A/N: Sorry for making everyone wait for the update, but hopefully another long chapter makes up for that. Purdy's Pal should be back from her vacation over the weekend and there will hopefully be something new from Jedi Skysinger over the weekend too, coinciding with Shock Wave we watched last night at BurnerClub. Much love and appreciation for all you lovely #Burners still out there!
BE BRAVE LITTLE ANGEL
Chapter Twenty Two
His beloved had done an impressive job of demolishing all the things their hosts had left behind for breakfast and had then polished off the last of the Cathy's bramback from the day before. Michael had found himself fascinated by the sight and couldn't look away as Fiona feasted, much the way a particularly violent traffic accident commands complete attention. After months upon months of watching the flame haired guerrilla eat barely more than enough to keep a bird alive, the scene of the culinary carnage at the Coleraine's kitchen table had captivated him and he had struggled with whether to feel less or more guilty about "starving" her in the woods before.
He finally concluded, as the young woman in the very tight jeans arose from her seat, that her body was simply making up for lost time and nutrition, much as he had done in the past when returning from particularly gruelling missions, though he was hard pressed to remember ever consuming that much that quickly, even when he was an Army Ranger. But she was eating for two now...
Having emptied the dishes with a still surprising ferocity, the mother-to-be had then booted her lover out the door, insisting that he make good use of his time investigating their get-away cars while she cleared away the table and cleaned up the kitchen. Michael was hesitant to leave her alone, but had to concede that she was correct. They needed to know what their options were before the elderly trio returned from the Mass, possibly with unwanted company in their wake.
Poking around in the barn, the former spy swiftly decided that the farm equipment and an ancient, even by Glenanne standards, early model Series 2 Land Rover were not what he was hoping for; however, what he found under the tarp was very promising indeed. Meticulously kept, Gerry's pride and joy stared back at him as he pulled the canvas covering off of the vehicle. The 1971 Volvo 164E had one of the first electronic fuel injection systems and was the most powerful standard car the Swedes had ever produced at the time with an impressive 175 hp.
This was more of what he was looking for…
The head of the household had already been lamenting his inability to work on it with his broken leg and complaining about what he thought was wrong with his 'baby.' Michael just hoped the old farmer had been right and fixing the problem would not be too time-consuming.
And that's what he had begun doing, buried halfway into the engine compartment when a slender hand landed on his backside with a slight swat.
"Have ya got it running yet, Mr. Creegan?" she purred, leaning her head next to his face over the top of the motor, narrowly missing the work lamp hanging from the underside of the hood.
"I'm going to change out the MAP sensor and the O2 sensor for the ones Gerry bought, since that's what he thought was wrong with it, and once I finish cleaning the injectors I hope we'll be good to go," he answered, straightening up and taking the rag she proffered to clean up his grimy hands.
She pressed a quick kiss to his scruffy cheek and then his ear before whispering, "Ya need a mind yar accent, Bobby. Ya cannae never know who's gonna be about."
"Sorry, luv, tis the smell o' tha grease and being about a garage…" The American trailed off as if he realized he was about to say more than he had intended or wanted to.
"Oh, no, Mr. Creegan, donnae tell me a thing about yarself nar. Tha world might stop spinning on its axis if ya war ta reveal a tiny smidgen o' yar past ta tha mother o' yar child." The sparkle in her mischievous blue green eyes took some of the sting out of her saucy comment.
Michael shrugged. "Whot d'ya want me ta say, Kim? Tis tha soldier in me an' I donnae—"
She pressed two fingers to his lips to silence him and then her hand drifted to the right to cup his wiry cheek. "Yer nae a soldier anymore..." she reminded him quietly.
"I know," he agreed softly.
Fiona reached up, sliding her delicate hand along the back of his neck, and then pulled herself up to place a tender kiss on his lips before deepening it, sealing her mouth tightly over his, trying to reassure him and herself as well.
"Well, ya best get back ta yar job then, Mr. Creegan," she urged gently when she had released him.
Michael let out a long breath on a sigh. "Yer right, we need ta get this old gal on tha road again."
"Well, if it's been sitting fer any length o' time, tha battery could probably use a bit o' a charge taa."
The dark haired man smiled brightly. "A right bonnie suggestion thot, thank ya, Mrs. Creegan."
Fiona grinned back before heading towards the lighted work bench in corner of the dusty dim old barn to fetch the trickle charger sitting there. "Gerry has quite tha collection o' useful tools and—"
The bomb maker's daughter paused, first eyeing all the petrol and such being stored next to the enormous toolbox to her right before letting her gaze settle on several large stacks of nitrogen based fertilizer on the other side of the barn. "Quite tha potential arsenal har," she remarked, returning with the charger.
