Dean Lynch arrived in Booterstown just before midnight and was soon inside his new rented flat.
It was time for the final stage, the settling of all scores.
It was time to go into positive action.
It was time for revenge, the mother of all revenges. Every hurt, every slight, every unkind comment had been noted. The enemy had been identified.
It was time for the enemy to suffer, to suffer as much as he had done. And he had suffered a lot.
'Is the baby all righ'?'
Tommy Malone climbed into the Datsun.
'Yeah, yeah. He's fine.'
'Jaysus I hope so, Tommy. The whole country's up in arms abou' this. They're bayin' for yer blood. We'll swing for this wan, we'll swing for it if they don' get tha' baby back.'
'Just drive the fuckin' car, will ye? Get me the fuck outa here. The road's swarmin' with cops.'
Betty gave him a filthy look, switched on the engine and eased the car out and back along the Naas dual carriageway. She noticed she seemed to be driving against the main flow of traffic. Everyone seemed to be heading towards Newbridge, and everyone seemed to be in a squad car.
'Are ye sure that child's all righ'?'
Tommy rounded on her angrily. 'Didn't I tell ye he was fine? He's fine. I'm tellin' ye. Fuckin' sight better than me.'
But Tommy Malone was wrong. Gordon O'Brien was very unwell. The bacteria spreading throughout his lungs were already spilling into his blood stream.
Tommy Malone had misjudged the baby, misread all the signals.
Day 9
39
12.38 am, Tuesday, 18th February 1997
The Jaguar Unit was in place.
Jack McGrath had been notified by the local Gardai in Newbridge of a possible sighting of the kidnap gang. He scrambled the full Jaguar Unit and they assembled in Brian O'Callaghan's farm cottage. O'Callaghan was beside himself, dishing out pots of tea and sandwiches, fussing around like an old woman.
It was decided that a reconnaissance group of three would approach the other cottage and place two listening devices near the front and back windows. They slipped out into the moonlit night and across the fields. The ground was hard and frosted, there was hardly a breeze. As they moved sheep bleated in surprise and cantered to the shelter of the surrounding hedges. There they stopped and watched as the three shadowy figures climbed over a bank that separated part of the field from the whitewashed cottage. One of the group made a positive identification of Sam Collins and reported back.
'Collins definitely, a woman carrying a bundle, probably the baby, though there wasn't as much as a whimper out of him. There's no sign of Mulligan and definitely no sign of Tommy Malone.'
A detailed discussion then followed on methods and when and how. Front door or back? Stun grenades or not?
'Better not,' said McGrath. 'We don't know how that might affect the baby.'
The final group of six detectives decided on an armed assault.
'There's no use trying to reason with them, or telling them they're surrounded and to come out unarmed,' McGrath explained. 'There's no knowing how they might react. They're dangerous and probably desperate. The chances are they'll hold the baby as some sort of shield and try and make a break for it. The baby could get hurt.'
What really forced the issue, what really determined an early, rather than prolonged siege, was the woman. She'd been picked up on one of the listening devices. 'Tha' child's lookin' very sick. I'm very worried abou' him.'
Back-up ambulances were ordered, one to be staffed by a nurse trained in paediatrics. A decision was made to transfer Gordon O'Brien as soon as possible to the Central Maternity Hospital paediatric wing, no matter what condition he was in.
The six detectives dressed themselves in black from head to toe. They wore black cloth caps firmly pulled down over their heads, black vests, thin black sweaters, thicker black sweaters over that, and black tracksuit tops. Finally came black flak jackets, a special order from the RUC in Northern Ireland. Their faces were then smeared with black camouflage polish. Each carried a Smith & Wesson .459 automatic pistol. Three had these strapped just above ankle level, freeing their hands for heavier artillery. One chose an UZI sub-machine-gun as his main fire power while the other two decided on Hechler & Koch MP5 machine-guns. The three-man reconnaissance group advised gloves against the bitter cold and all six slipped on tight conforming black leather gloves.
'Right,' said Jack McGrath grimly. 'Let's go.'
Brian O'Callaghan went down on his knees with a pair of rosary beads and prayed like he had never prayed in his life before.
The plan was simple. It had been rehearsed in a mock-up cottage near the Templemore training barracks in Tipperary
many times. The Jaguar Unit knew how to storm buildings ranging from cow sheds to five-star hotels.
