Chapter 2
People often have conflicting opinions about spies. On the one hand, it scares them to think they might not know the true intentions of the people they trust. People generally don't like to be lied to. On the other hand, people tend to glorify the spy. When you don't understand something it becomes magical. In their minds, spies can outrun bullets and walk through walls. The reality, of course, is somewhere in between, but when you're a spy you need to be prepared to deal with both sides of the misunderstood coin.
...
After a shower and a good night's medically induced sleep, Michael was feeling more determined than frantic and more indignant than distraught. The trunk and the backseat of the Charger were full of bags of clothes for himself and Fiona, their favorite weapons, and almost their entire stock of ammunition. Practically the only explosive he wasn't bringing was O'Neill's bomb. That particular treasure had been strategically placed at Strickler's condo the night before, in hopes of implicating O'Neill in Strickler's murder.
The dark colored, fat-bellied plane sat in the enormous hangar with its rear doors wide open. Lucy was inside walking around with a pencil and a clipboard, her long, slick hair tied up in a ponytail. Her outfit reminded him more of a high school tomboy than the polished executive image she'd maintained lately.
"You sure you can handle the cargo hold again after so many years in first class?" he quipped, walking up the ramp with a cooler full of water and yogurt.
"It'll be fun," she answered, happy to see him looking more like himself. "Just like the good old days."
Michael looked around at all the giant crates and snuck a peek at the shipping manifest on her clipboard. "What's your operation in Russia doing? Supplying a small army?"
Lucy looked at him with a grin, "What? All this?" She ran her finger down the list past high-tech surveillance equipment that hadn't even been invented until after Michael had been burned, enough explosives to destroy a few city blocks, and a half dozen computers fast enough to give the NSA mainframe a run for its money. "This," she waved the page at him, "is for us." She flipped to the next page. "The only thing the Russian firm could afford from my company were some assault rifles and listening devices."
"Lucy," he looked at her with thanks spelled out across his face. "You don't have to do all this. Don't get yourself in trouble for us."
"Michael, we really should talk more often," she laughed. "Trust me, this is not a big deal. I pulled in a few favors, but nothing I can't handle. Let's get your stuff loaded up. Sam just called. He's almost here."
Michael smiled, dropped the cooler, and went to help Lucy unload the Charger.
...
The glow from a camping lantern cast an eerie light as it sat on top of the snack cooler. Sam, Lucy, and Michael sat around the cooler in some assorted lawn chairs Sam had borrowed from Maddie. The constant engine roar actually started to feel soothing after awhile. Sam was dozing, Lucy was reading, and Michael was cleaning Fi's H&K again. There were enough lights installed to have the place lit up as bright as the surface of the sun, but they'd chosen to keep it dim to help Sean sleep and encourage everyone else to rest as well.
Sean's voice was still rough and somewhat weak, but Michael heard him over the engines. "Michael," he called. "Get over here." An old military cot from Sam's storage space had been repurposed for the trip. They'd placed him a little ways over, behind some crates to keep from disturbing him with any conversation.
Michael fumbled through the maze of crates and made his way to stand next to Sean's cot. "Yeah, Sean? What is it?"
"Michael…I," he started. His face was largely obscured by shadows, but Michael could see that his eyes were a bit bright. "I want to apologize for the things I said to you earlier. I was angry and it wasn't right."
"It's fine," Michael tried to assure him. He was always eager to end discussions involving feelings or where to place blame. Sean's approach to conversation reminded Michael of Fiona's…straightforward and unavoidable.
"No, I was wrong," Sean pushed himself to continue. "I can see how much you love my sister, and how much she loves you." Michael looked down at his feet to avoid Sean's gaze. It could be just as penetrating as his sister's. "I don't know any other man who'd move mountains like this to get her back. I guess…what I'm sayin' is…it doesn't matter if you're a McBride or a Westen, you're one of us, and I appreciate how you're doin' right by my sister."
