Evan Mabon woke with a start. He looked around his room in confusion, searching the abandoned machine shop for whatever had woken him. The sounds of the street outside gave way to the clumping of boots on stairs. He jumped out of his bed and ran to a workbench in the middle of his room. After flipping a hidden switch, he slowly pushed it across the cold cement, exposing a coffin-sized cavity in the floor. The sounds of clumping died suddenly and were replaced by a massive blow to the door. Evan lost his balance and fell into the hidden chamber. The blows to the door increased in power and frequency as he used a complex system of pulleys to restore the bench to its original position. He could see the door splinter as the bench completely covered his hiding place, coming to rest with a metallic click on the concrete. It was dark.
He could only sense the smell of oiled metal and the sound of cracking wood. A bang followed by rapid footfalls indicated that the intruders had finally succeeded in breaking down the door.
"Search everything," barked a deep voice. "This one's a crafty devil." Crashes and thumps marked the destruction of his workshop.
"Nothing, Sergeant. I don't think he's here." Evan listened intently, trying to discover anything he could. The sounds of destruction continued without further comment by the invaders. After a few minutes in which the bench remained undisturbed, Evan allowed the sounds of destruction to lull him to sleep.
He dreamed of the first days. Standing in a similar workshop to his own, his fifteen year old hands clutched a screwdriver in each. A man, hair black with oil, bent over a metal box in front of him.
"Hand me the pliers, Evan," Gilbert McNamee said, looking up. Evan dropped the screwdrivers and turned to find some pliers on the table behind him.
"Come on, boy. We don't have all day," Gilbert said. After a few seconds of searching, Evan found the pliers. He smiled, grabbed them and turned.
The scene changed. Gilbert sat alone, surrounded by British soldiers. His second skin of oil was gone, leaving him plain and boring. A man spoke with authority off in the distance.
"This court finds you guilty and sentences you to 25 years in prison." Gilbert did not change.
"Twenty-five years ain't enough for Harrods and Hyde Park," someone muttered. Evan spun in his seat to face the offender, his eyes glowing with anger. He jumped from his seat and felt a sharp pain in his head.
He looked around in darkness and realized he was back in his hiding place, his right hand rubbing the spot on his head that had hit the bench above him. His ears strained to penetrate the silence. After a few minutes, he pushed the bench away and crawled out.
Books and tools lay scattered across the room, blanketing overturned and broken furniture. "What the hell?" he muttered to himself. He glanced around quickly to make sue he was alone and then moved to the small sink in the corner to examine his head. As he applied a bandage, he thought over the event he had just experienced.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary had not raided the PIRA nor the INLA since the signing of the cease-fire. They sounded like police, however. Evan continued to think about it as he finished a quick dressing for his bruised head.
"What happened here? A hurricane?" Evan spun around, his arms coming up automatically. He relaxed a second later.
"No, Johnny, not exactly," he replied, looking around sadly. Johnny stepped over an overturned box of electrical components. and walked over to examine his friend's injury.
"What happened? A bunch of street thugs?" Johnny carefully probed the wound with his hand. Evan brushed his hand away.
"Yeah, only these were lead by a sergeant and sounded very British," he answered sarcastically. Johnny looked concerned.
"RUC?" Evan nodded. "We have to get you out of here," Johnny said, his voice all business now. He grabbed Evan's arm and dragged him out of the room. Evan stumbled down the street after him thinking about what could have led to this.
McNamee's conviction deprived the PIRA, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, of their best bomb expert. Desperate to strike back, the PIRA leadership turned to Evan, his young apprentice. A recent flood of weapons and explosives from Libya's Gaddafi gave Evan high quality Semtex to work with. His first bomb went off on Memorial Day in Enniskillen, killing eleven and wounding sixty, all civilians. The PIRA called it a success. Evan did not agree.
He remembered the pictures on television and in the papers. He could deal with the dead soldiers he had seen earlier; civilians changed things. The pictures of surviving families were the worst. Every time he saw those pictures, a fellow PIRA man would slap him on the back for a job well done. Five days later, he attempted suicide with sleeping pills.
