the glove box, he said, “Open it.”
The boy did. Inside was a small, hammerless revolver, its grip wrapped with tape.
“Have you ever fired a gun before?”
The boy shook his head.
“It’s just like you have seen on TV. You point it where you want the bullet to go and you squeeze the trigger. You’ll be fine.”
And he had been fine. He had gotten to the pitch early, before any of the other children had arrived. The police inspector was not hard to find. He was a large man with a shock of white hair and a big, bulbous red nose. He looked exactly as he had been described.
Even so, the man from the bar had insisted that the boy have the inspector identify himself. The LVF might embrace random violence, but that was not how the IRA acted, at least not this wing of it. Part of the terror their division struck into the hearts of their enemies was based on their unfailing precision. They were legendary, known for being able to hunt anyone, anywhere. The boy had no idea what he had been drawn into, but he would soon find out.
The key to their success was the amount of research they put into their kills. They were patient, almost glacial in their movements. Revenge was indeed, in their book, a dish best served cold. Ice cold.
The police inspector was an incredibly guarded, quietly whispered about pedophile. The boy had heard about pedophiles, but to the best of his knowledge had never met one. That was about to change.
After introducing himself, the man asked where his parents were. The boy explained that they had to work and had dropped him off early. The inspector was almost salivating.
He enlisted the boy’s help in setting up the nets, bringing out all the balls, and placing cones for various drills they would begin with. Then, he asked the boy to follow him into the field house.
It was cold and damp inside. The only light came from the windows set into the eaves high above. The man didn’t bother turning on any lights. He preferred what he did to be kept in the darkness. Reaching out, he touched the clothing over the boy’s genitals.
As instructed, the boy had kept the pistol hidden for the first shot and had fired it from inside his jacket pocket. The round struck the police inspector straight in the gut and tore its way in.
When the man grabbed his belly in shock and unbelievable pain, the boy withdrew the pistol and fired two more times—hitting him once in his chest and once in his face.
He then wiped the pistol off, dropped it next to the body, and walked out of the field house—just like he had been told to do. Ditching the jacket, he found the man from the pub waiting, his engine running, a block away.
“How did it go?” he asked as the boy got into the car.
“He’s dead.”
“You did a good thing. Your father would be proud of you. I’m proud of you.”
The boy didn’t know what to feel. He had taken a life. Based on everything the church had taught him, he should have felt remorseful. Yet, he didn’t. He felt nothing, really.
They didn’t return to Belfast. At least not right away. The man from the pub drove for quite some time. During the trip, they didn’t speak. That was fine with the boy. He didn’t feel like talking.
In a small village in the middle of nowhere, they parked behind a nondescript building and knocked on a thick, secure door. A pair of eyes looked out through a slot. Words were exchanged. Then the door was opened.
It was a social club of sorts. One he would get to know well over the next couple of years. The men inside would become his comrades in arms. He would drink there, laugh there, plan there, and even mourn the loss of some of those very same men there.
On this first visit, his new IRA handler had only one mission—to get him a bit drunk and to celebrate his first kill. It was a rite of passage.
Big men, important men he would later learn, came by the table to shake his hand and congratulate him. They were also “proud” of him, they said.
He drank three bottles of cider before his handler looked at his watch and said that it was time for them to be getting back to Belfast.
The boy was still not interested in chatting, so like the ride