They look too smart. At least this one does. He was smart enough to cack his pants. F.B.I. always tries to pretend they’re hard men.”

  Mac stepped courageously between John and Sean’s gun and smiled at the man. “I have a hunch you’re either going to laugh or thank us when I tell you why we tracked you down.”

  “Don’t forget the third possibility, Yank,” Sean said, still brandishing the pistol.

  John put a hand on Mac’s shoulder to stay him as he answered for him. “We’re actually looking for a family that has been commuting between the U.K. and New Zealand since the last century. It’s just research on genealogy. That’s all.”

  “So how did you find me?”

  “The Internet,” Mac said. “We weren’t looking for you at all. In fact we didn’t even know you existed. We were looking for anyone who did what you do and that led us to you.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Well, that’s the skinny on it. Truth is we…”

  “What the fuck do you mean, do what I do? How do you know what I do?”

  “I mean travel. We had no idea why.”

  “That’s why we came,” John added. “That’s the only reason. I swear.” He was realizing what kind of room they were in but Mac seemed oblivious to the signs.

  Sean slowly lowered his weapon to his side and seemed to relax. “So you don’t know why I go down there or what I bring back with me? What we’ve been bringing back?”

  “I think we might,” Mac said. “And I want you to know your secret is safe with us. We’re sort of in the same line of work.” He ignored John’s nudging, as he truly believed he was finally making some headway.

  “Are you? You mean like competitors?”

  “Oh no. More like colleagues. We want to know how you do it. You know. Where you learned it and what you get out of it. So if you wouldn’t mind sharing a little of your—”

  Mac felt a gun barrel at the back of his neck. John saw Sean raise the pistol and aim right between his eyes. Sean had a look in his eyes somewhere between rage and insanity.

  “What makes you think you can waltz in here and just take a piece of our operation? We smuggle it in for a reason. You fucks just want the money. Well, you can go to hell!”

  “Wait!” John shouted. “We don’t want a piece of anything.”

  “So what did you think I was bringing up here?”

  Mac looked at John. The next answer could be their last. John looked at him almost apologetically before turning back to Sean. “The truth is, we thought you were bringing the Loch Ness Monster up here with you.” He saw O’Callaman’s eyes narrow with contempt. “Really! That’s what we’re studying. The migratory pattern of a Plesiosaur that we believe lives in New Zealand and comes up here to lay eggs. We thought you might be one of the people who leads it up here.”

  Sean looked him in the eye long and hard. He studied John and Mac for a full thirty seconds. Finally he lowered his weapon. Lefty objected but Sean insisted he too stand down.

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Sean smiled again. “If you were an agent and decided to come in here with a story like that, your own partners would shoot you. That’s too fooking strange to be anything but the truth.”

  John allowed himself to breathe for the first time in what seemed like an hour. “So I take it you’re not calling monsters?”

  “We have to fund our people somehow. If importing is a means to an end, we’ll import what we can from wherever we can. No one watches that route. No. I’m not your boy, scientist. You need to go now.”

  Lefty spoke up. “Just like that? What if you’re wrong, Sean?”

  “Lefty’s got a point.”

  John looked at Lefty and saw him still cradling the rifle across his left arm though it was no longer trained on Mac. He smiled as he felt the question come to his lips. “Lefty?”

  Sean seemed to admire the brashness and openness of the query. “Righty didn’t seem to work and he gets mad when we call him Drunk-With-A-Pipe-Bomb.”

  John looked at the weapon still close to ready. “Lefty works for me.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll let you two walk out of here if you can do one small favor for me… in the name of international relations.”

  Mac felt a smile that did not show. “Does it involve cacking my pants?”

  The watchers at number three were still trying to figure out who the two new players were at the O’Callaman house. Long before they had a chance to guess, they saw John and Mac come back out. They walked without escort and they didn’t run. They were watched carefully as they made their way through the estate and back out toward the street.

  They turned right and walked to where they had seen a bus stop. The covered stop had a map and schedule posted in it and they hoped to find a route back to the city center. Bu
t they were barely around the corner and out of the line of sight of the house when they were grabbed by four men and wrestled through three back gardens and into another rundown flat. They were both pushed into wobbly kitchen chairs as their abductors studied them.

