Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 44, No. 4, April 1980

I dug a grave in the woods not too far from the cottage and then went down to the bomb shelter, unlocking the door with my key. Nobody could live two months without food. Starvation had been the perfect solution. I’d decided to wrap the girl in a blanket to carry to the grave and was holding the green blanket under one arm as I opened the door.

Our hostage, Susan, was sitting up in a bed I’d not seen before. She was watching a large color television that had not been in the cottage. A box of candy and a vase of flowers rested on a nearby bedside stand. She was wearing a shortie blue nightie — and a gold bracelet I didn’t remember seeing before. As I looked around the room I saw a large refrigerator, an electric stove, a homemade bookcase filled with books and some storage shelves loaded with cans of food. An electric heater had been placed near one wall and there was a vanity covered with perfumes, combs, lipsticks and a large oval mirror. The sight sort of stunned me because the last time I’d seen this room it had contained only a table and three chairs.

Susan, startled, looked up and stared at the blanket under my arm. Her eyes were wide, frightened. I placed the blanket on the floor and grinned sheepishly. “I thought you might want another blanket. Winter’s coming.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I turned and went out, locking the door again.

Sam had his own key to the bomb shelter, of course. And he wasn’t as dumb as he’d sometimes seemed. He’d thought of the best way to kill our hostage: keep her well fed and let her die slowly of old age during the next fifty or sixty years.

Siege in Dublin by Jean Darling

Condon invaded the preschool playroom and took three children and two female adults as hostages. If his terms weren’t met, the hostages would he killed! Under circumstances like that, who could blame Garda Shay Kelly for not following orders?

* * *

“Come out, Condon, give up now before someone else gets hurt. You know you haven’t a hope in hell they’ll meet your demands.” Garda Superintendent Patrick Foley spoke into a loud hailer. He was standing in the courtyard of the Irishtown Rehabilitation Clinic. Nearby, on the black tarmac, several news cameras flashed the scene onto film.

“He must be jokin’, it’s the kids haven’t a hope in hell,” came softly from a bystander on the far side of the wrought-iron fence. The narrow street behind was clogged with squad cars, emergency vans, ambulances, a fire engine, two army Land Rovers, dozens of uniformed police and the curious, some of whom had stayed throughout the night. Radio and television crews moved restlessly to and fro attached by slender umbilical cords to the external broadcasting units that had bulled their way into the congestion.

“It’s diabolical for those poor little tings,” a housewife from the flats wailed theatrically as a passing microphone and shoulder borne Tee Vee focused on her briefly before zooming in on the window-framed Arne Condon. He held a small girl as a shield from a possible sharp-shooter.

“You know my terms, Foley. You have until twelve noon,” Condon shouted through a slash of open window. He lifted a gun to the child’s head, mouthed the word ‘BANG!’ and moved back out of sight.

“The Irishtown Siege is entering its eighteenth hour,” an announcer said, voice clipped with urgency. “Since yesterday afternoon at seven minutes past three, Arne Condon, self styled leader of the O’Houlihans, a hitherto unknown para-military organization, has held three children and two women hostage. Two of the children suffer from spina bifida, the third has been severely brain damaged since birth. Here beside me, braving wind and rain, is Garda Superintendent Patrick Foley who has been in charge throughout the long and harrowing night. Superintendent Foley, would you—”

“Get that damned mike out of my face!” Foley interrupted, dropping the bull-horn to one side. “You there! Guard! You’re not here for crack! Get those mikes and camera on the other side of the fence. NOW!” He spoke towards the nearest uniform which, in this case, contained Seamus Kelly, a foot patrolman from the Irishtown Barracks. Amidst rude gestures, protests and flashes from news cameras, Shay Kelly herded the media men onto the sidewalk outside the wrought-iron barrier.