Blood, Bullets and Blue Stratos

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Freezing cold, sopping wet, Sam stumbled onto the deck and glared wildly about him. While he has been floundering in the sea, a massacre had been taking place on the deck of the Capella. The IRA cell had mercilessly slaughtered most of the RHF members, leaving their bodies sprawled about in heaps, draped over their own weapons, blood pouring from open wounds and congealing in dark pools about them. Realizing his own firearm was lost to the sea, Sam grabbed a revolver from the dead hand of a guard and snapped open the housing. It had four unfired rounds still in it. Sam hoped that would be four more than he’d need to get Mary free and Peter Verden under arrest.

Guns were going off up and down the Capella. The remains of the IRA team were blazing away and frantically scrambling up the rope ladders, but none of them had made it aboard yet. Sam was the first to get on deck, with Gene coming in a close second, looming up over the rail and planting his foot firmly onto the boat as if declaring it as his own.

‘Have we plugged ’em all?’ he enquired. In response, bullets shrieked around them, peppering the deck and throwing up chunks of woodwork.

Sam glimpsed an armed man in a black T-shirt, a red hand painted brazenly across the chest. He fired at him, but the shot went wide and the man ducked behind a wooden casement, frantically reloading his rifle. The casement suddenly exploded, blown to pieces by the might of the Magnum, and the man was flung two yards across the deck. He reached desperately for his rifle with a bloodied hand, but a second blast from the Magnum flipped him over and left him face down and motionless.

‘Scruffy ’erbert,’ muttered Gene.

Sam heard a sound from below decks — the terrified scream of a small girl.

‘She’s down there!’ Sam shouted, and he raced across the blood-splattered deck, barged through a set of swing doors and dived down a steep set of wooden steps. Gene pounded heavily after him. Together, they clattered into a narrow, wood-lined corridor off which led a number of doors.

‘She could be anywhere,’ whispered Sam.

From above them came heavy bangs and crashes: the IRA had made it aboard and were fighting their way fiercely across the deck.

‘This is our shout,’ Gene declared. ‘Them Paddies ain’t gonna beat us to it.’

He pushed past Sam and kicked the first door he reached clear off its hinges. It revealed a cramped cabin packed with boxes of plastic explosives — enough to wage a campaign of terror from now until the New Year.

Sam flung open another door, and there was a stack of ‘Widowmakers’, fresh from the IRA. Crates full of rounds were piled around them.

‘Unbelievable,’ Sam breathed.

Then they heard the girl screaming again, the sound coming from deeper within the boat.

‘Mary!’ Sam yelled from the rifle room. ‘Mary, we’re coming!’

He dashed back into the corridor, straight into a hail of gunfire. The woodwork around him shattered and splintered as bullets raked the walls. Sam hurled himself back into the cabin.

‘Verden? Is that you?’ he shouted.

‘I know that voice,’ Verden said from somewhere down the corridor. ‘It’s my old chum Mr CID. Now, there’s a turn-up.’

‘Give it up, Verden. It’s over.’

Keeping well undercover, Sam peered out through the open door of the cabin. On the other side of the corridor, Gene was slamming fresh rounds into the Magnum, readying himself to leap out and blow Verden away.

‘No, Guv!’ Sam hissed. ‘The girl! It’s too dangerous. Don’t do it!’

But Gene ignored him, springing into the corridor and levelling the Magnum in a two-handed stance. He paused, and Sam heard Mary screaming hysterically. A door slammed. Gene snarled and lowered the Magnum.

‘Bastard was using her as a shield.’

‘He’ll kill her, Guv.’

‘Not on my watch he won’t.’

Sam scrambled out of the cabin and tore along the corridor in pursuit of Verden, Gene thundering along behind him. They reached a door and burst through it, finding themselves at the head of a set of metal steps that plunged down into the engine room of the Capella.

Sam leapt down the steps, taking the whole drop in a single bound. Landing heavily, he was instantly aware of somebody directly to his right. He ducked, and felt, rather than heard, a bullet rip through the air above him. Furiously, he lashed out, using the butt of his pistol to crack his shadowy assailant a ferocious blow across the side of the head. He saw Carol Waye, her golden plaits now spattered with blood, being sent crashing heavily against a wall. She slid to the floor and lay there, unconscious.

‘There! See how you bloody like it!’ Sam bellowed at her, and then he was looking all about him, lost in a maze of pipes and machinery. ‘Verden. It’s finished. You can’t get away. Let the girl go and give yourself up.’

No answer. Sam renewed his grip on the revolver.

‘I said, give it up. Verden! There’s no point going on with this. You hear what’s going on up on deck? That’s the last of your army being wiped out. There’s just you now, Verden. And you’re cornered. The revolution’s over.’

