The Tick Tock Man

21

When he went to bed in his room at Trafalgar House that night, Sir Ralph Maynard thought the day couldn’t have bbeen any worse. He was wrong.

As the Secretary for Northern Ireland shut his eyes and tried to sleep, the events of the day stubbornly refused to leave his mind.

It had begun with the Democratic Unionists walking out of the talks and holding an impromptu press conference with reporters who were camped out in the village of Downton at the edge of the sealed-off security area. The plans for an Independent Ulster were in tatters, they said, and blamed the collapse on a hardening of Catholic attitudes since Bishop McLaverty’s arrival on the scene and rumours about Washington pushing for a United Ireland solution.

The disaster was all over the midday television news programmes.

In the afternoon had come the call from Number Ten. The US President had telephoned the Prime Minister suggesting that, in view of the breakdown of the talks, the possibility of a new All Ireland initiative be explored. The American Ambassador to the United Nations had accordingly been ordered to raise the matter., It had been an embarrassing and acrimonious conversation.

Now, just as sleep began to creep up on him, Sir Ralph’s aide knocked on the door. ‘Sorry to trouble you, sir.’

Trenchard was by the man’s side. ‘We’ve received a call from Dublin, Sir Ralph. Codeword AIDAN.’

The minister’s eyes were still bleary and unfocused. ‘God, not more bombings.’

‘No. They’ve kidnapped Major Tom Harrison and his family.’

‘Harrison? Who the hell’s Harrison?’

Casey was still unsure. ‘I just hope it’s the right decision. If the place is assaulted, they could all get killed.’

Mercs nodded grimly. ‘But I’m afraid it’s a risk we’re going to have to take.’

Casey dug the mobile from her pocket and consulted her diary. Apart from Trenchard’s flat number, which she knew, Harrison had given her several others where his friend might be reached.

He answered on her third try.

‘Don, it’s Casey.’

‘Hallo, sweetheart, I thought you’d stopped speaking to me.’

‘Don, this is serious. The IRA have got Tom.’

There was a tense pause. ‘I know.’

‘What?’

‘There was a call to Trafalgar House last night. But how did you find out? Never mind, look, this has got to be kept under wraps. If you — if anyone — publishes anything, then it could be curtains for Tom and his family. They’ve told us the hiding place is packed with explosives. So you can imagine the danger they’re in.’

‘Don, listen…’

But he steamrollered on. ‘We’re desperately searching for clues to his whereabouts. Every copper in the south of England is on the lookout for him, COBRA’s in session and the SAS are on standby…’

‘Don, shut up!’ she yelled into the mobile. ‘I know where they are! In fact, I’m standing barely a couple of hundred yards from the place. I followed Tom to his rendezvous with them.’

An incredulous ‘Christ Almighty’ was his reaction. Then: ‘Give me the details.’ She told him the location, a deserted factory on the Kennet near Newbury. ‘Stay put, Casey, the police will want a full debrief.’

She folded away her mobile. v

Mercs looked cheerful. ‘This is going to be the story of the decade and we’re in on the ground floor. Hal, I suggest you and Bodger go and hide yourselves somewhere that’ll give you the best angle. Otherwise the cops will kick us out as soon as they arrive.’

‘Eddie,’ Casey said reproachfully, ‘how the hell can you think about that at a time like this?’

‘Because, dear heart, I want to get back on the nationals.’

The first to arrive were CID detectives from Newbury, including one former AntiTerrorist Branch Officer. Their approach was stealthy and on foot, rendezvousing with the reporters on the opposite side of the river to the old brewery. Casey and Mercs outlined everything they knew about the building and its grounds, the number of terrorists they had seen and their transport.

Ten minutes later an armed response vehicle arrived on the scene together with the uniformed chief inspector of Newbury who deployed them discreetly to cover the gates to the factory yard from the roadside ditch. The Territorial Support Group began sealing off the area. Cars were strategically positioned in case the terrorists succeeded in making a breakout without their hostages.

Casey and Mercs were led half a mile away on the far side of the bridge to a playing field which had been designated the emergency RV.

‘Ours is just a holding operation until the big boys arrive,’ the senior officer explained. ‘It’s not helped by the fact that the Paddies have such a commanding view. Anyone is going to be a sitting target who pops his head up.’ The next thirty minutes were the longest that Casey could remember. Absolutely nothing happened. The chief inspector kept glancing at his watch, the other detectives shuffled their feet impatiently. Mercs yawned. Birds sang in the trees. A train rattled by on the nearby track towards London.

