The young man sat, one shoulder facing his interrogator, legs crossed, arms folded, looking up warily from under his wet donkey fringe.
Davy began. “What’s the difference between guhr dynamite and straight dynamite?”
“Guhr dynamite has an inactive base. Straight dynamite has an active base. Forty percent straight dynamite’s forty-percent nitro, forty-four-percent sodium nitrate, fifteen-percent wood pulp, and one-percent calcium carbonate.”
“That’s right.”
“Jesus, mister. It’s the first thing they taught me.”
Jimmy held up a finger. “I told you he knows explosives.”
“Whist, Jim.” Davy ignored Jimmy’s spluttering. “What’s the minimum initiating charge for TNT?”
“Fulminate or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine?”
“Fulminate.”
“Zero-point-two-six grams. If it has a reinforcing cap.”
Davy recognized the man’s knowledge of these conventional explosives was as good as his own, but the Security Forces might have trained an infiltrator in the making of unconventional charges, too. “Suppose you had some nitric acid, sulphfuric acid, and some methyl alcohol, could you get an explosive out of that?”
“Dead easy.”
Davy stiffened. “How?”
Roberts flipped his hair aside and grinned. “I’d give it to a bloke like you and ask him to make me a bomb. For God’s sake, mister, how the hell would I know? We buy our stuff. We don’t fucking well make it.”
Davy saw Jimmy laughing and could not help laughing himself. Maybe the lad was on the level.
“Say your name was Mike?”
“Aye.”
“All right, Mike. Why do you want to meet someone in the Provos?”
“It’s kinda hard to explain. I grew up in Northern Ireland. I never thought much about politics, but I never got used to getting the shitty end of the stick because we were ‘Fenians.’ It wasn’t much fucking joy being a Catholic at a Protestant school.”
Davy saw how the youngster’s lip curled. “Go on.”
“My da took us to Canada. Do you know, it didn’t matter if you were Catholic or Protestant there. No one gave a shit. It was great.”
“That would be nice.”
“Aye. But, you know, you miss your own. Them Canadians have no sense of humour. I sorta stuck with the rest of the Irish lads. I met a fellow from Monaghan. He said he was in the IRA before he emigrated.”
“Go on.”
“He told me all about why he’d fought to free Ulster. I thought he talked a lot of sense. Sounded exciting, what he did. He’d to run because someone thought that the Brits had sussed him out. I thought I’d come and see for myself. Get it from the horse’s mouth, like.”
“Would you help out?”
“I might. It’s still my country.”
“And you know about Semtex?”
“Mostly C4.”
“Not Semtex?” Davy scowled at Jimmy. Had he come here on a wild-goose chase?
“I’ve used C4. I know about Semtex. It’s popular stuff with terrorists, if you know what I mean.” He grinned a big open smile. “It’s very hard to get your hands on in civilian work.”
Davy grunted.
“There’s not a lot of difference. Plastique’s plastique.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I will. If you’ll tell me about what’s really going on. I might even join up. I just wish to hell you’d tell me in out of the rain. I’m fucking drenched.”
“You’ll not melt. Tell you what. You tell me about Semtex. If you are serious about joining, I’ll ask about.” The hell he would, but he was going to learn what he wanted to know.
“Semtex-H? The Czechs make that in a place called Pardubice-SemtÍn. It’s a plastic explosive. Eighty-two percent cyclonite, and eighteen-percent paraffin wax. C4’s ninety-one percent cyclonite, that’s the only difference. They dye Semtex orange so if it doesn’t go off it’s easy to find. You can set fire to it, and nothing happens. Set it off with a detonator, and the gases expand at 26,400 feet per second.”
“Could you make a shaped charge?”
“Sure. But that’s not how you use it. Not all the time. It depends on what you want to blow.”
“Go on.”
“Look, say you wanted to knock down a concrete pillar. If you use C4, the best bet’s an offset charge. You need one pound of C4 for every foot the thing’s thick. You divide the C4 in half and fix half to one side and half to the other. Detonate them at the same second, and that’ll take out anything to four feet thick.”
“Sounds simple.”
