TEN

The Best-laid Plans

We were damn lucky – no question, both for escaping the Volvo’s path and for evading any investigating authorities called to the scene after the fact.

I’d only spotted the Volvo because Dublin is laced with one-way streets, as intricate as the stitching in a catcher’s mitt, and I understood the traffic patterns in front of the Shelbourne, where Caeli and I had stayed on previous visits.

But we had precious little time to delve into the role that luck played.

We first had to deal with Leonard.

“What the hell happened?” he asked when Elmore and I turned a corner, using parked cars for shelter in case the Volvo was lingering, and stealthily approached the parked Range Rover.

I was fairly certain that he was talking to Elmore when he added, “You look like hell.”

But Elmore wasn’t inclined to defend his appearance, so I jumped in instead.

“We need to go,” I said. “A car just took a run at us, in front of the hotel.”

Leonard looked incredulous.

“Took a run at you? What the hell are you talking about, Blake?”

“Just get in and drive,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it, but we can’t stay here – it’s not safe.”

Leonard stared at me for an instant and then locked eyes with Elmore, who I’ll admit did look a bit disheveled, seeing as how I’d crash-landed on him on the sidewalk along Merrion Row.

“We gotta book it, partner,” he said, and that got Leonard moving. He slid into the driver’s seat and we took our usual spots, with Elmore riding shotgun and me in the back seat, directly behind Elmore so that I could keep an eye on Leonard’s facial expressions.

“Where’s our support?” Elmore asked.

“The van behind us,” Leonard said. “What happened? How did it happen?”

Those were, admittedly, good questions. I didn’t know who was supposed to answer, but I figured that I’d defer, if for no other reason than Leonard could direct his resulting ire at Elmore and not at me.

Turns out it didn’t matter. Leonard is an equal opportunity ire-dealer.

“Hard to say, exactly,” Elmore said. “We’d been in the park, the one across from the hotel, while Professor B was making phone calls. We were waiting to cross the street once I got your call, and the next thing you know … well, I don’t really know what happened.”

“You don’t know?” Leonard said. His head was pivoting between glances at Elmore and what was immediately in front of him, from stop signs to cross traffic, and he was having a hard time with both. “That’s your job, dammit. You’re supposed to know.”

Elmore swiveled his head around and tossed a glance in my direction.

“What happened, anyway? What did you see?” he asked, ignoring Leonard.

Crap, I thought. Here it comes.

“Dark sedan, gray, likely a Volvo,” I said. “It came out of the spot where Merrion Row turns into Lower Baggot Street, near Toner’s Pub, with traffic running one-way. That’s why I noticed it. The car was going the wrong way. Well, that and the fact that its tires were screaming.”

I paused, trying to reconstruct the scene in my head. But Leonard wasn’t in a waiting mood.

“Keep it going, Blake,” he said, using a rolling motion with his wrist to indicate that he wanted more. “I gotta know what we’re dealing with here.”

“It crossed the lane, heading directly toward us as we waited on the footpath at the light. When I saw …”

“What’s a footpath?”

“An Irish sidewalk. I shoved Elmore when I spotted the sedan, we both hit the pavement, and the damn thing missed us, I don’t know, by a foot or so.”

“More like a couple of inches,” Elmore said. “Almost got my feet.”

Leonard shook his head as he absorbed the image, his driving even more erratic now that his attention was thoroughly focused elsewhere.

“You sure this wasn’t a mistake – some little old lady hitting the gas instead of the brake?” he asked.

“Not a chance,” Elmore said. “The car spun around against traffic when the light turned and took another run at us. I was getting up, and Professor B shoved me again, right into the metal bars around the park. The car couldn’t get at us there and raced off, fish-tailing … tires squealing the whole way.”

“The guy was good,” I said, referencing the sedan’s driver. “The way he spun the car around once he’d missed his first run – professional stuff, someone who knows his way around.”

“So a professional wheelman, you think?” Leonard said.

“Either that or a well-trained amateur,” I said.

“And your experience as – what? – a reporter or a college paper-pusher gives you some insight into what makes a professional wheelman?” he asked.

