Max Grogan turned on his bar stool, looking at Morgan like an unpleasant bit of unfinished business. The only thing Morgan could do was walk right up to Grogan, look him in the eye, and wait for him to speak first. The room seemed to hold its breath during the brief pause while Grogan stared hard, as if trying to measure the extent of Morgan’s threat. However, Morgan had drawn his aura in, offering no emotional reflection. He presented no menace for Grogan to read.
“Can I buy you a stout?” Grogan asked.
“I did work up a thirst after my supper,” Morgan replied. “Why don’t you buy this round? I’ll buy the next. We’ll see who passes out first.”
Morgan sensed no danger before Grogan’s huge hand whumped him on the back, putting his chest into the bar. “Well said,” Max roared. “Quart of Guinness up here for me new friend and his friends, and the devil take the hindmost.” Morgan was sure that the friendly gesture would raise a bruise, but he didn’t care. He had saved the big man’s face without losing any of his own.
Being a good bartender, Paddy poured their cups half full from the small tap. He let them rest and settle while he served another customer, then topped them each twice. When a big mug landed in front of him, Morgan took a deep pull. It was warm, thick, and malty.
“I’ll tell you something, Max,” Morgan said, wiping froth from his mouth. “I’ve had light beer, dark beer, ale and malt liquor all over the world. I got to admit, Guinness Stout is the pinnacle of the brewer’s art.”
“You mean they get this stuff over in the states?” Grogan asked.
“Well, yeah, but unless you’ve had it fresh from the tap, in country, you haven’t really tasted it.”
“Thanks for standing me the drink, handsome,” Felicity said, sipping foam from the top of her mug. She slid onto the stool on Grogan’s left, opposite Morgan. “My Uncle Sean’s off moping in the corner, but I’m grateful for the both of us.”
“Your uncle?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, offering her hand. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Felicity O’Brien. Your fighting partner there is my business partner, Morgan Stark. He learned to fight like that in Vietnam and parts east.”
“Business partner, eh?”
“Sure. Are you here alone?” she asked with that sparkling smile that can make a man forget his own name.
“Well, maybe not.” Grogan covered Felicity’s hand and wrist with one massive paw.
While they talked and drank, Morgan examined Grogan, trying to see what his partner could find so attractive in this hulk. His ears were jug handles. His skin was a mass of freckles so dense that at first glance he appeared red faced. His eyes were set deep and wide, with huge bushy eyebrows above them. His face was somehow weathered, but with no lines around the eyes or on his forehead. His smile was big enough, easy and sincere. A smile most people would trust. He probably had a simple view of life and lacked the intelligence to feel either ambition or dissatisfaction.
In a corner, someone started singing. Morgan didn’t recognize the song, but he was sure it was an old Irish folk ballad. A minute later someone drew a harmonica out of their pocket and joined in, accompanying the song. A few old timers started stamping their boots on the wooden floor, slapping their thighs in counter time to the music. It got faster, and a Jew’s harp picked up the rhythm. Paddy pulled out a banjo, and all of a sudden, everyone was on the floor. Grogan was twirling Felicity to a dance that Morgan figured she was born knowing. He was watching her feet flashing across the floor when he felt a warm hand on his arm.
“Come on, big boy,” Maureen said, nodding her head toward the center of the room. “Give a girl a twirl, why don’t you?”
“I think I’ll sit this one out, ma’am. You can do better.” Morgan smiled into her confused face before letting his eyes drift back to the dancing crowd. The truth was that he could execute the most complex karate kata, perform a gymnastic tumbling floor routine and walk a high wire, but one thing he could not do was dance. He just never had that type of coordination.
Besides, he didn’t like folk music much.
Felicity collapsed on her stool ahead of her dance partner. Her cheeks were filled with color, her hair loose and flowing. Morgan could see her as ten years younger. One thing he loved about this girl was her ability to feel, and show, complete and total happiness. He wondered when and where he lost it.
“Having fun?” Morgan asked.
“He’s putty in me hands,” she whispered back. “By the end of the night I’ll know all there is to know about his mysterious boss, this Mister O’Ryan. Then we can discuss the situation.”
