The Tick Tock Man

17

Senator Abe Powers heard the news bulletin on the radio at two in the morning. He had just retired to his suite in i Trafalgar House, having spent a long evening socialising with the delegates followed by two exhaustive hours going over revisions of the day’s minutes and agreements with the secretarial staff. They would be working through the night to produce the documents for the next day.

As he poured a bourbon nightcap and switched on the radio, he had felt quietly satisfied with the progress. There was a good chance there’d be signatures on the dotted line tomorrow or the day after. No, that was too optimistic. Time for a little more brinkmanship from one side or the other. Threatening a walkout, demanding a small gain here or there. But he was ready for that. Tomorrow, the end of next week, what did it matter?

What mattered was peace in Northern Ireland. More importantly a peace that he, Abe Powers, had achieved. Virtually single-handed. No one in the outside world knew it yet, but when they did he would be heralded as the greatest American statesman since Kissinger. He would be the! toast in every Irish bar from the East Coast to California. His name would be on the lips of every New York cop, every Boston taxi driver. The entire Irish political lobby and the forty million who claimed Irish ancestry would be in his pocket. If he played his cards right — and he intended to — then it was almost a foregone conclusion that he would be Vice President in the next Democrat administration. And after that…

‘A massive IRA bomb has been defused by experts in the Blackwall Tunnel in east London. If it had exploded and the tunnel had collapsed, the costs of reconstruction and resultant chaos to the city’s transport system would have run into countless billions of pounds…’

He listened intently to the full details. Imagined the magnitude of the immediate damage and years of inconvenience and financial loss that would follow had the Provisional IRA been successful as clearly they so nearly had been. Could visualise the effect on New York had a similar device been exploded in one of the tunnels there.

And what next time? More bridges? Another tunnel bomb, maybe in another British city? On the tube line? Next time there might not even be a warning; he could understand that, what with the run of bad luck the freedom fighters had been having.

‘Freedom fighters?’ He’d thought in those terms quite unconsciously, he realised suddenly, but then he always had. Today’s freedom fighters were tomorrow’s politicians. How true that had proved in recent years.

How long, he wondered, would the British Cabinet stubbornly stick to their precondition of these talks? Insisting that the very people at the centre of the Irish problem in recent years be excluded from a voice in their own destiny. Unless they first renounced violence? And he knew they couldn’t do that, as did the British Government. Because violence was the only way the terrorists would ever win the concessions they wanted.

He’d always thought it wrong to exclude the Provisional IRA, but had managed to assuage his conscience with the usual pragmatism of the seasoned politician. Press ahead anyway and hopefully the freedom fighters would be satisfied with the result. But could they ever be satisfied with something in which they had played no part? Now that agreement was so, so close, it seemed foolish to deny them still.

And how many innocent civilians in London and elsewhere would have to die, how many millions of dollars of damage squandered until the Brits relented? Next time PIRA might get lucky. Real lucky. Next time, next time… Maybe that would be tomorrow.

And the blood and the ultimate injustice would be on his hands. Because he alone — Abe Powers, future Vice President of the United States — was the only man in the world with the political power to change the rules.

It was now two thirty. Nine thirty in the evening in Washington. Early enough. He made his decision and reached for the telephone with its special scrambler unit.

Seconds later he was through to the White House, the President interrupted at the banquet he was attending.

They spoke together for an hour, the President relaxed and in no mood to rush back, happy to enjoy a cigar in the privacy of his office. Aides were hurriedly summoned in from State, sat around drinking coffee, answering the President’s occasional questions and giving their advice.

Abe Powers III was a powerful and eloquent persuader and he knew how to add just the right historical slant that appealed to a romantic sense of justice against colonial repression. It could have been his own grandmother talking. When he hung up the telephone, his recommended plan of action had been sanctioned by the most powerful leader in the world.

Yet the senator could not sleep. To any fly on the wall he would have appeared a strangely vulnerable sight. The huge frame in striped pyjamas padding the suite, his mind and thoughts in turmoil. Waiting for the first dawn light to shed its quicksilver gleam across the running water meadows of the Avon.

Time then to raise his aide from his bed. To execute the plans, to have a person-to-person telephone conversation with the just awakened Prime Minister in his Downing Street flat.

The ripple effect was like no pebble in a pond. It was as though he had thrown in a brick. Suddenly with no appetite for breakfast, the Prime Minister had called back to Trafalgar House to speak to the Northern Ireland minister who was clearly stunned by the development. The Royal Air Force helicopter was already on its way to ferry him to London as the PM’s principal private secretary telephoned the homes of the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Minister of Defence, the Attorney General and other key figures.

The extraordinary meeting of the inner Cabinet was arranged for ten o’clock.

