The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  “Because it’s the start of the story, which I’m getting to if you’ll give me half a feckin’ chance.”

  “Okay. Brilliant. Get on with it.”

  “You went off to the Dublin Conservatory,” Thomas began. “And that was fine with me. I could run things the way I wanted, be in charge, and not have to worry about you arguing for your own ideas. I thought I knew what I wanted. Turns out I didn’t.“

  Thomas looked thoughtfully into his glass and swirled its contents. “After a while, I hired a couple of men to work for me. I didn’t know them and didn’t like them much, but they did what I told them to, so I couldn’t complain. It went on all right for a few more years, but it just wasn’t the same. And then one weekend, I went to a wedding—”

  “Whose?”

  “Declan Garvey’s.”

  “That aul’ eejit,” Conor said, dismissively.

  “Yeah, that one,” Thomas nodded. “I woke up on Monday morning after a three-day hangover, and I realized I was still single and was probably going to stay that way. I saw that I’d likely go on being a bachelor farmer, living on the edge of the Atlantic with my queer old ma who had more to say to the fairies than she did to the neighbors, most of whom were scared shitless of her anyway. It gave me a peculiar feeling. Like I was suffocating. Started to feel a bit desperate, really.”

  Conor swallowed painfully. The observation struck a nerve and extinguished the last of his pleasant, whiskey-induced buzz. “I’m acquainted with that particular feeling myself,” he said. “I had to become you, remember, once you got tired of it.”

  “I know, but I never expected—oh, hell.” Thomas passed a hand over his eyes. “We’ll get to that, later.”

  “These men you hired, where did they come from, were they local?”

  “No, couple of hard cases from Armagh.”

  “Damn,” Conor said, softly.

  “Yeah.” Thomas gave a melancholy nod of regret. “Anyway, I started drinking too much in my room at night, and when that seemed too pathetic, I started drinking too much with the lads from Armagh. It was them that turned me on to this ‘pub-in-a-box’ scheme. They’re filling me with stories about their buddy Bobby Durgan, who’s over in America. He’s going to build Irish pubs all over the world. Pretty soon, I’m on the phone with him. Everything you need comes in a kit that arrives by ship in cargo containers, he says—walls, floor, bar, furniture, everything, right down to the bloody knick-knacks and buckets of turf. He’s had a plan for India, and he’s looking for investors. I’d go there, take delivery on the kit, get the thing built, and then be in charge of running the business. I know, I know,” Thomas said, acknowledging Conor’s dumbfounded stare. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I was off my nut, drunk nearly every night, and the whole thing got away from me.”

  He paused at the sound of a raucous cheer from the other end of the pub. The Australians—a football team, if size and numbers were any judge—looked ready to settle in for a week. They’d moved to a collection of tables next to the bar and had erupted in song. He waited, a wistful, half-envious tolerance in his eyes and continued when it was over.

  “Before I know it, the lads and I are at the bar filling out application forms for an EU business loan—they told me it was a business loan, anyway—to get cash for the investment; all dead simple, low-interest, start making payments as soon as I’ve got money coming in the door. None of it felt real, to tell you the truth. It all seemed like a bit of craic, something that would take a long time and then might never happen anyway, but in the meantime I could pretend I had great expectations.” Thomas emptied his glass with a slow, long sip and pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket. As he lifted the lighter to it, he looked at Conor and stopped. “Sorry, I forgot.”

  “No, go ahead. Wish I could join you.” Conor nudged the ashtray forward. “The place is full of smoke anyway. Doesn’t seem to be bothering me.”

  “No sense risking it.” Thomas slipped the cigarette back into his pocket. “Better for both of us.”

  “Thanks.”

  They regarded each other for a moment without speaking. “Conor, it’s good to see you,” Thomas finally said, his voice cracking.

  “Same here, mate.”

  “I’ll get back to it, now.”

  “When you’re ready.”

