The Dead Yard

8: MURDER IN NEWBURY

Flints in the night sky. Oxidizing blood. Mosquitoes by the swarm and double swarm. A burning smell on the warm, wet trade wind. And, as I stood there, holding the distinctive grip of a smoking Colt.45, covered in filth, bleeding, soaked, a dead man at my feet, another man on his knees in front of me begging for his life, I thought to myself: What else is new?

I sighed.

This is exactly what I was talking about when I said that trouble followed me like sharks trailing a slave ship.

I spat, clearing the bitter taste in my throat.

“Please, sir, don’t kill me,” the soldier said as the echo from the.45 rolled down the river.

I thumbed the safety on the army-issue Colt and squatted down onto one knee.

“Listen,” I began but stopped as a light plane flew above us and somewhere in the distance a freaked-out cop unloaded his Glock into a harmless wading bird.

The soldier put his hands way up.

“I’m sorry about the fall. Please don’t shoot me, please, I’m getting married at Christmas. I have, a, uh, a kid from my first marriage, please, oh God, please.”

“Take it easy, you eejit, I’m an undercover FBI agent. Everything’s going to be all right,” I said.

His mouth opened in disbelief as he looked at me and then at Seamus’s blood oozing into the Parker River.

“I don’t believe you, let me see your badge, let me-”

“Shut up. Now listen to me, we’ve got to buy some time. Help me drag Seamus into the water.”

The soldier balked and stared at me, petrified.

“You gotta work with me, mate, come on, I’m not going to kill you, look, I’m putting the gun away,” I said, taking the.45 and slipping it into my trouser pocket. I picked up Seamus by the left leg and nodded for the soldier boy to lift the right. Dazed, confused, now he wanted to be told what to do. He grabbed the leg and we dragged Seamus to the river’s edge. I floated him in and watched him drift down towards the bottom of PI, Ipswich, and the ocean.

I climbed back up the bank.

“Please don’t kill me now,” the soldier said.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-one,” he said hesitantly.

“Thirty-one. Old enough to know better. Fucking pull it together, mate.”

“Ok, I’ll-”

“Be quiet. Follow me, we’re going into the water, quiet now, crouch low. Hurry up, this way.”

I got the soldier to bend down and I led him upstream for about a quarter of a mile. The peelers obviously had a canine unit because after about ten minutes the dog set up a terrible howling, which could only mean that they’d found what was left of the other half of Seamus’s head. Hopefully the dog would pick up the rest of the dead man’s scent and lead them to the river and then downstream. The wind was blowing off the sea so that would help a little too.

“What was that?” the soldier asked, spooked.

“That was a dog, they probably just found Seamus, come on now.”

We kept going and paused while I adjusted my prosthesis.

As we got farther upstream the Parker River narrowed, but I kept us going until it was shallow enough so we could easily cross to the other bank.

“Follow me to the other side, be sharp about it,” I told him.

He nodded glumly. Seeing Seamus topped like that had certainly gotten his attention and now he was Mister Cooperation. No more slow play, broken legs, or crying out.

I helped him up the slippery embankment and led him under a tree. It was a pretty good move to lose our scent in the water, but it wouldn’t fool Fido for long and Jackie was right about one thing, sooner or later they would have a chopper. I had to think fast. I sat the character on a big root. He was hyperventilating and afeared. He had to calm down and he had to believe me.

“First thing, take a big breath,” I told him.

He breathed deep and exhaled.

“Second thing. What’s your name and rank?” I asked.

“My name and rank?”

“Yeah, you have to tell me. Even if I was the enemy you’d have to tell me.”

“Specialist David Ryan,” he said, confused but maybe a little less frightened.

“Ok, David, listen, it’s gonna be ok. I’m going to let you go, but you gotta be cool and do what I tell you. Ok?”

He nodded.

“Good,” I said.

“He was going to kill me. He, he was going to kill you, too,” he muttered, recalling the grisly incident. He began to shiver.

I couldn’t afford for him to lose it now.

“Take it easy, mate. You were never in any danger. Not for a second. Neither was I. He had a gun but you’d need fucking kryptonite to take care of me. Now be cool and shut up a minute while I sort this out.”

I rummaged in my cargo pants pocket and took out the mobile phone that Samantha insisted I always carry for a situation such as this. The question was whether it would work when I needed it. The pocket was soaked and the phone was slathered in wet reeds, petals, and pollen.

“Just fucking work,” I ordered it and turned it on. It lit up by force of will and I got a dial tone. Thank God.

I rang Samantha’s number.

She picked up.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” I said.

“Mi-? Where are you? Are you on a portable phone?”

“Yes.”

“Hang up now and call me from a landline.”

“It’s an emergency.”

“Ok, well then, um, be very careful what you say.”

“I don’t have time for that shit. Seamus is dead. You’re going to have to send a team of FBI agents to the Massachusetts National Guard base near Rowley on Route 1A. Right now. We broke in, it went wrong, and Seamus is dead. And there’s a witness. They’re going to pick up a soldier, Specialist David Ryan. If you want this operation to succeed you can’t allow him to talk to the cops. The FBI are going to have to convince them this is a federal matter. We can’t trust the cops not to blab. He’ll be waiting there for them. He’ll be prepped.”

“What on earth is going on? Are you hurt?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you later. It’s a fuckup. It’s going to be your call on whether it’s a fatal fuckup or not. If you ask me, I think we should abort the whole thing. But like the good trooper that I am, I’m going to square it so we have all the options. Ok?”

“You have to tell me exactly what’s happened,” she said, an imperative tone overcoming her concern.

“No time. Listen to me. Write this down. Get the FBI to the National Guard Base on Route 1A, the 101st Engineers. It’s near Rowley and the Parker River. Pick up Specialist David Ryan. You better bloody move it too. I’ve got to go to PI and make this right. You owe me big time for this. Big time,” I said.

I turned off the phone and looked at Ryan.

“Ok, pal, now listen to me, the cops are going to be over here in a few minutes. I’m an undercover FBI agent, I’ve infiltrated a very dangerous cell of terrorists. They are on the verge of blowing tons of shit up. Remember Oklahoma City? Stuff like that. The lives of hundreds of people are at stake. If you tell those cops that I shot Seamus, my cover will be blown and months of preparation are going to go up the fucking spout and I’ll be executed and the terrorists are going to get away. This is bandit country, the cops can’t be trusted. Only the feds. Ok?”

“I can’t lie to them, I-”

“Take it easy, mate, you don’t have to lie, not exactly, what you’ll say to the cops is pretty much what happened: three guys broke into the base, they took you with them, you got away, and you heard a shot. That’s it. They’ll take you back to the police station for medical treatment, maybe to a hospital, doesn’t matter. You tell the cops that you got away from us and you ran and you don’t know what happened to us. Ok?”

