The Storm Protocol (43 page)

‘Thanks Dave,’ said Eoin.

It was all starting to hang together.

He hung up without saying goodbye. He busied himself with the process of typing and documenting, not sitting back until the small bundle of documentation he had created was winging its way across the ether.

He had a feeling somebody was playing games with him. After the cryptic conversation
of the last day or so, he had been utterly certain he would find the Bullock somewhere in the paper trail, but knowing it and confirming it were two different things.

He was not sure how he felt about it now.
It just made no sense to Eoin. Someone was using him for their own selfish reasons, and Eoin did not like it one little bit.

He also felt seriously conflicted. If the Bullock had thought enough about Storm to invest, then it was adding to his own growing confidence in Storm as a commercial opportunity.

Regardless of how David McCabe felt about him as a person, Eoin trusted his professional judgement implicitly. You didn’t get as big as David; grow the business as fast as he had, without having a keen sense of what made money and what didn’t. But more galling even than that, was that David had got in ahead of him. If it was the last thing he did, Eoin would make sure the Bullock did not profit a single penny from the investment.

The strident ringing of his mobile made him jump. This time though, when he checked the number, he recognised immediately who it was. He always added them to his phone, and he couldn’t help but smile at the
Tandoori stranger
that was flashing back at him from the LCD display.

‘Hello Eoin,’ said the familiar voice.

‘I had a feeling it wouldn't be long before I heard from you again,’ said Black Swan.

‘So what's your verdict?’ asked the stranger.

‘Does it matter?’ asked Eoin in return. ‘I thought you didn’t care what I did, one way or the other?’

‘Well, it turns out that I do
,’ said the stranger. ‘I’m interested to find out what your answer is?’

‘I’m afraid the answer is no
ne of your business,’ answered Eoin.

‘
You gave me the impression that it most definitely was
your
business last night,’ said the stranger.

‘I don’t like
playing second fiddle to anyone. I won't play second fiddle to one particular party, and you know exactly who I’m talking about. I also intensely resent being played for an idiot.’

‘That’s what you think I am
doing, is it?’ asked the stranger.

‘You
definitely are,’ replied Eoin. ‘I do have above average intelligence, so give me some credit.’

‘And nothing I can say will convince you to get involved?’

‘Who said I’m not going to get involved. It’s merely your motivation for providing me with the information that I’m beginning to doubt.’

‘
I told you my motivation. I’m not playing games here. What makes you think I am?’ asked the stranger.

‘I refer to the aforementioned above-average intelligence,’ said Eoin.

It was then that he realised the call had been terminated. He smiled; he didn't care. If someone wanted to play games with him, he was an exceptionally good player and he didn’t like losing.

22
nd
May 2011 – Twelve days after the Storm.

The great tragedy of science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. – Thomas Henry Huxley.

‘I don’t know what I’d do without the smart phone at this stage,’ said Dale. ‘You can get your e-mail and internet, literally at the touch of a button.’

‘Yeah, it’s great,’ echoed
Roussel. ‘Everything is pretty much instant these days, isn’t it?’

He had barely got the words out, when there was an a
lmost simultaneous symphony of e-mail alert tones.

‘You go first,’ said Da
le. ‘Given that your contact is local, they're much more likely to have found out something relevant.’

I watched Dale watching Roussel in the rear view mirror, his face a study in concentration. Roussel was shaking his head slightly and frowning, and as he glanced up at me
, I could tell he was disappointed.

‘James had another scan through all their manual files and also took one last trawl through all of their online systems,’
he said. ‘Unfortunately, he didn't manage to unearth anything new. As far as the records are concerned, Richard O'Neill doesn't exist and never existed; certainly the one that was purported to be married to your mother, anyway. To the extent that he can confirm it, James has not managed to unearth any known surviving relatives on your mother’s side of the family. However, the department have a genealogical investigator on a retainer. They have offered to engage them if I think it is sufficiently relevant to the case. I told them that I thought it was.’

‘That’s positive then, isn’t it?’ I stated hopefully.

Roussel smiled grimly.

‘The investigators are not quick, according to James. Most of the relevant records, especially in Ireland, are manual and generally geographically disparate; nothing really useable there.’

He sighed.

‘It was a long shot,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

I turned to Foster.

‘So that leaves you, Dale. Did you get anything interesting?’

Foster was so engrossed in what he was reading, that he didn't hear the question.

‘What about you, Dale?’ I asked again, this time a little louder.

He looked up in surprise.

‘Did you get anything?’