  Thomas took a deep breath. “Well, it didn’t take a long time, and once it got rolling, it all happened fast. I get a phone call from the EU’s man in Dublin. Did I not get the award letter for my grant, he asks me, which of course I hadn’t. I thought it was a loan, I tell him, and he laughs at me. No, sure it’s a grant, free and clear, nothing I’ll need to be paying back. So where’s the money then, I ask him, and he gurgles away at me again. Must have thought me a right culchie. In the bank, of course, wired to the account on the application. Then he rattles on about metrics and objectives, how excited they are about my innovative ideas, and that he’ll be coming over in a few days to look at the sheep; and the light finally dawns that I’ve been played. It wasn’t an EU business loan. It was an agricultural grant based on an application full of lies.”

  He paused again and glanced at the whiskey bottle with an air of troubled speculation. Silently, Conor picked up the bottle and put it down on the floor next to him. A flicker of annoyance passed over his brother’s face, but then it melted into a sad smile.

  “Good lad,” Thomas whispered. He cleared his throat and continued. “So I go off to beat the lard out of my Armagh drinking buddies, the bowsy little wankers, and they’re all soft talk and reassurance. They’re going to look after me. I’m one of them now, and I’ll be taken care of, as long as I go with the program and don’t make trouble. I’m to come over here as planned and get the pub running as a front for this money-laundering gig Durgan is putting together for a Mumbai gangster. After a while, they’ll let me come home again. I’m part of the brotherhood now, they say, and as long as I’m loyal, they’ll be good to me and to my family. Well, Jesus, we all know what that means.”

  Thomas shook his head. “I didn’t have much time to think, and I wasn’t in very good shape for thinking, anyway. They had me out of the country by the following day, and I”—he broke off with a frown and then finished weakly—“I ended up here.”

  This last, prevaricating statement sounded clumsy. Conor picked up on it and shot Thomas a quizzical look.

  “I get the idea you just skipped ahead a few chapters. You’re leaving out some interesting details, I’m thinking.”

  “No more than you,” Thomas countered, his chin jutting in defiance. “I’d say we’ve both got details we’re not proud of and maybe not ready to talk about yet.”

  It was harder to detect, but there was something even in this that seemed slippery. He gave his brother a look of cool assessment before ceding the point. “Fair enough. I have to ask though, Thomas. Did it never occur to you that once you’d skipped the country, the EU would look at the other name on the application, and that Interpol and the Garda and every other pillar of justice would be falling down on my head?”

  “It didn’t.” Thomas’s voice choked with sudden emotion. “It didn’t, because I didn’t know your name was on it. I didn’t send you those papers, Conor. The last time I saw the bleedin’ things, they were spread across the bar in Matty Jack’s pub. I didn’t know you’d been pulled into it until almost a year after I got here.”

  Conor could see that this was the absolute truth. Thomas leaned over the table, put his face in his hands, and was silent. He gazed at the large, scarred hands for a long moment, feeling shaky and unmoored. At last, he took a breath—he could never get one deep enough to be satisfying these days— and released it with a slow whistle.

  “I’ve half-hated you for years, thinking you tricked me on purpose and ruined my life.”

  “I did ruin your life. What’s it matter that I didn’t mean to?”

  “Quite a lot, as a matter of fact,” Conor said. His lip twitched ironically but soon he felt a cold
mask settling over his features. “Who are these people?”

  Thomas pulled his face from his hands and looked startled by what he saw. “You might say the IRA, three or four times removed.” He regarded Conor warily. “Castoffs and dead enders from the Irish People’s Liberation Organization, which was a splinter group from the Irish National Liberation Army, which had splintered from who-the-hell-knows. They’re not much to do with Ireland anymore, or republicanism, and they’re for damn sure not an army. They’re just criminals for the sake of it, to get rich and build a reputation as a player among the mafias of the world.”

  “That’s a start, but it isn’t news to anyone. You’ll need to be more specific than that, Thomas,” Conor said. “British intelligence is looking for names and locations, particularly for the ringleader—Frank’s ‘wizard.’ That’s what your immunity depends on, in all this. We can’t go back home and get this shut down without—”

  “We can’t shut it down,” Thomas broke in, abruptly. “I can’t go home yet, with or without immunity. There’s more to it, now. There’s a lot of moving parts you don’t know about in all this.”

