Exit Unicorns (Exit Unicorns Series) (66 page)

She would have to forgive herself the lie to Terry, it wouldn’t be right, not ever, to tell him about Brian. It would change his love for the boy, put a taint upon his memories. She had known Brian was dead; the copy of
Leaves of Grass
had come to her one summer day, when she was holidaying in Greece. Brian had asked that it be sent on to her. She had burned it in some symbolic madness of grief and tossed the ashes to the Aegean winds. She had loved him, loved him merely for being the son of Brendan, a millstone, she knew that he’d likely carried in many ways all his life. Loved him for being a boy who saw her as a woman one night in a garden.

In the north, a quarter mile up the road, smoke, soft and faintly brown, rose already from a stone chimney. She rested her face against the glass of the window, wondering why no one ever saw fit to prepare you for age, to tell you that the emotions would still be young, that the heart would still hurt, that the soul would long to flee the aging bones and skin and that
that
would be the damnation of age, unable to escape the prison of traitorous flesh. Unable to quit yearning for that which was no longer possible.

The sky was a drowsy pink as she settled herself into her bed and she smiled softly at the bit of world she could see from her bedroom window and then closed her eyes and slept the sleep of the old and unredeemed.

Part Three
Between the Dark and Dawn

I must say ye don’t seem terribly surprised,” Casey said somewhat indignantly to the man who occupied the seat across the round table from him.

Seamus smiled and shook his head.

“Ye fergit I’ve seen ye with her, I didn’t hold out a great deal of hope fer ye after Kevin’s weddin’.” His expression sobered and he drummed a pencil nervously against the table. “I’m sorry I didn’t watch their backs better an’ I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions about the nature—”

Casey held up a hand and shook his head, eyes opaque and steely. “I’m married to her now an’ that’s an’ end to it, we’ll not talk of it again.”

“I wish ye happiness, man,” Seamus said, “ye deserve it an’ I’ve faith that ye can keep yer marriage separate from yer profession.”

“Profession,” Casey sighed and shook his head at the papers arrayed before him, “’tis a bit of a grand name fer an organization that is in the possession of five handguns, some,” he bent his head to look at the papers again, “that seem to have come home with their owners from the Boer War. Can this be it?”

“’Tis,” Seamus replied easily, as a man who senses the tide about to shift.

“And as fer this,” Casey waved his hand over a small leather-bound green book, “who the hell can we even trust anymore.”

“Yer lookin’ at him,” Seamus said “an’ beyond that the feelers are out an’ we’ll have to see what that brings back in.”

“I don’t want a bunch of reckless kids, it’s time we got back to runnin’ this army like it wasn’t some playground exercise.”

“So are we clear then, ye’ve reviewed the material an’ ye know where ye stand, are ye in with us or not?”

Casey looked hard at Seamus, “I was never out to my own knowledge, now if ye’ve heard somethin’ to the contrary ye’d best tell me.”

“Do ye understand what we’re askin’ ye here, man? There aren’t many of us but we are agreed on one thing, young as ye are, yer the man to take us forward an’ pull us out of the muck we’ve been sleepin’ in these past ten years. If ye want to step down at this point, no one would blame ye. Ye’ve a beautiful wife an’ yer young, yer future does not have to lie here. But if ye step up now there is no comin’ back down those stairs man, not ever.”

“Ye think I’m not aware of that, do ye remember who ye’re talkin’ to here? I may be the son of yer oldest friend Seamus, but if yer askin’ me to do this then ye must fergit ye ever knew me as a child; I have not been one for a very long time. There can be no insubordination or second guessin’ me.”

Seamus nodded, silenced for a moment by the unflinching hardness in Casey’s eyes. The boy was right, in his mind Casey was still Brian’s hotheaded son and someone he could give fatherly advice to. There would be none of that now, it would alter their relationship in ways that neither of them was going to enjoy or feel entirely comfortable with, ever.

“Alright then, I apologize man, I meant no disrespect to ye.”

Casey nodded, “Well then if that’s clear ye can call the rest of them in an’ we’ll get on with this.”

Seamus nodded and stood, “Dacy, ye’ll tell the rest of them to come in.”

