Diamond Rain: Adventure Science Fiction Mossad Thriller (The Spy Stories and Tales of Intrigue Series Book 2) (3 page)

Chapter Two

Bullies
Everywhere

“You can’t just turn it on and off, Mary, Sweet. 
It’s an undying obligation,” said Thomas’ da.

Thomas’ mother bore
existence with gritted teeth.  Too often the men close to her threw it all away
in the name of The Movement.

I’m sick to death of
the bloody Movement,
she
thought.

She clenched and
unclenched her hands under the table.  She’d prepared piping hot cabbage in an
aromatic milky sauce to soften her man up.

“You know how I love
this meal.  I don’t know how you do it, Mary. Always providing like you do on
what I bring home, my treasure.”

“We’ve
somet’ing
to
talk about dear,” said Mary.

“Son, why don’t you go
in the other room and turn on the
telly
.  Isn’t that program you like on
now?”

“Thanks Da.”

“I want him to hear what
we have to say.”

“Ah, Ma.”

“Do as your mother
says, son.”

“It’s getting too
dangerous out there.  I don’t want you going to the rally tomorrow.  What if
something happens?”

“I can take care of
myself, Secret of my Heart.  Don’t go worrying yourself over nothing.”

“Pa,” said Mary.  “You’re
not listening to me.  You’re starting to be a bad influence on the lad.”

Thomas’ da put down his
fork and took in a deep breath.  A pained sigh escaped from his mouth without
his knowing, a habit that Mary’d remarked on more and more often recently.  He
knew Mary was serious.

“Don’t go using your
guilt trips on me, Mary.  I’m no coward.  We’re in this fight for the long
haul.  I understand your fears, but I have to go or I’d be a traitor to the
cause.  Don’t use the boy against me.”

“My father got out and
he’s surviving in the south.  We could too.”

“Don’t compare me to
that useless ‘
feck
’.  He’s lucky he’s got his kneecaps after what he
did.  I’m a man of my word.”

“Man of your word? 
Thomas, you hear your da.  I don’t ever want to hear you say that.  Your word’s
not going to help us if something happens to you.”

“Pass the salt, would
you Thomas?”

Thomas reached for the
salt shaker and gave it to his father. 
What’s Ma talking about?  What’s
gonna happen to Da?
A mixed jumble of emotions filled Thomas’ bowed head. 
His parents never argued and it frightened him to hear them disagreeing.  Mary
started to speak, but Thomas’s father raised his hand and shook his head while
his eyes stared at Thomas’ lowered head. 
I want to be like Da, but I don’t
want to go against Ma.  I don’t know what to do.

The next morning before the
inevitable street battle started, Thomas took his turn sliding down the hood of
a burned out vehicle with his friends in the Bogside of Derry.  He caught sight
of his da and stopped rough housing to watch what was happening.

A group of men, carrying bricks
taken from a construction site, started shouting “Free Derry.”  Thomas’s father
threw a brick that knocked a British soldier down and started a riot.  Bedlam
ensued.  Rubber bullets chipped pieces of buildings as more and more people
joined the brawl.  Thomas knelt by the burned out vehicle, unable to move. 
Through a haze of tear gas and tears, he watched as a soldier frog marched his
da away. 
I have to help him. I have to help him. 
After this day,
paralysis in the face of fear would curse Thomas for years to come. His eyes
stung and tears filled with tear gas streamed down his cheeks.  Only when he
calmed down and a soldier bent over him to ask if he was hurt did he notice the
puddle of urine he was kneeling in. 
I let him down and I pissed myself
too.  Da, I wanted to help, honest.

“You took my da. My da,” blurted
Thomas, spittle escaping his mouth.

The soldier stood up and shook his
head. 
I’ll never understand it here,
he thought, as he backed away, one
finger on the safety.

Ashamed, Thomas made his way
home.  His mother was waiting for him in the doorway.  She took one look at him
and knew the worst. She saw Thomas grinding his teeth and rocking back and
forth.  Holding Thomas close, she took him inside.

“There, there, but I told you not
to get involved with your pa’s politics.  You’ll come to nothing if you do. 
Believe you me.  You were there, weren’t you?  Imagine a lad of your age doing
this to himself in public.  Anyway, get out of those clothes and into the tub. 
I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

Thomas followed his mother into
the kitchen.  She was boiling some water in a large kettle and she filled a
great bucket from the cold faucet.

