Sean stood by the window, back to Brendan. He turned. His face was clouded. “What the hell’s happened?”
“Things go wrong.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“What for? It’s all taken care of.”
“Christ, Brendan. Our most important attack’s blown and all you can say is ‘it’s taken care of’?”
“What do you want me to say, that I’ve been telling you all along that McCutcheon was past it, that your favourite Fifties Man has fucked us up royally?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“According to my source, your old comrade took a friend along. A British army bomb-disposal expert. Maybe McCutcheon needed a hand with the Semtex.”
“Jesus. Davy’ll have a bit of explaining to do.”
Brendan polished his spectacles. “Not to us. Their man’s tipped the Brits off. They have a squad heading for the farm.”
“What? I thought you said it was all fixed.”
Brendan shrugged, hooked one leg of his glasses over an ear, adjusted the frames on the bridge of his nose, then fitted the other leg in place.
“Brendan!”
“I didn’t bother to get McCutcheon out.”
“Why the hell not?”
“That would tip our hand. Let the Brits know we had a source.”
“Maybe.”
“Look. I told you McCutcheon was past it. It’s not our fault he screwed up again. He’s not worth risking anything more for. We need the information we’re getting a damn sight more than we need McCutcheon. The new explosives lads’re coming back from Libya on Monday.”
“We can’t ditch Davy.”
“The fuck we can’t. We’d be better off without him.”
“Look, get Davy out. Have him bring the Brit bastard with him.”
“What for?”
“Do you not think you could get some information out of him?”
“Oh, aye,” said Brendan. “I’d enjoy doing that.”
Sean shuddered. “Even if aborting the mission lets the Brits suspect we’ve an inside track, they’ve no way of finding out exactly what it is. Have they?”
Brendan pursed his lips.
“Well. Have they?”
“They might.”
“I don’t give a shit. Look, if Davy’s not there, they’ll find the bomb, but they can only try to pin it on us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Christ, Brendan. If Davy’s taken, they’ll have proof that it was a Provo mission. If he’s not, we can have Army Council deny it.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe about it.”
“No. Leave the old bugger there.”
“I will not.”
“You forgotten who’s acting CO? You’ll leave him there.”
Sean moved very close to the shorter man, looked down on him, and said, quietly and with utter disdain, “I’ve not forgotten. I’ve not forgotten Davy, either.”
“You’ve your orders, Conlon.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
FIFTY-NINE
THURSDAY, APRIL 18
The phone in the farmhouse rang. Davy’s head jerked toward the sound. Another double ring. Who the hell could that be? The bell jangled. Davy saw Mike’s questioning look as he said, “Expecting a call?”
Davy shook his head.
“Are you going to answer it?”
Davy limped to the dresser, back turned to Mike, and lifted the receiver. “Hello.”
“Davy?”
“Sean?”
“Aye. Davy, get out. Now.”
“What?”
“Listen. The lad with you’s a Brit. He’s shopped you.”
“Jesus.” Davy stared at the wall. He did not trust himself to look at Mike. A Brit? Oh, fuck. “You sure?”
“Definitely. Don’t let on you know. Bring him with you. McGuinness wants a word with him. You’ve not long. Get out and bring him to Myrtlefield.”
“Right.”
“Good luck, Davy.” The phone went dead.
Davy’s hand shook as he replaced the receiver. He knew he was in deep shit, and if that wasn’t enough, Mike was a fucking British agent. McGuinness wanted a “word” with him? Oh, Jesus. McGuinness would grill Mike over a slow fire. There wasn’t time to worry about that now. They had to get out. Davy took a very deep breath. “That was Brigade HQ. We’ve to run. We’ve been rumbled.”
“What?” Roberts leapt to his feet. Davy saw the look on the lad’s face as he obviously tried to control himself. “What?”
“You heard. Come on.” Davy strode to the back door and wrenched it open. “Come on, for Christ’s sake.”
A raucous clattering battered Davy’s ears. Low over the farmyard a Wessex helicopter swooped, making for the field behind the poplars. He slammed the door and limped rapidly across the kitchen to the front door. He hurled it open. In the distance across the bridge he saw two Saracens. Men in combat gear spilled onto the road and into the field on the far side of the river. Avoiding the bridge.
