Near Dark

by Brad Thor

  Most of the men on the job sites were “doing the double”—collecting welfare checks while getting paid under the table for construction work. The money wasn’t very good, but it was better than nothing. His sickly mother, as much as she hated his missing school, was grateful.

  “I’ll find a better job soon, Michael,” she had told him. “Then you can go back to school and everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

  But a better job never materialized. His income was critical to their family, and so he worked twice as hard as any of the adults around him in an effort to make himself indispensable.

  The labor was strenuous, but it served to build his muscles. At night, he made sure to read in order to build his mind. The books were always about France and he devoured them.

  When he wasn’t working, or reading, he would accompany his uncle and some of the men from work to the pub. He was too young to drink, but the Irish had practically invented the policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”—especially when it came to underage drinking in working-class pubs.

  As long as the boy didn’t make an ass of himself, no one cared. And the boy made sure not to make an ass of himself. He was there to listen, learn about the IRA and, more importantly, about its enemies—especially the Loyalist Volunteer Force.

  His uncle, though, wasn’t stupid. The few times he had tried to broach the subject, his uncle had shut it down—immediately. The boy was far too young to be thinking about revenge. “The day will come,” he said. “Trust me, it’ll come.”

  But just like his mother’s “better” job, it didn’t come—and he eventually grew sick of waiting for it. Then, one day, while going up to the bar for another round, God placed someone in his path.

  “Your uncle tells me you have a lot of questions about the LVF,” the man said.

  He was a regular in the pub, but Paul had never seen his uncle nor any of the other men they drank with speak to him. As such, he was wary of talking to him.

  “I am sorry for your father’s death, as well as what it has done to your family. A boy your age should be in school.”

  “Well, I’m not. Am I?”

  The anger, while misplaced, was genuine. The boy had idolized his father. With each day since his murder, the pain of losing him had only become more acute and more ingrained in his soul.

  That said, he had been raised better than to be disrespectful to his elders—even ones who were complete strangers. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Thank you for your condolences.”

  “There’s nothing you need to be sorry for,” the man replied. “Your father was a good man.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “No, but I have asked around. He took care of his family. He attended church. And he was on the right side of this fight. So, out of respect for your father, I am here to answer your questions.”

  The boy was confused. “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “Your uncle knows who I am. That’s all that matters. Now, what can I tell you?”

  “Who killed my father?”

  “The Loyalist Volunteer Force,” the man said.

  “I want their names.”

  “With all due respect, you’re a sixteen-year-old boy. What would you even do with those names if I gave them to you?”

  “I’d take my revenge.”

  The man made a face and took a sip of his beer. “What if there was a better way to hurt them? To really make them feel pain? Would you be interested in being a part of that?”

  The boy didn’t even need to ponder his answer. “Absolutely,” he replied.

  “Don’t you even want to know what would be asked of you?”

  “I don’t care. I’ll do it. Whatever it is.”

  “Good boy,” the man said, as he finished his beer and stood up from his stool. “I’ll be in touch.”

  The way to hurt the LVF turned out to be by appearing at a day of youth soccer it had organized near Portadown. It was a propaganda event for the Young Loyalist Volunteers, disguised to look like a violence mitigation effort. There was zero vetting at this stage. The boy had been signed up under the name Terrance Macaulay.

  He had told his mother he had to work and would be leaving early that Saturday morning. Three blocks from his house, the man from the pub picked him up in his car and began the short drive to Portadown.

  As they drove, he explained to the boy who his target was and why he was being given this assignment. The LVF had been able to escape culpability for their actions because they had a very powerful patron—a high-ranking police inspector who had repeatedly made evidence and witnesses disappear.

  “If he is allowed to live,” the man said, “there will never be justice for your father. Do you understand what you need to do?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Good,” the man replied. Nodding toward the glove box, he said, “Open it.”

  The boy did. Inside was a small, hammerless revolver, its grip wrapped with tape.

  “Have you ever fired a gun before?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “It’s just like you have seen on TV. You point it where you want the bullet to go and you squeeze the trigger. You’ll be fine.”

  And he had been fine. He had gotten to the pitch early, before any of the other children had arrived. The police inspector was not hard to find. He was a large man with a shock of white hair and a big, bulbous red nose. He looked exactly as he had been described.

  Even so, the man from the bar had insisted that the boy have the inspector identify himself. The LVF might embrace random violence, but that was not how the IRA acted, at least not this wing of it. Part of the terror their division struck into the hearts of their enemies was based on their unfailing precision. They were legendary, known for being able to hunt anyone, anywhere. The boy had no idea what he had been drawn into, but he would soon find out.

  The key to their success was the amount of research they put into their kills. They were patient, almost glacial in their movements. Revenge was indeed, in their book, a dish best served cold. Ice cold.

  The police inspector was an incredibly guarded, quietly whispered about pedophile. The boy had heard about pedophiles, but to the best of his knowledge had never met one. That was about to change.