"Aye, I did notice thot. Am gonna stash tha rifles and most o' our gear out har. Thot's tha plan if things donnae work out. If we have ta go ta Plan B, tha woods behind tha barn ar'—"
The redhead leaned into his side and rested her head on his shoulder. "Har's hoping we donnae need Plan A or Plan B."
Michael planted a soft kiss on the top of her head and then wrinkled his nose, smelling the unfamiliar scent in her hair. That as much as anything reminded the ex-spy sharply that they were still very much on the run and not yet out of danger, despite their momentary reprieve.
"I couldnae agree more," her lover assured her. "Care ta hand me some tools, lass?"
()()()()()()()()
Mrs. Julieta Joyce stared at the burner phone in her hand, wondering again why she hadn't just retired when her protégée Sandy Miller had moved over to Operations and recommended the silver fox for her old job as personal assistant to one Thomas Benjamin Card.
However, even the venerable Company woman was forced to admit that while she had felt many things during her tenure with the irascible agent in question, she had never been bored working with the training officer who had helped produce some of the CIA's best and brightest…bored perhaps with some of his diatribes not quite so cleverly disguised as interpersonal communication, but never with the work.
So her quiet Sunday had just been hijacked by her superior in rank only, who had requested that she take one of her aliases she kept on her at all times and go rent a hire car with said legend's credit card. Neither of these items had been procured from US intelligence services per se and the fact that her boss was now requesting she rent a vehicle rather than requisition one told her that this particular mission was to stay off the radar of their hosts as well as their own up-line superiors.
She could still do the math and knew what this meant. Tom Card had found a target to approach to arrange a meeting with Liam Glennane and he didn't want their friends from MI5 getting wind of it.
Mrs. Joyce stared out of the window at her little room in a block of flats the Agency had been loaned on a small very private residential development called Lansdowne Village, not far from offices the US embassy had turned over for their use in the heart of Ballsbridge close to the center of Dublin while they hunted for their rogue operative and his PIRA guerrilla girlfriend.
As she wondered what to wear when she stepped out into the weather today, which in Ireland could be as quixotic as her manager's moods, Julieta found herself contemplating the fate of one Tyler Grey. Card's latest wunderkind was not one to break protocols and his going dark had certainly broken a large number of them in the very little time he'd gone missing.
Now that the silver haired man was making progress with his attempts to contact the head of clan Glenanne, Mrs. Joyce was certain locating the missing Mr. Grey would be the next order on her desk. In the meantime, however, she needed to decide what she was going to do with the rest of her day. Because she was expected to kill some time somewhere, leaving the rental in a convenient parking structure to be removed by persons unknown, while she took public transportation home.
Running through the list of potential shopping, cultural and culinary options through her head, the former field operative smiled as she picked up her favorite coat, lightweight albeit warm enough to withstand the vagrancies Irish or Virginia spring weather. Annoying as working with the man could be, it was certainly never dull and that was all she would ask for at this stage in her long career.
Smiling, she slipped on her outer garment and picked her purse, Trinity College wasn't far from the large Q-park multi-story parking garage. She would spend what remained of the morning visiting the Book of Kells exhibition and then go on to the National Art Gallery. All in all she found herself looking forward to a quiet day of culture following her bit of subterfuge on behalf of her country.
()()()()()()()()()
Michael had just finished wiping down the tools and putting them away when his beloved's absence came to the forefront of his mind again. While they were working on Volvo, Fiona had started yawning quite a lot and eventually said she is going back into the house to have some more tea to see if that would wake her up, offering to return and help him make something that went boom out of the supplies Gerry Coleraine had unintentionally supplied them with.
With the task complete, he now found himself worrying about why she hadn't yet returned. It wasn't like her…While she'd been miffed that her partner in crime had insisted she not handle the many dangerous chemicals herself, there had to be some seriously wrong for Fiona Glenanne to turn down an opportunity to do some old school IRA-style baking, even if it was only to supervise.
As he closed the hood partially to allow the charger to do its job, the ex-operative told himself firmly that she had most likely fallen asleep again rather than something more alarming, although he found the amount and depth of her sleep lately somewhat troubling all on its own. He had been deeply disturbed how hard it had been to rouse her to any level of responsiveness this morning as his hosts had risen early to start their day. Eventually, he had given up and joined them downstairs.