Davy slammed the door. He was trapped. “The fuckers are all round us.” He had to yell to make himself heard above the noise of rotors. If he ever wanted to see Fiona, Davy knew he had to find an escape route. And fuck McGuinness. Davy had no time to bother with getting Mike Roberts out to satisfy that one-eyed shite in Myrtlefield Park.
“What are we going to do, Davy?”
Davy felt a hand on his sleeve. He turned on Roberts. The bastard was still playing his stupid game, trying to keep Davy occupied while the Brits attacked.
“Let go.”
Roberts tightened his grip.
Davy fetched the younger man a fierce open-hander. “Let go.”
Roberts’s head rocked. He hunched into a boxer’s crouch. The helicopter’s engine roared. It must be taking off. Davy knew it would have deplaned a squad. “You shite. You British shite.”
“What are you on about?”
“You’re a Brit, you fucker.”
Roberts dropped his guard. He looked as if he was going to deny the accusation, but Davy didn’t care. The roar of the rotors forced him to shout. “I trusted you, you fucker, and you’ve dumped me in it.” Davy pulled back his fist.
Roberts stood his ground, yelling back, “Give up, Davy. You haven’t a hope in hell.”
A megaphone bellowed: “Come out or we’re coming in.”
Davy lowered his fist. Roberts wasn’t worth it. Anyway, there was no time for a fight. He had to run. Had to. He shook his head and said softly, “Get out. Go to your British friends.” He didn’t care if Roberts heard over the racket.
“You, in there. Come out. You’ve three minutes.” The voice came from overhead. From the helicopter.
Roberts shouted. “Make it easier on yourself, McCutcheon. Give up. Fiona’ll wait for you.”
“For twenty years?” Davy shook his head. “I’ve to run.”
“They’ll kill you if you try.”
“Two minutes.”
Davy turned on his heel. “Get out of my sight, you bastard.” He felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Davy. I’ll not let you do this.”
Davy spun, saw the punch coming, blocked it with his forearm, and rammed a stiff jab into Roberts’s stomach. Davy heard the younger man’s gasp and watched him double over, knees sagging as he struggled to breathe. “Fuck you, Roberts.”
Davy turned and climbed the stairs. He locked the bedroom door, grabbed the ArmaLite in one hand and the remote in the other, moved to the window, and knelt. And all the while the helicopter roared. The man with the megaphone yelled, “One minute.”
Fuck them all.
Davy stared through the grimy window. Two Saracens were parked well back from the bridge. The troops had formed a skirmish line along the hedgerow on the far side of the river. They’d not risk being shot at, just lie there and wait for the buggers behind to flush him out. The ones from the Saracens were backstops.
He sat with his back to the
wall. Damn you, Mike Roberts. Damn you to hell. Now there was no chance to avenge Da, no chance to make it right for the mistake with the wee girl, no chance to keep his promise to Sean.
The voice in the sky roared, “We’re coming in.”
Davy turned back to the window. The Brit shites were still behind the hedge. He scanned the ditches. There were no troops on the Ravernet side of the river. He closed his ears to the din and concentrated. There might be a way to get to the wood and the motorbike.
* * *
Marcus retched and tried to haul in a lungful of air. All his years boxing and he hadn’t seen that one coming. He was still struggling to draw breath when the door slammed back. A paratrooper and a man in a dark green RUC uniform stood in the open doorway. He could not make out their features in the kitchen’s dim light but could see the Ruger revolver in the policeman’s right hand. Marcus’s password came out in a strangled whisper. “Whigmaleerie.” He saw a rifle muzzle swinging in his direction. “Whigmaleerie, for Christ’s sake.” He swallowed as the soldier lowered the SLR.
“You the British agent?”
Marcus nodded.
“Where’s the other bloke?”
Marcus hesitated. Was there a chance Davy could make a run? He saw the paratrooper glance up the stairs. Marcus shrugged and said, “In the bedroom.”
