Placing a glass of whiskey in front of her brother, Catherine slid into the chair beside to him. Brien picked up the glass and swirled the amber liquor, recollecting what he said to her. Hours after Darragh had taken her back to his house, Brien knew it would eat him away if he didn't stop over and apologize. He did feel sorry for spitting words he hardly meant.
"Do you think I'm a whore?"
"I don't." The tender bruise around his eye served as a reminder of how upset he made her. If she didn't think it was true, she would have laughed off the insult. Swallowing a mouthful of drink, his eyes softened at his baby sister. "Is that what you think of yourself?"
Catherine shifted in the chair, tucking her ankle under her knee. The hesitation told Brien everything he needed to know. "A bit, I suppose. When I was at Musgrave, for forty-five hours all the PSNI called me was 'Provo cunt' and 'Provo whore.' After a while, it got me thinkin'. And then the pregnancy…"
Now Brien felt even worse about saying what he did. She hadn't divulged much about what she experienced during her interrogation, but he should have known that the first thing the PSNI would do is try to break her down emotionally.
"If it means anything, no one thinks you are one."
"I highly doubt that. I got knocked up while I was with another-"
"Okay, that's where I'm gonna stop you." Leaning over in his chair, Brien peered over to see if Darragh was still sound asleep on the sofa. Pumped full of scotch and narcotics, he'd be out for at least the night. "Everyone knows it was Jimmy who knocked you up."
Catherine's face turned redder than a tomato. That revelation had her feeling overly humiliated. "Everyone?"
"Everyone. Da, Liam, me. SAMBEL, even the lads from Dungloe. Liam said the True Army knows. I think the only two who have convinced themselves it's Darragh, is Ma and Fiona because they don't want to face the fact you're havin' Jimmy's baby."
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," she groaned, covering her face with her hands.
Brien reached over and rubbed Catherine's back. He couldn't blame her and Darragh for concocting a plan to keep it quiet. From the first night Catherine announced her pregnancy, they knew there was no possibility Darragh could be the father. They were willing to turn a blind-eye because Darragh was far better than the alternative.
What she didn't know was that those men would do whatever they could to protect her secret. They had all seen the hell Jimmy put her through and didn't want her to be tied to him for the next eighteen years.
A loud snore and a whimper from the couch pulled Catherine from her mind. Without a second thought, she jumped into action. It warmed Brien's heart to watch his sister rearrange the pillows that were padding Darragh's left side and she tucked the blanket around him before placing a kiss to his forehead. Brien knew she would make a wonderful mother.
"You love him, don't you?" Brien asked when she returned to the table.
Catherine couldn't take her eyes off Darragh as he slept. "Aye. With every bone in my body."
It had taken her a long time to get there, but she was finally separating the feelings she had felt for Jimmy with the love that flourished for Darragh.
"I'm worried about him," Catherine admitted for the first time. "He's strugglin' to find work and he's too proud to go on the dole. It's pushin' him in deeper with the cause again. I'm afraid he'll end up back in prison or dead."
Prison or death. Those were the fates of any man who stayed in the IRA for too long. Catherine wasn't sure as to how much longer she had until it was time to decide to leave.
Brien could only offer her a sympathetic smile. He sank into his chair as he watched her eyes fill with despair.
The next morning, Brien cashed in a favor he was owed by a local builder. Two days later, Darragh was hired as a bricklayer.
With the ILPA operation looming less than forty-eight hours away, Catherine could hardly focus at work. It was mid-afternoon when Jimmy casually waltzed into the Sinn Fein advice center on the lower Falls and he found her sitting behind the front desk. She was slightly agitated, though creating the flyer which advertised the next community meeting did calm her nerves.
When she looked up from her computer to see Jimmy, she nearly had a heart attack. Since the passage of the Belfast Agreement, Sinn Fein had been going the extra mile to publically distance themselves from the remaining dissident republicans. Catherine's activity was well known in the Sinn Fein inner-circle, but they agreed to hire her just as long as she kept the Ra at arm's length from their workings. She didn't believe in any of what the workers there were doing and felt rather betrayed by their push for political peace. She was there for more than just the paycheck—clandestinely doing her reconnaissance to gather intel on possible high-profile targets.
Jumping up from her chair, Catherine grabbed Jimmy by the sleeve and dragged him outside. Rounding the corner to Sevastopol Street, she pushed him against the brick wall, which bore the large mural of Bobby Sands.
"Are you tryin' to get me sacked?" She didn't bother hiding the irritation in her voice. "If they see you coming around here, they'll fire me."
"You'll always have a job in the Short Strand."
