I Have Sinned

by Caimh McDonnell

“Oh.”

  Gabriel noticed that the phone in his inside coat pocket was indeed ringing. He’d been ignoring it, lost in his own thoughts. Embarrassed, he reached in to pull it out.

  “Sorry, I’m… I was miles away. Thank you.”

  The woman nodded and moved off quickly, the wheels on her cart squeaking as she trundled off down the path.

  Father Gabriel glanced around him. He was sitting in a park. He couldn’t have said exactly which one though. After leaving the sisters, he had walked and walked, trying to process what had happened and what it all meant. There was really nothing to be figured out when you got down to it. His past had finally caught up with him. He had lived with the Sword of Damocles dangling over his head, sure that this day was coming. There could be no doubt. Abraham was certainty and this was certainly Abraham.

  Father Gabriel glanced at the screen and saw that he had twenty-six missed calls. Most of them would be from Rosario – as this one was.

  “Hello.”

  “Father – gracias a Dios – you’re alive!”

  “Sorry, Rosario, something came up.”

  “Something came up? Something came up, he says! We been looking for you everywhere!” He could hear the relief in her voice turn to anger. “You been missing for hours. I called the cops. I got Gina Marks checking with all the other hospitals. You missed training at the gym. You missed the meeting with that guy from the diocese. You had Mrs Darnard waiting for an hour. We were worried sick!”

  “I’m sorry. It… it was an urgent matter.”

  “You gotta tell me where you goin’. Remember, you agreed to that. I gotta know. I gotta know.”

  To someone on the outside, Rosario would come across as a stereotypical mother hen, worrying needlessly. He was a grown man, after all. But Gabriel knew the whole story, which had poured out of her over a couple of days not long after they’d first met. A mother’s grief was unlike anything else. The pain, the wrenching pain, was so excruciatingly intense. That, and the sense of overwhelming, crushing guilt. It didn’t matter how many times you tried to take it away, you couldn’t lift the burden. Mothers never truly bury their children – they carry them on their shoulders for the rest of their days. In Rosario’s mind, her son would still be alive if she had known where he was and who he was with. It didn’t matter that he had been fifteen and making decisions for himself. His death was her failure.

  “You need help, Father? Where are you?”

  Now he was present again in his own life, Gabriel noticed how cold he was. He hadn’t taken his gloves when he left the church, not expecting to go far. “I’ll… I’ll be back soon.”

  Rosario, going through her own series of emotional responses, now that relief and anger had at least been visited briefly, landed on concern. “You OK? If you want, I can come pick you up? I got my car back from the shop – I can come get you.”

  “Honestly, there’s no need. Thank you, Rosario, I’ll be back soon.”

  He would be. He couldn’t walk away from this life or from the consequences of the last one.

  “OK. Did it work out alright?”

  “I’m sorry – what, Rosario?”

  “The thing. Y’know, the thing that came up?”

  Gabriel stood and pulled his coat more tightly around himself. In the distance, he could see the old bag lady looking through the contents of a trash can.

  “It’s… it’s too early to tell.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Diller and Bunny sat in the cab.

  “Jesus,” said Bunny, “’tis brassic. It’d take the bollocks off a brass monkey.”

  Diller rubbed his hands together and looked out the window. “I don’t know what the hell you said, but if it meant it is cold then you’re right, it’s cold.”

  Diller pulled his most prized possession, the oversized duffle coat he’d found in a thrift store a few weeks before, more tightly around him. He loved it. Even on a night like tonight when the temperature was well below freezing, it was like walking around in his own one-man tent.

  Bunny rubbed the condensation off the window and looked out into the night. “D’ye think he’ll be much longer?”

  Diller shrugged. It wasn’t a question that anyone could give a meaningful answer to. The clock on the dash now said 2:14am – Smithy had been gone for almost twenty minutes. Diller had never “cased” a building before, or been there while anyone else did it, so he had no frame of reference for when the third member of their team would return.

