Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 44, No. 4, April 1980

Siege in Dublin by Jean Darling

Condon invaded the preschool playroom and took three children and two female adults as hostages. If his terms weren’t met, the hostages would he killed! Under circumstances like that, who could blame Garda Shay Kelly for not following orders?

“Come out, Condon, give up now before someone else gets hurt. You know you haven’t a hope in hell they’ll meet your demands.” Garda Superintendent Patrick Foley spoke into a loud hailer. He was standing in the courtyard of the Irishtown Rehabilitation Clinic. Nearby, on the black tarmac, several news cameras flashed the scene onto film.

“He must be jokin’, it’s the kids haven’t a hope in hell,” came softly from a bystander on the far side of the wrought-iron fence. The narrow street behind was clogged with squad cars, emergency vans, ambulances, a fire engine, two army Land Rovers, dozens of uniformed police and the curious, some of whom had stayed throughout the night. Radio and television crews moved restlessly to and fro attached by slender umbilical cords to the external broadcasting units that had bulled their way into the congestion.

“It’s diabolical for those poor little tings,” a housewife from the flats wailed theatrically as a passing microphone and shoulder borne Tee Vee focused on her briefly before zooming in on the window-framed Arne Condon. He held a small girl as a shield from a possible sharp-shooter.

“You know my terms, Foley. You have until twelve noon,” Condon shouted through a slash of open window. He lifted a gun to the child’s head, mouthed the word ‘BANG!’ and moved back out of sight.

“The Irishtown Siege is entering its eighteenth hour,” an announcer said, voice clipped with urgency. “Since yesterday afternoon at seven minutes past three, Arne Condon, self styled leader of the O’Houlihans, a hitherto unknown para-military organization, has held three children and two women hostage. Two of the children suffer from spina bifida, the third has been severely brain damaged since birth. Here beside me, braving wind and rain, is Garda Superintendent Patrick Foley who has been in charge throughout the long and harrowing night. Superintendent Foley, would you—”

“Get that damned mike out of my face!” Foley interrupted, dropping the bull-horn to one side. “You there! Guard! You’re not here for crack! Get those mikes and camera on the other side of the fence. NOW!” He spoke towards the nearest uniform which, in this case, contained Seamus Kelly, a foot patrolman from the Irishtown Barracks. Amidst rude gestures, protests and flashes from news cameras, Shay Kelly herded the media men onto the sidewalk outside the wrought-iron barrier.

The train of events leading to the present crisis had been set in motion several weeks before by a group of American Senators on a whirlwind fact-finding tour of Ulster and the Irish Republic. Like so many spinsters who feel qualified to advise on child care, these men proposed a simple solution to the six hundred year old Irish problem. They called for a meeting to clear the air, promote understanding. A chat around a table between leaders: political, para-military, church, including the Ulsterman Sean McNulty, the Protestant spellbinder whose sermons bore little trace of ‘Love thy neighbor’ should the neighbor embrace the Roman faith.

After much televised posturing and discussion at the UN, Westminster, and the Irish Dail, an agreement was reached. A time was set for the historic meeting that would forever lay sectarian unrest. Everything would be sweetness and light between Ulster and Eire, if one were to believe the good Senators in whose heads visions of the Irish-American vote danced like sugar plums.

To cut a long story short, an unknown para-military organization selected the meeting as the ideal occasion to make its name famous in song and story by eliminating Sean McNulty. The fact that the meeting was to be held in Dublin made the challenge convenient for the O’Houlihans, as the group called itself. Being more gung-ho than organized, the young men concerned parked their Hondas on Dawson Street, two blocks from the seat of the Irish Parliament, Leinster House, and made their way through police and protesters. Two of them were armed with revolvers jammed into pockets of raincoats similar to those worn at the time of the Easter Uprising. Another carried a strange arrangement of hand grenades wired together and camouflaged with a rumpled Tricolor, the flag of the Irish Freestate.

Eyes sharp above still downy cheeks, the three O’Houilhans: Arne Condon, Pauric Ryan and Bill Slattery waited in a prearranged formation near the gates that would place the motorcade within the sights of their crossfire. Around them the various factions held their protest aloft on placards, each group chanting: OUT BRITS or IRELAND THIRTY-TWO COUNTIES or OUT MCNULTY OUT OUT OUT. UP THE IRA added chorus to the choir.