“Hey, I’ve seen Bullitt,” I said.

“No. Steve McQueen was a cop in Bullitt, not a wheelman,” Elmore said. “The Transporter is a better example, or even Fast and Furious.”

Leonard snapped at us.

“Shut up – both of you,” he said.

He apparently was thinking about the situation.

So was I, running the scene through my head again, trying to determine if I’d missed anything that was worth mentioning.

Elmore used the time to dust himself off, though his suit coat was ripped where the sleeve meets the shoulder and would need to be tossed if a tailor couldn’t be found.

At least he had some extra outfits on the jet.

Leonard roared back to life a moment later as he sharply rounded a corner and had to dodge a passing pedestrian, who flipped him off with the Irish finger, a backward V-sign – index and middle fingers extended.

If Leonard spotted the insult, he ignored it.

“We didn’t have much going for us on this little venture of yours, Blake, and now we’ve got even less. They know we’re here,” he said.

“Who’s they, exactly?” I asked.

He swiveled his head around to glare at me, turning the wheel sharply at the same time.

“Christ, what a mess,” he said as he refocused on the road. “What’d you do? Make a call and give away your location? Or maybe you got drunk last night and told somebody we were here, where you were staying. No other way they’d ’ve known.”

I didn’t respond.

“That’s not what happened,” Elmore said.

“How the hell do you know?” Leonard said. “Were you with him every minute?”

“Pretty much.”

“And why didn’t you see the damn car? You know what would happen to us if Blake got run over? You know what he’d do, though the why of it is beyond me?”

I figured that the pronoun in Leonard’s last sentence referred to Don Vincenzo and not me. Hell, if I’d been run down minutes earlier on a Dublin street, I wouldn’t be in a position to do or say much of anything, especially issuing a complaint.

Elmore discovered the rip in his suit jacket and sighed loudly.

“Let it go,” he said. “Hollering won’t fix anything.”

“Maybe not, but it makes me feel better,” Leonard said.

He wheeled the car to a halt, watching the rearview mirror carefully as a white van with painter’s ladders on top passed by, moving slowly. Leonard pulled out his sat-phone, punched in a number, and waited a moment before the connection kicked in.

“We got a problem. We might want to change …”

He stopped, looking annoyed, waiting for the interruption on the other end of the line to clear.

“No, dammit. They said somebody took a run at them. Over on …”

He turned toward Elmore.

“What’s the name of that street again?”

Elmore shrugged.

“Merrion Row, in front of the Shelbourne,” I called out from the back.

Leonard repeated the information and waited.

“You really think it’s safe?” he asked a moment later, talking into the phone again.

He began shaking his head, as though in disagreement with whatever directives he’d just been given, and finally jumped back in, barking into the phone.

“Look, somebody took a run at him, dammit. Dark gray sedan, most likely a Volvo. I don’t like it. How’d they even know we were …”

He stopped again, holding the phone away from his ear, glaring at it for an instant, as though it were a living thing. After another lengthy pause, some additional facial contortions, and a couple of mumbled curses and asides, he shouted into the phone. “Just watch your ass, dammit. We’ll do the same.”

He clicked off the phone, stuck it in the console between the seats, and nudged the Range Rover forward.

“Now they think they’re being followed, too. I don’t like it. We’ll see in a few minutes, somewhere off O’Connell Street.”

Then, talking to Elmore, he said, “Get the navigation system ready so I can figure out how to find them.” 

“Where’s the meet?” I asked.

“Some place called the Four Courts. It’s on …”

“I know it,” I said. “Take a left at the next street – and stay on the left side of the road, for god’s sake. We won’t need to worry about gray sedans if you keep driving like that.”

I caught the glare in the rearview mirror and was happy to be carrying a firearm. But he kept his temper and made the turn.

“Something else I don’t like about this damn country,” he said a moment later. “Backseat drivers with big mouths.”

“You can get those anywhere,” Elmore said, though his attention was focused on the SUV’s navigation system.

