Jaxon bit his lip. "A son of Man…so someone from Man will march with the sons of Ireland…boy, does that sound like good old-fashioned IRA polemics. Maybe some cross-fertilization? And then silencing the critic. An outspoken politician? Somebody within their own ranks?" He sighed, then added, "I think I better talk to my friends with MI5-the British secret service-and see if they can make heads or tails of it."
Magee shrugged. "Like I said, I'd be surprised if it's nationalists. It's really a sleepy little island-only thirty-three miles long and thirteen wide. It relies on tourism. They are a seafaring people from way back, which reminds me that there is one bit of naughty business associated with the Isle of Man."
Jaxon and Lucy both leaned forward. "Naughty?" they asked.
"Well, for hundreds of years the Manxmen, as they're called, were quite the smugglers," Magee said, happily going back to storyteller mode. "It really picked up in the seventeenth century. Ships from all parts of the world would anchor off the Isle of Man, hidden in any of the hundreds of small bays, and unload their cargoes into the small, fast sloops of the Manxmen. The smugglers would then make the run to remote shores of England or Ireland, where they'd sell their goods for the black market and then slip back out to sea. Of course, the Crown's tax collectors weren't too happy, and the Royal Navy was sent to stop the smuggling. The price of getting caught was pretty steep; some ships were sunk and their crews abandoned in the freezing waters of the Irish Sea, or if caught, they were hanged from the closest yardarm. However, on the Isle of Man, the smugglers enjoyed a sort of Robin Hood reputation. They've a lot of fun stories about the merry chases they would lead the British on."
"Can you tell us one?" Lucy asked.
"Certainly. Let's see, well, many of the stories are attributed to one particularly resourceful scoundrel named Quilliam. I recall one tale of Quilliam, who, when spotted by a British frigate and knowing he couldn't outrun the warship, told his men to go belowdecks. He then grabbed the wheel and ignored orders to stop until the Brits fired a warning shot across his bow. A longboat was lowered from the frigate, commanded by an angry English officer who demanded to know why he'd kept going. Quilliam told the officer that he was dreadfully sorry, but he wasn't feeling well. All the rest of his men, he said, were either dead or dying from what he guessed was cholera. 'You're welcome to come aboard and see for yourself,' he's reported to have said. Hearing about the dreaded disease, the English longboat stayed well away from Quilliam's sloop and skedaddled back to the frigate. Once the British were out of sight, Quilliam ordered his men back to their stations and, after a good laugh, they were on their way again."
"What happened to the smuggling operations on Man?" Jaxon asked.
"Well, the British tried just about everything to put a stop to it," Magee said. "And by 1778 were bound and determined to squash it once and for all. You'll remember they were in a bit of a fight over here in America, and they needed the revenues the smugglers were siphoning off. So they came up with an offer that-as Marlon Brando might've said-they hoped the smugglers couldn't refuse. The British government offered to pardon any smuggler, many of whom had prices on their heads, who volunteered to give up the smuggling life and enter the Crown's service as a sailor or soldier. Legend has it that five hundred turned themselves in and joined up. Those who did not were hunted down on the Isle of Man and sent to prison or hanged. Even at that, it still took another fifty years to stamp out all of the smugglers. It's a well-known fact that many of the wealthiest families living there now owe their fortunes to a smuggler in the family tree."
Lucy looked bemused but then shrugged. "Smugglers from hundreds of years ago seems pretty disconnected to this."
Jaxon nodded. "I agree. But it was an interesting tale."
"Thank you, we aim to please. And well, with your permission, and perhaps Miss Lucy's assistance, I'd like to continue doing a little research," Magee said. "I still have friends on the Isle of Man who I correspond with on occasion. Maybe they could make some sense of the poem. I'll make sure my inquiries seem innocent enough."
Jaxon thought about it as he was standing up. He reached for Magee's hand. "Be careful and don't tell anybody about where you heard the poem. I'll appreciate hearing about anything you come up with."
"It will be my pleasure," Magee said, and turned to Lucy. "You want to give me a call when you're available, my love?"
Lucy also stood and walked over to give Magee a hug. "I will, Cian," she said. "Oh, I almost forgot. What's 'Myr shegin dy ve, bee eh,' mean? It sounded like a sign-off to me."
"What? Oh, yes, you're quite right," Magee replied. "'Myr shegin dy ve, bee eh' means 'What must be, will be.' Sounds pretty dramatic."
"That it does," Jaxon agreed. "Myr shegin dy ve, bee eh, then."
"Dia dhuit," Magee replied. "Which is how we Irish say 'God be with you.'"
10
"Got to go, honey bunny, I'm freezing my sweet keister off out here, and the cell doesn't work inside the restaurant." Ariadne Stupenagel had stepped into an alley off Brighton Beach Avenue in Brooklyn to escape the bitter wind that was howling in from the Atlantic, but she still shivered in the cold.
"If you come home now, mon cheri, I promise to warm it up for you," Murrow said in his best attempt at a sexy French accent, which came off as a fairly accurate rendition of the romantic cartoon skunk Pepe Le Pew.
"You want to warm my cell phone up?" Stupenagel laughed. She adored the man and found him incredibly sexy-but not when he was trying to be sexy and French. Then it was mostly just funny.
"No, your sweet…how do you Americans say?…derriere," Murrow continued.
"Oooh, Pepe," she squealed, wondering if he would get the joke. "When you talk like so, it makes me purr ze cat."
"Well, my little kitten, sounds like you have need of scratching, ze l'amour."
Stupenagel giggled and sighed. Her boyfriend really did have wonderfully talented fingers and knew just how to use them for "ze l'amour." But she had work to do and it was time to focus.
"Sorry, baby," she said. "I need this interview for a story, and this might be the only chance I get. It may take a while, so don't wait up…but if you want, I can wake you up, as only I can, when I get back."
"Ah, oui, madam, please and most definitely," Murrow mumbled. "Until then…au revoir."
"Ciao," she replied, and flipped the telephone shut. She allowed herself a smile for a few seconds longer, and then put on her hard-nosed journalist game face. She'd been in the business a long time and knew that her pursuit of the St. Patrick's Cathedral story had her treading in shark-infested waters. She was making someone very nervous and/or very, very angry.
They'd already tried to kill Gilbert, though she knew that she was the real target. However, that hadn't stopped her lover's boss, Butch Karp, from haranguing her over taking chances with "other people's lives."
Stupenagel had told him to mind his own business, though she knew he was just being protective of his aide and friend. Recalling the battle on the rooftop, she did feel a pang of guilt for endangering her lover for the sake of a story. But investigative journalism was more than what she did, it was who she was, and Gilbert had known that going in. And he hadn't tried to blame her for nearly being strangled to death. His only comments had been regarding his concern for her safety.