His PIRA commander rushed him to a hospital where they pumped the pills out of him. The commander made a deal that his bombs would only be used on British soldiers and the RUC. Evan agreed and began work on more devices.
His work gained a reputation in the PIRA. With the accidental death of Brendan Burns and Brendan Moley, he became the PIRA's leading bomb builder at age twenty-one. In the summer he joined a raid on British forces in NATO positions on the continent, killing two soldiers with a car bomb. That is when he met Johnny.
Johnny served as his unit commander in Europe. The two got along well together, Evan looking to Johnny for the maturity and experience he did not have. That August, the two successfully pulled off the first bombing in London in almost four years. The PIRA acknowledged Evan as their bomb genius and kept him well supplied with Semtex, electronics and money, setting up a lab in Belfast. Until last year, all had gone well between Evan and the PIRA.
Evan came out of his thoughts as Johnny dragged him into a small pub that fronted for the INLA, the Irish National Liberation Army. He sat Johnny down at a table in back.
"I'll be right back. You stay here." Evan just nodded. Johnny patted him on the shoulder and disappeared through a door in the back. Evan noticed a newspaper on the table in front of him. "INLA, UDA Refuse Peace, Continue Violence." He picked up the paper and read:
"With peace negotiations continuing between the PIRA and the British government, the Irish National Liberation Army and their Protestant enemies, the Ulster Defence Association, have vowed to continue the struggle. Bombings and shootings have continued against Catholic and Protestant alike. Most are directed at PIRA and British targets, indicating that the INLA and the UDA may be avoiding a confrontation with each other. Similar developments in Israel between right-wing Zionist groups and Hamas have many worried about an unholy alliance between the two rivals . . ."
Evan tossed the paper down as he heard Johnny approach. Behind Johnny trailed two stern looking men who sat at the table with Johnny.
"Evan, these boys are my new 'friends.' The ones I told you about," Johnny said. "They're willin' to help you." Evan thought back to the day when Johnny announced his intention to defect to the INLA.
"The PIRA's gone soft, Evan," Johnny stated. "We can't give in this easily. Now is the time to really strike." Johnny tried to convince Evan to join with him.
"I couldn't leave the PIRA, Johnny," Evan said. Johnny just shook his head and smiled.
"All right, but call me if you change your mind. We need people and I know we can trust you." With that, Johnny left Evan. The two had not talked to each other until Evan had called Johnny two days ago, asking him to meet him at his apartment this morning.
"Evan, are you listening to me?" Johnny asked, bringing Evan back to the present. "Too wrapped up in his work," Johnny laughed. The others did not. "Listen to what these men have to say."
"I want to talk to the commander," Evan insisted. Johnny frowned.
"These boys are pretty high up, Evan."
"I only deal with the top," Evan said. "I need certain assurances." Johnny nodded.
"I understand, Evan." Johnny turned to the other men. "Geniuses can be touchy sometimes." The men just looked at each other, one nodding at Johnny.
"O.K., Evan, we were gonna bring you to a meeting tomorrow anyway to show you off to the commander. You can meet him then." Johnny slipped a piece of paper across the table. Evan picked it up and started to stand. "But, Evan, be straight with us. Times are desperate and so are these men. Be careful." Evan nodded and continued to rise.
"Where are you going?" one of the men asked, speaking at last.
"I have other places," Evan replied. Then he walked out.
The next day, Evan met Johnny outside of another pub across town. Johnny drove both of them out of the city to an abandoned farmhouse deep in the country. He pulled up to the grey doors on a barn and got out. Evan followed, noticing several men emerge from the barn. Johnny tossed them the keys and rushed to Evan's side.
"This is a meeting of the INLA's leadership and a few new acquaintances. The situation is tense, so be very serious. They don't know you like I do, so they may get the wrong impression," Johnny warned. Evan nodded.
