Black Helicopters by Caitlín R. Kiernan

Author:Caitlín R. Kiernan [Kiernan, Caitlín R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781250191137
Google: dzu7swEACAAJ
Amazon: B0791JK87N
Goodreads: 37941807
Publisher: Tor.com
Published: 2018-05-01T05:00:00+00:00

12.: If I Should Fall from Grace with God

(Borrisokane, County Tipperary, 18/10/2012)

The air inside the safehouse stinks of mildew and stale tobacco smoke, of Indian takeaway and pine-scented disinfectant. Of failure and desperation and of waiting. And, above all, uncertainty. Once upon a time, the shabby little two-room cottage on the outskirts of Borrisokane was an IRA safehouse, sheltering Nationalist fugitives from the North, fleeing the bloody consequences of their patriotic chores. It was not quite so shabby back then. The walls inside the cottage are whitewashed brick and stone, whitewash gone grey from soot and mold and neglect. The floor is bare concrete with only a few filthy throw rugs tossed about here and there. There’s electricity, but no running water, and the roof leaks when it rains, which means the roof leaks quite frequently. There are two portable space heaters that make no difference whatsoever—but it’s the thought that counts. There’s a room with two cots. There’s a hot plate and a kettle, a mini-fridge, a few pots and pans. There’s a table crowded with computer and surveillance equipment, sheltered by a yellow polyester tarpaulin. There’s a crucifix hung on one wall, like a grudging concession to history. There’s a fireplace no one ever uses anymore. There are windows, but they’ve all been discreetly painted over.

The assassin’s name is Nora Swann—at least, that’s the name she’s worn for the past seven years—and this is where she’s been hiding since the great cock-up in Dublin three days ago. This is where her wounds were treated, and this is where she’s being debriefed. When she was a younger woman, she worked exclusively for the CIA—in West Berlin, mostly. At her chosen trade she believed herself to be the best of the best, an unquestioned artist with a rifle and scope. But her ambitions led her farther down the rabbit hole, so to speak, and now she’s pushing fifty, and Nora serves Albany and the men in black suits and tinfoil hats who answer to no one.

Nora Swann sits on a metal folding chair and squints through her own cigarette smoke at the images projected onto one of the whitewashed walls—CCTV footage from all those days ago, the Dublin fruit and vegetable market fronting Mary’s Lane and St. Michan’s Street, that vast shed of Victorian stone and ironwork, glazed brick and terra-cotta archways, vaulted skylights to let the unreliable Irish sun shine down on the stalls and the customers and the sellers of onions and tulips. Her thoughts are muddy from pain and from the painkillers, and her stomach is sour from antibiotics and bitter black coffee.

“Nora, we’re going to go over it again,” says the well-dressed woman who has flown all the way from America to question her and try and make sense of this mess.

“How many times will this make now?” asks Nora Swann, not expecting an answer, and then she blows smoke at the images projected on the wall.

“Do you actually think that matters?” asks the woman from Albany.

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