  One of the men, a lean bony-faced man with a ludicrous combover and a suit that seemed to have belonged to someone two sizes larger, stepped before them.

  “The first thing you have to understand is that I am Chief Inspector McElroy and I have both the authority and the desire to put you two away for the rest of what will amount to a very short life. Don’t doubt that and don’t push me. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Now do I have your attention?”

  “God yes,” Mac blurted. John merely nodded.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions. I’ll know if you’re lying and I’ll get angry so please don’t make me angry. Now…” He looked John in the eye. “What is your relationship with Sean O’Callaman?”

  John shuddered as he pondered the reaction to the answer to that question. He prayed Mac had the faculties about him to wait until John took the lead. “None.”

  “You selling Hoovers door to door, are ye?” asked one of the others.

  “We were looking for a man with a similar name. It turned out to be the wrong man. We have absolutely no ties with those people.”

  “Why do you think we got out of there so fast?” Mac said.

  The Chief Inspector thought for a long moment. With a gesture to the others who immediately took John and Mac’s wallets for examination, he asked the next question. “Who are you and why are you here?”

  “I’m Dr. John Nagle. This is MacLean Gould. We’re conducting research on genealogy and we thought this fellow was part of a bloodline we were tracing. He’s not and frankly, I’m delighted.”

  “Not exactly our cup of tea,” Mac added.

  The inspector glanced at his henchmen who nodded in verification of the names. He seemed to ease a bit. “So you have no business with the people in there whatsoever?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “You’re quite sure?”

  “I swear it.”

  The inspector smiled. “I think I believe you. Tell me, what did you see whilst you were in that house?”

  “Just two men and two guns.”

  “And a lot of mess.”

  “Never mind the cleanliness. Did you see anything of drugs or weapons?”

  “Just the guns in their hands. I didn’t get far enough in to see anything else but I didn’t notice any drugs.”

  “Anything written down anywhere? Any schedules or names?”

  “We weren’t in there long enough to see anything like that.”

  One of the officers subtly touched John’s chin and noticed the reddening mark on his neck. The clear spot in the center told him the barrel of a gun had made it. He pointed it out to Inspector McElroy. That seemed to be the deciding factor.

  “I take it they didn’t appreciate the intrusion.”

  “I got that impression.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry for the roughhousing but we had to be sure.”

  “Sure of what?” Mac asked.

  “That you weren’t one of them, of course. We’ve been watching that operation for several months and we didn’t want to risk letting you walk through. You know what they are doing?”

  “No and to be perfectly honest, Inspector, I don’t want to.”

  “That’s too bad, Dr. Nagle. I was hoping we could count on your cooperation.”

  “Cooperation? What exactly did you have in mind?”

  “We need to get inside there. We want to hear what’s going on.”

  “We want you to go back in,” said the henchman as he handed John his wallet.

  John accepted his credentials, as did Mac. “I hope you’re joking.”

  “They’ll probably kill us if we go back,” Mac said.

  “I doubt it,” the inspector said. “He usually kills them right away or not at all.”

  “Usually? You know he’s a killer and you want us to just waltz back in there?”

  “Well, not just.”

  John stared in disbelief as the henchman displayed a small electronic device which he instantly recognized. “You want us to wear a wire?”

  “You’ll be quite safe. We’ll be right here and listening to everything that goes on. We’ll give you a code word if you get into any bother.”

  “Let me ask you something. How sure are you that these fellas are criminals? What have you actually got on them?”

  “Nothing solid. But we’re sure enough what goes on in there. That’s why we need to get a wire inside the house.”

  Mac stood up from his chair. “And maybe we should paint a British flag on our forehead and ask him for his crock o’ gold. That way he’d be sure to shoot us.”

  John saw that Mac had not yet been put back into his chair so he followed suit. “I’m sorry, Inspector, but we can’t get involved in your little war.”

  “Little war? America has been supporting the IRA for years.”

  “Not all of America. Truth is most Americans don’t even know there is an IRA and those that know don’t give a rodent’s posterior. It’s really not an international issue.”