As it turned out the assassination attempt was a fiasco in which three Irish Senators and four bystanders, including a pregnant woman, were blown into tweezer-sized bits to be collected in plastic bags. Unbelievably, the driver of the car sustained only minor injuries and, along with seven onlookers, was taken off to the hospital. Sean McNulty, the object of the exercise, trotted unscathed into the safety of Leinster House.

Some mix-up in the order of official limousines had turned the Senators’ black Mercedes, identical to the one in which McNulty rode, into the procession ahead of that carrying the Ulsterman. As the wrong limousine pulled into position, Condon and Ryan fired. Slattery pulled a pin and threw the ‘bomb’. In the ensuing melee Slattery and Ryan were arrested. Condon, dodging capture like a goal-bound footballer, gained his motorcycle and played fox to a pack of ululating police cars in a hair-raising chase through the streets of South Dublin. At last, with the law hot on his wheels, now spinning away the last drops of gas, Arne Condon abandoned the Honda and holed up in the Clinic.

At gun point he took over the pre-school playroom at the front of the central building where he found the three children and two female adults that he took as hostages. Condon allowed the building to be emptied of spina bifidas and spastics, mongols and the retarded. Along with the clinic employees, some were loaded into buses and driven off to safety, others were taken to the library to wait for transportation.

Five o’clock came. Six. Arne Condon, barricaded into the playroom remained incommunicado while the forces of law and order gathered.

At seven o’clock he opened the window slightly to shout for food. He held little Sandra Flynn against his chest in the fashion that was to become so chillingly familiar over the next hours and shouted that sandwiches would do and not to try anything strange or he’d blow a hole through the child’s head.

At seven twenty-five Ban Garda Kate Fallon, wearing civilian clothes, set a bag of ham and chicken sandwiches, three bottles of milk and a thermos of sugared tea on the window sill. Condon watched her through the glass, gun resting on the leather harness that fastened on the heavy calipers Sandy wore. “Okay, turn and walk away quickly,” Condon’s voice was barely audible through the glass.

By eight o’clock a canvas shelter had been raised at the far side of the courtyard. Inside, the parents of the three children waited. Outdoor lighting was plugged in through the windows in the wings of the Clinic that reached to the wrought-iron fence on either side of the large square of tarmac.

Nine o’clock. Time dragged; cold April rain shown silver in the artificial light. Ten o’clock.

At fourteen minutes past ten Condon signalled he was ready to make a deal. Superintendent Foley drew near.

“I want to talk to O’Malley.” Condon shouted.

“O’Malley? You mean President O’Malley?”

“That’s what I said. President O’Malley or no deal.” Condon closed the window.

This request caused much consternation and hot a little activity, but by eleven-thirty a helicopter landed on the stretch of grass beside Sandymount Strand. A police car took President Thomas O’Malley to the Rehabilitation Clinic.

After turning out his pockets in the glare of arc lights, O’Malley was instructed by Arne Condon to drop his coat. The President of Eire let his jacket, fall to the ground. Fine rain glued the white shirt to his shoulders.

“Take off your shoes,” Condon ordered through, the slightly open window. Sandra was asleep, her head drooping against the young man’s chest. O’Malley stooped to untie his laces. Shay Kelly stepped forward offering his arm for balance. A shot cracked. “Get back, Cop!!” Condon yelled, “That was just to let you know I’m not hangin’ in here for laughs. Okay, You!” he addressed O’Malley. “Come in through the front entrance, turn right along the corridor until you come to the door marked: INFANTS. Knock three times.”

The crowd of onlookers had eddied and changed from housewives with children to people expelled, from the pubs by closing time. Above, on a roof here and there across the street from the Clinic, a shadow separated itself from the chimney stacks. The Army sharp shooters were in position.

Shortly after midnight, Thomas O’Malley came out. There was a surge towards him and he lifted his arms to halt the advance, his movements as jerky in the photo flash as a Chaplin two reeler. Once inside the shelter where’ the parents waited, a blanket was wrapped around his shoulders, a mug of steaming coffee thrust into, his hand. Questions came all at once.

