Provo

‘Oh shit.’ He slipped the car into gear, released the handbrake, and held the car on the foot brake. ‘McKendrick’s behind us.’ He warned Nolan, the message passed to control via the vehicle’s voice-activated microphone. ‘Rorke’s with him.’

Back-up in now, Nolan knew control was ordering. Except that was what control was not doing. Because if control ordered the back-up car in then it would confirm that they were a forward stake-out, but if control didn’t send the back-up in then she and Brady were in trouble. Therefore she and Brady had to react to protect themselves, but the moment they reacted they would blow the operation to rescue Tommy Reardon’s wife and family.

Haslam heard the clicks on his earpiece. He eased up one edge of the trapdoor, Phillips covering him. Haslam opened the trap a fraction more. The only light came from below and the only sound was that of a television. He dropped through the hole and on to the landing, Phillips still covering him, took the Browning from the holster and covered the stairs as Phillips dropped from the roof space.

Two of the doors off the landing were closed and the third ajar. Haslam slid through the open door, clearing it quickly, and swept the room with the torch, holding it in his left hand and away from his body, the Browning in his right. It was a child’s bedroom, bunk beds against one wall, a handful of toys on the floor, and empty. They cleared the other rooms, left the landing, moved down the stairs, and checked that the kitchen at the rear was empty. The door of the lounge was closed, from inside they heard the canned laughter from the television.

Rorke reached the front of the car as McKendrick drew level with the driver’s door. The window was open. In one movement he stopped, bent and levelled the Walther at the man in the driver’s seat.

‘Wrong time, wrong place.’

Brady looked round and appeared to freeze, face suddenly white.

Rorke stepped in front of the car, the CZ pointed at the windscreen.

She and Brady had talked it through, so that each knew what the other would do and say, so that their movements would co-ordinate, so that one would create a diversion while the other went for his gun, so that the driver could reach the back-up weapon. But Brady’s hands were on the steering wheel so that he couldn’t go for his gun, and if she went for the Browning in her own waist holster they would see. Which left the MP5K on the floor by the driver’s seat. But to get to it she would have to move across Brady’s body. And to do that she would need a cover.

‘Fuck you. You’re setting me up, you bastard.’ She directed her fear and anger at the driver. ‘Not me.’ She turned to McKendrick. ‘I’m not with him. I’m nothing to do with this.’

She turned and tried to leave the car. Out of the passenger door or over the driver. Appeared to panic.

‘So what’re you doing if you’re not with him?’ McKendrick enjoyed the moment.

‘What the fuck do you think I’m doing with him?’ He picked me up in Amelia Street ten minutes ago: the implication and language were clear. Not if you’re in the front seat with him: she saw the expression in McKendrick’s eyes. Not if you’ve still got your pants on and your legs together.

‘Not here.’ McKendrick enjoyed the agony of the target before the kill. I know you. He tried to remember the driver’s face.

‘Ten quid. You must be joking.’

Finish it now and get out, part of McKendrick’s brain told him. Enjoy it ten more seconds. ‘Better give a condemned man his last wish, then.’

She couldn’t, Nolan suddenly knew. She needed the gun but couldn’t do what she had to do to get to it.

‘Fuck off.’

McKendrick swung the Walther at Nolan. ‘Do it.’

She wouldn’t be able to. She leaned forward and slightly down, and undid Brady’s trousers. The back-up had better come in carefully: too slow and they’d be too late, too fast and the bastards would see. And even if she could reach the MP5K it would only be with her left hand and the gun was pointing forward, for the driver to use, so she wouldn’t be able to use it.

McKendrick chuckled, saw the way she glanced up at him before she reached inside the driver’s trousers. The penis was limp. Slow everything down, don’t do it yet, give the boys in the house a chance. She touched it. She couldn’t, she knew again. No point in even trying, she knew.

‘Do it,’ McKendrick repeated.

She couldn’t reach the MP5K, but she could reach Brady’s Browning. She lowered her head on Brady’s lap. A coffee after, she told herself. Large and Irish. Plenty of Black Bush. She let go with her right hand and held it only with her left. Slow down, she told herself, give the back-up and the SAS a chance. ‘Do it,’ McKendrick ordered her again. Nolan’s mouth circled the head and her fingers felt for the Browning in the holster on the left side of his body.

He had already delayed too long, McKendrick told himself. He should have come in, done the job, got out fast. Five more seconds, he told himself.

What the hell was wrong? Nolan thought. Where the hell was the back-up? Her fingers were round the Browning and her thumb slipped the safety off. He’s playing with you, she knew, had already given you thirty seconds more of life than he should have done. So why was she still delaying? Why didn’t she do it?

