“All right then,” Brennan muttered. “Don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

A minibus with tinted windows had stopped near the doors.

“Look,” the big lug called out. “It’s the lads!”

Brennan knew that he’d left it too late. He made it in front of the girl. The others moved around him. He thumbed to transmit, hoped to God Fogarty or someone had been keeping an eye on things. Not a bloody Guard in sight. The girl got by him. There were hands pawing the minibus. The big fella had his face plastered up to a side window on the van. Fogarty, the supervisor, answered on the radio.

“They’re mobbing a van here,” Brennan said. “We need to get people out.”

He began shoving the teenagers away.

“Leave the van alone!” he shouted “That couldn’t be them!”

The girl with the face full of hardware shrieked the name of the lead guitarist. Brennan squinted in the window himself. Could it be someone from the band? The tint was so bloody dark.

“Get back!” he grunted and he shoved the girl.

He caught a glimpse of a sticker by the bottom corner of the windscreen. Squiggly writing, dots, a piece of a moon. Oh Jases, he muttered. Where did they put their CD signs now, those diplomatic plates? Well it was their own bloody fault. He turned and grasped the big fella’s collar.

The doors to the terminal slid open. Fogarty and Jimmy Doyle and the new fella what’s his name were coming out full tilt now. About bloody time. -

The big fella turned. The loose look on his face had turned to something narrow and Brennan knew he’d have to get a hold of him rapid, pull him off balance. Behind the lug, though, a window on the van slid down to reveal two startled brown eyes staring at Brennan. Masks, he wondered, but no, some of those things the women wore because… APF Brennan opened his mouth to say something and then fell backward as something connected with his cheekbone.