Chapter Six: The Wages of Sin

At times, he was the Donn of legend, helping to escort his decedents to the other world.

He lay like a panther, amongst the trees, waiting for the target to appear. The woods he'd positioned himself within were tucked away more than a quarter mile across the airport from the target, but they gave him a clean view of the Federal Transfer Facility's terminal gateway, where a cargo jet would soon be taxiing into position to disembark.

The United States Federal Transfer Center was one of the most beautiful prisons Donn had ever seen. It was a huge, multi-storey complex that had a circle for a core with six triangular wings jutting out from it. From a distance, it appeared to be a huge, sandstone-coloured hexagon, but close up, it more closely resembled a spoked wheel. The grounds were sculpted neatly with lush, green landscaping; carefully crafted tree lines and shrubs that were designed to disguise the fact that here, in the midst of one of this country's largest airports, was a callous reminder of this "great society's" grim underbelly.

The Will Rogers International airport provided him with a wall of sound for a backdrop, so there was no reason to use a suppressor. The Tango 51 was held secure by the tripod that anchored into the McMillan Fibreglass stock. It was a beautiful machine, and one of the most accurate sniper rifles in the world. The .308 Winchester loads would make his work short and easy.

He hadn't killed much these past five years, so the next few days would be both a rush, and a challenge.

Insects and small animals had been crawling over, and nestling up to, him over the past several hours, as he lay prone waiting. If he remembered correctly, Oklahoma was home to several varieties of venomous snakes, including rattlers. He'd left his knife beside him in case there were any unexpected visitors. As for the other animals, they were welcome visitors and company on his lonely vigil.

He'd dug the trench in a matter of minutes with his field shovel, exhuming the deep, fragrant soil of the woods. He'd covered it with the small camouflage tarp, and then kicked dirt and debris over the newly formed burrow. For someone to find him, they would have to literally stumble over him. Once inside the narrow hole, he positioned the rifle and then shoved dirt toward the opening, so the only thing even slightly visible to a passer-by would be the almost invisible, black 24" barrel.

The sounds of the planes landing and taking off were deafening, but he'd avoided the use of earplugs, because he would need his hearing to stay alert. As he lay there, his mind went back to the old stories, the ones his mam had told him as a boy, about the old gods. About himself, before he even knew who he was.

Donn had not always been a god. He was a man, one of the three sons of Mil that had come to Ireland with an army of Milesians to defeat the Tuatha De Danaan. Donn was the eldest of the sons, and was also their leader. He knew the strength of his army, and he knew they would take the island easily.

When their great flat boats had landed on the rocky shores, and the men had disembarked from the calm seas, a lovely goddess had wandered from the woods to greet them. The sons of Mil and their army were enchanted by her beauty, for she was the goddess Eriu, and represented all that was Ireland.

Donn had never seen someone such as this. Amongst the Milesians, he was used to women of dark hair and skin, who served their men well, but often appeared beaten down and defeated, their heads hung low. Donn was overcome as he approached the goddess who was adorned in golden fabrics, and glowing like the embers of a fire. Her hair was the brilliant, highlighted colour of flame, her skin was as pale as fresh goat's milk, and her eyes were the green of the seas of the Mediterranean he'd frolicked in as a child. She held her head high, meeting the men's eyes not with defiance, but not with fear either. Donn knew he had to have her.

He approached the goddess and took a knee before her.

"My Lady, are you not a god?" he asked.

"That I am, Donn, son of Mil. I am Eriu, and I have come to you to give you my blessing in your efforts, and to ask an honour of you once your battle has been won."

Donn was close enough to catch her scent, which was laden with the fragrance of heathers and lilacs. His head swan as if intoxicated.

"Eriu, I am just a humble man, what can I possibly offer a goddess?" he lied. He was as humble as a sabre, but also new how to turn a word to reach desired results.

"You shall crush your enemy, Sons of Mil, but when you take control of this island, I beseech you to name it with me in your thoughts and on your tongues."

Donn had a private smile at this.

"It had been my hopes to name this island for my father, to honour him with a show of respect for the love and life he has given me. Can you show me a token of your desire, so I know such a great decision was not made lightly."

There were mutterings from his men, and many backed away from where their leader was kneeling. They knew it was not wise to converse with a god, but to make requests was suicidal. But Donn was reckless, and this, in part, was what made him such a capable warrior and tactician.

Eriu laughed, and placing a finger beneath his chin, beckoned him to his feet. She led him into the forest that bordered the shore. After a few minutes of walking, they came to a great, green tent standing silently and unattended in the middle of the woods. There were no torches, but the tent seemed to glow with the same luminescence that clung to Eriu like a shawl. As she led Donn inside, he could see the walls of the tent for what they were, leaves and grass, knitted together in a fine mesh. He reached out his hand, and was treated to a rich, soft texture unlike anything he'd felt before.