His expression clouded a little.

‘
I got something,’ he said distractedly, as he tried to focus on the information.

‘So what did you get?’ I asked, my excitement slowly starting to build.

‘Come on man, spit it out,’ said Roussel eagerly.

‘Not so fast,’ he said. ‘Let me go through this me
thodically. I think it will make a lot more sense to everybody if I understand it myself first. I’m not saying any of this information is relevant to our search, but at least it’s another potential avenue to explore.’

He composed himself and scr
olled back to the start of the e-mail.

‘So you remember my pa
rtner and my boss had a conversation with the director of the CIA? Well....’

He paused for effect.

‘....because of the importance the CIA has attached to this investigation, they’ve given my partner access to the restricted federal databases; the ones that were previously off-line to both me and Roussel.’

He looked up at me then
, with a smile on his face.

‘Apparently
, in your early days, they were none too sure about your political leanings. They knew the Mancini's were apolitical, but this was the early nineties and Northern Ireland was heading towards the first IRA ceasefire. All federal agencies had been put on heightened alert for any suspected Irish republican involvement or activity.’

‘So what does all that mean exactly?’ I asked. ‘I have a file in Langley?’

‘It means that both you and your background were subjected to a much more rigorous security check than they might otherwise have been, purely because you were Irish. There’s a catalogue of all your suspected crimes, as there is in the regular FBI database. The information is much more detailed however, and you'll be pleased to learn that you were deemed neutral in respect to possible republican terrorist activity or involvement.’

‘Good to know,’ I said with a grin.

‘They also focused on any major ties you had or would have had with folks back in Ireland. For you, that was limited to just two people.’

I hazarded a guess.

‘My mum and Kathleen Murphy.’

Dale nodded.

‘They zeroed in on Kathleen first,’ he said. ‘I think primarily because she was a contemporary of yours. You met when you were both very young, so more likely to be radical and revolutionary. She was around the same age as you, and from the same generation, so much more likely to have and hold the same political ideals. But she was very quickly disregarded.’

‘How so?’
I asked.

‘She seems to have got married very quickly after you left for America,’ said Dale. ‘About six months to be precise.’

Funny that she never mentioned the timeframe to me, I thought. And then I realised she had been hinting at it, especially towards the end of our conversation.

‘She had two kids in very quick succession
, too.’

The first sentence had thrown me slightly, but this one really hit me with a jolt. She
’d definitely never mentioned that. I didn’t know why it bothered me so much, but it did.

‘Two boys; both of them would be in their twenties by now. Her husband is a schoolteacher, maths if you're interested, plays Gaelic football, fanatical GAA supporter.’

The way he pronounced GAA sounded funny, maybe because he wasn’t Irish; he was reading the text straight from the screen without any context.

‘They were deeme
d to be very patriotic, but not republican; certainly not in the standard security risk interpretation of republican that is.’

I nodded.

‘So that leaves my mother,’ I said.

‘So that leaves your mother,’ echoed Dale. ‘You’ll know most of this already
, but bear with me. It gets better.’

He read steadily down the page.

‘She was born in Cork City, the oldest of five children.’

I looked at him with a puzzled expression.

‘Don’t you mean four?’ I said.

‘The eldest of five,’ he repeated. ‘There were two girls and two boys, plus your mother of course.’

‘One girl and two boys,’ I said, getting annoyed.

‘James O’Neill, the eldest boy,’ continued Dale, ‘died as a result of injuries sustained in a dockyard accident when your mother was about twenty two.’

I nodded.

‘Yep, I remember that story well,’ I said.

‘John, the youngest boy, died about ten years ago. He was a heavy smoker, who finally succumbed to lung cancer after years of battling with emphysema.’

‘I sent a mass card,’ I said, and then noticed both their expressions. ‘I was busy. Give me a break, I barely knew the guy.’

I paused, affronted.

‘Go on,’ I
said eventually.

‘Catherine died about five years ago. She’d permane
ntly moved to Australia in the Sixties, around the time her brother died. She’d already married her late husband in Ireland, and they’d gone off to make a new life for themselves.’

‘A lot of people did in the Sixties,’ I responded
. ‘I sent a mass card for that funeral too.’

I said it as though I had to justify myself. I ignored their expressions.

‘Which just leaves Joan unaccounted for,’ said Dale.

‘Who the hell is Joan?’ I asked.

‘Joan is your aunt. The one that is currently alive and well and living in Rosscarbery,’ said Dale.