"Thank you, Sean," Michael glanced up at him again, feeling humbled by the sentiment. "I just hope, when we land, that the rest of your family feels the same way."
"Let me handle that," Sean assured him.
As Michael returned to work on the H&K, he saw Fiona's face with every click of the metal fitting back together. He considered the gun as he reassembled it. None of the pieces were anything particularly special or deadly on their own, but assembled in the right way and wielded with years of experience, they could be a powerful force against evil. He hoped, once they arrived in Ireland, that he'd be able to assemble an equally powerful team to get Fiona back.
...
There was not much that Fiona knew at the moment. She did not know where she was, nor the time of day, nor how she had gotten wherever she was…hands cuffed behind her back and head covered with a black bag. She did know that some combination of forces was making her head pound, that whatever she was lying on was not a bed, that it was rocking gently, and that footsteps were approaching. Each footstep brought new vibrations that rattled her head further.
A scraping metallic sound accompanied an increase in light through the black fabric. A strong hand gripped one of her upper arms, lifting her partially off the ground. The cuffs rattled and then came off, followed by the head bag.
She found herself face-to-face, with Thomas O'Neill and the events of the previous day came flooding back to her.
His eyes sparkled with delight as he threw her back into a corner and dropped half a sandwich and a bottle of water at her feet. Her head knocked against the metal wall as she fell, dazing her enough that she could make no move to stand or attack.
"Eat up, sweetheart," he advised.
Her mouth involuntarily asked the only question her mind was clear enough to articulate, "Michael?"
"Westen?" he tossed back his head and laughed. "He's gone. He can't help you now." O'Neill's laughter was the last thing she heard before he closed the door and the darkness closed in around her again.
...
"Ho there! Welcome home, brother." The enormous doors of the cargo hold opened into the darkness of a damp Irish evening to reveal a tall, gangly man standing next to a motorcycle. He had a smile as troubling as that of his sister right before she pushed a detonator button.
Sam rolled Sean down the ramp in a beat up wheelchair, then returned to the hold to help Lucy and Michael carry things out.
"Rory," Sean exclaimed. "A sight for sore eyes!" Rory reached down to clap his brother on the back, leading Sean to grimace and smile at the same time. They'd landed in a remote area in the southwestern portion of the country, near where the Glenannes had grown up. Sean had arranged permission for them to use the old airstrip through some of his contacts.
"Where's everyone else?" he asked.
"Joseph's back at the house with Ma and James and Ryan are on their way with the truck for the supplies and a van to take you all back to the house."
Sean nodded, taking in the information. "How much does Ma know?" He asked quietly.
Rory looked at him seriously, "Just enough."
The headlights from the truck and the van lit up the area around the landing strip but only revealed vacant fields. James and Ryan Glenanne parked the vehicles and joined their siblings on the tarmac. Ryan greeted Sean with a wide smile, while James greeted him with the semi-detached concern of a family doctor, which is what he was.
"Let's get this taken care of so I can get you back to the house and take a good look at you, all right?" he told Sean.
Michael, Lucy, and Sam were making their way down the ramp with bags and boxes. Michael dropped the large duffels he carried and came to stand next to Sean. Rory reached across the circle to clasp Michael's hand warmly. "Michael McBride," he mused. "It's been…forever since I've seen you."
"Yeah," Ryan chimed in, a hint of bitterness in his voice. "Not since he broke Fi's heart by walkin' out on her in the middle of the night."
Michael and Sean exchanged a glance.
"Boys," Sean started. "I want to introduce you to Sam Axe and Lucy Chen, friends of Michael's from Miami. They're here to help." Sam and Lucy smiled at the brothers but continued to stand a step back from the rest of the group, knowing the shoe that was about to drop. "And this," Sean continued, placing a hand on Michael's arm from the wheelchair, "is Michael Westen…former spook."
