Iron Box walked out hesitantly onto the warehouse floor, just as Chifune came to her disturbing conclusions. A split second later, flame flashed from the motor room, there was a hollow explosion, and almost immediately afterward, the Vietnamese fish sauce behind which she had been hiding exploded in a lethal mist of shrapnel and glass shards.
The destruction was near total. Two seconds later, there was another flash and double explosion from the grenade launcher, and what was left of the warehouse's trial shipment of Vietnamese Nuoc Mam sauce was vaporized. Chifune flinched behind her rice as hot metal thudded into the rice sacks, and gagged at the smell. She was spotted from head to toe with the awful stuff.
Iron Box was crouched on the floor, trying to take cover behind a pallet-load of drums of cooking oil. She was screaming, and oil was spewing from several of the drums where grenade fragments had penetrated.
The access door of the elevator room flew open and three figures in black ski masks jumped down onto the main warehouse floor.
Two figures with slung automatic weapons grabbed Iron Box. The third stood guard, a U.S.-made M16 automatic rifle fitted with an underbarrel grenade launcher in his hands.
Chifune realized that she was supposed to be dead, and certainly it was not for lack of trying. Two M79 grenades against one slight Koancho case officer and a few cases of fish sauce was overkill. The explosions had blown out the lightbulbs in her section. She crouched down behind the rice bags, thankfully shielded by the darkness. One handgun against three automatic weapons was not good odds. It did not make sense to die for an informant.
For a split second, Japanese giri and Israeli pragmatism fought a battle, and in the end sheer irritation at being fucked around by three goons won out. She heard a cry of fear and, looking over the top of her barrier, caught a glint of metal. Iron Box was struggling in one terrorist's hands, and he was pushing her onto her knees as the other raised a sword above his head. The third terrorist still kept a lookout, his weapon traversing the gloom of the warehouse as he scanned from side to side.
Chifune placed the red dot on the third terrorist and fired four shots when the combination was pointed well away from her. In case he was wearing body armor, she aimed for his head, and all four rounds impacted. The grenade launcher exploded with its characteristic double blast, and a pallet of the local version of Scotch whisky at the other end of the warehouse went up in flames.
Distracted by Chifune's attack, the terrorist with the sword looked away from his victim toward this new assailant, and Iron Box kicked him very hard in the balls.
He doubled up in pain just in time to be missed by Chifune's next burst of fire. She swore and ducked down, as the remaining standing terrorist got his automatic weapon into play. Rice showered in the air. It was like a wedding.
She sprinted a dozen paces to fresh cover, changing magazines as she ran, then rolled into the aisle and fired again in a long burst of aimed shots, just as Metsada, the action arm of Mossad responsible for the more direct approach, had trained her.
The standing terrorist was ducking down to change magazines as she skidded on the cooking oil, invisible in the gloom. Her weapon slid under a pallet.
The surviving terrorist had raised himself to his knees and now brought his katana down in a sweeping blow. Chifune just managed to roll to one side, but her left arm was gashed and she felt suddenly weak with shock.
Iron Box cried out a long "Nooooo!" and then there was a dense dull sound as the terrorist's next blow cut down through the side of Iron Box's neck and on through her torso to terminate close to her pelvic bone. Nearly split in two, the informant, a look of horror on her face, slumped forward.
The terrorist looked fascinated at her as she collapsed.
Chifune picked up the fallen M16, switched the fire-selector switch to automatic, and with two bursts forming a rough Y, which she thought was appropriate, terminated the killer's short career as a swordsman.
Flames were licking up the warehouse, the floor was slick with blood, and the smell of the slaughterhouse and burning whisky mixed with Vietnamese fermented fish sauce was indescribable.
Iron Box had been due to tell Chifune about the involvement of Yaibo in a hit on an Irishman called Fitzduane. The terrorist group was indeed ‘The Cutting Edge,’ but the real issue had been who was wielding the blade. Chifune had her suspicions, but proof was in short supply.
It did not look as if Iron Box was going to be of much assistance.
7
Connemara RegionalHospital
January 31
Fitzduane had worked out a routine which — as he thought of it — allowed the hospital ghouls to do their thing, and him to do his.
In the morning he seemed to be an object for the medics to play with. He was woken at an ungodly hour, washed, fed, and otherwise got combat-ready, and then inspected.
The inspection tended to be detailed. He now knew what a packaged chicken must feel like as it waited on a supermarket shelf. He was getting used to being poked, prodded, and otherwise examined in the most intimate ways. He felt like hanging a sign around his neck saying: "Despite a little wear and tear, I am a human being; I am not a dead chicken."
Trying to persuade the medical profession to treat patients as real, thinking, sentient people seemed an unwinnable battle. Perhaps a doctor had to have a certain distance to survive mentally in the midst of a constant stream of damaged humanity. By thinking of yourself as separate — a different and superior life-form — you could fool yourself into thinking the same things you were witnessing daily couldn't happen to you.
Well, that was his benevolent theory. It was suspect because the nursing staff — who worked in exactly the same environment — didn't conform. Almost without exception, they tended to be warm and caring, even when emptying bedpans.
Lunch was early. After it he would sleep for a couple of hours. Then, refreshed, he would work or receive visitors until his evening meal. Again he would sleep for a few hours and then awake in the early hours, for what he was beginning to think of as the best part of the day. It was quiet. There were no distractions. He could think and plan. And there was Kathleen. He was growing very fond of Kathleen.
The wall clock read 1:00 A.M.. The curtains, at his request, were only partially drawn, and the room was bathed in moonlight. The room was on the third floor and could not be looked into from the ground, but nonetheless this was a breach of security. Fitzduane knew it wasn't wise, but he found the confines of the hospital claustrophobic at times and he loved moonlight.
Boots was asleep on a camp bed beside him. He lay sprawled on his back, one arm behind his head, his eyelashes long, his cheeks plump and full. His breathing was deep and regular. In Fitzduane's opinion, there was nothing more beautiful than a sleeping child — except his very own child.
Boots's sleeping over in the hospital was not a nightly routine, but it did happen two or three times a week. He had been told by Oona that it was ‘camping,’ so there was an added spice to the adventure. A small plastic sword lay on the floor beside him. He was now quite unfazed by either the hospital surroundings or Fitzduane's injuries, but he was determined that no bad men were going to harm his daddy again.