  Bunny turned around in the passenger seat and looked at Diller. “Thanks again for doing this, Dill. The pile of favours I owe yourself and himself are really mounting up.”

  Diller waved his concerns away. “Happy to help, and besides, you hired us for the week and getting paid for doing actual investigative work was pretty cool. Now this is over, I’m going to have to find something else to do.”

  “Are you not gonna go back to being the mascot thingy in Times Square?”

  “Nah. Too much hassle.”

  “Seriously,” said Bunny, “I’d be more than happy to help out with that. I wouldn’t – I could just have a quiet word with them lads.”

  Back in Dublin, Bunny had been a grandmaster in the art of the quiet word. Admittedly, his hard-fought and well-established reputation for being willing to go considerably beyond a quiet word meant he almost never had to. He’d been thinking about that a lot recently, between Father Gabriel asking him if he was a violent man, Diller’s remark about his method of problem resolution and then his bet with Smithy, it was – though he wouldn’t admit it – starting to bother him. As silly as it sounded, he had never thought of himself as a “violent man”. He considered himself someone who dealt with the problem of violent men. It was a distinction that was at the core of his self-image.

  “Forget about it,” said Diller. “Standing around in a silly costume all day wasn’t exactly a lifelong career goal. I’m happy to help out. Besides, if I wasn’t doing this, I’d be home alone, struggling to keep warm. This is way more exciting.”

  Bunny nodded. “Still – thanks. By the way, how is your ma getting on?”

  “Mom is doing good. I’m gonna see her Tuesday.”

  “Great.”

  They lapsed into silence again. Bunny pressed his face to the window and looked out into the night. Despite having been expecting it – waiting for it, in fact – Bunny still jumped when the driver’s door opened and Smithy climbed in.

  “Jesus,” said Bunny, “you’re a sneaky little sod. I never saw you coming.”

  Smithy shrugged. “We’re supposed to be staying unseen. Always a good idea when you’re trying to break in somewhere.”

  “Fair point. So, how’s it looking?”

  Smithy furrowed his brow and nodded. “It should be relatively straightforward. There’s an alarm box at the back of the building but it isn’t connected to anything. I spotted two cameras, both of which are clearly broken. There’s a door out back with a lock that looks pretty basic, but they might bolt it from the other side. I suggest we try that first and then if it’s a no go, there’s an outside fire escape we can reach and we can find a window to jimmy.”

  Bunny nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “OK,” said Diller, “let’s go!”

  “Whoa, whoa, hang on,” said Smithy. “Did you not tell him his role in this escapade?”

  “No,” said Diller, “don’t make me wait in the car again. I can do stuff.”

  “You’re not waiting in the car,” said Smithy.

  “Good.”

  “You’re protecting the car while also keeping a lookout for cops.”

  “You’re kidding, right? This area ain’t as bad as Hunts Point, but it ain’t far off. At night, I guarantee the cops only come through here if they’re chasing somebody or shots have been fired. They’re not cruising around the area checking everyone’s tucked up in bed.”

  “Which is exactly why I need you to keep an eye on the cab,” said Smithy. He handed Di
ller a walkie-talkie. “We’re on channel three. Let us know if you see anything suspicious.”

  Diller shook his head. “Suspicious? Everything that happens around here after dark is suspicious.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Man, I am sick to death of being the junior partner in this crew.”

  Bunny shrugged. “Sorry, Dill.”

  Smithy and Bunny had an unspoken understanding: Diller could help out with their “situations”, but only on the strict proviso that he didn’t commit any actual crimes, and he wasn’t put in harm’s way. Seeing as he’d already thrown himself at a moving vehicle that day, Smithy had been unsure about even letting him come. The thought of having to explain to Marcel that his taxi had been stolen was the only thing that’d brought Smithy round. Then again, that would save him having to get all the damage from the earlier car chase fixed. Bunny was paying, but Smithy disliked mechanics with the kind of pure, intense energy you typically only found at the heart of a star.

  Bunny opened his passenger door. “Right so, let’s kick this donkey in the knackers and see if he dances.”

