The Dead Yard

by Adrian McKinty

  Touched stood up, walked around the room.

  “I want you to spend the rest of the day thinking about the plans, getting the tools, and I’ll want you to do a couple of drive-bys so you’re familiar with the lay of the land. Then, Seamus, I want you to take the boys out for something to eat. No point doing a job on an empty stomach. And then as soon as it gets dark it’s go time and I’ll want you in and out. Gerry and I’ll be back around nine tonight. I’ll leave it up to you to decide your own arrangements, Seamus, but if you’re back around that time, it would be pretty good.”

  “No problems,” Seamus said.

  Touched looked out the window. Saw something he didn’t like.

  “There’s that fucking car again. All right, meeting’s over.”

  Seamus motioned us to get up. I tried to see out the window to check on the mysterious car, but Touched hustled us from the room. When we finally got outside, the car was gone. I hoped to God that it wasn’t a burgundy Jaguar Mark 2 but there was no way of asking Touched about it without tipping him the eye. In any case, I had more than enough to worry about without adding to the bloody ledger.

  * * *

  We parked the stolen Jeep in a lay-by near the swamps of the Parker River, and then cut through the boggy undergrowth at the back of the base. The sun was down an hour and the insects were attacking us with gusto even though we were all drenched in Deep Woods Off!

  Massachusetts obviously did not think much of its history as the vanguard of the American Revolution, because the Minutemen’s current incarnation, the Massachusetts National Guard, couldn’t have been housed in a more squalid-looking institution. The 101st Engineers’ HQ was a sorry sight. A small, rundown building that resembled a money-deprived elementary school in an unfashionable southern state. Touched had been wrong about the barbed wire, too. The wire was barbed only along the side of the base facing Route 1A. At the back, all that protected the base from vandals and thieves was a five-foot-high wire-mesh fence. Even though I was carrying a sledgehammer and Seamus had bolt cutters and a gun, we were both over it in under thirty seconds. Jackie had a few problems because his baggy pants got caught on the top of the fence, but Seamus tugged him and he was over too.

  I watched him come down, the barbs ripping his pants. He landed with a thud, cursing. It affected me strangely.

  I froze.

  The last time I was on a wire . . .

  It came without warning. The flash again. Mexico. Scotchy, in slow motion, falling through a roll of loose-spun razor wire, screaming in pain and frustration. After all we’d been through. So close to getting out, so close to being free from that prison.

  And then, to die like this, like a punk, shot in the back and bleeding to death.

  “Come on, Sean,” Seamus said, and I let it go and followed him through the car park behind the base. There was a military Humvee just waiting to be nicked and, even better, an armored personnel carrier and a half-track bulldozer.

  We walked to the back door, chained and padlocked but so old and weather-beaten that if you didn’t have lock-cutting gear you could have just shoved a screwdriver under the hinges, tugged, and it would have fallen off. Seamus took the bolt cutters and I held the chain for him. He cracked it down, using his thigh as the lever, and the chain snapped on the first try.

  “We’re in,” Jackie said with delight.

  “Ok, lads, be careful,” Seamus said.

  I was glad this was finally coming to a head. It had been a tedious day with those two. Scouting the base, having dinner, making small talk. Putting up with Jackie’s attempts at sarcasm and ignoring Seamus’s repeated trips to the bathroom to drink from his whiskey flasks. Flasks plural.

  And then bloody tourism. Sonia or someone had evidently asked Seamus to show me a bit of Newburyport so even though we were in a stolen car and on assignment, he parked right in the middle of downtown, took us to dinner at Angie’s Diner, and then walked me round Newburyport’s high-density collection of candle stores, ice-cream parlors, exotic-food delis, and souvenir shops. I pretended to be fascinated but I did take five minutes to take the boys inside the All Things Brit store and buy them some British chocolate bars. Along with the five-dollar bill, I’d passed Samantha a note that said: “Touched has noticed your Jaguar,” in case I was right about my guess. I hadn’t liked Touched’s remark about spotting a car outside Gerry’s house and the report I’d read on him was wrong in several aspects. He might be violent, he might be ruthless, but he wasn’t crazy and he wasn’t dumb. He was a very sleekit operator.