Inside, surrounded by the strange light, Donn was allowed to investigate that pale skin, and stare into those green eyes, whose possessor received and gave pleasure the likes of which few mortal men would ever know.

When he awoke to the days light, he was alone in the clearing where the tent had stood, resting on a bed of soft grass and ferns. When the wind blew to shake the leaves on the trees about him, he could hear words carried within.

"Remember," they told him.

Their battles were short and one-sided, and soon, the island had been taken. Donn and his men held a celebration where all present became soused with drink.

During the midst of this revelry, Donn called out to his men.

"This island will forever bear witness to our victory, for we shall name it after our father, and our home," he proclaimed.

There was a hush from those that had been present when the goddess had approached him.

"But what of Eriu's request?" one of his brothers asked.

Donn scoffed and grinned his best.

"The lovemaking was good," he said. "but not that good."

Before the words had passed his lips, the sky began to darken and a great storm arose from the waters. Manannan Mac Lir, the god of the sea, had heard his words, and had become enraged to hear the lovely Eriu so slighted. He sent a storm which engulfed the terrified Milesians, and plucked Donn from their midst, carrying him out to sea, where he was drowned beneath the waves.

From the spot where he drown, a small island arose, which became known as Tech Duinn. Thereafter, Donn was transformed into the Irish god of the dead, escorting his kin to his island, and on into the afterlife.

The story always brought comfort to Donn. Inside his head, he heard the words in his mother's voice, although he'd changed it a little over the years to fit his fading memories, and his adult sensibilities.

After an eternity, the cargo jet landed on the outer runway closest to the Transfer Center. The sun was glaring down, and he would be shooting from shadow into the light. He'd brought goggles, but had laid them aside, preferring his own eyes.

Tom had told him 3 p.m., and it was 2:55 p.m. as the plane began to navigate the right angles in the runway leading to the boarding shute. One thing he liked about the Americans, they were generally on time, maybe not as exacting as the Germans, but close.

A few seconds away from show time, he reached down and clicked the transmit button on his radio once; Tom would be in motion now.

The plane would have one more 45° right turn to make before approaching the shute, but Donn had positioned himself to make sure that would never occur. The jet was now facing him head on. He brought his eye to the scope, made his target, and squeezed his 2.5 pounds on the trigger, rather than pulling. His hands were as dry as powder within his gloves, and he was rewarded with a short roar that was lost amongst the sea of jet engines.

Donn didn't wait to watch the hydraulics on the front landing gear cut loose, spewing their oily blood across the tarmac. Nor did he watch as the plane prematurely came to a halt, the nose sagging to the ground as the front wheel gave under the weight of the behemoth. He just reloaded with the precision, and the speed of hand, of a magician.

It took twenty minutes for the cart to emerge from the small terminal connected to the Federal Transfer Center by a long beige umbilical cord of a corridor. Donn had to twice trigger the radio again, keeping Tom in a patient holding pattern. When the cart did begin its short jaunt to the plane, there was no hurry involved. As he'd thought, they were assuming a malfunction with the landing gear, nothing to be concerned about. There was only one driver, and the cart was nothing more than a golf cart with delusions of grandeur, and most importantly, it was open to the air. The mechanics would come later, their first priority was to get the prisoner inside and secured. In response to the cart's arrival, the side hatch of the plane opened up, and the door descended all the way to the ground as a flight of steps.

As the cart came along the nose of the plane, it was partially shielded from the rest of the facility. Donn was hoping to buy himself a few moments using this to his advantage.

The suit was the first off the plane. This would be the federal agent in charge of the transfer. A uniformed guard, then the target, and then two more guards followed him. A fourth guard remained just visible inside the doorway of the jet.

Donn reached down and clicked the radio twice, then he returned his eye to the scope and began to bring the dead back home.

The first shot was for the boy who was his target. The cocky young man who'd trained so well, and carried out his mission so diligently, was now beaten down. His head was hung low, and his arms and legs were chained so short he had to take penguin steps once he was lowered to the ground. Donn saved Randy any further shame by turning his head into a mesh of red vapour and visceral matter.

By the time the body had fallen to the ground, Donn had performed five easy movements, and the guard who was still just visible inside the plane's doorway, was blown back into the jet with a sizable hole in his chest.