  Smithy placed his hand on Bunny’s arm to stop him. “Look, are you sure about this?”

  “What’s there to be sure about? I asked them nicely and they wouldn’t play ball. I don’t enjoy breaking in there any more than you do, but you both know why I’m doing it. I’ve no choice.”

  Smithy nodded. “OK, it’s just… I dunno. I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “You always say that.”

  “Yeah,” said Smithy, “and I’m always right. When has anything we’ve done ever gone to plan?”

  “But you said yourself, ’tis an easy target.”

  Smithy picked up his tool belt from where it lay in the side pocket of the door. “Yeah, I know. That’s what worries me.”

  “Ara, what’s the worst that could happen?”

  Moments before, on the second floor of the supposedly abandoned school, Sister Zoya, aka the worst that could happen, had been watching the three men sitting in the cab on one of her monitors. The door behind her opened and Sister Dionne walked in.

  “Well?”

  “It’s exactly as Dorothy predicted. They triggered the alarms fifteen minutes ago.”

  “They already tried to break in?”

  “Negatory, big momma. My system picked them up through facial recognition.”

  “Oh. I see.” Dionne really didn’t, but experience had taught her that any questions put to Zoya regarding technical matters only resulted in a lot more confusion.

  Dionne pointed at the spare chair and Zoya nodded. The girl was nervous about her personal space and Dionne always asked as a matter of course before entering it. She sat down and looked at the feed showing the three men sitting in the car, talking animatedly. “Damn. I was really hoping Dorothy wasn’t going to be right – just for once. Who’s with him?”

  “The tall drink of hot chocolate and his vertically challenged sidekick – they stayed outside in the big yellow taxicab earlier.”

  “I see.”

  Sister Zoya’s vocabulary was becoming an increasingly odd hybrid. She was from Pakistan, and when she’d joined the sisters several years ago her English had been basic. She had added to it primarily by devouring YouTube videos and TV shows. Not liking to leave her room had left the woman with an unhealthy amount of time on her hands. She was still only nineteen, but Dionne was pretty sure most nineteen-year-olds didn’t speak like her.

  Dionne glanced at the other screens. Zoya had over a dozen cameras that were all but invisible to the naked eye stationed around the property, not counting the two decoys. Zoya liked her security to be discreet, as that way the criminally inclined were not deterred from attempting to break in. She viewed such opportunities as a wonderful way to test her toys in the real world. The woman was a genius – although you couldn’t use that word within her earshot – and she had proven invaluable to their organisation. Still, Zoya’s presence there made Dionne sad. When they’d agreed to rescue her and her mother all those years ago, it had been for the express purpose of giving them a fresh start. Instead, her mother hadn’t made it out of the Gomal Pass and the trauma had left Zoya with agoraphobia and other issues. She had become a sister by default – the lost child with nowhere else to go.

  Dionne took her eyes off the screen and noticed that Zoya had a large new poster of one of those Japanese comic book characters she liked up on the wall. Dionne found the overly large eyes disconcerting.

  “Where did that come from?” she asked.

  “It’s new,” said Zoya, using the joystick on her desk to move one of the cameras around.

  “Exactly my point.”

  “I got it delivered.”

  “What?”

  “Not to here. Calm down.”

  “But you… How did you?”

  “I got it dropped off somewhere and then my little Birdie picked it up.”

  “It can do that?”

  Zoya beamed a wide smile. “Yeah. Easy-peasy.”

  Birdie was the drone that Zoya had designed. It ran almost silently and had other features, all of which Zoya had explained to Dionne and none of which Dionne understood. It was the reason they had a crystal-clear shot from above the cab full of three men about to make a big mistake. Through a friend of a friend, the sisters had patented several of Zoya’s designs, and a couple had been sold for quite a lot of money. Dionne and Dorothy had tried to convince Zoya to take the fruits of her labour and leave, start a new life for herself, but the girl was insistent on staying. She had requested that all the money from her work go back into financing the order. All she asked was that nothing be sold that could have military applications. So, she stayed, and the sisters sourced the parts she needed through various methods that avoided detection. All of which meant that the sisters had a young woman who was possibly one of the world’s greatest engineers living with them, and they couldn’t persuade her to step outside into the big bad world.