He nodded, but he still wasn’t convinced.

“Don’t feel bad about it. The FBI is going to be talking to you in an hour or so, you can tell them the truth. There’s probably going to be an agent called Harrington. You can tell him everything. But if you tell your buddies or your fiancée or the cops or anyone else that I shot Seamus, I’m fucked. The terrorists will find out what really happened tonight and they’ll kill me. Do you understand?”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because it happens to be true.”

He blinked rapidly, his eyes wide and inexperienced. The fear was dissipating.

“Ok, I think, I-”

“No, no thinking. You’ll either do it or you won’t, tell me which it’s going to be. Hurry up,” I said.

He thought for a moment, struggled with it, but obviously he wanted to buy the story, either that or he was a hell of an actor.

“Ok, I’ll do it,” he said.

“You better not be lying. My life’s at stake. Dozens of lives.”

“I’m not lying.”

He looked at the gun butt peeking out of my pocket. I clicked my fingers in front of his face. I needed the locus of his attention on me.

“Tell me what you have to do. Repeat it back,” I said.

“I don’t tell the cops shit, but I do tell the FBI.”

“Very good.”

I had him, but I had to be a hundred percent certain. I crouched beside him, looked into his eyes.

“Now listen, Ryan, I’m trusting you with my goddamn life, so you better not fuck up.”

“I won’t man, I owe you.”

“One last time. Don’t tell the cops, but tell the FBI.”

“I understand,” he said seriously. “It’s like when you have to do deep recon.”

“That’s exactly what it’s like. Good. I like that. Ok, I have to go, give me ten minutes and then you can start screaming for the police. Got it?”

“Yes.”

I stood.

The soldier looked at me. He wanted to say something. I waited.

“Thank you for saving me,” he said. “And good luck.”

“I’ll need it,” I said.

I took the.45 out of my pocket, threw it into the Parker River, and ran as fast as I could into the swampy undergrowth.

I headed north for fifteen minutes until I came to a wood. Here I adjusted the straps on my prosthesis again, caught my breath, got my shit together.

What now?

Go back to Gerry’s?

How?

Hoof it.

Plum Island is a long sandy outcrop that runs parallel to the coast of northern Massachusetts. On the maps it’s an island but in fact at low tide the island is effectively joined to the mainland by a marshy spit of land. From where I was, north of the Parker River, it wouldn’t be a difficult trek east across the marsh and up onto the west shore. I could easily make landfall in the Plum Island wildlife reserve, cut across the quarter-mile-wide island to the Atlantic side, and walk up the beach to McCaghan’s house.

That would take about an hour.

I thought about it and it seemed feasible, and I was about to get going but then, like the sleekit wee character I was, a new plan began to grow in my mind.

A better one.

A much fucking better one.

What was it that I’d said to her? I saved your operation tonight. That I bloody had and they owed me.

I stood and instead of going east to Plum Island I went west out of the woods and towards the highway.

Brambles, an old graveyard, and eventually the trees intersecting with Route 1A again. Perfect. Not far now. I turned north, keeping to the undergrowth by the side of the road. Just before the town of Newbury I stopped at a gas station that I’d noticed several times before.

It was after nine o’clock, so the gas station was closed for the night. Still, I staked it out in the forest until I was damn sure it was unoccupied. At a break in the traffic I ran across the road.

The gas station was deserted and the object of my mission, the pay phone outside, was in full working order. I could call Samantha now without a danger of our call being intercepted. I picked up a rock and after a couple of tries I smashed the big light illuminating the gas station’s forecourt.

I popped in a quarter and dialed Samantha’s number.

“Hello?”

“Samantha, it’s me. I want you to pick me up at the gas station south of Newbury on Route 1A. I’ll wait here for fifteen minutes.”

I hung up before she had a chance to say anything and then retreated into the shadows. Her burgundy Jag appeared a little over ten minutes later. She had pulled a coat on over her nightgown. Her eyes suspicious, her lips thin and furious. She opened the car door.

“North on 1A,” I said.

I got in, she turned the car, and we drove for Newburyport.

“Michael, what do you think you’re-” she began, but I put my hand on her thigh and cut her off.

“Just listen… listen first. This is the whole story. We broke into the National Guard base to steal explosives, there was a soldier on guard duty, Seamus grabbed him, and he alerted the peelers. We ran out into the swamps, Jackie got away, but the soldier fell down and Seamus decided to kill him… I had to shoot Seamus to save the soldier. I told the soldier not to say anything to the cops and to save it for the FBI. I think he’ll do what he’s told.”

Samantha redigested the information.

“Who was with you?”

“Seamus, me, Jackie.”

She thought for a moment.

“Are you sure the soldier won’t speak to the local police?”she asked.

“No, he won’t. I told him to tell the FBI what happened but not the local police. If I were you, I’d get on the blower straight away.”

“Good. Hold on a minute, darling. This line is secure. Let me take care of it.”

She picked up her car phone and called someone who told her that the FBI were on their way to Rowley. She asked to be transferred to Stephen Harrington. She filled in Harrington and told him to get Specialist Ryan away from the cops as soon as possible by telling them this was an FBI and ATF matter. When she was done, she hung up and blew me a kiss.

“You did well, Michael, you saved the day,” she said with a grin; but I wasn’t having any of it. She wasn’t going to butter me up.

“Damn right I did. In more ways than one. Not just telling the soldier boy what to say. I could have given myself up to the cops and my cover would have been blown and you’d have had to pull me out. Operation over. And the best you could have gotten from the whole thing would be Jackie for an attempted burglary. That would be it. Gerry, Touched, everyone else scot-free and a million times more suspicious. A million times more careful. Oh, and one more time, keep your bloody car away from Gerry’s house.”

Samantha nodded.

“I’m sorry, I just drove over there today to make sure that you were installed safely, get the lay of the land around the house. Did someone comment on it?”

“No one commented on it, but don’t do it again, Touched notices things. And you don’t need to walk up the beach to give me warnings either. I may be a novice at this but I can handle myself. Just stay off Plum Island completely. With me you have to lay back. Give me room to breathe.”

She nodded. She had been overprotective and she had made a mistake. I was right to put her in her place.

We reached Newburyport. She drove up State and down Pleasant and pulled round the back of All Things Brit. She parked the car and turned off the lights. I looked at her. She knew I was gunning for something.

“What?” she asked.

“You want to talk here or in your flat?”

“We don’t have to talk.”

“Oh, I think we do,” I insisted.

