The New Long War (Dan Finn)

They haven't gone away, you know.   

McKevitt pulled into the driveway as evening began to fall.  Over the fields of Cross, the drone of tractors, children playing, birds in the trees.  

Maginn heard the sound of the engine and came down the stairs. The crescent window above the door. The light through the hallway summery, the colour of beer. Smiling before he'd even reached the door. Opened it, drew it back, detail spilled in.   

'Well, well,' Maginn said to the smirking McKevitt. 'Tar isteach, a chara.' Turning to acknowledge hay bales painted green, white and orange.   

A smirk.   

He followed him in.   

McKevitt standing in the kitchen, Maginn watching the kettle boil.   

'How's everythin up Coalisland way?'   

'Ah....' McKevitt said, smiling. He rubbed the top of his head, whitish hair cropped tightly.   Maginn was pointing at turkey sandwiches on a plate under tinfoil, but McKevitt waved them away.   

'So whataya upta these days?'   

'Same. Social work. Community outreach programmes,' McKevitt said, as Maginn listened, nodding. 'And yerself? Still doin the bitta....botany?'   

'Oh aye, still doin it. Next crop almost there. Sheds full a them. Yill take a bit witcha?'

'God, no. Haven't touched the stuff in years--'

They talked for fifteen or twenty minutes about healing work, and environmentalism, respectively. The PTSD and the flashbacks and the night terrors hinted at through humour, but left unsaid.    

Then brought cups of tea up the stairs to the top floor. The room dark, and bathed in a brownish whiskey light. Musty. A sunbeam from the skylight, exact and hard-angled, so that it looked almost solid, like a diagonal pillar.    

Boxes in the corner.   

Old photographs, dog-eared at the edges. An old musty flag---neatly folded---with a harp on it. The Green Book. Another book, the cover almost fallen off, on the Tet Offensive employed by the Vietnamese against the Americans in Vietnam. Various trinkets of personal memorabilia. Photos of volunteers in the cages in Long Kesh, the ones at the front on their hunkers, the ones behind standing, like a football team. Maginn hunkering, on the far right.    

McKevitt flicking through the photos, stopping occasionally, making inquiries. A curledslightly out-of-focus Polaroid of Maginn standing next to Jim Lynagh in Monaghan town.   

'Ah, Jim....' McKevitt said, holding the picture by the very corner. 'The Cub's still around--'   'He is.'   

McKevitt continued staring at the picture, a vast historiography left unsaid.   Something unspoken, a long shadow.   'We better head out tetha shed,' Maginn said, after a long pause.   They went back downstairs, out through the kitchen, and out to a big shed at the back. 

Moved a few bits and pieces, and slid back a heavy door on wheels. The light came on and they went over to a work bench in the corner.   They looked at the clear, odourless, almost undetectable substance. Czech. The last remnants of Gadaffi's Libyan shipment all those years ago.   

'Musta slipped through the Decomissioner's net--'   

'Musta done,' Maginn smirked.   

'It's all set?'   

'Yep,' Maginn nodded.   

McKevitt scrolled back his sleeve cuff, and looked at his Casio. 'We may as well be headin off, so,' he said.   Maginn nodded, switched off lights, and they went back out. 

                        *     *     *     *     *   

They spoke occasionally through swathes of silence. The car passing through small towns and villages. Streetlights and chippers.   

'Yeah, the youngest---Olivia---she's expectin at the end of October--'   

'A grandfather! Who'd a thought it?'   

'Four times over....reminds me, must give her a ring later.'   

Maginn focused going round a sharp corner.  'And Niamh---our Niamh---gettin married this time next year....to a Kiwi fella....how fast the time goes, ha?'   

They talked about the implications of Brexit as they drew nearer, the relative merits of both a hard and soft border. The likely strategic advantages of each.

The car sped across the border with scarcely a peep. Heading towards Clones. Passed a sign behind them with 'Welcome to Northern Ireland', the Northern peppered with bullet holes.    

'I spose that was your handiwork!' McKevitt smiled, in the car-darkness, his eyes tracing the broken dotted line on the road before them. The change in signage from miles to kilometres.     

'Coulda bin,' Maginn smiled.   A few moments later, with a souring tone: 'Typical Free Staters, accourse. Hadta be the guinea pigs,' McKevitt said, his thoughts turning to the task at hand, as Maginn concentrated on the road.   

Finally, they got there.     

'This is the place,' Maginn said, brows furrowed, looking around. Pitch dark, they hadn't seen another car for a long time. The world a wash of blacks and charcoals. The warm summer silence seemed to swoon as the car pulled off a little boreen, and down to asmall copse of trees.   

The car pulled up, and stopped.   

Maginn smoothed his calloused fingertips along the edges of the wheel.    

McKevitt looked sidelong at him from the passenger seat, with a cheeky smile.   

'It's bin a while,' he grinned. Voice almost a whisper, as he gazed out through the side window. Nothing but fields, hedges, hills.   The bomb was in the boot.   

Maginn switched on the light above the rearview mirror. McKevitt, wrinkled, weathered, bristly white hair, an old man. But his eyes shone.

Maginn's eyes passed along by the perimeter of all, checking for movement, but knowing there'd be none. Far away across the rolling hills a bungalow; a pale light visiblethrough curtains. A sheepdog barking from somewhere. Maginn imagined someone watching television. Within the copse, birds cawing, getting ready to roost.   

They exchanged a glance, tentative yet all-knowing, their eyes the tip of a massive iceberg left unsaid.   'Yeah....' Maginn whispered, almost a sigh, and began drumming his fingers on the wheel.   

Silence.   