It was a fierce and acrimonious debate. That morning they had been due to go public on the existence of the Trafalgar House talks. This was because, the night before, the editors of Britain’s national press had met in a private function room above the Wig and Pen Club, symbolically at the heart of old Fleet Street. There they discussed the DNotice restrictions on reporting the talks and the growing haemorrhage of news leaking from across the Atlantic. Already it had been picked up by he Figaro in France and Die Welt in Germany. For once united, the most powerful editors in the land served notice on the government that they were going to publish. Damned or not.

The dilemma for Downing Street was simple. Senator Abe Powers III, with the backing of the President of the United States, had decided in view of the onfgoing terrorist campaign in London that the Provisional IRA should be given a voice in the closing stages of the Trafalgar House talks. Aware that the British Government would be adamantly opposed to this, Powers warned that he would go public on the whole matter that was otherwise so nearly ‘in the bag’. That would clearly embarrass Britain as, seen in an international perspective, it would be regarded as the party responsible for the breakdown of the peace negotiations. Furthermore Washington threatened to raise the Irish question forcibly at the United Nations, urging for positive action to be taken on the world stage.

Government ministers huddled and argued for over an hour before a counterproposal was struck, aimed at damage limitation. Whilst the attendance of any member of the Provisional IRA remained firmly unacceptable until the movement categorically renounced violence, an independent spokesperson of extreme Republican persuasion would be acceptable as a face-saving compromise.

This, the wily Secretary for Northern Ireland pointed out in a phone call to Abe Powers at Trafalgar House, might also save him the almost certain embarrassment of Ulster Unionist politicians walking out on this point of principle.

Further, the inclusion of this independent voice could be dressed up at the imminent press conference as success for the genuine bipartisan nature of the talks, rather than as a climb-down in the face of terrorism.

By midday Abe Powers III had agreed.

One hour later Donny Fitzpatrick received a telephone call at his home in Scotstown from Sinn Fein headquarters in Dublin, informing him of the decision.

The name?

The Most Reverend Bishop Joseph McLaverty. The eightyfive-year-old rogue clergyman, long retired from active participation in the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, whose outspoken views on the justice of the Irish Republican cause was almost evangelical in its fervour and heartfelt intensity.

Fitzpatrick replaced the receiver and turned round. His wife, sensing something, stood expectantly at the door.

In a rare show of emotion, the Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA let out a whoop of triumph and punched the air with his right fist.

‘We’ve done it! We’ve got our man at the table!’.

At the time Donny Fitzpatrick received his telephone call, Tom Harrison was in a taxi heading for Heathrow Airport.

The day had begun with the bedside telephone at Trenchard’s flat shaking him from a deep and exhausted sleep. In his dream he had been back aboard the dumper truck, confronted by a snake-like clump of wires the thickness of a human wrist. Only one wire out of, perhaps, a hundred would be right. As he snipped with the cutters the bell started ringing.

He was still drenched in the cold nightmare sweat as he reached for the receiver.

‘Tom!’ It was Casey. ‘Thank God you’re all right.’

‘I’m half asleep, that’s all.’

‘I heard about the Blackwall Tunnel bomb last night. I was terrified you might be involved… I tried calling, but there was no reply.’

‘I got in late.’

‘And were you there?’

He smiled, touched by her concern. ‘You know me, can’t resist a challenge.’

‘God, it must have been awful.’

‘I can think of better ways to spend an evening.’ He didn’t want to dwell on the subject. ‘How’s your trip going with Eddie?’

‘Interesting. You know, it’s an experience. Lots of contacts…’ Somehow he thought she sounded evasive. And was there just a note of apprehension in her voice?

He said: ‘Don’t let the place scare you. Its reputation’s worse than its bite. Individually they’re a nice and friendly lot. The Proddies and the Catholics. Just don’t go nosing into any dark corners, if you know what I mean.’

‘Don’t worry, Tom. Eddie knows his way around,’ she said quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly, he thought.

They hung up and Harrison looked round Trenchard’s spartan guest room. Late summer sunshine streaked through the window onto his two small suitcases. All he had in the world now. Suddenly, inexplicably, he felt as though a great burden had been lifted from him. Like this room, his life had become unexpectedly uncluttered, free of responsibility and commitment. The accumulated emotional baggage of life left behind. Pippa would be keen for a divorce and he had found Casey. His job at the forefront of bomb disposal was over and, much as he regretted it, the idea of no more life-threatening danger had its own attractions. Particularly after the previous night in the tunnel. Perhaps it really was time to step down. ‘ Let younger men take over.

By the time he’d shaved, showered and dressed he had made his decision. He telephoned Pippa’s father and asked to speak to his son.

Archie was excited. ‘Dad, that bomb in the Blackwall Tunnel — did you sort it out?’

‘I did my bit.’

Archie was well aware of his father’s self-effacing euphemisms.

‘Great! What happened? The boys at school will want to know all the details.’

‘When we meet. Listen, how d’you fancy a few days’ hiking and camping?’

‘Terrific! It’s so boring here with Mum at work and it’s days before I can go back to school.’

‘Then I’ll clear it with your mother and pick you up at lunch time tomorrow.’