  After introducing himself, the man asked where his parents were. The boy explained that they had to work and had dropped him off early. The inspector was almost salivating.

  He enlisted the boy’s help in setting up the nets, bringing out all the balls, and placing cones for various drills they would begin with. Then, he asked the boy to follow him into the field house.

  It was cold and damp inside. The only light came from the windows set into the eaves high above. The man didn’t bother turning on any lights. He preferred what he did to be kept in the darkness. Reaching out, he touched the clothing over the boy’s genitals.

  As instructed, the boy had kept the pistol hidden for the first shot and had fired it from inside his jacket pocket. The round struck the police inspector straight in the gut and tore its way in.

  When the man grabbed his belly in shock and unbelievable pain, the boy withdrew the pistol and fired two more times—hitting him once in his chest and once in his face.

  He then wiped the pistol off, dropped it next to the body, and walked out of the field house—just like he had been told to do. Ditching the jacket, he found the man from the pub waiting, his engine running, a block away.

  “How did it go?” he asked as the boy got into the car.

  “He’s dead.”

  “You did a good thing. Your father would be proud of you. I’m proud of you.”

  The boy didn’t know what to feel. He had taken a life. Based on everything the church had taught him, he should have felt remorseful. Yet, he didn’t. He felt nothing, really.

  They didn’t return to Belfast. At least not right away. The man from the pub drove for quite some time. During the trip, they didn’t speak. That was fine with the boy. He didn’t feel li
ke talking.

  In a small village in the middle of nowhere, they parked behind a nondescript building and knocked on a thick, secure door. A pair of eyes looked out through a slot. Words were exchanged. Then the door was opened.

  It was a social club of sorts. One he would get to know well over the next couple of years. The men inside would become his comrades in arms. He would drink there, laugh there, plan there, and even mourn the loss of some of those very same men there.

  On this first visit, his new IRA handler had only one mission—to get him a bit drunk and to celebrate his first kill. It was a rite of passage.

  Big men, important men he would later learn, came by the table to shake his hand and congratulate him. They were also “proud” of him, they said.

  He drank three bottles of cider before his handler looked at his watch and said that it was time for them to be getting back to Belfast.

  The boy was still not interested in chatting, so like the ride from Portadown, they made this last leg of their journey in silence.

  When they rolled to a stop several blocks from his home, his handler gave him a final talking-to. It went without saying that he shouldn’t tell anyone what had happened—not his mother, not his uncle, not his priest—no one. Not even his mates. If he did, there’d be hell to pay and his handler made it quite clear that he’d be the one delivering the bill.

  After giving him an alibi and explaining what he should say and do in the unlikely event the police came around asking questions, he handed him an envelope.

  “What’s this?” the boy asked.

  “Open it.”

  He did. Inside was several hundred pounds sterling.

  “You’re one of us now,” his handler said. “We take care of our own. You’ve earned that.”

  It was his first, rudimentary taste of the dark arts. Like losing one’s virginity, it had been quick, anxiety-inducing, and somewhat clumsy. But it had been successful. He had gotten the job done—which was all that mattered.

  The boy didn’t know it at that moment, but he had just been introduced to a profession he would show an incredible aptitude for and grow quite comfortable in.

  His handler had run the best assassins the IRA had ever fielded. The boy, in time, would surpass them all.

  The British would both hunt and fear him. They would publicly declare him a savage, but privately marvel at his abilities. His kills would be the subject of lengthy newspaper and magazine articles. Then, one day, he would simply vanish.

  It was Christmas 1999. The Good Friday Agreement had been signed, voted on by the citizens, and put into effect. The Troubles, for the most part, were finished. The demand, locally, for men of his vocation had practically collapsed overnight.

  There was also a rumor that he remained at the top of a very secret “most wanted” list. With the ground shifting under Northern Ireland, new political parties and new allegiances were being forged. There was a dirty, ignoble scramble for power that would have made the ancient Romans blush. The knives were out. It was only a matter of time before someone turned on him.

  With his mother already two years in the grave from a heart attack and his siblings old enough to take care of themselves, there was no reason for him to remain. He could go wherever he wanted. And where he wanted to go, was France.

  Through an IRA contact in Dublin, he was able to change his identity and get a Republic of Ireland passport. Michael McElhone became Paul Aubertin and he never looked back.

  After traveling through France, seeing all the sights he had always dreamed of, he applied to join and was accepted into the French Foreign Legion.

  His plan was to serve for three years and then take advantage of the opportunity to apply for French citizenship. Two years in, on a mission in Kosovo, he was wounded and rotated back to France for a series of lengthy surgeries.

  Per a provision in French law, any soldier of the Foreign Legion who gets injured in battle can immediately apply to become Français par le sang versé—“French by spilled blood.” A social worker helped him fill out the application from his hospital bed.

  By the time his physical therapy was complete, his application had been approved.

