The Storm Protocol (12 page)

Dale held out his hand as he got back up and shook Ryan’s warmly.

‘Take care of yourself man,’ he said.

He dropped a fifty dollar note on the table.

‘And have yourself a beer on me at the weekend, you hear me?’

‘Thanks, Agent Foster,’ said Ryan. ‘And you look after yourself too. These connected people; these made guys. They are not nice fellas, if you get my drift.’

Dale left the bar quickly. He walked over to his car, his mind in turmoil. James and his story of big things; he would have discounted it without hesitation, but Ryan's corroboration changed the game completely. And the use of the word
Storm
; it was way too much of a co-incidence to be a co-incidence. Something big was definitely being planned. Now he just had to work out what it was.

He looked at his watch. It was six am. Who needs sleep at all? He jumped into his car and headed back across town.

When he got back to the office, he changed into his emergency shirt; the new one he always kept in the bottom drawer. He pulled all the records related to drug misdemeanours for the previous two weeks.

Within five minutes
, he had a stack about a foot high on his desk. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, or even if he was looking for the right thing. As the minutes ticked past, the stack of processed files grew bigger, but he was none the wiser.

Then, just as he was about to throw in the towel, he saw the single lonely word he was looking for
, scrawled in barely legible handwriting;
Storm
.

12
th
May 2011 – Two days after the Storm.

No prudent antagonist thinks light of his adversaries. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.

Dave Keegan was an exceptionally observant man. He had joined the Irish defence forces when he was just eighteen years old. His adventurous spirit had refused to contemplate a life stacking shelves in the local supermarket; much more of a wild goose, than a contented farmyard rooster.

The Irish were amongst the most well-known and well respected of the UN peacekeeping forces and Dave had learnt very quickly that being observant saves your life.
He had spent twenty years as a peacekeeper; twenty years wearing the light blue beret in war-torn dictatorships; twenty years of slow boring routines, punctuated by intense periods of adrenaline fuelled action.

He
was decommissioned out of the army at thirty eight years old; an exceptionally young age to be drawing a pension. When he’d moved back to Cork, he couldn't settle. The army had given him a purpose. Boring though it was most of the time, the army had given him a routine; a reason to get up in the morning. Most of all though, he missed the camaraderie, and strangely enough, he missed the action too. Even though it had been hazardous at best and downright dangerous at worst, he had to admit it to himself; he missed the thrills.

He wasn't religious and he was pretty ambivalent when it came to morality, so as the legitimate employment opportunities dried up, and he ended up
on the social
, he found himself increasingly drawn to the seedier side of Cork city; the distasteful and disturbing underbelly.

He had been standing alone in the line for the nightclub
, when his life had changed forever. An indiscriminate punch, thrown by a drunk in the general direction of his not particularly attractive girlfriend, had inadvertently hit Dave on the side of the head. It had not particularly hurt; more of a sting really, but it had triggered a deeply buried and suppressed reaction. Without him even realising it was happening, twenty years of rigorous self defence training kicked in.

Before Dave knew it, the guy was on his back on the floor and Dave’s fist was raised to strike. He blinked and smiled; it had been a year since he had felt so invigorated. The bouncers quickly intervened and as he was led away
, he heard an affronted scream.

‘That guy
’s a fucking nut job!’

Dave didn't object or put up any resistance; he had learned years ago to never needlessly provoke. And anyway, he thought wryly, at least he was getting into the club for free.

He was led down a darkened corridor and up two flights of stairs, and that was when he found himself face-to-face with his destiny; the man they called
Black Swan
.

The office was dark. The two bouncers brought him to the centre of the room. One kept a grip on his arm
, while the other leaned across the expanse of mahogany and whispered something into the shadows. Both men then assumed positions on either side of the room. The man seated at the desk leaned forward. He was dressed head to toe in black Armani. Dave guessed his age at around forty five; slightly older than himself.

‘Anto says you were causing a disturbance outside,’ said the man distinctly.

Dave couldn’t place the accent; not yet at least.

‘I w
as just minding my own business, when some idiot in front of me started swinging his fists,’ responded Dave indignantly. ‘He tried to hit a girl.’

He
highlighted the word
girl
in his distinctive Cork lilt.

‘I don’t like fighting outside my club,’ said the man, ignoring the remark. ‘It brings down the tone of the place. I’m trying to cultivate a high class clientele. I don’t need this kind of shit.’

With that, the man imperceptibly nodded and sat back in his seat; like he was an observer or part of an audience.

Dave had been waiting for them to make a move on him
; since he had been escorted into the office, in fact. As the roundhouse came at him, he blocked it high and countered with a palm strike to the man’s temple. He managed to get a huge amount of rotation and speed into the hit, and it dropped the bouncer like a sack of potatoes.

He whirled to face the other man, who was watching open mouthed. He held his hands up as he had been taught, and kept unblinking eye contact with the second bodyguard. As he suspected, the confused and bewildered bouncer looked toward the man behind the desk for some direction; he was ushered out with an impatient wave of a beautifully manicured hand.

The man behind the desk leaned forward again and regarded Dave with a kind of bemused indifference.

‘So
, you know how to look after yourself, anyway,’ he said quietly, and with a slight tinge of annoyance.

‘In fairness, he did attack me,’ replied
Dave with a smile. ‘And anyway, wasn’t that the point of this charade; see how the local gombeen reacts to some aggression?’