“The children seem alright,” O’Malley said. “The boy Stevie Connors and Mary Murray are asleep on a sort of floor mat. Sandra Flynn seems to be a permanent fixture on Condon’s lap.” A soft cry came from Mrs. Flynn whose face was against her husband’s tweed shoulder. “The child seems happy enough. Condon’s still in his teens. He’s not really a bad boy — just misguided. A malaise of today, I’m afraid.” He patted the woman’s arm. “No, Sandra is a dote, Mrs. Flynn, you should be proud of her. It’s the therapist, Miss Costelloe, has me worried,” He turned to Superintendent Foley. “See what you can do about getting a doctor in to her. Yvonne, the teacher-girl is doing her best but the woman is flushed and having difficulty with her breathing.”

“Yes Sir, the cardiac unit as well as an emergency van are here, have been since shortly after four o’clock yesterday evening,” Superintendent Foley sounded defensive.

“Yes. Well — they’ll do more good if the woman can be moved out to one of them. Now for his demands: Condon wants Ryan and Slattery released and brought to Dublin Airport where a 727 will be laid on with a crew and full petrol tanks. And, oh yes, he wants a million pounds — sterling — old notes.”

“Quite an ambitious ‘wants list’ for a beardless lad.” Foley’s voice was dry.

“Beardless or not, he’s the man with the clout. If everyone isn’t ready to go by twelve noon tomorrow he will shoot one child.” A woman stifled a scream, another began to cry. “An hour later he’ll shoot another and so on until his demands are met. I said I’d give him the answer as soon as possible,” O’Malley continued. “I warned him it might take awhile to get everyone concerned together let alone get an answer, but he wouldn’t give a minute past twelve.” The press, who had jammed themselves into the shelter entrance, fled to the nearest telephone or darkroom.

A television cameraman, deformed by his equipment like some surealistic hunchback of Notre Dame, taped the police car carrying the President as it shrieked a path through the bottleneck of flesh and vehicle on its way to Leinster House. Soon the parties concerned would gather within its historic walls: the Prime Minister, the Garda Commissioner, the President of the Central Bank, several Senators and officials from the State run airlines, Aer Lingus. And they would argue back and forth fully aware that by capitulating and granting Arne Condon’s demands they would be helping to make the world safe for ‘hi-jackers’, into which category by a slight stretch of the imagination, Condon fell. There was, of course, nothing else to do. Young children were at risk and not ordinary healthy children. Arne Condon’s demands would have to be met as quickly and as expeditiously as was humanly possible.

It was three a.m. by the time Shay Kelly let himself into the house on Tritonville Road. His wife, Maura, was still awake. “How’s it going, Love?” she asked as he came in. “You must be starved. It won’t take a minute to—”

“Just a cup of tea. Sure its that tired I am I could sleep where I’m standin’,” Shay interrupted. “Anyway, I have to be on duty half seven in the morning.”

Later, warm in their big old brass bed, he told Maura how Condon had been persuaded, at last, to allow a doctor inside to check on the children and Miss Costelloe. Surprisingly, he had let her be exchanged for another hostage.

“She’s well over sixty, he was probably afraid she might die on him.” Maura remarked.

“Ummm,” Kelly said, hoping she’d forget about the woman for the present. “Would you believe who volunteered to take her place? Declan. Declan Fogarty himself.”

“No! Not Declan. You shouldn’t have let him, him bein’ blind and all!” Maura exclaimed. “And Mannix?”

“Sure that Arne wouldn’t let him in with the dog o’course. He’s scared of Alsatians, says he. So, Mannix can come home with me, says I, but Declan shook his head. So I took him over to one of the police cars and he locked the dog inside out of the wet.”

“How’s old Mis Costelloe?”

Shay paused before answering, hating to mouth the answer he would have to give. “She died on the way to the hospital,” he said, at last.

“Oh, no.” Her voice was small and lost. “She was Aunt Mae’s best—”

“Hush, love.” Kelly gathered his wife into his arms mentally cursing a society that could breed creatures like Arne Condon and the boy who had killed Aunt Mae. Reaching for a tissue from the bedside table, he dried Maura’s tears, hoping nothing terrible would happen to the children just when she was getting back to her old self after having come to grips with the knowledge that they could never have a family of their own. “Don’t you want to hear about Sandra?” he asked, changing the subject. “Condon holds her in front of himself like a shield everytime he comes to the window. And you should see that brave, little one, not a tear out of her that I’ve seen.”