Then suddenly everything seemed to be happening at once. First the Chief Constable arrived by helicopter. Then a police car, with flashing lights but no siren, appeared at the edge of the field leading a convoy onto the grass of the marshalling area. Next came the command and control vehicle known as Zulu.

Police began spilling out of patrol cars, unmarked Q cars and white Transits, in just minutes the field filled with reinforcements from the AntiTerrorist Branch and marksmen in blue overalls from the SO 19 ‘Blue Berets’ unit who began unpacking their sniper rifles. Others were experts from TO7 Technical Support Branch and SO7, known as the ‘Dirty Tricks Department’.

With the sudden influx of new arrivals on the village green, the place was fast taking on the atmosphere of an intensely earnest carnival. Then the second helicopter arrived in a special area that had now been cordoned off for the purpose.

As the passengers stepped down, Casey recognised Don Trenchard. Others, whom she didn’t know, were John Nash from MI5, Jim Maitland of the AntiTerrorist Branch, a Home Office adviser, a Special Forces brigadier and two police superintendents who had taken a special two-week course in hostage negotiation at Bramshill-They went immediately to Zulu Control for a meeting with the Chief Constable.

Shortly afterwards two more helicopters, both Pumas, arrived with a contingent from the Duty SAS Squadron at Hereford, the leader of whom also made straight for Zulu Control to thrash out an Immediate Action Plan in case of a need for an immediate response.

While they were in conference more vehicles arrived: three fire brigade tenders and six ambulances were followed by two white Tacticas which had recently been withdrawn from London to 11 EOD at Vauxhall Barracks.

Then, quite distinctly, a distant single shot was heard. Casey looked at Mercs, who shook his head and shrugged. Suddenly all sense of carnival died in an instant. A little later an ambulance drove off; there was no siren.

It was two-thirty in the afternoon when the meeting ended and Trenchard emerged, making his way across to where Casey and

Mercs stood.

‘I think congratulations are in order,’ he said. ‘I can’t say what you did wasn’t foolish and dangerous in the extreme. But as you got away with it, I can’t say I’m not pleased you did.’

‘What happens next?’

‘Well, we’ve replaced the local firearms officers with SO 19 marksmen, so now the place is fully surrounded. Unfortunately the terrorists spotted someone during the manoeuvre. A policeman was shot dead. Since then the terrorists have been on the blower to Trafalgar House making all sorts of threats.’

Casey paled. ‘Oh, my God!’

He smiled reassuringly. ‘No, don’t worry. It was inevitable really. That old brewery is too well sited for a covert approach in daylight. And, anyway, threats are to be expected. The fact is the game is up for them and.they know it. It’s just a matter of time.’

‘How long?’

‘As far as they’re concerned, until the talks are concluded in their favour. Abe Powers reckons that could be at any time.’

Mercs had been listening in his usual deceptively casual manner. ‘So when do the Hereford hooligans go in?’

‘Speculation of that sort isn’t helpful. We’ll want to try and get the hostages out first. Try and negotiate something. Besides, we’re told the factory has been rigged with explosives and booby traps for a prolonged siege, fiven the roof apparently, to stop anyone having any bright ideas about landing helicopters. And as this is the AIDAN team, I think we need to take the threat seriously. Can’t really be too Rambo-ish about sending in the SAS.’

Trenchard left them then to join Nash and Maitland who waited by a Newbury Q car to take them nearer to the factory. He hadn’t mentioned to Casey or Mercs that it was he who had the job of initial negotiation. Only his fellow professionals knew why and even they were unaware of his own, very personal reasons for volunteering.

The police negotiator had persuaded the terrorists that it would be best for them to communicate by a secure landline telephone rather than mobiles, the transmissions of which could be intercepted by radio hams or the press. It was going to be Trenchard’s job to take it in.

As they drove by the perimeter hedge, they passed Captain Heathcote, complete in khaki bombsuit, checking the roadside ditch for explosives, using a ‘grudge’ detector to locate any hidden command wires.

‘I hope they’re playing this straight,’ Nash said.

Trenchard seemed unconcerned. ‘At worst they get a fourth hostage. At best we get three out.’

The car stopped behind the screen of trees and they climbed out. Trenchard shouldered himself into the police flak jacket and picked up the telephone and bolt cutters. ‘Good luck, Don.’

He stepped out in front of the gates, one SO 19 marksman hidden to one side in the ditch. Trenchard raised both hands and waved them slowly so that the watching terrorists realised who he was and what he was doing. Then he proceeded to snap the padlock chain and pushed open one of the wiremesh gates.

