The White Plague (3 page)

She is beautiful in her own way
, he thought.

Again, he glanced at her and their eyes met. She smiled and he forced himself to smile before breaking the contact. His heart was beating strongly and he bent over the newspaper for distraction. The picture of the screaming man seemed to stare out at him, chilling him. The poor fellow’s entire family gone in that blast – the wife and two children. For a moment, Browder had a fantasy picture of himself married to Kate O’Gara – children, of course. And them gone like this. All of them. Without any warning. Everything that had gone into Stephen Browder’s choice of profession felt outraged by that bombing.

Was anything worth it?

Even the reuniting of all Ireland, which he solemnly prayed for on holy days – could that justify this act?

A splinter group of the IRA, the Provos, was claiming credit, according to the
Examiner
’s story. Browder had friends in the IRA. One of his fellow students made explosives for them. The sympathies of the University College student body were not hard to discover. They wanted the Brits out.

Damn the Brits!

Browder felt torn by his Republican sympathies and his shock at what had been done to those people in Dublin. Thirty-one dead; seventy-six maimed and injured. And all because some people in the dail were reportedly wavering, talking about an “accommodation.” There could be no accommodation with the Brits. Never!

But would the bombs ever solve anything?

A shadow fell on his newspaper. Browder looked up to see Kate O’Gara standing there looking down at him. Hastily, he scrambled to his feet, spilling an anatomy textbook from his lap, losing part of his newspaper. He looked down at her, suddenly conscious that he was more than a head taller.

“You’re Stephen Browder, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

She had a lovely soft voice
, he thought. And he had an abrupt insight into what a powerful asset such a voice would be to a nurse. It was a calming voice. It gave him courage.

“And you’re Kate O’Gara,” he managed.

She nodded. “I saw you reading about that bombing, the one in Dublin. What a terrible thing.”

“‘Tis that,” he agreed. Then, before he lost courage: “Must you go back to classes now?”

“I’ve only these few minutes.”

“And what time do you finish?” He knew he was blushing as he asked.

She lowered her gaze.
What long lashes she has
, he thought. They lay like feathers on her cheeks.

“I would like to see you,” he said. And that was God’s own truth. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“I’m expected home at half five,” she said, looking up at him. “We could have a tea perhaps on the way.”

“Shall we meet here after classes then?” he asked.

“Yes.” She smiled and hurried off to join her friends.

One of the other student nurses, having watched the two of them, whispered to a companion: “God! I’m glad that’s finally done.”

Holy Ireland was just a name, a myth, a dream that had no connection with any reality. It was our tradition, a part of our reputation, at one with the myth that we have only the honor gained from glorious battle.

– Father Michael Flannery

J
OHN
R
OE
O
’
N
EILL
awakened to see a priest standing beside him and a doctor standing at the foot of his bed. He could feel the bed under him and smelled antiseptics. This would be a hospital, then. The doctor was a tall, older man with gray at the temples. He wore a green street jacket, stethoscope in the pocket.

Why am I here?
John wondered.

It was a hospital ward, he saw: other beds with figures in them. It was a blankly impersonal room, a place designed with malice to negate the personality of the occupant – as though someone had worked consciously and with a great deal of hate to create a place that would reflect no human warmth. If this room uttered any statement it was: “You won’t live long here.”

John tried to swallow. His throat hurt. He had been dreaming about Mary. She had been swimming away from him in the dream, a great blue expanse of water all around and no sound in her movements even when he saw the water splashing.

“I’m going for the children,” she said. He heard that, but still no sound of swimming.

His dream self had thought:
Of course. She must go for the children. Kevin and Mairead will need her.

In the dream, he could sense Mary’s mind as though it were his own. Her mind conveyed an oddly crystalline quality like the aftermath of fever. “I can’t feel my body,” she said. “Poor John. I love you.”