Exiting the ramshackle old barn and crossing the open space between there and the farmhouse, Michael looked around cautiously, scanning the surrounding woods and outbuildings, ready to run for cover at the first sign of danger, though it would appear they were completely alone on the isolated farm.
He hated to admit it, but letting their elderly hosts go off on their own was still weighing on his mind almost as heavily as the status of Fiona's health. He had done his best to coax the trio, especially once Gerry had pulled him aside and inquired indelicately whether or not Bobby had been indiscrete and forced to marry the young woman in his company before the truth had come out.
But Michael was convinced that he had persuaded them of their plight, two runaway lovers fleeing the wrath of her family with the potential added complication of a baby on the way, and need for utter secrecy. The three of them had seemed sincerely interested in doing what was in the couple's best interest, though he still had reservations about their abilities to executive their good intentions.
He slipped in the front door quietly and moved stealthily into the room, subtly reminding himself of all the times he had snuck in the front door of his mother's house in the dead of the night, as it was quieter than the kitchen door and not in the line of sight of the bedrooms at the rear of the house.
Michael was completely unsurprised to find Fiona snoozing on the couch, a magazine laying on the floor beside a cold cup of tea, but very happy to see the bleary blue green eyes slide open as he approached. The redhead he knew was a notorious light sleeper, complete to full alertness almost instantly upon awakening. He had learned early and painfully not to startle her when slumbering.
But the truth was, while he knew intellectually that tiredness was supposed to be normal, he had no real experience with pregnant women save the vague childhood memories of his father's ire at his mother's multiple failures to keep up with the housework in her weariness. His young attempts to assist in those daily chores had met with mixed success at best. However, he pushed those thoughts aside as ever while he knelt beside his beloved, who was stretching like a cat from her morning nap.
"Hey," she said, her voice thick from recent disuse and her gaze somewhat unfocused.
"Hey yourself," he whispered back, telling himself that the Irishwoman would have drawn his host's pistol from under her pillow had she not recognized him immediately. "Are you okay?"
She yawned and gave him a dreamy smile. "I'm fine, jus' catching up on me rest while I can… d'ya finish tha car? Ar' they back yet? Is thar trouble—" The questions sped up as she become more alert, sitting up on the couch and starting the scan the doors and the windows for credible threats.
"Tis fine," the dark haired man assured her, sitting next to her as much to ease the ache in his injured knee as to soothe her. "Tha Volvo is ready ta roll and they've nae come home yet. Thar's nothing fer ya ta do, me luv, except rest up and be ready. I'll take another walk around the perimeter an' find tha best places ta set a few booby traps in case we need—"
"Ya keep telling me I need to rest up, but Am nae tha only one thot needs it, Bobby. Yar ribs ar' nae wrapped in comfrey cuz it smells nice an' ya could use some ice on yar knee an' ya know it."
Michael shifted around, remembering his discomfort at the sisters insisting on changing his dressings early this morning before they left for church, although he was forced to admit the homemade remedy had helped with the injuries. His wrists were almost completely healed.
"Donnae deny it," she commanded, coming to her feet and swaying slightly. Before he could get up as well, Fiona was pushing the foot stool across the room from Gerry's chair by the fire place. "Ya need ta get yar feet up," she ordered, pushing the low furniture at his legs until he was forced to raise them up or have his toes crushed. Then Fiona disappeared into the kitchen and returned with an ice pack, which she put over his swollen knee, using a long dish cloth to secure it in place.
Satisfied, the former terrorist sat down next her to scruffy husband again. "We both need ta rest up and recuperate while we can. There's nothing else that needs to be done, ya said so yarself."
"I said thar wa' nothing more fer ya ta do, Kimmy. I need ta make sure thot—"
Before he could protest further, the petite woman stretched out over the couch again, settling her head into his lap in a bid to hold him in place. Sensing defeat, Michael conceded and leaned his own suddenly heavy head against the back of the ancient sofa, closing his eyes rather than argue further. He was fairly certain she'd fall asleep again if he just bided his time…
But it was Michael who ended up dozing against his will, as his own body took advantage of his momentary stillness to ameliorate its depleted condition. But his respite was short lived and his mind was soon conjuring up all his anxieties again in the guise of his former teachers and partners.
"Why are you still sitting here, sport?" the voice of Tom Card echoed in his head. "You got the car running. Pack up the little lady here and take off already. What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Or have you already forgotten what I taught you about getting attached to your assets?"
"In a vintage gold Volvo?" he disputed the apparition's assumption. "Might as well put a sign on it, 'stolen, please arrest us,' cuz we'd be picked up in a heartbeat the minute it was reported missing."