But Leonard ignored his partner as he negotiated the traffic down trendy Grafton Street, crossing the River Liffey in good form and taking a left on Abbey Street Middle, another left on Capel Street, following directions as we scurried along myriad side streets and a couple of alleyways while fighting the numerous one-way thoroughfares that make driving in Dublin difficult.

“There’s an odd intersection up here, at Greek Street, but all you need to do is follow the signs to the left – it’ll run us right into the Four Courts,” I said.

“You seem to know Dublin pretty good, Professor B. How come?”

“I went to college here, Elmore,” I said. “A hell of a long time ago.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said.

“There’s a lot your pal hasn’t told you,” Leonard said, his eyes shooting daggers again.

“Just tell me you got the luggage from the hotel,” Elmore said.

“It’s been handled,” Leonard said without elaboration.

As the Range Rover rounded a turn into the Four Courts parking area, I asked, as innocently as I could pose the question, “How well do you know last night’s Tommy?”

“Well enough to trust him a hell of a lot more than I trust you right now, Blake,” Leonard said.

“That’s good,” I said. “Because outside of the Irish officials we saw when we cleared customs, and the jet’s crew, Tommy is the only other person in Ireland to know we’re here – along with the boys we’re about to meet.”

Leonard remained quiet.

“Good point,” Elmore said.

“Damn good point,” Leonard chimed in a moment later. “Let’s think this over – before we get out of the damn car.”

“Maybe we should put on the vests,” I said.

“You think a bulletproof vest is gonna protect you from a maniac driver trying to run you down?” Leonard said.

I wasn’t sure of the answer, but my suggestion seemed reasonable at the time.

We exited the Range Rover slowly and in shifts moments later.

Elmore got out first, taking his time, leaving the SUV’s door open for cover as he cautiously stood upright and looked around the perimeter on his side of the vehicle. His hand was tucked inside his suit jacket, where he kept his Beretta 92FS semi-automatic 9mm pistol secured in a shoulder holster.

Leonard was next, exiting as if in exaggerated slow motion, the kind of movement you see in the movies when the scene is particularly violent and the director wants to make sure you don’t miss a thing. He’d already pulled his pistol, a Beretta identical to Elmore’s, and kept it out of sight by holding it in his left hand, inside the door frame.

Leonard pointed to his 2-o’clock, and Elmore’s head snapped to the spot and nodded once. I shifted my position in the back seat and noted the white painter’s van parked at the end of a long row of vehicles, with no signs of activity within.

On cue, I left the Range Rover’s left side, staying low, using its bulk for cover should we find ourselves in a gunfight. 

“Hold your position, Blake,” Leonard whispered. “And keep your head down, dammit.”

He exchanged glances with Elmore, and a silent hand and mouth ballet of language ensued that took no more than 5 seconds. It consisted of nods and finger-points and a couple of gestures, and Leonard was soon in a crouch and scurrying down the line of parked cars to our right, his pistol out of sight as he ran.

Elmore’s job was to cover him, though subtly.

My job, I guessed, was to cover Elmore.

“What is this place, Professor B?” Elmore asked a moment later, speaking softly, though his eyes never stopped surveying the scene.

“It houses Ireland’s Supreme Court and High Court and Dublin’s Circuit Court,” I said absently, watching in fascination as Leonard bobbed and weaved his way toward the painter’s van, his movements resembling a prize fighter’s.

“That’s only three courts,” Elmore said. “What happened to the fourth?”

“No flies on you, Elmore,” I said. “They moved the Criminal Courts operation to a new building a few years ago. It’s out near Phoenix Park.”

I spotted a couple of members of the Guards near the main entrance, more than a hundred yards away to the northwest, but no one else was close by. Pedestrians, tourists, solicitors, clerks, judges, bailiffs, random passers-by … all were strangely absent.

“Can you still see him?” he asked me a moment later.

“No. I’ve lost sight of him.”

“Yeah. Me, too,” he said. “It’s taking too long – something’s off.”

I was about to agree when Leonard popped his head up from a spot next to the van and waved at us to hold our position.

The gesture didn’t make me feel any better.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” I muttered, too softly for Elmore to hear.

