Angels in the Moonlight_A prequel to The Dublin Trilogy

by Caimh McDonnell

  The man holding a gun on Peter Lovejoy held aloft his left hand, which contained a small cylindrical device, his thumb pressed down on the top of it.

  “If the ERU leaves hangar 3 then my driver dies. If anyone attempts to approach the plane, first the driver dies, then the C-4 is detonated. This is not a bluff.” Ben wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say the next bit but the gun nudged him again. “Ehm, exhibit A.”

  Nothing happened for about five tense seconds, and then there was a percussive pop. In the left of his peripheral vision, Ben noticed a puff of smoke as a section of the airport’s outer fence collapsed. A second later a Toyota HiAce van was through the gap and driving fast towards them.

  The card was turned over. “Stand down. Call the bomb disposal unit. There are one hundred and fourteen passengers and crew on that plane. Do not test us.”

  The card disappeared from view and a hand pushed Ben towards the plane. Once directly underneath it, a cable-tie was cinched around his hands, cutting into his skin as he was attached to the rear landing gear. A few seconds later, just as the HiAce pulled up, he was joined by Peter Lovejoy who was cable-tied to the other wheel. He looked at the vest Ben was wearing. “Is that . . . ?”

  Ben shushed him before he could say anything else. He didn’t want to do anything to antagonise these men. That was the standard advice from the company. If involved in an “incident” – the word robbery was never used – you should comply with all requests, make no effort at resistance, and instead concentrate only on the safety of yourself and others, and on remembering everything you could to later help police. He had given that course to new staff two dozen times; although it didn’t cover what to do with six pounds of C-4 strapped around you.

  The driver of the HiAce, wearing a plastic moulded mask that distorted his face, opened its rear doors, revealing two motorbikes. He dropped a ramp and wheeled them out.

  Meanwhile, two of the others were quickly moving the black cases containing the diamonds from the plane’s hold into the van. In the middle of it all, the fourth man stood calmly with his hand in the air, holding down the trigger. It took them under sixty seconds to load the van.

  Nineteen boxes; Ben counted them in by force of habit. He tried to notice other things. Anything. Most of all, he tried not to think about the vest.

  The two loaders slammed the rear doors shut. One of them joined the driver in the front of the van, which instantly tore off towards the gap in the fence through which it had entered.

  The other loader hopped onto one of the bikes, pulled a helmet on over his balaclava and tossed the trigger-man an identical one. He pulled it on while walking to the second bike, still holding his hand up the whole time. Ben found himself thinking that, by now, the man’s arm must be getting tired.

  The first motorbike roared off towards the fence.

  Ben watched the trigger-man climb onto his bike and kick it into life. Then, for what seemed like an eternity, but may have only been a fraction of a second, he looked into the man’s visored eyes. He pointed at the trigger, pressed something on the bottom of it, then casually tossed it towards Ben.

  Ben never saw the last bike leave as he fainted.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “You have got to be kidding me?”

  DI Fintan O’Rourke looked down into the hole again and then back up at Liam Bains, Dublin Airport’s head of security, who looked like he was having the very worst day of his life. They were standing on the edge of Holding Area Bravo, a now empty airplane behind them, its 114 passengers and crew currently in an area inside the airport, giving what would no doubt be utterly useless statements to a hastily assembled team of officers. It had taken the bomb squad nineteen minutes to arrive and another forty to determine that, while the bomb jacket on Ben Williams did contain live C-4, most of the wiring was a complex series of red herrings.

  Getting additional officers to the scene had been complicated by the surrounding gridlock. The two robbers who had departed on motorbikes had dropped a series of spikes on the roads in and out of the airport, causing a series of crashes and pile-ups. In the middle of one of these had been a Garda Emergency Response Unit. The Garda helicopter, meanwhile, being unable to fly directly into Dublin Airport’s airspace, was currently in the process of looking for a white HiAce van in Dublin, a task that was not so much like trying to find a needle in a haystack as trying to find a piece of straw in a haystack.