"Oh, come on, Michael, cry me a river. Admit it. You just don't want to steal the old geezer's car. You've gone soft playing house with your little terrorist girlfriend down on the farm. The Michael Westen that I trained would have been gone the minute that motor was running."
In his mind's eye, the disgraced spy could see his training officer standing in front of him at the Farm, praising the young recruit for his answers, for his ability to use people as nothing more than resources to get the job done and commending him for his loyalty to the Agency and nothing else.
"And the Michael Westen I trained would have already dispatched those three…" Another voice cut into that dream like space between not fully awake and unconsciousness. "The Michael Westen I knew would have taken that blade I gave him and gone through there like a hot knife through butter."
"Get outta my head, Lare. You're dead now because you thought you knew me," he refuted his mentor's accusations, remembering the moment two years ago when Mr. Sizemore had revealed his master plan to see to it that his former partner was burned and had no choice but to join him again.
The dark haired man shivered forcefully, trying to clear out the voices were taunting him
"Whot's wrong?"
He looked down into the sleepy blue green eyes that were staring up at him with a mixture of love and concern. Her lover forced a smile onto his face, which she was too groggy to see was strained.
"I just need a drink. Am goin' ta make us another cuppa. We need to get ready." He glanced up at the large antique clock on the mantle piece. "They might come back sooner than we think."
"Ya better come back here soon or I'll hunt ya down and kick yar arse…" she muttered as he slide out from under her languid form.
The American put the kettle on and wished for a moment for a tall cold glass of iced tea, though it was hardly hot and balmy where he was standing the Coleraine's kitchen. Outside, the wind had begun to pick up and it looked like there might be a storm rolling through sooner rather than later.
Michael sighed as he looked around at all the things that needed fixing, feeling the urge to do something rather than sit around. There were booby traps to be set in case he needed them to aid in their escape as well as ward off potential adversaries should their hosts return with unwanted company in tow. Of course, the Garda might just show up instead of the trio of-
Shutting the kettle off mechanically, his eyes landed on just what he was looking for across the yard from where he stood at the window: a stack of roof tiles, covered with a dirty torn piece of plastic.
The vantage from the roof would give him a clear view of the road and the surrounding forest. He had already stashed their weapons and supplies in the barn. If anyone should be coming, he'd know before they were within striking distance and if not, repairing their roof was just another way of accumulating the favor of his assets. They needed to extend their stay here as long as practical. Fiona needed to get as much rest and nutrition as she could before they were on the run again…
The strategizing required to get himself onto the top of the house safely along with the equipment and supplies he need to perform the work did divert him from the voices of his father figures offering their unwanted advice momentarily… until he found himself sitting on the peak balancing against the breeze that was threatening now to push him over every time he raised the hammer in his hand.
"Whud the hell is taking so long, boy? Just nail the damned shingles back and get yer sorry ass down here already…"
"He shouldn't be up there, Frank…"
"Shit, that storm's done gone north, woman."
"But they can spawn tornados, there's still lightning in the area."
"Maddie, you best be worried about gittin' the rest of this mess cleaned up. Go on, git!"
Michael hit the tile before him with a little too much force, breaking it instead of securing it. With a warning shout, he tossed it off the roof and then stopped to take a deep breath. He wasn't a twelve year old back in Miami fixing his parents' house while the rest of them cleaned up the yard debris and broken glass that had come from a micro storm in the wake of Hurricane David.
And he wasn't going to get anything done properly if he couldn't detach himself from his situation.
The former terror of Russian knew what the problem was. This wasn't a mission, a puzzle to be solved, this was his life...the lives of his love and his child…of course it was personal for him.
But if he couldn't operate the way he was trained to, he was going to get them all killed. He knew a prospect of parenthood was clouding his judgement and of course thinking about her pregnancy was going to bring up memories of things he had buried deep and left far behind in order to do his job…
"Good way to keep the demons at bay, isn't it, Westen?" the voice of Rayna Kopec came back to him, reminding of the first time they'd had something that could be called a personal conversation. But it also reminded him of how far off the reservation he had gone under the tutelage of Larry.
Michael had vowed he wouldn't become the monster he had been. But he still couldn't afford to be the man Fiona wanted, not right now, not until they were out of the country and somewhere safe.
And as much as he appreciated the honest decency of his hosts, he couldn't let himself get sucked into feeling sympathy for their situation. He would do what he could for them in repayment while using their resources and he would do his best not to harm them, but getting out of the Ireland was his mission and that needed to take precedence over everything else. The rest would have to wait.