“What do you want me to say, darling? Don’t make me cross. I’ve already told you that you did a jolly good job,” she said.

“No, no, it’s gone beyond the pat on the back. I saved the operation tonight.”

She opened her handbag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offered me one. I declined; she lit one for herself.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want a million dollars. Half a million each for the convictions of Touched and Gerry.”

“You want money?” she asked incredulously.

“Aye, I want money. The FBI gives me a stipend of about five hundred a week. It’s nothing. I want to be set for life. This is my opportunity.”

“A million dollars. Don’t be silly, there’s no way Six would ever approve-”

“Oh, they’ll approve. You were right, Samantha, it’s not just a bunch of dreamers. These guys are serious. Have you heard of a group called the Real IRA?”

“Yes, dissident republicans, very small, nothing much to worry about-”

“You think not? Well, I beg to differ. Gerry and Touched are planning to go under their umbrella in the next few months. Their plan is to set up cells and start a bombing cam- paign as soon as possible. By Christmas, they’ll have bombed a lot of commercial targets, got the nod from the Real IRA, and then they’re going to go for targeted assassinations. They are going to be killing people. Ambassadors, businessmen, retired army officers. These boys are bloody serious. And they’re careful and they’re good. And I’m the best chance you’ve got of bringing them down before they get started. We’ll save lives, save treasure, nab the fuckers. It’s the only way. You won’t discourage them by harassment. They’re hard-core. They’re pissed off at the IRA, at the American government, at the Brits, at anyone in their way. Very, very dangerous.”

Samantha looked at me with contempt.

“If that’s true, then it’s your duty to help bring-”

“Duty nothing. I had a way out tonight. You know it, I know it, and there’s bugger-all you could have done about it. I could have turned myself in to the peelers and blown my cover. But I didn’t. I had to kill a man tonight. Let’s not forget I saved that soldier boy’s life and topped a pal of mine.”

“Seamus wasn’t your-”

“It doesn’t matter if he was or he wasn’t. It’s still not easy. Ok? So as I see it, I’ve made plenty of sacrifices for you already and if this operation is to continue I want the fucking money. What’s a million to the civil service? To MI6? I don’t know, what would it be, less than a tenth of one percent of your annual budget? It’s nothing. And this will be a major coup. Kudos from the Yanks, muy prestige, promotions all round.”

Samantha thought for a moment.

“I suppose I could ask. It really wouldn’t do any harm to ask.”

“Damn right you’ll ask and you’ll get it.”

“I can’t guarantee anything. But certainly, darling, I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

I shook my head.

“No, that’s not good enough. You won’t see what you can bloody do. You’ll make an oral agreement with me right now, and you’ll have it drawn up by tomorrow. I want a pardon from Mexico and from Spain and I want my record wiped and I want a million bucks for information leading to the convictions of Touched and Gerry.”

She puffed on her fag, stubbed it into the ashtray. Opened the box, took out another.

“Well?” I persisted.

She nodded, looked at me.

“Ok, Michael,” she said softly.

“You’ll get it done?”

“I’ll get it done.”

“Good. Now, you got any water? I am dying of thirst.”

She reached behind her seat and handed me a bottle of water. I drank the entire thing in one big gulp.

“You want to take a shower at my place?” she asked.

“No, I can’t.”

“What are you going to do now?” she asked, concern drifting back into her voice.

“I’m going to go back to PI and square it with Touched. I’ll say I got separated from Seamus and the soldier and I don’t know what happened next.”

She thought for a moment.

“I’ll get the ATF to take over the investigation tonight. And we’ll do a press release tomorrow. We’ll say that it was a burglary gone wrong and the burglars took the soldier hostage and he escaped.”

“Seamus worked for Gerry, so when you find his body you’ll have to send a couple of FBI agents round to the construction firm. It’ll be too suspicious if you don’t,” I said.

“Of course. And we’ll bring Gerry in for questioning, too.

It’s the least he’ll be expecting. And this might be enough to get a judge to order a tap on his phones, although I believe they’re awfully strict in this country,” she said.

“Tap all you want, but I’m not wearing anything,” I said.

“I wouldn’t ask you to, you’re doing enough as it is, darling,” she said sweetly, her smile coming back again.

“Damn right.”

She blinked, hesitated. I wound down the window to get rid of the smoke smell.

“Michael, I have to ask this. Was there any other way with Seamus?”

“Talk to the soldier. He’ll tell you. It was him or us.”

“Ok,” she said quietly.

“I can’t bloody dillydally. Drive me close to the Plum Island turnpike and I’ll make my own way to Gerry’s.”

She nodded, stubbed out her cigarette, started the car, drove in silence to Plum Island, and dropped me at the deserted entrance to the wildlife refuge, where there would be no witnesses to see me get out of the vehicle.

“So you’ll have my contract and my pardons by tomorrow?”

I asked again.

“Yes, Michael,” she said, biting her lip.

“Good.”

I clicked my seat belt off and went to get out of the car.

Samantha stopped me.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Uh… I don’t know if it’ll be useful, but I found out about Kit’s real mother and father, they’re from New York. Hector and Lilly Orlandez, so she’s really a Latina, surprising with her complexion, you wouldn’t have thought-”

I cut her off with a shake of my head.

“That’s not what you wanted to tell me,” I said.

“No,” she agreed.

“What then?”

She hesitated.

“Just this,” she said.

She leaned across the car and she kissed me. She’d been drinking and her lips and tongue tasted of red wine. I kissed her and I ran my dirty hand up her thigh and I felt between her legs. She moaned and pulled me close.

“Michael, you will be careful, won’t you?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? I’m one step ahead of everyone,” I said. I pushed back her seat and took off her panties. I pulled down my filthy trousers and we had frantic, fugitive gunman sex.

Twenty minutes later, I was walking alongside the black ocean towards the big house on the dunes, where every light was on, and inside, no doubt, chaos reigned.

I scooped some seawater and washed off any residual dregs of Seamus’s blood and brains.

I went to the kitchen’s patio doors and knocked on the glass.

Touched appeared with a revolver tucked down the front of his pants. A grin on his face. He, at least, was pleased to see me. He pulled me in and hugged me.

“Jesus, Sean, thank God you made it,” he said.

Everyone was up. Everyone but Seamus, who had not yet returned. Sonia in a man’s shirt and white sweatpants. Touched and Gerry in their street clothes. Jackie showered and in a robe, trembling from head to toe, holding a hot whiskey. Kit, in her tight Body Glove T-shirt, stroking his hair.

I would have had Jackie packed off to Boston or Timbuktu on an alibi or in case the peelers showed, but not these guys. Loyal to their crew, looking after him like mother hens.

