Hanley was forty yards away from the wreckage, on his back, on the wet ground in the trees. He was burned, broken, unconscious, unaware that anything had happened at all save for that first flash of light, that first roar of sound, and that first jarring motion.
Security men swarmed him and the other survivors of the vehicle; helicopters landed on the George Washington Parkway in minutes to begin life flights, and even the obviously dead were rushed to the hospital as if there was still some fleeting chance.
Later it would be said that something came out of the trees at the water’s edge, and a search by Metro PD would find a spent tube from an AT4 antitank rocket left nearby.
—
Court watched the two buses roll ever closer, and he took a single step back, as if he were preparing to retreat to his car. There could be hundreds of people in the buses just ahead of him: Gauntlet operatives, a gang of football hooligans aligned with Coyle, ex–IRA Provo gunmen, bought-off heavies from a drug gang, a foreign entity of some sort.
Court had no idea what was heading his way, but of all the possibilities, what happened next came as a complete surprise.
As the buses stopped, the doors opened, and children in school uniforms under their heavy coats began pouring out, running through the little gate in the low stone wall of the cemetery, coming closer and closer.
Court looked back to Coyle for an explanation.
“They’re late today. Gave me a wee bit of a scare, if I’m being honest, chief.” As he nodded to some passing children, he looked back to Court. “The school kids come on Wednesdays for lunch if the weather isn’t too bad. Then they tidy up the tombstones.”
Now there had to have been one hundred kids on the church grounds, all in motion, moving around the older men, heading this way and that.
Court moved closer to Coyle. Spoke softly. “Then why thefuckdid you set our showdown up for the same time?”
“You’re not going to fight me in the middle of these weans, chief.”
“Thesewhat?”
“Weans. Wee ones.Children, Gentry. I can’t say I know ya well, but Idoknowthat. So while we’re standing here andnotfighting, I ask ye to look down at yer feet, yeah?”
Court did as Coyle said. There, right in front of him, was a new tombstone in this forest of old markers.
And Court knew what it would say before he read it.
But he read it anyway.
“Charles Brendan Coyle.” Court noted that the man had been born in March, and he’d died in October. The years of his birth and his death seemed so impossibly close.
Twenty-four years apart.
Court looked back up to his intended target now, unsure.
Coyle said, “Church of Ireland allows for Catholic burials. Catholic Church allows for burials in Church of Ireland cemeteries.” He waved a hand. “All these here, they’re Coyles. My da is just over there. I’ll be laid between them and me boy, right here. Whether that’s now, whether that’s not now…I suppose that one’s up to you.”
“What are you saying?”
“An eye for an eye. That’s some feudal shite, I think. I’m not for that. But I learned something in the death of me boy. I hope you learned something in the death of yer da.
“What I mean to say is, it doesn’t have to be like all this. Itis…but it shouldn’t be. Now…these kids will be gone in an hour. The roads get busier in the afternoon, but at dusk, this place is empty. The light is good, we’ve ourselves a full moon comin’. You and I can get it on then, if yer so inclined. But for now, I want ye to just look down at me family, at the boy ya killed, and I want ya to know I don’t blame ya anymore. If killin’ me is yer wish, you can come back and ’ave at it. I’ll give you a fight, I will. And we’ll see what the future holds.”
Coyle looked down at the open space between his son and his da. “If it’s my time tonight, I’ve no problem resting right there.” He sighed. “But I had a long talk on the phone with Deirdre when she called. I believe her. I believe she won’t let her son, my grandson, turn into one of us. She won’t let him be part of the hard line.
“He’ll have a chance. You and I…maybe we have to fight. But now, that’s on you.”
Coyle began walking away, through children still moving about the cemetery, their lunch boxes swinging in their hands.
He called out as he walked. “I’ll see ya tonight, chief. Or else I won’t. Sound like a plan?”
He headed for the car park without another word.
—
