Chapter 40
In front of the Belfast brig idled an olive sedan; new so not too loud. Major Burke stood full height at the sprung front door. "We're going for a ride," he told ex-Sergeant Scanlon, six inches shorter, when they were close.
Didn't matter.
Scanlon was clearly broken; cuffed, hands behind. Unrecoverable; judged hellbound by any standard of decent society. He'd killed his own. His friends and equals and just like him. That was unfixable; he knew that. He was prepared for that. He didn't expect to be rescued. At best he might try a pointless redemption gesture; whatever the authorities offered, Brit or American.
Corporal Loud hung off one of Scanlon's elbows.
The major announced to them both, heading that way: "I'm driving." Then corrected himself, "Right." He'd headed toward the wrong side of the sedan. In Belfast the steering wheel was on the other side. At the same time Loud folded the disgraced ex-sergeant into the front-side passenger seat and got in behind. Then Loud leaned over the prisoner's shoulder saying nothing, like a sack of shame dumped exactly where it belonged.
Major Burke pulled away.
"Today, sergeant," he announced, "I am going to show you the exact route you will drive when we send you packing back to the IRA. You'll want to pay attention. Because we can't protect you if you vary from this route."
Burke glanced over; no acknowledgement. "I'll be naming landmarks as we go. Pay some fucking attention," he finished harshly. Jimmy answered, "Yes, sir." Jimmy the ex-sergeant stared out the window, head swaying with the car. It was a dab of human at best; his response was close to a whisper.
Burke told Jimmy: "It's just one big loop, OK? Keep it simple."
"Sir." Jimmy's entire contribution.
The road out of Belfast threaded between low hills, past empty fields. They passed a sign for Larne, the ferry port for Scotland. "Ignore that. You'll come back that way. That's later. Head for Antrim, then straight north to Ballymena."
Antrim was no distance at all. They were there in twenty minutes, driving past whitewashed merchants and finding the turn.
Burke at the wheel glanced at Scanlon. "I bet you'd like to say some things to your man back in Boston." Scanlon swiveled his head away, wanting to ignore everything. "Father Mike? We'll be talking to him," Burke promised. "G-men will want a word with your good priest." Burke asked pointedly as an afterthought, "You know those IRA bastards consort with Hitler's boys?"
Waited. No response.
"Or maybe you don't exactly know what consort means, sergeant."
"I know, sir."
Burke approved. "Good Catholic education. I am not surprised. Those Boston nuns don’t stand for any of your nonsense, so I hear. I went to Catholic school, too, you know."
This wasn't accidental. Burke was Philadelphia. Scanlon was Boston. But trust grew out of common ground; out of any shared experience. Catholic school was ideal. No matter where you attended, you smelled the same plain soap; the same obsessively polished floors, as if wood were eternal; the same dizzying hard work; the same iron-clad interpretation of acceptable behavior and gaudy sins. There was a culture of discipline inside Catholic schools that the U.S. Army could only envy. Burke knew he shared that with Scanlon. Burke knew that could be a bond maybe, saying nothing else worked.
"You are," Burke told Scanlon, "what we in Army Intelligence call a dupe. You know what that means exactly?"
Scanlon didn't answer. The major laughed, happy with the response.
Fifteen minutes later, they reached Ballymena and took the turn for Glenariff. "This route takes you through the mountains to the coast. I figure this is where they'll hit you."
Hit you? Burke of course and obviously meant kill you. Amos instantly regretted the inference: don't, he stabbed, undermine the victim quite yet. People want to live forever, even the cynical, even sacrificial lambs, even suicides: everyone wants to live forever!
Ain't that odd. It was why Major Burke held so little to heart. Humans were unpredictable. He believed in Claire; she was rock solid. But traitors like Scanlon would see themselves as immortal gods. Meaning fools grew like weeds.