Aiming his pistol in all directions, Sam began moving warily through the engine room. He heard Gene lumbering about behind him, and then rapid footsteps from above, followed by the clatter of boots on the metal stairs. A man in a black balaclava came rushing down — he ripped the hood from his face to reveal Michael Deery, flushed and sweating, eyes wild.

‘Where is she?’ he cried. ‘Where is she? Where’s my baby girl?’

‘Right here,’ Verden said, his voice cool and calm.

Everybody turned and raised their weapons — Sam, Gene, and Deery, all in a line, all aiming pistols straight at Verden as he stepped into view, pushing Mary ahead of him. The girl was moving awkwardly, shaking as if from intense cold, taking tiny steps at every prod and nudge from Verden.

‘Mary, it’s Daddy!’ Michael cried out.

‘D-d-daddy!’ Mary stammered out through chattering teeth. Her nerves, tough as they were, were obviously now shredded.

In a heartbeat, Michael Deery went from distraught father to IRA killer. He cocked the pistol, aimed at Verden, and braced himself to fire. No words, no threats, just instant death.

‘Not so hasty,’ smiled Verden, and raised his hand. Instead of a gun, it contained a wire, the other end of which was looped loosely around Mary’s neck. It was then that they saw the plastic explosives she was holding in her trembling hands. ‘See this little device, gentlemen? It’s a dead man’s handle. Anything happens to me, and my thumb comes off this little switch here. And when it does …’

‘You’ll burn in hell for this, you English bastard!’ Michael roared.

Verden smiled at him. ‘Frankly, Deery, I don’t give a damn. But, if you want to blow me and your darling daughter to smithereens, then go right ahead. Shoot me. Shoot me, and see what happens.’

Mary stared at her father with round, terrified eyes. Her hands were now shaking so much that she seemed about to drop the Semtex she was carrying.

‘Don’t drop it, Mary!’ Sam urged her.

‘That’s right, Mary — don’t you drop it!’ Verden laughed. ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t drop it or we’ll all go. We’re on a hair trigger here. A hair trigger …’

Deery glared along the barrel of his gun, keeping Verden in his sights but not daring to take the shot. The rage sparked out of him like electricity.

‘Verden, this is pointless,’ said Sam. ‘The Red Hand Faction’s history. They’re all dead. It’s just you.’

‘Just me,’ said Verden, nodding emphatically. ‘It all started with just me, and I built up an army. I can build a new one. A better one. All I need is me. Me is enough to change the world!’

‘He’s crackers,’ said Gene flatly. ‘Verden, you’re a bloody great Battenberg is what you are.’

‘You let my daughter go, Verden, or I swear — I swear — I’ll have you begging for mercy before the end,’ said Michael Deery. He sounded as if he meant it.

‘I’d love to listen to more of your sparkling discourse, gentlemen,’ said Verden, ‘but I’ve really got to be going. And I know none of you are stupid enough to try to stop me.’

He looked from Deery to Gene to Sam, all the time smiling insufferably, willing them to open fire or try to rush him. But nobody could drag their attention away from the Semtex in Mary’s small, quaking hands, and the wires trailing from it — or the dead man’s handle sitting in Verden’s right fist.

‘Good,’ said Verden. ‘I think everyone’s going to behave. Now — very carefully, Mary — you lead the way. Go past your daddy, up the stairs, up to the lifeboat. And then we’ll go for another little journey.’

‘Like hell you will,’ growled Gene. Leaning towards Deery he continued, ‘Lower your gun, Mickey. The best you can do is kill him — and even if that Semtex doesn’t go off and you get your kiddy back in one piece, you’ll kick yourself for wasting that bastard’s life so quickly. Thing is Mickey, if you let me nick him, I can see he goes away for ever — not a nice, cosy little prison like Strangeways or the Scrubs, but a rough one — a hard one — one where the screws will turn a blind eye to the beatings he’ll get by day, and all the buggerings he’ll get by night. Believe you me, a good-looking fella like him, prancing around C-wing with that posey ’tash, he’ll have more randy cons after him than the communal copy of Playboy.’

Deery continued to glare down the barrel of his pistol at Verden, his jaw muscles clenching convulsively.

‘Don’t zap him, Mickey,’ Gene went on. ‘Let me nick him. Let me put him away. And then, Mick, you can enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that every minute of every day, year in, year out, the toerag who snatched your baby is living in hell. As Mary grows up, Verden will grow old in prison — battered, buggered, despised, alone, just him and his shredded arsehole, wishing they’d never been born.’ Gene turned to look at Deery, and said, ‘That’s why I don’t want you to plug him, Mick. That’s why I want to nick him. Call me old-fashioned, but in my book that’s justice.’