“What happened, Sean?” Touched asked.

“It was terrible, Touched, it all went wrong. Terrible,” I began, but Sonia interrupted me.

“Unless it’s life and death, I insist you get out of those wet clothes and go and take a shower first,” she said. Gerry shook his head and that was enough to assert his authority.

“Where’s Seamus?” I asked. “Nabbed?”

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Gerry said, his eyes bleary with worry.

I sat down at the kitchen table. Kit was holding Jackie’s arm and stroking his back. Jackie looked as if he was well medicated. Touched pulled up a chair and sat beside me.

“Better spill it from the beginning,” he said. “Don’t worry about repeating what Jackie said, I want to hear your version.”

I told it like it was, except for the very end. Jackie got separated from Seamus and the soldier and then I got cut off from them when I swam across the river. I made it to the woods. I thought I heard a gunshot but I wasn’t sure. I followed the coast and waded over the Plum Island River to the wildlife refuge, to here. But the whole thing was a disaster, a debacle of the first order.

Gerry nodded and patted me on the shoulder. Touched leaned in close and rubbed the stubble on his chin. His eyes were wary and cold. It made me nervous. His breath stank of cigarettes.

“This is very important, Sean. Were we set up? Was it a police setup?” Touched asked.

I shook my head.

“No, I don’t think so. Just a fuckup. The soldier was as surprised as we were. The cops came because of the alarm.”

Touched looked at Gerry. His face was a mask. It either confirmed or shot down what they were thinking.

“What was the last you saw of Seamus?” Gerry asked.

“I don’t know, he was pretty slow, he looked beat, he told me to keep going. I ran ahead of him and when I looked back he and the soldier were way behind me. Then I waded over the river and I thought they were behind me but they were gone.”

“And did the police see where you went?”

“Nah, I lost the pigs. I hope Seamus did as well, but he seemed a bit…” My voice trailed off.

“He’d been drinking?” Touched asked, his eyes narrowing.

I hesitated. I wanted to appear loyal and as if what I could say would be telling tales out of school. I looked at Jackie and then at Touched.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Touched nodded grimly.

“How bad was he? I want the truth,” Touched said.

“I don’t know, Touched. He was ok,” I said, appearing to be in the throes of an internal struggle.

Touched shook his head but he seemed satisfied. It was neither my nor Jackie’s fault and we’d done ok by getting away.

Sonia came downstairs.

“I’m running the bath in the guesthouse. I absolutely insist that he use it,” she said.

Gerry nodded.

“I’m done, what about you, Touched?”

“Me, too.”

“Ok then,” Gerry muttered. “Come with me, Touched.”

Touched and Gerry went to the upstairs den to confer and probably have a blazing argument. Jackie sat next to me at the kitchen table.

“Are you ok, mate?” he asked, trying to be conciliatory.

“Thanks for asking, Jackie; to tell you the truth, I’m bloody wrecked. Wrecked but basically in one piece. What about you?”

“I did something to my ankle, and there’s a cut on my thigh from the barbed wire, but I’ll be fine in a day or two,” he said.

“You see, Jackie boy, that’s the advantage of having the old bionic ankle,” I said and lifted up my prosthesis.

Jackie smiled, patted me on the back.

“You did well, Sean, as well as could be expected under the fucking circumstances.”

“How did you get away?” I asked.

“I just ran; I got to the river and kept going. I hope you don’t think I left you in the lurch or-”

“No, Jack, you did your best,” I interrupted.

Kit smiled and held my hand. Jackie, God bless him, didn’t seem to mind.

Gerry and Touched came back into the room.

“Listen, folks, we may as well go to bed. Seamus either made it or he didn’t. We’ll know in the morning,” Gerry said.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I said my good nights, walked across to the guesthouse, had a quick bath, found my room, and lay down on the big bed.

“We’ll know in the morning,” I whispered to myself. Then I closed my eyes and slept.

A tangle rain. A thick sea mizzle that came from the east, cold and sleekit, with a hint of knife that might freshen into gale. The kind of damp that penetrated everything. I shivered in my robe and bare feet. Up here on the balcony with its enormous field of view you were really aware of the weather. Normally, September in America still has a summer feel but September in Ireland is definitely the autumn. This felt like an Irish day.

Condensation blocked the window and the view of the woman next door, but I saw her husband in an overcoat climbing down from his observatory. No stars last night, so he probably kept his porn collection up there. He nodded to me and I nodded back. Secret sharers, the pair of us. I sipped the coffee and bit into the croissant that had been placed outside my door on a silver tray.

The cops had not come yet.

The news on the local radio said that a body part had been found at the scene of the robbery. The all-news station wouldn’t say what part had been found. But I knew. Half a bloody head.

Still, it had been an ebb tide and the current was the Gulf Stream, so maybe they’d never find Seamus.

The radio also said that a soldier had initially been taken hostage by the burglars but had escaped. There were three burglars. White males, twenty to forty. The reporter said the whole scene was still one of confusion. Some people were speculating that it could only have been an inside job, others that the whole thing was a practical joke gone wrong.

Confusion was good; the FBI would help muddy those waters.

I finished my coffee, showered, changed into a sweater and blue jeans, went to the big house.

The servants had been given the day off. Sonia was making breakfast. Touched saw me and shook me firmly by the hand.

“What news?” I asked.

“Nothing definite. But I’ve talked to a couple of sources in the cops. There were no arrests but they found an ugly mess that they think was bits of somebody’s head.”

“Seamus?”

“I don’t know, Sean. They haven’t found a body, so no one knows.”

“The radio said a cop fired his gun. Could he have hit Seamus?”

“I don’t know, Sean. Seamus hasn’t been arrested and he hasn’t showed up here, so either he’s scarpered or he’s dead.”

“Christ. What a fuckup,” I said.

Touched nodded.

“I take full responsibility,” he said. “I should have run the show. Seamus was hit pretty hard by what happened in Revere; I thought showing him that I believed in him would help snap him out of the funk he’d fallen into. Clearly a big mistake. I’ve told Gerry. My fault. I apologized to him, and I apologize to you, too, Sean. You’re only new, shouldn’t have let you go there under Seamus’s command. I should have known better and I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok, Touched. We’re out in one piece and the descriptions they’ve put out are pretty vague.”

“Aye, well, we’ll see about that. If Seamus was hit and managed to crawl a couple of hundred yards, they’ll eventually find the body and they will ID him. And of course they’ll come to Gerry and ask him questions. Gerry was his employer and he lived next door. They might bring that soldier boy to do a lineup on all of us. We are not out of the woods by a long way.”