A breeze rustled the overgrown grass and the three men quietly narrowed their eyes as they sized Michael up. In his time with Fiona in Ireland Michael had only ever met Sean and Rory. The oldest Glenanne sibling, Joseph, had already left home to start his own family and career in academia. James had been in medical school, and Ryan, the baby after Claire's death, had been busy making the most of his youth by exploring the nightclubs of Europe.
Sean, Rory, and Fiona had been the wild ones in the family, running all over the Republic and the North making things go boom. Rory, with only 11 months more life experience than Fi, had been especially close to her.
"A spy?" Rory rolled the word around in his mouth as if deciding whether to swallow it or spit it out onto the cracked concrete where they stood. There was a tension in the air that wound its way around the group like tendrils of ivy weaving their way through a fence. Everyone stood still for what felt like hours before Rory finally leapt across the few feet between them and tackled Michael down to the ground. The stillness erupted into a flurry of activity as Michael and Rory wrestled on the pavement, Sam tried to hold off Ryan and James, and Lucy and Sean tried unsuccessfully to break up the fight.
"You bastard!" Rory cried as he landed a punch to Michael's jaw. Michael grabbed a fist full of his shirt, bridged and rolled Rory underneath himself, pressing him against the pavement with his torso and one arm while rubbing his jaw with the other.
"You can hit me all you want," Michael growled down at him, "But it's not going to change the past and it's not going to get your sister back."
"He's right," Sean looked down at Rory and then over to his other two brothers. "If I learned anything in Miami, it's that Michael Westen is more one of us than you could have imagined back in the day. I know we all had our doubts back then, but I've seen him with Fiona. I've seen the way they work together. Fi trusts him. We can trust him too." He paused. "We have to. He's the best chance we've got at gettin' Fi."
"Fiona knows about who you are? About what you were doin' here before?" Ryan wanted to know.
"Yes," Michael looked up at him from the ground, keeping Rory pinned for the moment. "She knew before I left Ireland. We were on the same side of things, helping each other. And while she may have held a few grudges about the way things came to an end, well, we've made peace with that. She's not thrilled about my job, but…it's not my job anymore. I'm out." Michael decided it would be best, for now, to leave out the details of his efforts to get back in.
"Listen, fellas," Sam spoke up. "Out in the open like this doesn't really seem like the best place to be having this conversation. How about we get this stuff loaded up, let this plane get back on its way, and try to get some rest before tomorrow?" He gave everyone a cheesy grin. "Huh? How 'bout it?" His cheesy smoothness lightened the mood and everyone set to work getting things loaded from the plane to the truck.
Michael helped Rory to his feet.
"You told her but you never told me?" He asked Michael quietly.
"I didn't tell her," Michael answered. "She figured it out. It was dangerous for any of you to know. I didn't want you getting hurt."
Rory stared him down for a moment. "Well, I trust my brother. If he says we can trust you, I'll trust you." He narrowed his eyes. "But if you give me just one reason to be concerned, you'll wish you'd never set foot back on Irish soil."
Michael nodded. "I know," was his solemn answer.
...
It had been a long time since Michael had awoken to the sound of birds chirping. To make matters worse, Mrs. Glenanne also kept chickens in the yard. Their incessant squawking as the first rays of light rose over the horizon ensured that he would never get back to sleep. Of course, it really didn't matter how loud the birds were. Not knowing how Fiona was spending her night made it very difficult for Michael to get anything other than a few hours of fitful sleep.
Sam was snoring across the room so Michael knew he'd be out for several more hours. Slipping on tennis shoes, some track pants, and a t-shirt, Michael slipped out of the room hoping to escape for an early morning run to quiet his nerves.
When they'd arrived the night before it had been long past midnight. As an early riser, Fiona's mother had been asleep by the time they got there. The brothers helped the three Americans get settled before trying to get some rest themselves. Michael and Sam had been given the old room of Fiona's oldest brothers, Joseph and James, who both lived nearby with their families. Lucy was in the girls' room. Sean, Rory, and Ryan had taken up residence in their own old room, as they all lived out of town.
