Chicago Assault (7 page)

“Why in the hell didn't the businessmen go to the police?” Hawker demanded. “Extortion's a crime, you know.”

O'Neil nodded. “Of course it is. I'm a lawyer, remember? But you see, Hawk, these lads are local. They know their victims, and individualized terrorism has the greatest impact. The businessmen are completely vulnerable, and they damn well know it. They can be hit at work or at home, through their stores or their families. Hell, if they brought in the police, Bas Gan Sagart could take revenge a dozen different ways.”

“Bas Gan Sagart?” Hawker asked. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It's what they call their terrorist group,” put in Megan. “It's Gaelic. It means ‘Death without the priest.'”

“Death without the priest?” echoed Hawker. “Romantic.”

“And all too accurate,” said O'Neil. “You've been out of the city for how long?”

Hawker shrugged. “I was in California for a while, then I took a trip up the west coast … about two months, I guess. Just got back last week.”

“Then you've missed the newspapers. In the last month, there's been a rash of bombings, fires, and shootings in the Bridgeport area. What little resistance Bas Gan Sagart has had been dealt with severely. There will be no more. The businessmen are justly terrified.”

“What about the crime watch group my dad and I started?”

“It would be suicide for them to even try to fight back. It would be like a Boy Scout troop trying to fight a team of Green Berets.” O'Neil shook his head. “The businessmen in the area are hostages, Hawk. Make no mistake about it. If they don't pay, they're dead men.”

“Saul Beckerman didn't pay?”

“That would be my guess. It was a typical Bas Gan Sagart hit: big and messy, for maximum publicity.”

“And your name was on tonight's hit list because you've refused to pay.”

Jimmy O'Neil made an empty motion of his own confusion. “I trained those three lads. For a year or so, we were as close as four men can be—such is the way with Fenian work. I guess it's a barometer of their madness that they would not make me an exception—not that I would stand for their bullying. Even if they did leave me out of it. But death means nothing to these lads and their little army of killers.”

“You could go to the FBI,” offered Hawker, and knew the moment he said it exactly why O'Neil could never do so.

“Yes”—O'Neil smiled—“and just explain to the good officers that I'm a respectable IRA gunrunner in need of some assistance? No, Hawk, I'm afraid that's out of the question. I have but two choices. I can either just close down the bar and my law office and just disappear—and fight them undercover, by the methods I know best. Or I can face them head-on and try to destroy Bas Gan Sagart before it destroys me.”

“You see, James,” said Megan Parnell. “We take care of our own, we do. For good or bad, they're our responsibility. And we must deal with them.” Her fists were fixed solidly on her hips, and there was an unexpected coldness in her eyes as she said it.

Hawker paid little attention as O'Neil suddenly rose from his chair and walked quickly toward the bar.

Hawker's eyes were locked on Megan. Once again he felt his stomach stir with stark, physical wanting. “But how can you help?” Hawker insisted, enjoying the way she allowed her eyes to burrow into his. “You're on the run yourself, aren't you? An international fugitive—”

“Who told you such nonsense?” she snapped.

“Well, Jimmy didn't come right out and say it, but that's the impression I got—”

“Utter balderdash. I'm no more on the run than you are”—a light smile crossed her face—“and perhaps even less so.”

“Then why
are
you here?”

She looked at Hawker as if he had just asked an inexcusably stupid question. “Why, to kill Galway, Phelan, and MacDonagh, of course.”

A moment later, a man's scream for help brought them both to their feet, only to be knocked to the floor by the shock of the explosion that destroyed the Ennisfree.…

seven

In that stunned moment, it all came back to Hawker. The deafening, ear-ringing shock of sound. The stink of cordite. The sputtering sound that was burning flesh.

It all came back to him: that time in Ireland … that time when he was four … that time his mother and sisters died.

But Hawker wasn't a boy now.

Now he could do something about it.

He jumped to his feet and ran toward the main room of the Ennisfree. The entire bar was a roaring flame.

From deep in the flames he could hear a man's screams. He knew it had to be Jimmy O'Neil.

