Eamonn Mahoney sipped his coffee as the final boarding call for the 2:30 ferry to Holyhead screeched from the intercom. With the loading of vehicles completed 30 minutes earlier, it just remained for the last few stragglers to make their way on-board the Jonathan Swift.
While he waited, he skimmed the day’s Irish Times. News of his team’s adventures had not yet hit the headlines, but these days, banks making headlines were never far from the front pages. He’d read recently; BNP Paribas had agreed to a $9 billion fine for their part in the 2008 financial crisis which rocked the world’s economies. The article went on to say banking institutions worldwide paid more than $40 billion last year in penalties and legal fees, with experts estimating the cumulative total would be over $60 billion for 2014.
Eamonn considered his little dip into one of their side pockets just a drop in the ocean. Hardly even a crime in the big scheme of things. More like liberating a small amount from the corporate criminals for the little people.
It was a crime though nonetheless. And if his little endeavour were discovered, he’d be looking at some serious time up at The Joy. Though, he knew one thing he wouldn’t be looking at there in Mountjoy Prison was into any of the faces of the crooks capable of paying billions in fines. Folks with that level of power didn’t end up in cells with the likes of him. They didn’t end up in cells, period.
Eamonn folded the paper and pushed it across the table out of reach as if his noble cause could be tainted by their greed merely by touching the ink that outlined their crimes.
It was a short two-hour cruise directly east from the Dublin port, across the Irish Sea, to the Welsh town of Holyhead. From there, the journey only just began. Eamonn uncrossed his legs, stood, and smoothed the creases from his trousers. With his favourite Boston Red Sox baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes, he picked up his small overnight bag, withdrew his ticket from the inside pocket of his jacket and sauntered towards the attendant.
For the past hour, he’d sat and watched his five agents – as he liked to call them – load their vehicles into the immense belly of the Irish Ferries boat. As they boarded, he’d no fear they’d recognise one another. All five were carefully chosen from different counties and had never met. In addition, each man had never set eyes on Eamonn; all orders issued and questions answered took place by phone, ferry tickets and travelling money delivered by courier, and local militia contacts supplied the weapons and voice distortion equipment.
And now, they were five middle-aged couples – yes, wives were included as further subterfuge – embarking on a driving holiday to the mainland of Europe.
These men were professionals, IRA soldiers of the old school, and would act accordingly. No over-imbibing with alcohol, no actions to draw unwarranted attention. Each knew all too well not draw attention and to keep the mission in the forefront of their minds at all times. The men would already have secreted the cash from their particular robbery in their luggage. Eamonn’s only concern being the infrequent security checks at Holyhead and, later, Calais. From there, the rest of Europe was one big open highway all the way to their final destination.
The two big diesel engines came to life, and the ferry slipped its moorings and moved slowly out into Dublin Bay. Within minutes they’d accelerated to full speed. Eamonn passed between the tables of the main cabin, to him it looked more like the food court at Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre than that of a ferry, and out onto the aft-facing deck. A brisk wind whipped the spray from their wake across the bow. The air heavy with a salty tang and the pungent smell of hidden sea life. By the rear railing, a middle-aged gentleman, arm in arm with his wife, gazed back at the receding Dublin skyline and the distant rise of the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains. Overcast skies from earlier in the day had scuttled off to the north leaving a clear blue sky.
The middle-aged man’s wife shivered in the blustery breeze. Eamonn watched as the man placed an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer as they turned away from the stern and back to the warmth of the main cabin.
He gave a curt nod in Eamonn’s direction before speaking.
Eamonn touched two fingers to the bill of his cap.
Little did the man know that he, Eamonn Mahoney, was the reason he and his wife were on board. Nor that the man in the baseball cap knew precisely what he’d been up to earlier at a home on Edenvale Road, then at a certain bank in Ranelagh. And further that he, Eamonn Mahoney, master strategist for the Real IRA, knew the middle-aged man carried over €250,000 safely tucked away in the two suitcases stowed in the boot of his 2000 Peugeot.
Eamonn stepped away from the doorway and out onto the aft deck. With hands in pockets and feet spread wide, he faced the full brunt of the breeze and breathed deeply of the sea air.
As the ferry pitched and rolled in the deepening swell and the cityscape of Dublin slowly disappeared below the horizon, Eamonn couldn’t help but think he’d never felt so alive.