Cunningham gives as much information as he can on what shipments are coming in or out of the state. There’s a big shipment of drugs and guns all in the same truck coming up from Wexford and through to Derry tomorrow. Seems ideal. Cunningham was too willing to help, I told him what it meant to be bait, but he didn’t seem to understand the concept.
“Bait,” I say, “as in the worm on a hook. The thing that gets eaten by the fish before it gets caught. The angler gets the fish, but the fish still gets the worm.”
“But you’re going to have people there.”
“We will.”
“So they’ll go in before anything happens.”
“Only if they have enough information.”
“What?”
“If Kenny says enough that we can get him, then fine we’ll move in. If not, there might be a temptation to wait see if he tries something on you. Get him for something.”
“But you’ll be in before its anything serious.”
“Ray, I won’t lie. This whole thing is full of holes and ill thought out. We’ll only have a couple of days to plan and in all that time we have to get the Dents to be interested enough to interrupt the delivery. We’ve got to be convincing enough that when you get out, it doesn’t look like you’ve been feeding us information for the last while and we’ve got to be able to get enough security around you trying to get Kenny to confess all his sins to a tape hopefully before he tries to kill you.”
“I see.”
“I don’t think you do. Ray when you’re in with Kenny, if it's going wrong then you just make your excuses and leave. Don’t be pestering him for information, just play it like you always did when you met.”
“That might be a problem.”
“Why?”
“We’ve never actually met. I only met his lads face-to-face and spoke to him on the phone.”
“Ray. This is a problem.”
“What are my options?”
“Right now. I don’t see any for you.”
We have colleges full of kids, engineers who can build roads, buildings and microprocessors, yet not one of them has sat in that Dublin drizzle that is a light yet totally saturating spray, in their cars and thought to themselves that out of the fifteen settings they have for these pivoting blades, not one seems to be of any use for Irish rain. Clever generation we have there.
I’ve spent the last half an hour fiddling with the settings trying to stop the piercing screech at it clears the mildly damp windscreen. All this while deciding on how now to proceed after I’d spoken to the Dents. They thought I was joking. I wished I was. They said it would be signing their death warrants. I said I know. They said what cover would they have. I said none. They said to fuck off. I said I can’t.
In the end I could only give personal guarantees. My own word that I’d look after them. My own promise that I’d keep them safe. If they did it and the plan came off, we’d have Kenny, they’d have nothing to worry about. If it didn’t, we’d get Kenny together. Way to go Jim.
I head home and phone Maura. She makes it clear she’s not talking to me by telling me she isn’t talking to me. I say I can take a hint, but I say it to a dial tone.