by Eoin Dempsey
Tony stood up and raised a finger to his lips before drawing keys out of his pocket. He moved around the wall to the back door and slid a key into the lock. It made a tiny clicking sound only they could have heard, and he pushed the door open. He motioned to Mick to put the balaclava back on and they crept inside, the black masks over their faces. Tony reached into the bag and pulled out two revolvers. He handed one to Mick. It wasn’t loaded. It was hard to tell if Tony was incredibly smart or incredibly paranoid. In all likelihood, he was both. Before Mick had the chance to protest, Tony was whispering again.
“They’re in the living room. I think the boy’s up in bed. You get him.”
He burst through the kitchen and into the living room, the gun drawn. Mick could see Tony’s smile peeking through the mask.
“Hello, Jennifer. Hello, Tracy.”
They both screamed, the girl scrambling to hide behind the armchair she was sitting in. She was about thirteen. Petrified tears ran down the wife’s face as she pressed her whole body back against the armchair, her eyes wide with terror.
“Shhh, stop that now. If you keep that noise up someone’s going to get hurt. Come out from behind there,” he said to the girl. “Get the boy,” he said to Mick. The lights were off on the top floor and Mick felt his way up the stairs. He tried one door and then another before he found the child, around five years old, asleep in bed. Mick held the door open, watching the child’s breath push his chest up and down in perfect rhythm.
Tony was still standing in the middle of the living room aiming the gun at Terrence’s wife and daughter as Mick came back in.
“The boy was asleep. I figured it was best to leave him up there.”
“You’re probably right.”
“What are you doing here?” the mother said, pushing the words out through quivering lips.
“Are you going to kill us?” the daughter asked.
“Not if your dad does as we ask him.”
“What could you possibly want with Terrence?”
“I can tell you one thing this isn’t and that’s a question and answer session. You will shut your mouth. You will not say one word. You make one move to call the police and the girl dies.” Tracy squealed. “And you, if you scream one more time, I’ll kill your mother, do you both understand?”
They nodded in perfect unison.
“Now, what’s on the telly?” Tony said as he sat down on the couch.
“What’s the meaning of this?” The mother asked.
“I thought I said no questions.” His tone was almost jovial. It was as if he knew them, as if this were some big joke. Mick stood by the door, watching in silence. “I will allow that one. We’re here to make sure your husband, your dad, does us a favor. If he does that favor, we’ll release you unharmed. We’ll just walk out the door and you’ll never hear from us again. If you try to mess us around or if I hear word that he does, well, let’s just say that things might get violent.” His words were like razor blades.
The young girl jumped up in her seat. Tony fixed a glare on her.
“What time does the boy get up at?”
“Usually around seven,” the mother replied.
“Will he sleep through the night?”
“Yes.”
“All right then, let’s plan on being in this room until at least then. In the meantime, my colleague here, who you can call Shay, will take you to get some blankets. You can call me Billy.” He directed the mother to get up, waving the barrel of the gun at her. “Shay, make sure she doesn’t try to make a phone call or shout for help.”
Mick followed the mother out of the room and up the stairs. They went in silence, Mick’s heart beating faster with every step. He had to find out where that van was going. She must know. He could call it in himself, but how? Tony had given him an unloaded weapon. The mother’s legs were rigid as she walked. They were inside the bedroom when he shut the door behind them. She looked at him with the petrified eyes of a child, stepping away until her back was against the wall.
“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered. “I’m not like him. I’m trying to stop him. I’m working undercover.”
Her face changed, the fear in her eyes mixing with confusion. He put the gun into his pocket, holding his hands out.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just need to know why he took your husband. I need you to tell me so we can stop this. I know it must be hard for you to believe, but I’m on your side. I’m trying to stop whatever he’s got planned, but I need your help.”
Her face slackened as she tried to take in what Mick had said. She opened her mouth to speak but then shook her head.
“He said that if we try anything, that if we tell anyone…”
“He won’t know. Dozens of people are going to die if we don’t do something.”
They both heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. They had only seconds left.
“Where was your husband going?”
The door handle turned and Tony’s face appeared, the daughter by his side.
“What’s going on here? Having a chat? We need to get back downstairs. Get the blankets and let’s go. Before we go, you two take the chance to use the toilet.”
They picked up the blankets and walked out. The daughter went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
“What were you two discussing?” Tony asked.
“She was asking me to let her go. I told her she’ll be free to go tomorrow.” The mother’s face constricted with the lie. It was tight as a guitar string.
“Maybe. I certainly hope so,” Tony replied.
The daughter came out and the mother shifted in past her. They stood and waited for a minute or two before tramping back down the stairs into the living room.
