Never Never Read Online Free PDF Page B

wouldn’t be long. He pointed to one of the men.
    â€œYou. Carry this man to the clinic and then report to the parade grounds. Where’s your rifle?”
    â€œIn…in my barracks, Sergeant.”
    â€œGet it.” Hurley turned to the other four men. “How did this bear get here?”
    â€œThe zoo, Sergeant,” one of the men said. “They’ve been roaming free all week.”
    â€œRoaming free?” Hurley looked at the camp gate and then down at the bear.
    This was a sign as sure as anything could be.
    For as long as Hurley could remember he’d dreamed of life in a military regiment. But even fifteen years in the Garda had not fulfilled that particular yearning in him. In the readings he’d done as a kid, he knew the one true army—the paragon above all others—had been the imperial Roman army.
    After a lifetime of ridicule for what he knew to be true, it looked like Padraig Hurley was finally in a position to realize his dream.
    â€œYou four,” he said, “round up whatever man eating zoo animals you can. Tigers, lions, whatever will do the most danger to our city. Do you understand?”
    â€œYes, Sergeant!”
    â€œWhere should we…how should we collect them, Sergeant?”
    Hurley forced himself not to smile. Experiencing the pleasure of his own hubris was clearly another habit he would need to break.
    â€œBring them however you can…wheel them in cages, drag them in chains…but bring them alive to the Dublin amphitheater.”
    â€œThe…opera house? Downtown?”
    â€œThat’s right. What squad do you four belong?”
    â€œG Squad, Sergeant.”
    â€œGo gather your squad,” Hurley said. “Then report back here.”
    He turned on his heel to redirect F Squad waiting at the parade grounds to join G in the hunt for the zoo animals. Waking the officers could wait.
    After all, what kind of resurgent Roman army could there be without tossing a few superior officers to a hungry lion or two?

6
    T he journey to the castle began on the coldest day of the year so far. Barely into the first week of October and two weeks after Gavin and Sophia’s baby daughter Maggie was born, the little nunnery awoke to frost in the garden that refused to melt as the morning wore on.
    Six men, fourteen women and thirteen children—most of them infants—left the convent on foot, pulling a sled of provisions, their backpacks loaded. The nuns had decided not to leave, at least for the time being. Sarah only agreed to go because she knew the nuns would be here if John came back.
    As she watched Mike, a toddler in each arm and easily the tallest man in the group, line everyone up in the garden, it occurred to her that he might well have asked the nuns to stay behind knowing it would comfort Sarah.
    No, strike that. Knowing it was his only chance to get me to leave .
    Terry, Kevin and Declan led the horses while Gavin and Tommy rode. The sled held the harnesses for the horses for when they got to the wagons hidden on the far side of the woods. Their first leg of the trip would be on foot through the thick forest, which was one of the main reasons why nobody easily discovered the nunnery. There was no road that led to it. On foot or horseback were the only ways to the convent’s front gate.
    Sarah held Sophia’s newborn. The infant had pale red hair and dimples. She was good-natured and already slept through the night. Mike held Siobhan. He said it was because she was so much heavier but Sarah suspected it was because if Sarah carried her, Siobhan would cry. The fact that Mike and everyone else knew that Sarah’s own baby hated her weighed heavily on her.
    How can a child not want its own mother? John was never like this as a baby. Was there something wrong with Siobhan?
    Sarah knew it was more likely it was something having to do with her .
    Children and dogs , her mother used to tell her. They know good people