Read Online Allegiance: A Dublin Novella by Heather Domin - Free Book Online

took.
    He thought of the Director, well-tailored and sneering behind his polished desk. Christopher was merely an effete bastard, a bitter old Tory who didn’t appreciate being sent far from home to deal with someone else’s problem. William could relate to that last bit, at any rate. Serve your country well, Young. William sniffed. He was not interested in serving Lord Director Christopher, or the MI5, or anyone else for that matter – he only wanted to make things better and then go home to his family. Gerald would understand that, even if he could not forgive it.
    He had all the evidence he needed to prove that Gerald and his group were not terrorists of any kind. These men were nothing more than a few poor workers doing minor munitions runs to feel like they were supporting their cause. One good raid would scare them out of their delusions of grandeur and put an end to their illegal activities once and for all. William had seen it many times. After the raid there would be no danger for the Sullivans or their folk, not if they cooperated and then stayed out of trouble. He doubted that would be the case for Kelly, but that was no great loss. No one else would be arrested unless they brought it upon themselves. And Adam wouldn’t be that stupid.
    William frowned. Where had that come from? He put down his pencil and rubbed his grainy eyes. The late hour was clearly muddling his thinking. He should have been asleep hours ago. Sighing, he laid his head down on his outstretched arm and looked back across the pages he had written. The cramped writing blurred a little in his tired vision.
    This whole assignment left a bad taste in his mouth. He was not usually so eager to explain away every detail. He had nothing to justify. When people supported violence, they got arrested. That was the law. That was justice. But William could remember another time, another group who faced justice because of information he had stolen from them. He had not acted fast enough, and when he closed his eyes he could still hear the sharp crackle of shots echoing in the street. Labor men, they’d been – communists, dissidents, all lined up along a wall and shot at sunrise in the same street they had attempted to take over. He could see it all so clearly: sunlight glinting off broken store windows, white smoke curling up from empty rifle barrels, dark blood congealing in pools on dirty cobblestones. The wind whistling through the barren streets, sheets of paper scattering across empty pavement, and somewhere Meg was crying again.
    William knew he was dreaming, knew it from the vague and watery cast to the sun and the way his feet didn’t really move and yet he was going forward, through the lingering smoke, shading his eyes against the bitter light. Everyone was gone, nothing left but the whispering wind and the rattle of spent shells and the shapes lying still and crumpled in crooked angles against the wall, one for each rusty smear across the brick. Too late, he thought, too late, sorry, I’m so sorry, and all he wanted was to turn and run, run and run until his feet burnt off and crumbled away but he could not turn back, every step brought him closer, and every breath brought him the thick metallic stench of fresh death.
    They lay together as if sleeping, backs bent around their bound hands and chests pushed up into the light, crimson stains smelling coppery in the air. White faces slack and peaceful, all of them, all but one – too late he saw brown hair ruffling beneath a crooked cap and he could not move, could not draw back from the empty glass of dead gray eyes. He fell to his knees; his fingers smeared red trails across one cold cheek, and the cap fell away and Adam stared at him with his unseeing eyes and his blood-stained mouth parted with the trace of a final, eternal grin. No, William thought, no no please I didn’t want this, not this, not him, stop it stop it William wake up
—
    Adam’s eyes snapped lucid just before his hand