one more time Chapter 40
An olive US Army sedan idled in front of the Belfast brig.
Major Burke stood full height at the sprung front-seat passenger door. Corporal Loud shoved the prisoner nearer. "We're going for a ride," Burke told ex-Sergeant Scanlon.
Burke was six-two, Scanlon five-eight. Three months earlier they'd have stood together as rough equals in pride.
Not now. Scanlon was broken, inarticulate; cuffed, hands behind. And judged hell-bound by every known standard of decent society and his own sacred Roman Catholic church. He had killed his own. He'd killed men who'd trusted him to be what he appeared to be: a reliable superior in good standing. That betrayal had no fix; he knew it in the pit of his belly, to the ends of his empty toes: he was dying from the extremities in. His toes were gone. His fingertips felt dead. He knew he deserved whatever came next: bad, worse, unimaginable. He'd sinned: not venial, either. This was mortal, the strong stuff. He'd forfeited heaven. Like a bulb, he'd screwed himself into hell, by his own free will and actions. Scanlon didn't expect to be rescued.
Corporal Loud hung off one of Scanlon's elbows, steering. Major Burke announced to them both: "I'm driving."
Loud folded the disgraced ex-sergeant into the front-side passenger seat. The corporal got in behind, his pistol pressed through the flimsy seat against Scanlon's back. Corporal Loud then leaned over Scanlon's shoulder, saying nothing; just a sack of disgrace dumped exactly where it belonged.
Major Burke pulled away from the curb.
"Today, sergeant," he announced to his front-seat prisoner, "I am going to show you the exact route you will drive when we send you packing back to the IRA."
Burke waited. Nothing from Scanlon.
"The exact route. Pay attention, fuck motherfuck head. We can't protect you if you vary from this route." Burke glanced to his right. There was no obvious acknowledgement. "I'll be naming landmarks as we go," Burke shouted. "Pay some fucking attention."
Jimmy answered then, "Yes, sir." He'd wised up enough about something; staring out the window, head swaying with the car. No more than a dab human at best. Jimmy's response was close to a whisper.
Burke told him: "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," Burke said. Ordered. "You'll come back that way. Lots later, when we're winding up."
Major Burke watched for the next sign.
When it came: "Here? Head for Antrim" — Jimmy nodded — "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 glanced at Scanlon. "I bet you'd like to say some things to your man back in Boston right now." Scanlon turned his head away. He wanted to ignore everything, to wallow, to take his eternal punishment as soon as possible. "Father Mike, right? 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." Burke chuckled companionably.
This wasn't accidental. Burke was Philadelphia. Scanlon was Boston. But trust grew out of common ground; any shared experience. Catholic school was fertile. Maybe, maybe, maybe. No matter where you attended, you smelled the same sour 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 the U.S. Army could only envy. Burke knew he shared that with Scanlon. Burke knew that could be a bond maybe. Worth a try.
"You are," Burke told Scanlon, "what we in Army Intelligence call a dupe. You know what 'dupe' means? It's kind of a technical term. Don't want to rush you."
Scanlon didn't answer.
The major laughed loudly; happy with the response. Jimmy Scanlon was exactly his kind of jackass.
Fifteen minutes later, they reached Ballymena. They took the turn for Glenariff. "This route takes you through the mountains to the coast. I figure this is where they'll hit you."
Scanlon: Hit you?
Amos instantly had regrets: don't, he warned himself, undermine the victim just yet.
People want to live forever — even the cynical, even sacrificial lambs, even suicides, even those gilded in mortal sin: 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 sometimes saw themselves as immortal gods.
Meaning just that fools grew like weeds.