Two would take the front door with a small explosive charge, while three would go in through the back door. One would go through the only window that looked vulnerable. The baby complicated and compromised the plan a great deal, there could be no smoke bombs, no stun grenades, no wild shooting. In addition to the six-man assault squad there was a back-up of seven other armed detectives, primed to go in at the first sign of difficulty. There were at least twenty unarmed uniformed Gardai deployed around the target. There would be no escape route for the gang.
They went in just before one am.
Moonface had woken from his drunken slumber in a foul mood. 'Where's Malone?' It wasn't
Tommy
any more, it was now
Malone,
as in I'm pissed off and fed up and freezin' and where's Malone to get us outa here? He picked up his handgun and started cleaning it at the kitchen table. There was still heat in the fire and he pulled closer for warmth.
Outside, through the kitchen window, Jack McGrath watched carefully, noting the gun. He motioned his partner to watch out for it and he nodded back. There was no sign of Collins or the woman or the baby, but the outsiders looking in now knew the layout of the house. There were three bedrooms, one with a window that could be entered quickly. The other two rooms had windows that were too high or too small to be of any use.
Inside, Sam Collins had taken himself to bed, wrapped in a sleeping bag and as many blankets as he could find, including those he had pulled off Tommy Malone's bed. He promised to kill him when he came back, he'd been gone well over four hours. For a while Collins wondered whether Malone had actually done a runner, then dismissed it out of hand. Apart from the baby, he wouldn't leave Peggy Ryan, the two were old buddies. Even in Dublin underworld circles where personal feuds erupted regularly, you still looked after your own during a job. What you did with them afterwards was a different matter.
As the explosion blew the front door off its hinges and into the small entrance porch, Jack McGrath hit the back door with a large sledge hammer and it gave way immediately. The sound of breaking glass confirmed one of the unit was on his way into the side bedroom. In his still recovering drunken state, Moonface's reflexes were just that bit slower than usual.
Which was a pity.
For Moonface.
He stood up, big mouth wide open with surprise, desperately fiddling with his handgun to get off a shot. Jack McGrath's reflexes were razor sharp and a short burst from the UZI ended Moonface's chances of going to the big match. For ever.
Sam Collins couldn't get out of the sleeping bag in time to put up a struggle. Within seconds he was pinned to the floor, a heavy boot rammed against his neck and the tip of the barrel of a Smith & Wesson .459 dangerously wedged inside one of his nostrils. 'Move and your head comes off.' Which was an unnecessary warning in the circumstances.
They found Peggy Ryan in tears, beyond being frightened, peering into the travel cot. She knew it was all over and she was glad, she'd had enough. She looked up at the blackened face.
'Ge' a doctor quick. I think he's dyin'.'
1.47 am
'Help, Mummy, help! Stop, stop! Stop him Mummy!' Rory woke up screaming.
Kate Hamilton ran and lifted him with one movement, feeling his tiny body tremble with fear. 'Shush, shush, it's all right, Rory, it's all right. Shush, shush, Mummy's here. It's only a bad dream. You're all right, Mummy's here, shush.' She held him like there was no tomorrow.
'What's the matter? Were you having a bad dream?'
Rory was still sobbing, his fingers gripping her arm so tightly it pained. He could hardly get the words out.
'What's wrong, pet? You're all right, Mummy's here.'
But Rory let out a wild shriek that chilled the marrow. 'He's after you! Look out Mummy! He's after you!'
She clasped him tighter, feeling his heart pound so strongly it almost matched her own. My God what a shriek, what was he dreaming about? What the hell did he see on TV? Thankfully Rory slumped back to sleep, thumb in mouth, Ted in hand. She placed him gently back in his own bed and stroked his head in the dark, kissing his forehead. Even in the gloom as she watched his tiny chest rise and fall she could make out his father's features in him.
'Don't worry, Rory,' she whispered. 'Mummy's going to be all right. I have to look after you. There's no one else to look after you. There's just the two of us. Don't worry, Mummy's going to be all right.'
2.17 am
Dean Lynch woke up soaked in sweat. The nightmare was back and she was after him. Again.
'Come back here, Dean Lynch! Come back here!' She was chasing him along the darkened corridors of the orphanage. He ran and ran but he knew she would catch him, she always did. He looked behind to see her gaining, the black hair shaken free and loose, her long white bony hands stretching out towards him.
'Come back here, Dean Lynch. Come back here.'
'No, no, no! Leave me alone, leave me alone.'