Scanning the road and the surrounding hills again, Michael turned his attention to the task at hand.
()()()()()()()()
Colin Glenanne liked to think that the people who specialized in hacking were a special breed. Most of the computer wizards he usually worked with could have used their considerable talent to find legitimate work. But instead, just like he used his god given skills to protect his family or assist his siblings in their various enterprises, his friends used their particular expertise to expose national and international injustice and on occasion steal from various multinational companies to fund their addiction to information technology. In this closed world made up of idealists, anarchists and thieves, Murphy Quinlan was considered a living legend, a pioneer in cyber theft.
Neither Murphy nor Quinlan had been the name of the young Belfast lad who had been wooed by MI5 during his first year at Ulster University and who had crossed over the Irish Sea to work for British counter-intelligence at their headquarters in Cheltenham for the best part of a decade.
With access to some of the best technology in the world at his fingertips, there wasn't a code he couldn't break or a firewall he couldn't find a way around. Until one day after being heavily involved in an assignment to steal secrets from the Chinese and in the process destroy the career and ruin the reputation of someone who was, as far as he could ascertain, an honorable man, the young but no longer naïve man came to the realization that the agency and the government he had sworn to service was no different from those that he was spying on.
So rather than handing in his notice to the HR department and risk being on the receiving end of a 9 milimeter retirement party courtesy of his bosses, the man who would become known as Murphy Quinlan had gone on the run. After five years traveling the world and taking on the occasional freelance job, the former M15 asset had built up a small fortune and was ready to go home.
And that was when the Glenanne's resident computer expert had first met the highly paranoid and some might say traitorous son of Ireland. It had been one of Colin's close friends who had brought up the subject of a hacking genius recently arrived from South America and now hiding out in the seaside town of Portrush.
"Colin, Davy is waitin' fer ya downstairs... Can I come in?" The voice of Jeanne Donahue coming through the wooden barrier between them interrupted the younger man's distracted reverie.
"Aye, come in, Am ready ta go." Colin threw a dark green jumper on top of the three days supply of clothes he had just finished packing into a lightweight sports bag.
Hiding the whereabouts of such a highly sought after traitor from his older brother had always weighed heavily on Colin's soul. At the time of the technology wizards arrival in Ireland, Liam had been working hard rounding and collecting the bounties on the heads of PIRA volunteers and their friends and families who taken up MI5s generous offer of thousands of pounds and a safe haven far away from Ireland for information on their comrades of arms.
But after digging up what little information he could find on the fugitive and then sneaking away from home to meet the man in question, Colin had decided to take a chance and go with his gut. From that day on, he had along with others in his group had worked to ensure that the name Murphy Quinlan stayed off the radar of both the UK government and PIRA.
"Davy is downstairs waitin' fer ya." Jeannie sauntered into his room and sat down on the edge of his bed. "Is thot all ya takin'?" She peered into the bag packed with clothing before raising her gaze to look him in the eye.
"I'll be gone fer two days, three at tha most - whot are ya doin'?" He broke off what he was saying as his brother's girlfriend began to rifle through his clothes.
"Yer goin' off ta meet a fella who fram whot ya say doesn't take kindly ta visitors at a time when tha rest o' ya family tis under armed guard at yar mammy's an' yar brother is so worried about what yar plannin' he's sending tha head' o' his security ta travel wit' ya and ya donnae think ta pack a gun o' yar own?"
It was only then that he realized the blonde had been concealing a snub nosed revolver in the pocket of her cardigan.
"If thar wa' any other way o' contactin' me friend, believe me I'd be usin' it... An' tis not like wa're in lock down, not really, did ya nae hear me tell Liam thot tha phones wa' clean. Nobody has been talkin' ta anybody they shouldnae an' not one single bug wa' found at me mother's place." Then in an effort to deflect her line of questioning, he changed the subject away from his personal protection. "Have ya been doin' like I asked an' been listening inta thot phone I bugged?"
"Aye, I've been listening, all tha man seems ta do is whine ta his girlfriend in London about havin' been stuck checking out all tha places Michael McBride and Fiona Glenanne visited in tha last eighteen months." Jeannie pulled a face and then, just to prove she knew what Colin was doing, she dropped the revolver down on top of his clothes. "An' donnae try ta change tha subject... I care about ya, an' I want ya back in one piece, so quit yer complainin' take tha gun."
Colin used his forefinger to push his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose and then rubbed his hand over his brow.
"Am more likely ta shoot me self with thot thing than anybody comin' after us." His hand hovered over the weapon, wanting it out of his bag, but then a tiny voice in the back of his mind suggested it wasn't such a bad idea. He knew better than any other member of the family how many forces were lining up against them.
