One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (2 page)

Dawson paused a moment, looking quizzically at the half‐
smoked cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Never know what to do with these things when there isn’t a dissident to put them out on.’ He shrugged and dropped it to the ground, grinding the dowt into the mud beneath his boot. Connor looked to the heavens, thinking, Count the hours, count the money.

They walked back towards the cattleshed, slaloming the voluminous country pancakes that lay scattered about the yard like an infestation of some cold, damp, parasitic alien species. Just as long as they didn’t attach themselves to your face.

‘I thought you said this place was disused,’ Dawson grumbled. ‘There’s shit everywhere.’

‘It is disused. But the area around here is still farmland. There’s cows all over the place, and they come wandering through whenever they fancy. There’s one there.’ He pointed to an impressively horned specimen about fifty yards away, watching the munitions truck with bored disinterest. Dawson drew a pistol and pointed it at the beast. It glanced his way for a similarly disinterested moment, then back at the truck with uniform ennui, then dumped splatteringly with a jaded absence of enthusiasm.

‘Not much sport to stalk, are they?’ Dawson commented.

‘No, but they make some size of trophy. Come on, white hunter.’

A second later there came the unmistakable sound of a shot being fired from inside the cattleshed, followed by a crash of splintering wood. Dawson looked at Connor accusingly.

‘I know we’re out in the middle of nowhere, Bill, but do the words “clandestine” or “discreet” mean anything to you?’

Connor bit his tongue and stomped purposefully towards the entrance, almost grateful to have some idiot to take it all out on.

‘This isn’t a bloody firing range,’ he began shouting, then had to dive for the floor as a volley of bullets pinged through the massive, side‐
rolling corrugated iron door, puncturing whatever bombast he’d worked up but fortunately nothing else. He lifted his head and looked up from where he lay on his stomach. Inside the shed there were men lying similarly flat on the ground, while others sheltered behind crates and still others scurried frantically for the exits. He noticed that one of the men on the floor was missing the back of his head, the crate he’d presumably been carrying lying smashed open beside him, polystyrene packing shapes spewing out of it.

Glover came crawling out on his hands and knees, camcorder slung around his shoulder, as several more shots echoed through the dilapidated structure.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Dawson demanded, arriving at Connor’s rear.

Glover gestured to the pair of them to back up further from the doorway.

‘I was doing interviews, like you asked,’ he said breathlessly. A couple more fugitives scrambled out the doorway and into the yard, one muttering something about ‘fucking mad Irish bastards’.

‘I was filmin’ McKelvie. He were carryin’ in a crate, and I got him to talk to the camera a little, you know: name, experience, bit of background. Anyway, another of the Irish blokes must have overheard. McWatt, his name was. He come up to me and asks –
fuck’s sake!
’ Glover flinched as another shot tore through the corrugated wall, leaving a hole less than six inches above his head. Dawson slapped a mag into his pistol and slid the bolt. Connor pulled his own handgun from the back of his trousers, a relief as it had been no friend to the palinodal sinus he’d been inadvertently cultivating between his arse‐
cheeks.

‘He asks whether the guy I’d been talking to was
Antony
McKelvie,’ Glover continued. ‘I goes: “Yeah, mate, d’you know ’im?” Cunt says, “Sure, he shot my fuckin’ cousin”, then walks up behind him and blows the back of his fuckin’ ’ead out through his face. So McKelvie’s mate, Dailey, or Mailey, or whatever the fuck his name is, he sees this and has a shot at McWatt. Then McWatt’s mucker joins in as well and suddenly it’s the fuckin’ OK Corral in there.’

Dawson glared at Connor, who thought for a brief second about shooting him rather than suffer the inevitable onslaught of withering remarks.

He signalled to Pettifer, the last of the evacuees. ‘Who’s left in there?’ Connor asked.

‘Dunno. There was one or two stranded in the crossfire, I think. Apart from that, just the shooters.’

‘Right,’ Connor said, standing up and flipping off the safety as five more rounds were loosed inside. There were times when death seemed preferable to sheer embarrassment.

He dived through the doorway into a practised roll, righting himself against an empty water‐
storage tank. None of the gunmen was in his line of sight, and presumably not in each other’s either, given the temporary lull in firing. From where he squatted, he could more clearly see McKelvie’s outstretched arms a few yards in front and his brains another few feet in front of that. It was a profligate waste of talent. He’d have McWatt’s balls in a blender for that. Just beyond the cerebral puree, Jackson was lying flat with his arms around his head. He noticed Connor and gestured with his empty hands that he didn’t have a weapon, the look in his eyes communicating further that Connor was a considerable distance from his good books at that moment.