“And if Seamus is wounded? But on the run?”

“He better keep running,” Touched said sourly.

We sat in silence while Sonia brought a plate of pancakes and more coffee.

“Are you hurt at all?” she asked me.

“No, I’m fine. Everything aches, but I’m fine.”

“Kit took Jackie to the hospital this morning. He needs to get stitches on his leg. I looked at it myself, nasty cut on his thigh. While he’s there, he’s also getting an MRI on his ankle, he was in pain all night,” Touched said sadly.

“He’s going to a local hospital?” I asked, surprised.

“No, we haven’t fallen that far from the straight and narrow. Kit drove him all the way to Mass General in Boston.”

He put his head in his hands.

“I can’t fucking believe this. And things were starting to come around,” he muttered to himself.

I said nothing and scanned the sports section of the Times.Gerry appeared and put his big paws on my shoulders.

“Are you ok, Sean? Did you hear about Jackie?”

“I heard. I’m fine,” I said.

Gerry looked at his comrade-in-arms and his face contorted as he dredged up a just-memorized quote from Virgil or somebody.

“Cheer up, Touched. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. This is not the end of the world,” Gerry said, terribly pleased with himself.

“It’s bloody close, Gerry. Even if the cops don’t get us, the FBI will have to take an interest now. An even bigger interest.And as for our plans to get the Real IRA to sponsor us, we can forget that, we’re a fucking laughingstock. Can’t even do a bloody burglary. Jesus Christ, Gerry, what a bloody joke. I don’t know. Maybe we’re getting too old for this. Maybe we should pack it in,” Touched said.

Gerry shook his head and sat down.

“Come on, lads. You can’t pack it in after one stupid setback,” I said, thinking of my pardon and my million.

Gerry nodded at me.

“Yes, listen to the youngster. And he went through it, Touched, the new generation sparks the old, remember that.What was it Jefferson said about the tree of liberty and the blood of the young or something…” Gerry said.

Touched tapped the table, forced a smile onto his depressed face, and ran his fingers through his long, graying black hair.

“No, I suppose you’re right, Sean,” he said after a while.

“I know I am,” I said. “You have to bounce right back up. Start organizing, be one step ahead of the peelers.”

Aye, start organizing right now, boys, a nice big conspiracy that’ll net the pair of you and lead to bloody easy street for me.

Touched grinned at Gerry, that big charming grin that gave me the willies.

“There’s always Portsmouth. Our little plan B,” Touched said.

“I don’t know,” Gerry muttered.

“It’s your call. It’s a target of opportunity and the window is slipping away. Although pull that one off and it’s instant respect from across the water,” Touched said knowingly.

Gerry nodded.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“Though I’ll need to do a lot of work on that still, Gerry,”

Touched said.

“Well, what are you waiting around for?” Gerry asked.

“I’m waiting for the cops to show up and ask about Seamus,” Touched said angrily.

“What exactly is the point of that? If you make yourself busy, things will seem a lot better. Come on, Touched. I have houses to build, people to hire, people to fire. Stop your fucking moping. If the police come, we’ll deal with it. If they don’t, we’ll deal with that, too.”

“And what about the FBI?” Touched asked, his mood darkening and his mysterious little Portsmouth op getting pushed to the back of his mind again.

“Are you afeard of the FBI, Touched McGuigan? Show some initiative, man; where is the bold wild colonial that I met twenty years ago, full of fire? Come on. Seize the day. Get out of here. Go and do something. I’ve got a spade and a shovel waiting for you, if you cannot think of anything else.”

Touched stood, laughed.

“You’re right, Gerry. As always.”

Gerry hugged him.

“Now get out of here.”

Touched nodded to me and went outside. Gerry punched me on the shoulder.

“You too, Sean. Outside.”

“It’s raining.”

“So what? Have you forgotten rain in your fortnight in America? Get my daughter and the pair of you go for a walk. That young lady has been mooching around ever since she left Jackie at the hospital. You’d think he was going to have open-heart surgery, not a couple of stitches and an MRI. Come on, out of my house.”

I got to my feet.

“Kit, get down here,” Gerry bellowed up the stairs.

“What is it?” Kit screamed from her bedroom.

“You’re taking Sean for a walk,” Gerry said.

“It’s pouring,” Kit protested.

“Get down here,” Gerry yelled again and gave me yet another conspiratorial wink. I might be wrong but it seemed that Gerry had taken a bit of a shine to me, and that Jackie rubbed him the wrong way. I got the feeling that he wouldn’t have minded if I replaced Jackie in his daughter’s affections. I wouldn’t have minded that myself.

Kit appeared. Beautiful and sullen in a black tank top, black jeans, and combat boots.

“What now?” she said.

“Go for a walk with Sean, you both need some air,” he said.

“I gotta wait for Jackie’s phone call,” she said.

“Oh, for goodness sake, he’ll be fine. And I’ll pick him up if necessary. Now get out of here, the two of you.”

Kit looked at me with resentment but she wasn’t going to disobey her father.

“Come on then, let’s get our coats,” she said with all the enthusiasm of a trip to the oral surgeon.

Drizzle. A path without a footprint. Shells crunching under our feet. Her big coat a sail that wraps me in the lee.

“Where are we going?” I ask her.

“Well, we live on an island, so there’s not many places we can go,” she says.

“Don’t tell me then,” I say.

And she doesn’t.

The beach is deserted except for a few hardy dog walkers and lunatic beachcombers and we walk in silence until we come to the very top of Plum Island.

A lighthouse, a Coast Guard station, and a long stone pier that protects the entrance to Newburyport’s natural harbor.

“Are you up for something?” she says with a conspiratorial grin.

“What sort of something?”

“Come on,” she says.

Threat and mischief spill from her face. She walks to the sandy tip of the island, finds a rowboat, takes off her shoes, and launches the boat into the water.

“What are you doing?”

“Come on,” she says, “get in, I’ll row. You just have to sit there as ballast.”

“Is this your boat?”

“No.”

I get in and she puts the oars in the oarlocks and rows me out into the channel where the Merrimack River, the Plum Island basin, and the Atlantic meet. It’s not rough today but the drizzly rain has kept water-borne traffic to a minimum and it looks as if a squall could come up at any minute.

“Where are we going?” I ask her.

“Over there,” she says, pointing to a spit of land on the other side of the Merrimack River.

“Is that New Hampshire?” I ask.

“No, silly, it’s still Massachusetts.”

“You know I’m not the best swimmer in the world,” I say, a grin trying to hide my concern.

“We’ll be fine.”

She rows against the tide and the river but it’s hard going to prevent us being taken out to sea.