“Good girl,” Morgan said, patting her shoulder. He withdrew his arm just in time, before Grogan crashed into the space between them. The dance was over for now.
“That’s more work than plowing a field, my friend,” Max said. Then he turned to the redhead, watching her ample bosom heave as she tried to catch her breath. “This could turn out to be a night I’ll never forget.”
That moment in time was frozen for the two occupants of the pub who shared a psychic rapport. For that one stop-action instant Morgan’s senses probed his environment, but he could see that Felicity had zeroed in on the source of the danger alarm they were getting a split second before he did.
“The door!” she shouted, pointing, but Morgan was already moving. In seeming slow motion, they saw the black spherical object float into the pub through the open door. A hand grenade was falling toward the floor. Morgan launched himself into the air toward the steel ball. The grenade bounced on the hardwood floor once, twice. Morgan’s right hand wrapped around the spheroid as he flowed into a shoulder roll. His right arm whipped around, flipping the grenade back out the door. He dropped flat on the floor, eyes clamped shut.
Grogan grabbed Felicity’s arm in a rough grip, threw her to the floor, and smothered her with his body. The explosion rattled glasses and shattered the pub’s front windows. The building shook and Morgan’s ears popped.
Before the sound died down, he was on his feet. He sprinted straight toward the door with his eyes still clamped shut. Outside he opened his eyes again, but to little use. The world was black, the sun having set while they were inside. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he could see a still body forty yards up the road. The courageous grenadier, Morgan assumed. Not much past the corpse, on the other side of the road, a Citroen’s lights popped on. Morgan saw a flash next to the car. As he dived left, he heard the TV western sound of a bullet ricocheting off the cobblestone road.
Morgan slapped his left side in impotent frustration and cursed himself for leaving his weapons behind. On the run, he could have counted on hitting the car, perhaps putting a nine millimeter slug into the gas tank. Since he loaded the tips of his hollowpoints with fulminate of mercury, a single hit would give enough explosive pop to ignite the gasoline in the tank. If he had his gun. As it was, he could do nothing except watch the killers roll away. After a moment of silent rage, he turned and leaned in the doorway.
“Father Sullivan. You might want to come out here and give this guy his last rites. Then we need to get back to your place and have us a little conference.”
They made the short ride back to Sean’s cottage in silence. Felicity didn’t want to believe the apparent truth, and she knew that Morgan felt the same, but the evidence was obvious. Sean’s windshield was cracked and the right side windows were out. If he was the target of this attack, then his enemies were indeed serious. The previous bomb must have been a warning. The only question was whether he had traced his problem to the right place.
When the big black car pulled up beside the house, Felicity nudged Morgan.
“There’s someone in the house.”
“How do you know that?” Sean asked
“I just know. Someone’s in there.”
“Yeah,” Morgan said, “And my gun is in there.”
Their eyes met for just a moment, before Felicity said, “Your play.”
“Give me three minute
s. Open the door and hit the lights.”
They all got out of the car. Felicity never even heard Morgan move out for the back of the house. He was just gone. Once he was out of sight, she pulled her uncle to the door, making more noise than usual.
As the seconds ticked off in her head, she reflected that Morgan had given himself more time than he needed. When she opened the front door, he would come in the back window. He had no way to know the priest never locked his door or windows.
Just before she opened the door, Felicity prodded Sean’s arm and said, “Now give us room, Uncle Sean.” Then, at the designated second she slammed the door open, flipped on the lights and screamed. Her voice covered the sound of Morgan’s body hitting the floor, going into a forward roll. When his feet hit the floor he thrust himself forward.
For a brief instant Felicity was staring down the muzzle of Morgan’s automatic in the hands of a gray man. His hair was gray, as were his coat, his suit, his tie. He was medium height, medium build and medium weight.
All this she took in just as Morgan’s crossed forearms smashed into the gunman from behind. The gray man fell forward on his face with Morgan’s chin in the small of his back. Stretching out his left arm, Morgan grabbed a hand full of gray hair, snapping the man’s head back. Morgan’s right arm fell like an axe. The edge of his hand chopped into the gray coated upper arm. The gun skittered across the floor and Felicity scooped it up.