Then he was awake, his eyes burning, and the priest and the doctor there. It was a green place with a carbolic smell that separated it from the memories of American hospitals. There were bonneted sisters bustling about and, when one saw him awake, she hurried away. The shade was up on a single tall window to the left of the doctor: darkness outside. It was night, then. Light came from unshaded bulbs dangling on long wires from a high ceiling. The doctor was examining a clipboard that was attached by a string and hook to the foot of the bed.

“He’s awake,” the priest said.

The doctor let the clipboard fall back onto its string and looked down the length of the bed at John. “Mr. O’Neill, you’ll be all right. Fit as a fiddle by morning.” He turned and walked away.

The priest leaned toward John. “Are you Catholic, sir?”

“Catholic?” It seemed an insane question. “I’m… I’m… St. Rose’s parish…”
Now, why should he tell the priest the name of his parish?

The priest put a gentling hand on John’s shoulder. “There, there. I quite understand.”

John closed his eyes. He heard a scraping of a chair on the floor and, when he opened his eyes, saw that the priest had sat down, bringing his face close to John’s.

“I’m Father Devon,” the priest said. “We know who you are, Mr. O’Neill, from your things. Would you be related to the O’Neills of Coolaney, by the way?”

“What?” John tried to raise himself but his head started spinning. “I… no. I don’t know.”

“It would be good to have family around you at such a time. Your wife’s body has been identified – her purse. I’ll not go into the particulars.”

What particulars?
John wondered. He recalled a bloody mound of tweed but could not place it in time or space.

“It’s very bad news to be giving you, Mr. O’Neill,” Father Devon said.

“Our children,” John gasped, grasping at hope. “The twins were with her.”

“Ahhhhh,” Father Devon said. “Well now, as to that, I don’t know. It’s been quite a few hours and all the nasty work done but… Were the wains with her when…”

“She was holding their hands.”

“Then I would not hold out much hope. What a terrible thing! Shall we pray for the souls of your loved ones?”

“Pray?” John turned his head away, choking. He heard the chair scrape, footsteps approaching. A woman’s voice said, “Father…” then something that John could not make out. The priest responded in a low, unintelligible murmur. Then the woman’s voice, clearly: “Mother of Mercy! His wife and the two little ones both! Ahhh, the poor man.”

John turned back in time to see a nursing sister departing, her back stiff. The priest was standing beside him.

“Were your wife and children Catholic as well?” Father Devon asked.

John shook his head. He felt feverish and dizzy.
Why these questions?

“Mixed marriage, eh?” Father Devon, having jumped to a wrong conclusion, sounded accusatory. “Well, my heart goes out to you all the same. The remains have been taken to the morgue. We can decide in the mornin’ what’s to be done with the remains.”

Remains?
John thought.
He’s talking about Mary and the twins
.

The doctor returned and moved down the side of the bed opposite the priest. John turned toward the doctor and saw that the nursing sister had reappeared there beside him as though by magic. She wore a white apron over a green dress and her hair was contained by a tightly hooded cap. Her face was thin and commanding. She held a hypodermic in her right hand.

“Something to help you sleep,” the doctor said.

Father Devon spoke: “The Garda will be in to talk to you in the morning. Send for me when they’ve gone.”

“We’ll have the lights down now,” the doctor said.

“And high time it is.” The nursing sister had a demanding voice with considerable tartness in it, a protective voice. He held to that thought as sleep enveloped him.

Morning was the sound of rattling bedpans on a cart. John awoke to see a uniformed police officer standing where the priest had been.

“They said you’d be awakening soon,” the officer said. He had a mellow tenor, a square face with prominent veins. His hat was held stiffly under his left arm. He pulled a small notebook from a side pocket and prepared to write. “I’ll not trouble y’ overmuch, Mr. O’Neill. But I’m sure y’ can appreciate there’re things we must do.”

“What do you want?” John’s voice remained a croak. His head still felt fuzzy.

“Would you be telling me what you were doing in the Republic of Ireland, sir?”