“It is. Now suppose you want to break a steel beam, up to two inches thick. You’d use a ribbon. You make it twice as thick as what you want to cut and run it from one side to the other. Stick the primer in one end. That’ll go through an I bar like a hot knife through butter.”
“So you’d not need too much plastique?”
“The whole idea’s to use as little as possible. Like I said, it depends what you’ve to do. There’s all kinds of formulas to figure it out.”
“Formulas?”
“Aye. Like P equals R cubed KC.”
“P equals what?”
“P’s the pounds of TNT. R’s how big you want the hole. You’ve to cube that. Then you multiply by K. That’s the material factor. It’s different for all kinds of things. There’s a table. K for rubble’s 0.32, so you’d be cutting the amount by a third. It’s 1.76 for ferro-concrete, so you’d need about twice as much. Then C’s the tamping factor. You need twice as much if you don’t bury the charge.”
“Jesus.” Jimmy was right. This young fellow could be a gold mine of information.
“Aye, and once you’ve calculated P, that’s the pounds of TNT a job would take, then you divide by RE.”
“What the fuck’s RE?”
“Relative effectiveness factor. TNT’s given a factor of one. If you’re using Semtex, the RE’s 1.6. So if you figure out you’d need sixteen pounds of TNT, divide by 1.6. You’d only want ten pounds of Semtex. See?”
Davy shook his head.
“It’s not as bad as that. I could write it out for you.”
“Who said I wanted you to?”
“Suit yourself.”
“Tell me more.”
“All right. Sometimes you don’t have to do the sums. If you wanted to hole a fuel container and set fire to the fuel, a platter charge can do it from up to fifty yards away, but you’d need up to six pounds. You can get the same effect with a soap-dish charge stuck on the side of the fuel tank. Mind you, you’d have to add thermite to the plastique.”
“Is that what they call a shaped charge?”
“Not at all. Shaped charges is linear, cylindrical cavity, or conical.” He rubbed his arms with the palms of his hands. “Look. I’m fucking foundered.”
“Just a wee minute.”
“Jesus. All right. You have to get the size of the cavity just right. They work because making a hole in the plastique focuses the force. In a conical charge, the angle of the sides of the cavity has to be thirty to sixty degrees and the explosive twice as deep as the depth of the cone. Then you have to figure out the standoff.”
“Standoff?”
“Aye. You don’t put the explosive right against the target. You set it back. The formula’s once or twice the diameter of the cone.”
Davy was used to learning by doing. He frowned. “Tell me that bit about shaped charges again.”
“Look, if you really need to know, it’d be far easier for me to show you with a lump of putty.”
Davy smiled. “Aye. Right enough. I’ll maybe get ahold of you. You said you lived on Robina Street?”
“I did.”
Davy was getting cold. He’d learn no more today. Time for home. “You and Jim run on.”
“But what about my questions?”
Davy shook his head. “I’m not a Provo.”
“But you said…”
“You never met me. Go on
now.”
Jimmy stood. “Come on, Mike. It’s cold as a witch’s tit.”
Davy watched them walk away. At least now he had some notion about what was involved in working with plastique. And it was fucking complicated. Maybe he would have a word with Sean about Mike Roberts. Sean and McGuinness could worry about why a fellow who claimed he worked in the oil fields would know not one but two ways to blow up petrol tanks. Davy didn’t think there’d be much use for that skill in the oil business.
Maybe he’d take a chance. Why should he let McGuinness know that he’d been bluffing when he’d sworn he knew all about Semtex? He could get young Roberts round to the house and have him demonstrate. The putty was a good idea. Jimmy would have plenty. Davy shrugged. He’d have time to think that over, but damn it, he didn’t want to let McGuinness in on this. The thought of that shit’s contemptuous smile, and the way he’d have another excuse to have a go at Sean. Davy could hear the bastard now. “So your old man didn’t know how to work with plastique.”
He walked slowly toward the exit, right leg dragging, wondering if he could learn enough before the shipment Sean had spoken about arrived from Dublin. Schoolboys watched him pass, hiding their smokes, conducting their clandestine business in the rain at the Belfast Waterworks.