Michael made his way down the hall but stopped dead in his tracks when he rounded the corner to the kitchen. It was large and open with an eating area at the opposite end, and there, in the far corner, knelt Fiona's mother. Her back to Michael, she was leaning over a small table adorned with a cross and some candles. It was something Michael had never quite grown accustomed to when he'd worked in Ireland…the constant prayers and petitions.
As he stood there, he recognized the morning prayers she was repeating. When he'd lived with Fiona in Dublin, he would occasionally wake up to the sound of her voice quietly repeating those same prayers, usually after a mission had gone bad. He swallowed hard at the thought of it and sniffed involuntarily as if to hold in the emotion. He'd never met Fiona's mother back then, but seeing her now, her stature and demeanor, brought back a flood of memories.
The quiet noises he made caught her attention and she turned around to look at him. She started to rise slowly, and Michael took three quick, long steps across the room to reach her and help her up. Her hands lingered in his longer than he was comfortable with, but she didn't care. She looked up at him intently, examining his face.
"Thanks be to God," she whispered. "He has sent his Archangel to help us in our fight. We've needed a Michael in this family for a long time, and now you're here." She saw the confusion in his face and explained, "You're still a Michael, aren't you, boy? McBride or Westen I couldn't care less, but as long as you're Michael, surely it's a sign from God that you've come to help us. Are you familiar with St. Michael, the Archangel? The defender of the heavens?" Michael shook his head no. "He's the guardian of the church, a warrior, protector against all that is evil and wrong in the world. He is said to protect those in battle against evil-doers and to help protect us against our physical and spiritual enemies." She motioned to a candle on the table behind her. "I've added his Novena to my morning prayers. Will you say it with me?"
Michael stumbled to find the words, he was so blindsided by this small, but powerful woman. "I…I don't know the…"
"Here," she fumbled through the pages of a prayer book and handed it to him. She held his hand and pulled him down with her to kneel in front of the table.
She squeezed his hand in encouragement and he began to read. "Saint Michael," he said quietly. "Intercede for me with God in all my necessities, especially," he paused at the blank space.
"Especially as we search for our Fiona," Mrs. Glenanne filled in for him.
She continued on with the prayer, "Obtain for me a favorable outcome," Michael joined back in and they continued in unison, "In the matter I recommend to you. Mighty prince of the heavenly host, and victor over rebellious spirits, remember me for I am weak and sinful and so prone to pride and ambition. Be for me, I pray, my powerful aid in temptation and difficulty, and above all do not forsake me in my last struggle with the powers of evil. Amen."
"Amen," Michael whispered, the flickering flame of the candle blurred as his eyes grew cloudy.
A delicate arm brushed over his shoulders and squeezed him gently. "It's nice to finally meet you, Michael. I've heard so much about you. Will you let me make you some tea before you go running off?"
...
It was building up to be a rare, warm summer day by the time Michael hobbled back to the house. He'd run out all the tension and nervous energy that had built up overnight. The shirt he wore was dripping with sweat and his lungs were on fire. He relished a warm shower and maybe some more sleep before lunch, but that was not to be. He paused on the front walk when he heard angry voices through the open windows.
"And what are we supposed to do now? Sit back and twiddle our thumbs?" Michael recognized this voice as Fiona's brother Joseph who he'd met briefly last night. "This is our sister…our only sister still breathin' and you all want to work with these Americans?"
"I know what you're thinking, Joe," It was Sean now. "I was thinkin' the same thing, but they know what they're doing. Fiona and I tried to take care of that bastard once and it would've been our deaths if it weren't for Westen and Axe. Fi trusts them, and so should we."
"Nay, I think I might be with Joe on this one after all," Michael heard Ryan speaking up. "We need to get to her now. Who knows what they're doin' to her right now. She's in real trouble this time."
"There has to be some way we can get out to the ship," Rory added.