He watched the soldier race up the stairs two at a time. The impatient bastard should have waited for backup. Another trigger-happy hero. Marcus tried to follow but he was still winded. He struggled to yell at the RUC officer, “Davy’s no chance of getting out. Tell that soldier not to—” He heard the calico-ripping noise of automatic fire, harsh against the basso thrumming of the helicopter’s blades.
Another sharper-sounding burst, a muffled yelp, and the para’s body smashed against the bannister, spread-eagled like a sagging crucified Christ. His SLR crashed to the kitchen floor.
Marcus spun on the RUC officer. He’d moved closer. Jesus, he thought it was the man who had called himself Fred, the one who had interrogated Marcus and split his lip. “What the hell are you people doing?”
The RUC man holstered his gun and stood, legs braced, hands behind his back. “Our job, son.”
“Christ, man, I told the major not to mount a raid. Now I’ve no bloody chance of contacting the senior Provos.”
“Is that what you were meant to be doing?” The officer strolled to where the dead Para had dropped his rifle.
“No. I was looking for fucking leprechauns.” Marcus lowered himself onto a chair, nursing his bruised gut. Why should he even give a damn about contacting more Provos? Now that he was safe, he’d get out of this stupid cloak-and-dagger business. Perhaps the major would be satisfied that Harold Wilson was safe. Marcus sincerely hoped so. He looked up and shuddered as he saw the dead para, and he wondered what was happening to Davy McCutcheon.
Marcus watched the RUC man stoop and carelessly pick up the SLR. “Are you going after McCutcheon?” Marcus asked.
“No.”
* * *
Davy crouched in the corner of the bedroom and stared at the splintered wood round the door lock where the Brit had tried to shoot the door open. Stupid git. Davy’s return burst, fired blind from his ArmaLite, had punched neat holes in the paneling and been rewarded by a satisfying yell. One of the bastards down, but there’d be more coming. And soon.
Davy shook his head. His ears rang from the row of the recent gunfire and the incessant thunder of the helicopter overhead. It was time to get away the fuck as fast as possible. He crawled to the window and raised his head. Good. The troops were all still on the far riverbank. And that was where the shites were going to stay.
Davy dropped the automatic rifle, grabbed the model aeroplane control, looked out through the window, pointed the transmitter, and pressed the button.
He watched sixty pounds of Semtex erupt in a red, black, and orange fireball. The blast drowned the sounds of the chopper. As the span rose lazily, then blew apart, blocks of masonry crashed into the river and onto the road. Shrapnel peppered the hedgerow where the soldiers lay. That would give the buggers something to occupy them while he made his dash for the wood.
Davy glanced back at the framed Madonna, her eyes full of all the sadness of the world, then crossed himself. The old, oft-spoken words of the Hail Mary gave him no comfort.
He left the ArmaLite on the floor. He couldn’t hope to shoot it out in the open with half the British army. The weapon would be nothing but an encumbrance. He hurled up the window sash, crawled through the window, hung by his outstretched arms, let go, and dropped heavily to the ground. He felt the shock jar through his leg and screamed as the bone snapped.
“No!” Davy lay on the ground. He tried to stand, but his leg would not take his weight. “No!”
In the distance he could see a line of soldiers moving toward him across the ploughed field. The blast might have taken out one or two, but not enough. They’d forded the stream and were coming for him.
He started to drag himself toward the wood, inching along a furrow, useless leg jarring, sending bone-grating shocks through him. It was hopeless and he knew it.
He lay on his back, hands clasped round his thigh. Closing his eyes, he remembered what Fiona had said, how she knew he was trying to atone for the death of the Hanrahan girl. One good raid would wipe the slate clean.
He opened his eyes and saw moss on the eaves and above the blue of the heavens. He was on his way to his personal purgatory with no hope of absolution. He’d see that little girl for the rest of his life. He’d have plenty of time to think of her. He’d been betrayed by a man he’d come to trust, and because of Mike Roberts—or whatever the bastard’s real name was—Davy would have all the time in the world to mourn for the Hanrahan girl, and to grieve for the life he might have had with Fiona. There was nothing but time in the British jail at Long Kesh. Maybe McCusker had got off easy.
