Chapter 12

Danny sat on the front stoop of the Murphy home lacing up her running shoes nice and snug.

The sun was making a half-hearted effort to chase away the low hanging fog coming up from the nearby river, but she didn’t mind the haze because it reminded her of San Francisco and the foster home she had resided in for few years in her early childhood.

She remembered the wise guy who came up behind her when she was running on the Pacific highway urging her to get in his car to escape the fog. Unfortunately for him, after years in dubious foster homes, Danny was already on guard against any strange offers from males homing in on her swaying buttocks as she ran down the side of the road.

California was a place where young girls disappeared almost every day and it was a sure bet most of them were not runaways heading for Hollywood and fame and fortune.

Here, in Northern Ireland with all it’s troubles, she knew it was an entirely different situation because of the cultural differences and family values instilled in the younger generation. Catholic or Protestant, the population of Irish youth were not likely to become serial killers or rapists due to traditional values. Of course, those same values caused the friction of the troubles between the worlds of the IRA or the Orangemen of the North. Other international pressures promoted the continuance of the hostilities with agendas that obstructed peace from taking permanent root in the lush soil of the green land of Ireland.

She had received a phone call the night before from Mister Moran to meet with his “Aunt Marnie” from Cork in the south.

He gave her instructions to go to the Belfast Historical Society downtown to join her for tea and a “discussion” that would give her some answers to her interest in the past actions of the clandestine Irish organization.

Danny had absolutely no idea who this strange person called “Aunt Marnie” was and if she was his true aunt or a member of the organization itself.

She sensed that this was exactly the “in” that she needed to access the current situation hidden beneath the surface of happy talk about peace in our time.

During her training sessions, she remembered that the hatreds of the organization she was attempting to infiltrate had a violent history of torturing and eliminating outsiders like herself ruthlessly and with little concern for their gender or age either underage or over the hill with nothing to lose.

The fact that her cover was close to impenetrable was a comfort to her nervous system, but she still had a deeply ingrained fear of discovery and being subjected to an unspeakably violent demise.

She queried her contact at the consulate about any background on this “Aunt Marnie”, but all the young CIA agent could tell her was that their files had no data on the existence of any such person connected to Mister Moran.

Young Patrick pestered her from some sugar relentlessly on that freaky Friday before her appointment to meet with Aunt Marnie. Of course, she shot his hopes down telling him that she was at “that time of the month” and she didn’t care if he believed her not.

Danny knew she had been wise to tone down her skills in the Gaelic language and she even restrained her Irish music presentations to brand herself as a beginner and not as skilled as she really was in reality.

That way she had not made any enemies seeing her as a threat to their own positions in the organization and her going down on her knees was attributed to her American girl sluttish ways and not quite up to the standards of a proper Irish girl raised in following orders and knowing her place when she was in the presence of adult men.

She dressed carefully wearing the modest skirt purchased at the Irish store that followed the straight line of functionality and quality fabric rather than the up to date fashions of the day that almost demanded a hemline well above the female knee.

Danny had her “granny panties” in sheer white and trimmed her pubic bush down to a neat triangle in case she had to expose her feminine secrets for some unknown reason to keep her cover.

She had her ice pick hidden inside her fur-lined boot and left her small handgun home because it would seem far too suspicious if it was found on her person. It would be easy for her to erase one attacker with the familiar weapon, but if there were multiple enemies, she might be in for a spot of trouble. She knew that according to protocol she should have contacted the consulate agent on duty about her meeting, but she hesitated because she didn’t completely trust the young man despite his handsome good looks and his overwhelming charm. In fact, she had learned from the naïve marines that they knew the consular staff member was a covert agent and that he had a number of girlfriends from outside the consular staff that were both Catholic and Protestants girls of unknown backgrounds. That information made her determined to play her cards close to her chest and keep her insights to herself without sharing some of the facts with her contact.

Danny saw the still attractive older woman sitting on the bench in front of a lurid historical battle scene from some forgotten battlefield where the combatants were portrayed in indistinguishing identifiable roles in the panoramic scene of utter chaos.

It reminded her of a similar painting back in New Orleans about the battle of New Orleans fought after the war of 1812 was over but unknown to the forces on the field due to lengthy communication lines that often took months to reach the front lines in combat.

The sharp-eyed female looked up at Danny and the first words out of her mouth were, “I can see why my horny nephew was all agog over you, my little birdie. You put a sparkle back in his eyes that can only mean you have a submissive nature and a tight pussy.”

Danny was forced to laugh at the words despite the uncomplimentary sense mainly because it was a woman speaking and she was far closer to the truth than she could conceivably know without an extensive spy network searching for weak points in their defenses.