  “And we really wish you’d keep it that way,” Mac added. “Can we go now?”

  The inspector came to within two inches of Mac’s face and spoke in a harsh, threatening tone. “You can leave when I say so. If I say so. I still haven’t made up my mind whether or not to charge you with treason under the anti-terrorist act and put you away forever.”

  Mac responded with the most casual, disinterested look and tone imaginable. “Yeah. I’ve seen that interrogation thing in about a jillion movies too. Have you ever noticed that in all the movies where the cop gets right in the suspect’s face and spews all these threats and accusations, in every single one, the cop is invariably wrong? Why is that, Inspector?”

  “What if I told you I never watch television?”

  “Why I’d be inclined to question your integrity, sir, as well as your ancestry.”

  The chief inspector took a step back and tried in vain to mask his indignation. “So I take it you aren’t willing to cooperate.”

  “We’ll cooperate all the way to the point of walking into a drug dealer’s house wearing a wire after he told us to get out or else. That seems a bit above and beyond.”

  “Even if we gave a rat’s ass about your cause,” Mac blurted.

  They walked away from the house cautiously. Once the first corner was turned they moved faster and a block away they sprinted to catch the bus which arrived at a most opportune time in less than five seconds. John and Mac settled into seats at the back of the bus and looked out the window to see if anyone on either side was following. It took at least a minute of silent study to dare breathe a sigh of relief.

  John opened the front of his shirt and pulled a tiny microphone from his chest. Mac, too, had a bug taped to him though his was in the crotch of his pants. John took the mic and held it to his mouth.

  “I hope you got what you wanted, Sean. We’re out!”

  Mac spoke into his. “Yeah. Don’t call us. We’ll call it a day!” In light of the circumstances, John allowed the mixed cliché. They threw the mics on the floor of the buss and stomped them into tiny pieces.

  Chapter Eleven

  David McCawler was the son of Jack McCawler. It was Jack who was found to have traveled to the islands every seventeen years. Thrice in his lifetime he had gone to New Zealand for a week. A separate invasion of privacy via the Internet revealed Jack McCawler was a carpenter who barely earned enough to support his family. His son David never went to New Zealand that they could tell but did remain close to his father. They lived under the same roof for much of his life. They lost track of his whereabouts but determined that David had a son in nineteen sixty-five and a daughter six years later. This was enough to bring the band of searchers to the foot of the Scottish Highlands.
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  It was only when they arrived and settled in that Mac determined the current state of the McCawler clan. David had died of leukemia. Coincidentally, he passed away during his only trip down under. He was in Sydney at the time of his demise. Mac searched the public records for his son and found he, too had passed away, but the date and details were not recorded.

  They had learned how the auto mechanic managed to afford trips to the southern hemisphere as Sean O’Callaman funded his trips with illegal activity. They were saddened as Sean was the frontrunner in their hopes. Ian Crawler fit the profile but also fell through. Now they had only one hope and it seemed to have failed before they had started to dig. As Mac had determined from the revised public records, it appeared that only the daughter remained. Aisling McCawler was a schoolteacher in Northern Scotland. John went alone to meet her.

  * * * * *

  The school was clean and well kept despite its age. John walked in with quiet respect and made his way down the hall, looking for the head office. He stopped at the doorway of a classroom when he heard the teacher speaking in dramatic fashion. Peering inside, he saw a lovely woman with long wavy red hair standing before a roomful of six-year-olds. With no book to read from, she held them spellbound with her inflection and arm gestures as she told her tale. John looked at the blackboard behind her and read the name: Miss McCawler.

  “Princess Andromeda was tied and could do nothing but watch as the giant beast came forth to devour her. Perseus had been knocked to the ground. His magic spent and no tricks left, he slowly stood again to face the tremendous Kraken armed with but a sword. The great monster wanted Andromeda but Perseus would have none of that. Not while there was a breath of life in him to fight. He stood between the monster and his beloved princess and vowed that this titan, so powerful it once grappled with Zeus himself, shall not have his sacrifice today. Princess Andromeda looked up, bound and helpless, and saw a man armed only with love but ready to defend her to the death as the horrible Kraken came in for the kill.”