Plugged

ball-squeezer.

There isn’t a man on this planet who isn’t scared by a Rottweiler coming at him with drool streaming out of his mouth.

I squat to rummage through the bag at my feet. First I pop a couple of earplugs from their plastic envelope, then I select a Steyer Bullpup assault rifle with a 40mm grenade launcher slung underneath the barrel. And to think I almost didn’t go for the launcher option, but the dealer sold me on it. Hey, don’t take the launcher model, what do I care, but for a hundred bucks I can throw in two grenades. A hundred bucks! You telling me, Irish, that you can’t think of a single situation where a couple of grenades wouldn’t come in handy?

I could think of a couple of situations. This wasn’t one of them. Flying dogs and grenades in the suburbs.

I stick my head over the fence and peer through the branches just in time to lip-read the doorman’s fuck this and see him hurry in the back door. He slams it half a second too late to stop the Rottweiler making it inside.

That is a lucky bonus. I was hoping for the dog outside at the door, causing a distraction, but inside the house itself. . Should be carnage. Hopefully.

Seconds later the consternation starts. Crashing, tinkling, shouts of surprise. A couple of gunshots.

They’re thinking, What the hell is going on? Where is this coming from?

Pack up the shit. Pack it up.

First rule of any factory: protect the product.

I pull the assault rifle into my shoulder and flick off the safety, and instantly I am a soldier again. It’s the click. Once the safety is off, it is no longer a drill.

I strafe the roof, knocking holes in the slates, leaving beams exposed and severing the power lines. If those guys don’t have a generator in there, surveillance is down. Even if they do, I have a minute.

Now they’re thinking, Gunfire. It’s a raid. We need to move out.

Gunfire is one thing, but explosions really light a fire under people. I feed a grenade into the launcher, close the slide and pull the secondary trigger, sending a silver 40mm egg of explosives through a hole in the roof. I hope no one was hiding their Christmas presents up there.

The explosion is not Hollywood big but it’s enough to reduce the attic space to so much firewood. The sound wave makes reality jump a frame or two, and a cloud of smoke and dust hang over the house, a marker for the fire brigade.

That’s all the destruction I need. I stuff the assault rifle back into my magic bag and drop over the fence into enemy territory. Maybe their cameras are out, maybe not. Either way, I have to act.

The pick-up crouches in the driveway like a wild beast. A brand-new Hilux with outsize wheels and probably a lot more than shop horsepower waiting under the hood. This is the getaway vehicle, no doubt about it. Any aggravation comes in the front door, and the steroids go out the back in this beauty.

A guy comes on to the patio, gun in one hand and keys in the other. There’s a stripe of blood across his arm and I’m thinking good boy, Bonzo. And also rest in peace, doggie. I twist the wing mirror so I can follow what’s happening, then squat behind the Hilux’s grille, and give the situation a few seconds to develop. Maybe this guy has the steroids on him.

Or maybe not. A second man wheels out two large sealed plastic barrels on a drum caddy. This guy is limping from a leg bite and I’m starting to feel sad for Bonzo.

The men load both barrels into the flatbed, grunting and cursing.

‘Get the last barrel,’ the first man shouts over the crackling flames billowing from the attic.

‘Fuck that,’ says junior guy. ‘I ain’t going back in there.’

Guy 1 brandishes his weapon in a way that tells me he doesn’t have a whole lot of gun-time.

‘Okay,’ says junior guy hurriedly. ‘Jesus, Bobby. We just split a tuna melt.’

‘It was a nice sandwich, man, and we’ll always have that. But I’m the supervisor and I gotta put the tuna aside. So just get the barrel, E Bomb. Shit.’

E Bomb tiptoes back into the house in a way that makes me think that Bonzo is still alive.

E Bomb? Christ, what have nicknames come to? The problem is that these guys are inventing their own names. No one christens themselves Four-eyes, or Shit-breath. One guy back in Dublin, did six months for peeping Tom offences, guys called him Windows 2000. Now that’s a nickname.

Even though the house is under attack, this guy is so focused on making sure there isn’t a dog clamped to his arse that he never sees me coming. I sneak around the driver’s side, punch him in the temple. Hard. And catch his keys before they hit the ground. I don’t even need to take my slim jim out of the bag.

Thanks, Bobby.

Bobby bounces off the door, belches, then collapses to the drive. I smell tuna. I am amazed when he shakes his head and gets in a swing at me. A good one that connects with my entire face. I am going to be lit up like a pumpkin in the morning. I am so pissed that I smack Bobby’s head against the fender maybe a little harder than I need to.

I beep the pick-up with a Toyota fob and jump inside, slinging my bag of tricks into the passenger seat.

That punch hurt my knuckles. Maybe cracked one.

Could be arthritis, says Ghost Zeb, rifling my repressed memories. Your father suffered from it. One of the reasons he drank.

So he said. Didn’t stop him beating on us.

The pick-up starts on the first turn of the key. I should bloody think so, all the money those steroid manufacturers spent on it. I yank the gear lever and floor the gas. The only thing between me and the open road is a key-coded gate that looks like it has enough square bars to contain even the Hilux.

Which is why I veer left and go through the flimsy wooden fence. Morons. I mean really, what kind of a tool organised their security? It only took one man and a mutt to reduce it to smithereens.

The last thing I see of the steroid house in my rear-view mirror is Bonzo, loping out of the back door with a hank of something in his jaws. Good dog, I think. Good dog.

CHAPTER 10

I try to stay focused on the drive back to Jersey, but the smooth ride is comforting and my mind begins to wander.

I keep saying that I’m not big on flashbacks, but whenever my mind blurs, the Lebanon is always there. Sky filled with streaking rockets, mangled shards of metal constantly raining from above. Everything was pockmarked by shrapnel. Everything. Mahogany-skinned old men on their stoops shooting the breeze like it was same-old same-old. Which it probably was.

I remember one French guy whose claim to fame was a dick the size of a baguette. This boast was put to the test one day when we came across a dog fight arena and. .

Macey Barrett’s phone rings and I nearly jump out of my skin when the car automatically picks up its Bluetooth signal and transfers the call to the Toyota’s sound system.

‘Daniel?’

‘Holy Mary!’ I blurt, which is a pretty accurate impersonation of a Christian Brother I used to do back in the eighties. Still pops out every now and then in times of stress.

Faber’s laughter is distorted by the speaker. ‘For you, I’m Holy Mary, God, Jesus and the Easter Bunny all rolled into one.’

I recover myself a little. ‘Faber. How’s it hanging, Jaryd? Good day in court pointing the shit out of everything?’

Faber’s not laughing now. ‘I point for emphasis, that’s all.’

‘You point all the bloody time. It doesn’t mean anything you do it so much. It’s like a tic. I’m telling you, Faber, that’s why you never win anything at the tables.’