The Dead Yard (34 page)

"What are you talking about?" she asked, puzzled.

"The woman Touched murdered
was
working for British Intelligence and the FBI," I
said.

"How—"

"Because I am too. They put me in that bar in Revere in the hope that I would run into you and
win your trust. They got me that crappy job in Salisbury working with another British agent. I
was brought here specifically to infiltrate your group, to stop you carrying out atrocities, to
prevent a further escalation of violence in Ulster, and to help save the peace process.
Everything I’ve done is for Ireland and for a peaceful future."

Her lip quivered, her mouth opened, but she said nothing.

"It’s true, Kit. I’ve been associated with the FBI in one form or another for the last five
years. My name’s Michael, not Sean. Everything I’ve told you about myself is made up. But
everything I’ve told you about me and you is true. I love you and it happened the way I said it
happened. That night in Revere when they tried to kill your dad. I care about you, Kit. I want
you to do the right thing. If you let Touched kill Peter, it’ll destroy you. It will ruin your
life before it’s even begun. You’d be killing yourself and your father and Sonia and Jackie. All
of us will die because of Touched’s insanity. He’s a fucking twist, Kit. He
is
touched.
He was so crazy that they exiled him. You know what he would do to me if he found out I was an
inside man for the Brits? That woman in Newburyport would consider herself lucky she wasn’t
me."

Kit walked backwards away from me, as if I’d punched her in the stomach. All the color out of
her face.

"You, you, you’re a liar," she said in such a quiet voice that I wasn’t sure she was speaking
at all.

"I did lie, Kit, I had to. But you yourself said the ends justify the means. Remember that? We
can save Peter, we can save your father and all of us," I said.

"You lied to me."

"I had to. If I hadn’t, there would be no one here to stop this madness. Kit, come on. You
know it’s the right thing to do."

"What?" she muttered.

"Listen to me. Pay attention. Say you’re having your period and you need tampons, Touched
won’t question that; get the car, drive into Belfast, and call the police. Tell them to come
after midnight when everyone’s asleep. There won’t be any gunplay. We’ll all get arrested
and—"

"You won’t get arrested," she interrupted.

"No, I won’t. But Touched will and he’ll go to jail for life for his many fucking crimes and
the rest of you will get a few years and be out again. Think of the alternative. Peter dead and
the rest of you, haunted forever by a senseless killing, on the run from the police. And it won’t
stop there. Touched will kill and kill again until he’s caught. He’s like a virus. That twisted
brain will keep on killing and infecting other brains with his evil. It’ll be too late for your
father then, he’ll be an accomplice and he’ll get locked up forever, or worse."

"We’ll all be locked up now under your plan," she said softly.

She was forcing herself to be controlled, her eyes big and broken and on the edge of an
emotional abyss. How could I do this to her? How could I? Easy. I’d really no other choice.

"No. Only for kidnap. Nothing else," I said quickly. "I’ll testify that it was Touched’s plan
and everyone else went along under duress. A few years, Kit. That’s all. Believe me."

"Believe you?" she said, her voice breaking.

"Yes. Believe me, you have to do it. It’s the right thing to do. The way of life is better
than the way of death," I said, but she still couldn’t take it in.

"Your real name is Michael?"

"It is. I am from Belfast, but I’ve been living in America since 1992."

"Working as a policeman?"

"No. It’s complicated. It’s a complicated situation. Can’t you see? I’m risking everything by
telling you this. You get that, don’t you? I’ve taken my life and put it in your hands like a
fallen bird. You can save it or you can squeeze it out. My life is the bird in your hands."

"I don’t know, Se—Michael," she said, wavering.

"I need you, Kit. I need you to do this for me. And I need you because I love you and I want
to spend my life with you. I want to make you happy."

She laughed bitterly and wiped streams of tears away from her cheeks.

"You’re not making me happy now," she sobbed.

"No, I know. But it’s only a little bit of pain and it’ll all be over. You’ll have to be
brave. You’ll have to be smart. You can’t overact. You can’t make them suspicious."

"What do you want me to do?" she asked in a monotone.

