The Dead Yard

by Adrian McKinty

  “Vive le Québec libre,” I say. It makes her smile.

  “One day, and I hope to see it, all small nations will be free. Ireland was the first of the twentieth century’s great liberation movements to succeed, an inspiration for all of us,” Sonia says. Her face is flushed and she’s out of breath. Her chest heaving in and out. And suddenly she doesn’t look at all unattractive. The top button of her sweater has come undone and you can see the outline of her very pale breasts. Her lips are glistening a little in the light and her . . . Jesus, get a grip, Michael, your life’s too complicated by women already.

  I take a large mug of coffee, and through the enormous kitchen window I see Kit and Jackie coming back, wet, sandy, happy, arm in arm.

  They clean the sand off their feet, grab towels, and join us at breakfast.

  “How was the surfing?” Gerry asks, giving Kit a hug.

  “Well, at first I wasn’t stoked at all because it was, like, a little gnarly out there. But Jackie, like, totally rocked, you should have seen him, and so I followed him and took a few and it was good,” she says excitedly.

  “It was good,” Jackie says, stepping onto the deck to strip off his wet suit and pulling on a T-shirt over his boxers. His bruises are healing nicely, and wet, tanned, and sober, he almost looks quite the handsome little surfer boy. The newcomers sit.

  “Have you seen much of America so far, Sean?” Sonia asks.

  “No, not really, flew into New York, saw a bit of that and then I came up to Boston looking for work, hardly seen any of the country.”

  “And speaking of accents, sometimes it’s almost as if you sound a bit American,” Sonia says without suspicion. But still it sets the alarm bells ringing. It’s something I’m aware of. I’ve been trying to fight against it but after five years living in America, of course I had lost some of my Irish accent and colloquialisms. Regardless, I’d have to damp that fire immediately.

  “Yeah, I pick up accents very quickly, it’s one of my failings.

  You should have heard me when I lived in London. I was talking like Mick Jagger after a few months. I suppose it’s a symptom of a weak personality. I’m definitely a follower not a leader,” I mutter with a touch of meekness and embarrassment.

  Gerry nods wisely.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he says. “Can’t have too many leaders, Sean. Every group needs followers. Men who will obey and do their duty. In any case, it’s nothing to be ashamed of—you, me, Touched, and Jackie all came from the Old Country originally and only Touched has preserved the exact timbre of his north Antrim dialect. He won’t be swayed by anyone.”

  Gerry laughs. Sonia looks at him with frustration.

  “I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. Oh yes, now I remember. All I wanted to say is that if he hasn’t seen much of America we should show him some things. We’ll have to drive out to the Cape, although I know you hate the Cape, but it doesn’t matter and we’ll have to go there and up to the cabin in Maine, or better yet, Nantucket.”

  “Count me out. I certainly do not fancy an autumnal ferry ride across the choppy water to Nantucket. But certainly next month, my dear, we will have to go to Salem,” Gerry says.

  “What’s in Salem?” I ask innocently.

  “It’s where they live on Days of Our Lives,” Jackie contributes. “Everything happens there.”

  Gerry frowns at him and looks at me significantly as if to say “Can you believe he is seeing my daughter?”

  “Think they mean Salem, the witch place,” I say.

  Gerry shows his gleaming teeth, as disarming as Mack the Knife’s pearly whites.

  “Salem has a wonderful Halloween parade. It’s very scary. Kit used to be afraid to go, didn’t you, Kit?” Gerry says, making a ghostly groan.

  “I thought there were no witches; wasn’t the whole thing a huge mistake?” I ask.

  Sonia nods at me in agreement.

  “It’s in very poor taste. If you think about it, it’s the site of an awful massacre of innocents. It would be like holding a

  jokey parade to remember Auschwitz. I, for one, certainly wouldn’t go there,” Sonia says, huffing at Gerry for pooh-poohing the Nantucket idea.

  Gerry knows he has to make amends.

  “The cabin then. It’s lovely this time of year.”

  “Everything is nice about it, except the name,” Sonia replies, not completely won over.