"They pay better. Plus, the work is a little more stimulating than pulling pints and pouring shots." Jimmy rolled his eyes at the jab and reached into his pocket. Catherine took the small folded piece of paper and immediately slipped it into her own. She knew better than to open it in public. "What's this?"
"I ordered somethin', but unfortunately it's stuck in Dundalk. Fiona's up my ass about bein' home more, so do you think you can make the trip and grab it for me?"
He was putting the responsibility of retrieving the arms cache for the IPLA operation on her. Four months ago, Catherine would have been all over the opportunity to go midnight digging for rifles and pistols. Now, the idea of traveling to the Republic on a moments notice was less than exhilarating. Jimmy asking her to do this was nothing more than punishment because he was still upset with her.
She shook her head. "You know that's not my job anymore."
"It's not me askin, Catherine. Since I can't go, the man of the house asked for you—specifically."
Now she was just confused. Why in the world would Darragh want her to go? He hadn't dropped the slightest hint that he wanted her, and not the unit's quartermaster to do the job. Since it was Darragh and not Jimmy asking, she couldn't say no. He and Sullivan were swamped or else they would be doing it on their own. Plus, she felt honored that she had been Darragh's first choice.
"Fine. What time?"
"After the nightly news. It's a heavy heirloom so I've arranged for a bloke in Cross to help you."
Catherine prayed the bloke from Crossmaglen wasn't Eddie Hayes. She thought he was a nice kid and served the cause well, but she didn't trust him as far as she could throw him. In her experience, Eddie seemed like the kind of guy who would easily crack under pressure of the police and spill every ounce of information he had on the IRA. She had developed an unguarded working relationship with his father, Cameron, but the junior Hayes' reputation in south Armagh wasn't raving.
"Who should I be keepin' an eye out for?"
"Dennehy," he was quick to answer, and she took a sigh of relief. "You know where to find him, yeah?"
Catherine nodded. Satisfied, Jimmy bid her goodbye and headed back to east Belfast.
It had been a year since Catherine last saw the likes of Dessie Dennehy. Once upon a time, the OC of the Crossmaglen unit intimidated the doe-eyed IRA woman, but it didn't take long for mutual respect to grow.
Less than a decade ago, Dessie and Jimmy had filled the south Armagh area, known as Bandit Country, with paralyzing fear. During the sniping campaign, they were the reason troops refused to go on night patrols. The army also deemed it unsafe for the roads to be used, which forced soldiers to be flown in by helicopter.
After she was officially sworn in, Jimmy had sent Catherine to the small townland near the border for four weeks to train with the IRA's most ferocious command. Dessie had taught her well with a baptism by fire approach. Her first night there, he brought her along on an operation in which they fired several mortar shells at the British army base.
When her month was over, Patrick and Jimmy had to drag Catherine back to Belfast kicking and screaming. Having spent time in the heart of the armed conflict, she was reluctant to begin her role as a trafficker. Everyone could see she was a Fenian who bled orange, white, and green, and desperately sought to have a place in the fighting.
When she walked into the dimly lit pub just off Newry Road, Catherine quickly spotted Dessie sitting at the bar. He was wearing Doc Marten boots, a green flying jacket and Wrangler jeans—the quintessence of a Provo if there ever was one.
Sneaking up behind him, she double-tapped his shoulder. Setting his pint down, Dessie quickly turned his head and lit up when he saw Catherine.
"Jesus, look at ya." He stood up from his barstool and engulfed her into a hug. She squeezed back with the same enthusiasm, thankful there was no lingering discomfort from their last encounter. "I heard through the grapevine ya were expectin' a wee one, but I almost didn't believe it."
Settling on to the empty barstool beside Dessie, Catherine rubbed her swollen belly. "Aye. Needless to say, I was a bit shocked too, at first."
They spent a few minutes catching up on everything life had thrown at them over the last year. It was rare for the Belfast and south Armagh Brigades to muddle in each other's business, both occupational and personal. But Catherine had grown very fond of the lads in Crossmaglen after they began a joint effort to smuggle cigarettes.
The extra cash helped pay for the guns she and Jimmy were buying. The cheap smokes came from the Irish mob in Boston, where they would intercept the shipping container in Dublin before brining them into Northern Ireland. Thousands of cartons were sold in pubs across Ulster and the profits were hefty.
When Dessie asked why she hadn't tagged along with Jimmy on the latest import, he was relieved to hear it hadn't been because of his past ungentlemanly behavior. He admitted he read the signs wrong and felt like a dirty old degenerate for making moves on a girl who was young enough to be his daughter. It pleased him to hear she was part of an active service unit now. That would mean they'd see more of one another.
