Read Online The Dead Yard by Adrian McKinty - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Adrian McKinty
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers, Mystery & Detective, Suspense fiction, Hard-Boiled, Massachusetts, Great Britain, Terrorism, Intelligence service, Undercover operations, Prevention, Witnesses, Protection, Terrorism - Prevention, Witnesses - Protection, Irish Republican Army, Intelligence service - Great Britain
Ads: Link
with the two of us and a couple of tired businessmen as the
only passengers.
First class was empty and I switched to the right-hand side of the aircraft so I could follow
the coast as we headed back down the Atlantic.
We took off steeply. The plane reached ten thousand feet.
Portsmouth lit up and very clear.
The harbor, the river, the highways.
Below us, farther down the coast, a long barrier island. I found a stewardess.
"Is that Plum Island, Massachusetts, down there by any chance?"
She called the captain on her little phone.
"Yes, it is," she told me.
That’s where she lived. And Samantha was right—she was the way in. But the way had a name and
she was beautiful and quick and I doubted that she was and ever could be my enemy.
CHAPTER 3:
BACK TO THE BIG A
New York City. Overdescribed. You know what it’s like even if you’ve never been. This was
August in New York so it was all that and more and you couldn’t get a doctor, electrician, or
plumber on the weekends.
Dan grinned.
Manhattan behind his head. The Twin Towers, the Chrysler Building, and the Empire State
blurring in the heat haze. We were out in the wastelands of Queens, where the subway lines used
letters from the end of the alphabet and the video stores had an Urdu section.
He sipped his coffee.
"You’re pretty much fucked, Michael," he said with more than a hint of gleeful schadenfreude.
It wasn’t contempt. Dan liked me, but he sometimes felt that I was more trouble than I was worth.
Dan was my FBI controller who liaised with the U.S. Marshals Service and the Witness Protection
Program. It was Dan’s job to make sure I didn’t get killed. As I saw it, he was letting me walk
into a snake pit, without raising too much of a stink about it. He said it was over his head, but
everyone always says that when they’re scared or they can’t be arsed.
"You’ll be fucked if I die," I said.
"You won’t die," Dan assured me. "At least not on my watch."
I didn’t say anything. I needed a lot more convincing than this. Dan rubbed his cheeks,
smiled.
"I like what you’ve done to your hair, it’s very contemporary. Now that Cobain’s dead that
whole look you used to have is on its way out. If you were a bit more tanned you’d look like an
Israeli commando," he said.
"They did it to me. It’s their idea of a disguise."
I took a sip of the coffee, too. It was from the deli round the corner, made, no doubt, by a
recent immigrant who knew the ingredients and the method for making coffee but certainly not how
it was supposed to taste.
"I can’t drink this. What are we doing out here?" I asked.
"You’re lucky you’re not in Union City or Weehawken. The lower echelons of the bureau got
priced out of Manhattan a long time ago. Count your blessings, buddy."
"Count my blesssings? Dan, they want me to infiltrate a rogue IRA splinter group. What exactly
is the blessing aspect of that?" I asked.
"Well, you’re not back in Mexico, which, as I understand it, is the alternative," Dan said
with complacency.
"True, but I’m worried about being shopped to Seamus Duffy. And that, pal, is your department.
If I was you, I’d be on the phone to Janet Reno telling her that as a matter of policy I have to
be protected from these Brits who are doing their damnedest to get me killed. I am very
disappointed in you, mate."
Dan looked hurt. He was a big guy, chubby, blond hair, about thirty. He had a penchant for
wearing polo shirts and golfing gear. It only made him seem fatter. And when he looked sad, it
was all the more pathetic. He tapped his chin nervously.
"Michael, I know you think that you’re the center of the world but you ain’t. Janet Reno? Come
on. You got yourself into this mess and you’ll have to get yourself out of it. Our job is to make
sure you don’t get killed by the people you ra—, er, the people you helped put behind bars. If
you messed up in Spain, that’s your own
only passengers.
First class was empty and I switched to the right-hand side of the aircraft so I could follow
the coast as we headed back down the Atlantic.
We took off steeply. The plane reached ten thousand feet.
Portsmouth lit up and very clear.
The harbor, the river, the highways.
Below us, farther down the coast, a long barrier island. I found a stewardess.
"Is that Plum Island, Massachusetts, down there by any chance?"
She called the captain on her little phone.
"Yes, it is," she told me.
That’s where she lived. And Samantha was right—she was the way in. But the way had a name and
she was beautiful and quick and I doubted that she was and ever could be my enemy.
CHAPTER 3:
BACK TO THE BIG A
New York City. Overdescribed. You know what it’s like even if you’ve never been. This was
August in New York so it was all that and more and you couldn’t get a doctor, electrician, or
plumber on the weekends.
Dan grinned.
Manhattan behind his head. The Twin Towers, the Chrysler Building, and the Empire State
blurring in the heat haze. We were out in the wastelands of Queens, where the subway lines used
letters from the end of the alphabet and the video stores had an Urdu section.
He sipped his coffee.
"You’re pretty much fucked, Michael," he said with more than a hint of gleeful schadenfreude.
It wasn’t contempt. Dan liked me, but he sometimes felt that I was more trouble than I was worth.
Dan was my FBI controller who liaised with the U.S. Marshals Service and the Witness Protection
Program. It was Dan’s job to make sure I didn’t get killed. As I saw it, he was letting me walk
into a snake pit, without raising too much of a stink about it. He said it was over his head, but
everyone always says that when they’re scared or they can’t be arsed.
"You’ll be fucked if I die," I said.
"You won’t die," Dan assured me. "At least not on my watch."
I didn’t say anything. I needed a lot more convincing than this. Dan rubbed his cheeks,
smiled.
"I like what you’ve done to your hair, it’s very contemporary. Now that Cobain’s dead that
whole look you used to have is on its way out. If you were a bit more tanned you’d look like an
Israeli commando," he said.
"They did it to me. It’s their idea of a disguise."
I took a sip of the coffee, too. It was from the deli round the corner, made, no doubt, by a
recent immigrant who knew the ingredients and the method for making coffee but certainly not how
it was supposed to taste.
"I can’t drink this. What are we doing out here?" I asked.
"You’re lucky you’re not in Union City or Weehawken. The lower echelons of the bureau got
priced out of Manhattan a long time ago. Count your blessings, buddy."
"Count my blesssings? Dan, they want me to infiltrate a rogue IRA splinter group. What exactly
is the blessing aspect of that?" I asked.
"Well, you’re not back in Mexico, which, as I understand it, is the alternative," Dan said
with complacency.
"True, but I’m worried about being shopped to Seamus Duffy. And that, pal, is your department.
If I was you, I’d be on the phone to Janet Reno telling her that as a matter of policy I have to
be protected from these Brits who are doing their damnedest to get me killed. I am very
disappointed in you, mate."
Dan looked hurt. He was a big guy, chubby, blond hair, about thirty. He had a penchant for
wearing polo shirts and golfing gear. It only made him seem fatter. And when he looked sad, it
was all the more pathetic. He tapped his chin nervously.
"Michael, I know you think that you’re the center of the world but you ain’t. Janet Reno? Come
on. You got yourself into this mess and you’ll have to get yourself out of it. Our job is to make
sure you don’t get killed by the people you ra—, er, the people you helped put behind bars. If
you messed up in Spain, that’s your own
Similar Books
