Chapter Four: The Blood of an Englishman
Moneypenny was silent this day, other than to inform Bond, "He's waiting for you."
The observant eyes of the highest-ranking personal assistant in M16 followed James's path across the room. The woman he'd been with had been shot dead less than 36 hours earlier, and yet the hard, rugged features of his face betrayed nothing.
James Bond nodded to her, almost as if saying, "Thank you, for curtailing the sport, today," and went in through the door on her left. The green light above the door went out and was replaced by its red neighbour and Moneypenny returned to her endless sea of secrecy. Funny how much paperwork went in to keeping secrets, she mused.
Certainly, she'd seen the man upset before. After his wife, Tracy, had been shot to death, he'd been so despondent, it had bordered on self-pity, an emotion she knew Bond despised. It was as if true evil, in the form of Blofeld, had squared off with James in a ring. In the end, he'd been left standing, but part of his mind and his heart had gone dead.
Friends of hers, though, who had shared his company, and his bed, had left her little to guess at. Mary Goodnight had dated him briefly after his return from the Orient.
"He's so cold, Penny," she'd told her all those years ago. "The kisses and love making were passionate enough, good Lord, they were more than enough, and I could feel that he cared..." Mary had paused here, running her hand absently over her knee that had still held the colour of the Jamaican sun. "But it was as if he expected me to die at any moment. Being held precious is one thing, but being held captive is another."
M had requested 007's personal files earlier, and she had reminded him for the thousandth time they were easily accessed from the networked station underneath his corner roll-top.
Sir Miles had grumbled about the surging headaches the glare from the monitor gave him, and admonished her for playing games with such a serious matter.
When is it not a serious matter? she though to herself. Bond's files now weighed more than 25 kilos in hard copy. Oh well, she would have one of the younger male clerks bring it up from Records. Moneypenny was not even sure why the old grump wanted the thing, he knew the senior member of the 00 section well enough he could tell you the colour of the man's briefs on any given day.
M's elbows resided on the red leather of his desktop, with his ancient, weathered seaman's hands steepled before him, and his chin resting on his thumbs. Bond did not notice any movement as he entered the room, save the grey eyes tracking him as he crossed the carpet to one of the chairs before the desk. There, he remained standing.
"Sit down, 007. I'm afraid this is nasty business." M's attitude was surly, and his voice gruff. James Bond had known his superior long enough to know what this demeanour meant. There was going to be no sympathetic silence from Sir Miles. Bond knew how much M despised personal business entering into the service. On a few occasions, M had asked Bond to take care of some "personal" requests, and during these times, Bond had been more than happy to help, but M had literally appeared as if he were going to shirk out of his own leathered skin he'd been so uncomfortable asking. However, if the personal interference came from a lessor's indiscretion, the old man was even less tolerant, and Bond was a repeat offender.
M made no secret of the fact he considered the agent's "dalliances" with women during and after his assignments a breech of protocol, and not to mention, morally reprehensible.
Bond sat quietly with his thoughts, waiting for Sir Miles Messervy to speak. Even when angry about such matters, M would not bridge an uncomfortable, personal topic until someone else brought it up. He was uneasy sermonizing beyond his telltale expressions and an occasional "Humph."
"How are you, 007?" This was not M's way of voicing concern for Bond's well being, it was his way of asking if Bond was ready for more difficult times ahead.
Bond shrugged. "There wasn't much time to grow attached, Sir. She was a good person; she deserved a better lot. How much progress has been made on the shooter?"
The steepled hands now broke apart and laid flat on the red leather of the desk. The old man's ensuing frown informed Bond his change of topic had not furthered his cause much. James had always found it ironic that men wore battle wounds like badges of honour, but emotional scars were something to be hidden away lest one be deemed insecure or incapable.
"These are deep waters, 007," the old man grumbled leaning forward to snare some tobacco from the slipper at the corner of his desk.
Are they deep enough to warrant this much melodrama? Bond wondered, as the old sailor very deliberately packed his pipe slowly, took equal care in lighting it, and then inhaled the first long drag.