“In you go. It’ll make a man of
you,” she said to Thomas as he stood naked beside the cauldron of cold water on
the kitchen floor.  He climbed in and shivered, but the water washed off the
stink and the stigma at the same time.

“Thanks Ma, for not being too mad
at me about the pants.”

“Now what happened down there
today?”

“Sit, Ma.”

“For a six year old you’re a
serious one.  I’ll sit when I get some warm water in that tub.”

She reached for the kettle and
turned back to face Thomas.  As she poured the scalding water, Thomas blurted
out his news.

“They got Da. They took Da.  I saw
’em marching ’im away.”

Thomas’ ma leaned back and placed
the kettle on the cooker again.  She turned to Thomas and looked deeply into
his eyes, a decision forming in her mind.

“This is no place to raise a
family.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we have to move from here. 
Thomas, you finish up with your bath.  You’ll come to no good just like him if
we stay here.  I’d best be getting to the station to see about your da.”

Thomas stood up and walked over to
the stove.  He pulled up a chair, got up onto it and picked up the kettle and
filled up the bath tub with hot water.  He climbed in and squeezed his knees to
his chest.  The heat soothed him.  After washing up, he went to his bedroom and
fell fast asleep.

****

In his sleep, he dreamed of running after his
father and jumping on the soldier who was taking him away.  He jumped into the
air and, when he landed, his da wasn’t there and he dropped onto the
cobblestones, bruising himself.  He tossed and turned so violently that he
awoke on the floor beside his bed, a bruise forming on his shin from striking a
chair leg as he fell from his bed.  He sat on the floor and rubbed his leg. 
Then he heard a low sob coming from the kitchen.  The sounds of chairs moving
and several people speaking in hushed tones made him more alert. 
Something’s
happened to Da
.

Sure enough, when he made his way
down the hallway towards the kitchen everyone stopped talking.  A tall
gentleman with a pipe, someone that Thomas recognized as one his da’s IRA
friends, chimed in as Thomas came into the room.

“There’s the lad.  Stand tall. 
You’re to take care of your ma and sister now.”

Thomas felt puzzled, not
frightened, not hurt.  He had no emotional reaction. 
Something’s happened
to Da,
he thought over and over again.  Thomas’s mother spoke up.

“Hush.  He’s only a child.  Come
here Thomas.  Your ma’ll take care of you.”  She addressed the man with the
pipe.  “You and your politics - look where it got us.  You and your kind are no
longer welcome here,” she cuddled Thomas as she pointed towards the door.  When
her guests did not move she became impatient.

“Out, I say,” she screamed.

“We’ll pass the hat at the pub
tonight.  He was a good man.  He knew what he was getting into.  Can’t you
see?  It’s why we’ve gotta be free,” said the tall man, speaking with a pipe
dangling from the side of his mouth as he made his way out.

“I’ll let myself out.  Father
Connolly’ll be by in the morning.  There’ll be a parade before the coffin and a
masked, gun salute.  You can’t stop it,” he added before closing the street
door, leading directly onto the sidewalk.

Thomas’ mother wouldn’t let Thomas
or his sister go to the funeral because of the IRA men and their gun salutes
and because she feared more trouble.  So Thomas waited.

 A week later, Thomas spoke up at
breakfast.

“I wanna go to the cemetery, Ma.”

“I can’t make myself go there,
Thomas.  Maybe your aunt will take you.  She’ll be by later today.”

“Alone, Ma. I wanna go alone.”

He wrapped up some flowers his
mother had given him and he made his way to church first, to pray.  The calm of
the church and its rituals eased his pain, crowded out ‘the troubles’.  Thomas
knelt in a pew.  The church occupied a religious site dating back to 546 A.D.,
something which always amazed him.  Thomas was soon lost in thought.

A priest genuflected in the center
aisle, cleared his throat and turned towards him.  Their eyes met for an
instant.  Father Connolly cleared his throat again and moved into the pew
behind Thomas.  Thomas ignored him.  His impatience with all forms of authority
and growing sense of isolation since his father’s death won out.  He got up,
made the sign of the cross and sidled out of the pew.

