Veil of Civility

Chapter Forty-Six

Declan felt a rush of cold air as the cargo door on the van slid open, followed closely by the stench of garbage. He'd been conscious for only a few moments and his head was still buzzing from the effects of whatever poison he'd been hit with. His wrists and ankles were bound tightly together; a blindfold that stunk of grease and felt like it had been fashioned out of an old dishrag had been placed over his eyes. He felt two large hands grip him under the arms and pull upwards.

"Let's go, bud, your date's waiting."

He recognized the voice as the seven o'clock gunman from outside the cabin. He tried to drop his weight and make himself as heavy as possible, but realized quickly that his muscles were useless. He was already being supported one hundred percent by the two men, each with an arm looped under his, holding him up as they dragged him out of the van. His legs stung like they'd been asleep as his feet impacted with the floor and he felt himself being pulled forward. The stinging continued as his feet bounced against the edges of steps as he was dragged upwards.

The smell of grease hung thick in the air and from the sounds around him he guessed he was in some kind of loading area in close proximity to a restaurant. How long had he been out? Where was Constance? He tried again to struggle against the two men carrying him, to no avail. He drew in a breath of putrid air and tried to ask "Where's my wife?" but all that came out was slurred babble.

"Bring him through here," he heard a voice say from up ahead. The two men dragging him stopped for a moment and he heard a door unlatch and open before they pulled him inside.

The unmistakable sound of a metal chair being pulled across a concrete floor filled his ears and when it stopped, the two men dumped him into the seat. He sat completely still concentrating hard on staying upright in the chair as he fought against the lingering effect of the drugs. He heard the shuffling of feet as at least two men moved around him and then a loud slam as the door he'd been brought through closed, leaving the room in silence. Was he alone? No, he felt someone nearby, standing in front of him.

"Welcome to the Greenbrier Resort, old friend. Sorry the accommodations aren't a bit better, but it seems you've gotten yourself into some trouble."

Declan recognized the voice immediately. It sounded older now, more experienced somehow but it was still close enough that he knew who it was even though he couldn't see him.

The blindfold was pulled off and the cold air attacked his sweaty face as he looked around. His vision was still blurry but his eyes finally settled on the person in front of him.

"Fintan?"

"Aye, you look like hell, old son."

"Screw you," Declan said his voice weak and catching in his throat. "How'd you get here so fast?"

"Fast? We've been looking for you for three days."

"Why?"

"Well, if you've been reading the same newspapers I have, you're in a lot of trouble."

"They killed Abe and set me up because I saw it."

"I figured it had to be something like that. Here, drink this. It'll help clear your head."

Declan felt cold condensation drip from a bottle as a hand held it to his mouth.

"Oh, cut him loose already," Fintan ordered. "He's not gonna hurt anyone. He can barely sit upright."

Declan felt the bindings on his wrists tighten momentarily as something pushed against them. With a small pop his hands fell to his sides as the restraints were cut. Sitting forward, he placed his hands on his face, wiping sweat away. The bottle was tapped against his right hand. He took it and gulped cold water, allowing it to spill over his chin and onto his shirt. Placing the bottle on the floor, he took another moment to collect himself. He rubbed his eyes as his vision began to clear and the buzzing in his head slowed.

He looked around to see that he was in an empty walk-in freezer. A tall, dark-haired man with a square chin stood behind him, wearing a black trench coat, his face threateningly blank. Fintan sat a few feet in front of him and as Declan looked toward him he was surprised. He'd nearly forgotten he was wheelchair-bound, a gift from their days in Northern Ireland.

Fintan patted the armrests of the chair and smiled. He still had the same neatly combed blonde hair and angular features as the last time Declan had seen him. His face was a bit more lined, but his eyes still gave off the same I'm smarter than you look they always had. "A bit sportier a model than the one you last saw," Fintan said. "I can actually walk with the assistance of crutches, but with all the twists and turns in this place, well, it's just easier this way."

Declan remembered the night Fintan had been injured; a gunshot to his lower back had left him paralyzed from the waist down. In 1993, a group of left wing IRA leaders from Belfast had paid an assassin to attack the McGuire family home in Mullaghmore, just over the border with the Irish Republic. Their goal had been to put an end to an internal power struggle within the IRA that had pitted them against right wing commanders from around the six counties of the north who disagreed with the consolidation of power in Belfast and with the political ambitions of Sinn Fein.

Angered by what they saw as the Belfast leadership being more interested in pandering to the IRA's enemies in Stormont and Westminster, and using the armed struggle only as a negotiating tool to gain political power and garner small fortunes for themselves, the commanders united under the leadership of Eamon Maguire, Fintan's father and commander of the IRA's South Armagh Brigade, to begin a quest to take back the military council and continue the battle for a united, thirty-two county Irish state. Being independently wealthy, the culmination of McGuire's plan was a specially trained group of operatives that he'd codenamed Black Shuck and had sent to train in Afghanistan under the supervision of a rogue Russian commander in charge of a unit of special forces soldiers known as Vympel.

Naturally the politicians of Sinn Fein hadn't taken kindly to the challenge and with the help of a traitor named Torrance Sands, they'd attacked and eliminated the team. Declan had served as the leader of one of the four active service units that made up Black Shuck under Eamon McGuire's command and his tenure had ended the same night Fintan had been shot. Although Fintan was never involved directly in any operations, the assassin had spared no one. Eamon McGuire, a half dozen other commanders and a dozen of the IRA's most lethal operators had been killed, and Fintan had been left for dead. Declan and his fellow operative Shane O'Reilly had survived only because they'd arrived after the assault and had found only carnage.