And I’ll pay a visit to Les Appleyard this afternoon, he thought as he hung up.

The telephone rang again as he was making coffee. It was Trenchard.

‘Hallo, Don, what gives?’

‘Your lady friend, Casey Mullins.’

Harrison frowned. ‘What about her?’

‘She’s over here in the Province.’

‘I know.’

‘And d’you know what she’s doing?’

‘Vaguely, Don, she and Eddie Mercs are doing some research on the Abe Powers talks.’

‘It goes a little deeper than that.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘She’s trying to track down the AIDAN bombers. And she’s getting mixed up with a bad lot.’

Although he heard the words, he could scarcely believe his own ears. ‘D’you mean Sinn Fein or PIRA?’

‘Not over the phone,’ Trenchard came back sharply. ‘I’m not at liberty to say anyway. This is strictly on the old pals’ act, Tom. She’s in danger of getting mixed up in stuff she doesn’t understand. If I were you, I’d have a word in her shell-like.’

If anyone knew what was going on in Ulster’s murky world, Trenchard did. No doubt this conversation was strictly off the record. ‘I will, Don, and thanks for the tip-off.’

‘What tip-off? This phone call never happened. But anything for a buddy.’

As soon as Trenchard hung up, Harrison dialled Casey’s hotel.

Apparently she and Mercs had already left, leaving a message for any callers that they were unlikely to be back all day.

He made a snap decision, packed an overnight bag and left the apartment, hailing a taxi to take him to Heathrow.

He’d decided on an Aer Lingus shuttle to Dublin. If he passed through Aldergrove, his presence would undoubtedly be noticed. Questions would be asked. High-ranking officers were expected to be met by armed drivers. Anyway, where was he going and what was he doing?

The flight was quick and chaotic as the attendants attempted to distribute snacks and liberal amounts of alcohol before landing. He hired a small Ford Fiesta at the airport and immediately struck north, heading up the Nl towards the main border crossing with Ulster forty miles on. As he anticipated, there was no problem at the checkpoint. Because the car carried southern plates, he was questioned briefly by the soldier who examined his driver’s licence. ‘English, sir?’

‘Yes, over on business.’

‘And may I ask what that is?’

He thought of the only business he knew anything about outside his own; Pippa’s. ‘Public relations. I’m seeing clients. Setting up a new product launch.’

The trooper tried to look as though he understood. ‘Very well. Carry on, sir.’

Harrison glanced at his watch. It was seven thirty and Belfast was still the best part of an hour away.

As he drove towards Newry, Casey Mullins was luxuriating in the bath at her hotel, legs outstretched beneath the foam, Ji and a vodka and orange in her hand. It had been a long hard day, she and Mercs cramming in as many interviews as they could manage with those on the fringes of the leading political parties. There was a lot of talk, but precious little solid information was gleaned. As Gerard Keefe had predicted, only those who knew little were willing to talk; those who were on the inside track weren’t saying.

Then at three in the afternoon the news broke. It was announced simultaneously in London and at Stormont. The Trafalgar House talks were in progress — official. If the communique was to be believed, agreement was close and in view of this the famous Irish clergyman. Bishop Joseph McLaverty, renowned for his outspoken support of the Republican cause for over fifty years, had been invited to contribute in the closing final stages of the debate.

The rest of the afternoon disintegrated into chaos, Casey and Mercs having to race back to their hotel to file supporting stories for the late editions and follow-up, in-depth features for the next morning. Eddie Mercs had been in his element, talking excitedly down the telephone to the copy-takers with cigarette clamped, unlit between his teeth. Casey, however, had found the whole experience overwhelming.

When he set out that evening to unearth more background, she declined to join him.

Now she cursed as the telephone rang. The office or maybe Tom? Hurriedly wrapping a towel around her, she dripped a trail of water across the tiles and into the bedroom.

‘Casey Mullins.’

‘Miss Mullins,’ the voice low and harshly accented, ‘can you be ready to take a wee trip?’

She suddenly recognised the speaker and experienced a crawling sensation down her spine. ‘Is that Spike?’

‘No names please.’

‘Of course, I’m sorry.’ She glanced around the room, wondering what to say, what to do. ‘Look, Eddie’s out and I don’t know what time he’ll be back. Probably late.’

There was a hesitation. ‘No matter, you can come alone. Billy didn’t take too kindly to your friend anyway, didn’t like his attitude.’

She recalled her ordeal the previous night, remembering how she stood naked, hands down, for Spike’s disinterested inspection. ‘Listen, I’ll come, but not if I have to go through that business again. Know what I mean?’

‘Sure, lady, that’s no problem.’

‘I need to get ready.’

‘Half-an-hour enough?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then take a taxi to the Washington pub on Howard Street next to City Hall. Sit at the bar and order a drink. Try and keep one seat free next to you. You’ll be contacted.’

‘Where…?’ she began but the cut-off tone was already drilling in her ear.