“She’s all heart, that Sandra. You should see her coming along the corridor pushing the walking frame. And the weight of those calipers. And there she is every day when I come, twisting her little body to move the useless legs from one side to the other, calling ‘hello, Maura’ and pushing the frame, twist, push, gaining a few inches at a time.” For the past six months Maura Kelly had been a voluntary escort on one of the buses that took the children home from the Clinic. Two afternoons a week she fastened them to the seats, comforted tears, kept the retarded from scratching or pulling hair.

“It’s Mary Murray whose worst. Cryin’ most of the time, her mother’s under sedation at St. Vincents, she collapsed after President O’Malley told about Condon’s threat to shoot a child every hour. Stevie. Well, you know Stevie.”

“Yes, my happy little vegetable. And he’s such a beautiful child, always smiling. Oh, God! How can anyone be such a monster. Sandra is epileptic, you know — so many spina bifidas are. What if she has a fit?”

“Yvonne is with her.”

“Yes.” For awhile they lay quiet listening to the rain patter against the windows, Shay thinking of how to phrase what he had in mind.

“Maura, I think there’s a way to free the hostages. Declan and I made a sort of plan before he — before he became a hostage.”

“You know you’ll be suspended again.”

“I will o’course. You’ll have to help. Get a list of all the out patients in the immediate neighborhood and—”

It was past five before all was quiet in the back bedroom of Georgian house on Tritonville Road in Sandymount, two miles from Dublin City Center.

“Condon, your demands have all been met. You will have everything you asked for,” Superintendent Foley spoke into the loud hailer. It was then two minutes before the twelve o’clock deadline, word had just come over the radio that everything was ready — almost. Now, it was up to him somehow to avert tragedy. “A Boeing 727 with crew are waiting on a runway. The petrol tanks are full. Ryan and Slattery have been released and are now speeding towards the airport. A limousine is here, you can see it over there at the end of the street with a motorcycle escort waiting to take you to the—”

“So what’s all the chat for?” Condon interrupted, voice slightly muffled through the partially opened window. “Let’s get goin’!”

“That’s it. There’s a slight hitch. The money isn’t ready, won’t be for another hour. At one o’clock you’ll have it all. One million pounds! But it’ll take until one!!”

“Never mind one o’clock. I said twelve. I meant twelve. It’s twelve o’clock now. This kid’s dead!” Condon shouted. Sweat beaded Foley’s brow as he saw the gun slide into view over Sandra’s harness and press against her ribs. He wished he could see the expression on Condon’s face through the breath blurred glass.

“Don’t do anything foolish, lad. Not now when everything you asked for has been laid on. Money takes time to count — you asked for Sterling — you’ve got it all in old notes just like you said. Right now it’s being counted and packed. One o’clock. Think, lad. One o’clock, no one else need get hurt.” Foley’s voice showed the strain of the long night’s vigil and the need for calm.

“The safety’s off!” Condon yelled, poking the blue steel in the child’s side. “Are you counting, Foley? — ONE — TWO—”

“Ah Arne, stop tickling!” Sandra interrupted the fatal count. Giggling, she twisted her head around to look up at the gunman. The gun moved again. It movement struck terror to the hearts of those who watched.

“I tickle, do I?” Condon said softly, eyes resting on the small laughing face for a long moment. He nudged her again, without malice. There was no malice in the tired boy face now turned down towards the child’s, just desperation. The gun moved again and Sandra’s high clear laugh drifted like the tinkle of a silver bell into a silence that was almost tangible as apprehension stopped breath. Waiting ears cringed away from the inevitable shot that must come. And then Condon was shouting something through the window.

“Okay!” He shouted. “Okay! You’ve got till one o’clock and not one second more!” Breathing once more became possible as relief found itself in laughter, in movement. The air was as filled with sound as it had been quiet a few moments before.

Maura Kelly, standing near the gate, caught her husband’s eye and her head moved in an almost imperceptible nod. Shay crossed quickly to his wife’s side.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“Across the street in the Bingo Hall, Mrs. Coady at the wool shop gave me the keys.”

“Are there many?”

“Seventeen, plus the three blind men with their dogs.”

“It’s enough. Try to keep out of the wet,” the tall guard said, squeezing her arm. He made his way across the tarmac to where the Superintendent stood girding himself for the next bout with Condon if, by some horrid trick of fate, the money still were not ready.

