Bandit Country

‘Sorry, old chap. Got a bit carried away.’

Early spat out blood. ‘I’ll bet you did. Now throw me the fuck out of here.’

The rear door of the Landrover swung open and Early was pitched out head first. He hit the tarmac of the square heavily, coloured lights dancing brightly in his head, and for a moment could do nothing but lie there in the reek of the vehicle’s exhaust fumes. There were feet around him. The tarmac was covered with fragments of glass and broken stone, and the sound of the crowd yelling seemed to hurt his very brain.

Strong hands grabbed him and hauled him away from the Landrover.

‘Look what the fuckers did to him! The rotten bastards! Sure, he’s never hurt a fly – only got here this afternoon.’

Early looked up painfully. It was Brendan Lavery, and beside him, Maggie. Her eyes were full of concern.

‘Jesus, my head hurts.’

‘They’ve split your head. Here, hold that hanky there. We’ll get you inside. They did the same to Eugene. What a fucking wonderful country!’

He was dragged back to the bar, through a milling crowd of shouting people. The riot was impromptu, not staged like so many were, but it seemed no less vicious for all that. Soldiers were swinging batons, and Early heard the hollow boom of a plastic bullet being fired. Then there was a flare and a hiss, and the crowd was scattering. They were using CS. It was a hell of a way to rig up a meeting. He suspected that Cordwain and Boyd enjoyed it – it was just their fucking style.

People were coming back inside now, coughing and spluttering. Several of the pub’s windows had been smashed to smithereens. Early noted the thick, flesh-coloured cylinder of a plastic bullet rolling on the floor, but the noise from outside was lessening. The CS had done the trick. His own nose began to tingle and he realized that the gas was seeping into the pub. A last trio of figures staggered inside and then the doors were closed. People pulled the curtains across the shattered windows, coughing, eyes streaming.

‘How’s your head now? Jesus, Dominic, you’re going to have a hell of a shiner in the morning.’ Maggie was looking at Early solicitously. There was dirt on her cheek and her hair was all over the place.

‘I hope the dinner’s not burned,’ Early said, which got a laugh from her.

Suddenly Finn was there too, squatting down beside Maggie. His face was a mass of rising bruises and his lip was split and still oozing. But he grinned at Early.

‘Didn’t I tell you not to provoke them now? And there we are – a babe in arms taken out by the big bad soldiers and given a wee kicking. That’s life in Cross for you, McAteer. Still want to stay?’

‘Those bastards aren’t getting rid of me. I hope the fuckers get shot,’ Early croaked. And thinking of Boyd, he almost meant it.

Finn had become very grave. He wiped his split lip. ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Do you see now, Ballymena man, what we’re up against down here? There’s no law in Cross except what we make ourselves. Those thugs can’t represent the law or the government. How can they? The law operates by the consent of the governed, and we withhold our consent. They’re as good as criminals.’

‘Now, Eugene, don’t you start,’ Maggie admonished him. ‘The man’s just after getting beaten up and you’re talking to him about politics.’

Finn rose, smiling. The smile still did not reach his eyes.

‘You and me will have a wee talk about this another time, Dominic, after you’ve seen Eoin Lavery and got yourself that job. It’s a desperate shame when the Brits pull in a man like yourself and give him the once-over; a man who’s never been part of anything no doubt, a man as innocent as the day is long. You take care now, and watch this wee girl. I think she has an eye for you.’

Maggie swatted Finn with the cloth, and he laughed. Then he touched his bruised face tentatively.

‘Have they made a right mess of me then, Maggie?’

‘No more of a mess then there was before,’ she retorted.

‘And here’s me going to be playing the bodhran down in Kilmurry this week, with me face looking like a potato. I doubt none of the local lassies will be giving me so much as a look.’

‘Ach, Eugene, sure you know they’ll be round you like flies on a jampot, just as usual, especially when you tell them how you got your bruises.’

He winked at her. ‘You may be right there, wee girl. I must be going now. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a busy night. You look after Dominic now. The poor man looks a bit pale.’

Finn left them and went over to the door of the bar. He looked out, and signalled to two other men in the pub. One of them was McLaughlin. The trio exited silently.

Maggie was blushing, Early realized. But he noted it with only one portion of his mind. The rest was taken up with Finn’s words. Had they been an echo of suspicion? It was too hard to say. And that reference to Kilmurry – it was in the Republic, and Cordwain would want to know about that. He would have to get a message through via the dead letterbox. He groaned. His body felt like one massive bruise. That bastard Boyd had enjoyed it, the smooth-chinned little shite.

‘Let me help you up to your room,’ Maggie said, helping him to his feet. ‘I’ll bring you up your tea later – there’s a world of clearing up to do here. Never you worry about anything Eugene says. He’s a passionate man, so he is, but he has reason to be.’

‘I don’t think he likes me,’ Early said.

‘Ach, that’s just his way. He was born suspicious. What you need now is a bite to eat and then some sleep. It’s bound to have been a long day.’