"Come back with me and tell Sonia you’re having your period. And then tell your da that you’ll
need the car. Tell them in a couple of hours, a long time after you’ve talked to me, so they
don’t even associate the idea with me."

She stood.

"It’s too much. All of this. It’s too much. My head hurts," she said.

"No. You’re doing great. You’re doing so well, Kit. So well," I said.

She stepped backwards over the fallen tree, away from me.

"I need time to think," she said.

"Take all the time you need."

I leaned over to hold her hand. She flinched and backed farther away.

"Don’t touch me," she seethed.

"Sorry," I said.

"I fucking need time to think about all this, for Christ’s sake. Why did you have to tell me
today? This was supposed to be the greatest day of my life. This is the thing I’ve been looking
forward to for years, when I would do
it,
with the right man. And now this is the
fucking worst day of my life. My head feels like it’s going to explode."

"Take your time, Kit, take your time. I’ll sit here."

Kit nodded and stormed off into the trees without looking back. I waited a minute, then five
minutes. I sat down on the big fallen tree trunk. Would she come round? I didn’t know.

It was my only play. I had no regrets. I had to do it.

I lay down on the mossy bark and waited; waiting still as the wind picked up and it grew
colder and I watched the cirrus clouds and cerulean sky give way to the first black line of the
storm front that was marching ominously south from Canada.

A twig snapped farther down the trail in the direction of the pond. And of course I knew what
it meant. Goddamnit. It meant I was going to die.

The birds were quiet.

I pulled up my trousers, tightened my belt, and got into a crouch.

Another twig snapped in the same place.

Now I was certain of it.

She’d told them what I’d told her. And they were coming to kill me. The twig snapping was the
person Touched had sent to circle around me and lie in wait ahead of me on the path leading to
the pond. They would come from behind. Maybe they’d even goose me out, like beaters after
pheasants—they’d barrel down from the house with their guns drawn, screaming profanities and
yelling blue murder, I’d run for the trail, and there he’d be, pointing a big hand cannon at my
face. Jackie, more than likely, since he was the nimblest on his feet.

Gerry and Touched from the back. Jackie ahead.

No Kit, though. Touched would make Kit stay at the cabin with Sonia. There would be no arguing
this one.

I listened but the woods were quiet.

It didn’t matter. I was certain.

Yeah, Jack up front, the big lads at my back, probably coming ninety degrees apart from the
northwest and northeast.

I slid off the branch, crawled into the leaves of the forest floor, and scanned the trees.

Waited.

Nothing.

Of course, that crack could have been a deer standing on a sapling, a squirrel doing a suicide
leap from a tree, a dry branch expanding with the heat of the day.

But it wasn’t.

It was goddamn Jackie or I’m a Dutchman.

I shrugged off my leather jacket, which Kit had draped over my shoulders, stripping to the
dirty matte black T-shirt underneath. I slithered away from a log and towards the trail, mucking
myself up as much as possible. Any camouflage would do. Even half-assed last-minute stuff.

Kit, oh God, Kit. You’ve signed my death warrant. It was hard. You had to choose between me
and duty and you picked the noble cause over me.

Still, you don’t kill Michael Forsythe that easy.

And I had several things in my favor. The forest was dark, I was on to their game, and they
were a hodgepodge bunch of hoods. An inexperienced one, an obese one, and an overconfident crazy
one. Whereas I was a Grade A survivor. The bad penny that always turns up. The cockroach that
will not die. The man who took down the empire of Darkey White and cleaned the clock of his goons
and lackeys.

I slid through the leaves and the dirt, down an incline.

Keep your head down and don’t look up. Slide, don’t crawl. I slithered over roots and through
a bramble bush and a mulchy pile of rotting leaves.

Gunning for you, Jack.

The weak link.

The woods were as still as woods get and the silence was an alarm. They were close and
closing. If it had been night, I could have hid and waited them out, but it was day and I had to
move. Follow the slope downhill to the path to the pond.

Oh, Kit.

Put you in the God’s-eye view. What do you hope will happen? They capture me? Or I get
away?

I slid over a rock and down a gravel embankment that was steeper than it looked. There’d been
a fire or flood or tree fall because the earth was frictionless and scoured of bushes and roots.
I slipped faster and faster and finally fell, tumbling over my feet until I reached the bottom of
the slope at a small clearing.

