“I feel the need. The need for speed.”

— TOM CRUISE, “MAVERICK,” Top Gun

STAPLETON WAS IN a safe house in Monaghan, he’d recently hijacked a shitpile of weapons. A bloody affair, he lost three men and took two Brits down. Bad trade-off. He was in serious stir with the Organisation, he was, to coin a phase, a little too loose a cannon. And, he was hemorrhaging money; men they could get, always another sucker willing to lie down for the cause but money, that was the life pulse. One other man in the house with him, a Derry guy named Dubh . . . the Irish for black . . . he was well-named, his eyes were as dark as the mercy of the Paras. Like Stapleton, he’d started with the Stickies, the official IRA, then when the split happened he’d joined the Provos but they were bleating for peace, too, so he’d joined the newest most ferocious offshoot, the Patriots. He was fascinated by hardware and spent hours cleaning the weapons, studying the manuals, loading and unloading. He actually polished the ammunition, with loving care. Stapleton had joked,

“You need to get out more, cara (mate).”

And got a look he’d have been proud to display himself. Dubh was his kind of guy but a rarity now, literally a dying breed. He was drinking a large Jameson, bottle of stout as chaser, said, giving the black liquid the evil eye,

“Not the same out of a bottle, is it?”

Stapleton was tempted to say,

“You’re having no problems with the Jameson.”

Cooped up with a guy for who knew how long, you didn’t want to sour the air, so he nodded. He had a mug of tea himself, heavily sweetened, he surely liked his tea, or cha, as his mother used to call it. Dubh’s tongue was loosened by the booze and he was as close to loquacious as he’d ever be, asked,

“You ever watch pictures?”

He meant movies, but being old Ireland he hadn’t yet adopted movies or any of the other Americanisms. All the freedom fighters were video literate, not from choice but from enforced confinement, in Long Kesh or safe houses. ‘Nam movies were hugely popular, and of course, Michael Collins, In the Name of the Father, Harry’s Game. Stapleton didn’t watch, preferred to listen to music but only as background. He was constantly on the alert for the Brit patrols, how the hell were you going to hear a helicopter if you were watching Robert Duvall doing his own chopper riff. Dubh, more to himself, continued:

“Me, I like Jim Cameron, The Terminator, Aliens, all that fucking hardware and you know, it looks used. Cameron, I tell you, he knows his stuff, he was on the verge of inventing a pulse gun by joining a Thompson submachine gun with a Franchi SPAS-twelve pump-action shotgun.”

Stapleton glanced at him, the guy’s eyes shining, fired on visions of carnage, he was near orgasmic,

“It was based on the Spandau MG 42 with thermal imagery sights.”

Stapleton was almost moved, here was a young man, his whole life shaped by violence, the only thing to excite him being the talk and dreams of weapons, the deadlier the better. Elsewhere in the country, young men were talking about Gaelic football, hurling, women, dances, cars, and Saturday nights at the pub. Dubh would only ever drink in shebeens, the illegal establishments run by the Boyos and where the smell of cordite was as familiar as the kegs of Smithwick’s brought in from Dundalk.

A few weeks later, Dubh would be shot in the head by the most basic rifle available, nothing fancy, no laser sight or even thermal capability, it killed him instantly, Stapleton felt that was irony of the most Protestant style, i.e., vicious.

Like James Cameron desperately needing Titanic to come in mega, Stapleton needed a big hit. He was running out of time, cash, and credibility. His master plan was to hit south of the border and involve Southerners, patsies who’d take the fall, involve the Republic and, best of all, grab the fucking euros to finance the Northern campaign.

His plan was fairly simple: get hold of some dumb guy from the Republic, do a couple of gigs in the North, get him a taste for it, then go south, hit big there, kill the idiot and get the hell out, leave Southern fingerprints all over it. How hard could it be? Belfast was crawling with starry-eyed youngsters who’d come over the border, wanting the romance of the cause, wanted to carry weapons and attain that sheen of patriotism they’d acquired more from Hollywood movies than Irish history.