  The hole was about eight feet by three feet by four feet deep. Just enough of a shallow grave for Bains’s career. O’Rourke shook his head again. “What the hell is it doing here?”

  “Well,” said Dublin Airport’s soon to be ex-head of security, “we believe there was originally a hole here for drainage, but it wasn’t this big. They must have widened it.”

  “How? When?”

  Bains shrugged. “I don’t know. Nobody looks at this area much. They might have been sneaking in and doing it over the space of months.”

  “And nobody saw anything?”

  “It would have been at night.”

  “Right – because presumably, if it had been during the day, one of your eagle-eyed staff would definitely have spotted it.”

  Bains shrugged again. He had the demeanour of a man looking for machine-gun fire to walk into.

  “Do I want to ask how they got into the hole this evening, with your staff and half the Garda ERU supposedly watching on?”

  “The only way I can think of is that they must’ve got in last night and stayed there.”

  O’Rourke shook his head again. What? Seventeen hours at least, spent sitting quietly in a hole, waiting for the moment to strike? Who the hell had that level of patience? He didn’t need an answer, he already knew.

  “Sir?” He turned to see Detective Pamela Cassidy rushing towards him, holding out a phone. “Sir, you’ve got a call.”

  “No kidding, Cassidy. We just lost sixteen million quid’s worth of diamonds. I’ve had lots of calls.” He’d told the commissioner he’d update him in an hour; everyone else he was ignoring.

  “Yes, sir, but you’re going to want to take this one.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Bunny lay in bed and watched Simone’s dainty finger swirling a circle in his chest hair.

  “Promise me something,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Never shave your chest.”

  Bunny looked down at his chest, an area he had previously paid absolutely no attention to – to the point he wouldn’t have been able to pick it out in a police line-up. “Do fellas do that?”

  “Some do.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no earthly idea. I think it’s to show off how big and strong they are.”

  “I prefer to do that in more fun ways.”

  Simone turned and placed her chin on his chest, beaming up at him. “Don’t I know it!”

  It had been six days since Simone had gone to “cat-sit for Noel”. Since that first night, she had stayed at Bunny’s house in Cabra. They’d slept in on that first morning, although there hadn’t been much sleeping. She’d agreed to come back that night, as Noel’s cat, if anything, was going to be even more lonely. From then on, it had just seemed natural for her to be there.

  Tonight, they’d finally done the thing they had been dreading. Simone had gone back to Sister Bernadette and explained that she was going to stay with Bunny for a while. He had gone with her in a show of solidarity. Her reaction was not at all what they’d expected.

  “Well, it’s about damn time.”

  Bunny and Simone had looked at each other in surprise. “I mean,” she had continued, “yes, yes – get married, have babies, all of that, and preferably in that order, but I’ve seen too much in my life to go telling you what to do with yourselves. Having said that – you, come with me.”

  She had pointed a crooked finger at Bunny, who had followed her into the kitchen. She’d closed the door behind them and turned to face him. Sister Assumpta was standing over
the cooker, watching a large pot of potatoes boil. Bunny gave her a nervous glance, for fear she would start taking her clothes off again, but she seemed oddly entranced.

  “Now,” said Bernadette, “I’ve looked into you and you appear to be a good man. A man of honour and integrity. I appreciate your appreciation of natural justice.”

  Bunny nodded. He knew what she meant, but had never heard it called that before.

  Bernadette pointed to the other side of the door. “She is a special girl who has been through some god-awful stuff.”

  “Exactly what—”

  Bunny was stopped in his tracks by a sharply raised hand. “Whatever she chooses to tell you is entirely up to her. I am not a giddy-goose blabbermouth. Now, don’t interrupt me again.”

  “Yes, Sister. Sorry, Sister.”

  “As I was saying, she’s a good girl and she was in my care. I’m now trusting you to take that role on. You mess this up and you’ll have me to answer to.”