  Moving parts. With a groan, Conor remembered where he’d heard the same term recently. For a few welcome hours, he had forgotten all about Sedgwick and his gauzy machinations.

  “Sedgwick and his friends—we haven’t even gotten to that part yet,” he said, realizing that after all this, they were only half-finished. “He wouldn’t tell me what their angle was.”

  “And he must have told you I wouldn’t either.” Thomas looked away with a stubborn frown. “We agreed it’s better for you not to know.”

  “That’s nice you both agree, but I don’t,” Conor said. “You can’t seriously expect that I’ll—”

  Thomas put up a placating hand. “Okay, Conor. Let’s not fight about it tonight. It’s another long story altogether, and you’re already knackered. I think we’d better be getting you back.”

  “I’m not tired,” Conor said, sharply.

  It was an unconvincing lie. Thomas smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling again with affection. He got to his feet and rested a hand on Conor’s shoulder. “Well, I am. I’m a lot older than you, little brother. I wear out faster.”

  23

  Despite his assertion to the contrary, Conor was, in fact, extremely weary and was growing more so from the effort of dodging around people and other obstacles as he struggled to keep pace with his brother ahead of him. They had emerged from the pub and were moving up the street when suddenly he felt it—a split second of prescience that something was bearing down on him.

  His reflexes were at low ebb. He had time only to tense his muscles, crouch, and half-turn before feeling the assailant’s blow against his side. He went sailing into a display of clay water jugs that shattered and crashed around him, and then slammed into a wall beyond before crumpling to the ground.

  “Shit.”

  He heard the familiar voice cursing somewhere above him as he scrambled to find his footing.

  “You. Follow me and guard the alley. You. Take this and pay that guy for the pots before a riot starts and then go wait in the car.”

  A pair of hands jerked him to his feet, and before he could recover his bearings, he was being frog-marched down an adjacent dead-end lane. Near the end of it, he could see Sedgwick’s white SUV parked at an angle.

  “Didn’t see that one coming, did you, Danny-boy?” Sedgwick growled into his ear. “You’re not the only one who can pull a fast one.”

  “Sure,” Conor shot back. “But when I take a crack at you, it doesn’t come out of my wallet.”

  “Shut-up, smartass. You just make me want to draw this out a little longer and enjoy it more.”

  With a sudden twist, Sedgwick turned and threw him against the wall again. There was very little light in the alley, but as he went down, Conor saw Thomas at the top of it, straining to escape from two muscular men. He recognized them as the taporis that had administered the savage beating in the Sewri godown two months earlier.

  “Sedgwick!” Thomas shouted. “What the hell are you doing? He’s sick.”

  “Oh, I know he’s sick,” Sedgwick snarled. “Believe me, that word is getting around. But he’s not half as sick as I’d like him to be.”

  Conor climbed to his feet again, and with a desperate intake of breath, launched himself at the shadowy, blond figure. He was knocked down again by a precisely aimed shot to the ribs. He fell down onto his back, chest heaving.

  “Leave him alone!” Thomas roared.

  “I will,” Sedgwick purred. “As soon as he stops getting up. Are you finished getting up, McBride?”

  He was too winded to speak, but as he saw Sedgwick’s hand move in the darkness he rolled away and snatched the Walther from its holster. A second later, he and the American agent had guns trained on each other in a stalemate. Sedgwick’s eyes widened with surprise. He was silent for several seconds, glaring at Conor impatiently.

  “Damn, you are such a pain in the ass,” he said. Without turning his head, he called up to the taporis. “Arrey, let him go. Let the gora come down here. Stay there and make sure no one else does.”

  The two men released Thomas and stepped back as he raced toward Conor.

  “Nice and easy, Tom,” Sedgwick warned, as Thomas, seeing the standoff, pulled up with a startled grunt. “Let’s all slow down and stay calm. Could you see from up there that Conor was pointing a gun at me?”

  “No, it’s too dark,” Thomas said, shifting his gaze between the two of them.

  “Good,” Sedgwick said. “Finally, I get a break. Put the gun down like a good boy, McBride. Tom, tell him to put the goddamn gun down.”