He fully intended to make them history.

He remembered his father, before the Brits took him out, a tall man, always speaking in Irish, with a Fainne in his lapel. It was the gold badge awarded to Irish speakers who spoke fluently. When they’d put the riddled body in the casket, Stapleton had leaned over, took the pin from his dad’s only suit. He used to wear it but it was a dead give away for the Brits, so he carried it in his wallet, alongside the old currency of the South, the punts, the green notes with herself on them.

The volunteers nowadays, they wore frigging earrings, like nancy boys. Not on his watch they didn’t. A young fellow from Fermanagh had a stud in his left ear, Stapleton ripped it out, said,

“You’re a man, an Irish man, have some fucking dignity.”

And . . . they watched soccer, Jaysus . . . and even betimes . . . rugby. So okay, Manchester United had a huge Irish history but the beautiful game was killing the Gaelic. Stapleton had been a ferocious hurler. His own honed stick, from the ash, complete with the steel bands on the end, was among his proudest possessions. He’d broken it across the back of an informer. The dreaded snitch, now elevated to supergrass . . . selling out their comrades for money and to save their own wretched skins. He heard there was some American band called Supergrass . . . he wouldn’t be listening for them anytime soon. The supergrass, a term coined by the English press, a man who’d sell his own mother, and indeed, their like had been the cause of a lot of good men going down. Then, they became discredited and had to be whisked away to save the blushes of the Brits.

When Stapleton had still been a regular part of the campaign and they were being decimated by the traitors, his unit caught one of them.

Young guy, twenty years of age, looked like the punk he was. After he’d been through the water, cigarettes, testicles routines, they gave him to Stapleton. He took him to a shack on the outskirts of the city, the kid, whinging, hurting, terror in his eyes. Stapleton had to contain the rage of his men who wanted the old-style punishment, tar and feathers.

Like it was yesterday, Stapleton could summon the scene effortlessly. Put a blanket round the lad, who was shivering, asked,

“Want a cup of tea, drop of the creature in it?”

The wretch, his teeth bloody stumps, nodded, desperate for any bit of kindness. Stapleton clicked his fingers and one of his unit went to fetch it, pissed in the cup after he added the Jameson. Stapleton had to hold the cup to the fellow’s lips, his tremors were so bad. He hunkered down, asked,

“Know where that blanket comes from?”

The kid, confusion in his eyes, looked at the grey material, pulled it round him tighter, as if it would protect him, echoed,

“Blanket?”

The guys from the unit had gathered round, an opportunity to see the legendary Stapleton at work, they weren’t much impressed, yet. Stapleton said,

“What you’ve got there is a piece of living history, a blanket from Long Kesh, part of the dirty protest, you smell it, you can still get the shite they used to daub the walls.”

The kid tried to shrug it off; Stapleton was up, walked away, then returned with his old hurly, swinging it, hearing the roars of the crowd as a Northern county took the All Ireland title from the south, he said,

“And this, this is your legacy, you like sport?”

Despite the warmth of his words, the friendliness, a chill had entered the enclosed space, the kid stammered,

“Liver . . . Liverpool . . . Gerard . . .”

Never got to finish as Stapleton swung light and loose, the stick taking the kid full in the mouth, Stapleton, continuing in his easy tone,

“Fucking Brit game . . .”

Whack.

The kid’s jaw.

“Now, hurling, we’ve been playing it for centuries . . .”

The kid’s body doubled as the hurly shattered his kneecaps. Five minutes of intensive beating, the swish of the stick, Stapleton’s mini history of the growth of Irish sport, and all the while, the measured quiet words, as the young body was battered to mush.

When one of the guys in the unit finally took the hurly from Stapleton’s bloody hands, the shaft had actually ruptured and grey matter clung to the end. They buried the kid in a shallow grave, Stapleton flung the stick in, too, muttered,

“May you roast in hell, you treacherous cunt.”

That’s who Stapleton was.