  “How many times do I have to tell you? It wasn’t my doing. That’s the real name of the actual place,” Gerry says defensively and looks at me with an impish grin.

  “Oh, the fucking suspense,” I almost say sarcastically but instead: “What is the name?”

  “The Dead Yard,” Gerry announces with fiendish satisfaction.

  “Unusual,” I add, playing along.

  “It used to be railway land. On the old Maine-Boston Atlantic line. And at certain points along the tracks they needed a clearing to put damaged or unused rail cars, so they’d just fell a big chunk of forest and leave the cars there in what they called a ‘dead yard.’ Of course, the train tracks are long gone now. Sad. Passenger trains don’t go to Maine at all now. You might have noticed the old ruined rail bridge over the Merri-mack in downtown Newburyport.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” I say quickly before Gerry can trot out sic transit gloria mundi. “But I have to agree with you, Mr. McCaghan, that it’s a real shame to see railways disappearing.”

  Touched grunts, and I’m expecting an atypical contradiction of Gerry but instead he says: “If you knew your Civil War history, Sean, you’d know that the Dead Yard was also a nickname for an infamous Southern prison.”

  Gerry nods knowledgeably, but mercifully, before Touched can launch into a description of the horrors of Andersonville, the maid comes in to clear the table.

  Touched checks his watch and gives Gerry a look.

  Gerry stands, pats his ample belly.

  “Well, folks, if you’ll excuse me, I have a wee bit of business to attend to, tempus fugit. I have to travel up to Portsmouth.”

  He gives Sonia a kiss and goes upstairs.

  “I’ll take a shower,” Jackie says.

  “Jackie, upstairs, Gerry’s den, ten minutes, ok?” Touched says.

  Jackie nods and excuses himself from the table.

  Touched looks at Kit.

  “Kit, you’re going to help your dad today? Is that right?” he says in a slightly clandestine tone. Whether he’s unwilling to openly discuss things in front of me or the maid I’m not sure, but he’s certainly holding back something.

  “What are you saying, Touched? I should hurry up?”

  “Love, I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do, but you don’t want to keep your da waiting, do ya?”

  Kit says nothing, walks slowly from the table and when she’s round the corner, bolts up the stairs. Sonia goes into the kitchen and Touched looks at me with a conspiratorial smile.

  “Listen, Sean, you came about the right time. Now you’re here we can do a few more things of an operational nature.We can progress a wee bit faster.”

  “Why? Is there something on for today?”

  “There is, as a matter of fact. Can’t discuss it here. Now go back to the guesthouse, shower, shave, brush your teeth, and join me and Seamus in Gerry’s den ASAP. Ok?”

  “Ok.”

  “And next time you come for breakfast, change out of your jammies, it’s bad fucking form, mate.”

  * * *

  The den was in a round tower constructed in a corner of the house facing the ocean. This was where Gerry kept his private papers and conducted his most secret meetings. This, apparently, was also where he kept his books. Expand Your Word Power, Teach Yourself French, Teach Yourself Irish, 100 Latin Aphorisms Everyone Should Know. Titles like these showed where Gerry’s florid language came from and also revealed perhaps why he was doing it. He was trying to impress his half Quebecois new bride. Gerry was about fifteen years older than her and from a different class, but he nee
dn’t have bothered with any of this shite. I could tell that Sonia loved him and no matter what happened she wasn’t going to be the weak link. Her attraction to Gerry was not physical nor intellectual, but rather, romantic. Gerry was a poet of violence, a crusader for his oppressed people, a bane for the wicked oppressor. Though if she was into Byronic freedom fighters surely my dodgy foot made me a better match.

  The maid had brought up a pot of tea and chocolate biscuits and then discreetly disappeared down the stairs. In Gerry’s home there seemed to be two maids and a cook, all Mexican, all quiet and unobtrusive. Exactly the type that might prove very fruitful and productive if it ever came down to prosecutions. Servants always know a hell of a lot more than people give them credit for and they’d either be loyal right to the bitter end or have a host of resentments that they’d like to pay back in kind, possibly in a court of law.

  Touched noticed that I was looking at a little green toolbox on Gerry’s desk.