Hours passed with no words spoken. The mother and daughter huddled together on the couch with Tony and Mick in the armchairs on either side. The late news was on. There was no mention of any bombs or terrorist activities. The Apprentice Boys parade would officially begin at midnight with the firing of cannons from the city walls, then continue the next morning with the parades throughout the day. It would end at around four when the highest ranking marchers returned to their headquarters at Memorial Hall, not ten minutes walk from Bogside. Memories of throwing stones and shouting abuse at the marchers as they passed along the city walls overlooking Bogside came to him. Everyone else had done it, even Pat, so he did too. Their parents would have killed them had they known. Hitting the parade would have to wait until the next day, but where would be bombs hidden in the kegs be placed? What pub could they hit that the marchers would be congregating in, or passing by? Dozens of pubs would be filled with marchers and non-marchers, some Catholics interspersed among them. It was a Saturday night. Mick stared across at Tony as he watched the television, trying to pierce into his mind.
“I’m going to the toilet,” Mick said. Tony looked at him with lazy eyes before focusing back onto the glowing screen.
Maybe there was some kind of paperwork, some sign of where Terrence was meant to go to deliver those kegs. Mick slipped into the kitchen, the phone beckoning him on the wall. He rifled through some papers left out on the table, a few bills, a letter from the bank and a postcard from Terrence’s mother. He moved to the windowsill, poring through old checks and letters from school. He looked at his watch, aware of every second he was gone. Tony was as likely to shoot him, as he was Terrence’s wife or daughter. If he aroused any suspicion, he was as good as dead. There was nothing in the kitchen and there probably wouldn’t be anything anywhere in the house. It was a routine delivery. That’s why Terrence had been taken; he was a part of a routine no one would suspect. Mick poured four glasses of water, carrying them into the living room on a tray he’d found in the corner. He gave one to each person and settled back into his seat, the yoke of tiredness beginning to bring itself to bear upon him. The key was to stay awake, to wait for his chance to get the mother alone again and then to make the call somehow. He
would wait for his chance. It would come.
Chapter 28
His father came to him, holding out his hand. He was still alive, had been all these years, living in Belfast. Mick asked him why he’d left, why he’d never told him, but his father had no answer and they found themselves fishing on a lake, and Pat was there and their mother too. Mick was a child again and dipped the end of his fishing rod into the water before casting the line far out into the expanse of the water spread out like a carpet of deep blue beyond. His father turned to him with a smile on his face and put his arm around him, drawing him in tight. Melissa walked down to the water and sat down beside them. They watched the sun come up, casting yellow, red, orange, gold light all over so that nothing else was visible, only the glowing beauty of its aura.
Mick awoke with a jolt. Dawn was leaking in through the curtains. His eyelids felt as if they were stuck together. It took him a few seconds to figure out where he was, the unfamiliarity of the surroundings jarring him before the far more horrific remembrance of the reality he was in formed in his mind. It took him a second to shake off the haze of sleep. The TV was still on; the talking heads of the breakfast show well dressed and smiling. Tony was asleep. His eyes were closed, his chest heaving in time with each long, heavy breath he took. His hand was on his chest, the gun out of reach underneath. The mother and daughter were asleep too and had been since about one. The last thing he remembered was checking his watch at five and Tony had been awake then. It was almost seven fifteen now. The boy upstairs would be awake soon.
Mick took his leg off the arm of the chair and placed it on the carpet as gingerly as he could. It was no good Tony being asleep if he still didn’t know where the van had delivered the kegs. He glanced over at the couch and saw the girl staring back at him. Mick’s heart jumped inside his chest, but he remained still. He held the girl’s eyes. A few seconds passed before he put his other leg on the floor and raised a finger to his lips. She watched him as he stood up and moved toward her. The door was closed. Mick had no idea how heavy a sleeper Tony might be but knew that opening the old wooden paneled door risked stirring him. He pointed over toward the door before bringing his hands together to plead with the young girl to follow him. She didn’t move. He went to her, hovering over her on the couch.
“I want to get you out of here while he’s asleep,” Mick whispered. “You’ve got to trust me.”
She took a few seconds, looked over at Tony and then back into Mick’s eyes. “OK,” she whispered. Mick helped her off the couch and led her to the door.
“Where are you off to?” The voice came from behind them like a cold blade slicing into his back. Tony was sitting up, the gun in his hand.
“I was taking her to the toilet. The young boy is going to be up soon too.”
“Can we leave him in his room?” He directed the question toward the girl.
“Not for long, he’s going to need his breakfast.” She answered.
“We all will. I’d murder a nice fry up. Sound good?”
“Yeah, definitely,” Mick answered.
“Bring her to the bathroom and then get the kid. We’ll be in the kitchen waiting for you.”
The mother opened her eyes and sat up on the couch, emerging from the sanctuary of sleep into the nightmare of her real life. Mick put his hand back on the door handle. It didn’t matter how much noise it made now as he opened it. He left the door open, hearing the sounds of Tony and the mother making their way into the kitchen as he and the girl trod up the stairs in silence. It was impossible to know how much time he had, but the parade was beginning in less than two hours. The bombs could explode at any time after that, and, with no warning time to evacuate, his call to the police would be useless. He had little time to play with if he were to affect this. He knew that Tony wasn’t going to slip. The mother, or even the girl, would be the key, and he was with the girl now, walking up the stairs behind her. They reached the top of the stairs and Mick motioned toward the bathroom. The sound of the young boy’s voice came through the door of his room, calling for his mother.