He ran round another corridor, then another, then suddenly realised her footsteps had stopped. He stopped and listened, all he could hear was his laboured breathing and his laboured heartbeat. Where is she? He crept slowly and quietly to the next corner, peering around. No one. He crept to the next, past open doors that led only to blackness. He peered around. No one. Then he started around the final
corner. It was always the final corner in his dream as it had been in real life. Slowly, but surely, dragged as if by some powerful force, he came closer to the under-stairs door.
His own Hell. Where the blackness always seemed so black, the darkness so dark. He turned to run away.
Straight into her grasp.
That white, white face with those dark, black, wild strands of hair. Those thin, long, bony hands that held him fast and hard. There would be no escape. He tried to scream, then tried again, but the noise would not come out, as if stuck in his throat. One bony hand restrained his strongest struggles while the other pulled the door open.
'No, no! Please! No, no!' He thought he was shouting, but still the words would not come out. His struggles were no use, she was stronger.
Bucking and threshing he was forced inside the small under-stairs space, his arms and legs pushing against the closing door which squeezed him back.
'No, no!' His screams finally came out, his pain burst. 'Stop, stop!'
But the door always closed, it
always
closed, against his weak and weakened body. He slumped down behind it, sobbing and pleading. And always, always he heard that voice.
'You can sleep in hell now, Dean Lynch. You can sleep in hell.'
But this time the voice was different, this morning the face had changed.
It was Kate Hamilton who was persecuting him.
He walked around the floor, agitated and trembling, his heart racing, his body drenched in sweat. He pulled open the briefcase and unsteadily rocked at the inset until it came free. The gun was sitting snugly, the bullets well secured.
He fixed a syringe of heroin and injected slowly. Very slowly, very, very slowly and as he drifted into oblivion he smiled. He could see the gun, he knew how to use it and he knew who was going to feel its might.
3.07 am
'He's dead. There wasn't much chance of him surviving that, he's dead.'
A white-coated and exhausted-looking doctor was staring at the ambulance trolley in the corridor outside the casualty department of Naas General Hospital. On the trolley lay the body of 'Moonface' Michael Mulligan, late of Limerick, Rathmines and this world. He placed two fingers on Moon-face's carotid pulse and shook his head wearily. Then he shone a light into the pupils of Moonface's eyes, noting their lack of response. He looked again under the red blanket draped across the body and saw the green soccer tracksuit top, now heavily blood stained.
'There's not much point bringing him in here,' he said to the two ambulance men.
'We need you to confirm it, Doctor. Once you give us the nod we'll take him over to the hospital morgue.'
He gave the nod.
'You'll have to notify Dr Noel Dunne. He'll need to be informed about this.'
The doctor looked at his watch and yawned. 'I'll ring him later this morning. I can't see him climbing out of bed at this hour. Take him to the morgue and ask one of the Garda to stay with him all night.' He yawned again, it had been a difficult and long night.
'I can't get a vein, I can't get a vein! His veins are totally shut down.' Inside the casualty department of Naas General Hospital five doctors were gathered round the tiny body of Gordon O'Brien. He was lying on an examination couch, wrapped in what looked like tin foil in a desperate attempt to raise his body temperature.
He was a very sick baby. A chest X-ray showed pneumonia with consolidation throughout both lung fields. An oxygen-saturation monitor strapped to his foot showed his blood oxygen level was very poor. His breathing was fast, laboured and shallow, his lips blue, his body cold, his core
temperature low. They couldn't get a vein for an IV line, his circulatory system was so severely compromised from septicaemia and shock. The bacteria had spilled into his general blood system and were multiplying fast.
He was in grave danger of dying.
'Get me a sterile instruments tray and cannula and fresh frozen plasma,' barked the senior doctor on duty as he washed his hands under hot running water. He dried them quickly and slipped on a pair of sterile surgical gloves, watching as nurses made their own basic observations on the ominously still baby. One was recording time and temperature while another unpacked green drapes, preparing for surgery. A third nurse had already set up IV fluids on a stand and was waiting for the next order.
One of the other doctors began swabbing Gordon O'Brien's neck area, noting how unresponsive the child was. The green drapes were then drawn around the baby's neck, leaving only a small area exposed. Within three minutes a cannula had been inserted through the neck and into the jugular vein. 'Okay, run in the plasma. Give him fifteen millilitres per kilogram stat over the next ten minutes.' The fluids started dripping in. Blood was taken for culture and sensitivity, other bloods taken for biochemistry and haematology. Volume expanders, antibiotics and dopamine were next in line for intravenous infusion.