  “Is that your screwdriver set?” I asked.

  Touched grinned as if I’d just made a faux pas.

  “Something like that,” he said, took the toolkit, and stuck it in a drawer.

  He rummaged in the same drawer and found a couple of Gerry’s cigars wrapped in silver tubes.

  “Havana Churchills, very good,” he said and offered us a smoke.

  Each of us declined, so he lit one only for himself. Seamus, myself, Jackie relaxing in leather chairs while Touched puffed his cigar and explained the op.

  As usual with this talky crew, he outlined his grander theory first. Real chatty bastards, the lot of them. Touched blew out a smoke ring and began his spiel:

  “I suppose you all want to know where Gerry and me plan to go now we’ve had a bit of a setback. Well, while you lads have been relaxing, we’ve been out doing work. As you may have realized, the IRA cease-fire has sowed chaos not just for us but for the Ra, too, and its partnership organizations. Been a bad few weeks. Very bad. But the silver lining is that things are starting to turn round now. I’ve made a few contacts with a group calling itself Real IRA, which is based in Dundalk under the command of a good friend of ours, Ruari O’Lughdagh. And I’ve also had feelers from a group called Continuity IRA, which I don’t know too much about, but I’ll make it a priority to find out. We’re not necessarily looking for an umbrella group but it would certainly help us out, especially in these times. Now to impress those boys, we’ll have to get cracking, we’ll have to do some jobs. Don’t worry, Sean, I see your eyes widening. Gerry and I have about thirty years experience between us and although you boys have none, if you’re willing to learn, we’re willing to teach ya.”

  During this entire speech, Jackie had been giving me the evil eye. It annoyed me; I thought I’d already put that wee skitter in his place.

  “Jackie, stop looking at me, you’ll wear your fucking eyes out,” I told him.

  “Fuck you, Sean” was his witty comeback.

  “Go to hell,” I retorted.

  Touched had been interrupted. Something that drove him apoplectic. He stood, pointed his finger at us.

  “You two better cut it out, especially you, Sean, you’re still on probation here and Jackie is your superior, and you’ll do what he says. You’re going on a fucking op tonight and if you can’t handle taking orders you can go home right now,” Touched shouted furiously.

  “Sorry, Touched,” I said, trying not to see Jackie’s look of triumph.

  “You will be bloody sorry. Getting too big for your boots and you’re here one bloody day. Dial it back, mate, dial it back a lot.”

  “Won’t happen again, Touched,” I said.

  To make himself more comfortable, Touched took the revolver out of his trouser pocket and placed it on the table. As an intimidation tactic it got my attention. Probably Jackie was armed too.

  “I’ve lost my drift,” Touched said, breathing deeply and looking pissed.

  “The Real IRA, Continuity IRA,” Seamus told him.

  “Oh aye. Ok,” Touched said, sitting down again. “This is the picture. We’re going to start small and smart. A bombing a week. British businesses, companies, status symbols, that sort of thing. No casualties in the first few months of the campaign. Very important. Get the public on our side and show the boys across the water that we are disciplined and controlled. Get them to sponsor us. After Christmas, when we have some depth and political clout, we intensify things. I know about a few soft targets we can hit. This is where we have to have moral courage. It’s going to mean killing. Now, I know you had a problem with that, Sean. . . .”

  “Not me,” I assured him.

  “It won’t be civilians. Biggest fucking mistake we could make would be to kill American civilians. We were all very impressed with McVeigh and Nichols killing 160 with one truck bomb. But even if they’d gotten away with it, where would it have left them? Nowhere, because the public was against them. We have to keep the public on our side. Or at least, our public, Irish Americans, the Boston Herald, our section of society. I’m talking about targeted hits, British military officers living in America, British consular officials, CEOs. Hit the empire where it hurts.”

  “How would you do that? Shoot them?” Jackie asked.

  “No, no, nothing so risky. We’ll be long gone. Very simple. At night, plant a bomb under their car with a mercury tilt switch. It goes off as soon as they go up or down a hill. Three, four pounds under the driver’s side. Very nice. Done it myself half a dozen times.”