‘Yeah, okay,’ Connor mouthed, tutting. Why was everything always fucking
his
fault? He took a deep breath. ‘All right, this is Connor,’ he called. ‘Cease firing and safety your weapons now. That’s a fucking order.’

Four bullets drummed into the side of the water tank in instant reply.

‘I mean it,’ Connor shouted. ‘Anybody fires one more round and they’re off this team. We’ve got a job to do here – a very lucrative job, I’d remind you – so put your bloody toys away and save your parochial tantrums for your spare time.’

This time there was no hot‐
lead riposte, which he took to be an encouraging sign. ‘Come on, guns on the floor, now. Throw them into the middle, there, where Mr Jackson is waiting patiently to collect them. Then we can all walk outside and cool off. DO IT!’

There followed an age of silence, throughout which Connor tried not to think of phrases like ‘Hume‐
Adams’, ‘decommissioning’ and ‘Dayton‐
style peace agreement’. Eventually, a Glock came arcing from the shadows and landed next to Jackson, kicking up a foot‐
high spray of dust. The motes continued to swirl in the sunlight and silence as the weapon waited for a companion. A Nagan clattered into it a few seconds later, in a Nobel Peace Prize kind of moment. Finally, and with more than a suggestion of begrudging defiance, a Browning automatic was lobbed accurately at Jackson’s head. With the safety still off.

The Browning discharged a shot into the dust, inches from Jackson’s right temple, causing him to howl in pain and spring reflexively on to his knees, holding a hand to his ear. Blood was trickling out of it by the time the first of the shooters edged tentatively from the shadows. It was Mailey, his hands held either side of his face, his eyes looking to the doorway for assurance that someone was coming in to mediate. Dawson, Pettifer, Glover and others quickly took position around him, while at the other end of the cattleshed, several more men moved swiftly inside to circle McWatt and his fellow loyalist, who turned out to be Kilfoyle.

‘All right, children,’ announced Dawson acidly, ‘I want everybody’s firearms on the floor over there and I want all of you standing to attention in three seconds.
Everybody
,’ he repeated, coldly eyeing a few who hadn’t grasped the newcomer’s role in proceedings. Guns began thudding into the dirt amid a grumbling spate of sighs, shrugs and ‘fuck’s sake’s. Dawson gestured to Connor to collect them, doing so with an I’ll‐
see‐
you‐
about‐
this‐
later headmasterly glower.

‘And you’ll get them back when you’ve learned how to play with them properly,’ he continued. The disarmed troops eyed Connor balefully as he marched past their dishevelled line, carrying their beloved playthings outside in a wooden box. Dawson began to address them in parade‐
ground register.

‘For those of you who don’t know, my name is Finlay Dawson. I am the man ultimately in charge of this operation, which means in short that I and only I tell you who to kill and when. What you do in your own spare time has nothing to do with me, so if any more of you feel like killing each other or indeed killing yourselves, you’re perfectly free to do so when your shift finishes tomorrow morning. But right now, it’s office hours, got it?’

There were a few grudging ‘yes, sir’s, their lethargy causing Connor to wince. Dawson was used to a degree more effusiveness, his man‐
management style being based on somewhat hierarchical principles.

‘Okay, which one of you is McWatt?’ he enquired casually.

McWatt lifted a hand shiftlessly. Dawson took a step towards him and shot him through the forehead.

Kilfoyle made a lunge for Dawson but found himself nose‐
to‐
barrel against his automatic.

‘What’s this one’s name, Mr Connor?’ he barked.

‘Kilfoyle.’

‘Kilfoyle. Well, Mr Kilfoyle, is there any business between yourself and Mr Mailey that you feel can’t wait until after office hours?’

Kilfoyle swallowed. ‘No,’ he said, his word barely a whisper.

‘No what, Mr Kilfoyle?’

‘No, sir,’ he corrected, his would‐
be defiance wilting predictably in the heat of Dawson’s unflinching stare.