Maitland and Nash moved up behind him as he began walking across the expanse of concrete yard towards the distant factory, telephone in hand and the cable trailing out behind him.

‘Rather him than me,’ Nash observed.

‘And you say he volunteered?’ Maitland asked. ‘That’ll be worth a gong. Even if it is posthumous.’

The ATO was now splashing about in the ditch beside them where the water passed under a culvert in front of the gates. He pushed up the visor of his helmet. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ Heathcote said. ‘But I wouldn’t recommend stopping there. I think you’ll find you’re standing on what could be about thirty pounds of Semtex. In an oil can. No firing cable I can see, so it’s probably radio-controlled.’

Maitland looked at Nash; Nash looked at Maitland. Both men looked down at their feet.

‘Oh, shit!’

Heathcote chuckled, dropped his visor and scrambled out of the stream. His was a slow, waddling walk back in the wake of the car into which Nash, Maitland and the SO 19 marksman had scrambled in undignified haste.

Trenchard approached the old brewery building in a kind of daze. His mind was racing back over the years. Like blurred photographs in the pages of a book being flicked through. Nothing definite, just glimpsed images that seared through the eye and etched themselves in the back of the brain. Barely remembered, but never forgotten. The old days. Indelible. The dirty rain of Belfast, the bombed-out ghettos on the Peace Line. The sanity saving black humour in the squalid barracks, the smell of sweaty feet, polish and graphite oil, far worse than any back-to-back terrace. Ugly contorted faces screaming their stupidity and their bigotry. Old ladies smelling of lavender and offering cups of sweet milky tea. The strut and swagger of the flute bands. But most of all the unremitting boredom, the sheer tedium of routine patrols, day in day out, week in week out. Nothing ever happening. And then the sudden gut-wrenching fear. The explosions, the hysterical crowd, gunfire, the stink of CS and the crack and thwack of baton rounds. The absolute paralysing terror of it all.

And the teenage girl, sitting on the campus lawn and smiling bashfully at the camera, University of Ulster emblazoned on her sweatshirt.

Now he turned the corner of the building and saw the figure in the entrance portico. In the shadow, face hidden by a balaclava, the pistol held in a double-handed grip.

‘Forward, slowly now,’ McGirl said. ‘Nice and steady.’

Trenchard edged forward, tugging the cable as it became snagged at the corner of the building.

‘You can leave it here,’ the gunman said.

‘I’ve been authorised to talk to you.’

‘Then you can use this telephone — from the other end of it.’

‘No,’ Trenchard insisted. ‘Face to face. Inside.’

McGirl’s laugh was harsh. ‘So you can report on everything you see? I don’t think so.’

‘I don’t intend leaving.’

‘The Brits are giving us hostages now, are they?’

‘You’ve got three innocent people in there. Let’s talk about it.’

‘Piss off!’

A second dark figure appeared at McGirl’s side. Despite the balaclava, there was no mistaking the female shape. The voice confirmed it. ‘What’s going on?’

Keeping the gun levelled, McGirl glanced over his shoulder. ‘This prick is offering himself in return for the other three. Some sort of fucking hero.’

‘Hello, Clodagh.’

Her dark eyes bored out of the holes in the balaclava, seeing, but not believing. Unsure.

Trenchard said: ‘It’s been a long time.’

Still she stared. He watched her lips as slowly they mouthed the name. ‘Chris?’

He nodded. ‘Chris Walsh. It’s been a long time. We need to talk.’

McGirl took a sideways step. ‘You know him?’

She took a long, slow, deep breath. ‘Oh, yes. I know Chris Walsh.’

‘We need to talk,’ Trenchard repeated.

Clodagh hesitated for a moment, then said decisively: ‘Bring him in.’

In the darkness of the entrance, Trenchard was frisked, bound and had a strip of cloth tied around his eyes before being guided up the stairwell to the dilapidated office suite on the top floor. When the blindfold was removed he was standing in a darkened room with old blankets nailed to the windowframe. Boxes of provisions were scattered around, a stove, and two Armalite rifles rested against one wall.

‘You’re planning a long siege,’ he observed.

‘You’d better believe it,’ McGirl said. ‘Let the SAS come bustin’ in here and they’ll be in for a nice surprise. In fact I’m quite looking forward to them trying.’

‘You could be bluffing.’

Clodagh stripped off her balaclava, shook her hair free. She said icily: ‘It’s no bluff. If anyone forces an entrance, they’ll get blown to smithereens, but forgive me if we don’t show you where everything is.’

‘You can’t possibly get away with this.’