  Bunny smiled down at her and patted her arm. “Don’t worry, I promise I’ll—”

  He’d been cut off by Sister Bernadette picking up a carving knife from the table, with more speed that he’d have thought possible, and holding it in front of his eyes.

  “Don’t patronise me, ye big lump of ham. I’ve reduced men twice your size to jabbering wrecks.”

  Bunny’s eyes had stayed focused entirely on the knife’s blade as it hovered, perfectly still, in the centre of his vision. “Yes, Sister.”

  “I don’t mean you remember her birthday and ask her how her day went. Her past is the past, and hopefully it remains that way, but if for any reason it doesn’t, you need to take care of it.”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “Good. Also, you owe me a favour.”

  “I do?”

  “You do.” The knife disappeared. “I’ll tell you when I need you. I am often in need of a man with your skills. I’m glad we had this talk.” She turned towards the kitchen door. “Also, don’t forget her birthday. That’s just basic common sense.”

  “Absolutely,” said Bunny, and then made a mental note to ask Simone when her birthday was on the drive home. She’d been waiting in the hall, with a look of nervous excitement and one small suitcase.

  And so it was tonight. They’d celebrated Simone moving in, without actually ever calling it that. They had been deliberately vague, for fear of verbiage somehow breaking the magic spell.

  Simone kissed his chest and looked up at him. “Is there anything you’d like me to promise not to change?”

  He rolled her over, his hand on her hip, until he was over her, supporting his own weight as he moved down to place kisses on her forehead, nose and lips. “Nothing. Change nothing. I love you just the way you are.”

  She looked away, the smile falling from her lips. “Don’t.” She pushed him gently away as she sat up, her back to him.

  “What did I say?”

  “Nothing, just . . .” She turned her head slightly, the light from the bedside lamp catching a watery glint in her left eye. “Think that, feel that, if you want, but . . . don’t say that word, OK?”

  He ran his hand down her back. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It’s not your fault, it’s just . . . that’s a very easy word for people to throw around, and I can’t say it back. I mean . . .” She grabbed his hand with urgency. “Maybe one day, but you’re going to have to be very patient with me. OK?”

  Bunny sat up and placed his arms around her, enveloping her body in his. Then he brushed back her hair and gently kissed the scar that ran down the right side of her face. She put her hand on the back of his head, pulling him forward until his cheek rested next to hers. Her hot tears trickled down his face.

  His mobile rang.

  “Ara for feck’s sake.” Bunny looked at the display. “Work. They always did have an impeccable sense of timing.”

  She patted him on the cheek. “Get it. Check it isn’t important.”

  Sighing, Bunny leaned back and grabbed the vibrating phone off the nightstand.

  “Hello.” Bunny listened in silence for about ten seconds. “I’ll be right there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Strobing police lights danced off the frosty ground as Bunny hurried down the pavement, as if barely resisting the urge to break into a sprint. He had been forced to park up on the North Strand, throwing the car onto the pavement in front of a billboard. Ossory Road was not able to cope with the traffic it was currently drawing, even with it being well past midnight now. Terraced houses, all in slightly different shades of red, lined the road on his left. On the far side was a grey stone wall, behind which lay the train tracks coming out of Connolly Station, and the Royal Canal.

  The call had just said that DS Spain was involved in an operation and that an officer was down. Control had no information on casualties beyond that. Bunny had tried to ring Gringo a couple of dozen times in the ten minutes it’d taken him to dress, rush out the door and drive to the scene. No answer. Just the same cheery hello on Gringo’s message, time and again.

  It couldn’t be. They weren’t even supposed to be on duty. Since the task force had been scaled down, he and Gringo were back working out of Pearse Street, running down a series of burglaries up at the new apartment blocks on the Quays, as well as a few dozen other cases that had been pushed to one side in favour of the task force. None of this made sense.

  He reached the police tape. A young, chubby-faced guard with a shock of blond hair put his hands out. Bunny produced his ID with one hand as he grabbed the tape with the other. The guard moved in front. “Sorry, sir, I’m under strict instructions. There’s too many people in there. It is a closed scene.”