Door hinges on left, Haslam rehearsed the movement in his mind: he goes left, Phillips right. It was thirty seconds to nine. He held the Browning Hi-Power in his right hand, the door handle in his left.

The television was in the right corner under the window. Marie Reardon pulled the children closer to her on the sofa, an arm over their shoulders and a hand half-covering their faces. One of the gunmen was in the armchair to her left, the pistol always pointing at her, and the other was on her right, what she thought was a Kalashnikov on his lap and also pointing at her. The gunman with the pistol stood up and switched television channels for the BBC news. At nine o’clock it will be all over, she suddenly realized, at nine o’clock Tommy will be dead. The programme ended and the door opened.

Gunman to left by television, pistol in hand, Haslam saw. He stepped left and cleared the space for Phillips to enter, crouched instinctively, the Browning already levelled at the gunman’s chest. Squeezed the trigger. Phillips stepped behind him, swept right. Gunman in armchair, Kalashnikov across lap. The Browning was already on target. He double-tapped the trigger.

Marie jerked the children tighter to her and tried to turn, tried to protect them, put herself between them and the gunmen. Was too shocked to even begin to understand.

Haslam was still shooting, the man with the pistol was on the floor, the pistol still in his hand. Haslam squeezed the trigger twice more, saw the hand fall open. He dropped on to one knee, pulled out the mag, even though it still contained four rounds, took the spare from the magazine pouch on his belt and slid it in, the Browning on the gunman again. He edged forward, kicked the gun away, made sure the man was dead. To his right Phillips cleared the Kalashnikov.

‘Friendly forces no casualties. Send QRF.’

Marie was in shock, shuddering with fright. She felt the hand on her shoulder and knew they were going to kill her, tried not to look round, looked round anyway. ‘How many men are there, Marie?’ The voice was English, a blur of sounds just as the events of the past thirty seconds had been a blur of colours and images. Leave the children, she tried to plead, for God’s sake spare the children. Her brain was confused and her head was spinning. Phillips slapped her face. ‘How many gunmen were there, Marie?’

For one second, perhaps less, the blow cleared her mind. ‘Two.’ The mist closed in again.

‘Friendly forces no casualties.’ Haslam repeated the message. ‘Send QRF.’

The penis was harder, her mouth still around it. For Christ’s sake do it, Nolan told herself. The shots from the house echoed up the street. She sensed rather than saw the moment, McKendrick’s eyes flicking off her and down the road, Rorke glancing momentarily behind him.

She straightened, gun in hand, aimed at McKendrick. Shot twice then spun left, shot Rorke through the windscreen, missed, perhaps one shot on target, she wasn’t sure. Brady slid his right foot off the brake and on to the accelerator, left off the clutch. Rorke moved, too slow and the wrong way. Finger pressing the trigger but the movement slightly altering his aim. The Opel slammed forward, into him, knocking him back and down. McKendrick was tumbling backwards, Walther discharging. Brady’s foot was hard on the floor, Rorke on the ground in front. McKendrick was framed against the window behind the driver. Nolan turned, aimed behind Brady, fired at McKendrick through the window, the glass shattered. The Opel hurtled forward, over Rorke, and down Beechwood Street, the car bumping, not running smoothly. Nolan still facing back and checking, seeing McKendrick fall and looking for Rorke, Brady still accelerating and the engine screaming. They were twenty yards away, thirty. Something wrong with the car, she thought, something slowing it down. Rorke still underneath, she realized, Brady still accelerating to clear the area. The car freed itself of Rorke’s body, the rear right wheel spinning on bone and flesh, then the torso flew out like a red rag.

The Land-Rovers of the Quick Reaction Force screeched to a stop outside Reardon’s house and the soldiers of the Sherwood Foresters ran inside. Haslam and Phillips put on the caps the first officer gave them, left the house, climbed into the first vehicle, and the driver accelerated away.

The two Macrolan Land-Rovers screeched to a halt and slid across the road, slightly apart, the first blocking the left lane and the second the right, so that vehicles passing between them would have to drive through a chicane. Routine VCP – vehicle checkpoint – the watchers knew; in fifteen minutes the soldiers jumping out of the vehicles would jump back in and the Land-Rovers would scream away as quickly and suddenly as they had come. The soldiers were fanning out, the man with the GPMG – general purpose machine gun – taking a position behind a low wall thirty yards from the road block.

He had two hundred yards left to live, Tommy Reardon knew. Slow down and delay it. Accelerate and get it over with. Dear Mary, Mother of God, may it be quick and painless and may Marie and the kids be all right. He was wet with fear and shaking with nerves, his throat dry and tight and his bowels churning. They were almost at the end of the Antrim Road. The convoy turned right into Annesley Street and snaked through the alleyway behind the houses. Thirty yards up the back street turned a right angle to the left. To his right Reardon saw the glass and metal side of the Mater Infirmorum Hospital, the junction with the Crumlin Road twenty yards in front of him, and the prison itself a hundred yards away on the other side of the hospital. The command Sierra accelerated away from him, up the Crumlin Road, and the Cavalier fell back slightly. He came to the junction and turned right.