‘We’ll see,’ McGirl said. ‘We’ve got hostages and they’ll be the first to die if anyone rushes us.’

Trenchard indicated the covered window. ‘There’s a whole army of armed police and SAS out there. They’ll just sit it out and wear you down.’

‘We’ve just got to wait until the Trafalgar House talks are concluded,’ Clodagh said. ‘We’ll be part of any final deal.’

‘Not if you’re holding hostages, you won’t. The government won’t allow a gun to be held to its head.’

McGirl sneered. ‘And they won’t let hostages get in the way of a peace settlement. They want it too badly’

‘Wrong,’ Trenchard replied. ‘But there is a way.’

‘Is this a negotiation?’ Clodagh asked sarcastically.

‘If you like. You’ve got three innocent people in there. A woman and a child, and a man whose only job in the army is purely humanitarian, — to save life and property-Release them and keep me. Then we’ll allow you to sit this out until the talks are finished. And the government won’t object if your release is part of the final deal.’

McGirl glanced sideways at Clodagh to gauge her reaction; he sawnone. ‘Harrison isn’t so innocent,‘he snarled. ‘Youmusthave read the press stories. Setting us up for an own goal ― The one that killed Hughie Dougan.’

Trenchard shook his head. ‘That wasn’t Tom’s idea. It came from MI5. Tom just carried out the orders did what he was told.’

Clodagh’s eyes narrowed. ‘Harrison didn’t know my father was the one killed at Deptford. You don’t see*n surprised.’

He hesitated before replying, wondered if this was the time to say it. ‘I knew, Clodie, I saw his Celtic bird ring at the mortuary… and I knew the girl who was killed couldn’t be you. Too short from what I was told but I didn’t say anything.’

‘Why not?’

Trenchard shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you* but not like this. Just you and me, in private.’

‘I don’t trust him,’ McGirl said. ‘Divide and rule. He’ll just try and drive a wedge between us. And don’t believe any of this crap about letting the hostages go and getting a deal. If we win through, it’ll only be from a position of strength.’

Trenchard ignored him, looked directly at Clodagh. ‘Five minutes, that’s all I ask.’

The short silence was heavy, the atmosphere in the small room claustrophobic and charged with an electee tension. At last she said: ‘You’re the last person in the world I’d trust, Chris — God, I don’t suppose that’s your name for a rr*inute But I’ll give you five minutes. For my reasons, not yoi*rs’

‘It’s a mistake,’ McGirl warned.

‘Please, Pat, leave us. Shut the door. I’ll be all right.’

The terrorist glared at Trenchard, shook his head in disapproval, and left the room.

Trenchard watched him go. ‘Is there anything between you two?’

‘Not really. What’s it to you?’

He shook his head. ‘You’re not going to believe what I’m going to tell you.’

Her smile was bitter, resembling a snarl. ‘That’s true enough, so it is. I wouldn’t believe you if you said the Pope was Catholic’ She waved the automatic in her hand. ‘In fact I don’t know why I don’t shoot you now. No one has caused me the pain you did, Chr’

‘Don. Don Trenchard, that’s my real name. Straight up, no lies. And what I was doing then, when I was on the campus, was just my job. In fact it was my first assignment. I was young, really keen.’

Her eyes blazed. ‘Keen enough to shaft me — in every sense of the word!’

‘What I hadn’t bargained on was falling in love with you.’

Sitting there in the semilight, ten years on, in a besieged and derelict Edwardian brewery — talking to this man who now seemed a total stranger — she couldn’t even find the words to express her anger, her confusion.

He smiled the smile she remembered. That slightly amused and patronising smile he used when she would earnestly explain her Republican beliefs over coffee in the university canteen. ‘I told you you wouldn’t believe me.’

‘I don’t.’ Acid.

‘Well, in fact, only I can know the truth about this. And I did. I did fall in love with you. I didn’t mean to, didn’t want to. But I did.’ He held his bound hands in front of him, interlaced his fingers. Tried to remember how it had been. ‘Remember those talks we had? In the canteen, in the park. In our digs. Over a bottle of Blackbush until two in the morning. Discussing politics and Irish history. You giving your views and me trying to talk you round. The arguments we had, the laughs.’

For a moment her face seemed to soften, the pupils dilating hazily. ‘I remember.’