Declan placed his head back in his hands. Dammit, he thought. Although the buzzing had stopped, his vision had cleared and he could finally move his arms and legs again, he still had a severe headache.

"What was that your guys got me with? Where's Constance?"

"Ah, your wife, you did well there, Dec," Fintan chuckled. "She's fine, just fine, upstairs in a suite probably enjoying a facial and a massage. I have no idea what they hit you with. Only two of these guys are mine. The rest were friends of friends. A fact I'm not exactly happy about, as I'm trying really hard to keep my presence here under wraps, but I didn't have much choice. I knew it would take some damn good training to handle you."

"So no one knows you're here?"

"No. The staff here is used to quiet visits by political figures so I'm hoping it will stay that way. I'm on a plane back as soon as we're done."

"How'd you find me?"

"Christ, Declan, you're not that hard to predict. I knew you'd have a bolt-hole somewhere remote, probably within a hundred miles of home, someplace nice and quiet. As soon as I saw the news I had one of my guys make some calls. He found this nice old boy, former U.S. marine recon as it was, who works here in the kitchen. He outlined all of the possibilities and between him and some friends they sat on them until you showed up."

"Jesus, Fintan. This whole thing has way too many hands on it. How do you know this guy isn't going to turn me in or hasn't already?"

"Well, my friend here says he's trustworthy," Fintan said, motioning towards the man standing behind Declan. "Met him in Desert Storm, says he's no friend of the government. You know, one of those conspiracy types. Seems trustworthy enough, but that's all the more reason why you need to get your arse on a plane out of here. If he found you, the peelers won't be far behind. I have some contacts in Switzerland that can set you and the missus up with a nice cabin. All the skiin' and screwin' you'd care for until this thing blows over in a few months."

Declan shook his head. "Its not going to blow over. We have to find these bastards and stop them. Abe isn't going to have died for nothing and they aren't going to get away with taking away the best life I've ever had. I've worked too hard to put the past behind me to have it all destroyed."

"Jesus, Declan. You always did buy into all that stuff about the American dream, didn't you? You've got bigger problems than you realize. We all do. Whoever's after you has gone all the way to the Security Service in London. Shane's department received the order earlier today. The service is to release all the information they have on you. Shane'll delay the order as long as he can and even try to figure out who made it, but that won't help much. You've got to go to ground as fast as you can and I don't mean hiding in a cabin by the lake. I mean real hiding, new names, new paperwork, everything."

"I've got all of that; have had for years, French passports and papers, German passports and papers. It's not like they're going to stop looking for me just because I'm running and hiding. As long as I'm alive and I know the truth, they're going to be hunting me. Six days, six months or six years, any way you look at it, they're coming. We'll be running for the rest of our lives and I'm tired of running, Fintan. I've seen too many people die because the people in power were in collusion with the psychopaths out trying to murder everyone."

"How the hell do you plan on finding these guys? You don't even know who they are, do you? They made it all the way to Whitehall without breaking a sweat. What're you gonna do if this whole things goes all the way up to the presidency or something like that? You can't take on an entire government."

"I don't have to. This isn't the 1980s and we're not in Northern Ireland anymore. This is America and whoever these people are, they're on the fringe. They may have power and access, but that won't save them when the truth of what they're doing is revealed."

Fintan shook his head in seeming disbelief. "I should know better than to try to talk you out of anything. You're worse than a dog with a bone, always have been."

Declan thought for a moment. Slowly he sat back, took a deep breath and another long drink of water. He didn't like any of the options, but that was usually the way things worked in these situations. You always had to go with the best of the choices in front of you and Fintan was right. Staying in the U.S. didn't make much sense, Declan had settled on that fact the night before. The more distance he could put between himself and the conspirators trying to kill him the better off he'd be and the better his chances would be of finding out who they were without them finding him in the meantime.

"London," he said aloud, though he wasn't speaking to anyone in particular.

In all likelihood he didn't think there were any significant ties to London. His history in the U.S. was barely over a decade old and the information he'd supplied to the INS when he'd applied for citizenship left out as much as it told. That was where the Security Service came in. Whoever was after him had needed information and had reached out to contacts within the British government to get it. Still, someone there had to know where the request originated and that person might just be the best chance he had at finding out who was responsible for everything that had happened since Friday night.

"Look," Fintan said, as if he could read minds, "your best chance of finding these guys is Shane. Let him stay on the London link while you lay low. When he's got something, we can decide the next move from there. You and the missus can shack up at the estate in Mullaghmore. No one will ever think to look for you there. It hasn't been used in years. You'll be close enough to act when Shane comes up with something and you'll be far enough away from the mess you're in here."

Declan nodded. "Hopefully you've cleaned up since the last time I saw Mullaghmore."

Fintan grimaced and Declan realized the insensitivity of his comment. The last time he'd seen the McGuire estate was the night Black Shuck had been wiped out and Eamon McGuire had died.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to—"

"Forget it. We need to get moving," Fintan said, as he pushed himself towards the door. "My pilot will get my jet ready and then we'll be off. You can be safe in County Monaghan by this time tomorrow."