A groaning sound started to emanate from the prone bodyguard. Dave was secretly relieved; it had been a long time since his skills had been called into use, and a palm strike to the temple could kill. He helped the bouncer up and sat him in one of the chairs
, as he started to come around.

‘You’re a cool customer, I’ll give you that,’ said the man behind the desk, ignoring the previous comment.

‘Thank you,’ said Dave. ‘I'll take that as a compliment.’

‘Can you drive?’ asked the man suddenly, the turn in the conversation taking Dave completely by surprise.

‘That's an unusual question in this day and age,’ said Dave. ‘I thought everyone could drive?’

‘How would you like to come and work for me?’ asked the man, ignoring his response.

He was the sort of man who drove a conversation. He was not part of the talk, he controlled it.

‘I’m looking for a driver; someone who can ferry me around
, but also somebody who can take care of himself....’

He stopped for a minute or so.

‘....and also take care of me, should the need arise. Are you interested?’

He placed huge emphasis on the word
me
.

Dave considered the question for a second.

‘What kind of work are you in?’ he asked.

The man smiled
.

‘Let’s just say, it pays for me to be discrete in all my business dealings,’ he said.

‘Is it illegal?’ asked Dave.

‘Would that bother you?’ asked the man.

Dave thought about his response for a couple of minutes. He thought about the adrenaline that was coursing through his body, the slightly raised pulse caused by the release of the endorphins, the natural high that combat and danger always released. He hadn’t felt as alive in months.

‘No, I don't believe it would,’ he said, a slow smile spreading over his face.

Dave dragged his attention back to the present. His eyes scanned the road, taking everything in. He hated this place and what it stood for.

With the army, he had visited many war-torn countries; the Lebanon, Liberia, Chad, Somalia.
He had witnessed the devastation of war; buildings levelled by high explosives, half destroyed houses, vandalism and looting on a widespread scale. He had seen the destruction that war could wage on innocent civilian populations; poor dirt farmers and fishermen. He had seen at first-hand the annihilation of communities to further the selfish aims of despotic dictators. But those had been developing economies; so called third world countries. This was first world. This was the supposedly developed and civilised west.

He looked at the row upon row of burnt out houses. Homes boarded up against vandalism and arson, some with half inch steel plate to protect the windows.
The scorched and twisted wreckage of cars littered every intersection, and rubble and garbage were strewn across the streets like confetti at a wedding.

It was easy to see how the
boss made money; how his business flourished. These communities were decimated; where hope was nothing more than a different name for drugs, and the worst of it was, he had no sympathy for them. The kids were out of control; parents caring more for how much booze their social welfare would buy on a Thursday night, than where their children were and what they were doing.

Society had well and truly broken down, apparently because there was nothing for the kids to do. Dave spat forcefully out of the windo
w. Try growing up on a farm in West Cork, scratching a living from a few meagre acres. Bring back National service; that would give them something to do. He hadn’t done so badly out of the army life, and if there was anything he was afraid of, it certainly wasn’t hard work.

He looked around the interior of the car; his opulent surroundings couldn’t have been in starker contrast to the devastation outside. He was in a black Mercedes CLK 500, an extremely luxurious car even at the base model. But this one wasn't exactly as it had left the factory. A month in Saudi Arabia getting some bespoke modifications meant it could withstand an assault from anything up to and including anti-tank rounds. His boss had shrugged at the added expense.

‘Goes with the territory,’ he’d said levelly.

The first time he'd heard it, Dave thought Black Swan was a very odd name for a drug boss, or for any crime boss. Surely, your nickname was supposed to strike terror into the hearts of your opponents, not conjure up images of Hans Christian Andersson fairy tales. But the more he worked with his boss, the more he realised what an apt description it really was. For a start, his boss wore only black. Not just any old dark colours, but always Armani black, nothing else. His shoes were handmade Italian leather, imported from Turin, again only black.

In almost two years of working closely with him, Dave had never seen his boss lose his temper. Even in the most stressful of situations, he exuded a calm professionalism. He had a deep serenity like a swan, combined with an exceptional work ethic; peaceful and composed above the water, with legs going like the clappers under the surface.

The
part that no one ever saw was the internal conflict. The only signs that gave him away to people who really knew him were his eyes. The Japanese called them the
windows to the soul
. Whatever they were called, if you caught sight of the glint, you didn’t argue. They became empty and expressionless; showing no emotions of any kind really, just a black nothingness.

He glanced up at the rear view mirror. His boss was engrossed in paperwork. Meticulous and fastidious were the only words you could use to describe his attitude to book keeping and accounting.

‘Dave,’ he’d said once. ‘Just because what we do is illegal, it doesn’t mean we don’t treat it like any other business. I’ve got suppliers, I’ve got demand, I’ve got profit and loss and I’ve got staff cost. In fact, I’ve got the same challenges as any other business. But do you want to know the difference between me and all the little get rich quick gangsters? Those disrespectful punks, who think they can make a few bob? I’ll tell you; the difference is that I can account for every penny I make, every single red cent. That is the differentiator and that is why I am top dog.’

Dave’s phone rang. It was
the ride of the valkyries
.

Da dan da
da da da dan da da da da dan da da da da dan da da da.

He smiled secretly to himself; he’d
always loved Apocalypse Now, especially the Robert Duvall character.

‘Yes,’ he answered.

‘The eagle has landed,’ said a tinny, disembodied voice.