“I’ll have a go,” I suggest.

“Ok,” she agrees, and after a precarious exchange of positions I take over. Kit sitting in the stern, soaked, smiling, her hair plastered over her forehead. A canny wee nature girl and no mistake. The waves chop water over the gunwales, and a passing Coast Guard cutter rocks us, but finally we’re in the middle of the channel. It’s as sensible to go on as it is to turn back. I row and the tide tries to suck us out and I adjust for it, pulling harder on the left-hand oar.

“You’re doing very well,” she says, her cheeks carnation-colored, her eyes today almost a sea green. In ten minutes, I feel sand under the bottom of the boat and I row us onto the north shore of the Merrimack. We pull the boat up onto a gravelly spit of land, with high dunes, marram grass, and scrubby bushes.

“What is this place?” I ask her.

“It’s a state park. It’s totally isolated, you can get here by road but hardly anyone comes. I used to row over here to smoke pot. It’s a great view.”

I can see most of Plum Island and Newburyport and a great swath of the Atlantic that’s more familiar now that it’s gray and threatening rather than blue and warm.

“I think you can actually see your house,” I say.

“You can,” she agrees. “It’s that huge one halfway up with all the flags.”

“You know, the Stars and Stripes should really be above the others.”

“What are you, mister patriot?”

The wind freshens and we huddle together in the dunes, Kit putting her arms together and moving close to me. Whitecaps on the Merrimack and a swell on the ocean. The breeze bucking over the sand and making a little seif dune parallel to the wind.

“Do you think we’ll be able to get back?” she asks.

“Who cares if we get back?”

The wind really howling, folding space about us in sandy logarithms, her hair dislodged and messed and blowing in her eyes. She looks at me and sneaks under my shoulder. I put my arm around her.

She doesn’t know what to make of me. What to do, or say. The wheel of her hand is flat on the arm of my leather jacket and tapping it. I take off the jacket and put it over us.

Suddenly, from nowhere, she’s about to cry. She fights it.

“Do you think everything’s going to be ok?” she asks.

“What are you talking about?”

“With my dad and with Jackie and everything?” she says, tears running down her face.

It’s only a couple of frigging stitches, love, I just about resist saying.

“Everything’s going to be ok. Do you mean last night? That was nothing. It’s all gonna be fine. I promise.”

“I hope so,” she says and a grimace comes over her face.

She wanted to be stronger and now she’s blown it. She sobs a little.

“Are you ok? What are you worried about?” I ask her.

“I’m not worried, honest, I, I just want to get it over with. We’ve been happy here, I’ve been happy here, and, you know, I understand that Dad has a bigger duty, something he has to do, but, well, I don’t want to lose him,” she says.

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“I know things,” I tell her reassuringly.

She smiles and holds me. We listen to the wind cutting the water and blowing over the dunes. It’s wild and lovely and she starts doing a little better.

“It’s Touched, you know, it’s all because of him,” she says angrily.

“Aye, he’s a bad one,” I tell her, sensing an angle.

She looks at me. She wants to open up further, but she doesn’t.

“My mom would have been happy here, up by the ocean, she was crazy about the sea, would have loved it,” she says.

“Where was she from?”

“She was from Long Island originally. Near the sound, I think. Then Boston.”

“Where you grew up.”

“Yeah, we lived in the city. Dad said he was always going to move up here to be near the sea. Not the Cape, Dad hates the Cape, but up here on the North Shore, where it’s more down-to-earth. And we were planning it, but she got this degenerative lymphoma, and, and we had to be near the hospital. We didn’t move here until after she…”

I know, Kit, I know.

I pull her close as a huge black cloud erases the view of her house and soon the other side of the Merrimack.

She shivers.

Bodies are dialogues and we tell each other things without a word. Her look into my eyes is trust and, perhaps, a seed of something else.

“I suppose that’s why she didn’t want any kids of her own, it was a genetic disorder. That’s why they adopted me. I guess I should be thankful in a weird way.”

I don’t say anything.

“Your parents are dead, aren’t they?” she asks.

“Yeah, my mom when I was little and my dad a few years ago,” I say automatically from Sean’s biography. “It sounds terrible, Kit, but I wasn’t really close to them,” I add from mine.

“It’s not terrible, it happens like that sometimes,” she says.

“Aye,” I reply gloomily. Gloomy because she is opening up to me and I’m giving back nothing but lies.

“He’s a loafer. He doesn’t do any work. Jackie worked hard for my dad and he goes in whenever Dad needs an extra body, and he’s got interests, he surfs and everything, he’s cool, but Touched doesn’t do anything,” Kit says, harping back.

“Well, I don’t like to cast a stone, but I’ve heard some ugly rumors about him,” I tell her.

“What rumors?”

Before I can respond, the wind wafts up the arm on my T-shirt and Kit pulls it down again.

“Was that from your motorcycle accident as well?” she asks.

“What?”

“You have a little scar on your shoulder. I noticed it when you were dressed as a gladiator, too.”

And I look at her to see how far I can go. This is a real opportunity. The professional, cool, clear-thinking Michael Forsythe would say “Yeah, from the motorbike accident,” but I know I’m not going to. I’m going to jump across that river and give her a piece of the truth. I’m going to give her a wee bit of the real me and see what she does with it. Will it be reciprocated with trust and silence?

“I had a tattoo removed,” I say.

“What was it?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Sure,” she says, much too breezily for my liking.

“You can’t tell Touched. You can’t tell anybody. They’ll get the wrong idea.”

“I promise,” she says, getting serious now.

“It was a winged harp, which was my old regimental insignia. I was in the British Army for about eleven months.

The Royal Irish Rangers. They don’t exist anymore, they got merged into another regiment.”

“You were in the British Army?” Kit asks, to confirm it.

“That’s right. I was unemployed, had nothing else going for me. It seemed the right idea at the time, but we didn’t gel, the army and me, they kicked me out with a dishonorable discharge.”

“I can see why you don’t want Touched to know,” Kit says without inflection.

“You’ll keep it a secret?”

“Of course,” she says indignantly. “It doesn’t bother me in the least.”

“Thanks. It’s the only secret I’ve got, I promise,” I tell her.

“Well, I can think of a million worse ones than joining the army when you were young and dumb,” she says, pleasing me with the answer.

“Me, too.”

She manages a little grin and then I grab the moment and kiss her lightly on the forehead.

“Do that again,” she says, those big azure eyes closing in anticipation.

I kiss her on the mouth.

“I liked that,” she says. “I shouldn’t, but I do.”