“Thomas,” said Father Connolly.

“Father.”  Thomas acknowledged him
without making eye contact.

Thomas continued walking. The
priest got out behind and followed at a distance.  Dreary overcast weather
accompanied them as they walked separated by about twenty paces.  On Palace
Street, they turned right onto Bishop Street.  When he got to the right turn on
Orchard Row, Thomas stopped and waited for the priest, upbringing overcame his
pride.

“What might I be doing for you,
Father?”

“Could I walk with you a wee bit,
my son?”

“Suit yourself, Father.  Only one
t’ing-”

“What might that be then, my son?”

“I’m not the son of any man alive,
Father, and especially not yours.”

Tears welled up into his eyes, but
not one was shed.  Thomas took control of his emotions.  “This is my problem,
father.  I need to face it alone.”

“A man after your father’s heart,
Thomas.  I’ll just accompany you to the front gate then, if that’s alright with
you?”

They walked together up Orchard
Row, then along Lecky Road to the left, Thomas’ hands pushed deep into the
pockets of a tweed jacket several sizes too big for him and rolled up at the
sleeves.

“Get to the grave and get it over
with, Thomas,” said Father Connolly as they stopped just near the entrance to
Derry City Cemetery.  The burial ground was opposite Celtic Park.

Thomas made his way to his father’s
grave.  First he saw the epitaph: ‘Died in Custody for a Free Derry’, then the
date: ‘August 13, 1969’.  Now he knew he was not going to be able to maintain
his composure.  He let the tears flow.

He swept the gravestone and placed
the flowers his mother had given him in a vase full of stale water.  He
genuflected and left abruptly, ushering in a period of emotional mourning that
would stretch into his forties.  From that day forward, Thomas gave up trying
to make sense of the jumble of voices in his head that grew louder by the day. 
I never want to be a man,
he thought.

Gangs
and the DEA Destroy Calm

Thomas’ mother stayed true to her word.  She
packed two suitcases, one for Thomas and his younger sister, Patsy, and one for
herself.  She coerced her father, a widower who’d escaped ‘the troubles’ by
moving south to Killorglin, into leaving.  Still in a state of shock, they
boarded a ferry in Dublin that made for the port of Liverpool.  There, her father
used his fishing connections to get them passage on a freighter to Boston.

At first, Thomas was
furious, but the emptiness of the Atlantic appealed to him.  Its swells bashing
into the bow of their rust-bucket freed him of the suffering he felt.  On one
occasion he awoke in his bunk in the bow of the ship in the early morning. 
They were many miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.  An unusual sound
startled Thomas from his deep slumber.  Something whacked against the bow,
echoing under Thomas’ bunk.  He slid the curtain isolating his sleeping area
from his grandfather’s bunk in their double room and he slipped into his boots,
laced them up tight and made his way to the deck.  He took his parka from a
hook on the back of the door.

The late September air
jolted him alert and he realized that something was frightening him, but he
didn’t know what.  He walked slowly along the deck.  He had the run of the ship
by this stage of the voyage and no one took particular notice of the insular
boy who loved wandering the various structures.

Thomas glanced over the
bow at a point near the forward winches.  He pulled himself into a position
that allowed his short frame to view the ocean churning beside the ship through
the railings.  Then the sound repeated itself, frightening him again.  He
froze. 
I should get Ma and Sis and Grandpa. 
Doubt gripped him.
Then
the echo repeated itself twice, more loudly.  Thomas’ heart beat in his
throat.  He was holding the railing and listening intently when the night watchman
appeared beside him.

“That noise be only the
fall of the year, knocking winter’s hello,” said the ‘Newfie’ night watchman.

Thomas’ heart settled
down.  The watchman and he had become fast friends on the voyage; the
Newfoundlander’s easy warmth broke into Thomas' shell by providing Thomas with
a fund of seaman’s information. He had given the young boy a cherished sailor’s
knife.  ‘
Newf’
silently continued his rounds, sounding the ballast along
the port side, spray from the frigid waters wetting his heavy black rain gear.

Thomas returned to his
cabin and as quietly as possible opened the door.

“Where’d you get to?’
asked the voice of his grandfather behind his privacy curtain.

“Just on deck.  The
little icebergs scared me.”