‘I’ll tell you something. Something strange. Something I didn’t even realise myself at the time. In fact not until some five or so years later. By then I’d got sick of it all. The endless cycle of killing and violence. The dirty tricks on all sides — I knew all about them, because I was in it mys.elf up to my neck.’ He paused. ‘I often thought about you, wondered. Remembered the things you’d said. Then suddenly, one day, I realised you had been right. No matter what the army and RUC did — from internment or the so-called shoot-to-kill policy — nothing would crush the IRA. It just kept coming back for more. For them it was just a continuation of their forefathers’ fight against the Black and Tans before partition.’

A frown fractured the smooth skin of her forehead. ‘You expect me to believe I converted you to the cause?’

‘I’ve no reason to lie to you. It wasn’t an immediate thing.’

‘But you’re obviously still with them. With British Intelligence or something. Still with dirty tricks.’

‘Yes, but then it’s my career. Too late to become an accountant or a solicitor now. But I do my bit to help if I can. Like when I recognised your father’s Celtic ring at the mortuary, I realised he was dead. But if that had been known — that the old master bomber had returned from the dead only to be killed. by his own bomb — it would have seemed like a victory to the

‘Ś British Government. They’d have been able to turn it into a far greater propaganda coup than they did. And I didn’t want that.’, ‘No?’

‘I was on the inside track, Glodie. I could see how scared they were of AID AN, the pressure the campaign was creating, how close you were to succeeding… I knew how the talks were going, but without the IRA they were doomed to fail whatever was agreed. We’d seen it all before. And I didn’t want that. While I couldn’t condone the death and injuries your bombings caused, more than anything I wanted peace over the water. Just one more push and you could do it, I sensed that. And I was right. The Blackwall Tunnel bomb was the turning point. That’s why I said nothing.’

‘And did nothing,’ she said sarcastically.

‘Not quite. The Prods had found out the truth about you and your father and I put my neck on the line in an attempt to suppress it.’

‘Yes?’ Not believing.

‘They tortured and murdered Killy Tierney.’

The blood drained from her face. ‘Holy Mother.’

‘I’m sorry. I tried to stop it. I was too late. And when MI5 knew your identity, I leaked it to the press to give you warning.’

She was off guard now, her long black hair hanging limply over her face as she looked down at her hands, holding the gun between her knees. In a hoarse voice, she asked: ‘And what about me?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You said you often thought about me, wondered what had happened to me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yet you did nothing. You’re in intelligence. Surely it would have been the easiest thing in the world to find out.’

His smile was crooked, unsure. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to. I actually took steps to avoid it. I knew I’d betrayed you. Betrayed your trust. And in that way I’d betrayed myself. I felt guilt — or maybe it was shame.’ She was looking at him now, her eyes clear and candid. Somehow she seemed different from when he’d first walked into this awful place. Younger, almost vulnerable. As he remembered her, the earnest student. ‘You could tell me now. What did happen to you?’

‘I can’t believe you don’t know.’

‘I only know what I see now. Someone hard and bitter.’

Her eyes narrowed, the vulnerability gone. ‘And you know who made me like that?’

‘Your father?’

She shook her head in exasperation. ‘Sweet Mother of God, no. Da believed in what he did, that he was fighting for me, like I’m fighting for a future for Caitlin and her wee child. No, Don, it was you who made me like that. If ever I had cause to hate the Brits, it was you. You made me betray my own father without me even knowing it at the time. Sending him back to the Kesh for another nine years. How d’you think that made me feel?’

‘If I could turn back the clock…’

‘Oh, God, I wish. Because there was more to it than that — if you’d bothered to find. out. If you really regretted what you did to me, at least you could run away. I couldn’t.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You left me with child.’

He stared, his mouth dropping open.

She laughed, the note brittle. ‘Oh, you won’t find that in your intelligence files. I was utterly ashamed, horrified. A Catholic girl made pregnant by a British spy. It would have been like giving birth to the Devil himself, to have had your child. But the abortion had to be secret and on the cheap, had to be on a student grant. So it was a back-street job.’

‘I see.’ Chastened.

‘No, you don’t. Because now I can’t have children, you fucking bastard!’ She stood up suddenly, her anger and grief returning. ‘So I’m pleased with your conversion to the cause in your own sweet time. But it hasn’t cost you anything, no pain and no suffering. Nothing!’

He looked up at her. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Clodie. I volunteered to walk in here. No one asked me to. It’s time to pay the price.’

Her eyes were wide, the whites glistening with unshed tears.

‘Christ!’

The door opened abruptly. ‘Something wrong?’ McGirl asked sharply.

Clodagh shook her head, unable to speak.

‘Let them go, Clodie,’ Trenchard urged. ‘I’m of as much value to them as Tom Harrison, probably more so.’

‘Don’t listen,’ McGirl said.