Next she tried telephoning two places where she thought Mercs might be; he wasn’t. Resigning herself to going alone, she put on a plain black jersey dress and low-heeled pumps, then telephoned reception for a taxi. On the way out she left a note of where she was going with the duty manager.

As the taxi pulled out of the grounds into Holywood Road, she was unaware of the unmarked or ‘Q’ car leaving the parking lot, the driver talking into his concealed throat-mike.

The Washington was large, open-plan and busy, although it was too early to be crowded. She found two empty stools at the large semicircular bar and sat on one, placing her shoulder bag on the second. Wanting to keep a clear head, she ordered a sparkling mineral water and began studying her surroundings. Most of the customers were working men, although she spotted a few office girls talking to their male colleagues. Some were watching the television placed over the front door, others grouped conspiratorially in the dark wooden alcoves. No one paid her any obvious attention, yet she guessed someone was watching her closely, making sure she hadn’t been followed. It was an unnerving feeling.

While she waited anxiously, Tom Harrison was pulling up outside the Park Avenue Hotel.

‘I’m afraid you just missed her, sir. She left about twenty minutes ago.’

Another woman was just going off duty and overheard. ‘Miss Mullins left a message. In her cubby hole.’

She looked at the name on the paper. ‘It’s for Mr Mercs, another guest.’

Harrison wasn’t about to be deterred. Bad lot, Trenchard had said, and now the phrase was ringing in his ears. ‘Mr Mercs didn’t go with her?’

‘No, sir.’

‘May I see the message? It’s extremely important I find her.’

‘I really can’t do that, sir.’

‘I am her husband.’ His smile was the most charming he could muster given his rising anxiety.

‘Oh, I see.’ And as she hesitated he quickly eased the note from her grasp.

‘Thanks so much.’

He read quickly: Eddie — I’ve had a call from King Billy’s man, Spike. Wants me to meet at the Washington in Howard Street about 8.45. Please, please try and make it. I’ll stall for time if I can. Your intrepid reporter assistant. Casey.

Christ, Harrison thought, King Billy! Surely she hadn’t got involved with him? Harrison had never met the man, or even seen his photograph, but the name had cropped up from time to time at high-level intelligence briefings in Lisburn. He couldn’t recall which of the Protestant terror groups he was involved with, but that hardly mattered. Billy Baker was regarded as little more than a gangster and a thug by the security forces and was known to have been behind a number of sectarian ‘doorstepping’ campaigns, murdering Catholics who unthinkingly answered their doorbells after dark.

He looked at his watch. It was eight forty now. He’d never make it. Turning on his heel, he raced back to his hired car.

Yet it was ten minutes later before the stranger approached Casey in the Washington. She was beginning to think the meeting had been abandoned when he spoke and startled her, causing her to spill her drink.

‘Is this seat taken?’ He was in his twenties and wearing a denim jacket. His hair was short and his chin unshaven.

She moved her bag and shook her head nervously.

He sat, placed his cigarettes and plastic lighter on the bar, then beckoned for a half of Guinness. As he waited to be served, he moved his cigarette pack and lit one of its contents. It took a moment before she noticed the little square of paper. Just three lines were written in poorly constructed capitals.

The cigarette pack covered the note again and the man exhaled into the barman’s scowling face as the Guinness was served.

Five long hard swallows was all it took and the glass was empty. The man levered himself from the stool and sauntered back out towards the street.

Her heart pounding, Casey drained her drink and glanced at her watch. Almost nine.

Dammit, Eddie, where are you?

She waited two more minutes, then reluctantly collected her bag and followed the stranger’s footsteps. Outside, the pavement was almost deserted; there was no sign of the young man. She began walking towards the next junction with Queen Street.

He was waiting round the corner, a car at the kerb with its engine running. First peering back along Howard Street to the Washington, to be sure no one had followed her, he said: ‘Get in the back.’

Now I am committed, she thought. No going back.

The exhaust burbled softly and the car sped away into the night.

As it did so, the hired Fiesta pulled up outside the Washington and Harrison crossed the pavement quickly. He pushed open the doors into the noisy chatter and smoke, edging his way through the crowd, looking around anxiously for some sign of her.

‘You’re too late, old lad.’

He turned, taken aback. ‘Don.’

‘I thought you were going to talk to her, Tom.’

‘That’s why I’m here. She’s been out all day -1 couldn’t reach her by phone.’

‘That’s a pity. She’s just left with one of King Billy’s lads.’

Harrison noticed for the first time that Trenchard wasn’t dressed in his usual flamboyant style. Just dark jeans and jacket and a black polo neck. ‘And you just let her go?’

‘Let’s talk outside.’

Trenchard led the way. Once beyond the door, Harrison rounded on him. ‘What were you thinking of, Don? Why didn’t you stop her?’

‘Because the soppy tart has just wandered into a security operation.’ His boyish grin was meant to reassure. ‘I didn’t know she was going to come here. I’ve had her under surveillance, but I didn’t know what she was doing until five minutes ago when she got into one of King Billy’s cars — which just happens to be one of the vehicles in the operation that’s going down.’