“Superintendent, Sir. If you don’t mind I’d like to have a word with you,” he began and with no further preamble launched into his plan to bring the siege to an end.

“Rain might be grand for the grass, but I could do without it today,” Foley said to no one in particular before turning to address Kelly. “Of all the eejit ideas! Aren’t you satisfied with the number dead already, Garda... Garda?”

“Kelly, Sir. Seamus Kelly, Irishtown Barracks.”

“Yes. Garda Kelly. I thought I recognized you,” Foley said, grateful for the chance to let off steam. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what did I do to deserve you?” With difficulty Foley kept his voice under control as he laid down the law. “Ah yes, I know that name well and the way you go charging around the country against orders. Seamus Kelly, the one man Garda Siochana! We should fire the lot and let you take over!”

“But I thought—”

“You above every man in the Irish Police Force are paid not to think! You are here to keep the crowd back — nothing else. Do you hear me? Don’t think, and that’s an order!”

“Yes, Sir, thank you, Sir.” Kelly turned away.

“Where are you going?” Foley asked, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“To keep the crowd back, Sir.” As soon as was possible Shay shook his head at Maura, mouthing the words, ‘No way.’ He stuffed his hands in his pockets. He squinted up at a sky so grey it was impossible to believe the sun ever would shine again. Abruptly, he went over to Maura. “I don’t care, I’m going to do it,” he said.

“What did the Superintendent say?”

“Never mind about him.”

“But—”

“No buts. You brought my rifle?” Maura nodded. “And the grey jumper?” She nodded again. “Okay, ease over to the entrance of the Bingo Hall, I’ll see you there.” Five minutes later, Kelly handed his jacket to Maura and pulled the dark sweater over his head, he could hear the chatter of voices coming from the main hall.

“Sure there’s after bein’ a half dozen Army sharp shooters inside now, what makes you think—” his wife ventured.

“They’re all on this side of the street and they shouldn’t be.”

“They are o’course,” Maura said. “Condon would spot anyone on top of the wings. They’re so flat a flea would lump up like an ox.”

“That’s why I need something to distract him.” He kissed her quickly on the mouth. “Get everyone in position and as soon as you see me on top of the right wing they should fan out in the court yard. Condon must be so distracted he won’t notice me as he crosses to the car. Wish me luck,” he said and was gone.

At ten minutes to one word came that the money was on its way to the plane. Foley conveyed the information to Condon. The Mercedes crept through the crush into the courtyard stopping twenty feet from the door through which Condon would come.

“Alright, Condon, it’s time to go,” Foley said into the bull horn. Maura’s eyes willed Shay to appear but there was no movement on the right hand roof.

“I’ve locked the others in and I’ll be coming out with the kid,” the boy held Sandra in one arm. “Come here to me, Foley, it’s, that sick I am of shoutin’.” Superintendent Foley walked over to the window.

“You see that kit tied to the kid’s back?” Foley nodded. “Inside is a bottle of nitroglycerin, one strange move, I shoot anti the whole lot, you, me, everything will be blown to hell. Understand?” Again Foley nodded. “Now get out there and I warn you not to let anyone move so much as an eyelash if you want anything left of the Clinic.”

There was a rustle of movement behind Maura as the out-patients pushed their way in wheelchairs and on crutches into position by the gates. The blind men brought up the rear.

“Everyone stay where you are,” Superintendent Foley’s voice boomed over the loud hailer, “Condon will come out in a minute and when he does I don’t want anyone to breathe until he is in the car and it has left the area. There is a bomb on the child’s back which he will explode—” His voice stopped as Sandra, leaning on her walking frame inched out on to the tarmac. A small determined figure dressed all in red, her hair bunched into a handle above each ear and fastened with long-eared plastic rabbits, she looked neither to the right nor to the left. Her parents watched from the entrance of the shelter not daring to breathe. Then Arne Condon appeared in the doorway, gun in hand.

Kelly’s wife was by the gate eyes riveted on the roof of the right hand wing! Nothing. No one. Oh God, she said under her breath, where is he? Though Condon moved at a snail’s pace behind the child, every passing moment, found him that much closer to his goal. If she didn’t see Shay soon, it would be too late for the planned diversion to serve its purpose. Everyone was in place awaiting the signal that she couldn’t give until he was in place. A seagull swooped drawing her eyes left — and she saw him — on the roof to her left — his right not hers. She glanced around to see if the slight bulge in the flat line of the roof had been noticed, but all attention clung to the drama being enacted on the tarmac as to a life support unit.