John stared up at the officer.
Doing?
The question wandered aimlessly in his awareness for a time. His mind felt thick and clogged. He had to force a response.

“I was… foundation grant… doing research.”

“And the nature of this research?”

“Gen… genetics.”

The officer wrote in his notebook, then: “And is that your occupation, researcher?”

“I… I teach… molecular biology, biochemistry… and…” He took a deep, trembling breath. “School of Pharmacy, as well.”

“And that would be in this Highland Park in the state of Minnesota? We’ve seen your papers, y’ understand?”

“Near… nearby.”

“You’ve family here in the Republic of Ireland?”

“We… were going to look.”

“I see.” The officer wrote this in his pad.

John labored against a tightness in his chest. He found his voice presently: “Who… who did it?”

“Sir?”

“The bomb?”

The officer’s face grew stony. “They’re saying it was the Proves taking the credit.”

A chill shot through John. The hard pillow under his neck felt damp and cold.
Credit?
The murderers were claiming credit?

Later, John would look back on that moment as the beginning of the rage that took over his entire life. That was the moment when he promised:

You will pay. Oh, how you will pay!

And there was no doubt in his mind at all how he would set about making them pay.

Do you realize that this one man is changing the political map of the world?

– General Lucius Gorham,
U.S. presidential foreign affairs advisor,
speaking to the secretary of defense

T
HE WARNING
letters began arriving during the week before the first anniversary of the Grafton Street bombing. The first one was timed to reach Ireland too late for counteraction. Others went to world leaders, where they were treated as crank letters or were bucked along to specialists. The letters were numerous at first – to radio and television news departments, to newspapers, to prime ministers and presidents and church leaders. It was determined later that one of the first letters was delivered to a newspaper editor on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.

The editor, Alex Coleman, was a dark and vital man who covered his drive with a generally mild manner even when he was being most forceful. He was considered an oddity among his peers because of his strong temperance beliefs, but none doubted his penetrating alertness to a good story.

Coleman read the letter several times, glancing up occasionally to look out his third-floor window onto the street, where Dublin’s morning traffic already had begun to congeal into its usual frustrating crawl.

Crank letter?

The thing didn’t have that feeling about it. The warnings and threats made his skin crawl. Was this possible? The words had an educated air about them, sophisticated. The thing was typed on bond paper. He rubbed the paper between his fingers. Expensive stuff.

Owney O’More, Coleman’s personal secretary, had clipped a note to the letter: “I hope this is a crank. Should we call the Garda?”

So it had worked its disturbance on Owney.

Once more, Coleman read through the letter, seeking some reason to disregard it. Presently, he put the letter flat in front of him and keyed the intercom to Owney.

“Sir?” Owney’s voice always had a military abruptness.

“Check out the Achill Island angle, will you, Owney? Don’t stir up any hornets. Just find out if there’s anything unusual afoot.”

“Right away.”

Coleman returned his attention to the letter. It was so damned direct, so clear and straightforward. A mind of power and… yes, terrifying purpose, lay behind it. There was the usual warning to publish “or else” but then…

“I am going to wreak an appropriate revenge upon all of Ireland, Great Britain and Libya.”

The expressed justification rang a bell in Coleman’s memory.

“You have wronged me by killing my loved ones. By my hand alone you are being called to account. You murdered my Mary and our children, Kevin and Mairead. I have sworn a treble vow on their memories. I will be avenged in kind.”

Coleman again keyed the intercom and asked Owney to check on those names. “And while you’re at it, call the College Hospital and see if you can get me through to Fin Doheny.”

“That would be Fintan Craig Doheny, sir?”

“Right.”

Once more, Coleman read the letter. He was interrupted by the telephone and intercom simultaneously. Owney’s voice said: “Doctor Doheny on the line, sir.”

Coleman picked up the phone. “Fin?”

“What’s so all-fired important, Alex? Owney O’More sounds like he’s been scalded.”