"By the way, I checked with a few friends. It appears that the PIRA has given you up to the Brits as a bargaining chip. They want a goodwill sacrifice and the Butcher of Enniskillen is a perfect choice." Evan glared at Johnny. "Sorry, Evan. I know how you feel. The bastards don't know the meaning of the word loyalty."
Johnny spit into the grass as they approached the house. He knocked on the door, waited a second, and then let himself in. Inside, more than twenty men sat around a table, piles of paper in front of them. They divided into two groups, one on each side of the table. Men stood behind both sides, their hands in their jacket pockets. A burly man in a trenchcoat motioned at Evan to stop at the door. He did.
"Morning gents," Johnny said cheerfully. "This is Evan, who I'm sure you know of." The men looked up. One spoke: "Johnny has informed us of your current problem with the Brits and your former comrades. We would like to help you, but only if you can help us first."
"Of course he can," Johnny said. A glare from the men at the table shut him up.
"Sure," Evan replied simply.
The man at the table gestured to the opposite side. "These are our current partners in avoiding the new peace. They hate this negotiation and compromise as much as we do. Evan, meet the UDA."
Evan stared at the UDA men. "One question," he said. "Will we go back to killing each other once we've killed the peace process?" The men looked uncomfortable. Johnny stared at Evan.
"Because I mean," he pulled out a metal box attached to a handgrip, "I would hate to be unemployed." He opened his jacket to reveal a row of Semtex charges strapped around his chest. The men at the table started to stand as the ones behind the table pulled their hands free of pockets, revealing an assortment of sidearms.
"Careful, gentlemen, this thing is armed." He carefully displayed the red light glowing on the box.
"What are you doing, Evan?" Johnny asked, trembling. Evan looked sadly at Johnny. "I thought we had trust. Why are you breaking it?"
Evan paused a moment. "You broke it first when you left the PIRA."
"Young man, I would like to know what you plan to do," the man at the table said. "You must know that you cannot get out of here and if you were suicidal, you would have already detonated."
"You're right," Evan replied. "I'm not suicidal. Catch!" He tossed the trigger toward a corner of the room. Everyone hit the floor. A giant flash of light filled the house.
"Just a damn flash grenade!" someone yelled.
A few seconds later, as vision returned, someone else yelled, "He's gone!"
"Find him," the man yelled. As guards ran to the door, one noticed that Evan's jacket lay on the floor. Two seconds later, they all noticed it.
"I didn't think you could pull it off," Mark said. "We knew you were good with bombs but we didn't know you could act." The man from the British government nodded.
"No one in Special Services figured you would actually be allowed to meet the leadership of both the UDA and the INLA at the same time."
"I owe a lot of that to you, Sergeant," Evan replied. "Your raid on my house and the fake manhunt for me convinced them that I was genuine. They really believed that the PIRA had traded me away at the negotiations." He paused. "Which reminds me. Why did you trust me to do this, knowing what I had done."
"The PIRA and the government could not take any action without placing the cease-fire in jeopardy. We needed an accident to take care of the UDA and the INLA. so we looked for someone to cause that accident," the sergeant answered. "We heard about your reaction to Enniskillen and your agreement to only attack the military. That makes you the closest thing the PIRA has to a true soldier. It was a risk, but we took it."
"Your honesty let us know that we could trust you and that the UDA and INLA would believe you," Mark said.
"Which reminds me," the sergeant said. "Your reputation around here has suffered some. You might be in danger when word gets out. You can't afford to stay in the country right now. Do you have any place to go?"
Evan thought for a moment. "I think I'll make this into a profession." The sergeant raised an eyebrow.
"Who is he?" one of the men asked. The other shrugged.
"Don't know much. The colonel said he's Irish, on the run from his own people. His work is good and he has no love for the Zionists. That's all I need to know."
Evan rose from under the truck and walked over to the two men. "She's all set to go." He handed them the keys. "Just flip the switch under the dash and floor the accelerator for maximum effect." He turned away before they could ask him anything.
He squinted his eyes walking west into the setting sun, where the great fireball in the sky was slowly descending below the horizon. Unlike the sun, Evan still had work to do.
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