Free The Dead Yard by Adrian McKinty Page A

from the

economy, the Northern Ireland thing is the only card Clinton has left to secure his legacy in

history. There’s no way I can pull you out of a well-thought and well-planned operation run by

the Brits and the bureau to get at least an insight into this group’s activities. There’s nothing

I can do to extricate you from this. My job is to make sure Duffy doesn’t kill you, that’s

all."
    "Listen, Dan, me old mate, if you let me go back to Chicago, I won’t get in any trouble again,

I promise. I’ll live a quiet life within my means."
    Dan blinked with a tired melancholy, shifted his weight, and wiped the sweat from his

forehead.
    "Sorry."
    "Duffy will find out and he’ll kill me and your career will be over," I tried, on a different

tack. And I had a flash of that evil old man on his huge Port Jefferson estate casually ordering

a couple of driller killers from West Belfast to keep working me over while he sipped Bushmills

whiskey and watched his new Lord of the Dance tape.
    "You don’t need to worry about Duffy. Duffy is on his way out. He’s seventy years old. You

think he thinks about you ever? You don’t have to worry about him. That contract has long since

lapsed. You practically did him a favor getting rid of a power-grabbing maniac like Darkey

White."
    This was news to me.
    "Are you sure about that?"
    "Duffy was never serious about going after you. He had to do a big show, issue the contract.

It’s irrelevant now in any case. Duffy doesn’t even have close to a million in ready money

anymore. We’ve been closing down his operations one by one. Not just him. They’re all on the way

out. The Italians, the Irish, the Russians. The bureau has broken them all. They have a lot more

on their minds than old scores."
    "Dan, do you really believe this or are you telling me what I want to hear?" I asked.
    He looked at me and I saw that he wasn’t lying, or if he was it was a new skill.
    "It’s the truth, Michael. Darkey White is old news. You destroyed his crew completely. You

weakened Duffy and now he’s down and soon he’ll be out. There is a contract on your head but

Duffy won’t pay it and no one else cares enough to collect it. You can go to northern

Massachusetts and you can fly with these fanatics and they won’t know you from Adam. I guarantee

it. Even if it was South Boston, I’d say go. Five years is a long time, my friend. And you
are
my friend, Michael, and I do look out for you, don’t think I don’t."
    He inched closer to me, threw his empty cup in the bin.
    "Look, Michael, I’ll keep my eye on this English bitch, this whole op. If it don’t look

kosher, I’ll send in the Seventh Cav."
    "How will you keep an eye on it?"
    "We got a good guy as liaison. Harrington. I know him from back in Virginia. If he doesn’t

like it, or one aspect of it, I’ll make sure you’re pulled out. I’ll go against the AG and the

whole State Department to pull you, Mike. I promise."
    I smiled.
    He’d made me feel better. Just to know that there was someone, anyone, on my team helped a

great deal. He passed me a box of cigarettes but I declined. He lit one himself.
    "Anyway, I have news about your old friend Scotchy Finn," Dan said, smoking his cigarette.
    A dead hand grabbed my heart.
    "Scotchy Finn?" I asked incredulously.
    Scotchy and I had broken out of that Mexican jail five years ago, except that I had made it

and he hadn’t. He’d sacrificed his life for mine, dying there on the razor-wire fence that went

around the prison. I still had nightmares about it. Scotchy falling through the razors, urging me

to go on, screaming…
    Dan slapped his forehead.
    "What am I talking about? Scotchy Finn, no, no, no, he was an old pal of yours, right? I must

have read that name in the report. Er, no, Sandy Finney, that’s who I meant. Sandy Finney."
    I looked at Dan suspiciously.
    "I don’t know any Sandy Finney."
    "Sure you do, you called him