I’d made a lot of noise. I tensed.

But they hadn’t seen me.

I got to a crouch and listened for them. Again, nothing. I was now about a hundred feet from
where I’d started, from where Kit said that I’d be. I was cuffed and alone and there were three
of them with guns, but I might just…

If I kept going in the same direction eventually I’d come to a road. Maybe flag a car. Of
course, if they lost me, they’d have to clear out of the cabin. Flee to some other bolt-hole
Gerry had stashed away. They’d be in disarray. They’d know that they were fugitives, that Gerry
couldn’t return to his cozy life and his big beach house. Would they kill the general’s son and
then go? Would they take him with them? Would the dissent be strong enough for Gerry to decide
that the game was over? Would he surrender?

I had to put the pressure on. I had to get away.

Not just for me, but for that eejit Peter, too, and for her. For all of them, come to that.
Touched was as much a danger to them as he was to me.

He was a real dead-ender. He’d bring them all down in flames. He’d make them drink the
Kool-Aid.

A white shirt in the trees fifty feet to my left. Gerry, carrying a massive double-barreled
shotgun, wading through the woods, breathing hard, as determined as a big bear. He hadn’t seen
me. He wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve.

I slid backwards into the undergrowth.

Checked the sun, got my bearings.

The pond was about a hundred yards behind me. But the path that skirted the bank was not
thickly forested. Still, if I could get there, I’d leg it. Sprint to the far shore and then just
go like mad to the top of the next hill. Keep going over it, into the next valley and then east
to a road or a farmhouse or anywhere.

I was almost at the pond path, but where was Jack?

He should be right here.

I moved slower.

Got ready.

The air freshened and a wind blew thick with moisture. It was going to rain at any minute.
That would help me too.

Another downslope. Face first, eating dirt and all the bases.

Static from a walkie-talkie.

"Any sign of him?" Touched’s nervous voice asked.

"Nope," Jackie said, a few feet from me on the top of a rise. "Not yet."

I stole a peek over a thornbush. There he was. Radio in left hand, pistol in right, back to
me, head bent down out of the wind.

If I could take him out, and get a gun into the bargain, that would certainly level the
goddamn odds.

Gerry couldn’t follow me up the hill, so we’d be talking one against one.

Nice.

Jackie was walking away from me, up towards a rocky outcrop from where he could survey the
terrain. I crouched on all fours and made my way behind him. Six feet away, five feet, four
feet.

I’d jump him. I’d land on his back, left arm round his throat, pull hard. Snap his neck,
soundlessly, take his walkie-talkie, his jacket, his gun, shoot the cuffs, run for the far side
of the pond.

I loosened my fingers.

Tensed.

Stood.

A huge crashing noise.

A sharp hammer blow in the back of my shoulder. I was spinning through the air. I thumped into
a tree and came down heavily on a rocky outcrop, cracking half a dozen ribs.

Jackie turned. He was right above me. I’d landed at his feet. I reached out to grab his shoe
and pull him off balance but I was moving in slow motion and he easily stepped away.

Lightning triage. Ribs, broken nose. I’d been shot in the shoulder and the bullet had
ricocheted off my head. Flesh wounds, but it wouldn’t matter now.

"Don’t move," Jackie said, nervously pointing a .22 pistol at me.

"I got him," Touched shouted. "I fucking nailed him."

"Get over here," Jackie called out.

Touched ran over, breathless, his .38 smoking, his grin as wide as ever.

"Is he dead?" Jackie wondered.

"No way, he’s not dead. Don’t think he’ll die from that. Will you, Sean? Or whatever your name
is. Just winged him, Jack."

"Hell of a shot."

"Aye, glad I didn’t top him. For him it has to be slow. He’s going to think that the
unluckiest thing that ever happened to him in his miserable life was my bullet missing his
traitor brain."

"Fucking liar, too," Jackie snarled.

"We may as well get started," Touched said, and I made an effort to turn my head and stare at
him. Delight on his upcurved mouth and a frenzied look in his eyes.