“Aye. I thought it
might be that.  You alright now?”

“Ya.  ‘Newf’ told me
about ’em.”

“Get some shuteye now,”
Gramps said.

“How much longer,
Gramps?”

“Sleep now, Son.”

Thomas tried to sleep
but the adrenaline stirred in his blood by the sudden awakening and the ensuing
fright didn’t let him.  He got up again when his grandfather started snoring. 
He made his way to the bow, sat in the protected space between the anchors and
just out of the splash from the Atlantic.  Soon the sunrise bolstered his
spirit.  A whale spouted its unique breathing song and Thomas made his way
‘aft’ to the kitchen.

The hook-nosed cook, a
grump who talked daily of the ‘hair of the dog’ he needed in the mornings, slid
Thomas’ breakfast over the counter in the galley.  Two eggs with buttered white
toast crumbled into them.  Thomas went to his spot in the corner and silently
gobbled away.

****

Before he knew it, the voyage was over and the
family was disembarking at Boston.  His mother and Gramps told the customs
agent who boarded the freighter to process their arrival that they were
returning to Ireland in three weeks.  They had tickets to prove it, but Thomas
knew otherwise.  Thomas couldn’t believe the size of the book the custom’s man
carried.

“What’s in the book,
Sir?” asked Thomas, coming out of himself with this remark.

“Nothing to concern
you, Son,” said the officer.

Thomas’ curiosity
overcame the seething inside him at the use of the word ‘son’ by yet another
stranger in reference to him.

“But what are all the
names, Sir?”

Impressed by Thomas’
persistence and his manners, the customs man explained that it was a list of
current felons to be kept out of the country.

“What’s a felon, Sir?”

“I’m busy, young man. 
Next-”

The two other
passengers came forward and presented their documents and Thomas followed his
grandfather, mother and sister out on deck.  Thomas went first.  He took
Patsy’s hand and made his way ahead of the adults down the gangway.

“Don’t let go of your
sister now, Thomas.”

His mother and
grandfather carried the two bags that contained their past and prepared their
future.  A scruffy looking man smoking a pipe waited at the bottom of the
gangway.  He tousled Thomas’ hair and paused when Thomas growled, but then his
hand quickly went to greet Thomas’ grandfather.

“Not a day older, Danny
boy.  This’ll be Mary?  My sincerest condolences.  He-”

“He was a good man. 
None of your politics with me, Sean O’Hare. We’re here to forget the past and
move on.  Where’s your car?”  Thomas’ mother asked.

“Can’t bring it to the
dockside.  I’m parked outside the port area.  My son’s waiting in the car,”
replied O’Hare.

“We’d best be gettin’
started.  They tell me Maine’s a long drive,” said Mary.

“That it is, Lassie. 
That it is, but it’s almost as pretty as the old country,” added O’Hare.

They walked out of the
area, passing by the docks and under the enormous loading cranes.  Thomas
pulled a cart which O’Hare had provided.   They arrived at a Ford station wagon
and Thomas slid into the worn but comfortable back-facing bench. 
Same as
Liverpool,
he thought as he looked at the massive machinery of the port.

Thomas’ grandpa sat in
front with Sean O’Hare.  As Thomas had guessed, he was an old friend of Thomas’
father and a man of the movement.  The men got right into a discussion but they
avoided any talk of politics in deference to Mary’s wishes.  O’Hare owed Thomas’
granddad a debt and was living up to his word that day.  Unknown to Mary, one
time long ago, Gramps had saved O’Hare’s life by hiding O’Hare in the boot of
his car after a skirmish with the ‘Brits’ in County Omagh.

“We’re off to a place
called Stonington, Maine.  I found a used lobster boat for you there.  You’ll
have to talk to the children before we get there.”   He lit a cigarette.

“Do you have to use
those vile things in the vehicle?” asked Mary, leaning over from the back seat
into the front seat.

O’Hare cracked open the
small triangular, draft window near his dashboard and allowed most of the smoke
to escape.

“That better, Dear?”

“Don't Dear me, but ‘
aye’
. 
Now.  What do we have to talk to the children about?” asked Mary.

Her father piped in:
“You didn’t think we could use our own names to live here, did you, Darlin’?”

“It never occurred to
me.  So much new here,” she replied.

