In the early 1990s, well into the third decade of its armed struggle against the occupation of Northern Ireland, the Provisional IRA breathed fresh life into its bitter campaign, by launching a series of deadly attacks on the British mainland. In sharp contrast, an octogenarian Soviet Union coughed apologetically and collapsed in on itself, decimating the lives of its people, and spawning a litter of monster states each with an insatiable appetite for corruption, greed and violence.
Sean is the youngest of a brood of seven brothers, by some margin. Ignored at home and unable to gain the attention he craves, he turns to violence, gaining a reputation for getting his own way by any means possible. Soon after his seventeenth birthday, he is persuaded to bend his violent nature to a more worthy cause: the Irish Republican Army. He joins an Active Service Unit in Belfast. Now married, with a young son, all seems well for Sean until one of his brothers crosses swords with his Commanding Officer, and is duly punished. Sean loses his cool at the sight of his knee-capped brother, but the blame is laid squarely at the door of a nearby Loyalist paramilitary unit. To prove his continued fealty, Sean is given a particularly tricky assignment. Growing doubts assail him, however, and he pulls out of the intended shoot at the last minute. In response, the Commanding Officer betrays his identity to the Loyalists. When Sean’s family are murdered, and he then learns the terrible truth about who is behind it all, he reciprocates, knee-capping the Commanding Officer, but pulling back from a desperate urge to slaughter the man’s family as well. Undone and alone, he runs for his life, escaping to London, where he meets Irina.
Out of the Slavic upheaval steps Irina: beautiful, confident, and determined, not only to embrace the fundamental changes which are taking place around her, but also to rise majestically with the new democratic tide. She falls for Sergey, a rising star in the Odessa Mafia, and is blissfully happy until one day when he demands she repay his boundless generosity. Stunned by his sudden chilling change in attitude, she walks out, but his men track her down and disfigure her, slashing a knife across her face and partially blinding her. She is put to work in one of his many bars, serving tables by day and at the mercy of his business associates by night. One summer’s day, when he appears at the bar with yet another young girl on his arm, Irina acts decisively. She slips the girl a note, but is caught red-handed. Just then, someone in a dilapidated Lada reverses into Sergey’s Mercedes, and Irina uses the distraction to escape. She jumps into the stranger’s car, and advises the startled man that Sergey will kill him on the spot if he gets given the chance. The man puts his foot to the floor, and the two of them speed out of the city to a village in the countryside, where they are forced to abandon the car. Mostly on foot, they agree to make for the border. There, they separate, and Irina is hunted all the way to London, where she meets Sean.
They cannot escape their separate histories, however, and they barely have time to get acquainted when two vengeful worlds explode around them. Somewhat fortuitously, Irina eludes capture, but she faces some daunting challenges if she is to save the man she loves.
Copyright © David Thomas Cochrane 2010