Maura lifted her hand slightly and the two nearest her rolled forward. The others followed close behind, their initial movement through the gate cloaked by the black Mercedes and the surrounding motorcycle escort.

Condon was almost halfway to the car, gun trained on the mount lumped on the child’s back. “Can’t you push that thing faster?” he hissed through his teeth.

“I’m going best I can,” she answered, swiveling to look back at him. As she turned, one of the wheels hit a stone causing the left handle to come adrift. She swung sideways off balance, body stiff in calipers locked at the hip. The frame teetered. Mouths gaped in silent prayer as the child-bomb poised precariously mid-fall. Paralyzed by fear of imminent mortality no one dared offer help.

Then Arne Condon reached down awkwardly to catch the child with his left hand, words jerking, “Not a move — out of — anyone! — I warn you!” Sandra leaned her shoulder against his leg for support until both hands regained their purchase on the walking frame.

“Thanks, Arne,” Sandra said before continuing to push, twist, push, twist across the remaining distance separating her from the car. When certain the child was steady on her feet again, Condon looked up to find the courtyard ringed with spastics on crutches advancing in eccentric cadence. They were intersperced with children propelling themselves in wheelchairs and the three blind men led by dogs.

“Bleedin’ hell! What are you tryin’ to pull, Foley?” Condon shouted. Swinging around, the Superintendent blanched on seeing the small army of disabled toiling across the tarmac just the way Shay Kelly had suggested. A vision of the young Guard drawn and quartered momentarily flickered in his mind.

“Believe me, Condon, I had nothing to do with this. I swear.” Foley spoke softly, hoping to control the situation by being calm in the face of the terrorist’s rising hysteria. “Ignore them. Just keep following the little girl, nobody will try to stop you.”

“Don’t give me that bleedin’ crap. I want them stopped! I’m warnin’ you!” Condon shrieked head turning, trying to face everywhere at once. Suddenly, a shot cracked. Condon jerked sideways, the revolver dropped to the ground. In falling his foot toppled Sandra onto her face crying. Medical aid and an Army bomb disposal unit converged, one bundling Arne onto a stretcher, the other gingerly relieving Sandra of her lethal hump. Then she was in her father’s arms, her mother, laughing and crying, kissing her little hands. Men from the media were everywhere flashing cameras, asking questions, demanding statements.

The hostages filed out of the building to be reunited with their families; in blind Declan Fogerty’s case, a joyous Alsatian named Mannix. An ambulance took Condon, under guard, to hospital. The bomb disposal expert shouted that Sandra had been loaded with nothing more lethal than a cloth wrapped box of water colors. And then the Clinic was almost deserted.

As quickly as forces had gathered when the crisis had developed twenty-two hours before, vehicles and people evaporated until, at last, only a small nucleus of police remained.

After firing the shot that had dropped Arne Condon, Shay Kelly had sprawled full length on the roof limp with relief that his aim had not gone astray, thanking God his shot had not killed. He listened as the area below cleared, dreading the chewing out that would come his way for disobeying orders, wishing nothing had been said to the Superintendent. He knew Maura would be waiting for him with Declan and Mannix in tow but he didn’t feel like moving. The sun came out and was warm on his face. It was as though the whole world rejoiced now the crisis had passed. Soon the 727 would be put to bed and the crew would wander off to wherever crews went when they were off duty and all the money would be put back in the bank.

“Guarda Kelly! Seamus Kelly! Are you up there on that roof?” A voice boomed through a loud hailer. Shay rose and stood silhouetted against the sky, rifle looped in the crook of his arm.

“Yes, Sergeant Clancy,” he answered.

“Get down outa there and get your ass over to the Barracks.” And his Sergeant walked over to the Superintendent’s car where he stood, head near the window, talking to Foley. About me, no doubt, Shay thought, making his way down to the ground. About not following orders, but surely if a man had an idea he should be given a hearing. Foley had heard. Foley had said no. Guards were supposed to obey orders, not think. If, for appearances sake, they got around to giving him a metal for bravery, he knew darned well what would be engraved on the flip side: Seamus Kelly, foot patrolman in the Garda Siochana, Irishtown Barracks; Suspended for thinking in the line of duty.