“I liked it too,” I tell her and I’m glad now that I told her that little piece of truth. For although I’m a liar, this, between her and me, isn’t part of the lie. I’m not using her to get that million dollars. She’s a different part of this completely.

And what is it about her exactly?

She’s beautiful. But that’s not it. And she’s mixed up, but that’s not it either.

There’s something else.

It’s that feeling of regret I get when I look at her. It’s that ache of memory.

Again she reminds me of Bridget, that other lost girl, in a place and time that seem centuries ago.

I couldn’t save Bridget. I couldn’t stop her following my path, the road to horror and war and vengeance. I couldn’t stop Bridget forgetting her old self and becoming this cold and terrible machine of death. I couldn’t stop her because it was me that pushed her down that road in the first place. It was me that killed her fiancé. And if Dan Connolly is right, that story isn’t finished yet.

But there’s nothing I can do about that now. History can’t be unwritten.

Kit, though. I can save Kit.

I can stop her descent into hell.

I can eliminate the influence of those two evil stars.

And when it’s their time, I’ll figure out a way to get her out.

Away from these people and this situation. When it goes down, I’ll fix it, so she won’t go sink too.

“Kit, I…” I try, but I don’t know what to say.

She finds the words.

“Sean, I know it’s wrong, but I want you to touch me,” she says in a whisper.

I slip my hand under her sweater and I touch the cool skin of her belly and her small breasts and I hold her back and I pull her close and kiss her.

“Slowly,” she says.

And I kiss and I hold her, and run my hands down her spine and up her thighs and between her legs. And she tenses and I ease her away and let her go and it is so painful that in a moment of candor I can no longer deny what I’ve been fighting against.

“I need you,” I tell her.

She shakes her head.

“You don’t,” she says.

I kiss her and, my God, I want her. Here on this beach under this dark sky. It will do everything for me. It will heal me. It will make me whole. It will unmake from me the murder in my blood and fingertips. I need to give myself completely to her. I need to hold and be inside her and be one with her. And I know she needs me, too.

I lift her shirt and kiss her belly.

“Yes,” she says.

She pulls me on top of her and her hands run over my back and they’re so cold. I kiss her and lift up her shirt and kiss her underneath her breasts and her nipples and gently I begin to undo the buttons on her jeans.

“Stop,” she whispers.

I kiss her belly button and her shoulder tattoo and undo the last button and begin to pull down her trousers.

“No,” she says. “Stop.”

And I shake my head and moisten her lips and kiss her freezing arms and- “I said stop,” she says angrily and pushes me off.

“Ok, I’ll stop,” I tell her, hurt.

“You’re all the fucking same, aren’t you? Fucking all alike. And I thought you were different,” she says, crying.

“Kit, what are you talking about?”

But she’s standing now, buttoning up her jeans. Furious; at me, but mostly at herself. She’s confused, guilty, unsure. Her hands form themselves into fists.

“I’m not going to have sex with you,” she says.

“What?”

She starts marching away from me down the dune.

“I don’t have to have sex with you. I just want to be with you. Come back here, please. Kit, please, we don’t have to do anything. We’ll talk or not talk, anything. Just stay here.”

“Fuck you. And I told you, I already have a boyfriend,” she screams and runs to the rowboat.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going back to Plum Island,” she shouts, launching the boat into the surf.

“Wait a minute,” I yell, struggling to my feet and running after her. She jumps aboard and rows away from the beach. The wind has dropped but it’s raining again.

“Come back. It’s not safe.”

“Fuck you. I can do this in my sleep. Go to hell,” she yells, pulling away from the shore in broad, confident strokes.

I try a different approach.

“But how am I going to get back?”

“Walk back.”

“How?”

“Follow the Merrimack and you’ll eventually come to Newburyport and then…” but I can’t hear her anymore. I wave to her and wait to see if she’ll come back, but she doesn’t and soon she’s way out in the channel, a disappearing speck in the gray waves.

Shit.

I watch until I’m sure she’s safe, and when she lands the boat on the Plum Island shore I pull my hood up and begin the long walk back to town.

Four or five bloody miles by the looks of it.

“Women. Jesus,” I mutter to myself.

No, not women, girls. That was the bloody problem. Stupid teenage, know-nothing wee girl.

Fuming, I walk over the dunes and out of the state park.

Back on Route 1 again. This awful bloody road. This bloody state, these bloody people. Should have asked her about her real ma again; that always sets her off. Give her something to be really pissed about.

’Course it’s raining, too. Typical.

I stick my thumb out but not a single person gives me a lift.

I finally reach the bridge over the Merrimack and trudge across it into Newburyport. When I get into the center of town, I’m still fuming. A bloody cocktease, that girl, she knows what she’s doing. Wee hoor. Beeatch, with a capital B. Have to wonder about anyone with the taste to go out with Jackie in the first place. No sense at all.

I walk past the police station, the ice-cream shops, and the theater showing Cats.

The Firehouse, Water Street, State Street. I stop outside All Things Brit.

The Closed sign is in the window but it’s only seven o’clock. It usually stays open till eight or nine. I try the handle.It doesn’t turn. Maybe she went down to Boston to get my pardons and the forms for my money. Come on, Samantha, I could do with a cup of hot tea.

I open the letter box and shout through it:

“Hello, is there anyone home? Hello?”

No answer.

Aye, she’s gone. Probably bloody bird-watching in Maine. That’s exactly the kind of support you need when you’re an undercover on a dangerous assignment.

Another silly woman.

“Hello, is there anyone home?” I try for the final time.

I’m about to go when I see a shadow appear at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hello? Who is that?” I shout again.

The shadow walks towards me.

It’s Touched.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

He opens the door.

“No, the more pertinent and important question is what are you doing here?” he asks, pointing a silenced 9mm at me.

“I came to get some chocolate for Kit,” I tell him.

“Is that so?” he says suspiciously, closing the door behind me.

“Uh-huh. We had a bit of a fight.”

“You often shout into the letter box of closed stores? Eh?”

“The wee lady who runs the place told me she’s open till nine every day,” I say.

His face is cold. His eyes are the color of granite slabs cut for tombstones.

“How well do you know this wee lady?” he asks in a voice with no emotion.

“Seamus, Jackie, and I were in here yesterday and Kit took me in here once to get clotted cream,” I say as calmly as I can, for I realize now that he’s killed her. That somehow he’s found her out. But she didn’t tell him anything. I know that because I’d be dead too by now, or if not dead, shot in both kneecaps and being dragged screaming to the back room to be tortured lovingly and long.

“Aye, I remember that. Well, you better come see this,”Touched says.

“What’s the gun for?” I ask him.

