'That was quick thinking, Boyle, and brave, going through that window. I doubt he thought anyone would give chase so quickly. Well done,' Carrick said.
'It's terrible about Sam, terrible it is,' said Adrian, looking at his feet as he rubbed a sleeve across his eyes. 'He was standing right next to me.'
'Anyone else hurt?' I asked.
'Luckily, no,' Carrick said. 'Let's get back and call out a description of the car. Probably pinched it around here, and they've switched by now, but still…'
But still, it was best to go through the motions, to do something that helped reduce the chaos unleashed by one man with an automatic weapon and the will to kill. There was glass to be swept up, windows to be replaced, bullet holes to be filled, and an All Points to be put out.
Activity to help us return to normalcy what violence had shattered. None of it meant anything to a dead man.
THEY PUT OUT the call, and we waited for the base to send an ambulance to take Sam's body away. He was laid out on a table in the backyard, wrapped in a sheet stained a rusty brown. Two constables stood by him, tunics buttoned and caps on. They nodded as I walked past, grim gestures of acceptance, shared anger, and grief.
Mildred was sweeping the kitchen while Bob pulled pieces of glass from the windowpanes. Another constable came in and put a tin can on the table.
'Twenty shell casings, sir,' he said to Carrick. 'Haven't touched a one.'
'We'll check for fingerprints,' Carrick said, 'although I doubt there will be any. A good deal of the ammunition stolen was already loaded in clips, if that was a Browning.'
'It was,' I said. 'Very distinctive sound.'
'Yes, it didn't sound like a Thompson, which the IRA favors. I think using it may have been a message.'
We sat, and a glass of whiskey appeared at my elbow. It was odd how gunfire and death sobered you up. I took a gulp and let myself feel it settle into my gut.
'What kind of message?'
'Leave it alone,' Carrick said.
'The hell I will.'
'I wasn't suggesting you should. I certainly won't, not when one of my stations is attacked and a guest murdered. But there's something you should think about, Boyle.'
'What?'
'Who was the real target? For the past hour or so, constables were passing by windows. If they wanted to kill just anyone, they could have done so at any time. But the person they hit first was in an American uniform. Now I ask myself, was that random or planned? And if it was planned, who did they think they were killing?'
'Me?' I took another drink.
'Simms, did Lieutenant Burnham say if anyone knew he was coming to the funeral?'
'Not exactly, sir, but he gave me the impression he decided to come on his own, to pay his respects.'
'So it's likely no one knew officially that he went to the funeral at Dromara. But even if they did, they couldn't have known he was coming here. We decided only at the last minute.'
'But I called Thornton,' I said, seeing where he was going. 'I left a message for him that I was headed here.'
'Yes, from the arms depot, where any number of people heard you, including Jacobson, who certainly would have told Brennan if he inquired. Not to mention anyone at the Newcastle base who handled your message.'
'And they would have expected to find only one American here, so they didn't even need to know what I looked like. Jesus. If Sam hadn't looked out that window…'
'He might be alive, and you'd be dead,' Adrian said, a touch of bitterness catching in his throat.
'Aye, and if you'd been standing close to Billy when he next went to the window, you could be lying outside under my best sheet as well,' Mildred said. 'You catch yourself on, Adrian Simms!'
'Sorry,' mumbled Simms, his face reddening.
'Good lad,' Mildred said, and returned to putting the kitchen back together. Bob taped cardboard over the windows, darkening the room. He pulled the curtains before he turned the light on.
'No sense giving them a target, just in case,' he said.
'This does give you one advantage, Boyle,' Carrick said. 'But it won't last long.'
'What's that?'
'If I'm right, whoever intercepted your message will think you're dead, until he hears there was another American present who gave chase.'
'You're right.'
I stood, anxious to get to Ballykinler and say hello to Brennan and Jacobson to see their faces. I needed to get there before the ambulance transporting Sam's body showed up. Word was bound to travel fast once it got on base.
'Do you want a constable to go with you?'
'No, no thanks. But that picture of Taggart, can I have that now?'
Carrick asked Bob to fetch one from the station office. Mildred pressed a cheese sandwich wrapped in wax paper on me, and set down a small cup of tea.
'You drink a wee bit of that now, Billy. And be sure to eat something, dear.'
'Thanks, Mildred.' I put the tea to my lips and blew on the steam. Bob came in and tossed a mug shot onto the table.
'That's Taggart, about two years ago,' he said, tapping his finger on the picture. 'We brought him in on suspicion of IRA activity but couldn't prove anything. Had to let him go. Apparently, he'd just come north and we had no idea he was such a big fish.'
I set the tea down and studied the picture. Thinning brown hair, a chin that jutted out, and those eyes, with that amused expression. A roguish charmer, perhaps.
'That's the man in the car, the man who shot at me. The man with the BAR.'
'Red Jack Taggart, here?' Adrian said, as if it seemed impossible.
'Aye, it was a message all right,' Carrick said. 'And one he may well deliver again. Watch how you go, Boyle.'
That was exactly what Grady O'Brick had said to me, less than two days ago, and already someone was dead, someone at a window who might have been me.
'No. Red Jack needs to watch how he goes.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
It had started to rain but I drove the jeep fast, my. 45 on the seat next to me, safety off, round in the chamber. I didn't know whom I could trust, with the strange exception of just about any Ulster Loyalist. Someone was feeding the IRA information, and it sure as hell wouldn't be one of them. It could be someone wearing khaki but not someone wearing the RUC dark green.
I sped down narrow country lanes as whitewashed thatched cottages stood out in the darkening evening light. Each was a threat, and I scanned windows for the snout of a BAR. I downshifted too late as I took one curve, and the jeep slid on the slick roadway. The tires kicked up loose gravel as I gunned it out of a ditch and regained the road. That slowed me down. No sense getting myself killed-one dead lieutenant today was more than enough.
Names swirled through my head. Brennan, Jacobson, Thornton. Maybe Lasner, the sergeant at the communications section? Heck? Maybe even him, if he'd been at headquarters when my message came through. Parties unknown? Sure were plenty of them around here. Could it have been pure chance that Sam was killed? Wrong window, wrong time, wrong bullet?
No, I didn't think so. If I was an IRA man, I'd wait instead of shooting an unknown Yank, in case he might be a sympathetic Irish-American. But those first two shots were right on target, to the chest, and then everything else had been to keep people flat on the floor while Red Jack made his getaway. The only American he thought would be