O’Hare passed some
passports and plasticized documents to Dan, his eyes carefully avoiding Mary’s
disapproval.

“Father, there’s the
smell of your politics here.  How’d you get those, O’Hare?” Mary asked
shrewdly.

“An old debt, Mary. 
Your da and I go back a long way and that’s all I’m saying.  Like it or not.”

Before Mary could speak
further, her father turned to her and his eyes told her not to interfere. 
The
Irish way.  Best not to talk of it
, she thought.  Mary sat back and looked
at the backs of the heads of her children in the third seat.  The view out the
rear fascinated them.  She felt content despite her misgivings. 
It’s for
them.  It’s for them, I’m doing this,
she thought.

After passing through
the A & W Drive Thru, Thomas and Patsy sat munching the food in Styrofoam
packages and sipping something called root beer.  The world of Interstate I-93
rushed past them.  Patsy liked the serving girls on roller skates and the fries
too.  Thomas wanted to complain, but he wolfed down the food.

 Something caught
Thomas’ attention a while after lunch.

“Ma, did you see that
sign?”

“No, Son, but don’t be
bothering me now.  I’ve a lot on my mind.”

“We’re on the road to
Belfast,” continued Thomas.

Sure enough O’Hare had
just turned east on route 3 on his way to Belfast.  “You’re keeping up,
Thomas.  We’ll be going through Belfast before getting to our destination,
Stonington,”  said O’Hare from the front seat.

“Talk to Thomas first,”
suggested Dan, as he leaned over the seat and passed Thomas’ identification
cards to his daughter.

“Thomas, climb over the
seat, will ya?  I’ve got something to show you,” Mary said.

Patsy looked
disappointed when her mother told her to stay in the back for now.  Thomas
clambered to the place beside his mother.  Before he changed seats, Thomas gave
his sister a picture coloring book he picked up on the way to the washroom at
the A&W.  She turned the pages showing line drawings of bears standing
alongside serving girls on roller skates.  She smiled happily, her mind at ease
now despite being left alone in the back seat.

“What, Ma?”

“You see this, Thomas,”
she said, showing him a picture of himself in a plasticized case.

“Is that a cousin or
something, Ma?  Looks just like me.”

“We’re going to play a
game, Thomas.  Just for fun, we’re going to use different names for a while. 
You have to remember this name because now it’s your name.”

“I wanna keep Da’s
name, Ma.  I don’t want this name.”

“There’s no choice, Son. 
That’s how it is.  Inside you can keep your name, but outside you are Thomas O’Flaherty
and I’m Mary O’Flaherty. Now go find a way to tell your sister about it, will
ya?  That’s a good lad.”

Mary looked at the boy
as he slipped over the back of her bench seat and into the third bench with his
sister.

“Ma?” said Thomas,
turning back to her.

“Yes, Thomas?” she
replied.

“Are we ever gonna have
a home again?”

“Of course we are
Thomas, don’t be silly.  Play some games with your sister.”

When they got to the
ocean, Mary crossed herself.  Stonington faced the Atlantic on the tip of Deer
Island on the westernmost island in a diamond shaped group of islands including
Waterman Cove, Sand Cove and a place called the Acadia National Park.  In a
population of only 1000, the town would remark on the O’Flahertys' arrival, but
Mary felt sure the church would be the way to make friends.

O’Hare drove right up
onto the dock and pointed to a lobster boat that bore a blue peeling painted
nameplate identifying it as ‘Four-Leaf Clover’.   It was tied to a small orange
buoy in the harbor about seventy-five feet away.  Then he showed Dan a small
skiff tied close to the bottom of the dock.

“That’ll get you out
there.  It was a hell of a job getting the rights for you to trap lobster here,
Dan,” said O’Hare.

“Lobster?  I’m a
fisherman, Sean.  What’s this all about?”  asked Dan in a puzzled tone.

“You didn’t give me
much time, did you now?  Beggars can’t be choosers.  It’s take it or leave it
and I’m done with you ‘fer’ good.  We’re square,” said O’Hare.

“Where’ll we live, Sean
O’Hare?” asked Mary.

“I found you a small
basement in another lobster man’s home.  They're good people.  We’ll go there
now.  Don’t forget your new names, or I’m done for,” said O’Hare.