Christ! ‘What sort of operation?’

‘Don’t know, Tom. It’s all whispers over here, as I’m sure you’re aware.’

‘Is she in danger?’

Trenchard shrugged. ‘There’s always a risk, but my boys are fully briefed about her. The last thing anyone wants is a dead journalist on our hands, least of all an American one.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Look, let’s get back to my car. We’ll monitor everything from there.’

‘I could bloody kill you, Don.’

Again the boyish grin. ‘Don’t worry. Casey will be all right.’

Even as he spoke, the saloon carrying Casey was stopping outside a neat Edwardian house off the Donegall Road in the south of the city. When she and the stranger crossed the pavement to the front door, they broke the magnetic field of the sensor secreted in the headlamp of the empty car which had been parked outside the neighbouring house that morning. The miniature ultralow-level light camera automatically clicked twice, adding two more identifiable profiles to the roll of film that had been recording the day’s visitors to the house.

The front door was opened by Spike. He glanced quickly up and down the road before closing it behind them. Without a word he led the way down a dark passage to the dining room where the heavy curtains had been drawn. A ‘Jesus Saves Sinners’ embroidery hung over the empty open fireplace. She noticed he made no attempt to conceal the heavy automatic pistol stuffed into the waistband of his trousers.

‘This is my aunt’s house,’ he said suddenly. ‘The ol’ biddy’s in the front parlour watching telly and sucking sherbet lemons. Doesn’t know what year it is, let alone what day.’

‘She doesn’t mind you using her house?’

Spike gave a mean chuckle. ‘I doubt she even realises.’ He pointed to a pair of black tracksuit trousers, a man’s navy sweater, and a dark jacket on the table. ‘I want you to change into those. And can you pin your hair up?’

She was bewildered. ‘Yes.’

‘Don’t want anyone to be able to identify you.’

He left her then to strip and change into the unfamiliar clothes. The trousers were elasticated and fitted well enough; the sweater and jacket were enormous and smelled of stale smoke and beer. She had just pinned back her hair when the door opened again.

Spike handed her the chequered cloth cap. ‘It’s time to go.’

To her surprise he led the’ way through the kitchen to the back door. As they walked briskly down the rear garden path, she glimpsed the unkempt shrubs on either side, the long grass going to seed. A gate in the back fence opened onto a narrow alleyway. Another car waited with several men inside. There was no courtesy light inside and it was impossible for her to recognise the faces of the men she was squashed between in the back seat. They were young, though, she was sure of that, the testosterone musk and the smell of lager quite unmistakable.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked as they drove off.

‘You’ll see,’ Spike replied. ‘Let’s just say we’re doing a wee favour for Her Majesty.’

‘Favour?’

‘Oh, it’s a favour, so it is. No doubt about it. King Billy always liked to oblige the Crown. AH different now, of course. It all went sour after the Anglo-Irish Agreement in ‘85, and Dublin’s boot boys — sorry, I’ll be referring to the RUC — started treating us no different than the murderin’ Provos. Area saturation, special support units and informers. And we’ve heard the politicians from Westminster sniggering at us behind our backs. Loud and crass, that’s what they think we are. Our Unionist politicians are snubbed now by the Northern Ireland Officer here — the English arse-lickers from Whitehall prefer to consult with ministers from Dublin rather than the elected representatives of the people. They don’t like us because we stand four-square and say exactly what we mean. Unemployment, housing, education, the money is all spent on the sayso of the Republic now and it’s all directed at the Catholic community. You’re a journalist, you can ask questions. You’ll see if I’m not right.’

‘You sound angry.’

As soon as she said it, she thought how she was stupidly stating the obvious, but Spike didn’t seem to mind. He just gave a harsh, humourless laugh. ‘Oh, I’m angry, all right. We’re all angry. We’ve become strangers in our own land.’

‘Beleaguered.’

‘That’s a good word, lady. Yes, that’s what we are. But make no mistake, we’ll not be giving in. Recruits are flooding to the Protestant paramilitaries and we’ve arms coming in from South Africa and eastern Europe. Some of our people are learning from the Provos. We’re making bombs too now, and we’ll be taking them to Dublin.’

The mention of bombs made her blanch and she thought of Harrison, wished he was with her now.

‘And Westminster still doesn’t see the writing on the wall,’ Spike was saying. ‘But when they hear King Billy’s Lambeg drum again, they’ll know we’re on the march. The Balkans — Bosnia and that lot — you’ll have seen nothing yet.’

God, she thought, he means every word.

‘We’re nearly there,’ the driver announced suddenly.

She peered out of the window, but all she could see was the dim outline of hedgerows and flat farmland beneath the fleeting nightclouds. All she knew was that they’d started travelling west and she’d seen a signpost for Ballymacrevan some way back. Otherwise they could have been anywhere.

