Again. Coz this place is gettin';dullFollow

1 ~ 15th October 1997

I was feeling uncomfortable. I was vulnerable, exposed, defenceless. I sat in a gloomy corner of the pub, the haze of cigarette smoke irritating my nostrils and testing my resolve as a smoker who’d quit 2 weeks before. I had no idea what Mike looked like. It was unusual to hear of an Irishman by the name of Michael as ‘Mike’. ‘Mick’ and ‘Mickey’ were common, but ‘Mike’ sounded too British for a Catholic Republican from Derry. But I’d learned in my previous two tours that above all else, Ulster was unpredictable, and could always be relied upon for surprises.

The juke-box wasn’t deafening, but drowned out all but the most raucous conversations. When I’d first withdrawn to a table in the darker corner of the bar with my ‘Pint and a wee chaser’ at 8pm, the music was in the background. As the Guinness flowed, so the voices grew louder.

“Hey Séan! Turn the feckin’ music up man.” bellowed a chain-smoking darts player. “Or give me back my 50p ye ****”

The barman had looked at the player with a nervous, edgy smile and twisted the volume up a notch. Over the next two hours the banter and the music had taken it in turn to dominate the soundscape so that I never heard the conclusion of the conversations that drifted my way. Most had alluded to the soul-destroying rain that had trashed the barley harvest, cruelly flattening and soaking the golden crops upon which many of the locals relied.

“So will you be in the chair big man?” This from a slight, dark-haired chap in a donkey jacket and tatty jeans who had lowered himself into the seat opposite me at the rickety table. The rips in his jeans owed nothing to the whims of New York or London’s designers. They told of struggling lambs, barbed wire and hedgerow thorns.

“Guinness?” I barely looked up.

“Aye, that’ll do.” I used my knuckles on the beer-sticky table top to help lift myself from my seat, and for some reason, avoided eye contact as I scrimmaged my way through the drinkers to the bar.

“Two Pints mate” I said, but my two raised fingers were more understood by the barman than my drowned-out words, as the chatter competed with some English boy-band on the juke box.

The barman asked me something over his shoulder.

“What?” I asked, pointlessly cupping my ear.

He pointed to the bottle of Bushmills Whiskey on the top shelf and raised an eyebrow.

I shook my head. The pint glass at my table was still over half-full, but I didn’t want to interrupt Mike’s words with another chaotic foray to the bar.

Spilling only a few foamy splashes as I buffeted my way back to the table, I noticed Mike was rolling a cigarette.

“I’d offer you one brother, but aren’t I a little financially embarrassed at the moment” he smiled. I was momentarily relieved that my dilemma about whether to give in to my habit was not to rear its head, but it was his eyes that struck me.

There was so much about his face that could have caught my attention; should have caught my attention. He had a haircut from hell that looked like he’d done it himself without the aid of a mirror, or sharp scissors for that matter. A vicious scar ploughed across his left temple that made you all the more aware that he would otherwise have been good looking. But his eyes. . .

In the brief seconds that I looked him in the face, I saw the fading of his smile, the look of concentration as he licked the gummed edge of the cigarette paper, and the frown as he searched his jacket pockets doubtfully for his matches. But his eyes never changed. The crow’s feet didn’t flinch, the nose didn’t wrinkle as you’d expect. They simply pointed ahead without, it seemed, being aware of me, the drink or the cigarette.

“It’s OK pal. I just quit.” I rolled my eyes. I don’t know why I did that. For an instant I felt like an actor on his debut before an audience. I was analysing myself to the point I couldn’t work out if I was showing my real feelings or giving a convincing or phoney impression.

“Ah” He looked at the now lit roll-up no thicker than the match he’d lit it with. “And won’t these little bastards kill you in the end!”

He stared at me as if he’d asked me a serious question rather than some rhetorical conversation filler. I rolled my eyes again. Why did I do that?

“Now, let’s not feck about here big fella” He looked straight at me; his eyes cold and lifeless. Later, I’d notice how blue they were, but at that time you could have told me they were pink or spotted and I couldn’t have challenged you. He looked serious now. So did I. I lowered my head and my voice.

“Are you safe doing this?” I said, trying to hide my English accent while consciously avoiding some caricature of a bog-Irish brogue. He didn’t flinch.

He inhaled deeply on the cigarette, rolled so thin that this one drag burned half its length.

“Question is, are you? I mean; I don’t know whether you’re fish, flesh or fowl do I now. How safe do you feel?”

“I’m not sure safety is something that either of us would claim to be an expert in, now is it?” I pointed my eyes at the glass I was drinking from.

“Well I reckon we could whisper sweet nothings all evening here boy” He smirked. “Now let’s cut the foreplay and see who’s Daddy and who’s Mammy.” I may have imagined his sneer, but knew I had to dig my heels in. My nearest back-up was twelve miles away in Belfast.

“Okay matey-boy. Well I’m all up for a wee bit of unprotected conversation. Let me start. If Killane is to be trusted, can he deliver?”

His eyes lowered and I thought I saw his knuckles whiten around the glass.

“Killane?” (He pronounced it ‘Kill-Anne’. I mentally kicked myself) “Now we both know he’s not one to bluff and bluster. But didn’t they tell me you’ll be more hands-on than just pointing and smiling.”

“Depends what’s being pointed at”

He shifted very slightly in his chair and his left hand brushed mine below the table. I felt a few cold, small, hard shapes drop into my hand from his. Keeping my hand under the table, I glanced as briefly as I could. I managed to avoid any outward show of relief at the sight of the .357 bullets.

“And how far d’ye think I can throw these little cu[/i]nts?”

He smiled, and for a moment his eyes seemed to show it was sincere.

