Belfast Rules
Chapter 25

Copyright© 2015 by RWMoranUSMCRet

BELFAST – 1995

The story of Belfast in 1995 was how this story started and it was highlighted in the following eight chapters. (CHAPTERS 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, 16, 17) It is conceivable that this timeline will be presented in a different format because it is a bit confusing to the continuity of the storyline. Suffice it to say that the chapters dealing with the time period prior to 1995 were historical in nature to the flow of events and the final chapter 26 will be the concluding Epilogue to the full story. In the interim, this presentation of events will be used as a framework.

Belfast in 1995 was a city in transition.

The emotions and deep feelings of hatred, sorrow and underlying thirst for vengeance stoked the fires of impulsive actions on both sides of the conflict. Many of the stories like the story of Danny and Molly were personal in nature and indicative of the multitude of stories to be told of family problems and raw nerves shattered by the violence of chaos and disorder. To say that this is a story of a thousand years of struggle is accurate but confusing to most that saw the conflict in the perspective of how it affected them personally and the people they loved and respected in their own tiny world of existence.

Just as the roots of the Irish struggle for justice and freedom was overshadowed by global politics and a world war between competing systems, the conflict now had reached that point where continuation of the hostilities might interfere with current global hot spots between age-old cultural and religious enemies. In point of fact, the Irish fight for total independence was a diluted version of the conflict between the teachings of Islam and the realm of Christianity for world domination final and complete before the end of days. To say it was a fight between good and evil is far too simplistic but in some quarters, adherents to one side or the other would be receptive of that description.

To the non-Christian world, the nuances of Catholic Christianity and Protestant Christianity were sort of an enigma not deciphered even to this day and age. To the unbiased outside observer, the differences appeared to be more cultural, economic and political rather than based on any religious belief that precluded any multi-faceted perception. Suspicion of Vatican agendas outside the country of Italy had a history of Papal misconduct and corruption that fostered a cynical look at the contrast between the laws of God and the laws of the “Church”. It is easy to see that the laws of God are never-changing and the laws of the “Church” are forever evolving and splintering into geographically influenced constituencies.

With all that being said, the situation in 1995 was actually less chaotic than in previous years because the external dangers from totally non-Christian beliefs, most notably from Islam, far exceeded the level of hatred sown by the Catholic vs Protestant followers of the faith.

Danny suspected that his cover was in some degree in risk of being shattered because the Whitehall drones were uncovering more and more references to his proclivities and he knew for a fact that at least one photograph taken at a pub without his knowledge was sitting on top of a pile of evidence related to the Brighton disaster. The photo was taken completely in innocence and was truly a “group” shot with him barely on the edge of the closely cropped print. The focal point of the shot was the bragging fool from Derry that often over-stated the actual circumstances of various confrontations. It was easily forgivable because that was a pattern of speech and story-telling that permeated all of Irish lore and accepted social norms.

He had spotted the photo in a pile of research materials Molly brought home one weekend to sort into various clumps for the little worker bees in the basement. His impulse was to filch it from the stack and burn it in the bathroom before flushing it down the drain. On reflection, he realized that was not feasible because there was always a back-up copy of all evidence and a master inventory of each and every item. In fact, its disappearance would bring unwanted attention to it when all he really wanted was for it to be overlooked as unrelated to their need to weed out the “bad guys” like him from the infrastructure of lambs and braggers.

He left it alone and did his best to forget it was sitting like a “Bouncing Betty” ready to slice him off at his knees.

Danny buried his efforts in his work and the gardening that seemed to absorb a lot of his time recently. He liked the solitude of gardening because even if there were a number of people around him doing similar tasks, they all minded their own business and attended to the weeding and the caring of the plants and flowers without any need for words to celebrate their efforts.

Of late, Molly was putting in a lot of extra hours in the covert section. It was not to earn extra money but because she was now the “number two” or second in command of the unit and was responsible for a number of people working day and night in the office and untold numbers of sources in the field. Most of them were “informers” whose only motivation was the easy money provided by the powers that be to collect the tidbits that allowed them to connect the dots from point “A” to point “B”.

The days of the secret agent were in the past just like the silly suits of armor that decorated the hallways of many government buildings to remind one and all of the checkered past of knights in armor and ladies to be rescued from a fate worse than death.

He knew full well it was the Americans that ran most of the sourcing operations using their electronic collection methods and intuitive processing that directed the researchers to the correct conclusion. Most of the American allies continued to ignore the fact that they were at a point of relying almost completely on the information beings distributed to them and they were equally as reticent to question the legality of the collection.

 
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