‘Stand down,’ Dawson told him. Both men took a step back. ‘All right, now that everybody’s “on‐
message”, perhaps we can get on with unloading the gear. Then, if we pull that off without any further casualties, we’ll maybe move on to the challenge of an inventory. And if we complete
that
mission successfully, who knows? I might even progress to debriefing you on this evening’s itinerary. But let’s not get carried away with our ambitions, given that fatality‐
free freight‐
loading proved beyond us at the first attempt.’

Connor chose this moment to step in and attempt to recover some remnant of authority. ‘Dobson, Fleming,’ he ordered tartly. ‘I want small arms and ammunition in that corner. Pettifer, Jardine, all explosives over there. Quinn, McIntosh, comms equipment—’

‘What about the bodies, sir?’ asked Glover.

Dawson intervened before Connor could speak. ‘Messrs Mailey and Kilfoyle will place them in the truck once it’s been emptied. We can’t bury them around here – we’ll dispose of them later.’ The pair moved off towards their respective fallen comrades, but Dawson stopped them. ‘No. Back you come. Mr Mailey, I’d like you to take charge of the late Mr McWatt, and Mr Kilfoyle, I’d like you to look after the late Mr McKelvie. If you both pay close attention to the state of the bodies you’ll observe that Catholic or Protestant, a bullet to the head has much the same effect. On you go.’

‘What was that?’ Connor asked him. ‘Your attempt at reconciliation?’

Dawson tutted. ‘Merely reminding them they’re both on the same side today, seeing as this
esprit de corps
you were waxing lyrical about has manifestly failed to materialise. Never mind
esprit de corps
, even plain old mercenary materialism seems beyond these morons. I just hope the rest of your shower turn out to have some idea of what they’re doing. Especially as we’re now two men down.’

‘Well you’re the one who shot McWatt.’

‘And if I hadn’t, Mailey’d have popped him, first chance he got. Then Kilfoyle would have popped Mailey, and so on. There are more nationalists here, aren’t there?’

Connor nodded reluctantly. ‘Different faction. Can’t remember which one. But they didn’t get involved back there, I hope you noticed.’

‘Yes, but that’s because they’re used to shooting at people who can’t shoot back.’

Connor had had enough. This prick had breezed in at the eleventh hour needing
his
help, after all.

‘Look, Finlay,’ he said angrily. ‘Don’t fucking kid yourself that I don’t know
exactly
how many options you’ve got right now. What else are you going to do, eh? Who else are you going to go to? You came to me looking for an outfit, and I got you one. So it’s not been a dream start this morning, so fucking what? Don’t judge me on one screw‐
up, and don’t judge these guys until you’ve seen what they can do.’

Dawson shrugged. ‘It’s a fair point, Bill,’ he said patronisingly. ‘Consider my judgement “reserved”.’

Arsehole.

Dawson walked off to talk to Jackson, who was squatting on the ground, still holding his ear. Connor headed for the door, reckoning a dose of fresh air was in order if he wasn’t going to punch somebody. He passed Kilfoyle, who was crouched between McKelvie’s corpse and the crate he’d been carrying when he got shot. He was staring at Dawson with emotions not too different from Connor’s own. The Ulsterman looked like he’d dearly love to have his gun back.

‘Save it till after payday, pal,’ Connor advised, checking his stride and moving to one side as Pettifer and Jardine approached from the truck, supporting a cumbersome box between them. He noticed Kilfoyle reach a hand into the broken crate and pull some polystyrene shapes from it, staring fixedly at what was beneath. Suddenly unfixed, Kilfoyle pulled out the rocket launcher that had been contained within, momentarily eyeing the tailfins and hefting it to his shoulder to point the other end directly at the man who’d executed his comrade.

There were several shouts in that moment as Kilfoyle pressed the button, all but two of them too‐
late warnings to Dawson and Jackson to get out the way. Of the two dissenters, one was Connor’s too‐
late warning to Glover to get out the way, having noticed that Kilfoyle’s tailfins were in fact forefins and that therefore the launcher was back to front. The other was Glover going ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!’ as the rocket hit him in the chest, picked him up bodily, flew him thirty metres across the yard and detonated against the concrete wall of the barn opposite.

Connor ran uselessly after him. He made it through the gaping doorway in time to see Glover’s head and arms fly off in different directions, and a few seconds later for his sautéed insides to pay their due respects to the late Isaac Newton.

Dawson was so intent upon getting to Connor to express his disgust that he almost forgot to stop and shoot Kilfoyle on his way past.