‘I am.’’
The O.C. watched. Mossie pushed himself up against the wall behind him. It was not for the O.C. to speak, he had called in the security section. He would stand aside wile they trampled through the Brigade.
He lit a cigarette. It was a sort of humiliation that he felt because until a tout was found, until the Brigade was sanitised, he had handed away his control of the war.
'I'm from the security, Mossie, I'm from the security because I've a nose for rats. What I say, Mossie, is that rats are best shot. We had a rat last month and we shot him. To me, touts is rats.'
He had thought Mossie Nugent great, a fine and careful intelligence officer. He didn't know the working of South Down Brigade or the Mid Ulster Brigade, but he had once been on a hit with the Derry Brigade and he'd thought the intelligence officer of Derry Brigade was just shit, all talk. Good times he'd had with Mossie. Couldn't fault him. He saw that Mossie looked the man from Lurgan straight back in the eyes.
Mossie said, 'I'm not a tout.'
'Did I say you was, Mossie? Did you hear me accuse you?'
'I hear you talking of touts. I's no tout.'
'My position is laid down by Army Council orders. I'll quote it for you, so there's no misunderstandings. 'We wish to reiterate our stated position on informers. No matter how long a person has been working for the enemy, if they come forward, they will not be harmed. Anyone caught touting will be executed.' Be difficult not to understand that, eh, Mossie? I'm going to ask you the question…'
'Go feck yourselves, the both of you. I've had all I need of this joke.
Away and play somewhere's else.'
'Just listen to my question, Mossie. You may want time to think on it, because it's just the one chance, Mossie. It's like the Army Council says, a tout comes forward, a tout won't be harmed. But the Army Council says also, a tout lies and is then found out, that tout's dead. I give a man the one chance to come forward…'
'I'll remember you, you bastard, don't think I won't.'
The O.C. watched. He thought the man from Lurgan terrifying, and he saw the way that Mossie's eyes never left the face of the man.
'Haven't asked the question yet, Mossie,' the voice ground softly on,
'because I'm being fair with you. Can't say I'm not fair. The chance is never offered again, that's why you might be wanting to think on your answer. I told you, Mossie, I've a nose for rats.'
Mossie said nothing, only stared at the man. Tense, his fists white-knuckled. Ready to spring.
The O.C. felt the shiver in his body. Frightening to him, the tap drip of the man from Lurgan's voice. He had known Mossie since he could remember. He had been at the small kids' school when Mossie had first gone to prison.
The voice beside him was chilled, quiet. 'One and only one chance .. . Mossie, is you a tout?'
'Go feck yourself.'
'Is you a tout?'
'No, I'm not a tout. I'm the Intelligence Officer of this Brigade
…'
The voice beside him hardened. 'You was the only one who knew.'
'Not true.'
'Your O.C. knew, and you knew.'
'Not true.'
'Who else knew?'
Mossie's finger stabbed at him. 'Ask him.'
The O.C. flinched.
The man from Lurgan turned slowly, precisely for a big man, towards him. 'You told me it was just him and yourself. Who else knew?'
The O.C. blurted, 'No one else knew.'
He saw the finger again pointing at him. 'You lie. What did vou say yourself? You said, 'How long was the little bastard there?' When the Riordan kid brought the tea. I've given my life to the Organisation. I's done time for the cause. Before you look to me you should go talk with the little bastard…'
The man from Lurgan spat, 'You didn't tell me.'
He said, weak, 'I hadn't remembered…'
Mossie, shrill, 'Go look at Patsy Riordan. Go look at anyone else he's forgotten.'
They let Mossie go, let him walk back to his home. The O.C. talked with the man from Lurgan about the kid who was not the full shilling, who was just used to run messages, On their lips was the name and the history of the kiddie who could have been good on the gaelic team, Under-19s. Patsy Riordan.
'I had no choice.'
There was wonderment in her voice. 'You gave them his name?'
'I gave them his name or I was gone.'
He had shouted at the little ones to drive them from the room. He had slammed the door on his mother. Mossie sat on the bed and cupped in his hands was the whiskey bottle. He felt the shake in his body.
Siobhan stood above him. He drank from the neck of the bottle.
'She's a grand woman, Mrs Riordan…'
'Gone. They don't finish till they've it out of you. You can't stand against them. Don't you understand, it's torture, it's beatings
… I had to.'
'He's just a simple, stupid boy…'
'I was dead.'
'He's never done you no harm…'
Slowly, trying to control the splutter of his voice, he explained to her what must be done.
He told her the way he thought it would be. He had bought himself time, that was all. He was still the suspect and he would be watched.
There was a chance, possible, that the security could tap into a phone.
He would not dare to use the telephone at home, nor could he dare to drive to Dungannon and use a public telephone. He would be followed.
'Should you be using the bleeper thing?'
'You needs to slip away, natural, not in a bloody helicopter so's the whole mountain knows.' It would be the living death. It would be five years, ten years, twenty years, of living with minders and with fear at his shoulder. To press the bleeper was the last resort.
'What do you want me to do?'
He breathed deep. He involved her.
'You go the town. You take the kids, like it's just visiting..
He wrote the number on the inside of his cigarette packet and slid the tinfoil wrapping back over the number.
'… You ring this number. You ring it for as long as it takes. Might be a man, might be a woman. They may make you ring them twice. You have to tell them it's for Song Bird, that it's a meeting you need, no feckin' about, right now. They'll tell you where. You go where they tell you. Tell them what happened to me, and tell them I named Patsy Riordan.'
'What'll happen to Patsy Riordan?'
'Not my worry.'
He slumped on the bed. He lay in the darkness and he smelled the whiskey on his shirt front. He heard Siobhan rounding up the kids, telling his mother that she was taking them out, going visiting.
Not Mossie's worry, what happened to Patsy Riordan.
She was seen to drive away. She was identified when she turned from the lane onto the road from Aghnagat to the village. It was seen that the children were with her. The men resumed their watch on the bungalow. There were no curtains drawn. They saw Mossie Nugent moving inside the bungalow, silhouetted against the lights.
The men of the security section gathering on Altmore came from Lurgan and Armagh city, from south County Down and from north County Antrim, from the villages of west Tyrone and east Derry. They came because they