  Gerry was comfortable and getting old, but Touched had lost little of his edge. Clever to keep himself out of this little mischief. Much more serious than a bank robbery. And he’d made sure Gerry wasn’t even in on the discussions. Touched was smarter and more cunning than everyone gave him credit for. Yesterday’s run had been presented to me as a fait accompli. I’d had no choice, either take it or leave it. The same today. And both times he had kept the big boss out of it. I hadn’t witnessed anything yet that the feds could trace back to Gerry. However, if tonight’s operation was successful and we got ourselves a handful of plastic explosives, then all I’d need to do would be to let Touched and Gerry make one bomb. They wouldn’t even have to detonate it. As soon as they made that bomb, we could nab the whole lot of them. Get them on felony conspiracy charges and Touched on armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery on an army base. It would more or less be the end of Sons of Cuchu-lainn. Kit would have to be part of the deal. For although the wee girl had dubious musical preferences and her taste in boyfriends was shocking, you couldn’t pick your parents and it wasn’t her fault that Gerry had roped her into all of this. Have to see to it that her sentence got suspended or at the most a few months in minimum security.

  Samantha read the note and reacted like a pro: she didn’t react at all. But I could tell she understood. I would have liked to give her a fuller debriefing but Seamus took us out of there.

  Now, thank God, we were doing something.

  Jackie unthreaded the chain from the lock.

  “Where’s the flashlights?” Seamus asked.

  Jackie fumbled in his backpack and gave us each a flashlight. It was his only real responsibility tonight but I was still surprised when the flashlight actually worked.

  It was awkward carrying the big sledgehammer and the flashlight but I’d be damned if I was going to ask for help. In any case, I didn’t want to speak to these two eejits any more than I had to. Gingerly, we walked inside the base. Seamus leading, Jackie second, me picking up the rear.

  “Do we need to put our masks on, Seamus?” I asked.

  “Place is deserted,” Seamus said, dismissively. “Come on, down here to the left.”

  Jackie stifled a yawn. Up before dawn to surf. Price you paid, buddy.

  The paint was flaking and there were posters on the walls discussing benefits, sex discrimination, the regular army, and the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

  At the end of the corridor there was a notice board with a single notice—a sign-up sheet for last year’s Boston marathon.

  “It looks abandoned. I hope Touched was right about his information,” Jackie said.

  “It’s not abandoned, didn’t you notice the tank outside?”Seamus said, scornfully.

  We found the door at the end of the corridor. Seamus applied the bolt cutters, the chain snapped, we pushed it open and were immediately inside the indoor shooting range. Seamus shone his flashlight on the far wall and we saw the door to the armory. It wasn’t marked “Armory” but there was that sign which said “No Admittance Without Duty Officer Sign In.”

  “That’s it,” Jackie whispered.

  “I think it is,” I concurred.

  “Ok, let’s go,” Seamus said.

  We began walking across the range. A room about fifty feet in length with targets running up and down wires that were hung from the ceiling. A lingering smell of cordite aand gunpowder from plastic boxes filled with spen
t ammo.

  I lifted the sledgehammer to my shoulder.

  “When we get over, you want me to smack it?” I asked Sea-mus.

  Seamus nodded.

  “If you’re up to it, that is,” Jackie said.

  I’d had just about enough of this wee skitter. I put my hand on his shoulder, grabbed him.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “You being a cripple and all, you just might not be able to handle it,” Jackie said, and I could sense him grinning in the blackness.

  “Jackie, if you want another beating, you’re going the right way about getting one. What will you say to Kit this time, you tripped over a paving stone and you’re suing the town council?”

  Jackie brushed my hand off him and squared himself for trouble.

  “You had the advantage on me that time. This time I’m sober, so you just try it, pal,” he said.

  “I’ll knock ya back to cow-fucking County Sligo,” I said, holding the sledgehammer in both hands, ready to swing in case he was dumb enough to try anything.

  “Go on then, give me your best shot,” Jackie said.

