discuss religion or politics.'
'Kinda leaves us speechless around these parts, Lieutenant.'
' Erin go bragh,' I stage-whispered to Callahan as I got up.
'Go get our BARs, Billy,' Masters said. 'Good luck.'
'I'll do my best,' I said as I waved to the group and left to clean out my mess kit.
I liked Masters and his easy way with his men, and how he pushed them beyond regular training to prepare them. An I amp;R platoon was likely to be sticking its neck out far into enemy territory, and I could see how even one more BAR could make a difference in giving covering fire when they needed to skedaddle. What I didn't like was Callahan reminding me of everything I thought was wrong with this assignment. I wondered if I would still be sitting in a Jerusalem hotel arguing with Diana if it had been clear that it was the Red Hand who had stolen the Brownings. Would MI-5 be as worried if those weapons were aimed at the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland? Especially if they might be used against the IRA active in Ulster?
Erin go bragh, I thought as I wiped down my kit. Ireland forever. Except it wasn't true. How could it be, with six of the Ulster counties still ruled by England? What would it be like if the English had held on to New England at the end of the Revolutionary War? Would we have accepted that, said it was enough, and abandoned six states to be ruled by our former masters?
Liam O'Baoighill had left this island with a note pinned to his coat, charging his descendents with revenge upon the English for what they had done to his family. O'Baoighill was the Gaelic spelling of O'Boyle. We'd dropped the O along the way and become Boyles, making our way in the new world while forgetting the worst of the old and remembering the best as if it were everything that had ever happened. Now I was back.
It was a helluva war.
CHAPTER SEVEN
'At ease, Boyle.'
Major Thomas Thornton had been at a desk too long. He had soft, pudgy cheeks and red-rimmed eyes with dark bags beneath them. He wore a mustache, which suited him, and had his black hair slicked back with too much Brylcreem, which didn't. His ashtray was already half full of ground-out butts, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair as he read through my orders, spitting a bit of stray tobacco onto his desk, where it landed, a tiny brown speck lost amid a pile of requisitions, files, manuals, and all the tools of a division's executive officer. In the corner behind him, three cases of Jameson Irish whiskey were neatly stacked. Liquor was also a tool of the trade, bartering and smoothing the way for whatever your commanding officer needed.
'Ike and the British chief of staff? Jesus Christ, Boyle, you move in exalted circles. Are you any good? Can you find my BARs?'
'I don't exactly move in those circles, Major. I just go where they tell me.'
'Sit down, sit down,' Thornton said, as if that was something I should have taken for granted. He waved his hand toward a chair and I pulled it up to his desk. 'I want my goddamn BARs back, Boyle.'
'Yes, sir. Can you fill me in on what you've come up with? I have the police report from the RUC and an initial report from the provost marshal but nothing from this command.'
'Listen, Boyle, do you have any idea what kind of workload an XO has? I don't have time for reports in triplicate. I'm spending every wak- ing moment getting this division ready for combat. It doesn't take a genius to figure out we're positioned for the invasion, whenever and wherever that comes.'
'Probably right, sir. All the divisions that were here in '42 ended up in Operation Torch.'
'Goddamn right. While they were invading North Africa we were pulling occupation duty in Iceland. Iceland, Boyle! You know why they call it Iceland?'
'Because it's cold?'
'Cold and dark, and too much damned ice. Except in the summer, when it's light twenty-four hours a day so you can't sleep. I was sent there in 1941 with the first units of this division. I've been pushing paper and freezing my ass for two years, and I don't intend to keep it up for the rest of the war. Iceland makes Ireland look like Miami Beach.'
'The BARs, sir?'
'OK, OK. Sorry to unload on you. The project to build up our weapons companies was all mine, and now these fucking Irish have gone and screwed it up. Goddamn it!' He threw down his pencil like a knife; the lead broke and left a piece stuck in a stack of papers. His face was red and a vein pulsed in his forehead.
'You know, sir, I saw plenty of division staff in North Africa. They were all pretty close to the front. It won't be like you're missing out on anything if you stay in this job,' I said, trying to ease Thornton's frustration. He seemed to be banking on his ideas about added firepower to get him out from behind his desk.
'Thanks, Boyle.' He brushed the piece of lead from the papers and then neatened up the stack, glanced at it, and put it away in a desk drawer. He seemed to lose track of the conversation and looked at me quizzically.
'The investigation?'
'OK, OK. Between butting heads with Heck and everything else I have to do, I haven't had much time for playing detective. You know about Jenkins, right?'
'Andrew Jenkins, head of the local Red Hands, and he supplies the base with produce, right?'
'Right. He buys stuff from all the farmers in the area and sells it to the army. Potatoes, whatever the hell they grow around here. Whiskey, ham, fresh eggs, all sorts of stuff for the officers' messes.'
'Besides his truck being used, do you have any evidence of his involvement?'
'Evidence? No. Except that I know he'd do anything to hit the IRA. I wouldn't put it past him.'
'Why do you say that?'
'I can tell,' Thornton said, as he tapped the broken pencil on his desk. 'I can tell when a man wants something, something larger than himself. Something grand. Do you know what I mean?'
'Yes, I do. I've seen it,' I said, knowing what he meant. Combat, glory, promotion. 'It's not grand at all. But you won't believe me until you've seen it yourself.'
'Why?' For the first time in our conversation, Thornton seemed to relax and actually listen, genuinely curious about what I had to say.
'Because I wouldn't have.'
'Yeah, that's the hell of it, isn't it?'
'Sure is.'
Thornton looked at the broken pencil for a while, then sighed and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. He drummed his fingers on his desk, his frustrated energy keeping his body moving even while seated. I sat, the visions of that thing, the unknowable, the unimaginable, flowing through my mind. It wasn't grand at all, I had told the truth about that. It was gruesome and dirty, painful and demeaning, but at times-especially when you realized you were alive and had cheated death-there was something grand about it, something around the edges, in the light of explosions in the distance, the loud thuds of artillery, the rush of adrenaline, the eerie calm in the midst of a fight when time slowed and everything crackled with crystal clarity. There was grandness in the confusion I felt then, the feeling of wishing I could erase it all from my mind while knowing that it was the most significant, important, otherworldly thing I'd ever experienced. Sometimes I wondered if there was something holy in it all, as if I could almost see the best of creation in the midst of the worst of it.
'There's one more thing,' he said. 'Mahoney-the dead guy with the money in his hand? Well, I'd seen him before. He looked a bit different then, with his brains all inside his skull, but I saw him drinking in a pub in Annalong, a little south of here.'
'When was this?'
'The Sunday before the theft. I had to get out of here for a while, so I drove down the coast road and ended up in Annalong. There's a place, the Harbor Bar, right on the water, where I stopped and got something to eat and had a few pints. I noticed him because he was arguing with someone-quietly, but you could tell it was heated by the way they strained to keep their voices down.'
'Would you know the other man if you saw him?'
'No, his back was to me, and he had a cap on. But as soon as I saw the red hair on the corpse, I recognized
