Page 118 of Hang on St. Christopher

My body crunched.

My body folded up.

Blood in my mouth.

Blood in my eyes.

Red out.

Black out.

Silence.

One beat.

Two.

Three.

Screaming.

Alarms.

Blood in my throat. Liquid on my right thigh that might be piss or blood.

Fingers on my face. Someone’s hand undoing my harness. Someone dragging me. Two hands on the neck of my flak jacket. A voice calling to me from the bottom of a well. Rain on my face. My legs being dragged across the windscreen. The voice getting more insistent and distinct.

Rain on my forehead like baptismal waters.

“Sean, are you okay?”

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

I was outside the Land Rover’s cab. Crabbie’s nose was a few inches from my face. It was pouring. We were in a deep sheugh by the side of the road.

I could hear a noise like gunfire.

I looked down at my legs. They hurt like hell, but they seemed to be in one piece.

Water was running down the back of my shirt, and in the darkness it was impossible to tell if the damp under my arms was water or blood.

“Are you okay?” Crabbie asked again.

“I think so. Aye, I’m okay. What’s happened?”

“Ambush.”

“Ambush?”

“Ambush. RPG and now machine guns.”

“From where?”

“Other side of the road. The hill there.”

I rubbed my face and looked up the road. The first Land Rover was on its side. Ours was on its roof. They must have fired both RPGs simultaneously. Now they were shooting at us with heavy machine guns and AK-47s. Perhaps a dozen fire sources. Two IRA cells, maybe three. It was a brilliant operation. O’Roarke delays us all day at the police station; then one team trails us from Dundalk, a second team sets up the phony road diversion signs, and finally three kill teams wait for us to arrive on the Ferryhill Road.

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