When the Naas resuscitation team felt they had done all they possibly could, the still limp body of Gordon O'Brien was laid inside a pre-warmed incubator and transferred to a waiting ambulance. The IV lines were attached to a small infusion pump, then carefully strapped so as not to be disturbed.
'Go, for God's sake. Go like the clappers and don't stop for anything.' A nurse rushed out, clutching the blood samples, and jumped into the back of the already moving ambulance just before the doors shut closed.
The siren started.
The ambulance screamed along the Naas dual carriageway towards Dublin with a four-man motorcycle escort. Ahead
at every junction, a uniformed Garda was waiting to stop any traffic, ensuring a safe and steady passage for Gordon O'Brien who was going back to where he had come from on the first day of his life.
A second siren-screaming cavalcade had passed that same way only an hour earlier. In the middle was a reinforced Garda mini van with bars on the windows and special seating which allowed for the occupants to be handcuffed. Inside sat the mute Sam Collins and the sobbing Peggy Ryan accompanied by four of the Jaguar Unit, their guns still cocked and ready for action. Their elation at the successful mission was marred only by the state of the baby. Going through each of their minds was the dreadful thought: we're too late. Some of the unit had small children, others had had small children now grown up. All could remember them as babies and the anger they felt threatened to spill over. Four sets of angry eyes drilled in on Sam Collins. Just one stupid move, just give us one excuse.
4.32 am
Dr Paddy Holland snatched at the telephone through a blur of sleep.
'Yes, yes, who is it?'
'Dr Holland?'
'Yes, speaking.'
'Dr Holland this is Staff Nurse Angela Matthews in ICU. We have an emergency coming in by ambulance and the baby's supposed to be in a very bad way. Dr Conway told me to contact you immediately and ask you to come in.'
Holland sat up slightly in bed, resting on one elbow. 'Dr Conway? Dr Luke Conway?'
'Yes. He rang a moment ago and told me to ring you immediately.'
'But why? What's Dr Conway got to do with this?'
'He just told me to ring you and ask you to come in immediately. Apparently the baby's very sick.'
Holland swung his legs over the side of the bed, yawning and scratching, still holding on to the handpiece. 'Do you know anything more?'
'Can you wait one second, I'm going to close the door?'
The phone was laid down at the other end and Holland could hear voices, then the sound of a door closing. He wondered what was going on. The phone was picked up again.
'I'm terribly sorry, Dr Holland, but I couldn't let anyone else hear. It's baby Gordon O'Brien, he's been found. There's an ambulance bringing him in right this minute. He was found in a cottage in Kilcullen. A doctor from Naas hospital rang and said he looked very sick.' She paused slightly and then whispered, 'He said he didn't think he'd make it.'
Holland was already half way into his trousers. 'I'll be there in five minutes.'
He pressed on the receiver to get back the dialling tone and quickly punched in seven numbers. After ten rings a sleepy and annoyed voice answered. 'Yes, who's that?'
'Conor, it's me, Paddy. Paddy Holland. Look I'm desperately sorry to ring you but could Mary come down immediately and mind the children?'
'What!' Incredulous. 'At this hour of the morning?'
'Yeah. Look I'm real sorry, Conor, but I've just been called in on an emergency. I shouldn't be on duty but this is something very big.'
At the other end of the line a mixture of curses and mumblings could be heard. All the time Holland kept an eye on the digital clock at the side of his bed, watching it tick away the seconds. 'Conor, it's the little kidnap baby. I shouldn't be telling you this. But it's the little O'Brien baby. They've found him and he's on his way to the hospital. He's supposed to be in a bad way.'
There was a stunned silence at the other end.
'She'll be down in about half an hour. Give me enough time to get her up and dressed.'
'Conor, I'm going now. I'll leave the front door key under
the mat. Ask her to ring me when she gets here. And Conor, I'm real sorry about this. Tell her I'll make it up to her somehow.' Mutter, mutter. 'And you too, Conor.'
5.07 am
'Oh my God, he looks dreadful.'
Paddy Holland's first assessment of the limp body of Gordon O'Brien as it was carried into the ICU of the Central Maternity Hospital was not good. Then he swung into action immediately.