A terse ‘aye’ sounded from the doorway and in a moment, the twelve chairs arranged around the wooden round table were filled with men who ranged in age from twenty through to sixty. They came from various walks of life, most were from a working-class Catholic background and had a pretty fair idea of exactly what they were fighting for and against. One or two could be accused of being idealists and though it was perhaps less clear what they were fighting for their commitment was no less. There were two representatives of the old guard, men who had known Casey’s father and respected both the man and the vision he had presented to them once a long time ago. They only hoped the son had the balls and the brain to continue what his father had begun. There were a couple of new recruits, fresh-faced and full of fire, they would either have to be gently but firmly removed from the organization or tested beyond the limits of human endurance to prove their loyalty. Casey smiled slightly, altogether not a bad group. None were informants and none could be lured by the promise of money, they’d all been tested on that scale, discreetly and without many of them even suspecting what was up.

They were eyeing him up as well, trying to take his measure he knew. He laid his hands palm down on the table and took a deep breath, “Well then gentlemen shall we get down to it?”

There were a few nervous ‘ayes’, some coughing, a sigh from his right and then a slight commotion by the door.

“What is it, Dacy?” Seamus said as twelve bodies tensed and likely reconsidered the wisdom of being part of an illegal military body.

“’Tis Jimmy Mack, is he to be let in?”

Seamus missed only a beat before looking at Casey.

“Aye,” said Casey, feeling a strange shiver root at the base of his spine.

Jimmy Mack sat, taking the thirteenth chair which had to be wedged between the two idealists and looking neither right nor left, stared directly at Casey. Casey met the challenge and there was a long silence, in which there was a great deal of withheld breath and then finally Jimmy Mack let his eyes slide sideways around the table.

“Ye’ll perhaps be used to a different sort of organization,” Casey said, “ye’ll not be late again.”

Jimmy barely inclined his head in a semblance of a nod.

“Well, on that note, perhaps we’d best begin with our personal code an’ what is expected of each of ye, there will be no exceptions from this code an’ I will follow it to the letter myself. First, there is to be no drinkin’ on our time.”

There was a collective gasp from around the table and a few pairs of raised eyebrows, then a low rumble of discontent.

Casey held up one hand, “Talk induced by the drink is a dangerous situation in any organization, in a military organization it is suicide. We cannot afford to have clouded minds or loose tongues, which brings me to my second point. Pillow talk is temptin’ an’ bein’ recently married myself I can understand the need to unburden yerself. Don’t do it. Yer wives, sweethearts, children, parents, ye name them, they are not te hear one word from ye on this subject. Is that understood?”

There was a chorus of ‘ayes’ and ‘mmphms’ from around the table.

“Thirdly, I will not tolerate disobedience in any form, this ramshackle little outfit will become professional if I have te drag ye all kickin’ an’ screamin’. That means no lateness,” he looked pointedly at Jimmy Mack, who stared insolently back, “no talkin’ amongst yerselves. If ye have a problem with me, then ye are te take it up with me immediately, I want no dissension amongst the ranks. Ye’ll be paid a small salary when ye are on Army business, when yer not yer on yer own. Now I trust gentlemen that ye can be grownup an’ mind yer manners. Ye’ll be workin’ by yerselves fer the most part an’ there will be no fraternizin’ amongst the lot of ye off the job. It’s too much of a risk, if one of us is caught we do what we can to help but if it means revealin’ ourselves then I’m afraid if yer apprehended yer on yer own.” He took a deep breath, “Now I’m about to move onto exactly what our plans are an’ how we are going to implement them, so any man here who’s got so much as a nigglin’ doubt in the back of his head should go, any man who’s not willin’ to stand his life fer this country an’ our objectives, any man who’s afraid of sittin’ behind bars must in all good conscience leave this room now.” Several minutes elapsed during which there was a great deal of throat clearing, bums shifting to and fro on chairs and deep breaths drawn, however not one man left the room or showed the slightest inclination that he wished to do so.

“Now as plans go, mine is fairly simple, it consists of three points,” Casey held up three fingers to underscore his words, “One, defense, two, retaliation, an’ three, offense. These three principles of warfare are put into action at the time I deem ready. Overall it’s a five-year plan. Now during this first year we set up our defenses, we make our connections within the community, we establish no-go zones for the British army, the UVF an’ the RUC. It is vital, an’ I cannot stress this enough, that we establish our links with the community. If we do not get back the support of our own people then we have lost this little war before it has even begun. To this end, I want relationships established with the People’s Democracy, the civil rights movement, an’ as much as some of us might like to we cannot ever underestimate the power of the Church, any priests with Republican leanings can be an invaluable resource for us. They know the people an’ how the politics of each neighborhood works. An’ in this business it never hurts to have someone who’s got an in with God.”

He looked around the table meeting each set of eyes individually and finding no questioning of his authority there, until he met the cold blue eyes of Jimmy Mack and felt without question they had let a maniac into their midst. Maniacs, he knew, had their uses; they just had to be handled with great delicacy.