* * *
The man known as Donn, who had once been a small boy named Peter O'Sullivan, sat amongst the ruins of his parent's house, letting his mind wander back over the past few decades. They'd have the note now, and some pompous, former military type would be briefing Bond on its contents. The man would certainly run to ground, if not by his own compunction (Donn had studied the target carefully, and knew fully well the confrontational man was not the type to turn tail and hide), then at the bequest of his supervisors. It would be un-British of them to let a man stay active when he was a target.
The house Donn had grown up in was no more than a cold, lifeless corpse now. The smells and sounds of the night came in through the windows that had been blown out in the fire that had consumed the home not long after his father had died. The IRA men that had taken him and raised him had explained how the Goon Squads had lit the place to let it serve as a monument. The Gooneys, as Donn often referred to them, thought Catholics only understood symbols, so they left them whenever they could. In some respects they were right, Donn thought. The Catholics and the IRA understood symbols very well. Even now, twenty-five years later, there were still small bouquets of flowers scattered about, left by his former neighbours, or those who knew of his story. He bent over and picked up some sprigs of heather fastened together by a pink thread; they were not exactly fresh, but they were not so old that they had turned to dust, either. Yet another British "lesson" had become a rallying cry. There was no lantern to light his way, but he could still make out where "DONN" had been scrolled on the walls, sometimes in the crayon-inspired scrawling of children, and in other places, bold spray-painted letters in an older, more purposeful hand. His people knew; the Brits had wallowed around for a decade and a half just trying to learn his Christian name. And now he had handed it to them, like a farmer doling out slop to the pigs. With his mother dead, there was no fear of retribution on his family, for there was no family left. There were no siblings or children to threaten or torture; he'd made sure the tools of fear and intimidation were solely his now.
Donn waded through the trash that had been his parent's living room. The place stunk of mould and mildew; tell tale signs of years of exposure to the elements. The floor was a sea of wrappers and rotting pillows and blankets left by squatters who had made the place a temporary stay. They were lucky to not be present upon his visit; to desecrate this place with their filthy presence would have been a capital crime whose sentence would have been quickly dispatched.
He rooted about in the trash on the floor, and through dilapidated, rat-infested cupboards, searching for titbits of the child or family that had once lived here. Any such mementoes were long since gone. The carpet was there; tattered and moulded, but still accounted for. What had once been a short, beige weave, was now a black-sooted fowl thing with huge gaping holes where the padding thrust through like intestines from a belly wound. Once, there had been light curls of white twisting through the beige in a curly-q design. A small boy known as Peter had played here, using the white twists as roads for his Matchbox cars, making engine noises as he swerved them about his carpeted countryside. God, how he wished he could reach back to that eight-year-old and warn him. Have him tell his father not to come home that day; tell him that at all costs to avoid becoming the man that he would become.
It would have been easier to have come back during the day. There would have been little chance anyone would recognise him now, but there could have been uncomfortable questions posed. The black, non-reflective clothing was comfortable and fit him well, as it should. He had spent most of his life in black, sometimes hiding, but most often, stalking a target.
His mother's couch still resided in the living room. It had been a brown vinyl three-seater his father would lie down on when he took a nap every Sunday after Mass. The cushions were gone now, and the frame had cracked in the middle so the seat formed a shallow "V" that rested on the ground at its point.
After brushing off some of the filth, Donn sat at one end of the couch. He reached back and ran his splayed fingers through the long, black hair he had worn free this evening, pulling it back away from his face. He cupped his hands over his face briefly and rubbed his eyes. Red-eyed and angry, he sat alone thinking of the first time he had seen Mr. James Bond.
* * *
"What do you recall about an Irish assassin called Donn?"
Bond paused a moment. It was just one of thousands of files that ran across his desk on a regular basis, just as they did across the desks of the other two 00's.