'Okay, get core rectal temperature and record it. I want two fully trained ICU nurses with him at all times. I'll need to set up a radial arterial line. Get a full blood count, biochemistry and arterial blood gases on those first samples now. I'm gonna take a fresh set this minute. I want all results phoned through here immediately they become available and let me know straight away, even if I'm not here, even if I'm in the toilet.' As he spoke the nurses were already working from intuition and experience. Blood sample bottles were in place, their request form details filled in. A line to establish the baby's central venous pressure and stabilise it was ready for insertion. There were two technicians waiting down in the laboratory for any fresh specimens; they had already started on the samples taken in Naas. It was an early start that morning.
'Double the drip rate of the antibiotics. Did they weigh him in Naas?'
'Yes.'
'Good, work out the dose of dopamine and check it with me.' He turned to look at the baby, still inside the incubator. He was flat and unresponsive, without even a whimper of protest or hunger. His eyes were sunken, there was only an occasional twitch of an arm or a leg.
I don't think you're gonna make it, thought Holland.
Gordon O'Brien was fighting for his life again.
5.32 am
'They've got him! They've got him! Harry, quickly, get dressed. They've got him. They've just rung from the hospital. He's there! He's there!' Sandra was half-sobbing, half-screaming as she shook her husband.
Big Harry was stumbling round the plush white bedroom trying to get into the clothes Sandra threw at him.
'Is he all right?' he shouted as he struggled to fasten the belt around his waist and at the same time slip his feet into a pair of shoes.
'Yes, yes, he's in an incubator and has some sort of infection but he's alive. Come on Harry, let's go! He's alive! They've got him!'
She was right on both counts.
They had him and he was alive.
But only just.
The bacteria were still multiplying.
6.01 am
'Tom Morgan? You can't be serious? You're joking me?'
Paddy Holland and one of his ICU nurses were sipping tea and munching on toast in the office beside ICU. A window gave them a direct view of all incubators inside and Gordon O'Brien's incubator had been moved so that he could be seen at all times. He was connected to three separate monitors, one for his heart, the blue tracing flickering across the screen constantly while a second recorded the CVP line and the third recorded his respiratory rate. At present all three were stable. There was one other baby in the unit, a little girl under close observation after her difficult birth.
'No, I'm not. One of the girls is married to one of the detectives in Store Street and she told me last night.'
'I just don't believe it.'
'Well I'm telling you, it's true.'
'My God.' Holland chewed on another slice of toast and sipped on his tea. He caught a momentary glimpse of his own reflection in the office window and groaned. Dammit, I look awful. He hadn't had a chance to wash or shave before he rushed in.
The phone beside him rang. It was his niece, Mary, ringing to confirm she had reached the house.
'How are the children?' Holland asked anxiously.
'They're fine, Uncle Paddy. They're fine. They're still fast asleep.'
'Thanks, Mary.'
'Don't worry, Uncle Paddy, I'll mebbe get the day off school. How's the wee baby?'
'Not great, Mary, he's not great.'
'Will I pray for him, Uncle Paddy?'
'That's a good idea, Mary, that's a very good idea. Say a decade of the rosary for him. Bye.'
'Bye, Uncle Paddy.'
The kids hate it, absolutely hate it, when they wake up and find I'm gone, thought Holland as he tried to put some semblance of order back into his bedraggled hair. He sighed deeply, the toast like sawdust in his mouth. What a bloody awful existence for them. No mother and a father who disappears like a thief in the night. What a life for them.
'Apparently they found something in his room when they raided it yesterday.'
'Oh, what?'
'I haven't a clue, he didn't know that bit, but apparently it was all to do with something they found in his rooms.'
Holland looked inside the ICU, catching one of the nurse's eyes and she so-so'd to him and turned back to the baby.
'They nearly pulled the place apart. Dr Conway was furious. I mean the wards are half-empty as it is but when they started walking through the corridors, hauling boxes of stuff out from here and there, it was more than most people could take. I heard another twenty-three discharged themselves against advice last night.'
'Oh no,' groaned Holland. 'I don't believe you.'
'I don't know what the place is coming to. The girls are scared stiff. There's no one wants to do night duty. If something doesn't happen soon I can see the whole hospital closing down. I mean it's hard to believe Dr Morgan would do such things but I hope it is him.'
Holland turned to her, astonished. 'Why?'
'Because it'll mean they've caught him. It means we can all sleep peacefully in our beds, not worrying the next night duty we're on we'll need a Garda escort to take us home.' The young nurse wiped her mouth with a paper towel, the anger in her voice barely suppressed. 'I just hope it is Dr Morgan, that's all. It'll mean they've finally got him.'