"Fine," he finally grumbled and unfroze his hand, zipping up the bag with the gun inside. "Are ya happy nar?"
"I'll be happier still when yar sister is back home an' all this nonsense is behind us." Jeannie got to her feet with relieved smile on her lips. Reaching up, she placed a peck to his cheek. "Go find yar friend an' donnae have Liam get back har an' have ta come lookin' fer ya."
()()()()()()()()
Tap, tap, tap, tap - scrape, tap, tap… followed by the sound of his voice and then an occasional bang or shattering crash brought Fiona out of her pleasant nap. Blinking and yawning, the young woman slowly released her hold on Gerry Coleraine's WWII issue side arm and sat up.
Tap, tap, tap - the irritating noise continued. Glancing up at the ceiling, Fiona rolled her eyes. So much for Michael following his own advice to take things easy...
Getting to her feet, she went over to peer out of the window which gave her a view of the front garden and she noted two broken tiles which hadn't been there before. Whot wa' so difficult ta understand about broken ribs needed time ta heal?
She was half way across the room, searching for the boots she'd removed before taking her mid- morning nap when she came to a stop, a frown creasing her brow as her hand drifted to her barely noticeable bump.
She should be angry. Her lover was up on the roof risking injuring himself even more than he was already, especially after all his lectures on how she needed to look after herself too, but she wasn't.
Instead her usual hot headed Celtic temperament was being dampened down by an overwhelming feeling of delicious contentment. Combing her fingers through her tangled mop of hair, Fiona smiled. No wonder Michael stared at her sometimes as if she was a bomb about to explode. Tha poor man must be wondering whot he had got himself inta...
Even as that thought flittered through her mind, Ms. Glenanne, famed bank robber and bomb-maker extrodinaire, cringed. Oh, this wa' going taa far… tha poor man, me arse...The thick headed idjit! Reaching for her boots, the now fuming young woman pulled on her footwear and hurriedly laced them up before heading out of the front door.
Cautiously stepping outside, a low cry of 'incoming' sounded before another tile whistled by her head to break into pieces on the pathway in front of her. Fiona made her way around the outside of the farmhouse until she spotted the ladder leaning up against the side wall.
It was on the tip of her tongue to call out to him when instead she bit down on her bottom lip and with a gleam of mischief in her eye began to silently ascend the steeply angled steps.
It was a point of pride that she was one of only a few people who could sneak up on the hyper alert spy. Nearing the top, the Irish guerrilla fighter readied herself to peek over the top of the gutters and remind her boyfriend of the promise she felt she'd extracted from him to take things easy and rest.
"Kim, whot tha hell d'ya think yer playin' at?"
She froze as she found herself staring into the muzzle of his SIG Sauer.
"Mi- Bobby!" she gasped in surprise as her eyes travelled the length of the weapon to his hand and then onwards to the cool deep blue eyes which stared back at her.
"Ya shouldnae be up har, tis taa dangerous. I coulda shot ya."
"I trust ya ta look befer ya fire." She pushed down her chagrin at being caught and continued to climb, a small slither of guilt entering her conscience as she read the concern in his expression. "Besides I think it tis more dangerous fer me on tha ground tha way yer tossin' down them broken slates... I was sure I wa' about ta have me head caved in."
The redhead added a small smile to let him know she was joking. Ignoring the hand he held out, Fiona gingerly walked up the steep pitch to the very top, straddling the apex carefully.
"Kim, I mean it. Ya shouldnae be up har."
"Neither should ya," she answered as Fiona turned to face him. "Ya tell me ta take things easy an' thot's whot I do. But Am not tha one wit' his ribs caved in an' a knee tha size of a football, am I? I thought we agreed thot we wa' goin' ta use these few days we have har fer some R an' R."
For a second, she saw the spark of ire in his eyes mixing with his anxiety and then before the spark could grow to a passionate flame, the spy which lived inside him took control and put out the fire.
"Am taking it easy and whot I'm doing up har is keepin' watch an' repaying the kindness of an old man who coulda told us ta get on down tha road. We cannae afford ta lose them. Thar our only assets at tha moment."
He was falling back into spy mode, she could see it. The ex-operative was cutting himself off from his feelings and usually this reaction to any sort of disagreement would inflame her emotions all the more. But not this time, because for the first time suddenly Fiona realized that regardless how aggravating she found it personally, her lover was doing this to keep them safe.
"Ya're right," the Irishwoman admitted, the palm of her right hand cupping his whiskery cheek. "So, whot can I do ta help ya cultivate yar assets?"
