by James R Benn
"I was right. Thornton's paying him off for a transfer to corps. Probably others too; he seemed like a smooth operator. Check the second drawer to his left, he put my name in an envelope there."
"OK, Boyle, I can break him. I'll tell him we just picked up you and Thornton, and that the only way he can save his hide is to tell all. Good work." He placed a thick envelope in my hand and brushed past me, into Warrenton's office. I shut the door behind him, sat down at the empty desk, and opened it. Out spilled his side of the bargain.
I'd made a deal with Heck. I'd promised him it would make him look good, and that I'd stay out of the limelight. I figured he'd been on the trail of whoever was shorting supplies being delivered to the division- why else would he be looking through all those shipping invoices and bills of lading? He might have been trying to make a connection between the weapons theft and the supply pilferage, but I doubted he'd gotten anywhere with that.
The key was to find someone who would turn on Thornton. I didn't think Brennan would, for a lot of reasons. He'd gotten what he'd wanted from Thornton, and anyway I didn't want to interfere with whatever he felt he had to do. It had to be someone else, preferably a higher-ranking someone else, who'd be happy to let all the shit roll downhill in Thornton's direction. The gamble I took was that Thornton was trying to bribe the corps G-1, the personnel officer who could approve his transfer to the corps ordnance unit, which would be about as far to the rear as you could get and still claim to be in the shooting war. It all fit, though, with the lies about Brennan and the story about wanting to get a combat command with the heavy weapons company. I'd figured the worst thing that could happen was that Heck would get even madder at me, which hardly seemed possible, and that an innocent G-1 would get a free case of Irish whiskey.
In return, Heck agreed to hand over his file on the BAR case and give me free rein, plus any manpower I needed. All I had to do was share the glory with him if I found anything. Glory was the last thing I wanted. All that did was create the notion that I was the guy to call on when things were really tough, like Cosgrove had for this job. I preferred to stay with Uncle Ike, farther away from the shooting than Thornton ever dreamed of. So glory, that would be all Heck's, yet I bargained hard to give up my share of it. He had to think it was as important to me as it was to him. That's what bought me the promise of help if I needed it.
I dumped the contents of the envelope Heck had handed me onto the desk. Photos of the crime scene showed empty shelves where the BARs had been stored. The broken lock on the storeroom door. Tire impressions left in the mud. All the usual stuff, nothing helpful, since we had already identified the truck.
There were several photos of Eddie Mahoney with the back of his head missing. He lay in a ditch by the side of a road, facedown. The rain had soaked his clothing and he'd sunk into the mud, as if he'd been half buried in a shallow grave. There was a shot of his hand, with the edges of a pound note visible within his grasp. Another of his face, after they'd turned him over. It was hard to tell what he'd looked like in life; the violence of the gunshots to his head combined with the mud caked around his face to make him look misshapen and grotesque. Another shot showed the surrounding area, including the road. Mahoney's feet stuck out from the edge of the ditch, as if he'd been standing by the side of the road when he was shot. Another photo showed him from the opposite direction. There was one photo of Mahoney alive on a city street. Could have been a surveillance shot. I put that one in my pocket.
I squinted my eyes to make out a building visible at the side of the road, maybe twenty yards or so from where Mahoney lay. It looked familiar, with its white walls and thatched roof. It was the Lug o' the Tub Pub, and this was the road I'd watched Tom McCarthy drive Grady O'Brick down last night.
Eddie Mahoney had been shot yards from the pub where Grady drank most every night! Had Grady walked by the body, not noticing it in the darkness? Or had Mahoney's killer shot him on the return trip from the base, after closing hours? Why not? It would be smart to keep him alive to help with the loading, and wait until after the theft to dispose of him. But that depended on why he was shot. If he was an informer, Carrick probably would have known. But neither he nor Slaine O'Brien had owned up to running him. Was he a danger to his companions? Dangerous enough to kill during the course of such a bold theft? It didn't make sense, but then, that was my job, wasn't it? To make sense out of a mass of unrelated facts.
