“So he starts to push,” said Little. ‘“Couldn’t we just go around the side and slip away,’ says he. ‘We have a private aircraft.’ Well Dublin Airport is closed down, says I. In its entirety. No exceptions. On my orders. Now get off my fucking phone or I’ll run you in for obstructing the Guards. You fucking weasel.”
Minogue almost smiled. What would the celebrity manager have made of Little’s gentle tone, the delivery.
“Is that what you said,” he said to Little.
The lights reflected off wet tarmacadam were throwing glare at the camera now.
“Nearly told him to set his hair on fire and put it out himself with a lump hammer,” said Little. “Christ, you’d think he’d be thanking us. If the car’s wired, goes up… Well, I mean, I know it’s not going to happen, but…”
Minogue looked up.
“So: not a word of a warning here, Damian?”
Little shook his head.
“Ask ’em how long more,” he said to O’Reilly.
O’Reilly adjusted the earpiece and bent the stalk for the microphone while he waited. Little tugged at his ear and swore under his breath. The drone wasn’t moving. Minogue glanced over and traced the lines cut into Little’s forehead.
Raw meat heroes, Kilmartin called Little and his former cohorts. Still the fitness maniac, Minogue supposed, Little coached Garda teams, and his contorted face had appeared on the front pages of newspapers a few years ago.
GARDA OFFICER, 42, PLACES 4TH IN DUBLIN CITY MARATHON.
Kilmartin disdained and envied the reputation the Emergency Response Units had built. He’d put out rumors that Little’s training regimen involved booting trainees in T-shirts out of helicopters up in the Glen of Imaal and making them survive their two-day stay in the open by eating snails and bits of weeds. Some of Kilmartin’s inventions had turned out to be true.
Damian Little had had to do the sideways waltz into Communications after a disastrous ERU raid in a border village. Shot eight times, the suspect lived. He turned out to be a Special Branch officer. Trigger Little suffered no public rebuke, however. Minogue heard that he had become separated from his wife.
The cell phone chirping was his own. He opened it and listened to Larry Griffin, a site specialist, describe the progress of the site van in the thickening traffic outside the airport. He held his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Damian. Can I point the site van up here while we’re waiting?”
The drone was moving again. This time it emerged from behind the armored lorry. A screen filled with its jarring progress as it swung about and advanced by a line of cars. The radio came to life. Minogue asked again.
Little picked up a headset.
“Bring ’em up alongside, sure,” he said.
Minogue’s stomach rumbled again. He dropped the phone in his jacket pocket.
“Ah bollocks,” said Little. “Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks…”
Minogue looked over at the still picture on the monitor. The voice on the radio sounded bashful. Problems with a key were enumerated. Little swore. The picture shook again. The drone was reversing. Little put down the headset.
“Bollocks,” he said “Here we are with a ton of the best detection and control stuff in the world. The sniffer reads fine. The controls are dead on. But we can’t put a frigging key in a frigging lock.”
“Like you’re Einstein,” said Malone, “but you arrive home pissed.”
A bag of crisps even, thought Minogue. He scribbled the cell phone number on a pad and waved it at Little.
“Cut the shagging panel and be done with it,” Little muttered. “Jases. We’ll be here all night.”
“Derek Mur…” said Minogue. “The airport security lad?”
“Mitchell,” said Little. “APF, they’re called. Airport Police and Fire. Joeys, we call them. But they don’t much like that. Especially being as they’re going ahead with putting in a station proper here soon enough.”
“Where’ll I find this Mitchell fella?”
“Staff canteen at the near end of the terminal.”
CHAPTER 3
It took Minogue and Malone twenty minutes to corral cups of tea, a bag each of cheese and onion crisps, and a quick account by Derek Mitchell of how he had turned up the missing car. Fogarty, the supervisor, had been too talkative for Minogue not to notice. Fogarty was worried about being caught on the hop. So he should. Mitchell might be new on the job but maybe he’d turn out to be the only fella patrolling with his eyes open too.
Minogue sipped his tea, took in Mitchell’s modest qualifiers. Mitchell had heard nothing of car thefts or break- in gangs working the airport. Five times — and Minogue had put a small tick in his notebook each time, so he knew: “I’m only new here like.” Minogue stared at his notes and tried more combinations for APF: Airport Police and Fire; Always Planned Fiascos.
Malone prodded Mitchell a few times about his APF colleagues. Mitchell kept to the modest route. He didn’t seem to notice he was repeating himself: a.) there were lots of cars there; b) it was just lucky he had a knack for cars and numbers; c) “I’m only new here like” number six; d) they all check the lists on shift. Like hell, Minogue wanted to say. Aine’s Police Fella; Awful Patrol Folk…
Fogarty had brought them a smudgy photocopy of the patrol and duty schedule. Missing persons and stolen vehicle lists were displayed prominently on the wall of the office by the schedules and the radio plug-ins. Too prominent, too neatly aligned.
The plastic taste of the tea grew sharper. PVC tea. Malone asked Mitchell to go over the route again. Mitchell drew his finger east from the horseshoe area by the terminals toward the long-term car park.
Could he remember the exact times for the checkpoints? Mitchell thought that he could.
Minogue stood. The aftertaste from his last gulp was pure plastic. He dropped the cup into the can.
“Take your time there,” he said to Mitchell. “And don’t be worrying. There are no wrong answers, now.”
Malone joined him by the door.
“There has to be video here, Tommy. Get a layout of where they have them. And see what they cover, like a good man. Then we’ll start rounding up the tapes ”
Malone eyed Mitchell straining to get his times right.
“Fogarty is fussing around a lot. He’d be the one for the — ”
The first man in the door was wearing sunglasses. Minogue didn’t recognize him at first. More people piled in. Soft leather jackets, a woman with very short hair, a brace of cameras around her neck. Fogarty came next. He looked very pleased with himself. Perfume — men’s or women’s, Minogue couldn’t tell — began to take over the room. Someone was smoking Gauloises or Gitanes too.
“Won’t be long, lads,” Fogarty said. “We’ll have you en route ASAP.”
Minogue recognized the manager Daly, bald on top, that ponytail, just like Damian Little had said. The band members looked shagged. Daly took off his sunglasses and rubbed at his eyes. Minogue began to smell whiskey off someone’s breath. Fogarty began rounding up chairs. The group shuffled and glanced around the canteen. Mr. 21 Byrne, the nickname off the bus he’d been born on. Crowley, the Crow Mooney, that was the drummer’s name. A nephew of neighbors of Kathleen growing up in Harolds Cross, Minogue recalled. Kevin Mooney, Batman, the fans called him. Daly threw up an arm and looked at his watch.
“Soon as we can,” Fogarty said. “First up. You can slip out there and go around the side of the terminals. Be off in a flash.”
Batman Mooney sank into a chair and lit a cigarette. He nodded at Malone.
“How’s it going there?”
Malone chewed his gum hard, burst a bubble behind his teeth.
“Not so bad,” he said. “Yourself?”
Mooney shrugged and blew out smoke. He ran his fingers through his stubbly, streaked hair and looked at