Their car slowed and turned off the road without signalling; the suspension bucked and jarred, the headlamps showing the overgrown brambles on each side of the narrow farm track. Ahead another car appeared, tucked into a field gate lay-by with its lights off. Their car pulled alongside and stopped.

‘Wait here,’ Spike ordered and climbed out. Now she could see that he was talking to another man who was dressed in black and carried a walkie-talkie radio.

After a few moments Spike returned. ‘Our taig friend has just left. He lives and spends most of his time in the west Belfast heartland. Rarely makes excursions, so it’s been difficult for us to get to him. But his aunt lives on this farm and she’s been poorly. A priest is calling every day, so she’s not expected to last.’ He added matter-of-factly: ‘Her misfortune is our good luck. We’ve a man up watching the house.’

‘Here it comes,’ the driver said.

She turned and saw it then, the telltale beams bouncing over the hedgetop, obscured by a bend in the track. Then it turned into the straight, the brilliance of the car lights suddenly blinding. It kept on coming, the driver unaware of what was waiting.

‘NOW!’ Spike shouted.

Their driver accelerated hard, turning the wheel so that the saloon slewed across the track. Brakes screeched, loose shale ringing against metal as the oncoming driver attempted to stop, the car sliding to a halt just inches from the blocking vehicle.

She glimpsed two white shocked faces in the windscreen. One male and one female, she thought. Saw their panic as the engine revved and screeched and the gears crunched as the startled driver attempted to engage reverse. But he had left it too late. Dark figures had appeared, wrenching open the doors and waving guns.

The woman screamed, hysterical, flailing her arms against the man at her door.

‘Shit, there’s a wee child in the back!’ the man called.

Then Spike was out and on his feet. ‘Bring the man. One of you stay with the mother and the child for half-an-hour until we’re clear.’

Already the victim had been dragged away, a black plastic bin liner pulled over his head and his hands secured behind his back with freezer ties. Before Casey had a chance to protest at the man’s treatment, he had been bundled into the other car and it had begun to move.

Spike returned and slammed the door. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Fucken IRA.’ She noticed his voice had lost its calm, excited by the action. ‘Sorry, I’m forgetting my manners.’

‘You’re sure he’s IRA?’

Spike allowed his ghostly smile to make an appearance. ‘D’you believe all that crap in the press? That our gunmen go out to kill innocent Catholics?’

‘I don’t know.’ *

‘Well, sure they’re all innocent. Then a couple o’years later, when the dust settles, you find their names at Milltown Cemetery on the Provos’ roll of honour.’

‘And that poor man?’

‘That poor man is a Sinn Fein councillor in Andersonstown. He’s also a member of the Provos’ security section. Vetting new members and old-timers coming out of the Maze. If anyone knows who your bomber is, he does.’

‘How do you know?’

‘We’ve got our sources.’

‘And what’s his name?’

‘KillyTierney.’

It was half-an-hour before they pulled off the road and drove up an incline of cracked and weed-infested concrete. The two cars stopped outside a boarded-up, single-storey building that had once been a transport cafe.

Muffled cries of protest were uttered as Tierney was dragged towards the door, his voice silenced by a hard fist aimed at his kidneys.

‘I want no part of this,’ Casey protested as Spike ushered her in.

‘Shut up and just listen!’

Once inside, the door was closed and the area lit by a paraffin lamp. It was a frightening and macabre sight, the men in black standing around the lone seated figure with his head bowed. On the floor broken glass and dog faeces, on the walls an ice-cream poster with a smiling maiden on an exotic desert island. No one moved.

What were they waiting for?

Then the back door creaked open and the big man stepped in, his loafers crunching on the glass. Immediately she recognised the massive form in the outsize grey suit and mustard-coloured polo that caught in the folds of flesh around his neck. The huge padded shoulders made King Billy’s head with its thatch of pure white hair seem ridiculously small.

Spike stepped forward and unceremoniously stripped the bin liner from Tierney’s head. A narrow pale face and wide frightened eyes stared at his tormentors in the shadows. His wire-framed spectacles fell to the floor, to be crunched slowly and deliberately underfoot by a smiling gunman.

‘What do you want?’ The words were croaked, scarcely audible.

‘We ask the questions.’ It was King Billy. ‘And you have a simple choice. To answer them the easy way or the hard way.’

Tierney glared at the blur of faces. ‘I’ll say nothing!’ he said defiantly.

King Billy chose not to hear. ‘Your name is Kilian Tierney. Aged forty-three. Married with one child. You have served time at Her Majesty’s pleasure for riotous behaviour and again later for firearms charges…?’ He allowed the words to hang in the air and cocked his head to one side. ‘I hear nothing.’

‘Because I’m saying nothing!’ Tierney spat.

There was an uneasy shuffling movement amongst the onlookers.

‘There is no right to silence here,’ King Billy said with slow menace.

‘Please!’ Casey cried.

Spike grabbed her arm, his fingers like steel claws in her bicep. ‘Shut it,’ he hissed.