"IRA trained assassin, became active about eighteen years ago. Name taken from the ancient Celtic god who would cart off the dead to some island south west of Ireland. Believed to be responsible for hundreds of confirmed kills, but never leaves calling cards; unlike most of his Irish brethren, he doesn't seem to like publicity much. About ten years ago, he began to expand his political targets to those of a very lucrative international hit man, including murders in the US, Russia, and even a few African nations. His name has been associated with several terrorist-training locations in Syria and Libya. For about four years he wasn't heard from, and many agencies wrote him off as dead or inactive, but he resumed action about a year ago. Most of our information on him comes through reputation and informants. He changes his appearance at will, and there are no accurate details of height, weight, age, hair nor eye colour. There are no known photographs."
M gave a "humph" and then took another drag on his pipe. "Very good, 007. It might also be mentioned the man is something of a folk hero to IRA supporters. His name is spray-painted over half of Northern Ireland, people name their children after the bastard."
"What does any of this have to do with Sam?" Bond asked. "The boy was far too young, and far too sloppy, to be Donn."
M's bushy eyebrows bunched into a frown.
"According to the CIA, the boy was just a mole. He'd been sitting on Leiter's house for months waiting for you. He's cracked wide open, but he doesn't have much to tell. The men who trained him in Ireland have vanished, and there is no flight record of the woman who had served as his contact in Texas. It appears whoever planted him, cut him free."
"The girl, Samantha Maske, was the target, 007. They meant to make you hurt, at least that's what the boy was told. This was confirmed by some recent information we received."
"What information would that be?" Bond was beginning to feel uncomfortable. It was as he feared, Sam had been killed because of him. One way, or another, that was how it was going to work out.
"The cheeky monster sent us a letter, it arrived this morning. Donn basically told us everything, right down to how he plans to kill you, 007."
* * *
Eight-year-old Peter O'Sullivan played in the street outside of his parent's house in Belfast. Classes were over and Pete and a few of the neighbour boys were kicking about a football, waiting for their mothers to call them in for dinner. Pete liked being outside this time of night because he could see his father coming up the street on his way home from work.
Pete's father, Tim, was an electrical contractor. This didn't mean a whole lot to the boy, all he knew was his father helped to build houses and buildings, making sure the lights would go on and the teles would work. Every morning, six days a week, his father would ride a red bicycle the four-and-a-half-miles to work, and then back again at the end of the day. Sometimes, his father worked "on site." Pete dreaded these times because it meant his father could be away for days. And although he always brought home gifts for Pete and his mother from wherever he'd been working, it was always the anticipation of seeing him coming up the street on his red bike that excited Pete the most.
Being the only child, Pete had been doted on while growing up. His father was his world, as it was with many boys his age.
On this particular day, the skies were overcast and pregnant with the never-ending rain that fell in October. The street was already spotted with puddles the boys joyfully skirted about as they dribbled the ball. The game within the game was to drench the other team's players.
As they boys played, Pete became aware they had an audience. Across the street, near a bus stop, stood two men, one of whom he recognised. Billy Fincher stood with a well-dressed man who was obviously in odd company. Fincher was the neighbourhood's mooch. He had grown up on their block about fifteen years earlier, before his mother had died and his father had moved the family elsewhere. Pete's father had told him that Billy's dad had grown tired of the twenty-year-old son freeloading and had given him the boot. Now, Billy hung about the old neighbourhood, mooching meals off the sympathies of the older women who'd known and loved his mother. Most of the men, however, could not tolerate the younger Fincher. It was a predominantly Catholic neighbourhood, and the man had the reputation of being an informant for the Brits. If it were an hour later, and the husbands of the community were home, Billy would most likely have been beaten soundly, but at this hour, a blight such as he could go unnoticed.
Billy kept glancing over toward Pete's house and then back again at the boys. All the time his lips were moving, conveying unknown bits of wisdom to the taller, darker man who stood with him. It made Pete uncomfortable the way the two men kept on looking at his home, and the boy made a mental note to tell his Pa when he got there. The stranger looked too neat to be keeping company with the likes of Billy. The other man was the type of person that was hard to describe, especially in the limited vocabulary of an eight-year-old. With the exception of a scar on his cheek, and the almost grim, businesslike look on the man's face, there was really nothing that made him stand out. Black hair, grey eyes and clothing, about six feet tall, he looked like anyone else, everyone else.