“I think there can be no question that the state of our weaponry has gone far beyond pitiful an’ is teetering on the nonexistent. We are at present awaitin’ a shipment from America, the details of which have yet to be fully worked out.”

“An’ where is the money comin’ from for these guns?” asked one of the older men, a hard-line Republican Casey remembered from his childhood.

“There’s money comin’ from the States. American businessmen who still have a certain fondness for the ancestral sod, have been fairly generous towards our cause. It has to be strained through a variety of channels before we can lay hands on it however. An’ it’ll have to be split in several directions once we do. We’ll need it, not only for weaponry, but to bribe an’ cajole, an’ a good bit of it will go to keep various mouths shut an’ eyes blind. As to how an’ where the weapons will be transferred, that will be only the concern of the men directly involved in the transaction. All of ye,” his gaze swept the table again, “will be on a strictly need-to-know basis. If it isn’t vital to yer own piece of ground, ye will not need to know.

“Point two is retaliation, they strike we strike back twice as hard, force is met with force. For every man we lose, they lose two. We show them in no uncertain terms that we mean business, that the new IRA is not to be taken for some harmless bunch of old men reliving their glory days in pubs and backrooms. Now, I hope none of us is fool enough to believe that once the British are out, our problems will be solved; however it is the first step. We do not, an’ I repeat this as it’s a very important point, we do not take any initiative in striking first, there’s other priorities that for now must come to the fore.”

“What makes ye so certain that ye can accomplish with some simple three pronged plan what we’ve not been able to accomplish in the last eight hundred years?”

Casey turned his head slowly in the direction of the speaker, a man who though young, was likely a few years older than himself.

“I am not here,” he began slowly, “to fill yer heads with illusion an’ dreams, that is how we differ from the Dublin boys; I know we may not revolutionize the country, but that isn’t our job. Our job is to support an’ make way for the people who will. Ye may not have noticed, lads,” and his voice was heavy with sarcasm, “but the earth is tremblin’ out there for some people, for thousands of them walkin’ arm an’ arm down the streets there is a smell of change in the air. What I am suggestin’ is that we give them the means, clear the road of all obstacles so to speak an’ they will find a way to make the real revolution.”

Heads nodded around the table, men who had seen the stunted promise of the fifties come to naught but were not so disillusioned as to not see that this time it was different. This decade held within it some burning promise of hope, people believed that the time and the place had come since it had not come nor been since 1916.

“Are ye sayin’ I have to wait fer the fockin’ bastards to run a gun up me before I’m allowed to give them the time of day?” Jimmy Mack asked a lazy insolence tainting his voice.

“I’m sayin’,” Casey said turning a hard face on the man he already wished he’d never laid eyes on, “that ye can take yer unthinkin’ arse out of here unless ye’ve somethin’ useful to contribute to the conversation.”

Jimmy muttered something under his breath that sounded distinctly uncomplimentary.

“What did ye say?” Casey asked, voice deceptively calm.

“I said that I’d heard ye were married an’ that marriage can make a man soft,” Jimmy Mack drawled, his blue eyes never flinching from Casey’s dark, hard stare.

“If that’s what ye think lad, then yer goin’ about it all wrong,” Seamus said, desperately trying to inject some humor and defuse the situation before it exploded in all their faces.

“You,” Casey said sitting back in his chair, “may get the fock out of here before I break yer neck with my own two hands.” There was no anger in his voice, no levity to indicate that he was anything other than completely and deadly serious.

Jimmy, in his first smart move of the night, elected to leave before Casey made good on a threat that did not seem idle, even to his slow moving brain.

“Have the rest of ye anything to say?” Casey asked after Jimmy Mack’s form was hastened in its exit by the none too gentle hand of Dacy. His question was met with silence.

“Aye then, we’ll continue, the third an’ final point I wish to present is offense. To that end I suggest we take the war onto British soil, when our situation is stable enough here to warrant it.” He was met by mild shock on all the faces surrounding the table. “The truth of the matter is that we Irishmen can kill each other ‘til there’s not a one of us standing an’ it won’t matter a great deal to the powers that be in England, but when the blood an’ terror is affectin’ their own people it will be a different matter altogether. I don’t want civilians hit but we’ll discuss strategy when the time comes an’ I don’t see that happenin’ for a couple of years. To that end,” he produced from his side twelve books bound in green cloth, “ye will study this like it’s the bible. Ye will know it like ye know the color of the sky an’ grass an’ then ye will burn it. Commit it to memory an’ then set it to fire.