Hawker jerked a tablecloth off a booth and began swinging at the flames, fighting his way toward his best friend. The intense heat seared his face, and he realized the sudden stink was from his own melting hair.

Someone had grabbed him. Someone was pulling him back. It was Megan, her face red and wet with tears.

“No, James, no!” she yelled above the roar of the fire. “There's nothing we can do now. He's lost! He's gone! We've got to get out and save ourselves!”

The screams had disappeared in the din of burning wood and exploding bottles. Megan was holding onto his arm. “Please,” she said softly. “We must go now. There's nothing you can do.”

Furious, Hawker threw the tablecloth at the fire. “Like hell there's nothing we can do,” he said in a cold whisper. He turned to the woman. “Do you have any weapons around here?”

“Well, yes, in the back room where I've been sleeping—”

“Get them,” Hawker commanded.

He took one last, long look at the orange flames, which were all that remained of his old friend. The whole front half of the building had been blown away. The door hung broken on its hinges.

Hawker wondered what O'Neil's last thoughts had been. What had he heard that had called him to investigate? A noise? Or just a hunch?

Whatever it was, there was a slight chance the killers from Bas Gan Sagart were still around. Unless it was a time bomb, the explosive device had probably been thrown—or wired to the front door.

And it sure as hell hadn't been there when they first came in.

Hawker pivoted and ran into the back room. Megan was rummaging through a box that was hidden under loose boards in the floor.

“We might as well take everything we can carry,” she said, surprisingly calm now. “The police are just going to find this stuff after they put out the fire.”

She handed him a pistol-sized Uzi submachine gun. Hawker checked the forty-round detachable clip, and saw that it was fully loaded with 9mm parabellum cartridges.

As she selected another Uzi for herself, Hawker jammed a Colt M1911A1 automatic in his belt, the military's .45 caliber handgun. From a smaller wooden box marked ROYAL ORDNANCE FACTORIES/UNITED KINGDOM Hawker took two smooth egg-shaped British hand grenades and clipped them over the back of his belt.

“Let's go,” he said. “Move!”

They ran out the back door and into the alley. Megan stopped and looked both ways. “We'll circle the building,” she began. “You go that way—”

“Bullshit,” snapped Hawker. “You stick right on my shoulder.”

“But if you really think they might still be in the area—”

“Damn it, Megan, just shut up and do what I tell you!”

She hesitated, as if she wasn't used to taking orders. “Okay,” she said finally. “We'll do it your way, James.”

Signaling her to follow, Hawker trotted south down the alley. As they came out onto the main street, a white van screeched around the corner of Farrell. It careened past them.

Hawker got a vague look at a dim face peering at them from the passenger's window. Unexpectedly, the van skidded to a stop, then banged into fast reverse.

“They're trying to run us down!” yelled Megan.

Hawker shoved her roughly onto the sidewalk as the van smacked into a parking meter, just grazing Hawker's thigh. The impact was enough to knock him down.

As he tried to climb to his feet, the passenger door swung open, and a man with shoulder-length red hair jumped out. There was a long-barreled revolver in his hand, and he cracked off a quick shot before Hawker lifted the Uzi and sprayed him with automatic fire.

The man's head slammed backward against the door as his chest and head spouted blood.

“Behind you, James!” Megan shouted. The back doors of the van had opened, and two men jumped out. Sawed-off shotguns were pressed against their shoulders.

Hawker rolled away from the van, but before he could even raise his weapon, one long burst from Megan's Uzi sent the pair backpedaling into the empty street, jolting and jerking as if they were being electrocuted.

Deciding he no longer had the firepower to deal with Hawker and the auburn-haired woman, the driver of the van popped the vehicle into gear and screeched off.

Megan peppered the back of the van with submachine gun fire as Hawker jumped to his feet. From his belt he grabbed one of the British grenades, pulled the pin, and hurled it overhand as far as he could ahead of the van.

The timing couldn't have been better.

Just as the front wheels of the van roared over the grenade, the grenade exploded. The van bucked upward, then heeled onto its side, skidding down the street until it sheered off a streetlight pole.