The stranger was sharp as well. He noticed Pete's attentions and bent down to query something of Billy. Billy looked at Pete as well, and then nodded. They were a more than 45 meters away, and there was no way Pete could pick up their conversation, but in his mind's ear, he could hear Fincher say, "That's the boy."
Pete shivered. The tall stranger nodded at the reply, and then did something that would haunt the boy on through his childhood and into his present. The stranger locked eyes with him, gave a curt nod, an then smiled, before turning away and heading up the rain-soaked street with Billy at his side.
Terrified, Peter ran to his own house, and bolted inside. All young boys have a safe place they go when they feel threatened, and Pete was no exception. His mother had a cherry wood end table next to the family couch in the living room she covered with a huge lace doily that hung close to the ground. This was Pete's place. There was just enough space for him to move about comfortably, and he was well disguised from others in the room. Through the gaps in the lace, he could observe the rest of the room; even watch the television against the far wall, across from the couch. The boy who would someday be responsible for more than a thousand deaths, several hundred with his own hands, curled up in a ball, resting his head on a throw pillow he kept wedged between the couch and wall along with some Matchbox cars and a few books. He would wait for his father, as always. His mother would never understand; she always dismissed his fears as childish. However, his father would listen.
Pete awoke to the sound of voices. It was darker now, night time. Pete peered out through the lace, but the room was very dim and there were no lights on.
"Children, Mark. Thirty-two children. Some of those kids were as young as my son… younger." The voice was his father's, but it was hard for Pete to recognise; it was deeper, and somehow pained. The boy had never heard his father sob in despair, but did so now.
"Tim, they weren't our fault. There was no tellin' when Smite was gonna turn the ignition. It's a tragedy, something we'll have to learn by, but the target was achieved, and at least they didn't die in vain." This voice was his Uncle Mark's. The man was not his real uncle; it was just something he'd asked Pete to call him. Mark worked with his Pa, though Pete did not know what his job was. On Monday nights, his father and Mark and several other neighbourhood men would meet up at the pub for darts. There was something about the man Pete had never really liked though, and from the way he acted, Pete had always thought his father felt the same way.
"The hell they weren't our fault. We could have used a smaller charge; we could have used no charge at all. Why not a bullet, why not let me rig it so he fried when he turned the ignition?"
"We live, we learn, Boyo. The next time, we use a…"
"Damn it all, Mark. There is no "next time" for me. I have to live with this for the rest of my life. I'll give you my time, I'll give you my money, but I'm out of operations."
Pete's eyes were adjusting to the dark now; he could see a man, his Uncle Mark, pacing in front of the couch where he presumed his father sat. Uncle Mark stopped his pacing and faced his father, hands on his hips.
"Think about it a while, Tim. Hold your son; think of what kind of Ireland you want him to grow up in. Thirty-two are nothing compared to all the people we've lost, the children our women have had to mourn. You think about it, and then you call me."
The figure left, and Pete could hear the front door open and close. He wasn't sure what the two men had been talking about, who the "thirty-two children" were, but he knew his father was upset. Pete poked his head out from under the table and looked up at the couch next to him.
There sat his father, with his face buried in his hands, great, huge sobs wracking his body like convulsions. It made Pete sick to see someone he cared about like this. Perhaps now was not the best time to share his fears about the stranger. He pulled his head back under the cover of the lace and tried to sleep again. This time, however, his eyes remained wide open as he listened to his father cry for what seemed an eternity.
Neither father nor son heard the front door open.
* * *
"Why kill me?" Bond asked. "I'm not a very good political target, there are a lot more visible officers than me available."
M shook his head.
"It's not political, 007. And it's not some contract put on you by a jealous husband. He says it's personal. Do you remember the Belfast School Bus Bombing?"
James Bond shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"It's not something I like to think of, Sir."
"Tell me what you remember, I'll fill you in on the rest."
This was more than rote memory for him; this was tearing open an old wound. Killing defenceless men was never a proud point for him, but it sometimes was a necessary part of his job.