VCP, the Sierra driver suddenly saw, just where they didn’t want it. Everyone in the car was armed, the front passenger carrying a Kalashnikov across his lap under a coat, and the rear with the remote firing device beside him. He was beginning to slow, still trying to decide what to do. Everything normal, he told himself, everything routine. Land-Rovers in standard position for a vehicle check, soldiers in position. Something wrong, it was a flicker in his mind, something about the soldiers. Not moving like ordinary squaddies, not the same age as ordinary squaddies, all slightly older, late twenties or early thirties. He swung the car left and swore a warning, the front passenger whipping the coat off the AK.

The night exploded. Gunfire in front of him, concentrated on the Sierra which had just passed him. Tommy Reardon jerked, foot stabbing the accelerator momentarily and the digger speeding up, then slowing slightly. The gunfire was deafening, unending. Sheets of sound pouring from the machine gun on the right of the road. The Criminal Court was on his left and the prison was on his right. He turned and glanced back. The Cavalier was still moving, the unseen men on either side of the road firing into it. He was confused, still terrified. Did not know what to do. Realized he was still moving and jammed his foot on the brake. The Cavalier bumped into the rear of the digger. A car he hadn’t seen before pulled in front of him, the men getting out even as it slowed, as he himself stopped. His foot was still locked on the brake, his body frozen with fear and the gunfire still crashing into the Sierra in front of him. A second car slammed to a halt, more men racing out, all armed, faces blackened. One of them pulled the cab door open and jerked him out, others surrounding and protecting them. A third car screamed to a stop, and the bomb disposal expert ran for the barrel of explosive, more men covering him.

‘It’s all right, Tommy.’ He heard the voice as he was bundled out of the digger and towards the first car. ‘Marie and the kids are fine.’ He was pushed into the back seat, men clambering in around him and on top of him. ‘What did you say?’ He was still confused, still frightened. ‘Marie and the kids are okay. It’s over.’ The car accelerated away, men outside slamming the doors shut and the heavy duty rounds of the GPMG still battering the car with the remote firing device.

* * *

The water was piping hot. Doherty lathered the foam round his chin and jowls, and wet the razor under the tap. It was beginning to show, he told himself: the sinking of the eyes and the hollowing of the cheeks. He remembered the afternoon after the doctor had warned him of the possibility, the way it had passed, the last sun setting on the water at Kilmore, and the mountains fading into purple. Eighteen months, then he would face his Maker. He wiped the steam from the mirror and drew a swathe across the foam on the left side of his face.

So what will you say to him? He dipped the razor under the hot water tap and drew it round his chin, then down his throat. What will he say to you? Will the Holy Mary still smile her smile at you? And what will those you’ve left behind say? What sort of footnote will you have in the history of the struggle? It would be a small one, he was aware; perhaps even anonymous. Even in death it would not be possible to afford him the recognition he had so diligently avoided in life. For the past eight years Eamon Doherty, professor and family man, pillar of the community and the church, had been Chief of Staff of the Army Council of the Provisional IRA. For almost ten years before that he had served as a planner and tactician, and for the years before that in whatever role the movement required.

Bloody fiasco in Belfast, the anger broke his thoughts. Two dead at the house in Beechwood Street. McKendrick and Rorke butchered in the street. Eight shot to pieces on the Crumlin Road and seventy still trussed up inside the prison there. And all on Orange Day. The Prods chuckling all the way to the bank and the Brits laughing all the way back to London.

He wiped his face and dressed.

So who would begin the moves this morning? he wondered. Who would press for a major investigation into the identity of the member who had leaked the operation to spring the men from the Crum? Who would pick up on the McKendrick farce and turn it to his advantage?

Conlan or Quin, he knew; in the end it would come down to one of these. Both were respected in the Movement, both were playing for their places closer to the top of the pecking order. Both politicos, sharp tongues and sharper brains. Conlan tall, slender build. Quin bigger, using his bulk to disguise the speed at which his mind moved.

In a way the Movement was at yet another crossroads. There had always been discussion—often dissent – between the Republicans and the Socialists, even after the Movement had appeared to wither in the fifties and sixties. And in the seventies the Official IRA, the Stickies, had lost ground to the new heads and fiery demands of the Provisionals. Yet within the Provos there had also been disagreement – about the role of violence and the desirability of combining the gun with the vote. Now the new crossroads, Conlan and Quin already laying out their qualifications for the leadership, for the job of Chief of Staff. He finished dressing and left the house.