The Tick Tock Man

2

It was December and all the transatlantic flights were delayed. k That suited Hal Hoskins as he crouched over his camera case at the edge of the Heathrow terminal concourse and selected the best lens for the job. More time for Casey to squeeze something original out of the interview, more time for him to get the lighting right. And tomorrow their exclusive on Mandy Righteous — superstar singer, actress and self-proclaimed sex goddess would hit the London streets in the Evening Standard. With accolades all round.

He draped the Pentax strap over his shoulder, locked his case and looked around at the milling crowd of hot and anxious travellers. No sign of Casey, she’d left for the VIP lounge twenty minutes ago. He looked at his watch. At this rate they’d lose the time advantage they’d gained.

Then he saw her.

Casey Mullins was not easy to miss. She was slim and tall. Too tall, she said, any taller and she’d be in a zoo. That was a typical self-deprecating oneliner from the thirty-five-year-old American. You had to get in quick with your jibes about Yanks if you wanted to get there first. It was a quality which had quickly endeared her to the staff, along with her buoyant humour and the ready smile that brightened the cream-and-freckles face. Probably it would go some way to ensure that she was taken on permanently when her three-month trial was up.

But there was no sign of that good nature now as she stomped angrily towards the photographer, high heels snapping and her amber hair swinging.

‘I do not believe that woman!’

‘What’s up, Case?’

Casey glared as passersby gawped at her obvious show of rage. ‘She’s changed her mind, that’s what’s up. Mandy Righteous changed her frigging mind. She won’t give the interview now because she says she’s got a migraine.’

Hal shrugged. A born fatalist, nothing ever perturbed him. ‘Perhaps she has. It can be pretty painful.’

Casey delivered a withering scowl. ‘Hal, she was eating a cheese sandwich. Migraine sufferers do not eat cheese sandwiches.’

‘At least you’ve discovered something. The exotic Mandy Righteous eats plain old cheese sandwiches.’

‘She was also sitting next to that awful Australian TV soap star. No, not him, his female co-star. But I can hardly base a two-page exclusive feature on those two facts.’ She looked around at the milling crowds, all heading home for Christmas and a good time. And all she had to look forward to was a bollocking — that cute English expression — from the editor and an insufferable Yuletide with her second husband’s business contacts over for meals and drinks. The only consolation would be her daughter’s shared sense of fun. ‘All this time wasted, Hal. Wasted.’

‘If Eddie was here he’d say you look magnificent when you’re angry.’

She almost smiled at the name of the veteran reporter who made no secret of the fact that he fancied her rotten. ‘Don’t talk dirty, Hal. I’m nearly old enough to be your mother.’

They began walking. ‘I’ll buy you a drink when we get back to London, Case. Anyway, who needs an interview with a singer who can’t sing and an actress who can’t act. Just because she’s told the world she doesn’t wear knickers.’

Suddenly she stopped still as though she’d seen a ghost. ‘Isn’t that him?’

‘Who?’

She pushed forward, threading through a line of passengers with their luggage. ‘Abe what’s-his-name? Senator Powers?’

‘Wouldn’t know about that.’

‘That’s because you’re not an American,’ she replied tartly.

Now she was sure. He was a big man, probably six-five, with huge shoulders encased in an expensive Gianni Versace suit. He made light work of the trolley piled high with suitcases, his huge knuckles gripping with the same determination as the set of his chin. He was heading for the exit and no one was going to slow him down. And the two soberly dressed minders, one on each side of him like outriders in a fast presidential cavalcade, were making sure that no one did.

‘Who is he?’ Hoskins asked, trotting to keep up with Casey’s lengthening stride.

‘Senator Abe Powers,’ she replied. ‘The third, I think. Like one of your English monarchs.’

‘Delusions of grandeur?’

‘Wouldn’t be surprised. His family is close to the Kennedys, but always in their shadow. He’s made quite a name for himself in Washington recently as a peace-broker. Played quite a role in the Palestinian agreement and in the Bosnian talks…’ She’d outflanked Senator Abe Powers III now, overtaking him behind a queue of passengers and then sweeping around in a path across his bows.

The trolley struck her hard in the thigh, bringing Powers to a shuddering and apologetic stop.

Her smile as she winced through the pain was just short of angelic. ‘Gee, I’m sorry too, it was my fault for not looking.’ She feigned a sudden recognition. ‘It’s Senator Powers, isn’t it?’

The man looked embarrassed, ran one of his hambone hands through the lush thicket of silvery hair. ‘Yes, I am.’ The voice rich baritone.

Behind him the burly minders hovering, uncertain, awaiting instructions.

‘I’m Casey Mullins of the London Evening Standard. A fellow American. I’m a great fan of yours,’ she babbled, throwing in everything she could think of to make him respond.

‘That’s most kind, Miss Mullins. An honour to meet you,’ he said, attempting to push his trolley past her.

She resisted. ‘We met last year.’

‘Oh, really, where?’ His eyes were searching for a route through.

‘Washington,’ she guessed. ‘At a party, but of course you wouldn’t remember me.’

Ttn sure I do.’ Terse and getting terser.

That melting smile again. ‘Then you remember that interview you promised me?’

He looked perplexed.

