Page 4 of Hang on St. Christopher

I was armed, of course, but a six-shot revolver against a dozen men holding shotguns and M16s? Not much of a contest there.

If they did lift me and take me away with them, I had one card up my sleeve—almost literally.

Ever since the occasion two years ago when an IRA cell had tried to execute me on the high bog, I had secreted a razor blade and a lock pick in the left sleeve in a specially tailored pocket of my favorite leather jacket. If they handcuffed me and took me away, I’d at least have a last-gasp chance. But if they just decided to shoot me in the street like a mad dog, I’d have no bloody chance.

“Now, pal, answer the question. Where are you going?” the first man asked, putting his big muddy boot on the Beemer’s shiny blue bonnet and pointing his pump-action shotgun at me.

I reached for my gun. Stuff the last-gasp shit—I was going to shoot this arsehole if he kept messing with my wheels.

“Carrickfergus,” I answered truthfully.

“Carrickfergus?” the man with the gun repeated.

“Aye.”

“That place is a shithole,” Pump-Action Shotgun declared.

I did not reply.

“Well, what do you say to that?” the man insisted.

“Even if I worked for the Chamber of Commerce, I’d be reluctant to contradict a man pointing a shotgun at me,” I said to a mirthless silence.

“Where in Carrickfergus?” the first man wondered.

“Coronation Road, Victoria Estate,” I said.

“Victoria Estate, did you say? Do you know Bobby Cameron?”

“I know Bobby very well.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Like a fat Brian Clough.”

“Ha! Yeah! That’s him. All right, then. You can go. Nice Beemer, by the way,” the man with the gun said.

“Thanks very much,” I said, and drove slowly through the corridor of burning tires.

A man from Carrick who knew Bobby Cameron? Not an ideal victim. If they hijacked my car, I might be able to complain to Bobby, and the complaint would get passed back up the chain...

I was thinking these thoughts when, just another two hundred yards farther on, I was stopped by another illegal paramilitary roadblock.

“Where are you going?” a masked man with an axe asked.

“Carrick.”

“Carrick? They’re all head cases up there,” he said with what seemed to be envy in his voice. Where did you get the car?”

“Ayr BMW in Scotland.”

“Scotland,” he said incredulously, as if I had named a place from the white spaces on a sixteenth-century map bearing the legend “Here be dragons.”

“Scotland,” I said again to reassure him.

“Scotland, eh? What do you do for a living?”

“I’m an accountant.”