Chicago Assault Page 5

  Hawker poured two glasses half full of whiskey. “Do you want ice or soda?”

  “Heresy!” spouted O’Neil. “Ruin fine Irish whiskey—”

  “I’ll have ice in mine,” interrupted Megan, as if she was used to O’Neil’s bluster. She gave him a scolding look. “Now hold your damn big hand still while I disinfect it!”

  Hawker sipped at his beer and made sandwiches while the woman did a professional job of cleaning the wound and bandaging it. When she was done, they all ate and drank as O’Neil talked.

  “You asked me if I had anything to do with Beckerman’s death, Hawk, and I told you ‘no,’” he said. “But that’s not entirely true. You see, I know who killed him, and I know why they killed him.” He swallowed the last of his whiskey, then poured himself another glass before looking at Hawker. “The lads who did it used to work for me.”

  “Here or in Ireland?”

  “In Ireland.” He gave the woman a questioning look. “Three years ago, Megan? Or four?”

  “Eight, O’Neil—your memory is faulty as usual. You left Ireland three years ago, and that’s when they started getting out of hand.”

  Hawker’s boyhood friend nodded. “Eight years ago, James, I arranged for three Irish-American lads from Chicago to join the IRA in Ulster. Their cover story was that they were American students studying in Belfast. We got them jobs, and we put them to work with a fire team. Like most American lads, they were brought along carefully. Sometimes Americans come only for the romance of being able to say they fought the Orange Order. When the work turns boring or deadly, they pack their kits and leave.”

  “Which happens all too often,” Megan interjected.

  O’Neil took a chunk of his sandwich, chewing gratefully. “But not with these lads. They came from Chicago, dirt poor and filled with fight. It wasn’t long before they were making their own private plans and making independent hits. In an underground army, that sort of thing is sometimes necessary. Even so, they began to get out of hand. It got so they wouldn’t check anything through headquarters. I kept a tight rein on them while I was over there, but even so, it was tough going. Once these lads got a taste of blood, there seemed to be no stopping them.”

  “They became killers, plain and simple,” added Megan. “While it may strike you as odd that we in the IRA would disapprove of cold-blooded murder, it’s true. We kill quickly and brutally, but we aim to kill only those who actively oppose our cause.”

  “And the occasional death of a Protestant child is just one of the risks of war,” Hawker said coldly.

  The remark made her face flush and her nostrils flare. “Forgive me if I don’t shed tears over Protestant babies, Mr. Hawker. For you see, eight years ago I scraped the bits of flesh of my own child, yes, and me young husband, too, from the walls of our wee cottage outside Dundalk. I’m sure the ladies of the Orange Order didn’t cry for me—but then, the English have had so much more experience at killing, I guess it’s to be excused.”

  “You see, Hawk,” O’Neil put in softly. “Megan is from the same east-coast county in Ireland as you. And the Orange Order killed her husband and infant son in almost the exact same way your mother and two sisters were murdered those many years ago.”

  “Didn’t you wonder how I knew about the famous Hulainns of County Louth?” Megan said, still angry and sarcastic. “That was your father’s name before he changed it to Hawker, wasn’t it? Hulainn? Sure,” she went on, “the great Hulainns of Louth. The Fighting Hulainns, supposedly direct descendants of Cuchulain, the great Irish warrior god of Ulster. I’ve heard the stories about your family since I was just a wee girl on me mother’s knee. All about your handsome, dashing father, and how he broke a hundred hearts before marrying, and how his wife and daughters were murdered, and how—before he and his young son, James, escaped to America—his retaliatory strike against Belfast took fifty Protestant lives and began the IRA uprising of 1956.”

  “If it’s an apology you’re looking for,” Hawker said, locking eyes with her, “I hereby offer it. I spoke out of line. I’m sorry about your family.”

  Slowly, her face regained its natural color as her anger subsided. She shook her head wearily. “No, it’s meself who should be apologizing. I had no right to lay my troubles on your shoulders.”

  Hawker smiled. “Anytime you need shoulders, mine are available,” he said. “I mean that.”

  “Do you two mind?” O’Neil asked, as if offended. “You interrupted me in the middle of my story.” He poured himself another drink. “Now I’ll have to dampen my throat again.”

  The three of them laughed, grateful for the comic relief. Hawker couldn’t help noticing that, after their short argument, Megan seemed more at ease with him.

  There was nothing obvious. He saw it in small things: the way she smiled at him; the way she would reach over and touch his hand to stress a point. She had an electric touch. Hawker couldn’t remember when he had felt more physically aware of the beauty of a woman. And, from the unexpected shyness in her eyes, he could see that she felt the sexual tension, too.

  So O’Neil told his story—with Megan adding dates and pertinent facts. She had a razor-sharp intellect and an impressive memory for names and figures.

  The names of the three Chicagoans who had fought for the IRA were Thomas Galway, Padraic Phelan, and Michael MacDonagh. O’Neil said they were a couple of years younger than he was, but Hawker had never met any of them.

  The IRA’s influence on the three disappeared when O’Neil returned to America. Left without restraint, Galway, Phelan and MacDonagh cut a bloody swath through Ulster.

  Their killing became more random, more indiscriminate. Their methods, and the slaughter of innocent victims, began to sicken even veteran Fenians. Whether they were all psychopaths or whether the horror of their first early battles with the IRA had driven them mad, was never clear.

  What was clear was that they had to be stopped. They had to be driven out of Ireland. And, if that didn’t work, it was decided they must be killed.

  When confronted, the three Irish-Americans made the reasonable choice. They returned to America.

  It was thought that, away from the temptation of killing English Protestants, they would return to normal lives.

  “But they didn’t,” O’Neil explained. “Over a year ago, the three of them resurfaced in Chicago. They made their presence known to me and asked for my help. They were in the process of organizing a terrorist army, an army dedicated to one thing: profit. You see, Hawk, it was their idea to use their experience in terrorism as a business. They would sell Chicago businessmen protection. Protection against criminals. Protection against police. Protection against anything. It didn’t matter to them.

  “They came to me, pretending some of the profits would go to the IRA.” O’Neil snorted. “That’s how dumb they thought me to be. I told them their plan disgusted me, and to get the hell out of my bar before I turned them over to the law.”

  “The three of them went ahead with their plans?” Hawker asked.

  “Aye,” said Megan. “They did. Unfortunately, they are smart lads. They didn’t make their first move until their terrorist army was well organized.”

  “Right,” said O’Neil. “About three months ago, they began to make the rounds of Bridgeport. They talked to every major businessman in the area. They offered complete protection at very high rates. A few of the businessmen went for it right off. The crime rate is high in this area, and I guess they figured safety is worth any price.”

  “So not many signed up?” questioned Hawker.

  “Wrong, Hawk. They almost all signed up. You see, these three lads made it very clear that if their protection wasn’t bought, the business owner could be sure he would, in time, lose his business to fire or vandalism—and maybe even lose his life. They intimidate the hell out of people. They dress like a bloody motorcycle gang, and there must be twenty members in their little terrorist army. Irish, black, Italians. Galway, who’s the real leader of the t
hree, hired and trained the meanest, roughest men he could find.”

  “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.”