His gaze flickered from her face to the long drop to the ground. "Maybe it would be better if ya waited back on tha house. Am finished wit' tha roof an' wa' about ta clean tha gutters out when ya came up har."
There he was, doing it again, trying to treat her as if she was made of cut glass. She had reluctantly accepted that for now he apparently needed to concentrate on tactics rather than their relationship, but she wasn't about to be relegated to becoming nothing more than a damsel in distress.
Sighing dramatically, Michael Westen's flame haired girlfriend dropped down to sit on top of the rounded ridge tiles. "Ya cannae be watchin' fer danger while yer cleaning all tha muck outta those gutters. So, I'll take care o' tha surveillance while ya get yar hands dirty... How does thot sound?"
"It sounds like yer givin' me little choice." he grumbled back. "Ya know how I feel about ya puttin' yarself in danger, especially now." He stared back at her, his expression twisting as if he had more he wanted to say, but was afraid of revealing too much of himself. "If ya war ta fall - I'm not sayin' yer incapable or an invalid. Tis-" Michael blinked and looked away and she was reminded of his outburst during their first night in the forest. "Tis just that accidents happen," he mumbled.
"Oh…" and she wondered again about his past. "Michael, Am just gonna sit har, I promise... An' remember I wa' runnin' across roof tops wit' an AK in me arms when I reached me teens."
"Aye, so ya've said…" He opened his mouth to say more and then shut it forcefully. With a shake of his head and a shrug of his shoulders, the ex-spy turned away, moving towards the task at hand.
()()()()()()()()
It was one hundred and ninety miles from the center of Dublin to the outskirts of Killarney and if the driver of the Mercedes S class saloon kept to the speed limits and followed all the rules of the road, he and his passenger could expect to arrive at their destination in a little bit under four hours;
However, Joey Lovatt was no ordinary driver and Liam Glenanne had never once been accused of being a patient man. So once they had cleared the city streets, the young man used his heavy right foot and the skills he had honed under the tutelage of Davy Doyle to shave at least an hour off the estimated time of arrival.
While he concentrated on maneuvering the large powerful car through the traffic and then onto the open roads, Joey couldn't help but wonder about the obvious danger they were hurtling towards without any additional back-up. The girl on the other end of the voice mails had sounded hysterical and even at eighteen the young man behind the wheel had no difficulty in working out the meaning of Robin's desperate pleas.
Glancing nervously into the rear view mirror, the younger man swallowed down his fears and took his lead from the older man lounging on the back seat. If Liam Glenanne was unconcerned by his only back up being an untried kid, then that kid in question was going to do his best to live up to the great man's expectations.
Meanwhile, unaware of his driver's unease, the head of Clan Glenanne was silently cursing drunken gypsies who didn't have the sense to keep their mouths shut... Tha old fool had ta have been seen flashin' tha cash and then blabbed how he got it… Thar wa' no other explanation….and their crazed daughters who screamed and sobbed in the street, making a spectacle of themselves for any one passing by to see. Because when he had tried to call Robin, he had been furious to discover, thanks to an old woman who had stopped to answer the ringing phone, that the number displayed on his cell belonged to a public phone box.
With no way of contacting the gypsy girl unless she chose to call him again, Liam turned his attention to all the other people who were waiting to hear from him: his mother, to reassure her that the meeting had gone well and he was safe and to get an update on Sean's condition; Seamus to double check that all was well at the house and to remind his younger sibling to keep a sharp eye out for unwelcome company and finally a call to Colin, who after informing him that the mobile phones he'd asked to be checked over were clean, went on to drop the bombshell that his younger brother needed to go gallivanting off to Donegal in search of the hacking genius who was going to solve all their problems.
Following that bit of news, the eldest Glennane had immediately called Davy Doyle and ordered his head of security to cut short his day off and prepare to accompany the family communications expert on a trip to the wilds of Western Ireland.
Once he was up to date with family business, he had turned his attention back to the frantic voicemails, playing the messages over and over again, hoping to pick up more clues as to what he was about to walk into from the hysterical rantings of Robin Hennessy.
"Mr. Glenanne, I have ta see ya… Ya have ta come, me da…he's…"
"Tis me, tis Robin... Me daddy… three men came har an' they…they beat him, they beat him until…he's dead, sar… and then they-"
"Please, ya need ta call me nar; they war asking about yar sister..."
"Am sorry, am sooo sorry... Me da, he dinnae mean any o' it, he dinnae deserve ta -,"
"P-please, pick up... Pick up... I – I... Ya have ta help."