When he was finally alone in his room, Early found that someone had been through his things, discreetly, but not discreetly enough. He half hoped that it wasn’t Maggie. He liked her, he realized. Not only that, she might be a way in. She seemed to know a lot about what was going on in the town, and her bed was as good a place to pump her for information as any. Early grinned to himself at the image that thought conjured up.

Just so long as Finn had been convinced by the evening’s little charade. Early disliked the flamboyance of men like Cordwain and Boyd. He instinctively felt that it was counter-productive, fuelling the current enmity between soldiers and locals in the town. It certainly did not make his own job any easier.

His head and ribs throbbed. His eye was closing over rapidly. The ‘kicking’ had been convincing enough, anyway.

He padded out of his room and down the hallway to the bathroom, to wet a towel for his eye. The light was on inside and the door was ajar. He peeked round the doorway carefully. Maggie was in there, her back to him as she leaned out the window. She was wearing a short bathrobe and he had a wonderful view of her long, pale legs, a glimpse of her round buttocks. She was talking to someone outside, and leaned out until Early thought she would flip over the sill and out the window. Despite the splendid sight before him, Early tried to listen in on her conversation, but could make out little. He ducked back hurriedly as she backed in from the window carrying something in her hands, something long and heavy wrapped in plastic.

Early tiptoed back along the landing, cursing silently. She had been holding an AK47.

There was uproar in Crossmaglen that night. The streets were full of the roar of engines. Saracen armoured cars and Landrovers, police ‘Hotspurs’ and ‘Simbas’ went to and fro disgorging troops and heavily armed RUC officers. Sledgehammers smashed down doors and soldiers piled into houses amid a chaos of cursing and shouting, breaking glass, screaming children. Households were reduced to shambles as the Security Forces searched house after house, the male occupants spread-eagled against the sides of the vehicles outside, the females shrieking abuse.

Carpets were lifted up, the backs of televisions wrenched off, the contents of dressers and wardrobes scattered and trampled. In the confusion, a covert surveillance team from the Group were inserted into the disused loft of a house in the heart of the town and set up an OP, peering out at the world from gaps in the roof tiles or minute holes in the brickwork. Finally, their work done, the army and police withdrew, leaving behind them a trail of domestic wreckage and huddles of people staring at the chaos of their homes. It had all gone like clockwork. From their concealed position up above, the SAS team watched silently the comings and goings of the town.

5 (#u67ef5937-12e6-55a2-912f-ba60479f5c51)

Bessbrook

‘At last, we have intelligence,’ Cordwain said, with an almost visible glow of satisfaction.

Lieutenant Boyd raised an eyebrow. ‘Our man has turned something up already, has he?’

‘Yes and no.’ The roar of a Wessex helicopter landing on the helipad outside rendered conversation impossible for a moment. Bessbrook had one of the busiest heliports in Europe. There were Lynxes, fragile little Gazelles, sturdy troop-carrying Pumas, and the old Wessexes, the workhorse of the British Army. The base itself was surrounded by a four-metre-high fence, topped with anti-missile netting and bristling with watch-towers and sangars. In the Motor Transport yard were a motley collection of Saracens, hard-roofed four-ton trucks, Landrovers and Q cars. Bessbrook was a mix of high-tech fortress, busy bus station and airport. In truth, it was also something of a slum for the assorted British Forces personnel who had to live within its cramped confines in the ubiquitous Portakabins, reinforced with concrete and sandbags against mortar attack.

‘No,’ Cordwain went on when he could hear himself speak. ‘You may find it hard to believe, but the initial info comes from across the border, from the Special Branch section of the Gardai.’

Boyd was incredulous. ‘The micks have turned something up, and they’re handing it to us?’

‘They’re afraid, Charles. They think they may have stumbled across something big and they want us to pull their potatoes out of the fire for them.’

Cordwain turned to the wall of his office, on which was pinned a large, garishly coloured map of South Armagh. He tapped the map.

‘I Corps has been given information by them of an Irish music festival which is to be held in the hamlet of Kilmurry, County Louth, in two days’ time. Kilmurry is approximately one kilometre from the River Fane, which, as you know, marks the border between north and south in that part of the world. An ideal jumping-off point for any operation. This morning our man Early in Cross utilized the DLB and left a message informing us that Eugene Finn will be at that festival. The Gardai have also informed us that they have identified at least eight major players from Louth or Monaghan ASUs heading north towards the border. Their routes all converge on Kilmurry.’

‘A regular PIRA convention,’ Boyd said. ‘Have we anything else?’

‘No. But I believe that this is not just a confab, Charles. We’ve hit Cross pretty hard in the past few days. It’s my belief the Provos are going to stage some kind of spectacular, and Kilmurry will be their base of operations. This bash is their cover.’

‘And because this place is in the Republic, there’s not a damned thing we can do about it,’ Boyd said bitterly.