The other men had now had four seconds to respond, the man in the suit was apparently trying to determine what angle the shots had come from. With the jet's engines cycling down, he couldn't hear the recoil, so he had nothing to go on but the direction indicated by the falling bodies. By the time he'd begun to turn to face the distant tree line where Donn was tucked away, the agent found himself looking skyward from the ground, catching a few last thoughts of his wife and two children.

With each shot, Donn appreciated the weapon even more. Remington had blue printed the action since he'd "retired," and this was his first time with a Tango in the field. He was glad he'd left the can off; it was rewarding to feel the weapon jump and roar in his hands. The cart driver came next, and then the three guards. Discharge, snap, load, aim, fire. The last guard actually made it halfway back up the steps of the jet before taking one in the back, and then one more to the base of the skull, which nearly decapitated the man, for careful measure.

Donn slid from his burrow, threw the gun back inside the hole, and then walked back into the woods. Twenty yards away was an expressway off-ramp.

He removed the black gloves, and then tore the camouflage draping from his clothing.

At the same moment the pilot looked back from the cockpit window to see the carnage that lay next to the aeroplane, Donn was already sliding into the passenger seat of Tom Barry's rental Honda Accord.

The sniper garb was rolled into a ball and stuffed under the seat. Tom casually put his arm around the assassin's shoulders as he pulled back onto the road and made for the airport.

"How did it go?" he asked, never looking over at his old friend, not wanting to see the post-kill hunger in his eyes.

"Like riding a goddam bicycle," he said in return. Breathing as calmly as a man awakening from a nap.

The car was stashed away in long-term parking where the FBI would find it three days later. The two of them went about their rehearsed tasks silently, not speaking again, except for some Americanised banter in the terminal that was just for show, until their 4:00 p.m. flight out of Will Rogers landed in Mexico City.

The man that had once been Peter O'Sullivan opened his eyes on a new day, taking a mental inventory of his body, and logging the various aches and pains that were the hallmarks of his profession, and his last few days of activity. He'd killed nine men over the last two days, and been responsible for the deaths of another seventeen during the same period. Now, he was home, back in mother Ireland.

Home was Tech Duinn. Maybe not the Tech Duinn of legend, but when translated, to have his own, personal "house of the dead" seemed appropriate. The breeze coursing through the house on this early morning was cool and salty. It didn't bother Donn that it was less than ten degrees Celsius outside; he'd always slept with the windows open, and always would.

His island, for he truly owned it, even the air space above her, was one of the five Na Blascaod, which were the western most edge of Ireland, as well as all of Europe. When Donn arose, and looked out his bedroom window, there was nothing between him and Newfoundland except for water. He could, and would, just stand there for hours and look out at the unending sea of rough breakers parading up to his shore and crashing against the rugged rocks jutting out of the water like fortress walls.

Much like his neighbour, the former Taoiseach Charles J. Haughey, who owned the slightly larger, and more lavish island, Inis Mhicealláin, to the northwest, he valued, and required, his privacy and isolation. Yet, he could never leave Ireland entirely, and the island provided a convenient compromise for sequestering himself when he needed to physically, and mentally, recharge.

The island wasn't much larger than the house that occupied it. Tech Duinn had been built upon ancient monastic ruins, and Donn had been very careful to make sure the original monastery walls had been preserved as much as possible, and worked into the foundation of his home. Like himself, his Tech Duinn was a contradiction. It had cost tens of millions to purchase the desolate rock, and then ten million more to restore and build his home. They had to fly in the huge slabs of stone from the mainland, and the workers had to contend with a complete lack of electricity, fresh water, or even the most basic restroom facilities. You couldn't even bathe in the sea or fish from shore because the hostile rock outcroppings provided so little purchase and the violent waves crashed down continuously like a rain of hammers.

Transport, to and fro the island, was solely by ferry, and even then, it only came by when he cell-phoned the captain to include him in the route. Other, more notable and proper, members of the IRA that had visited him at Tech Duinn, had chided him for not installing a helipad on his "desolate rock," but he enjoyed the inaccessibility as much as the isolation. Besides, he was in a business where friends became enemies quickly, and enemies always ended up dead.

He kept some weapons here, besides those always on his person, but most of the tools of his trade were stashed in separate safe houses across the mainland, and the continent. Even if an army were to invade, there was only a tiny cove accessible by small craft, and then the treacherous climb up to the house. Donn could have held off a hundred men with a handgun out here, much less the small arsenal he had on hand.