The woman sniffed, wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘You wouldn’t understand, Pat. We’ll keep him and release the others.’

‘You don’t believe that nonsense about a deal!’

She looked one more time at Trenchard. ‘It doesn’t much matter — but, anyway, I think perhaps I do.’

Making her decision, she pushed past McGirl and strode towards the adjoining door, sliding back the bolts. Three faces turned towards her, pale and drawn in the dim light.

‘You okay, Tom?’ Trenchard asked. ‘Pippa and Archie?’

Harrison squinted into the light. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I’m your substitute.’

Clodagh bent to unlock his handcuffs. ‘Be quiet, all of you.’

‘Not the boy!‘McGirl said.

Harrison began rubbing his chafed wrists as Pippa was released.

‘This is madness!’ McGirl shouted and stepped forward, jamming his pistol against Archie’s temple. ‘Leave him be, before I blow his sodding brains out.’

Harrison went to move towards the Irishman, then froze. The finger was taut on the trigger. So close, but there was nothing he could do.

‘Listen, Pat — ‘ Clodagh began.

‘No, you listen! I don’t know what this bastard said to you, but forget this business about deals. It doesn’t work like that. The Brits, the Prods, the bloody Army Council, they’ll all drop us in the shite if it suits them. And if there’s an agreement, however much we’ve helped, we’ll just be an embarrassment. Harrison and your man here, they both take the Queen’s shilling. They’re soldiers, expendable when it counts. But a wee boy. He’s our real insurance. They won’t sacrifice a wee boy to the IRA in a deal for peace — the tabloids would never let the politicians forget it. So if you want to live — and I do — then keep the boy, too.’

She hesitated, then slowly withdrew her hand and the key from Archie’s handcuffs. In a quiet voice she said: ‘The boy stays.’

‘I’m sorry, Tom,’ Nash said after Harrison’s immediate debriefing. ‘We had no idea it would work out that way.’

They were standing by Zulu Control on the village green. Harrison was choked with emotion. Anger, bitterness and a burning thirst for revenge. All played a pan. But the most gut-wrenching feeling of all was that of absolute helplessness.

Jim Maitland said: ‘Terrorists are an unpredictable lot, Tom. We thought it would be a good move. Although God knows what prompted Don to do his Sidney Carton bit. You know, it’s a far, far better thing I do, and all that. At least we’ve got you and Pippa out. A small mercy, I suppose. Although I don’t expect you to see it like that.’

Pippa out, Harrison thought. It may have been a consolation to him, but it was none to the woman herself. Like him, she’d rather have stayed in danger than abandon her son. If Archie died, she would die. Not immediately, but slowly over the years. Already something had died inside them both. And if the brief few hours of their reunion in the factory cell had brought them together again as a family, Jtheir forcible removal when Trenchard arrived had cruelly shattered a’ll that.

Pippa had been hysterical, inconsolable, and had run to the arms of her father who had been brought to the scene. In some perverse way she blamed Archie’s plight on Harrison and, of course, indirectly, he knew she was right.

He tried to clear his head, took a deep breath and looked around. Dusk was settling now. There were vehicles everywhere, uniformed police, marksmen and another group some distance away with two unmarked furniture vans who kept themselves to themselves. SAS reinforcements, he guessed.

Then he saw Casey, keeping back as she watched. Clearly unsure of herself, of him. Not wanting to intrude on his grief. Not knowing how he would react to her and what she had done., Slowly he walked towards her. She was wearing her reporter’s trench coat, eating a hamburger, cupping one hand to catch the crumbs.

Scared, he thought. Scared and not knowing what to do, like a girl. Her eyes were watchful, worried.

He stopped in front of her. ‘Thanks, Casey. Thanks for what you did.’

Still she wasn’t sure. ‘Do you mean that, Tom?’

‘I mean it.’

‘I’m afraid it didn’t help. I’m so sorry.’

‘It was a brave and crazy thing to have done. But if you hadn’t, all three of us would be in there and the police might never have found us. I took a gamble and lost.’

‘As you said, you had to try.’ Suddenly she realised how foolish she looked, a squashed hamburger in her hand, relish dripping through her fingers. ‘I was hungry. I haven’t eaten all day. Would you like some?’

Even now she could make him smile. He shook his head.

‘What happens next, Tom?’

‘We wait. It could take days. The negotiators will be asking to speak to Archie every day. Make sure he’s still all right. Clodagh Dougan’s agreed to that.’

‘Is she running things?’

