The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising (35 page)

91

E
oin burst into the Crow Street office and blurted out, “Vinny and I just had a close call!”

“Come on,” says Tobin, in a rush, “We’re going to have a close call if we don’t meet Mick over at the Stag’s Head, pronto.”

The two of them charged across Dame Street and ran up the alley to the Stag’s Head, racing upstairs to the private parlor. Collins was there with Daly and Mulcahy, and he was in a piss-ugly mood. “About time!” he snapped at the two of them. “As you know, Tomás MacCurtain, the Lord Mayor of Cork City, was murdered in front of his wife and child four days ago by a gang of intruders.” Collins continued pacing as he spoke. “Now, we’ve come to expect this type of thing from the British, but there’s something different here. We don’t know if it was the RIC or some auxiliary branch that did the actual murders. Also, the British are circulating rumors to the loyalist press that Tomás was done in by his fellow Fenians. As evidence, the Crown has produced forged threatening letters to poor Tomás. The letters were written on
Dáil
stationery.”

“Where the hell did they get that?” asked Tobin.

“They could have gotten it in a raid,” said Collins. “Christ, there’re boxes of
Dáil
stationery in our two buildings in Harcourt Street.”

“Diabolical,” added Daly.

“I feel so bad about poor Tomás,” said Collins. “We became good friends when we were doing time in Frongoch together. It’s our duty to keep the pressure up.”

“We have reports,” added Tobin, “that the new RIC Auxiliaries have begun arriving in the country. Maybe it was those boyos who did MacCurtain in.”

“And I have reports from Limerick City,” said Mulcahy, “that some Crown ruffians shot up the city centre the last couple of nights.”

“What’s so special about British troops shooting up some Irish city?” asked Collins.

“These blackguards,” replied Mulcahy, “weren’t regular British army. They weren’t wearing regular British army uniforms. They were ragtag. Tunics didn’t match trousers, or vice versa.”

“This is not our day,” said Collins, pensively.

Collins looked like he was getting depressed, and Eoin knew it was time to pump a little bravado into the Corkman. “Have you gone over those British tax figures I got for you?” he asked Collins.

Fire shot into Collins’s eyes, and he roared, “The fookin’, thievin’ hoors! Do you know how many pounds the British have taken out of this island since the Act of Union went into effect in 1801? Over four hundred million fookin’ pounds!”

“Jaysus,” breathed Mulcahy. “that’s almost half-a-billion pounds!”

“A half-billion pounds,” emphasized Collins, “from one of the poorest fookin’ countries in the fookin’ British Empire.”

“It’s financial rape!” added Daly.

“This is not rape,” said the Minister for Finance, “this is sodomy—the out-and-out buggery of the Irish nation!” Eoin looked at Collins and suppressed a smile. “Speaking of buggers,” said Collins, without missing a beat, “what’s the situation with Magistrate Bell?”

“We’re ready to go,” Daly said. “We’ve been tagging him all week. Friday morning will be the day, if you give the go-ahead.”

“You have my permission,” said Collins, standing up. He was about to go out the door when he stopped and turned around. “Don’t disappoint me,” he warned. “Ring up Bell so loud that the sound will reverberate all the way to Dublin Castle.”

92

F
riday, March 26, 1920, dawned bright with the promise of a beautiful early spring day. Magistrate First Class Alan Bell came out of his house in Monkstown and went in search of the tram that would take him to the city centre. As he waited with the other commuters, he didn’t notice Eoin Kavanagh waiting with him or Charlie Dalton sitting on his bicycle across the road. When the tram came along, Bell got on, as did Eoin, who immediately went upstairs and took a seat in the rear of the open-top. Dalton jumped on his bike and pedaled ahead of the tram, bringing the news, two stops forward. “He’s on the next tram,” Dalton confirmed to Daly, McDonnell, Byrne, and Tom Keogh.

As the tram pushed along Simmonscourt Road in Ballsbridge, Eoin got up and disconnected it from its electrical line. Down below, the primary Squad team entered the cab and sought out Bell. He was sitting between two women, wheezing and coughing away from a spring cold. “Come on, Mr. Bell,” Daily announced. “Your time has come.” Daly and McDonnell grabbed Bell by each of his arms and pulled.

“No, no,” said Bell. “You’ve got the wrong man! The wrong man!” Bell, with a strength that belied his years, pulled himself free from McDonnell’s grasp, grabbed a pole, and held on, literally, for dear life.

“Come on, ya shite,” said Vinny Byrne, as he slammed Bell on the arm with his Mauser. Bell let go of the pole, and Daly and McDonnell pulled him, shoulders first, out into the road. Then Bell began kicking like a showhall chorus girl. He would not go quietly.

“Look what they’re doing to the poor ould man,” exclaimed one of the female passengers who had been sitting next to Bell. “Well, come on!” she told the other passengers in the cab. “It’s our moral duty to help the poor man!”

Eoin came down the back stairs of the tram, his Webley in hand. Two women and a man were about to go to the rescue of Alan Bell. Eoin held the gun out in front of him, easy for all to see. It was important for them to see the gun, because then they always remembered the weapon, not the face of the man holding it. “Mind your own bloody business!” Eoin snapped. “Sit down, or you’ll need coppers for your eyes!” The rescue party moved tentatively backward. Joe Leonard, gun in plain sight, hopped on the tram and shouted, “Move! Now!” The three shrunk back into their seats. “God bless us, save us!” intoned the man as he made the Sign of the Cross and then blessed himself again to be sure.