  Seamus reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a revolver. He pointed it at me and then at Jackie.

  “If you two don’t fucking cut it out, I’ll shoot the pair of you right here,” he said. It wasn’t a serious threat, but the gun got our attention. This was escalating things. It took the wind out of the exchange. I eased my grip on the sledgehammer.

  Jackie spat on the range floor.

  “Tell him not to touch me,” he muttered.

  “Tell him to watch his mouth,” I said.

  “Enough. Let’s go,” Seamus ordered.

  We walked over to the armory. Now that we were closer we could see a frail beam of light leaking under the door.

  Unnerving. It looked as if there was a bulb on inside the room.

  “What do you make of that, Seamus?” I asked, pointing at the light and dropping my voice into a whisper.

  “Somebody left the light on from the weekend?” Seamus suggested.

  I nodded.

  “I suppose,” I said.

  Seamus examined the door handle. It was, as Touched predicted, a metal handle connected to a wooden door. Three or four good smashes should do the trick. I lifted the sledge hammer and brought it crashing down on the handle. It gave first time.

  A voice from inside the armory screamed and a split second later an alarm went off: flashing emergency lights and a loud continuous bell.

  Jackie pulled the armory door open. A long, narrow room filled with boxes in metal cages and guns in racks. And a thirty-year-old soldier, bald, fat, frightened green eyes, wearing fatigues, sitting on a stool, holding a clipboard in one hand, the other having just pushed a big red button on the wall. He made a grab for a weapon next to him on the floor. I chucked the sledgehammer at him and it caught him on the chest, knocking him off his stool backwards into a box of stun grenades.

  I lunged for and grabbed his Colt .45 sidearm, lying in a holster beside the chair. He tried to get at me but I elbowed him in the face, took the gun out of the holster, slammed home the dislodged clip, pointed it at his head. He put his hands up.

  “I surrender,” he said.

  I turned to Seamus and we looked at each other, horrified, for a moment.

  “What do we do now?” Jackie asked Seamus in a panic.

  “He’s seen us,” Seamus said.

  “I haven’t seen anything,” the guy replied, closing his eyes.

  “He’s bloody seen us,” Jackie wailed.

  Seamus reached into his pocket, brought out his hip flask, and took a drink. He wiped his mouth.

  Just then, across the bog and the cottonwoods, and over the shrill alarm bell, we heard the distinct wail of a police siren. It might be connected with us, it might not.

  “That button you pressed, who does it alert?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said and he meant it.

  “We got to get out of here,” I said to Seamus. “Peelers are coming.”

  Seamus looked as if he were about to pass out. His skin was pale and he was sweating. The last few weeks had been too much for him. He couldn’t take the bloody stress. At least not sober.

  “Take him with us. Touched will know what to do,” Seamus said.

  “Slow us down,” I said angrily.

  “We’ll take him with us. Do as you’re told, this is my show,” Seamus screamed.

  “What about the explosives, Seamus?” Jackie asked.

  “Why don’t you tell him all our names?” I said to Jackie and motioned the soldier to follow us out of the armory.

  “Forget them. Let’s just get the hell out of here,” Seamus said.

  “Come on, you,” I said to the soldier. “Keep your hands above your head.”

  We ran across the range and I put the gun in the soldier’s back as we jogged down the corridor. He was definitely older than me. Overweight, shaking, terrified. Jackie going ape-shit at him didn’t help matters:

  “Jesus, what the fuck were you doing in there? This place is supposed to be empty,” he said.

  “I had to do the inventory,” the soldier replied.

  “You’re only supposed to be here on the weekends,” Jackie said furiously.

  “The colonel’s coming this weekend, we had to have it checked out and—” the guy began but Seamus interrupted the explanation:

  “Shut up. It doesn’t matter how it happened. It has happened,” he said.

  We sprinted down the corridor and ran outside just as a cop car pulled in on Route 1A in front of the base.

  “Over the wire,” Seamus said. “Come on.”

  We ran to the rear fence.

  “You, over it,” Seamus told the soldier. All four of us scaled the fence. The state troopers shone a powerful searchlight onto the base but we were well clear at the back. We crouched low.