  Dionne was drawn to movement on the screen. The doors of the cab were opening.

  Zoya clapped her hands excitedly. “Looks like we got ourselves a ball game, folks – batter up!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Smithy and Bunny tried to look casual as they crossed over. At this time of night, the streets were largely deserted, save for the occasional low-rider cruising by with its stereo on too loud or the odd homeless person wandering around, looking for warmth where none could be found. It was past 2am now, and while New York may have been the city that never slept, the suburbs dozed from time to time. With a quick glance around to confirm they weren’t being observed, Smithy and Bunny slipped into the alley at the side of the school.

  Smithy wordlessly led the way, using the torch on his phone to navigate the broken and cracked paving stones. They came to a wooden door with chipped paint which was half-covered by some very unimaginative and anatomically impossible graffiti. Smithy slipped a thin leather case from out of the tool belt hidden under his coat and selected what looked to Bunny like a scalpel and a long, thin bit of metal.

  “Here,” said Smithy, handing Bunny his phone, “keep the light on the lock.”

  Smithy set to work. It had been a while since he’d worked a lock. While a part of him was keen to see if he still had the skills, another part had hoped he’d never use them again.

  “Hold the light straight.”

  “Oh, sorry, I just…”

  Smithy looked up to see Bunny staring into the sky. “What?”

  “Ah, nothing. I just had this weird feeling we were being watched.”

  Dionne shifted backwards as the infrared image of Bunny seemed to look directly into the camera. “Can he see Birdie?”

  Zoya shook her head. “Not possible. My little Birdie has this radical mesh screen. You look at her from below, all you see is a HD rendering of the sky above her. Next best thing to invisible. Uh-huh, oh yeah. Sweet as.”

  “Right,” said Dionne, feeling only sl
ightly more assured.

  “Besides” – Zoya’s fingers flew across the keyboard and a couple of command windows opened up on the central screen – “if it’s a weird feeling they’re worried about…” She laughed maniacally.

  “What in the…?” said Smithy.

  “What’s up?” asked Bunny.

  “There’s something wrong with…” He stood up and tugged on the long, thin bit of metal. “It’s stuck. How can it be stuck?”

  “Did you jam it in?”

  “No.” Smithy let the tool go and it flipped instantly to stick firmly to the door. “What in the hell?” He looked around. “It’s like the door is magnetic or something.”

  Zoya laughed. “I like this guy. He’s real quick on the uptake. Do you want to see something really fun?”

  Dionne rolled her eyes. “Oh, go on then.”

  Zoya giggled again. “Let’s crank it and spank it.”

  Bunny and Smithy stared at the door.

  “What in the shittin’ hell is going on?”

  “I have no idea,” said Smithy. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  With a soft tinkle, the two tools suddenly detached themselves from the door and fell to the doorstep below.

  “Crap, give me the light,” said Smithy. He took the phone and bent down, only for his tool belt to slam into the door instead. “Jesus.”

  “Stop pissing about.”

  “I’m not. It’s got me. It’s got my belt.”

  “Oh, for…” Bunny grabbed hold of Smithy and attempted to pull him away from the door. “I got ye, I got ye…”

  “Let me just untie the belt.”

  “No, I…” Bunny placed his foot against the wall and proceeded to try and heave Smithy off the door with all his might. Just as he did so, the force holding him was released. Both men flew backwards, landing messily in an icy puddle behind them.

  Despite herself, Dionne smiled as Zoya slapped the desk. “Yes. Yes. Yes. That was so sweet!” Zoya unexpectedly tossed her hand up for a high five. Dionne looked at it uncertainly. While on one hand it represented a step forward for Zoya and her personal space issues, on the other, Dionne really hated high-fiving.