THIRTY-EIGHT
TUESDAY, APRIL 2
Brendan McGuinness’s communications room in 15B Myrtlefield Park was getting crowded. Four wooden crates were stacked against a wall. Each contained thirty one-kilo blocks of an orange-coloured material wrapped in a pink plastic sheet. There were six crates containing ArmaLite rifles, and twenty squat ammunition boxes of .223 ball cartridge. The long tubes of eight RPG-7s lay in a corner. The Belfast Brigade was resupplied, thanks to the efforts of Turlough Galvin, who was down in Dublin for meetings with Army Council, the governing body of the PIRA.
Turlough was being briefed about the decision to begin a campaign on the British mainland. He wondered about the wisdom of such a move. Two foreign corporals had tried to have a go at the Brits in their own backyard. One hadn’t been able to cross the English Channel. Nelson’s navy had seen to that. The other had thought he could bomb England to her knees. He hadn’t come close. Hitler had tried sending his Luftwaffe to blitz Belfast in the Easter of 1941. The Catholics and Protestants had come together as one community in the face of a common enemy.
The British government was trying to get them to come together again. Provisional Army Council had no time for that. They wanted the Brits out of the sovereign state of Ireland, a state that should have thirty-two, not twenty-six, counties.
If the senior Provos wanted to mount raids in England, that was their decision, but Turlough had more faith in the effects of the war in the north. Brendan McGuinness had been silent recently about the big raid he had mooted several weeks ago, and he’d refused to identify the target until he had all the details. Turlough decided not to discuss it with Army Council until he had something more concrete to propose. For the time being, he would listen and carry out his orders. At least he had been able to expedite the shipment that his men in Belfast so desperately needed.
* * *
In the drawing room, rays from the cut-glass chandelier were reflected in irregular patterns onto the high ceiling. They reminded Sean Conlon of Mister Eyes, a game he’d played as a child. Circles of light thrown from a shiny surface could be made to run and dance over the walls.
He sat in a comfortable armchair, close to the ornate fireplace, waiting for Brendan to finish in the other room. He had to admit, taking this furnished flat on Myrtlefield Park had been a stroke of genius. No one in this line of work was ever completely secure, but he was closer to feeling safe than he had since he joined the Provos back in 1970. The ordnance would be safe here, too. And they were going to need some of it very soon.
Sean yawned. It had been a long day, and he wished that Brendan would get a move on. No doubt the new source of intelligence was proving very useful, but the information obtained took time to analyze. Match of the Day would be on the telly shortly. He thought that Manchester City were playing ’Spurs. He would enjoy watching the game, but there would not be time if Brendan didn’t shift himself.
Sean hoped to God that Brendan was finally going to sort out the mysterious “big one,” something that would grate on the Protestants and the English like nails on a blackboard. The Republicans had to keep the pot boiling. Sean wanted union with the Republic, and as far as he was concerned, the best way to achieve that was to hit here in Northern Ireland. Hit hard, again and again, until the Protestants—the Reverend Ian Paisley and his like—reared up and refused any further cooperation with the British, the province became ungovernable, and the Brits finally gave up.
He let his gaze wander round the spacious room, marveling once more at how the upper crust lived. Clean white walls, adorned with paintings—originals, at that. Four Milliken watercolours of game birds. He admired the one of the autumn trees stark against the bracken below, with a cock pheasant rocketing through the bare branches. He’d enjoyed a shot, before the Troubles. Rabbits mostly. Pheasants were for the gentry. That would change when Ulster was free. He’d maybe get a go at what now were Lord Dufferin’s birds but then would belong to everybody. Until that day, Sean would have to content himself shooting at bigger game.
It was a superb picture. Sean envied the artist his skill. He’d wanted to be a painter himself, had been a student at Belfast College of Art when the Troubles started, but the IRA was a family business and he’d had no choice. Sean’s own da had been in the Officials in the fifties. He’d been younger than Davy McCutcheon’s father, but the two men had been comrades. Davy had kept an eye out for Sean in his early days with the Provos, before his rapid promotion.