  “They won’t see us,” Jackie whispered.

  We flattened ourselves into the reeds, Seamus pushing the soldier’s head down to the ground. The spotlight passed us by and returned to the front of the base.

  “Over here, over here,” the soldier screamed, jumping up and waving his arms. The peelers shone the light at the back and spotted us.

  “Halt, you there,” one of the cops yelled.

  “You bloody fool,” I said as Jackie and I pulled the soldier to the dirt.

  Seamus took out his gun and shoved it into the soldier’s cheek.

  “Try that again and you’re going to die,” Seamus said.

  “For Christ’s sake, come on. Let’s go,” I yelled at Seamus. Seamus put his gun in the soldier’s back, shoved him, and the four of us ran into the marsh that led down to the Parker River.

  The cops fired a warning shot into the air and came tearing after us. They’d either have to run wide around the base or cut across the front fence, through the car park, and then climb the back fence. But even so, they’d be on our heels pretty goddamn quick.

  “Gotta ditch the army boy,” I said to Seamus as we waded through the boggy grass.

  “He’s seen our faces, you idiot. We take him to Touched,” Seamus said furiously.

  “We’ll never get away, they’ll have copters after us in a minute,” Jackie said, sobbing a little.

  “Get a grip, Jackie. Come on. It’s totally dark. If we can make it to the Parker River, we can wade in, float downstream into the wildlife refuge at the bottom of Plum Island, we’ll be ok,” Seamus said.

  It wasn’t a bad plan at that. The water wasn’t cold or fast moving. It might work.

  “Better move fast then,” I said.

  Seamus nodded, encouraged by my approval.

  “And you, no funny stuff, or I’ll fucking shoot ya,” he said to the soldier.

  We waded through swamp, and then solid water and then swamp again.

  After about ten minutes we could hear many more cops behind us. Three or four backup units had been called in, maybe a doze
n cops altogether. Seamus, the soldier, and myself were still together but Jackie, the fittest and fastest of us, was a couple of hundred yards ahead now. He looked back to see if he should wait but Seamus waved him on. In another minute he was gone completely.

  “I think I see the river,” I said.

  It was a bloody miracle that the mud hadn’t sucked the shoes off my feet and it surely would have if I’d still been wearing Converse high-tops, not these big Stanley work boots. Shoeless, I would have been footless, and fucked.

  As we got near the water the fat soldier slowed. He was out of shape and sweating but he wasn’t exhausted just yet. He was planning something. I could sense it in his body language. I kept an eye on him, waiting for him to jump either of us. But he didn’t. Instead, midrun he tripped on a vine and fell. He landed heavily on the ground and grabbed at his leg.

  “Get up,” Seamus yelled at him. “Get the fuck up or I’ll shoot you.”

  “My leg, I’ve broken my leg,” the man said, writhing in apparent agony.

  “Get the fuck up, army boy,” Seamus said.

  “I can’t, my leg’s hurt,” the soldier said.

  I nodded at Seamus. There was no time to see if it was a lie or not. He had to make a decision.

  “We got to leave him now,” I said.

  Seamus looked at him, looked at me, listened to the cops coming closer and closer, nodded to himself. He reached into his inside pocket, withdrew his flask, and took another drink. He screwed the top on and raised his gun.

  “What are you doing, Seamus?” I asked. “He’s lying, his leg’s fine. Get up, mate. Come on. He’s lying.”

  “I know,” Seamus said coldly. “It doesn’t matter, Sean, he’s seen our faces, have to do it, Sean, no other way. I’m on fuck-ing bail already. I can’t go down for this and the shooting at Revere, I’d get twenty years.”

  “No, Seamus, wait a minute,” I began, but he cut me off.

  “I’m not going to die in prison, Sean. That’s what it comes down to. Now, obey orders and get moving.”

  “It’s murder, Seamus,” I said, but he wasn’t listen ing. He raised his .38 revolver and pointed it at the soldier’s head.

  “We have to kill him,” he said but only to himself. His mind was made up.