I glanced at the RUC report, which was a copy of the one Slaine had given me. There was one new page, a note saying no fingerprints had been found on Jenkins's truck; it had apparently been wiped clean. There was a longer provost marshal's report. Nothing new about the theft or the murder but Heck had assigned one of his men to tail Jenkins the day after. The surveillance report covered three days. On the first, Jenkins drove to Newry, near the border, and went to the RUC station to make arrangements to get his truck back. The second day after the theft, he went to a pub in Portadown and met a girl. All work and no play, as they say.
A photo was attached. A man I assumed was Jenkins held open the door of Bennett's Pub for a young woman. Although it was a grainy black-and-white photo, I knew her hair was red. It was a mass of curls, pulled back to reveal her face, which was turned back to the street, as if she was checking whether anyone had seen her. Slaine O'Brien, entering a Portadown pub with Andrew Jenkins, leader of the Red Hand.
I sat with the photo in my hand, trying to understand what it meant. Two days after the theft and the killing of an IRA man, Slaine O'Brien meets with Andrew Jenkins. Three days later, she's sitting in a Jerusalem hotel room, telling me he's some sort of big wheel with the Protestant secret militia, engaged in reprisal killings. Was this a setup? No, I couldn't see how that would work. If she were working with Jenkins, taking down IRA men, why travel to the Middle East and bring me in? Unless it was the other way around, and Jenkins was working for her. Was the head of the Red Hand part of MI-5? They were practically hand in glove with the Brits already, so what good would that do?
Plenty, I realized. Although wartime powers gave MI-5 enough muscle to do whatever they wanted, sometimes there was no substitute for cold-blooded killing. British forces could kill all the Germans they wanted by whatever means. But if someone from a neutral country, like Ireland, or a British subject from Northern Ireland, needed to be put in the ground, then who better for the job than one of Andrew Jenkins's Red Hand boys?
I moved on to day three of the surveillance, which ended abruptly when Heck's man was spotted following Jenkins on his way to work in Armagh. One hour later, with Jenkins at work in his office, an alibi confirmed by half a dozen employees, persons unknown assaulted Heck's man and put him in traction. End of surveillance.
The report detailed the follow-up to Thornton's reported sighting of Eddie Mahoney at the pub in Annalong. I realized I hadn't told Carrick about Pete Brennan's possible meeting with Mahoney in Ardglass. Redheaded Irishmen weren't exactly in short supply but it was something to go on. The barman at the Harbor Bar in Annalong remembered Mahoney, who had called himself Eamonn. That, combined with his red top, made him memorable during the week or so he frequented the place. The barman hadn't recalled who Eamonn had been with, he said, until an American, a civilian, had come around with a picture, asking if the man in it had been in the pub recently. The American matched the description Carrick had given me: about forty or so, wearing a trench coat and fedora hat. The barman had remembered the man who'd been with Eamonn: He'd had receding dark brown hair and a sharp chin. That fit Red Jack Taggart to a T.
But that was not a surprise. I knew Mahoney had been in on the theft, and obviously so had Red Jack, since I'd seen his handiwork with the BAR. The report noted that no other investigator from the provost marshal's office had been detailed to investigate the matter. So who was the Yank with the picture of Red Jack, and how did this mystery man know he'd recently been in Annalong?
Heck had included a copy of a memorandum sent to various other commands, inquiring if a
nyone had initiated an investigation in the Annalong area, without mentioning any names. He'd come up empty.
I was beginning to wish I hadn't thought up this deal. Now I knew I couldn't trust Slaine O'Brien, and that an unknown person was tracking Red Jack Taggart, for an unknown reason. Great.
There was a knock at the door, two tentative, light raps.
"Yeah?" I said, rubbing my eyes and wishing I was someplace else.
"Uh, can I have my office back, if it's convenient, I mean?" The door opened an inch or two and the guy on the other side barely spoke above a whisper.
"Yeah, come on in. What's going on across the hall?"
"Captain Heck took Colonel Warrenton away," said a chubby captain, wearing glasses and clutching a pile of papers. "What's going on anyway? Who are you? No, never mind, I don't want to know." He stood against the door, holding his papers even closer to his chest as if they might protect him.