"You assigned me the case about twenty years ago. Sir Walter Smite was murdered with a car bomb in Belfast outside his home. The saboteurs had wired his ignition to enough dynamite to crack the windows of homes blocks away. It appeared to be unintentional, but a state school bus just happened to be passing the car at the moment it exploded. All thirty-two children, both Catholic and Protestant, on board the bus were instantly killed along with the driver. There was quite a bit of television coverage of the bodies being removed and the public was outraged in both England and Ireland. In response, the Prime Minister requested a "00" be loaned to M15 for the case. My orders were simple; I was to make an example of the murderers. I was to kill every person who had taken part in the planning and execution of the murders, and make no attempt to hide the bodies. Not exactly our finest hour, Sir."
M grunted again.
"Don't get soft, 007. I'm sure the parents of those children would not agree with you."
Bond didn't reply for a moment, he was lost in thought. Twenty years ago, that was how they responded, with a hammer and a gun. He prayed they would do things differently if it happened today.
"Do you remember a man named Timothy O'Sullivan?"
Bond nodded. "He was the first target, an electrician who'd rigged the bomb and had supplied the explosives. He had a wife and son. As I said, not our finest hour. Why do you ask?"
"The son's name was Peter O'Sullivan, but these days he calls himself Donn. He claims he was witness to his father's murder and that you are directly responsible for the hundreds of Englishmen he's killed over the years."
Even a few years earlier, Bond may have shrugged these comments off, but maybe he was getting melancholy at his current age. Had he murdered the child's father in front of him? Had he been that careless?
"That's not all, 007." M was trying to keep his attention. "He says he's going to make you suffer before he puts two bullets into the back of your head."
* * *
"Timothy O'Sullivan," the voice was British, very calm and businesslike.
The sobbing stopped immediately and was replaced with anger.
"Who the hell…" his father began, but then stopped abruptly. Pete looked out through the lace again. The world was still in shadows, but he could make out the figure of a man in the middle of the room; a man who's right arm was extended toward where his father sat. There was something in the man's hand.
"Where is your wife?" the man's voice was cold and modulated, as if he'd done this many times.
"Look if this is a robbery, you can take whatever…" there was a pleading quality to his father's voice, Pete now realised the thing in the man's hand must be a gun, he went from being scared to being terrified. He was frozen in his fear, his skin prickling, and even his breath stopped.
"I think you know what this is, Mr. O'Sullivan. Now, where is your wife?"
"She is at her sister's house." His father wanted to say more but the stranger cut him off.
"And your son?"
"I wanted to send him with her, but he must be over at a friend's." His father's voice sounded resigned now, it had gotten lower and was almost a mumble. "Please, there's no reason to involve them." There was a sound as his father shifted on the couch.
"Do not move unless I tell you to!" the stranger's voice was harder now and his body visibly tensed. "Get on the floor, on your stomach."
His father did as he was told. There were tears streaming down Pete's face now, but he couldn't even whisper.
"Now, keep flat on the ground, keep your legs together and stretch you arms out away from your sides."
"For Christ's sake, man." His father was outright crying now, but still followed the man's commands. "I've got a family, please don't do this." His father's outstretched hand was only a few inches from the end table where Pete hid. Pete wanted so badly to reach out and hold one of his Pa's fingers in his tiny hands.
The stranger, who Pete now recognised as the man who had been on the street with Billy, kneeled down so his right knee was in the middle of his father's back. He now placed the gun's barrel at the back of the other man's skull.
"Listen very carefully. Where did the explosives come from?"
"I don't know what you…"
"Where did the explosives come from? The ones you and your friends used to murder Sir Walter Smite and all those children."
His father cried harder now.
"It wasn't supposed to be like that. We're soldiers, like you."
The gun was now pressed harder into the back of his head.
"You mentioned your family," the stranger now said. "Now, where did the dynamite come from?"
"I got it from a site," there was complete surrender now. Pete had watched his father's manhood taken away from him at gunpoint.
"A construction site? You provided the materials yourself?" the man sounded as if he already knew the answer to the question and was just confirming.
"Yes," his father replied, his voice so hushed now it barely passed his lips.