“Go to the bathroom, and then we’ll get him,” Mick said, his voice soothing and soft. The girl did as she was told, her blue eyes stricken with red streaks, the skin below swollen from tears. She closed the door behind her and Mick waited, listening to the boy calling over and over. The sounds and smells of Saturday morning breakfast drifted up the stairs. Mick realized just how hungry he was when the girl opened the door.
“I need to speak to you,” he whispered. “We don’t have much time.” The boy was banging on the door now.
“Get that kid and get down here!” Tony roared from the kitchen.
“That man is using your father to deliver what I think are bombs.” He reached out to the girl, gripping her wrist like a baby bird in his palm. “I’m trying to stop him, but I need to know where your father was delivering to last night. They intercepted him and replaced the kegs of beer in the back of his van with kegs of their own, kegs with bombs inside. I need to know what their destination was. Who does you dad work for?”
“He works for the brewery.” Her voice was soft as crushed velvet.
“Have you any idea where he was going last night? Was it somewhere to do with the parade today?”
“The other man said he’d hurt us, if we….”
“I’m not going to let that happen. Please, where was he going?”
“I…I don’t know. I know he mentioned it, but I don’t remember.”
“You have to try. Does your mother know?”
“Probably, I can ask her….”
The banging on the door was louder and louder and Mick heard heavy footsteps pounding out of the kitchen toward the bottom of the stairs.
“Get the kid and get down here!” Tony shouted.
“All right. She was taking ages in the bathroom,” Mick called down the stair before turning back to the girl. “Let’s get your brother.”
The boy recoiled at the sight of the stranger in his house, but the girl calmed him down. She took him in her arms, she brought him downstairs to the kitchen where her mother was at the stove. Tony was sitting at the table. The light of the morning was flooding in through the kitchen window.
“Pull down the blind,” Tony ordered and the mother complied, leaving a chink at the bottom to let the light in.
The daughter let the boy, who seemed on the verge of tears, out of her arms and he took a seat at the table. The mother poured him some cereal and kissed him on the head. Tony was at the head of the table, with the girl at the opposite end beside her brother. Mick sat beside them, the mother in between him and Tony.
“When are you going to let us go?” the mother asked.
“We’ll have a few more hours together. Plenty of time to get acquainted.”
The mother served sausage, bacon, and fried eggs to her captors, sitting down with them to eat. No one spoke; the only sound was the harsh scratching of cutlery on the plates. Even the boy was petrified into silence. After breakfast, the mother made them tea. Tony made no sign that they would be moving back into the sitting room, seemingly happy with the new surroundings and ordered the mother to turn on the radio. It was the girl who broke the silence first, perhaps half an hour later.
“Tommy likes drawing. Can I get some pens and paper and we’ll draw some pictures together?”
“Why not?” Tony said as if acknowledging the question was below him.
The girl left, returning less than a minute later with a small bucket of pencils and crayons as well as several pieces of both colored and white paper. She laid them out and the two children began drawing pictures of houses and farms, animals, and green fields. Mick watched them as they drew, all too aware of the ticking clock in the corner and the impending massacre. There must have been two hundred pounds of explosives in those kegs. Martin must have rigged them somehow that the barrel was split into two, with beer at the top covering the explosives in the bottom half. It would be impossible to detect, particularly
after getting them from a scheduled beer delivery. If the barrels were in place, the only thing that could stop them was a malfunction in the timers, but with that many kegs the chances of them all being faulty were miniscule. It was all down to him. The clock on the wall said nine-thirty. The parade was under way. The marchers would be making their way around the city walls in their dark suits and white gloves, their purple sashes draped over their shoulders, the cacophony of their marching drums and the union jacks flying. The bombs could be primed to go off anytime.
The girl poked him in the arm, staring at him with huge eyes. She handed him a drawing to examine. It was of her father in the delivery van, his name on the side. A rush of adrenaline shot through Mick’s body.
“Do you want us to draw you another?” she asked.
“Yes, please,” Mick whispered, his heart thumping in his chest.
Tony looked away, his arms crossed as he stared out through the gap under the blind into the back garden.
Mick watched her as the girl drew a large building with tiny colored stained glass windows dotting the walls. She drew marchers in the parade walking toward it and the name, Society Street, as a sign on a wall and Mick knew. The kegs were being delivered to Memorial Hall, the headquarters of the Apprentice Boys of Derry, where the leading clubs met after the day’s marching. The horror of Tony’s plan spread through him like death itself, rendering his entire body stiff and cold. He knew the building well. It was only about a mile from where he’d grown up, half a mile from Rossville Street. He had thrown eggs at it as a boy, shaking his fists and cursing the Prods before running back to the safety of Bogside. The heads of the Apprentice Boys would all be there after the march, all of the principal clubs in one place. A bomb going off there would cause unknown carnage, would enflame every militant unionist in the city and cause unthinkable retribution. Loyalist anger from this would be unparalleled. Dozens would die today, untold hundreds more from the whirlwind of violence that this would create. Tony still stared out into the garden, doubtless dreaming of the civil war he was trying to start.