‘Hard to say. She and McGirl between them.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Not like Caitlin. Clodagh’s — I don’t know — strange. Sort of hard and soft. Like there’s some inner conflict. I’m sure she’d have released Archie. Something Don said perhaps, I don’t know. McGirl stopped her.’

‘Pippa’s taken it badly.’ As she spoke the words she realised it was a stupid thing to say; stating the obvious.

‘She’s under sedation. I’m afraid she blames me.’

Casey touched his arm. ‘She shouldn’t do that, Tom.’

‘She has a point.’

There was a sudden commotion at the Zulu Control trailer. Voices were raised in vehement argument. Several officers stood around the entrance, looking in with curiosity. After a few moments Jim Maitland emerged, glanced around, spotted Harrison and strode towards him.

‘Look here, Tom, we’re beginning to get developments and I don’t like the look of them. McGirl’s starting to get very twitchy with the negotiators. To be truthful I think his real predicament is starting to sink in. He’s beginning to dismiss the idea that their release will be part of a final deal at Trafalgar House.’ Maitland grimaced. ‘And I can hardly say I blame him there. The point is, he’s demanding a helicopter flight now to take all of them to Eire with guarantee of no interference here and immunity from extradition by Dublin.’

‘And?’

‘He’s threatening to shoot Trenchard if he doesn’t get it.’

‘What’s the likelihood London and Dublin will agree?’

‘Slim. But that’s not the point. If anything happens to Don, we lose any chance of negotiating your son’s release. He’ll then be their only insurance and they’ll keep him with them until the bitter end.’

Harrison experienced an awful churning sensation in his gut, the bile rising. The thought of his friend dying because of him, and his son still held captive was all too much. And just when he’d almost reconciled himself to the possibility that the siege could end peacefully. ‘What are you proposing?’

‘That we prepare for the worst. McGirl has given us an ultimatum to agree to his demands.‘Three hours. That’ll take us to midnight. Our negotiators will try to dissuade him, play a stalling game…’

‘But?’

‘If Don is killed, I’m afraid COBRA will give the order for us to go in. Standard procedure once the shooting starts.’

‘Christ.’

‘The thing is, Tom, this is likely to get messy. You’ve been debriefed on what you saw of their explosive defences and they’ve left us in no doubt what to expect. The SAS have now updated their first Immediate Action Plan and are going to require backup from bomb disposal. Colonel LloydWilliams is flying here direct from Aldergrove by helicopter to take overall charge of the EOD operation. He’s agreed, albeit reluctantly, to let you lead in the main assault to clear the way for an SAS follow-up and support from the 821 Squadron boys.’

‘No!’ Casey protested. ‘You can’t ask Tom to do that.’

Maitland looked grim. ‘Please keep out of this, young lady. No one’s forcing him, it has to be his own decision. But quite obviously Tom’s the best qualified for this particular job. He’s been inside the building and he’s worked with the SAS.’

Harrison said: ‘I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, Jim.’

Casey looked on in horror and disbelief. But she knew he would ignore her protest.

At that moment the Wessex appeared over the nearby village rooftops, fresh from the front line of Northern Ireland, in its battle livery of green, black and brown. Tall LloydWilliams had arrived.

Maitland said: ‘The briefing starts in five minutes.’

McGirl’s deadline of midnight came. And went.

London had agreed, the negotiators told him, had a helicopter on standby. But Dublin was dragging its feet. Unexpected that. The politicians there were wringing their hands with the moral dilemma.

Another half-an-hour, McGirl agreed.

He paced the outer floor beyond the offices like a caged tiger. Kicking at debris, winding himself up.

Clodagh leaned against the wall and watched him in silence, arms folded across her chest. Muldoon stood at one of the windows at the far end of the room, the sniper rifle with its nightsight poised, eyes relentlessly scanning the bald patch of concrete.

He looked back inside towards McGirl, the man’s stalking figure lost in the elongated shadows where the moonlight glistened on the broken glass on the floor like crystals of blue ice. Liam Doran, covering the side of the building, was distracted too.

‘Keep still, Patrick, for God’s sake, can’t you?’ he said. ‘You’re making me nervous, so you are.’

McGirl scowled at him, walked menacingly towards him.

Doran turned his head away at the other man’s approach, looked out towards the river. He’d always expected he’d die violently one day, had never guessed it might be quite like this. Not on the eve of peace. Ironic that. He said hoarsely: ‘Why haven’t the police lit up the place like a picture palace?’

“The Brits like operating in the dark. Like slugs and rats.’ McGirl turned away sharply, walked purposefully towards Clodagh. ‘They’re playing silly sods with us, you know that?’