Joseph had an idea, "Doesn't your company keep helicopters around for your demolition work, Rory? Keep an eye on the spectators and make sure the area's clear? If we could get a hold of one of those 'copters we could storm the ship, take'em all out…we'd have the element of surprise…"
Michael couldn't listen any longer. This conversation was quickly veering into dangerous territory. There was a squeal as the old hinges protested the door opening. Everyone looked up from the breakfast table, littered with empty plates and glasses and teacups. Mrs. Glenanne had prepared a full, hearty, Irish breakfast for her family and guests, but, unfortunately, with their stomachs full, they were better equipped for bickering.
"Michael," Mrs. Glenanne stood up from the table quickly and handed him a cup of strong tea.
More tea was the last thing Michael wanted, but he took a sip of it anyway, grimacing as the hot liquid burned his throat. He crossed the room to stand at one end of the table, between Sean and Rory. Sam and Lucy eyed him from the other end of the table, trying to size up his state of mind. After everything he'd been through, Sam knew Michael remained on the edge of his breaking point even though he was good at concealing that. Michael set the teacup down and turned to Joseph.
"I know," he spoke slowly, "That you're worried about your sister, but storming the cargo ship will not accomplish anything other than getting yourselves killed. Even when an army does something like that it's still risky, and they're equipped and trained soldiers." He looked around the table. "Who do we have here? You Joseph? A professor?" He looked to James and Ryan, "A doctor and a nightclub owner? Sean nearly died three days ago and Rory looks like he hasn't held a gun in over a decade."
Michael reached across the table to grab the lone remaining slice of toast. His confidence grew as he munched the crispy bread and watched the brothers exchange uncomfortable glances across the table. Mrs. Glenanne began to clear the dishes quietly and Sam stood up to help her.
"So," Joseph finally spoke up again. "I suppose you have an idea then?" He stared at Michael expectantly and crossed his arms over his chest.
"If we can't take them with brute force, we need to outsmart them. We need to make it seem like nothing is wrong until the very last minute. We need to take advantage of the time we have to plan a covert strike. Something that won't get Fi killed."
"And that would be what, now?" James chimed in.
Michael walked around the table and took Sam's seat. He was about to respond that he was working on it when Lucy cleared her throat.
"Actually, I think I have an idea." All eyes turned to her. "I was thinking," she began, "I'm really the only person here we can guarantee that O'Neill doesn't know. If I could get in as a buyer at the auction, I could just buy Fiona back. With the right back story and fake accounts, they'd never suspect anything."
"And you think you can actually get the right back story and the fake accounts?" Rory questioned skeptically.
Lucy nodded, "My company does this kind of thing all the time, the back story part at least. Michael, you have an asset you use for money matters, don't you?"
"Barry," Michael mused, happy to see a plan finally taking shape.
"This could work, Mikey," Sam said, standing over the sink. "Sean, do you think you could use your contacts to find out how an interested party would go about getting in on this little shindig?"
"That shouldn't be a problem," Sean replied, "But what about when this is all over? We buy Fi back and then what? That scumbag just gets to walk away? What's to stop him from coming after her again? From coming after any of us? I'm not in until we have a plan to take out O'Neill and those Real IRA bastards."
"He's right," Rory agreed. "What if we just blow the ship?"
"Blow it up?" Sam asked warily.
"Sure," Rory nodded. "Fi's not the only one in this family who's good with dets and fuses." He grinned.
"I thought you were out of the game, Rory?" Michael looked at him, confused.
"Sure, I'm out of the game, but I managed to find a way to get paid to blow things up legally." His smile was broad.
"Ah, right, demolition," Michael remembered from Joseph's comment earlier.
"Best job in the world," Rory beamed.
Michael looked back to Sean. "So do we have a deal? You get in touch with your contacts and I let you all blast the ship into a million pieces?"
Sean and the rest of the brothers all smiled. "Deal." Sean said.