Chapter 32
A few months past, Michael Lynch, one of the men in charge of munitions for the IRA, had told us how some of the rebels had inadvertently poisoned themselves by tucking bricks of gelignite beneath their shirts next to their skin.
They’d been trying to thaw it out to make it ignite faster, not realizing their skin would absorb the chemicals and that it would make them ill.
The sick woman must have done the same thing.
Now the only question that remained was where she was supposed to have taken the explosive. Evidently that was the reason so many of the women had been slipping out of the ballroom for extended periods of time. But where had they gone with it?
I watched as a woman wearing a gown the shade of persimmons emerged from the cloakroom clutching something in her arms. She glanced around and then disappeared through a door adjacent to the cloakroom.
Maxwell had yet to join me, but I decided I couldn’t allow her to get away.
So I hurried after her, pausing only briefly as I opened the door to see where it led.
It opened onto a staircase, and I could hear her footsteps descending.
I followed her down the steps and out the door at the bottom, emerging into Upper Castle Yard.
The air outside was cool without the warmth of my wrap.
I shivered, peering left and then right, finally sighting the woman in persimmon—at least, she was easy to spot—clinging to the perimeter of the yard.
She made her way along the western block of the Castle before turning south to stride past the state apartments.
I shadowed her footsteps with one eye on her and one eye on the other people populating the courtyard.
They were mostly couples sharing intimate embraces, but there was also a trio of Auxies smoking near a gate, whose attention I did not want to draw.
Not as a woman alone. Periodically, I would glance behind me, hoping to find that Maxwell had followed me outside, but so far he was nowhere to be seen.
When the woman ducked into a doorway near the southeastern corner of the yard, I hastened to follow, darting one last look behind me.
A figure in uniform had emerged from the main entrance to St. Patrick’s Hall, and I hesitated a moment, hoping it was Maxwell and that he would notice me.
But I was forced to soon hurry inside so that I didn’t lose track of the woman and her brick of gelignite.
Ahead, I heard a door open and shut but arrived too late to see which one.
After trying several doors, I finally found one that opened.
Rather than a room, it led into an antechamber with a spiral staircase.
I rushed forward, only to retreat at the sound of footsteps clacking down the stairs toward me.
Back out in the corridor, I knew the nearest doors were all locked, so I pressed my back to the wall so that I would be hidden behind the door when it opened.
I hoped whoever was coming was in too much of a hurry to look behind her as she exited.
I couldn’t see her at first as the door swung open, but I could tell it was a woman in pumps by the sound of her heel clicks.
A moment later, the door swung shut and I spied a persimmon-clad back striding toward the yard. Her hands were empty.
The destination must not be far then. Just up those stairs.
I vacillated, wondering if I should return to St. Patrick’s Hall to fetch Captain Maxwell or at least wait to see if he joined me.
When after a few minutes, he still hadn’t appeared, I convinced myself it would be best to at least verify that the gelignite was above before alerting everyone.
To make sure that I hadn’t been duped. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time I’d fallen for one of Ardmore’s ploys. Doing so would be the work of a moment.
So moving as quietly as I could, I crept up the circular staircase, pressing my body to the exterior wall to see as far ahead of me as possible.
At the top was a corridor leading to another set of stairs going downward on the right and a door on the left.
Deducing that the woman in persimmon wouldn’t have gone up only to go back down, I opted to try the door.
Grasping the handle, I resolved to be quick.
Ardmore’s men might be behind this door, and they could have orders to kill me on sight.
Stealth would do me no good, but the element of surprise might.
Steadying my nerves, I wrenched open the door and peered around it. What I saw, stopped me in my tracks.
“Good God,” I gasped aloud, measuring the immense size of the stack of gelignite with my eyes. There must have been eighty to one hundred green-shaded bricks arranged at the center of the room, dotted with blasting caps connected by wires. A pungent aroma akin to almonds filled the air.
The space being circular and lined with shelves containing books and papers, I realized it must be part of the Record Tower overlooking Lower Castle Yard and adjacent to the Chapel Royal.
Somewhere below was located the intelligence room where I’d been taken to be questioned by King and Hardy.
Above, on the roof, a machine gun pointed in the direction of the Palace Street gate.
If the republicans were to ever take the Castle, that machine gun would have to be one of their first targets.
Ardmore clearly realized this and intended to exploit it.
Though, while I didn’t know much about explosives, the amount of material stacked here seemed capable of blowing up the entire Castle, not just the tower.
I had to find Maxwell! We had to get help!
But I also couldn’t leave without seeing first if there was something that could be done to disable the bomb.
I knew that gelignite was relatively stable without a detonating charge.
That was why the blasting caps filled with fulminate of mercury were needed.
If I could remove them, it might prevent the blast or at least slow Ardmore and his men down as they were forced to replace them.
Hurrying forward, I intended to do precisely that, only to discover that I’d gravely miscalculated.
For I wasn’t alone in the room as I’d believed.
Two men emerged from the slits leading to two of the round tower’s windows, looking none too welcoming.
Immediately, I turned to lunge toward the door, but before I could pass through, they were upon me.
One locked his arms around my body in a viselike grip while the other pointed a pistol at my temple, effectively preventing me from using any of the techniques I’d learned as an intelligence agent.
My only choice—at least for the moment—was to comply.
“Take her into the chapel,” the man with the gun instructed the brute grappling me. “His Lordship’s waitin’ there for her.”
I stiffened. Ardmore was here.
Rage simmered within me at the idea that he’d anticipated this. But how? Had we been betrayed by Willoughby? Or had he simply been planning for all contingencies? I did tend to show up when and where he least wanted me to.
I almost smiled at the thought, except I was too furious with myself for not expecting this.
I should have returned for Maxwell. Then we might have had a chance.
Not to mention, someone would know where I was.
Instead, I was about to face Ardmore on my own with the knowledge that if he succeeded in killing me, he was going to blow up that stack of gelignite and murder hundreds, if not thousands of people, including possibly Sidney, Maxwell, and Willoughby.
And he would get away with it by blaming the republicans or me.
“Don’t even think about trying to escape,” the man with the pistol told me. “I’ll have my gun trained on ye the entire time.”
I obeyed, though it smarted to be hauled about in such a fashion, especially since the brute was profusely sweating.
These minions were new to Ardmore’s fold or else I felt certain I would have recognized them.
I wondered how loyal they were to him, or if their skills were in any way on par with those of Willoughby and Smith.
At some point Ardmore was going to begin to dredge the bottom of the barrel in terms of henchmen, seeing as he’d killed or burned his bridges with his better men.
Rather than through the door I’d entered, I was unceremoniously hauled into the opening to a different circular staircase climbing upward.
The room on the floor above was cluttered with items, many of which I guessed had come from the floor below.
We passed through this and out a door on the opposite side into the Chapel Royal.
Renovated a hundred years earlier in the Gothic Revival style, it served as the Anglican chapel of the viceroy.
The exterior was faced in white limestone and decorated with exquisitely carved heads of the great and the good while the interior was rampant with embellishments, from its fan-vaulted roof to its expansive tiled floor.
All of which would be destroyed if Ardmore detonated his gelignite.
I was dragged across the length of one of the carved balconies and through a box pew to the far corner and down a compact flight of stairs.
Upon reaching the main floor of the sanctuary below, we found ourselves being towered over by Lord Ardmore, who had mounted the enormous, elevated pulpit.
It dominated the nave, all but eclipsing the altar behind it.
From its great height, Ardmore leaned over to peer down at us, as if pronouncing judgment from on high.