‘I know that, Pat. What did you expect? It’s negotiating procedure.’

She noticed he was agitated, perspiring. Not prepared to meet thy doom? She felt like asking but didn’t.

He came to a decision. ‘Then it’s time to let the shites know we mean business. Call their bluff.’

‘We can sit it out.’

He looked her hard in the face. ‘Why? Don’t believe our friend in there, do you? It’ll all end the same way, sooner or later, if we don’t keep the pressure up.’

‘I call the tune, Pat. It’s what was agreed.’

‘No, Clodie, that was your father, not you. I’m giving the orders 1 now.’

‘Not the wee boy.’

‘No, not the boy.’ McGirl jeered. ‘It’s time for your man to pay thcprice.’

‘Price,’ she repeated, remembering Trenchard’s words. ‘Christ, were you listening a”t the door?’

He regarded her with contempt for a moment, not bothering to reply. Then he turned to the door of the improvised cell.

‘Not in front of the boy, Pat!’

McGirl was inside. There was the sound of a punch being thrown and Archie screaming. Then Trenchard was being half pulled, half dragged out of the doorway, one knee scraping over the glass on the floor as he tried to gain his feet, still doubled over with the pain of McGirl’s blow.

‘For God’s sake,’ Trenchard cried, his voice strident with panic, ‘don’t be stupid. I’m worth nothing to you dead. Alive I’m your insurance!’

‘You’re right about one thing,’ McGirl sneered, bringing his knee up into the face of the kneeling man, ‘you’re worth nothing. You said it.’

Tears began to fall down Trenchard’s cheeks, his bound hands visibly trembling as he brought them up in a gesture of prayer and appealed to Clodagh. ‘Tell him, Clodie! Tell him I’m worth more to you alive! Tell him!!’

McGirl stepped behind the bowed body with his automatic, saw the spreading puddle. ‘Our hero’s just pissed himself.’

Clodagh said: ‘He won’t listen to me, Don.’ And she averted her face and shut her eyes, seeing only the handsome young student on the university campus. Smiling at her, sharing his jokes with her. All the while betraying her. And their child.

The single solid shot reverberated back and forth along the upper storey of the building, the noise lingering, slowly dying as Don Trenchard pitched face forward into the debris on the floor.

McGirl kicked contemptuously at the body. ‘The man had no dignity.’

Clodagh turned her face back to the scene; Muldoon and Doran looked, too, their outlines faint beside the windows.

‘Give me a hand,’ McGirl ordered. ‘Leo, open a window at the front. Liam, give me a hand with the shite’s corpse, lift it up to the sill. Careful!’ he warned, crouching beside Doran as they reached up to tip the body over. ‘Don’t give them a target.’

Trenchard’s body was hooked over the frame at the waist, the balance pivoting until McGirl gave one last push at the foot above his head. The shoe came away in his hand and the body disappeared. There was a mere split second’s silence until they heard the thud as it hit the ground.

As if he thought it had been some last deliberate act of defiance by the dead man, McGirl threw the shoe contemptuously into the middle of the floor. He looked across to Clodagh: ‘Now we’ll see if they don’t believe we mean business. Are all the explosives armed?’

She nodded, numb, aware that events had spiralled out of her control.

McGirl pushed his way into the office that served as their quarters. He picked up the slab of Semtex to which the small plywood ignition unit with its tail of aerial wire had been taped. He returned with it to the improvised cell and slid open the bolts.

Archie sat with his back against the radiator, upright and staring, his face a waxy white mask. ‘Was that a shot?’

‘Yes, that was a shot,’ McGirl retorted, mimicking the boy’s polite formality. ‘And you’ll be next, you little shite, if you don’t behave.’ He held up the bomb. ‘Do you know what this is?’

‘I think so, sir.’

‘Explosive, right,’ McGirl said, as he placed the contraption to one side before unlocking Archie’s handcuffs. He then pulled over a straight-backed chair from the corner.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Shut up and sit. Arms by your side.’

Archie obeyed as McGirl began to unravel the parcel tape. He proceeded to bind the boy firmly to the chair back, unrolling the stuff tight around the small chest time and time again until he was satisfied it was secure.

‘This charge is radio-controlled,’ he said, taping the device beneath the chair. ‘I’ve got the control switch. If anything happens, if the police or soldiers break in here, you do exactly what I say or you become so much instant mincemeat. Understand me?’

Archie’s eyes were wide as he tried not to breathe. ‘Excuse me, sir.’

McGirl stopped by the door. ‘Yes?’

‘I think you’re a right bastard.’