Read Online The Dead Yard by Adrian McKinty - Free Book Online Page A

the lights and under an oak tree. We

sat on one of the enormous roots. Kit’s hand reached round to mine. Her fingers were cool and

delicate. She turned me to look at her.
    "I’m like totally dating someone, you know…Jackie, but, but I want to give you this in case I

never see you again," she said.
    She pulled me toward her and kissed me on the lips. I opened her mouth with mine and I found

her tongue and we kissed there in the night under the moon and the arc lights. She was young and

beautiful. So alive. I kissed her and held her and put my hands on her bum, squeezed her ass, and

ran my hand up her back and leaned down and kissed her small pert breasts.
    A car honked.
    "Sonia," she said, gasping.
    She broke away and stood and then came over and kissed me again.
    "I never thanked you," she said.
    "You just did."
    "Yes," she said, blushing happily.
    "Will I see you again?"
    "Sean McKenna from Ireland, I’ll remember that."
    Sonia honked the car horn again.
    "I have to go. Sonia’s not one to gossip, but Jackie, you know, he can be a bit jealous. And I

don’t want him to go after you. I don’t want you to get hurt."
    "Don’t worry, I avoid hurt," I said.
    She kissed me on the cheek.
    She signaled Sonia, ran to the car, climbed in. Waved at me as she drove past.
    I avoid hurt, I said to myself with a thin smile. Of course. I’m at the other end of the

stick. I’m the hurter. I’m the goddamn nimrod that could destroy all of them. Jackie, Gerry,

Sonia, Seamus, and even the famous Touched McGuigan. And you too, Kit. You too.
    Aye.
    Stay young, stay beautiful, stay away if you know what’s good for you.
    I walked into the bus station, put fifty cents in the pay phone, and called Samantha at the

safe house. Jeremy answered and told me to hold on.
    "Are you ok?" Samantha asked. "How did it go?"
    "Better and worse than we could have hoped," I said. "I drove Kit home, but the bar was a

disaster. For a start there were two assass—"
    "Not on the phone," Samantha snapped. "Where are you?"
    "I’m in Newburyport, at the bus station."
    "Newburyport. Ok, let me think. Ok, we want to get to New York. What’s the number there?"
    "Let me see, Newburyport 555-9360, the area code’s 978."
    "I’ll call you back in five minutes."
    "There’s a bus going back to Boston right now, do you want me to get on it?"
    "I’ll call you back," she said.
    The bus came and went and the man behind the desk gave me a hangdog look.
    The phone rang. It was Samantha. I was pissed off.
    "Yeah, well, now we’re screwed, I just missed the last bus to Boston," I said.
    "No, no. This is what I want you to do. Get a taxi to the airport at Portsmouth, New

Hampshire. There’s an 11:50 flight to New York. I will meet you there. Is that clear?"
    "It’s clear," I said, rubbing the tiredness from my eyes and hanging up.
    The cab ride took an hour and cost seventy bucks. Samantha arrived at the airport the same

time that I did, landing in a helicopter.
    She bought us tickets for the last flight out to New York. She found a quiet corner of the

almost deserted airport and debriefed me.
    "I heard all about it," she said, shaking her head. "The FBI cocked it up. But at least you

met Kit? Didn’t you? Our plan worked."
    "I suppose so," I said. "I drove with her all the way to Newburyport. I think she liked

me."
    "Excellent, it’s our way in," she said. "And as expected, take a look at this."
    She handed me a faxed copy of tomorrow’s
Irish Times
. The banner headline occupied

the whole front page: "IRA Announce Unilateral Cease-fire. Protestant Groups to Follow."
    I gave her back the fax and frowned.
    Something didn’t sit right. I examined my feelings and found that I resented her for making me

use Kit in this way. Regardless of what her father represented or what he’d done, I liked the

girl.
    "Come on, then, we’re going to a bureau training facility in New York," Samantha said.
    We boarded the plane. A Short 360