‘You are a councillor for Sinn Fein,’ the Orangeman continued, ‘and you are also a member of a proscribed organisation, namely the Provisional IRA.’

Silence.

‘Please confirm.’ For the first time he glanced in Casey’s direction. ‘We must be sure we have the right man.’

Tierney’s mouth was clamped shut, his eyes so wide they looked in danger of falling from their sockets.

She wasn’t prepared for what happened next, hadn’t seen the man step out of the shadows. From the corner of her eye she saw it fall, wincing involuntarily as the sledgehammer head slammed into Tierney’s bent right knee. His entire body jerked as though struck by a bolt of lightning. His cry, wrenched from deep within him and forced out through the constriction of his throat like an explosion, rang around the derelict building in a prolonged and ragged echo.

He tried to nurse the shattered joint as the blood bubbled up through the material of his trousers, but his hands were still tied behind him, so he was reduced to squirming on his seat in his agony and frustration, half falling in the process.

Rough hands straightened him. Then they all noticed the putrid stench. ‘Oh, fuck, he’s shit himself.’

Casey had turned her head away, still held fast by Spike’s iron grip. Now she heard King Billy’s voice again. ‘You’ve a nice wife and a nice wee lad, Killy. Don’t make yourself a total cripple for them. Just tell us what we want to know and we will leave you in peace. We’ll even telephone an ambulance. You’ll be in the Victoria before you know it.’

Tierney was sobbing, his head hung low, his knee a bloody pulp.

‘Now, please confirm your identity.’

His head nodded, the hair dishevelled. Tears dripped onto his trousers, onto the floor.

‘That’s better. Now, let’s not hang about. You know the identity of the AID AN active service unit, right?’

A shake of the head, a sobbing sniff of self-pity.

‘I just give the word, Killy, and it’ll be your second knee. Then your right hand.’ He paused to let the words sink in. ‘Our sources tell us that you know. And we are all aware that it is a very great secret. So think hard, think of your wife and wee boy, and of that comfortable hospital bed waiting for you at the Victoria.’

The following silence was probably only seconds, but to Casey the time yawned into an endless abyss. She found herself staring at the spreading pool of blood around his brightly polished shoe and the mesmeric drip of brown liquid that had flooded over the seat.

Tell them, she prayed silently, for God’s sake tell them what they want to know!

Tierney said hoarsely, wincing through his pain: ‘Have you got a cigarette?’

King Billy looked up at Spike, nodded. A pack was produced, one of the contents placed between the parched, bloodless lips and a match struck. The man inhaled deeply, lay back in the chair. Spike removed the cigarette from his mouth.

‘Dougan,’ Tierney murmured, smoke drifting up over his face. ‘Hughie Dougan is the bomb maker.’

King Billy looked at Spike, Spike looked at King Billy. ‘YOU LYING FUCKEN BASTARD! DOUGAN IS FUCKEN WELL DEAD.’ Spike was yelling in Tierney’s face, his mouth just inches from the other’s eyes.

Tierney looked up pleadingly, his cheeks sodden with tears. ‘Sweet Mother of Jesus, believe me. Hughie Dougan isn’t dead. It was a setup down in Sligo, a fake. Hughie Dougan makes the bombs and he’s been planning the campaign. Him and his daughter Clodagh.’

Spike stepped back. ‘You’d be having us look for a ghost, Killy?’

‘That’s the whole point.’ Exasperated. ‘No one looks for a dead man, that was the idea.’

King Billy didn’t look convinced. ‘Who else is on the unit?’

‘Pat McGirl.’

That figured. McGirl was one of PIRA’s seasoned front-liners, but with no recent convictions. ‘And?’ **

‘The others are from the south. No records. A girl called Moira Lock and two others, Leo Muldoon and Liam Doran. Another man called Houlihan.’ They were names that meant nothing to King Billy or his men. ‘You had an own goal,’ Spike said, ‘Who was killed?’

Tierney shook his head. ‘I don’t know, I just do the vetting.

They’re running this from the top and no one’s saying anything. Presumably it was Lock and Muldoon or Doran who got blown away, but I’m just guessing.’

‘And where are they operating from?’

‘God, you don’t think they tell me that? You’d have to ask the man himself, Donny Fitzpatrick.’

King Billy looked once again at Casey. ‘D’you hear that? We know who the bastards are at the top. And the Brits know too. But nothing ever happens. How d’you think that makes us feel?’

Spike prodded Tierney in the chest. ‘And what makes you think I believe you know nothing?’

Tierney met his gaze, his eyes glazed in pain and defiance. ‘Because you’ve broken my fucken knee and you’re about to break the other, you bastards!’

Spike stepped away and looked at King Billy for approval. The big man nodded.

Two men stepped forward, one grasping Tierney’s shoulders from behind, the other replacing the bin liner over his head. The struggle was token, the outcome a certainty.