Their weapons ready, Hawker and the woman ran after it. Hawker climbed up and pulled open the door. Only the driver remained inside. His eyes were wide and glassy with death. It took Hawker a moment to realize what had killed him. Both of his legs had been shredded off by the grenade.

“Look inside,” Hawker commanded the woman. He helped her up so she could see.

“Do you recognize him?”

Megan nodded. “Yes,” she said evenly. “It's Michael MacDonagh.”

“What about the others? Did you recognize them?”

“No. I've never seen them before. They must be part of their terrorist army.”

Hawker let the door slam closed and jumped to the asphalt.

The September wind carried the sound of distant sirens.

“We've got to get out of here,” he said. “We came in Jimmy's car. I left mine downtown. We'll have to try to hot-wire Jimmy's car.”

“No, wait—we don't have to hot-wire it. He used to let me use his Mercedes sometimes. I've got keys,” she said, producing them from the pockets of her slacks.

Hawker was already moving toward the front of what was left of the Ennisfree.

Hawker drove southeast on Farrell, then west on Thirty-first Street and down Archer Avenue so Megan would know how to get back to his apartment. Hawker doubled back on Thirty-first, and north on Halsted, toward the Lake Shore Drive penthouse apartment where the long, long evening had begun.

Both hands on the wheel, Hawker rotated his head and neck, trying to work out the knots and tension. Automatically, Megan reached over and began to massage the back of his neck. “I still can't believe Jimmy is … is really gone,” she said in a small voice.

“They'll pay for it,” Hawker whispered. “Each and every one of them, they'll wish they had never been born.”

“James, I don't want you to take what I'm about to say the wrong way. I know you and Jimmy were very close. And I don't blame you for wanting revenge. But it's not your fight. You're an American citizen, respected in your community. Hunting down the members of Bas Gan Sagart is going to be a long and bloody job—not to mention dangerous. You see it as revenge. The police will see it as murder.”

Hawker almost smiled. She talked as if he was a naive child. But there was, of course, no way she could have known that he had dedicated the last year to busting open networks of organized terrorism.

He had already left a lot of corpses in his wake, none of his killing exactly sanctioned by America's law enforcement agencies. Maybe he would tell her about it one day—but not now.

The only man he had trusted with that information was Jimmy O'Neil.

And O'Neil was dead.

Dead
.

There was still a sense of unreality about the word as it traced its way through Hawker's mind, over and over again.

They had grown up together like brothers. They had played together, worked together, and fought together.

But now Jimmy O'Neil, the big, blustering Irishman, was gone.

Dead
.

Death had stolen Hawker's whole family. His mother, his sisters, his father … and now his best friend. The knowledge that he was totally and completely alone in the world settled on Hawker like a cloud. And now Megan Parnell was telling him to stay out of the fight. To run from the one thing that James Hawker knew better than any other: death.

“I was a cop for a long time, Megan,” he said simply. “I know what I'm getting into.”

She took her hand from his neck and folded it in her lap. She looked small sitting beside him, with the streetlights flashing by, lighting her face like soft strobe lights as they drove. Hawker felt something akin to pain every time her perfect face was illuminated. It was like no feeling he had ever experienced before.

Maybe it was that silly phenomenon Hawker no longer believed in: love at first sight.

If it wasn't, it was a damn painful facsimile.

“But, James,” she insisted. “Wouldn't it be better if the dealings with Bas Gan Sagart were left to someone unknown to the local authorities? Someone who isn't even known to be in this country? Someone who has a whole chain of underground sources to help them, hide them, then aid in their escape when the job is finished.”

“Meaning you.”

“That's why I was sent here, James. That's what I've prepared for.” Her tone grew stern. “For the last eight years, my life has been the Irish Republican Army. When my husband and child were murdered, any normal life I might have had died with them. The cause means everything to me, James. The day
will
come when the Irish rule their own God-given land. And I will not have that grand cause blighted by the likes of these Bas Gan Sagart … bastards.”