Leonard surfaced again a few cars away and walked briskly toward us, his face pointed down toward his chest, his stride lengthy and resolute.

“Let’s go,” he said as he reached the Range Rover, pulling the driver’s side door open and climbing inside. “Blake … get us the hell out of here. Now.”

I didn’t want to waste time or, worse, have Leonard snap at me by questioning what the hell was going on, or even where we were going, so I gave him a route that had us heading east on Chancery Street, which became Mary’s Abbey Street, which in turn became Abbey Street Middle before spilling us onto O’Connell Street, Dublin’s main thoroughfare.

Under normal circumstances, I would’ve pointed out the statue of Ireland’s revered patriot and liberator, Daniel O’Connell, and, just beyond, the very spot where Nelson’s Pillar stood intact until the IRA, as the story goes, took out an advert in the Irish Times one soft morning in 1966, warning everyone to avoid the symbol of the British naval victory at Trafalgar in 1805, and then blew the top half of the stories-tall monument to smithereens, spilling Horatio Nelson’s statue into the street.

But this was no time to share Irish history, and I doubted that Leonard would be interested, even if something nasty wasn’t in the wind – something he’d yet to mention.

“Come on, partner,” Elmore said moments later, when we’d put more than a mile between us and the painter’s van at the Four Courts. “What’s going on? What did you see?”

“They’re both dead,” Leonard said. “Throats slit and left in the van. Not a pretty sight.”

He turned the wheel sharply, merging onto a major cross street, and then slowed down when he spotted a Garda cruiser moving slowly past us.

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on, or why, but we’re being played at every turn. We need to regroup,” he said once the police car showed no interest. “Can you get me out of town, Blake?”

“Sure,” I said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere but here.”

I thought about it, wondering where Caeli was at that very moment, trying to piece together what had just happened, which in turn had ruined whatever plans were under way between Leonard and our now-dead Irish collaborators to find her … and her uncle.

This all starts and ends with the archbishop, I thought.

“We head north then, to Armagh,” I said.

“What’s there?” Leonard asked.

“It’s where the archbishop lives, when he’s not missing,” I said.

“Seems like you want to run us right back into whatever’s going on,” Leonard said. His eyes, flashing at me from the rearview mirror, were hard and cold again.

“To get this over with, we need to find Caeli. To find Caeli, we need to find the archbishop,” I said without hesitation. “And we can’t do that without starting at the beginning and tracing what her uncle was doing from the time he got out of bed the morning he disappeared until … whatever he’s doing right now.”

“Makes sense,” Elmore said.

“I don’t like it,” Leonard grumbled after another long moment passed, “but I’m damned if I’ve got a better idea – not right now. What’s the name of this place again? And how the hell do I get there?”

I wasn’t familiar with the section of Dublin that we currently were in and asked Elmore if he could check for a roadmap in the glovebox.

“Just dial in the GPS,” Leonard said, waving at Elmore.

“Check for a map first, Elmore,” I said. “I don’t want to end up in Ballsbridge or Howth. We need to find the quickest way to the M1 heading north. It’ll only take me a second or two.”

“How about I do both?” Elmore said. He fished around for a map, found one and tossed it over his shoulder, and then started jabbing once more at the SUV’s navigation system.

I found what I was looking for a moment later.

“Make a right at the next intersection,” I called up to Leonard. “It streams into the N1, heading north, toward Drumconda. You’ll see signs. Stay on it. It turns into the M50 and then the M1, straight to Armagh. Looks like a couple of hours, depending on traffic.”

Leonard didn’t say a word, but he was adept at following directions, even if he struggled at times to stay on the left-hand side of the road.

Five minutes passed, perhaps a little more, when Elmore glanced at his partner and said, as matter-of-factly as if he were noting a change in the weather or that petrol cost €1.44 per liter, “You know we’re being followed – right?”

“Hell yes,” Leonard said without taking his eyes off the passing traffic. “Counting on it, in fact.”

Elmore, apparently unconcerned, returned to his continuing efforts to get the navigation system working.

I started looking over my shoulder.