"Captain," I said as I gathered up my files, "that's about the smartest thing I've heard anybody say in the past few days. You can have your office back now, and thanks. Is there a mess hall in this joint where I can get a cup of joe?"
"Ask at the duty desk. I still get lost in this place." With that, he dumped the paperwork onto the desk and sat down as soon as I got out of his way. As I walked out, I noticed the sign on his door. G-2. Intelligence. Sometimes all you can do is laugh.
IT WAS THE fanciest damn mess hall I'd ever been in. Two huge fireplaces opposite each other, big enough to stand in. Four long tables that could seat fifty each, with portraits high up on the walls, stiff-necked men all looking down on us colonials. I ate my cheese sandwich and drank good strong coffee with sugar. I wondered how much sugar went for on the black market, and how much of the stuff Thornton had pinched. I'd heard there were regular smuggling routes over the border into the Republic, where butter and sugar weren't rationed. I wondered how hard the RUC or the Garda Siochana, the Republic's police force, worked to stop smuggling. I added a touch more sugar to my coffee and stirred it in, thankful at least that the army had first dibs on the stuff.
"Billy, right?" a voice said from behind me. "Mind if I sit with you?"
"No, have a seat," I said, trying to place the lieutenant setting down a tray of food.
"You probably don't recognize me all cleaned up. Bob Masters. I amp;R Platoon."
"Sorry, Bob, you look different without all the mud. How are you doing? Still running your men up and down the mountain?"
"Up, down, and around. What brings you here?"
"Paperwork," I said. "How about you?"
"Briefing on infiltration tactics. I'll be glad to get out of here; this place gives me the willies."
"What do you mean?"
"You don't know about Brownlow House? And you, one of the true Irish rebels?" He smiled as he gobbled down some sort of stew.
"Except that it's ugly as all get-out? No."
"Billy, this building is the headquarters of the Royal Black Knights of the British Commonwealth. That's a very exclusive Protestant society."
"Never heard of them."
"Exactly. They're more orange than the Orange Society. And twice as secretive."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Nope. I've seen their rooms in the south wing. The Ulster government took over the building for the duration, but let the Black Knights keep a section. They meet here every month. They even say there's a secret tunnel somewhere that the original Lord Brownlow had dug so he could sneak out at night without his wife knowing."
"I'm still trying to get the Black Knight thing straight, so never mind about the secret tunnel tall tales, OK?"
"It's true, one of the chaplains told me. It's more of a religious thing; they're not into politics as much as the Orange Society. More like the Masons back home maybe. Pretty hard to get admitted, the padre said."
"Why?"
"I forget. Basically you have to be Protestant every which way and never have had any family connected with the Roman Catholic Church."
"Was it a priest who told you this?"
"No, a Methodist minister. Said he was studying up on the local religious customs."
"He'll need a scorecard for that."
I LEFT BOB Masters to his stew, glad to escape the gloom of Brownlow House and visions of Black Knight rituals held within its rooms. I walked down a staircase to the third floor and along a corridor lit by tall windows along the outside wall, which I was fairly sure led to the way out. I looked into the courtyard below to make sure I was on the right side of the building. Below me, leaning against a wall that angled off to the left, was a guy in a trench coat, wearing a gray fedora. He flicked a cigarette and jammed his hands into his pockets. He was too close beneath me to get a look at his face, but he moved like an American. Too casual for a Brit. Was this the mystery Yank?
I looked for another exit, one that would put me behind him. But by the time I found a door, I wasn't sure which side of this crazy building I was on. There were so many angles and twists that I'd gotten myself turned around. I ran along the wall, peeking around each corner I came to, until I found the spot where he'd been. Nothing. He was gone, not a fedora in sight. I heard a motorcycle start up from around the corner and ran to look as the rider gunned it and drove off down the driveway. He was bareheaded but his collar was turned up and buttoned tight, so I couldn't catch a glimpse of his face. A jeep and a slow-moving truck followed him. I knew there was no hope of following that motorcycle into city traffic.