There was a generator, but he seldom used it, firing it up just enough to make sure it stayed operational. The food he ate was simple, mostly out of cans warmed up on his gas stove, or over a fire, or eaten cold. The ferryman brought fresh water jugs whenever supplies ran low. The house was furnished well, although lightly, and there were tactful decorations that Feale had added during her time there. Feale, who had once shared this bed with him. They were just a few prints and crafty items, mostly clan-based, hanging from plain nails in the wall. He missed her, and the thought that she would have to be addressed was eating away at him, sickening him. But there was much to be done, and much had already been done, that sickened him.

He enjoyed his early mornings at Tech Duinn. He could lie there in bed, smelling the sea-scented air, and watching the goose bumps arise on what had once been his body. Often, memories would come to him during this quiet time, things he normally wouldn't take the time to think about, and today was no exception.

He'd been eight years old when his mother, Sarah, had been forced to move from his childhood home. Most of the community knew what had happened to his father, and knew why. Although many of the people who went to their church treated them well, most treated them like the plague, and his mother was unable to find a job that could support them. The IRA was more than just a political, or military entity; it was a family as well. To them, Timothy O'Sullivan had died a hero, and they saw the care of his family as a duty. They had come to his mother wearing the faces of friends, fellow parishners, to tell her they could help her find employment, and help make sure her young son would be brought up in the church, but they would have to be moved from Belfast, where so many eyes were upon them. He didn't remember much of that time, from speaking to his mother later in life, he knew that he'd withdrawn. In a different place and time, he would have received therapy, but they could barely afford to eat. His mother told him he was always hiding as a boy, and would disappear for hours, in what amounted to a terrifying game of hide and seek for her. He could go more than an entire month without speaking more than a handful of words. Eventually, she knew she couldn't afford to give him the care he needed, and the same sympathetic voices that had told her to move from Belfast, with their promises of employment, and a new life, told her there was a safe place where her son could be raised and cared for until she regained her footing and financial security. Without any real choice, Sarah agreed.

Saint Peter's Youth Hostel was both a shock and a life preserver for young Peter. Most of the boys were teenagers, either tourists, staying in Ireland, or vagabonds, working their way across Europe. He was lost among these young, intimidating giants. Tom Barry could tell right away Peter would become a target; his age, his size, his silence, these things all made him stand out, and to teenage boys, that was enough to make him a pariah, and a whipping boy. So Tom took Peter to be his own, and moved him into his own rooms at the hostel. They took their meals and Mass with the other boys, but he was spared the dormitory and slept in Tom's guest room.

Slowly, he began to talk to Tom, and to Maelisa as well. Maelisa was the house mom for the boys, keeping the place clean, and doing the lion's share of the cooking. She was a young widow, who much like Peter's own mother, has lost her husband to the British. She often shared Tom's bed, and it gave Peter a sense of family that helped to heal him even further. And their family was to soon grow.

Feale McCann was Peter's junior by two years. She was a little, redheaded scruff of a girl who'd been abandoned in a pew at Saint Peter's Cathedral, which financially supported the hostel. One of the priests approached Tom about taking her in. Peter had felt an instant kinship with the girl. She, too, was silent, and withdrawn from everyone, including himself. It took Tom, Maelisa, and him weeks to even pry her name from her, and she never spoke of her life prior to Saint Pete's, even in adulthood. Although all the boys of St. Pete's were Tom's children, the two of them were his family. As children, they walked to school together, as youths, they trained to become soldiers together, and as teenagers, they became passionate lovers.

Donn lay there smiling with his memories, when a rattling came from elsewhere in his home. Tom Barry, a guest in his house, for a change, was already stirring; rummaging in the kitchen, Donn assumed, from the sounds that drifted into his bedroom. There had been little reason for Tom to return to St. Pete's. Maelisa could easily look after the boys, and if the Sein Fenn were able to connect the two of them to the deaths of the operatives over the last two days, they would both be dead soon enough, but there was no sense making it easy. Hopefully, it would be written off on a confidence breech, and the English cleaning house. Tom had prepared elaborate alibis to make it appear he was off in Canada visiting his brother, while Donn was considered a private freelancer who had virtually disappeared five years earlier. Both of them were unquestioned in their allegiance to the cause, so hopefully things would blow over.

After his morning callisthenics, and taking the damnable pills, Donn joined Tom in the kitchen, where the other man was warming up one of the dozens of cans of corned beef stew the assassin kept stocked in the cupboard. The older man was standing above the stove, rubbing his hands together, and splaying them above the grates in an attempt to warm his bones.

"Couldn't you at least have a goddam space heater, and maybe a few lights?" he griped.

Barry had been a father to him since his natural father's unnatural death. Much like the boys that had stayed at St. Peter's Youth Hostel over the past few years, Donn and Feale had been raised under his tutelage and care, learning up close about Ireland's history, and her age old struggle for freedom.