“Excuse me, Sean, but I’m going to have to watch you very closely for the next couple of days. Too many wee things happening at once. Suspicious, so it is, very fucking suspicious.Last night going wrong like that and now this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Something has come up, Sean,” he says soberly.

“Like what?”

“Upstairs with me and you’ll see. You first, mate,” he says.

I walk up the stairs.

I can smell the blood from the second step.

On the landing, at the top, I turn right and walk into her bedroom. She has been gagged and tied naked to the bed. Her eyes have been cut out of their sockets and she has been slit open from her vagina to her throat.

But not deeply, not enough to kill her straightaway.

Blood is everywhere. On the sheets, on the walls, even on the skylight. There is still a scalpel blade embedded in her thigh and Touched’s little green toolbox is open between her legs. It’s not a toolbox at all, but is in fact a dissection kit. His instruments: knives, scalpels, retractors, covered with skin and gore-well used.

My knees buckle and I throw up in my mouth.

“Oh God,” I say.

“She was smart,” Touched says. “She had no paperwork of any kind. And she denied everything, right to the end.”

“What the fuck have you done? Who is she?” I manage.

“She’s been spying on us. I’d seen her twice. I’m always watching for new people. I wasn’t sure, though. Even tonight.

I just wasn’t sure and for a while I thought I’d made a mistake.”

He laughs.

“Jesus, yeah, thought I’d really fucked up and she was just a dumb tourist, nosing around the biggest house on the island. I really thought that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was on my way to Portsmouth and I saw that big Jag parked outside the shop here, and when I came in to see who owned it I saw her. First thing that bothered me was that I was smoking a cigarette and she didn’t ask me to put it out.

No Smoking signs everywhere and she didn’t ask me to put out me fag. Why?”

He looked at me. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. He wanted me to think about it.

“I don’t know, Touched.”

“Why? I’ll tell you fucking why. Because I’d put the wind up her, thrown her, she was afraid of me. Why would she be afraid of me when she doesn’t even know me? Aye, Sean, I can smell it, you know. Fear. I can fucking taste it.”

“I’m sure.”

“Aye. So that was the first thing. And so then I asked her about herself. And it turns out she’s only been here a week or two and she’s British. Ask her all these questions and she doesn’t say ‘Stop wasting my time’ or ‘Are you going to buy something?’ Ever see a shopkeeper who just wants to chat? She gave herself away, mate. She was too friendly.Overcompensating. And I realized I’d have to probe this further.”

“Christ. You killed her because she was polite to you?”

Touched smiles sadly and pats me on the back, all the while keeping the gun pointing at my belly. He runs a gloved hand through his hair and grins, licks the blood from his lips.

“Aye, Sean, for a while there this evening I thought I’d made a mistake. Tied her up, gagged her, had my way with her, searched the place. Nothing, fucking nothing. And really that was another mistake. I mean, everybody has to have some personal stuff. Driver’s license, passport, library card, letters, anything. And she had nothing.”

I shake my head.

“But fortunately, Sean, my instincts were right. At the very end, at the very fucking end, I take the gag off her, and she’s hurting, oh yeah, she’s hurting and she begs me to finish it, begs me. She says, and this is the kicker, Sean, ‘Please, Touched, kill me, just kill me,’” Touched repeats, his eyebrows raising in a look of triumph.

“I don’t get it,” I tell him.

“No one calls me Touched. Except Gerry and the Sons of Cuchulainn and the lads back home. She was FBI, Sean, or a British agent working for the FBI.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. And that’s why I don’t like to see you shouting through the letter box as if you and her are best pals. And that’s why we’re all going to have to split town for a while. Get rid of this bitch. Switch to plan B like Gerry says. This is when they’ll be least expecting it. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” I say, reeling.

“Yeah, well, whatever we do I’m going to have to keep an eye on you, mate. Very close eye,” he says with a grim face.

“I met this woman twice in my whole fucking life,” I protest.

Touched nods sympathetically.

“Sean, put yourself in my shoes. You just can’t be too careful.”

“I know her about as well as Kit and Jackie know her,” I say.

“Aye, but they have several years of trust in the bank with me. You have less than a week. And a bad week at that.”

I catch his eye and nod.

“You’re right. I’d do the same thing myself.”

He grins.

“You’re a good lad. At least I hope for your sake you are.”

And we stand for a moment and stare at the bed. And suddenly I notice her chest moving up and down.

“She’s still alive,” I gasp in horror.

“Aye, but not for long now,” Touched says clinically.

He’s right.

She has bled all over the floor.

Her cheeks dead white, her teeth smashed in, the breath exhaling from her body in frothy bubbles of crimson blood.

There’s nothing I can do and anyway he has the gun.

But if you can hear me, Samantha, if you can hear me, hear me.

“If you’re wrong about this, Touched, I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes.”

He looks at me to see if I’m threatening him, but my face is expressionless, blank. He lets it go and I watch her breaths grow fainter and fainter until they finally stop.

Death has ten thousand ways.

And in the minute it takes Samantha to pass, I imagine that, on Earth, about a thousand other human beings are making that mysterious transition from life to lifelessness. Still, Touched is a master of this art. Touched is Death’s apprentice. True, there are old people in Buenos Aires who for a time in the 1940s were killing tens of thousands every day; and there are men in Cambodia and Rwanda who have personally slaughtered hundreds with their own hands. He will never match those individuals in terms of body counts. He doesn’t need to. He’s a specialist. Quick and lethal or slow, dreadful, and terrifying. With Samantha he took his time. An hour or two, perhaps longer. He tortured her, horribly, and there can be few alive who take such pride in the pain they inflict in the commission of their work.

And a coup for him. A British agent. A woman agent.

Sweet.

I lean on the wall to steady myself.

Breathe in, exhale. Breathe in, let it all go.

And then the fear begins to leave me and I open my eyes to memorize the scene. The tiny precise cuts all over her body. The eyes. The smell.

Aye. One thing, Touched. You can’t know that I also am a favored son. That I, too, have welcomed many into the arms of Death.

Oh yes.

Let me look at you. You’re calm, relaxed, confident.

It’ll be a match, you and me, we brothers of the sword.

On that day of reckoning.

Put down that gun and you’ll have it now.

He doesn’t move.

But that’s fine, Touched.

You’re already dead. Here, in this room, as we live and breathe, and as you stare at me with distrust in those granite eyes, and I look back to you, a cipher, I vow to meet you in an unfair fight and spare no quarter and butcher you and cut you down.

Aye, my friend.

Joyfully, with mine own hand, will I despoil your corpse and throw your tattered carcass onto that black barge that Death steers into the silent sea, from which none return. The day will come.

And it can’t come soon enough.