  Jackie kicked his shoes off and put them on Gerry’s desk, wiggling his ten toes in what was possibly an extremely childish attempt to bait me. Touched continued.

  “Our problem today, lads, is explosives. For both campaigns we’re going to need explosives. As you know, Gerry can get access to dynamite and other industrial explosives aplenty because he’s in the construction business. But the difficulty is that those explosives could and would be traced back to him. And if, as we suspect, the FBI is keeping a wee eye on us from time to time, we have to be very careful about that.”

  “So how do we get explosives? Do we make them? McVeigh made his, right?” Jackie asked.

  “McVeigh made a truck bomb.We are talking about finesse and you don’t finesse with fertilizer and gasoline. Nah. I’ve got it sussed. I’ve been doing a wee bit of intelligence work,” he said and then stopped talking to puff his cigar and keep us in suspense.

  “Go on,” Jackie said.

  “I have a wee mate in the know,” Touched said.

  This time I took the bait.

  “Aye?”

  “Massachusetts National Guard base on Route 1A. The headquarters of the 101st Engineers. You’ve probably all seen it. According to my mate, the base is only used Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sundays. On weekdays it’s completely empty.”

  He produced a plan of the base that someone had photocopied for him. It was small—half a dozen rooms, a gym, an indoor range, and, of course, next to the range an armory that Touched had marked with a red X.

  “This is your objective. The base has a five-foot-high wire-mesh fence with a single line of barbed wire on top. The rear exit, here, is chained and padlocked. Seamus, with bolt cutters and your expertise, you should be able to get through the chain in about two seconds.”

  Seamus nodded.

  “You’ll go in the door, turn left, walk down the corridor, you’ll see another door, also chained and padlocked. Again Seamus with the bolt cutters. That’s the door to the range. Once you get in, the armory is the door off it to the left. On the door there’s a sign that says ‘No Admittance Without Officer’ or something like that. This door you’ll have to smash with a sledgehammer, because it’s got an internal lock. The door’s thick but it’s wooden and apparently in not the best shape, so it should give in about a minute or two. The armory is Alice-in-fucking-Wonderland, but you are to ignore everything, all the guns, grenades, everything except for a stack of green boxes marked ‘C4—Handle withCare.’ You are to take one box each and g
et out of there. Any questions?”

  “How heavy are the boxes?” I asked.

  “Good question, Sean, I’m not too sure. But I’ve been told one man, one box isn’t unreasonable.”

  Touched took a big puff on his cigar and smiled at us, well pleased with himself.

  “Any more questions?”

  “You’re not going to be there?” Jackie asked.

  “No, I’m going up to Portsmouth to scout something else.This will be Seamus’s op. You’ll all do what he tells you,” Touched said, looking at me.

  “Ok,” I said.

  “Maybe he won’t be able to carry a heavy box with his bad foot,” Jackie said maliciously.

  “Piss off. I’ll have no problems at all, Touched, I guarantee you,” I said, really starting to hate Jackie.

  Touched nodded.

  “Now, can I rely on the three of you to get this right?”

  He stared at Seamus very seriously.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Seamus said. “In the side door. Along the corridor. First door on the left. Break the lock, go to the armory, sledgehammers, ignore the guns. Take the boxes marked ‘C4—Handle with Fucking Care.’”

  Touched looked at him with skepticism. He still wasn’t too sure. “Gerry could probably go to Portsmouth by himself. Do you want me to come along?” he asked.

  “Fuck off, Touched, I can handle it,” Seamus said angrily.

  “We’ll be fine,” I chipped in, and not to be outdone by the new guy, Jackie added:

  “Be a piece of piss, Touched, leave it to me.”

  “Even though there’s going to be no one there, I want you in and out in five minutes, is that understood?” Touched said, still clouded by a lingering doubt.

  “Understood,” we all said.

  “All right. Now, standard operating procedure, I’ll go to the bus station and steal you a car from the long-term parking. But the rest you’ll all have to do by yourselves, ok?”

  “O-fucking-k,” Seamus said, wearied by Touched’s lack of confidence in our abilities.