“After you, good sir” he said in a mock BBC English accent. Was he on to me, or simply taking the ****? I reached into the breast pocket of my shirt and, as discreetly as I could, closed my fingers over the five crisply folded twenty pound notes. I passed him the money with the bullets still in the same hand,.

“Ah now I think the foreplay’s over there my wee lover”. He winked. As I dropped the bullets into my trouser pocket, I felt a tap at my knee. I didn’t look down; just took the pistol from him and held it between my knees as close to the underside of the table as I could. Which Pocket? As accidentally as I could manage, I knocked my beer-mat to the floor. As I leaned into the hidden corner between the table and the wall, I reached down and placed the weapon as flat as I could in my pocket.

He took a long pull on his drink; the froth on his top lip made me notice his stubble for the first time. I held his stare.

“Now you and I know that these feckers have firepower and numbers.” I whispered. “Killane” (I pronounced it ‘Kill-Ane’ again) “will need more back-up than that.”

His smile faded in an instant.

“And now I think we’re into a new negotiation, pilgrim”. I was sure that the sneer was real and not imagined.

“Well if it was just me,” I reached slowly under the table and found the crotch of his jeans. As I squeezed, he silently spat Guinness over the side of his glass. “I’d happily oblige”. I forced a smile. “But Mr Killane seems to feel the negotiations were concluded to his satisfaction.”

Apart from a reddening of his face, his expression didn’t change.

I felt a tap on the hand that I had tensed around his ******* and released my grip. He shifted in his seat once again. His right eye was watering. I felt a heavy but soft weight in my hand. Leaning to my right, feigning a cheek-lifting fart, I slipped the Hessian-wrapped magazines into the opposite jacket pocket to the pistol. Balance would be the make or break of my exit.

“Same again Mike?” I asked. “I do believe you’re the man in the chair now.” I forced an unconvincing smile.

As he gloomily stood up and made his way to the now crowded bar counter, I slipped out through the exit to the outside men’s toilet.

By the time I’d started the Land Rover, I had a loaded Glock 31c in the door-bin by my right hand: 15 in the clip, and a full spare in my pocket. I flipped on the headlights, drove off the car park onto the unlit street, and was close to sh itting myself.

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2. ~ 24th December 1977

The rain had stopped, and as a few half-hearted rays of sunlight fanned across the Belfast streets, shoppers and tourists skirted the puddles on the pavement shaking out umbrellas and straightening their backs. The coffee shops had thrived on the downpour, reviving drenched visitors and providing a warm, dry sanctuary. As people finished the last of their lattes and cappuccinos, the tables became more sparsely populated. In a cobbled arcade just off Donegall Square, a child bent to pick up a small package apparently left under a chair by some absent-minded patron.

The flash of light was so bright, the speed of the blast so great, that nobody saw the child disintegrate. Her right arm travelled with enough energy to almost decapitate her mother and would have crashed into the collection of jars and mugs on the shelf behind the serving counter, but for the blast wave reducing the shelves and their contents to fragments.

Within seven seconds, the girl and her mother had been joined in their tragedy by eighteen customers, staff and passers-by.

Eight minutes later, Fire fighters began dousing the shattered remains of the shopping arcade, the steady aim of their hoses contrasting with the arcing lines drawn by the rifles and pistols of soldiers and members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Young men from all corners of the British Isles glanced nervously about, their Khaki Uniforms matching the drab colours of the cordoned-off arcade. Their gleaming white webbing crossed their backs like targets, adding to the sense of exposure and vulnerability that the men evoked. They glanced around, some showing obvious signs of fear, others holding back bilious nausea as their eye caught glimpses of body parts or charring items of clothing.

A macabre Irish parody became truth, as an elderly priest scrambled over smouldering timbers, oblivious to the torrents of water falling from where the fire hoses were swathing the rooftop, and to the repeated “Get the feck out of there Father!” screamed by a young fire officer.

“Jaysus, if only the ambulances were as fast as the priests”. This from one of the growing number of shoppers pressing the ‘Do Not Cross’ tape; an elderly woman holding a garish PVC handbag in both hands across her chest. She remonstrated as an RUC Constable tried to clear a path for back-up and the imminent paramedics.

Over the following hours, glass-wounds were treated on the pavement, the seriously injured were hurtled from the scene by convoys of ambulances, and Scene of Crime Officers picked through the debris. Slabs of flesh were placed in poly-bags, fragments of glass, metal and wood from the estimated bomb-site were meticulously taken for analysis. An army (literally and metaphorically) of people initiated investigations, reviews, interviews, analysis and a chain of hypotheses. But I was confident I’d left no trace.

The Christmas of 1977 was to prove bleak and hollow for dozens of bereaved and damaged families, and downright frustrating for the security services. For me, it was a hollow success.

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[i]Edited, Sat Jan 22 16:35:34 2005 by Nobby

Thanks for the read nobby. Although, these two are getting a little fresh. Couldn't you have one of em punch the other in the face or something to reintroduce a much needed shot of testosterone?

Dammit! Now I want the Book! lol
Laced with just a bit more "testosterone" that will make an awesome story! Me like that Nobby fecker!

If they take care of me with breasts, that'd be okay.

...And in this, he is entirely unique.

Good job, Nob. Look forward to the next installment.

Chapter 2 added.

[quote=Angsty] I'm thinking feckers would be the dillectual varient of ***********************

Go Feck Yerself

I have been around some of these groups, They don't have a good sense of humor. Don't write anything that will get you in trouble!

I wuv you, Nobby!

Nice explosion.. I feel bad fer the kid.. Maybe the guy who planted the bomb does too.. or is numb to it by now.. I could read stuff like that forever.. :)

You might be right about that, I always meet them after they have been sentenced for their crimes! Things are probably not too funny then!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo!!!!!

A close encounter with a banjo playing lesbian goat is just what we need.