The man had reached over to the couch with his free hand and grabbed a pillow as if he meant to fluff it up for a nap. He quickly placed it at the back of his father's skull and then shoved the gun into it.
There was a muffled roar in the room and Pete was now paralysed, his eyes blank and staring. This couldn't be happening, some part of his mind had decided. This couldn't be happening, so we're going to shut things down for a while.
His father's body twitched and tensed. The stranger put the pillow and gun to the head one more time and pulled the trigger. The twitching stopped.
The man stood, quickly surveyed the room, put his gun away into a shoulder holster, and was gone.
It would be three hours before his mother got home and started screaming. It would be twenty more minutes before the ambulance got there. A little more than an hour after that, they would find the body of his Uncle Mark, also with two bullets to the back of the skull in an alley a few blocks away.
But it would be five hours before the police found Peter as they marked the crime scene. Huddled beneath the table, his face tear-streaked, his mouth open, and his eyes staring blankly.
* * *
"Needless to say, 007. We're not going to make an easy target of you. You are going to be taken off of active duty, and you're going to get out of the country until this matter is resolved."
"Sir," Bond protested. "I hardly think…"
"I hardly think you have any say in the matter, 007. A little more vacation might do you some good. I want you to disappear while we let 008 track this mad dog and put him down. Right now, you would just be a liability, an endangerment to anyone you were working with. And I'm certainly not letting you come to the office everyday so you can be an easy target."
Bond was still not ready to give up the fight.
"008 is a fine and capable man, Sir. But if I'm visible, the target will eventually come to me. I could flush him out into the open."
"And I could flush on of my best agents down the head. I think not, 007. This is the end of the discussion. You are going to walk out that door, get Moneypenny to draw up your airline tickets under your Boldman alias, and then you are going to vanish once you land. I want you to break with policy and not check in with any heads of stations wherever you are going. I want you to check in directly to the Chief of Operations over a safe line. Tanner will inform you when you are cleared to return to duty. Am I making myself understood?" There was always granite in the old man's eyes, but now they were even harder than normal.
"Yes, Sir."
"Now, do you have somewhere you can go where you'll be able to stay low. I dare say your lifestyle doesn't always lend itself to obscurity."
"Yes, Sir. I have the perfect place in mind."
When Bond exited the office, and the green light above the door lit once again, Moneypenny put on her best face for him.
"So, where to this time, James?" she chirped.
"How about the south of France, Moneypenny? And let's do try to avoid the major airports."
* * *
Seven men would be shot in Belfast over a two-day period. Some of them as his father had been, some appeared to have put up a fight, but they were all dead.
Tom Barry and the other members of his new family in the IRA would eventually tell him the whole story about six years later. They knew about Sir Smite, the bomb, and the children, but they couldn't tell him the name of the assassin the Brits had sent.
"He killed them all," Tom had said. "Every man that had been in on the planning of the sloppy episode, everyone involved."
By then, Donn had been born, and he was more than capable of finding the stranger's name. All it had taken was a few hours alone with Billy Fincher in a cellar with a paring knife. It was ceaselessly amazing to Donn how missing chunks of flesh strategically placed on a man's anatomy can spur the memory.
"Bond," the bloody mess had croaked. "James Bond."
Back in the present, Donn stood up from the weather beaten sofa. The end table was no longer next to the couch; it had been wood and was probably either stolen or burned. Bond had taught him valuable lessons for his career as a human butcher. When he killed for the IRA, or for himself, as he had been doing since puberty, he always kept his demeanour calm and professional. For more than eighteen years he had been amassing money and a reputation, and both were going to come in useful now that he had begun his dance with Mr. Bond. The man was going to suffer before he died, but no matter how good it felt, Donn would not betray his emotions. The woman's death was just the beginning.
Donn paused before leaving the dilapidated house to look behind the couch in his old hiding place, his safe place. His searching hand fell upon something flat and hard, and he withdrew it. Faded and warped, a piece of his childhood stared up at him, an edition of Jack and the Beanstalk, a boyhood favourite of his, before his boyhood had been stolen.
Donn smiled.
"Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum," he whispered to himself before tossing the book aside and leaving into the night.