The sky was turning gray and I put my jeep's canvas top back up, for protection against a sudden November rain. I'm getting jumpy, I thought. There have to be a few thousand guys in hats and trench coats in Northern Ireland right now, and I didn't have time to sneak up on every one. I drove south in the direction of Armagh, checking my rearview mirror for a tail, but not seeing one. I stayed on the Armagh road, figuring it was time to have a little chat with Andrew Jenkins. One advantage I had was that I doubted he knew about the picture of him with Subaltern O'Brien. I wondered what his Red Hand pals would think of his date with a British intelligence officer? The Ulster Unionists were probably ninety percent in accord with the British government but they hated and feared the notion of becoming part of the Irish Republic. So ten percent of the time they were thinking about Churchill being ready to sell them out to get Ireland into the war. That kind of thinking could lead to paranoia, and even the hint that Jenkins was working with MI-5 could get him killed. Of course, that worked both ways. Hinting at it could get me killed. I had to think of a way to approach this subtly, which I knew was not my strong point.
I navigated through the city, passing the tall twin spires of a Catholic cathedral and then the short, squat tower over the Protestant cathedral. As different as night and day, they stood in defiance of each other, even the architectural styles seeming to scream at each other, Blasphemer, nonbeliever!
I had to stop and ask directions for Jenkins's business a few times. It was on the outskirts, where green fields mingled with creeping industry, and train tracks crossed muddy lanes. The sign at the closed gate read JENKINS FOODS LTD. I took that to mean Andrew Jenkins was a plainspoken, literal kind of fellow.
"What about ye?" asked a skinny kid, from the other side of the gate. His stringy black hair hung over his ears, and his hands were as dirty as his boots.
"What about me?"
"What's up, is what I mean. Whaddya want here?"
"I'd like to see Mr. Jenkins," I said, leaning out of the jeep.
"And about what do ya want to see him?"
"Who are you, his secretary? Open up, kid, I'm on official U.S. Army business."
"Hold your hour now; I'll go see if he's about." The kid ran off toward two warehouses, long buildings with sheet-metal roofs and loading docks facing each other, with a cobblestone drive between them. At the end of one was a door with a sign hanging over it that looked like an office. The kid went in and I waited, trying to figure out what "hold your hour" meant. Fortunately, I
didn't have to wait an hour. He came trotting out and stood at the gate, catching his breath.
"What's yer name?"
"Boyle," I said, wondering if you needed a Protestant name to get through the gate.
"OK, come on in," he said as he unlocked the gate. "He's been wonderin' what kept ya."
He held open the gate as I drove through, pointing toward the office. I parked the jeep and wondered who'd told Jenkins about me. Slaine O'Brien? Hugh Carrick? Thornton? The unknown Yank? The possibilities of betrayal were endless.
"So you're Boyle, are you?" A voice boomed out from the doorway as a sturdy middle-aged man, barrel-chested and bowlegged, emerged from the office, holding a clipboard. The wind picked up and a gust flapped the sheets against his hand. He had short brown hair with gray strands showing, and he needed a shave. If he was a Black Knight of the British Commonwealth, he didn't look the part. "Come with me, there's work I need to do. It's going to rain; is that all you've got?"
He pointed to my tanker's jacket as if I'd dressed for a blizzard in a pinafore. He was wearing an oilskin coat and shook his head. I grabbed my trench coat from the back of the jeep and pulled it on, watching Jenkins run his fingers across the sheets of paper on his clipboard. His lips moved as he studied each line. He might not be well educated but he was smart enough to gauge the weather. And to present himself as a harried businessman, kindly enough to wait while his American visitor buttoned up, instead of an ultra-Unionist killer.
"Did someone tell you I was coming, Mr. Jenkins?" I asked, hurrying to keep pace with him. He held up one finger, perhaps to tell me to hold my hour, as we turned a corner to the space between the warehouses.
"Campbell," he roared. "You got them potatoes sacked?"
"Nearly done, we are."
Inside were storage bins of potatoes, mounds of them, with two workers loading them into burlap sacks. It was the same up and down in each warehouse. Piles and mounds of cabbages, beets, cauliflower, and other vegetables still in season. Refrigerator units were stocked with hanging hams, sides of beef, and large cans of milk. In each, workers were readying orders for delivery.