He was a sound man, Davy, but the stupid bugger insisted on blaming himself because the raid on the Rovers had gone sour. Sean had sensed that Davy would need to have his confidence restored. Sean knew he’d been hasty, telling Davy that he’d be using the Semtex on an important job, when in truth, until McGuinness identified the target, Sean had no idea what the job might be. Still, the offer had produced the right response. The last time Davy was here, he’d left showing the right degree of determination.
Davy had given everything for the Cause. He deserved the rewards. Just as Sean had been forced to give up his art, Davy had lost his woman. Sean had met her once. Fiona Kavanagh. Black hair and a smile like a sunrise. Maybe he could go back to his painting, once the Troubles were over. Maybe Davy could go back to his Fiona. Sean heard the door open and turned to see Brendan, coatless, sleeves rolled up, eye bright behind his spectacles.
“Sean, it’s on. I’ve just got the word. This is fucking ginormous.”
“Get a grip, Brendan.” For a moment Sean wondered why he put up with McGuinness. He could be as vicious as a bull terrier, but there was no doubting the man’s commitment. “What is it?”
“Harold Wilson.”
“Harold Wilson?” Sean whistled. “Wilson? The PM?”
“Aye. Himself.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Not Jesus. Wilson. The bastard’s coming here.”
“Hang about. I’d need to think about that for a minute.”
“Take your time, Sean. But I’m telling you, we can get him.”
Sean wondered if Brendan was having a fit of the head-staggers. The security surrounding the visit of a British prime minister would be tighter than a duck’s arsehole. The idea was daft. There’d be no way to get at Wilson. None at all. Unless? Ah, no. The Provos weren’t like the PLO with their suicide squads—and yet if there was a way …
Sean asked, “Do you know when he’s coming?”
“Aye. April eighteenth.”
“That’s just a couple of weeks.” Sean had no reason to doubt Brendan. Intelligence was getting better. Much better. Even if Davy and his squad had failed to get the Land Rovers, they had been exactly where Brendan had said they would be.
“Wilson’s coming, S
ean.”
“Jesus. We’d better have a word with Turlough about this. He’ll have to get Army Council approval.”
Brendan smirked. “He’ll not be back for a few days. We’ll have to start planning now.”
“How the hell could we get to Wilson? The Security Forces will be all over the place.”
Brendan took off his glasses. His single eye sparkled. “We have the Semtex. We have an expert—if McCutcheon’s telling the truth.”
“He is, for Christ’s sake.”
“I believe you, Sean. Thousands wouldn’t. In a few more days I’ll know Wilson’s exact movements. If he has to take a drive anywhere, we can put the Active Service Unit in a safe house near the route. Even a week or so before.”
“Could we use something with a timer?”
“I doubt it. The Brit bomb-disposal boys will be everywhere. It’s going to take someone on the spot.”
Sean bit his lip. He didn’t like it. Not one bit, and yet the target was too good to miss. “We might not be able to get the attack squad out.”
“So? McCutcheon’s expendable.”
“He is not,” Sean’s voice was icy.
“It’s not for you or me to decide. That’ll be Turlough’s call.” He draped one arm round Sean’s shoulder. He flinched from the man’s touch. “Come on, Sean. Sooner or later, Davy’s really going to fuck up. I told you he’s past it. We might as well get some use out of him now.” He took his arm away and moved toward the big Philips television set. “Anyway, the lads’ll be back from Libya after the middle of this month. We’ll have more explosives experts than we’ll know how to use.”
Sean said levelly, “You are talking about a no-hope mission.”
Brendan smiled. “Not at all. We’ll get started on the logistics tomorrow.” He turned the on switch. “Match of the Day’ll be on in a minute,” he said, “’Spurs and Manchester.”
THIRTY-NINE
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3
Marcus sat in the frayed armchair, feet propped up on the candlewick bedspread, and wondered what the hell he had let himself in for. For two months he had become another man. Mike Roberts might have developed more sophisticated tastes in Canada but would be no stranger to squalor, scruffy boozers, and the premises of “turf accountants,” as bookies styled themselves.