King Billy was saying: ‘Killy Tierney, you have been tried and found guilty of being a member of an illegal organisation, of aiding and abetting murder here and on the mainland, and of treason against your country. You are hereby sentenced to death, and may God have mercy on your soul.’ He drew himself to his full height. ‘God save the Queen.’

Casey jumped at the sharp report of the pistol that had been held to the back of Tierney’s head. Only when he pitched forward did she see the weapon and the serpent’s coil of gunsmoke. No one moved to stop the body as it fell, blood bubbling from the torn black plastic bag over the debris on the floor.

Now she stared at the corpse in total disbelief.

‘Phone for an ambulance once we’re away from here,’ King Billy said. ‘We’ll issue a statement tomorrow.’

It was Spike who heard it first. The pulsing thud of the helicopter; it had come in upwind giving no warning of its arrival. Abruptly the entire building began to tremble in its downdraught, the Nitesun lamp dazzling as Spike rushed to the door and threw it open.

‘THIS IS THE POLICE! YOU ARE SURROUNDED!’ The bullhorn echoed like the voice of God.

Others joined Spike at the door. ‘Christ!’

One man raised his gun.

‘No!’ Spike warned.

But it was too late. The marksman’s round caught the man in the chest, propelling him back into the cafe as though pulled by elastic.

Casey shrieked in terror.

‘THROW YOUR WEAPONS DOWN! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD!’

Spike turned back to King Billy. ‘The bloody twisters.’

The big man nodded grimly. ‘What do you expect? Now, you’d better go. They’re not known for their patience.’

The young man gave a half-smile. ‘No surrender, eh?’

‘No surrender.’

Spike dropped his weapon, raised his hands and walked slowly out onto the floodlit concrete of the old car park. He had barely glimpsed the lowering Puma helicopter, the groups of flak jacketed RUC officers and their vehicles, before he was rushed by the soldiers on either side of the door. Expertly he was tripped and spreadeagled, face down on the ground, hands checking for hidden weapons.

The rest were similarly treated until King Billy himself emerged. Perhaps because he was such a large man, or perhaps because they knew exactly who he was, the.SAS soldiers did not subject him to the same rough treatment. More circumspectly, they ran their hands over the mountain of flesh where he stood, virtually ignoring them, watching instead the approaching group of men in civilian clothes.

One of them broke into a run. ‘CASEY!’

‘Tom!’ Trenchard warned, his words wasted.

Casey Mullins appeared timidly at the door, her slim body swamped in the male clothes, but the cap removed and copper hair hanging so that no one would shoot her by mistake.

‘God, Tom!’ Her face broke into a smile of relief. ‘What are you doing here?’

He crushed her in his arms. ‘Thank Christ you’re safe.’

King Billy looked at her accusingly. ‘You?’

Over Harrison’s shoulder she shook her head.

Trenchard arrived with a senior Special Branch detective. ‘Hello, Billy, been up to your old tricks again?’

The Orangeman’s stare was glacial, his bulk unmoved. ‘Whose tricks, Mr Smith? Mine or yours? Where is Mr Jones?’

‘Mr Jones’ was the name John Nash had used, Trenchard remembered. ‘He’s in London.’

‘Then get him here.’

Trenchard watched as the Special Branch detective stepped tentatively into the cafe. ‘If we find what I think we’re going to find, you’re not going to be giving orders to anyone for the next twenty years.’

‘We’ve got the information you wanted. The identity of the AID AN bombers. Hughie Dougan was behind it all.’

A sneer crossed Trenchard’s face. ‘Dougan’s dead, Billy. Don’t you read the papers?’

‘His death was faked, Dougan has been behind it all the time.’

‘You can do better than that, Billy. I was there. I saw his body, saw his Celtic birds ring.’

King Billy looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know about that. But what I tell you is the truth, may God help me. It’s what Killy Tierney told me before he died.’

‘One of your kangaroo courts, was it? I wouldn’t put much store by that.’

Casey pulled away from Harrison. ‘It’s true, Don, I heard the poor man say it before they killed him. He didn’t sound like he was making it up.’

Trenchard turned towards her angrily. ‘Shut up, woman, or you’ll find yourself arrested for conspiracy to murder.’ He looked at Harrison. ‘Get her away from here, Tom. We’ve never seen her tonight.’

‘What’s going on, Don?’ his friend demanded.

Trenchard snapped: ‘Don’t meddle in things you don’t understand. Now go.’

The Special Branch detective stepped back out of the cafe, his face pale. ‘Two corpses,’ he announced. ‘One of Billy’s men and a bound man with a bag over his head. Bit of a mess.’

‘Killy Tierney,’ Trenchard said.

Turning to King BiUy, the detective said: ‘William Frederick Baker, I am arresting you for the murder of Kilian Tierney ‘

The Orangeman turned to Trenchard, his big face impassive. ‘I had a deal with you and Mr Jones. A favour for a favour.’

Don Trenchard looked towards the cafe. ‘I don’t recall any deals, Billy. Sorry.’