#

‘Do you think this is a good idea?’ asked Roussel.

I
’d spun the car savagely around, and was busy setting the Sat Nav for Rosscarbery.

‘I haven’t gone soft in the head
, if that’s what you mean,’ I said, concentrating on the road. ‘But this could give us some answers.’

‘And it might not,’ said Roussel. ‘They may have been estranged; they may not have been in contact for years.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ I said. ‘But at this stage, aside from everything else, I just have to know.’

Roussel shrugged. There was nothing more he could say.

‘The one thing we do have in our favour, or we should have if we’re lucky, is that she never married,’ stated Dale. ‘So unless she changed her surname for other reasons, she should be easy enough to find.’

‘What other reasons?’ I asked
.

‘I don't know,’ snapped
Dale. ‘It’s your country, you tell me. Seems a lot of strange things happened in the past when it came to families. I’m just trying to be upbeat about it.’

‘You’re right, there is only one,’ interrupted Roussel.

He’d looked her up in the online phone book as Dale and I had been talking. He extended his phone forward and I typed the address with one eye on the Sat Nav, while trying to keep the other eye on the road in front. It was a hairy few minutes.

As it recalibrated the journey; one which would lead us straight to the Aunt that I never knew existed, it prompted a new train of thought. If I was not aware of her, did she know anything about me? Roussel had raised a valid point; they could have been estranged for years, in which case I would be a stranger. At least it would put us on an equal footing. We would be equitable; both equally lost.

‘So was she the older or younger of my mother’s sisters?’ I asked Dale, more for something to say than through genuine interest.

The answer surprised me.

‘She was the youngest of all the children, not just the girls,’ he said, ‘and quite considerably younger than the others. In fact she is not that much older than you. Ten, maybe fifteen years max.’

We journeyed the rest of the way in silence. I knew what they were thinking and I didn’t blame them. I wasn't being entirely dishonest with them. I truly did believe that following this lead could possibly assist in our investigations, but there was that very small part of me, the tiny frightened boy with no family, that was desperate to seize on any connection, no matter how tenuous.

As we neared our destination, I was glad that the Hertz rep had persuaded me to part with the extra cash for the Sat Nav. Like a lot of small provincial towns, Rosscarbery was the name for the town-land as well as the town itself. We traversed the main street, such as it was, and were directed out through the other side. We turned right down a typical country lane and were brought to a stop outside a plain whitewashed bungalow. It was set back a bit from the road, probably on at least an acre. The gates across the driveway were closed, so we couldn’t pull in. I told the other two to wait.

As I approached the path to the front door of the house, I noticed a woman working in the garden. She was humming softly and tunefully. A small Jack Russell terrier was running around the lawn and into the flower beds. Every minute or so he would dash back to her, prompting a peal of laughter, soft and melodic
, like water flowing through a mountain stream, until she threw his ball and sent him on his way again.

I raised the latch on the wrought iron gate and pushed it gently inwards. The rusty hinges protested as it swung towards the house. She stood up
, as I eased myself through the small opening. The sun was well and truly out and she had to hood her eyes with her hand to shield them from the glare. She moved onto the path as I approached.

Suddenly the sun disappeared behind the fast moving clouds. She saw my face clearly for the first time
, and her hand flew to her mouth and her face drained of colour.

‘I knew this day would come,’ she said, in the same soft melodic tone.

It reminded me very much of my mother. I looked at her with a puzzled expression.

‘You’re Mary’s boy,’ she said.

It was not a question.

She turned and wordlessly headed for the open front door. She turned in the doorway. I stood stock still as she beckoned me impatiently inside. I turned to my companions.

‘Stay there,’ I mouthed, and then headed down the path to join her.

In the hallway, I heard the unmistakeable clinking of someone busy in the kitchen.

‘Head into the sitting room, Thomas,’ she shouted, anticipating my indecision. ‘It’s the first door on your left.’

She knew my name. It was a start at least.

I opened the door into a typical rural front room. They were generally only used for special occasions; birthdays, religious holidays and of course Christmas. The kitchen was the living beating heart of most Irish rural houses.

Instead of sitting, I gravitated to the sideboard
, where there were a large collection of photographs on display. They were mostly old and black-and-white. Of the ones I recognised, it was generally the locations; very few of the people. There was one photo which appeared to take pride of place, right in the heart of the shelving unit. It was the largest and it was the centrepiece, a group photograph. I recognised my mother, she must have been about twenty, and yes there were two guys and two other girls in the frame; all smiling and laughing.