"No shit." He spoke into his pint of Guinness. "Who's your OC?"
"Darragh Ryan."
"I remember Darragh from Maghaberry. He's the fella who went down for killin' the wee daughter of the UVF's chief of staff. They had it out for him because of that. That boy's guardian angel is workin' overtime keepin' him alive."
That was the first time Catherine had heard someone talk openly about the crime Darragh had been convicted of. She had followed his trial closely, to the point of getting in trouble at school, because she was ditching class to be in court. Though the judge had branded Darragh a murderer with a guilty verdict, Catherine didn't believe that he was the one who pulled the trigger. Rather, she refused to believe it.
Catherine took a long drink of water. Considering the recent ass-kicking Darragh had taken from the UVF, she couldn't stop from wondering when his luck would run out. It was a blessing he had even made it out of prison alive. Nothing was stopping the loyalist paramilitary command from putting a hollow point right between his eyes. For Darragh, the fear of never knowing when it would happen was worse than the realization that he was living on borrowed time.
"Those RUC bastards set him up—they had no evidence. The only reason they even bothered investigatin', was because one of their own had been shot. If it had happened to one of the King's, there would have been a parade down the Falls in celebration."
"Amen to that," Dessie said, clinking his glass with Catherine's. Swallowing the last of his beer, he glanced at his watch. It was time for them to hit the road. Tossing a tenner onto the bar, he stood. "We should get goin'."
It was a twenty-minute drive over the border to where the weapons cache was stashed. Following a map and the coordinates Jimmy had given her, Catherine was sure it was buried in the middle of a field just outside Inniskeen.
With Dessie following in a stolen car behind her, she signaled to him to turn off his headlights as they approached the area. Turning onto a single lane dirt road, Catherine reset the trip odometer. If she followed Jimmy's instructions properly, it should be a mile and a half down the road.
Parking the car, Catherine grabbed the map and her pistol from under the seat. Getting out, she tucked the Glock into the back waistband of her jeans as Dessie grabbed two shovels and flashlights from the back of his SUV. He flipped on one of the flashlights as he approached the stolen car she was driving.
Spreading out the map on the hood of the car, they stayed silent as she showed which direction they were headed.
When they were sure they reached the spot, Dessie handed Catherine a shovel and they started digging. Despite being four months pregnant, Catherine handled the shovel like a pro, never once stopping to complain. Dessie had always admired her dedication, taking her oath to obey all orders seriously.
"No chance I can convince you to join us in Cross?" he asked, tossing a heap of dirt to the side.
It was a tempting offer. Being asked to join a unit in Crossmaglen would have been a dream come true for her six months ago. Now, she couldn't bring herself to voluntarily leave Belfast, wanting Eamonn to grow up in the same city she did.
Using her foot to slice the shovel into the damp earth, Catherine shook her head. "No chance. You know I'm a Belfast girl through and through."
Just as he was about to open his mouth and throw a joke her way, Dessie's shovel hit the canvas of the buried bag. That was then they ditched the shovels and dropped to their knees to start tilling with their gloved hands. Pulling out the first of five bags, Catherine unzipped it just to make sure it was their hardware.
Four AR-18s and two Browning pistols. Yep, that was a True Army kit.
"How many of the AR's do ya need?" Dessie opened the second bag counting out another four. Since only six of the twenty-one volunteers were from south Armagh, Catherine would be taking a majority of the tools back to Belfast with her.
"I only need thirteen. But, you know how Jimmy is, there's gonna be more than we need-"
Before the last word could be spoken, Catherine and Dessie froze when a flood of headlights fell upon them. They were dressed head to toe in back, knee-deep in a hole with open bags off to the side. Anyone native to the country would know exactly what they were up to. It wasn't so much getting caught that had Catherine panicking, it was that she had stupidly taken off her balaclava when she dove into the bag.
"We're in the middle of fuckin' nowhere," Catherine muttered, too afraid to turn around.
"Give it a minute. It's probably just a farmer." Dessie wasn't sure if he was reassuring Catherine or himself. "Do you have anything on you?"
Not daring to say another word, she only nodded. He warned her not to be stupid, but all she was focused on was not ending up back in jail.
The second Catherine heard the sound of a car door closing, she reached for the pistol in her waistband. Quickly turning around, she raised the gun and pulled the trigger three times. Half-blinded by the bright headlights, she still managed to hit her target.
He went down after catching a slug in the throat.
Dropping the pistol on the ground in front of her, Catherine squeezed her eyes shut. "Please tell me he wasn't part of the Guards."
Dessie patted Catherine on the back before he jumped out of the hole. "Congrats, kid. You just took out your first police officer."