* * *
Marcus’s ears rang as the sounds of the chopper were drowned by an almighty thunderclap. He flinched. The windows rattled and two cups tumbled off the dresser.
“That was the bridge.” Marcus knew precisely what the charges he had built would have done and he’d have to answer for that at the inevitable debriefing. “Stupid. There was no need for that to happen.” He looked up at the RUC man who stood at the far side of the table, SLR held loosely across his body. Marcus glanced at the open door. “Where the hell’s the rest of your squad?”
The RUC man put one foot up on a kitchen chair. “I ordered them to wait outside.”
“Christ. You reckoned the pair of you could take out a committed Provo? You’ve got one soldier killed. McCutcheon was waiting for you. Someone tipped him off about your raid.”
The RUC man lifted his foot from the chair and stood erect. “How do you know that?” Marcus heard the same tone in the man’s voice that he’d used during the mock interrogation.
“Because somebody phoned McCutcheon and told him.”
“You sure?”
Marcus looked up into a pair of hard, lifeless eyes. “Of course I’m bloody well sure.”
“That would interest your major.” The eyes narrowed.
“Maybe, but he was after senior Provos.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Yes.”
Fred shook his head. “You were had, son. I think he was after informers.” Eric Gillespie snapped the SLR against his shoulder and put one 7.62-mm full-metal-jacket round between Marcus Richardson’s staring hazel eyes.
SIXTY
FRIDAY, APRIL 19
Major Smith walked up the steps of the Clinical Sciences Institute and stopped at the hall porter’s office.
“Orthopaedics?”
“Ward eighteen.” The porter pointed to a staircase and said, “Up two flights and follow the corridor.”
The major walked on. It was a shame about Richardson. According to Gillespie, the paratrooper had been shot by the PIRA bomber and spun and fired as he fell. Richa
rdson was killed instantly. And no way to prove it hadn’t happened exactly as Gillespie had reported. The Provo—Gillespie said his name was Davy McCutcheon—had broken his leg trying to escape, was captured and taken to the Royal.
Things had not worked out the way the major had planned. Not at all. He had expected the farmhouse to be deserted yesterday morning, clear evidence that someone—to be precise, Eric Gillespie—had warned the Provos off. The bomber and Richardson were there when the attack went in. Either they had not been warned or the warning had come too late. Richardson could have told the major what had transpired, but Richardson was dead. Conveniently dead, as far as Gillespie was concerned. But McCutcheon might have the information, and if he did the major would get it out of him. He permitted himself a tight smile as he strode along a rubber-tiled corridor. He’d wring McCutcheon dry.
* * *
Siobhan had slept late. She hadn’t slept well since Mike had gone off on that stupid business with Uncle Davy. And Dad had been no help. He hadn’t a clue where they were. Didn’t seem to care. All he could think about was how soon he and Mum could leave for Toronto. They were out at Canada House this morning finishing up their paperwork. Dad was right about emigrating. The sooner the whole family and—she smiled in spite of her concerns—that pigheaded Mike Roberts were in Canada, the better.
She took a cup of tea and the newspaper through to the parlour, sat, balanced the cup and saucer on the arm of the chair, and glanced at the front page. More bloody violence. She glanced at a clean-cut British officer staring at her from a head-and-shoulders photograph.
She tutted as she read the story. There’d been an attempt on the life of the British prime minister. A British agent, Lieutenant Marcus Richardson, had infiltrated the PIRA and uncovered the plot, but was killed in the attack that captured the man who was to have assassinated Harold Wilson. She felt a pang of sorrow for the young man, glanced at his photograph again, lifted her teacup, and read on.
The story said that a terrorist, David McCutcheon, had been arrested. Uncle Davy? Good God. Uncle Davy? And Mike was with him. It couldn’t be. She stared at the picture. The long hair and ridiculous moustache weren’t there, but she recognized the eyes, Mike’s eyes. Mike Roberts had been a man called Marcus Richardson?