  Thomas looked at Conor in amazement. “I thought you left it under the pillow. What’s going on, here?”

  “Oh, quite a lot, really,” Sedgwick remarked, sarcastically. “Haven’t shared the news of your recent escapades with your big brother, Con? Can’t imagine why not.”

  Conor said nothing. He was still breathing hard and struggling to hold the gun steady. He couldn’t yet manage talking as well.

  “The crux of it,” Sedgwick continued, “is that Ahmed Khalil sent me to kill you, and the taporis are here to make sure I do. If I don’t, they have instructions to do it themselves and take me out in the process. Now, I’ve got a number of pretty good reasons to ice you, McBride, but oddly enough, I don’t feel inclined to do it. So here’s the plan. While the Khalil boys stand guard up there, I’m going to march you down to the car, throw open the rear hatch, fire a few rounds in your general direction, and then pack you into the back and drive you away.”

  With a snort, Conor managed to find his voice. “You’re an awful feckin’ eejit, if you think I’m believing that.”

  Sedgwick gave a low, ironic laugh, shaking his head. “I was afraid of that. This was going to be very straightforward until you pulled the gun out, but now we’re stuck role-playing a Fort Monckton case study. You’ve got to decide if I’m telling the truth, or if I’m going to plug you as soon as you drop your arm. It’s a tough call. I am pretty pissed at you, and you know why. Not a whole lot of trust between the two of us right now.” He glanced at Thomas. “This is how it’s been with me and your brother, for the most part. We end in a draw.”

  “Bullshit,” Conor said. “I’ve kicked your ass more than once.”

  He could easily believe that Sedgwick was compromised for his indirect responsibility in letting a thief loose—a foreign one, no less—within a prestigious Indian mafia organization. Not only had Ahmed Khalil lost money, he had been made to look like a fool, which was worse. That part of the story was plausible, but he was far from convinced that the ridiculous scenario just outlined represented Sedgwick’s true intention.

  “Looks like we’re going to need your help, Tom,” Sedgwick said, grimly. “He isn’t going to trust me, but I’m sort of hoping you will. This is the only way it’s going to work. I’m trying to save the bastard’s life as well as my own.�
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  Thomas had been standing off to the side, watching them in dazed confusion. Now, he rubbed a hand fretfully over his head and turned a questioning look at Sedgwick. “I don’t understand any of this. What’s Conor got to do with Ahmed Khalil, and why would Khalil want him—”

  “There isn’t time,” Sedgwick said gently but with a note of urgency. “Please, help me out here before it’s too late.”

  Thomas sighed, and to Conor’s horror, turned toward him with a look of firm purpose. “Put away the gun, Conor. I’ve known him a long time, and I believe what he’s telling you. If I didn’t, would I put you in danger? I don’t know what the hell is going on but if he says this is the way we’ve got to do it—”

  “You don’t know what’s going on, and that’s the point,” Conor hissed. “You don’t know what I’ve done. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known him, you don’t know what you’re getting into with this. He’s got good reasons for wanting me dead or at least missing. We don’t need to make it easier for him.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Thomas argued. “It’s three against two, and I’ve got no weapon. Those two at the end of the lane would finish off at least one of us.”

  “Not necessarily,” Conor said, and added with some reluctance, “I’m a pretty good shot, Thomas. We might be able to—ah, shit.”

  His brother had moved in front of Sedgwick, effectively shielding him. He walked up to Conor and squatted down, hand outstretched. “Trust me, then, if nobody else. I know I’ve not spent ten weeks in a training camp learning to read faces and pick the liar out of a crowd, but we’ve got our own special instincts as well, you and me. Give it to me, will you now? I don’t want to see you killing anybody.”

  “Instincts can be wrong, even if they’re special,” Conor said, but he saw further argument was useless. He lowered the gun, and with practiced efficiency engaged the safety and tucked it back under his shoulder.

  Thomas dropped his hand, his brow creasing sadly. “Deartháirín ó mo chroí. I can remember when it was the fiddle you had to have with you everywhere. Did you bring it over here with you?”