'Shall we?' McKevitt said, again a whisper, their voices modulated to the car darkness.   With a groan, he turned sidewards in the passenger seat, grasping for a bag on the floor of the back seat. Unrolled a curled-up army jacket. Passed the other to Maginn who did likewise. Arched forwards in their seats, arms reaching awkwardly towards glass, wriggling into them, with lurching gnarled movements. Houdiniesque contortions.

McKevitt struggling with the zip around his neck. Finally got it.   

He felt his age, but glad nonetheless; it was a better time.   Hand reaching down, grasping, between his feet. Found them.   

'Will we?' he said mischievously, 'for old times sake?'   

Maginn laughed in the darkness. The crow's feet dug in deep in the harsh remorseless light.    

'Ah, surely that's overkill--'   

'Suit yerself,' McKevitt said, suddenly looking abruptly through the passenger seat window, as if he'd seen something. Spotted movement.

Nothing.   

A second later, Maginn changed course, tracked back. 'Ok. Gwon so--'   

Took the balaclava. Bent his neck slightly in a semi-crouch, slid it down.   

Appraised himself in the slant of rearview mirror. Eyes and mouth. 'Jesus....' he whispered. Stuck out his tongue, as if to confirm it was him.   

They sat there in their jackets and balaclavas for what seemed a long time.   

McKevitt was shaking in a tight wound-up silence.   

'Areya alright?' Maginn asked, slapping McKevitt's back, then clasping his shoulder, and holding on to it. He straightened up and sat back, and they looked at each other in therearview mirror. McKevitt's eyes gleamed translucent in the balaclava.   

'Right....we better be gettin on with things,' Maginn said, stretching the taut silence and then ripping it aside, a whisper, the words rolling out, as if uncertain where they were leading. 'Areya alright?'   A nod in choked, truncated silence.                                             

                      *     *     *     *     *   

The doors opened and they went back towards the boot. The night dark but still summer-warm. They hauled out the explosive. Shut the boot softly.    

They held the explosive between them, their footsteps slow and tentative on the uneven ground. Grimaced slightly as they edged around the copse. Sound of birds fluttering their wings, whooping occasionally, settling in for the night.    

The air in their nostrils tasted summery, fertile. A huge moon emerged behind the copse as they waded down the hill in small, careful steps. They paused to look at it.    

'Sap moon,' McKevitt said, lips moving beneath the balaclava. It looked enormous.    Maginn didn't know much about such things, so just stood there and nodded. Nothing to add to it. They moved carefully down the steep incline of a hill, picking their steps. Cattle moved away towards the corner of the field, breathing gruffly through deep wet nostrils.    

They carefully navigated the explosive device over a low stone wall. The ground beneath them was getting a little mulchy, soggier.   They could see the target in sight, seventy, eighty yards up ahead, the moonlight painting white light along its architecture and sharp angles.   

Felt the warmth of their breath against their faces and foreheads.   Using the moonlight, they swept around in a crescent to avoid soggy wet soil, keeping to the trail of higher ground. Cattle still breathing, and sniffling in the corner of the field they'd come out of.   They walked on. Slow careful steps.   

There was something ominous in the structure before them, the only thing illuminated.   

The cows grew silent again, and there was an impossible stillness to everything. They reached the structure, set the explosive down, panting slightly. Not as young as they once were. Maginn massaging something tweaked in his lower back, stretching slightly from side to side.    

The scene was so silent that they felt---unsaid, barely thought out---that it seemed like another planet. Or outer space. No lights visible in any direction save a few stars above.    

And the moon.   

'You hold it,' Maginn whispered, and McKevitt's balaclava nodded.

 Gently, Maginn wound row after row of tape around the device, about four feet off the ground, in the crook of the structure. Stretched out and spun yard after yard of heavy tapearound it. Took a small scissors from the breast pocket of the army jacket, and smoothed down the curved edges of the tape.   

McKevitt's balaclava gave a slight nod, that might've said 'Good job. Perfect.'   

Maginn checked the fuse and detonator a last time, and the two balaclavas nodded.   

They tracked back along the footsteps they'd created, faster this time.   

Wound along by the copse on sprightly step.   Eased themselves back into the car.   

They were breathing heavily, and smiling slightly.   

Maginn took the remote control detonator. Caressed the smooth handle, then turned to McKevitt sidewards in his seat.   

'Deeya wanta do the honours?'   

A gloved brushing aside. 'Nah, work away.'   

'Aya sure?'   

'I'm sure--'   

'Aya sure t'be sure?'   

'Gimme it!' McKevitt said, relenting, reaching.  

'Willya fuck off!' Maginn laughed. Moving sidewards towards the window, out of McKevitt's reaching orbit.   

'Y'said y'were sure--'   

'Ok, I don't mind....you do it so--'

'We'll toss fer it--'   Maginn felt for coins in the compartment. Took one.   

'Heads or tails?'   

'Heads.'   The coin spun, catching the light from various angles simultaneously.   The right hand unsheaths, and draws back.   

And naturally, because McKevitt didn't care, he won.   

A sigh from Maginn. 'Heads it is....Gwon so--'   McKevitt took the detonator.   

They stared ahead at the huge tower. Time slowed, and was stretched elastic, charged with the seeming anticipation of itself.   His thumb circled and shimmied.   

Then paused, lingering.   

Pressed.   

A second passed, before the two mens faces were illuminated. A lightshow reflected in the glaze of their eyes. The tower collapsed in upon itself, hanging sidelong, then falling, white electric sparks arcing, and hissing, burning the air.   

'Ar fheabhas!' Maginn smiled, starting the engine and reversing back out, turning and then tearing out along the boreen to the main road. As they passed a section of road on a high hill, they looked down to the left at the smouldering remains of the 5G tower, and drove on.