‘But you had to rush out of town,’ she explained, letting him off the hook. ‘On government business.’ I know you are an important man, she implied, who wouldn’t break a promise to a lady. She added: ‘Can I ask what you’re doing here? There’s been no media release from Grosvenor Square.’

The full, handsome lips twitched. ‘That’s because this is a personal visit. Family, you know.’

‘I don’t see your wife and kids,’ she said, tiptoeing to look between the senator and his guardians.

‘They’re in Aspen, skiing. Now, please, if you’ll excuse me, I really am in a hurry.’

‘That interview, Senator Powers, perhaps we could have it while you’re in London?’

‘I’m sorry, my schedule’s much too tight.’

‘Just half-an-hour? Fifteen minutes even?’

‘I don’t think so.’

The bright light dazzled as Hal Hoskins, down on one knee, took a superb undershot of Abe Powers’ jutting chin and nostrils flared in defiance.

Before she or the hapless photographer were aware of what was happening, the two minders moved into action. Hoskins’s camera was gently but firmly prised from his grip, the back opened and the stripped roll of film sent spinning to the floor. A powerful forearm swept behind Casey’s back, an irresistible force carrying her away to allow the trolley to move on.

By the time she and Hoskins had recovered, they were watching Senator Powers’ broad shoulders disappear through the exit doors.

‘Guess he’s shy,’ Hoskins observed ruefully.

‘C’mon, Hal, he loves publicity. He can’t ever get enough. Back home he’s always inviting the press to his home to photograph him with the wife and their ail-American sons. Pillar of traditional family values and all that pap.’ She glared after her quarry. ‘So why’s he in London for Christmas and they’re in Aspen?’ ‘Perhaps they’ve fallen out.’

‘Don’t be stupid. He’d never allow her to do that.’ ‘Maybe he’s got a secret assignation with Mandy Righteous.’ She grinned at the thought. ‘I’ll tell the ed to hold the front page.’

The initial plans were ready and approved within a week.

Donny Fitzpatrick found that Clodagh Dougan and her father had been as good as their word. The Chief of Staff suspected that Hughie had drawn up a plan for an attack on London years before while languishing in the Kesh which had virtually become a university of terrorism. Irish history and Gaoltacht-a play on the Gaeltacht Gaelic language, taught in jail — were two of the more innocent subjects studied.

To see Dougan’s proposal was like peering into a time warp, so many things had changed. Small, insignificant things like the recommended makes of vehicle to use, references to buildings and locations that had since been redeveloped, roads that had been altered to become one-way traffic systems or had disappeared completely.

But the genius and thinking that had gone into each device and its careful placement for maximum effect and damage was as bright and fresh as the day it had been first conjured in the bomber’s mind.

Significant new funding would be required and an intermediary was dispatched to the stud farm in Curragh owned by ‘Big Tom’ O’Grady who managed PIRA’s funds. Money as such was not a problem, but liquidity was. Rackets and extortion on both sides of the border, and contributions from supporters in the Irish communities of the United States, covered day-to-day operations, token salaries and modest benefits to widows and wives of men serving time in the cages.

The big money for arms, mainland operations and the political fund, plus a contingency account were allocated annually and more than covered by the most secret and darkest of the Provisionals’ revenue-raising efforts, the importation of narcotics. Originally cannabis in the seventies, then heroin which had created a nightmare problem on the streets for the authorities in Dublin. Eventually they had graduated to cocaine, cooperating with the cartels of South America which were always on the lookout for new markets.

These vast profits were laundered through a number of legitimate businesses, one of which was the Moylan Construction Group which operated out of Southampton in the south of England.

It was fortunate that the Group had recently been sold — the PIRA Army Council were concerned that the firm’s activities were under scrutiny by MI5 — to a large public company. As a result there were ample cash deposits in various offshore bank accounts awaiting reinvestment. Finance would not be a problem.

As Quartermaster General, Maedoc Mallally had much to organise. He told a law firm in Dublin to instruct solicitors in Liverpool to appoint estate agents to search for a suitable smallholding somewhere in the Home Counties. There was an abundance of farms on the market; the lunacy of the EC’s Common Agricultural Policy and a recession prolonged by the Exchange Rate Mechanism had resulted in a crash in land prices, widespread bankruptcies and a soaring level of suicide amongst farmers. A ten-acre arable plot was found near Henley-on Thames at a snip. It would provide the necessary cover and facilities to receive large deliveries of ammonium nitrate-based fertiliser without raising suspicions. The site was within easy driving distance of the M40, M4 and M3 main artery routes into ‘ London. Two large barns were included, one of which would be made fully secure. This would become the main workshop where larger vehicle bombs would be constructed.

A ‘virgin’ PIRA member from Cork, who had been brought up in England and therefore had an acceptably neutral accent, would go through the motions of running the farm and keep everything looking normal. A local lad would be hired two days a week to do whatever had to be done in the fields with a tractor for the sake of appearances. This was a deliberate policy to allay the suspicions of nearby villagers; the farmer would make a point of befriending the youth to ensure that he knew enough about the fake cover story to satisfy the inevitable local gossip. The farmhouse and barns would be railed off and topped with razor wire, infrared sensors installed and four ferocious guard dogs kept to deter nosy neighbours.

A nearby house with a large integral garage and secluded gardens was rented on a one-year let from the owners who were working on contract in Bahrain. