TWELVE

A Slice of Death

Tommy’s last name was Meagher, pronounced Marr, just like the one-time governor of the Montana Territory.

An Irish nationalist and patriot, the original Tommy Meagher was arrested by the British in 1848 and convicted of treason during the Young Irelander Rebellion, a six-day uprising that left 65 police officers dead. Originally sentenced to hang, he was instead sent to the British penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land, later called Tasmania.

In 1850, he politely notified the British authorities of his intent to escape, spent four days in a rowboat that he somehow acquired, was plucked from the sea by an American whaler, and eventually turned up in San Francisco.

In time, he made his way to New York City and became a lawyer, journalist, and a brigadier general in the U.S. Army during the Civil War before his appointment as territorial governor. Today, you can find a statue of Meagher on horseback in Helena.

It’s quite a success story … right up to the end, anyway.

The poor bastard drowned at the age of 43 in the Missouri River – drunk, shoved, or both, as the story goes, never to be seen again – and I was hoping for a better fate for our namesake as we pulled into the back-door entrance to Dublin’s world-class airport and headed in the general direction of the customs hanger, where Tommy worked.

Leonard wheeled the Range Rover into a secluded parking area, found an empty spot, and he and Elmore laid out a plan of sorts, as though I wasn’t there.

“Seems to drive OK, but we should check the rig,” Leonard said, and he no longer felt obligated to shout. “You do that, maybe even get some help from him” – he glanced toward the back seat without making eye contact – “while I find Tommy. Might call the boss, too. We got four dead, two of ’em ours, and you and Blake almost make it six with that mess back at the hotel. He’s gonna want to know what’s going on.”

“You think that’s really …”

“Yeah. I do.”

Elmore started to exit the SUV, then paused and stared at his partner, locking in, making sure that Leonard was listening.

“You think the bomb was meant for us and they got their own guys by mistake?”

Leonard snorted and reached for his satellite phone, which was cradled in the console between the two front seats.

“The only mistake I see is leaving anybody alive,” he said.

“So why didn’t they come back for us?”

“Beats the hell out of me.”

“I would’ve come back,” Elmore said.

“Then it’s a damn good thing you weren’t in that car.”

Elmore tugged the door handle.

“Maybe they only had one bomb,” he said.

“And maybe Santa Claus was behind the wheel.”

Elmore shrugged off the swipe.

“Leprechauns, maybe,” he said. “But it’s the wrong time of year for Santa to show up, even here. Hell, everybody knows that.”

Leonard stared at him, the old He’s-got-three-heads-and-I-never-noticed-before look, and the situation struck me as ludicrous.

“I’ve said this before, guys, but you two should get married.”

“Piss off, Blake,” Leonard said without much interest. He started to climb out of the SUV, clutching the sat-phone, and added, “Make yourself useful and help your buddy check out the rig – see if it’s still intact underneath.”

“Happily,” I said. “But Elmore might be right. Maybe they just had one bomb.”

Leonard paused in mid-exit, his right foot already planted on the ground, though his sizeable frame was still in the seat.

“Your point?”

“They might be coming back with another one,” I said.

He fully extricated himself from the SUV and leaned back inside, glowering at me.

“Then we’d better damn well hurry,” he said.

I stared back at him, determined to give as good as I got. 

“And if they show up while I’m crawling around under the SUV?”

“Run, hide, or fight, Blake,” he said, pulling away. “Just like they draw it up.”

He started punching at the buttons on his phone, clearly not interested in my response.

“Come on,” Elmore said. “Let’s check this thing. Then we can figure next steps.”

We did a cursory walk-around. From all outward appearances, the Range Rover withstood the close proximity of the pipe bomb’s blast amazingly well, with just a few minor scratches along the bumper and hood where the concussion hammered it.

I crawled under the left side, which is no longer an easy thing for me to do. Elmore took the right side, and we both prodded and poked about and came to the conclusion that the SUV was still sound and fit for whatever came next, though we trusted that it wouldn’t be another pipe bomb.

“You think we should move it?” I said to Elmore as we got up and began brushing bits of debris from our clothing.

“Move it? Why move it?”

“Because we’re parked in an employees’ lot and don’t have the proper stickers or certificates or whatever’s required to be here, and we don’t want to draw attention to …”

“Yeah,” Elmore said. “We probably ought to move it. Good point.”

But Leonard strolled into view then, and he wasn’t happy – again.

“Tommy didn’t come to work today, but I got an address,” he said. “We’re gonna have to chase his ass down. How’s the rig?”

“It’s fine,” Elmore said. “You think maybe Tommy …”

“Don’t know ’til we find him,” Leonard said. “And I don’t like wasting time – not today, not with all the crap that’s flying around our heads.”

“You reach the boss?” Elmore asked.

“Left a message with Fredo – best I could do,” he said, and Elmore and I both exchanged quick glances but didn’t say a word.

We piled into the Range Rover instead and pulled out of the lot, heading toward the same exit that we’d just used to enter the airport complex.

“You know where Hume Street is, Blake?” Leonard asked a moment later.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s just off St. Stephan’s Green, next door to the Shelbourne, a half-block from the spot where the sedan took a run at us.”

“That’s where we’ll find Tommy – 15 Hume is the address. Can you get us there easily? I’ve given up on your pal here and the damn navigation system.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Hey, I can get the navi working,” Elmore protested, and he started poking at the screen again.

Leonard ignored him.

“OK, so let’s go, Blake. Which direction?”

“Take the main airport exit – to the right. Follow the signs,” I said. “It’ll be faster than backtracking. You’ll need to turn around.”

Leonard mumbled his assent and started down the access road.

“You think it’s coincidence that Tommy lives next to the place where we almost got run down?” Elmore asked a minute later.

But we all knew the answer, and Leonard and I said the exact same thing at the exact same instant in response.

“I don’t believe in coincidence.”

We fought traffic for the next 40 minutes, working our way south toward the central part of the city. Dublin was founded more than a thousand years ago, when everybody walked, and like most every major city on the planet now suffers from too much congestion and not enough infrastructure to accommodate the crush of motor vehicles of all shapes and sizes.

Elmore again began tinkering with the SUV’s navigation system, which seemed to annoy Leonard.

“Why not get the manual out and see what in it?” he said.

But Elmore ignored him, content to push buttons and mutter indecipherable phrases. Every now and then he’d talk to the system – “Navi? Can you hear me? Any advice?” – but reverted to stabbing at the face when he didn’t get a response.

“Hang a right here,” “Turn left at the light,” “Stay in the middle lane” – I continued to steer Leonard in the correct direction, which was easy enough because my recollection of the route was aided by road signs that were positioned on virtually every intersection, in both English and Irish, directing us toward St. Stephen’s Green. 

“We’ll see the old University-College campus on our left, though it’s all been moved from the time I was here,” I said as we drew near. “You’ll have to loop around the park because the streets are one-way, but …”

“I get it,” Leonard said, before I could finish. “Just tell me when to turn and where.”

“Sure. We’re almost there.”

Ten minutes and two missed turns and one additional loop later, with Leonard still sputtering because of pedestrian interference, we were parked on Ely Place, walking back toward Hume Street.

“I don’t like being this close to the spot where they tried to run you down,” Leonard said after a moment. “Somebody might recognize you – either one of you – and report it.”

“Can’t be helped,” I said. “We need the intel, and this is where it leads.”

“Tell you what, Blake,” he said. “You go back to the car and wait. I don’t like leaving you alone, but I like the thought of you being spotted out here even less. You can wait …”

“Nobody’s going to see me and call the Guards,” I said.

“It’s not the cops I’m worried about. Besides, nobody’s gonna see you if you can’t be seen,” he said, tossing me the keys. “Go wait in the car. Keep it running, in case somebody shows up and wants to light a match under the hood. Keep your piece handy. Keep your head down. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He started up the street again, with Elmore at his side.

“Bad idea,” I called out, though rooted in place on the footpath. “What if you run into trouble?”

“Then it’ll be a good thing you’re out of the way.”

Elmore looked over his shoulder, the one with the ripped seam.

“It’s OK, Professor B,” he called to me. “Won’t take but a minute. Just stay put … stay outta sight.”

I didn’t answer. And I remember thinking, He’ll need to get that jacket fixed. It’s like hanging a sign on him.

I walked back to the Range Rover, convinced in one moment that my bodyguards were making a mistake, convinced in the next that the reason Leonard sent me away was one of deniable discretion.

If necessary, they’ll work Tommy over to see if he was involved in the attacks, and they don’t want me in the way, I thought as I climbed into the driver’s seat and began scanning news programming on the radio to determine if I could turn up any information about the car bombing north of town.  

The more that I thought about it, the more I’ll admit that Leonard’s plan for me made perfect sense in a strange, uneasy sort of way. Even though I’m a licensed private investigator with a decent reputation (the apprehension of a couple of notorious serial killers helps in that regard), I’m not big on fisticuffs and gunplay and violence and general mayhem, a fact that Elmore and Leonard knew and understood.

Getting me out of the way in case Tommy doesn’t cooperate and needs some encouragement seems logical.

That’s at least the way I justified the situation, right up to the moment when my bodyguards returned, a scant 7 minutes later, and piled abruptly into the car, breathing hard from their fast trip down the street.

“Drive,” Leonard said. “Move it – get us out of here.”

“Where to?”

“Anywhere. Just get moving, dammit.”

I took a hard left on Roger’s Lane, glanced wistfully as we approached Toner’s Pub on Lower Baggott Street, the scene of many a pint of stout in my otherwise wasted college days, and merged with the one-way traffic, heading east.

“What happened?” I asked a moment later.

“Tommy’s dead,” Elmore said without apparent emotion.

Startled, I glanced in the rearview, trying to catch his eye.

“You had to kill him? You couldn’t get him to talk otherwise?”

“We didn’t kill him, for god’s sake,” Leonard said. “He was dead when we got there – tied up and sliced. Somebody sure as hell got to him … maybe even got him to talk. But it wasn’t us. It sure as hell wasn’t us.”

We didn’t say much in the next few minutes.

I asked if they’d been seen but didn’t get an answer and didn’t press the point.

I kept waiting for some instructions, or a direction to travel in, or some sort of plan that would at least give me a purpose – something that I could focus on to help process this latest setback.

But Leonard sat silently in the front seat, watching the traffic flow around us, and Elmore didn’t say a word from his spot in the back, his eyes locked on the vehicles that swirled behind us.

“North then, to Armagh?” I eventually asked.

I got nothing again and was about to press the issue when Leonard finally broke the silence.

“No,” he said. “Head back to the airport.”

He swiveled around to talk with Elmore.

“You see anything back there – anything at all?”

“No,” Elmore said. “It’s clear – looks good.”

I looped around Merrion Square, took Holles Street north to Tara, which runs parallel to the Liffey, took a left to O’Connell Street, and started north once more, making a slow-motion beeline through snarled traffic toward the airport.

“How much of a hurry are we in?” I asked.

“Why?”

“I can bypass some of this – use side streets to get out of the traffic.”

Leonard thought about it.

“Yeah,” he eventually said. “Some running room might help. And we should put on the damn armor. God knows what’s coming next.”

Elmore grabbed the bulletproof vests from the rear. He handed one to Leonard, strapped himself into a large-sized model after stripping off his suit jacket, and I waited until Leonard pulled his Velcro straps tight, fighting the limited space in the SUV as much as the vest itself, before stopping in a residential area off Parnell Street.

“I’ll drive,” Leonard said, tugging on the door handle.

Elmore handed me a vest, I had it on in seconds while walking from one side of the Range Rover to the other, and we were soon heading north again, Leonard grunting or mumbling while I shot him directions and yet another sharp reminder to stay on the left-hand side of the road.

“Something else I hate about Ireland – besides the damn rain,” he said a moment later. “The smart-ass in the back seat is now in the front seat, but he’s still backseat driving.”

“Did you just serve up a joke?” I asked.

“Hell no,” he said immediately. “Sure as hell not to you.”

We picked up the N1, heading north, passing Drumconda, and I was replaying the refrain from the Doobie’s Minute by Minute in my head again: “I’ll keep holding on.”

Before long I was humming the song, tunelessly singing at times.

“What are you thinking?” Elmore asked a moment later. He was talking to Leonard, which meant I didn’t have to tell him that all I was thinking about was getting Caeli home safely – and if the archbishop could be found and secured in good health, well, so much the better.

But Leonard was all over it.

“I need to talk to the boss, and he’s not gonna be happy,” he said. “We got how many dead now? Five? Three of them ours – and damn lucky it wasn’t two more? I can already guess what he’s gonna say.”

“Yeah. Me, too,” Elmore said. “That’s why I’m asking. Seems like we don’t even have to make the call.”

“So make the other call – get the damn thing ready to go,” Leonard said. “Blake … how far are we out from the airport?”

“Ten minutes – 15 maybe,” I said.

Leonard grunted, and I guessed that he only asked the question for Elmore’s sake.

Elmore produced his satellite phone and hit some buttons. He paused, waiting for the connection, which took two or three rings, by my reckoning.

“Right. We’re on our way,” he said. “Maybe 15 minutes out. How soon can we get the bird in the air?”

He paused again, waiting for the reply at the other end.

“Can’t do it any quicker?”

Another pause.

“OK, then – quick as you can.”

This was followed by one more pause, which in turn resulted in a fast question to Leonard.

“Hey. Flight plan?”

Leonard glanced at me though the rearview mirror.

“What’s that big airport on the other side of the country?” he asked.

“Shannon.”

“Right.” Then to Elmore again, “Tell him Shannon.”

Elmore relayed the information, hung up, and I immediately registered an objection.

“I take it we’re leaving Dublin?”

“As soon as we can,” Leonard said.

“I’m not going anywhere – not until I find Caeli,” I said.  

But Leonard ignored me, and Elmore was conspicuously quiet as we motored ever closed to Dublin Airport.