Watching the large man wolf down his stew, Donn realised Tom had taught him a lot about duality, as well. Tom was, as he often appeared, a large, dark haired Irishman who loved life. He did everything big. He ate big, drank big, and loved big. Donn had grown up on the receiving end of constant bear hugs from the man, but at the same time, he'd seen those arms used to snap a man's neck behind closed doors. This was a man who was capable of selling arms to Satan himself if there were profit to be made, and yet, he would turn around and dole out the same money to help the Church, or the widows of fallen soldiers.

Donn had forced down a few spoonfuls of soup, but was now content to just watch his friend eat.

"Does it make you feel remorseful that the boys are dead?" Donn asked the older man.

For a moment, Tom paused, but then dug back into his meal, ignoring the question, just as he ignored Donn's probing gaze.

Fourteen boys had been recruited from Saint Peter's over the past five years for Donn's use, out of the hundreds that had passed through his doors during that time. Before that, Tom had supplied the IRA exclusively for over twenty years. The boys who didn't go overseas for special training were turned into valuable fundraisers for the cause. But the hostel was not just a recruiting tool. Barry's wife had died of ovarian cancer while still relatively young, and the man had been denied not just the love of his life, but the family he craved as well. The Irish, especially the Catholics, loved big families, and it wasn't uncommon to see households of fourteen, fifteen children. Big Tom would have had enough love and energy to go around, in such a family, but as it was, he'd remained dedicated to his wife's memory, and all hopes of his own family were retired to wistful mourning. The children of the hostel were the recipients of that love, now, and the ones that were smart enough, strong enough, and dedicated enough, were brought into Tom's new family, the Sein Fenn. Tom saw himself as their mentor, and to the special ones that went to train in Syria, or Libya, or any of a half dozen other countries, he was a friend, as well.

"Too bad we couldn't go out to a pub for a nip," Tom said in reply to Donn's constant stare. "And I'm sure the food would be a damn site nicer, as well. Not to mention the female company."

Barry had made no secret of his dislike of Donn's plans in regards to Bond. As Sein Fenn, he was all for killing the man, who'd become something of an underground celebrity over the years. Any blow to Britain was a good blow. But as a father, he'd attempted to talk Donn out of it five years earlier when the assassin had came to him with his seemingly insane intentions, and his pleas for help. And Tom had continued to try and talk him out of it every step of the way.

Tom paused in his eating again, this time dropping his spoon into the bowl in a show of frustration, which he then accentuated by slamming his fist down onto the table.

"Not everything has to do with your personal little war, Peter," Barry said. "When I picked those kids out, I knew what was going to happen in the end, and they each knew they might die. Hell, it's probably what some of them wanted; give their deaths more meaning than their lives would have ever had. Hell, you and Feale are just about the only ones left who haven't gone off and gotten yourselves killed. I helped train you, Peter, I figured you were going to scorch earth on this one, clean up the loose ends. I know it's best; each of those kids cost the Sein Fenn about a hundred thousand pounds to recruit and train, and if they figure out what's happened, then we're both dead."

But I'm already dead, a voice whispered in the back of Donn's mind. I drowned in these waters a thousand years ago.

"So our rabbit has gone to ground? We're sure?" Donn asked.

Tom picked up his spoon and resumed his lunch.

"Bond should have arrived today. All you have to do is claim your prize."

"And Feale is still there as well?"

Barry grimaced at this one, there was still a gallant inside this man who didn't want to see "his only little girl" get hurt.

"Yes," he replied, somewhat reluctantly.

"Good," Donn said. "Then it will be coming to an end, soon. Colleen will be leaving tomorrow."

"And when will I be going?" Barry asked. Donn could detect the resignation in his faux father's voice; the man knew what was coming.

Donn felt the sadness well within him, and if he were still capable of tears, if life hadn't beaten the ability to cry out of him, he would have shed them there.

The assassin took out the H&K USP .45 he'd kept at his waist and laid it on the table next to his abandoned soup.

"All these years later, and I'm just another loose end," Tom said, shaking his head incredulously.

"I have to burn clean on this one. They can't have anything left on me, nothing to hurt me with."

The tears had no problem welling in Tom Barry's eyes as they danced between the man he considered to be his own son and the gun that lay on the table.

"I love you," Donn told him.

"I love you too," the older man replied. "You'd best let me get this one."

There in the early morning light of the cold, sea-scented dining room, Tom pulled his own gun and tucked it neatly into his mouth.

"But," Donn started to say, before his words were lost in the blast that sent most of the back of his friend's head across the far wall.  "You can't," he finished. "it's a mortaller."