Morgan forced their uninvited guest to his feet and slammed him into the wall, face first. Patting him down yielded a wallet and a thirty-eight caliber Webley service revolver. Then Morgan tossed their unwanted visitor onto the couch. He flipped the wallet to Sean and pointed the revolver at his captive. Felicity returned Morgan’s gun to its holster and traded his rig for the Webley. Morgan stripped off his sweater and strapped on his weapons while Felicity pointed the Webley at its owner’s face.
“Now, stupid, let’s talk,” Felicity said. “We’ll start with the easy stuff. Who are you?”
“You may call me Mister Grey. I am…”
“From London,” Sean said, staring at the man’s identification. “From the Central Intelligence Division.”
“Saints preserve us,” Felicity said, covering her face with one hand. “He’s C.I.D. Why on God’s earth are you here?”
“To talk to you about your uncle’s problem,” Grey answered, his accent betraying a hint of Manchester. “The source, by the way, of the hand grenade I barely missed warning you about.”
“You’re saying that grenade had a specific target?” Felicity asked.
“Oh yes,” Grey stood and straightened his clothes, “I was observing at a discrete distance. I didn’t know our man intended such direct action, especially with one of his own inside. But yes, Father Sullivan was most definitely the intended target. The man I’ve been observing seems to have given up on intimidating him.”
“I see,” Morgan said, holding his pistol on Grey. “You’re here about the, er, terrorist.”
“You sound skeptical, Mister Stark.” Grey reached inside his sport coat, ignoring Morgan’s gun, and pulled out a comb. “You apparently think we follow every Irish tough and Tommy around for a lark. Or perhaps that we keep tabs on every citizen of the realm, as I understand they do in the States.” He straightened his hair as best he could without a mirror. “Well let me inform you about this joke of yours. Let me educate you about the deadliest man in the Republic of Ireland and Ulster. Let me tell you a bit about Ian Michael O’Ryan.”
- 7 -
The small group gathered in the kitchen. A fire crackled in the hearth to knock the chill out of the house. Felicity had brewed coffee, black and strong. Its aroma added sweetness to the smell of the burning peat
Mister Grey sat at one end of the table, the center of attention. Felicity perched on a counter by the sink, looking down at him. Morgan sat in a chair at the other end of the table with his heels hooked on the bar between the chair’s legs. His cup hung between his knees, held with both hands. Sean stood beside the sink, running a hand through his hair. It was getting past his bedtime.
“So you’re saying this Ian O’Ryan really is some sort of an Irish terrorist?” Morgan voiced the question to Grey.
“Not an Irish terrorist, son. The Irish terrorist.” Grey emphasized “the” as if O’Ryan were the only one. “We can find trouble with his name on it back more than three decades.”
“Can we have this from the beginning?” Felicity asked. “I want the history, and I want to know how this character ties in with Uncle Sean.”
“I can give you history,” Grey said, lighting his meerschaum lined pipe. “I’ve chased this fellow so long I know his story by heart.”
“So?” Felicity waved her hand as if to say, “Go on.”
“So, Ian Michael O’Ryan was born July twenty-third, nineteen fifty-two, out here on the heath in Wicklow County.”
“On the cusp of Cancer and Leo,” Felicity said. “That would give him a pretty interesting character.”
“I suppose so, young lady,” Grey said, sipping his coffee, “If you believe in that sort of thing. Anyway, his mother died in childbirth and his father soon after. Some say of a broken heart. He’s kept his youth a pretty good secret. But we know that somehow he wandered up into Ulster. He was quite young when he tied up with the newly formed Provisional Irish Republican Army. We know he was in on the action at the start of the war. We believe he took part in the violence in nineteen sixty-eight.”
“Let’s not call it a war,” Morgan said. “I’ve seen war and that ain’t it. But are you saying this guy was shooting or blowing people up when he was fourteen or fifteen?”