  After his naturalization ceremony in Paris, he decided to stay for a while. He took extension classes at the Sorbonne, immersed himself in the city’s museums, and devoured every history book he could find from the stalls along the Seine near Notre-Dame, as well as the Abbey and Shakespeare and Company bookstores of the Latin Quarter.

  The more he read, the more he fell in love with the Normandy region to the north. That was where his truest passion lay—Deauville, Rouen, the beaches of D-Day, and the most mesmerizing abbey he had ever seen, Mont-Saint-Michel.

  The dramatic medieval monastery and fairy-tale village sat on a fortified island in the middle of a tidal basin at the coast—abutted by the mouth of the Couesnon River.

  It was a UNESCO World Heritage Site that looked like it had been torn out of a Harry Potter movie. Attracting over three million people a year, it was considered one of the most awe-inspiring attractions in all of Europe. With all the books he had read about it and all the pictures he had seen over the years, nothing compared to viewing it in person.

  According to legend, the original site had been founded by an Irish hermit. Then, in the eighth century, the archangel Michael had appeared to Aubert, the bishop of Avranches, and told him to build a church on the island. It was why Michael McElhone had taken the name “Aubertin.” He had always felt a special kinship with Mont-Saint-Michel. The fact that it had been founded by an Irishman only made that kinship stronger.

  After visiting a couple of times while still living in Paris, he realized this was where he belonged. Packing up his meager belongings, he moved to Normandy.

  He survived on a small pension from the Foreign Legion, which he augmented by working as a private tour guide for wealthy tourists. The business, though, was spotty—and he had his eyes set on a beautiful house with a view of the ocean. So, to pump up his bank account, he fell back on what he did best—killing.

  Being a tour guide was a great cover, and he actually enjoyed it. The challenge was saying no to wet work contracts during tourist season.

  None of the other guides disappeared during the spring and summer. That was bread-and-butter time. They normally bumped into each other several times a week, if not a day, making the rounds at the same sights. Often, when things got really booked up, they even referred clients to each other.

  Dropping off the grid would have been highly unusual, and something he wouldn’t have been predisposed to do. But then, Lieu Van Trang had contacted him.

  For lack of a better term, Trang was his business manager. On those off-season occasions when he did take contracts, that’s who they came from. This time, though, he had offered something quite different. He wasn’t operating as his business manager, but rather he wanted to be partners.

  The eccentric and notoriously security-conscious Vietnamese would only discuss the deal face-to-face. He had family in Paris and would use the opportunity to see them as cover for their meeting. It was only a train ride for Aubertin and so he had agreed.

  Because of its colonial past, Paris was home to the oldest Vietnamese community in the Western world. There were said to be, at any given time, more than 100,000 people of Vietnamese descent within the city limits. Unlike the Chinese or North Africans, they weren’t congregated in one particular neighborhood. Instead, they were spread out, many of them having even married into traditional French families.

  Trang had access to a Buddhist temple in the 17th arrondissement and had suggested they meet there. It was safe and no one would bother them. Aubertin, though, didn’t like it—for the same reason he would never take a meeting in a French mosque.

  The security services in France were granted a lot of latitude when it came to bugging and surveilling houses of worship. Perhaps they weren’t interested in anyone at Trang’s temple, but he wasn’t willing to roll the dice.
He told him to find another location.

  Trang came back to him with a restaurant owned by one of his cousins. It was a much better idea. Unlike Buddhist temples, fair-skinned, blue-eyed Westerners walked into Asian restaurants all the time in Paris.

  They had met in a private room in the back. Trang had been in high spirits. In fact, Aubertin didn’t know that he had ever seen him like that. After ordering food and drinks, Trang had gotten down to business.

  He had just been assigned the largest contract killing in history—one hundred million dollars. The target was an American intelligence operative. He had no idea who the client was. It had been arranged by a middleman, someone Trang had worked with before.

  Allegedly, the client was so eager for the contract to be filled, the middleman had instructed Trang to put it out to a select pool of assassins, simultaneously. Whoever killed the intel operative first would receive the money. Trang, though, had his own idea.

  He would make it look like he had followed all of the instructions, but in reality he and Aubertin would take the money for themselves and split it fifty-fifty.

  “You should never steal from the people you work for.”

  “It’s not stealing if the job gets done,” Trang had said. And then, he had laid out his plan.

  It was a bold collection of double crosses. Not only would the client’s wishes be ignored, but the assassin who bagged Scot Harvath would end up getting a bullet in the head.

  Aubertin would be a fool not to wonder whether Trang had a final double cross prepared for him. If he chose to follow this path, he would have to tread very carefully. With a potential fifty-million-dollar payday, how could he not?

  In order to insulate himself, Trang wanted Aubertin to run everything—the selecting and tasking of the assassins, all of it.

  Then, when the successful assassin came to collect his pay, Aubertin would debrief him, kill him, and use the information to collect the bounty for himself—splitting it later with Trang.