  Bunny looked down at the hand the uniform had placed on him. “Take your fecking hand off me now, or it’ll be a closed casket.”

  The uniform squared up. “I have my orders.”

  “My partner is in there. So you can take your orders and—”

  “It’s fine,” they both turned to see DI Fintan O’Rourke, a folder open in his hands and with a couple of Technical Bureau guys around him. “Let him in.”

  The uniform begrudgingly stepped aside. Bunny gave him a look and then nipped under the tape. O’Rourke didn’t even look up. “He’s over there.” He indicated an ambulance sitting under the railway bridge. Bunny could see the back doors were open.

  He walked past the metal gates to what appeared to be a small industrial estate. Its courtyard was crawling with yet more Technical Bureau staff in their white suits. The burned-out husk of a HiAce van stood in the centre of it.

  Bunny walked around to the back of the ambulance to find Gringo perched on the edge, being examined by an EMT. He wore a dazed expression, and a blanket hung around his shoulders, over a light blue T-shirt with bloodstains down the front of it.

  “Jesus,” said Bunny. Gringo turned his head at his voice. “What in the shittin’ hell?”

  Gringo looked down, as if noticing the blood for the first time. “It’s not mine, amigo.” The EMT, a woman with short brown hair and tight lips, shot an annoyed glance in Bunny’s direction.

  “This,” said Gringo, “is my work wife, doc. He worries about me.”

  “I’m not a doctor and you’re not much of a patient.” She turned to Bunny. “Tell him he has to go to the hospital to get checked out properly.”

  “I’m afraid he can’t order me to do anything, doc, I outrank him. Can you give us a sec?”

  She shook her head in exasperated disapproval. “Be quick.” She grabbed her bag and moved around to the front of the ambulance.

  Bunny looked at Gringo. “The feck I can’t order you. You’re going to the hospital or I’ll put you there myself.”

  Gringo waved him away. “Honestly, I’m fine.”

  Bunny sat down on the rear foldout step beside him. “What in the hell happened?”

  Gringo ran his fingers through his hair and blew out his cheeks. “Myself, O’Shea and Cunningham were
out for a couple of drinks after work.”

  Gringo must have registered the look of surprise on Bunny’s face. “What? I occasionally hang out with a couple of fellow officers. That’s not that shocking, is it?”

  “No, I just thought, what with the history between you and the ice maiden . . .”

  Gringo waved it away. “Ah, she’s OK, and Dara is great craic. You’ve been a tad busy with, y’know . . .” Gringo looked down and said nothing for quite some time, before holding his T-shirt out. “This is Dara’s blood.”

  Bunny resisted the urge to speak, giving Gringo the time to get it out in his own words.

  “We got the call, said there’d been a robbery out at the airport. Something about diamonds off an airplane, assault team, explosives. It had Carter and his boys written all over it. Dara and Jessica said they’d followed Franko Doyle, months ago, and he’d come to this industrial estate for no apparent reason. Like he was casing the place.”

  Bunny looked over at the metal gates that he’d passed; he could see the front of a print shop and a bike repair place from this angle.

  “They’d thought it might be for a robbery, but they checked and there was nothing in there worth their while. Storage units full of cheap tat from pound shops, that sort of stuff. Anyway, after they hit the airport, Jessica figured, y’know, chance in a hundred, maybe this was where they’d be dumping a vehicle or something.”

  “So you got lucky?”

  Gringo pointed down at his T-shirt. “Does it look like we got lucky?”

  “Sorry.”

  “We got here and saw a van pulling through the gates. They were in the middle of torching it when we raced in, trying to take them by surprise. Dara was in front of me. Got shot in the chest. We returned fire. Shot one of them in the leg, I think. They got to their second car and were gone.” He spoke in an emotionless monotone. “I held my hands over Dara’s wound, tried to . . . y’know. There was an awful lot of blood.”