Michael hesitated, even as Verden nudged Mary forward a few more steps, and then he nodded. He wouldn’t kill Verden. That would be letting him off far, far too lightly. Slowly, he lowered his pistol.

‘I’m on side with you,’ Deery said quietly to Gene.

‘Attaboy,’ Gene replied.

While this was happening, Sam’s mind had been working frantically. He could see the detonator in Verden’s hand, his thumb holding down the switch. Was there any way of disconnecting before he could release the trigger? The wire was looped around the girl’s neck. If he grabbed it and tried to wrench it free, he’d garrotte her.

It’s no good trying break the wiring, he thought, but, if I could grab the detonator from him, I could keep the trigger held down. Could I do that? Is it possible?

Verden was very close to him now, confident that he would either get away with his hostage, or else they would all go out together in a blaze of Semtex.

If I make a grab at the detonator, it’s all or nothing, Sam told himself. If I fail — if I let him release the trigger — I’ve killed us all.

Mary looked up at Sam with wide, terrified eyes — and, as she did, Sam saw with a jolt that she had a painted teardrop on each cheek. The Semtex she held was a dolly, wrapped in bandages. The wire about her neck led not to a detonator, but to a bobbing black balloon.

‘You’re dead, Sam,’ the Test Card Girl said sadly. ‘You can’t keep running from it. You’re dead and buried. Time to go. It’s better that way.’

‘You’d love me just to give up like that, wouldn’t you?’ said Sam.

‘It’s not giving up, Sam. It’s just accepting what you can’t change.’

‘You’re wrong. I’m not dead.’

‘But they buried you, Sam. There’s a gravestone and everything.’

‘They buried who I used to be,’ said Sam. ‘But that’s not me. This is me. And you know what?’

‘What, Sam?’

‘I’m going to pop that bloody balloon of yours.’

Sam lunged, so fast that he surprised even himself. He let the pistol fall from his hand and grasped the Test Card Girl’s black balloon — and found himself grasping Peter Verden’s hand, enclosing it and the detonator tightly between his own. They struggled, shoving each other back and forth, Sam clamping his hands together so tightly that he felt the bones would break.

Let them break! It doesn’t matter — anything, anything so long as it keeps that detonator switch held down.

There was a moment of confusion and then Gene’s fist powered in, hard as a piston, and slammed into Verden’s face. Verden’s head rocketed backwards, cracking hard against a steel pipe, and down he went, senseless. Gouts of blood ran from his nose and dripped thickly into the bristles of his moustache.

‘I’ve still got the detonator!’ Sam called out. He had his own hands clamped tightly around Verden’s fist, inside which was the detonator, its dead man’s handle still depressed.

Michael Deery rushed forward. Without hesitation he swept the Semtex from his daughter’s hand and pulled free the firing cable. He’d handled enough explosives to know exactly what to do.

‘You can let go of that now,’ he said calmly to Sam.

Sam released Verden’s hand and it fell limply to the floor. The detonator tumbled out, the trigger released. Nothing happened.

Everybody stood panting for a moment, motionless, silent — and then Mary suddenly dashed forward and threw her arms around her father.

Gene looked at Sam, said, ‘Good work, Sam.’

‘Thanks, Guv.’

‘But, um — next time you want to risk everybody’s lives like that, give us some warning, yes?’ He turned to Michael Deery, who was busy hugging his daughter and said, ‘Well, Mickey, you’ve got your kid back safe and sound as promised, and we’ve got what we came for — Peter Verden. You go your way, spud — you and your buddies up on deck — and let us go ours, and we’ll say no more about it, comprende?’

‘That’ll do for me,’ said Deery.

‘Right, then,’ said Gene. ‘Take your brat, clear off, and teach her how to kill British soldiers, you filthy bastard.’

‘Maybe I’ll teach her something better than that,’ said Deery, hugging Mary even tighter. He looked from Gene to Sam, and for a moment he seemed on the brink of saying thank you. But, suddenly, his jaw dropped.

A shot rang out and Peter Verden’s face exploded, flinging blood and brains up the wall he was slumped against. A second later, Carol Waye stuck the barrel of the gun into her mouth, clicked back the hammer with her thumb, and pulled the trigger. Her head jerked back, and down she went. She had saved her beloved idol from captivity, cheated the sworn enemy of their prize and their vengeance, and then joined him in the glamour of a martyr’s death.

In the ensuing moments of stunned silence, the only sound was Mary’s hysterical crying, muffled as Michael pressed her face into his body to hide her eyes from the scene.

Gene looked from Verden’s corpse to Carol’s, and back again.

‘Bloody hippy student pinko cowards!’ he roared, and stormed out, clattering noisily back up the metal staircase to hurl more racist abuse at the IRA men up on deck.