Bell was still fraying about, trying to kick his abductors. Byrne had had enough. He took one shot and hit Bell right in the bollocks, blood flooding onto the street. Bell screamed and hopped about as he grabbed his groin with both hands. “You castrated me!” he screamed.

“That’s the least of your problems,” Daly said, as he shot him in the chest, which drove Bell to the ground. McDonnell came from behind, stuck his Colt under Bell’s chin, and pulled the trigger, the bullet exploding out of the top of Bell’s head. Keogh made sure he was dead with one more head-shot.

“Let’s go!” shouted Daly to both teams. The two teams, eight in all, started run-walking back to the city centre. Here they were, out in the open, with no means of escape except their legs.

“Break up,” said McDonnell to the men. “Go your separate ways. Scoot!”

Eoin found himself on a solitary walk back to the city, moving as fast as he could, trying not to draw suspicion to himself. As he got closer to the Grand Canal, he saw ambulances coming from St. Vincent’s Hospital, charging out Ballsbridge way. Then the Crossley tenders came bolting from the city, full of Tommies.

Eoin felt bad that he’d had to shout at the passengers to keep them in line, but there was no other way. He smiled as he thought of the man blessing himself, which he knew would surely amuse Róisín. But mostly he was surprised how innocuous-looking Alan Bell had been. Here was a man who had been gumming up the works of the Fenians for over forty years, and he could have passed for an ordinary haberdashery clerk. But he was anything but ordinary. His man Jameson had gotten close to Collins, and Bell himself had sniffed out the National Loan. But Eoin was surprised at the fuss Bell made at the end. He had been expecting the famous British “stiff upper lip,” but the little man only displayed sheer panic. And Eoin was surprised with himself—surprised that he had taken such keen satisfaction when Vinny gelded Bell, causing a bloody mess. Eoin smiled as he crossed the Grand Canal into the city, for he knew that Alan Bell’s Spotted Dick would be on the menu that night at Dublin Castle.

93

B
oynton was showing Gough-Coxe what he had found out about Eoin Kavanagh. They were going over Eoin’s arrest card from Easter Week. The fingerprints were still pristine. “Where are the mug shots?” the Sheik asked.

“No mug shots,” replied Boynton. “Things were so rushed and chaotic that week that few, if any, of the rebels were photographed.”

“Bloody bad luck,” Gough-Coxe sighed.

Broy had left his office in Brunswick Street and walked the several blocks to Nassau Street, where he would pick Alan Bell up near Grafton Street. Bell was usually on the nine o’clock tram, and then the two of them would walk over to Dublin Castle, via Dame Lane, favored by both the British and the rebels because of its anonymity. But there was no number-eight tram from Dalkey this morning. After waiting half an hour, Broy discovered that there were no number-eight trams coming through at all. Then it hit him. This must have been Magistrate Bell’s morning. Collins purposely didn’t tell Broy and Boynton what he was up to. Collins kept to his own time schedule; everybody else adjusted. Broy was suddenly filled with joy—and fear. He realized that he would be the one bringing the bad news to the Sheik up at the Castle.

“What we need is a photograph of this boy,” Gough-Coxe said.

What you need
, thought Boynton
, is a photograph of bloody Michael Collins
.

Just then, Broy busted in the door. He was in a huff. Gough-Coxe took one look and said, “Where’s Magistrate Bell?”

“There are no number-eight trams this morning,” Broy said, breathless. “Something must have happened.”

Gough-Coxe stood up and began pacing. Not a word was spoken between the three men. The Sheik picked up the receiver on his telephone and then replaced it with a sigh. There was really no one to call. He would just have to wait.

He didn’t have to wait long. The phone soon rang. “Yes,” he answered and listened for a moment. “Thank you,” he replied, as he slowly replaced the receiver into its cradle. He looked up at the two G-men. “Alan Bell was murdered this morning out in Ballsbridge. He was pulled off the tram by fifteen or twenty men and murdered in the street.” After pausing for a few seconds, he added, “This is a disaster for us. First Jameson, then his handler Bell.”

Boynton held up Eoin’s fingerprint card from Richmond Barracks. “About young Kavanagh,” he said.

“Fuck young Kavanagh!” snapped Gough-Coxe. “We don’t have time to dance around Dublin looking for some kid who may or may not know where Michael Collins is. We are in a very precarious situation here. We are at the tipping point. London has no clue how bad the situation is here. We need more help. The Auxiliaries are arriving, but we need more. We need intelligence help. This Collins is not your typical Fenian—he’s
good
at what he does!”

Gough-Coxe called his secretary into the room. “Get me a reservation on the mail boat this evening. I have to travel to London to straighten this mess out.”

Boynton slid Eoin Kavanagh’s fingerprint card back into its folder. Collins had been right about Bell’s demise. Young Kavanagh wasn’t important to the Sheik anymore. What
was
important was Michael Collins—and
only
Michael Collins. And Gough-Coxe knew that he would never catch Collins using only the G-division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. He had to convince London that it was now time to bring in the cream of the British Secret Service from throughout the empire. He hated to admit it, but the Cork farm boy was more than he could handle.