“That’s precisely what I’m saying. And by the way, between British soldiers and the Irish so-called freedom fighters we’ve had well over fifty-seven hundred documented casualties since sixty-eight, killed and wounded. Put that into perspective with your country’s adventure into Iraq. And that’s not counting more than eighteen hundred innocent civilians killed. Where I come from, we call that a war.”
“My parents were among the first of those casualties,” Felicity said, tight lipped. “A car bomb. No reason. Just bad luck. Go on, Mister Grey.”
“Yes, well he became more and more important as a `hands on’ man in the blow-’em-up business. Soon he was juggling a double life. He made a name for himself as a champion grand prix motorcycle racer in the early seventies. He’s famous for winning at any cost. After a second opponent met a violent end during a race, his black Harley Davidson was dubbed `the widow maker’.
Still, he’s a very charismatic man, and here, like everywhere else, a winner is a hero. He attended fox hunts all through the seventies and again acquired a winning reputation. All this time he was recruiting and training for the IRA. I think he just enjoyed the bomb bit.
In nineteen eighty his hunts moved to Africa. He bagged every legal big game and some that weren’t. And he picked up a nickname. As sort of a pun, actually, he began calling himself Orion the hunter, spelling it O-R-I-O-N you see. Like the mythological hunter.”
“He begins to sound a bit mythological,” Felicity said. “A bit larger than life.”
“Well, he was a god to the Provos. He kept killing and killing and not getting caught. And his reputation as a hunter and a racer attracted more and more young men to the cause.
Now you know Sinn Fein and the more legitimate groups they support get a lot of their money from donations in the States. Some of the others deal drugs, work the protection racket and such. Not O’Ryan. While he was hunting in Africa he made contact with the Middle East terror groups. Started picking up funding for the IRA there.”
“Must be tough now,” Morgan interrupted. “Whatever funding that isn’t staying in the Middle East seems to be headed for the Pacific Rim or into Africa. And now, with Arafat gone and Sinn Fein calling a cease fire, it’s a hard life for the terrorist who ain’t Muslim.”
“Perhaps, but he’s a rebel, often working independent of
his IRA brothers,” Grey said. “And he seems to have hooked up with Bin Laden’s boys through a connection in Spain, and you know those lads couldn’t care less about any cease fire. We believe they’re financing him now. Anyway, when he turned fifty he appears to have decided to move up into management. He returned to his home county and bought a country estate. Does everything long distance now. Recruits here. We believe he smuggles weapons into the Republic and funnels them up into Ulster.”
“So he’s a hero around here, probably because he spreads money around,” Morgan said. “Meanwhile he’s financed by some arm of al Qaeda to spread terror in the north.”
“Well, financed by the Russians at first, years ago, and later the Cubans through a Syrian or Libyan connection, more likely. But yes, the Talaban appear to feed his budget today. Whoever’s paying his bills doesn’t like this cease fire one bit. We expect he’s been holding back, but with army patrols stopped and Her Majesty’s forces being withdrawn from Northern Ireland, we anticipate he’ll make a big move. In fact, my information is he’s expecting another weapons shipment very soon.”
“One well timed riot or wave of killings would shatter the peace process,” Felicity said, almost to herself. “He could bring it all down.”
“Maybe.” Grey allowed himself a small smile. “Maybe, but we think he’s living a bit too well and may have over spent or over gambled. He might be in danger of being accused of misusing his sponsor’s money.”
“Well, thanks for the background briefing,” Morgan said, “but none of that explains why you followed me around, or why you’re telling me all this.”
“It wasn’t you I wanted, but the girl.”
“What?” Felicity paused in the middle of pouring a second cup of coffee. “How could you know I was even coming here?”
“Oh, we didn’t. We just got lucky.” Grey stood removed his coat, since the house was warming up. “You see, we’ve been watching the situation here for some time. O’Ryan’s money and lifestyle have made him very influential in these parts. Young men flock to him. Father Sullivan’s been resisting that influence. We thought there might be violence and we hoped O’Ryan would slip up. Then during our surveillance, your uncle got you over here.”
The Orion Assignment Page 5