And the last one which was nothing more than more apologies and heavy sobbing. Sighing, the PIRA's chief interrogator let his head drop back onto the head rest, as he sifted through what he knew for sure and what a life time of experience told him was most likely.
He had first-hand knowledge of how British agents went about obtaining information and while breaking into a target's home was not beyond the realms of possibility, beating an old man to death and then leaving the man's daughter alive as a witness definitely was not. No, tha whole thing smacked o' amateur hour. MI6 agents would have either taken both father and daughter into custody or more likely at the end of the interrogation have killed them both and then arranged for a gas explosion to destroy the scene.
So, if it was amateurs, then it came down to who...
"Please, ya need ta call me nar; they war asking about yar sister..."
Fiona had made quite a few enemies over the years. Nobody liked to discover that the pretty girl in high heeled boots and dressed in designer clothes could not only out shoot you, but also knew more about bomb making than most experts in the field. There was a long list of PIRA, RIRA, INLA and CIRA members who thought women should be happy keeping house and leaving the fight for an United Ireland to the menfolk and those were only maybe forty percent of the people she had pissed off over the years...
There was the fella in Armargh who she had kneecapped when she discovered he was beating his wife, or the conman who she threw out of her car naked in the middle of Belfast or the Romanian gun runner selling poorly made replica handguns whose yacht she had sunk and those were only the tip of a very big iceberg...
"Wa're here, boss. Whot d'ya want me ta do?"
Jerked from his musings, Liam sat up straight and peered out of the side window at the familiar patch of waste land occupied by an old caravan and in the distance a group of teenagers kicking a ball about on a makeshift football pitch.
"Hand me tha sawn off fram under tha front seat, then go find somewhar ta park up an' wait fer me call. We stick out like a sore thumb in this." He slapped a hand down on the back of his driver's seat to indicate he was talking about the top of the line car they were sitting inside. "An' tha last thing we want is ta attract attention."
Joey leaned over and stuck his hand under the front passenger seat to retrieve the weapon and a box of shells for the modified shotgun. "If yer goin' in alone, should ya nae take tha bag yar brother Seamus threw into tha boot?"
Liam, who was in the process of concealing the shotgun in the long pocket he'd had Jeannie sew into the inside of his overcoat, looked up and narrowed his eyes. "Whot bag is thot?" he asked.
"Befer we left he – er – Seamus said if things went wrong, ya would need more than a shotgun."
The younger man gulped and his pale cheeks blushing pink under the steely gaze of his employer.
Hadn't Davy warned him thot Liam Glenanne dinnae like surprises?
"Tha bag, Joey? Whot did me brother put in tha boot?" Liam growled.
"A P90, a coupla Mac10s an' enough clips fer us ta see off a small army – or so he said."
Pursing his lips tightly together, the eldest Glenanne counted to ten in his head.
If the members of the council had insisted on having his car searched and found he had brought automatic weapons to a meeting...
"Never mind, it changes nothin'. Wait wit' tha car until I call ya."
Standing on the pavement, staring across the open ground to the lone caravan and the wreck of a burnt out car, Liam waited until his own pristine vehicle and its inexperienced driver had slowly moved away in search of a less inconspicuous spot to park and then began the short walk to Robin Hennessy's front door.
()()()()()()()
"Ya have done a fine thing, Eudardo," Thomas O'Neill complimented the sea captain. "A full twelve hours ahead o' schedule... As soon as I make land fall, I'll call me sister an' she'll have another grand waiting fer ya."
The Irishman zipped up the dry suit he was wearing over his own clothes and peered down at the small inflatable craft, already loaded down with two bags containing all the weaponry and explosives he'd been able to get his hands on at short notice, which was going to carry him the last mile to an isolated piece of coastline west of Waterford.
"Gracias, Senor O'Neill... You should go now. The Coast Guard are concentrating their patrols in the Irish Sea tonight, but it shall not take long before they become interested in what we are doing once they have spotted us on their radar."
"Well, we cannae have thot, now can we? Nae after we've come this far." O'Neill slapped the older man on the shoulder and then climbed over the side of the gently rocking fishing vessel. "G'bye, Eudardo, may ya be forty years in heaven befer tha devil knows yer dead."
"An' the same to you, take care Senor and good luck."
Thomas O'Neill started the outboard motor on the inflatable and humming a little tune set off in the direction of the far away shore.
Fortune had smiled on him so far… One more meeting before Lady Luck was smiling on him again and a certain redhead would soon be cursing the day she was born.
Or worse….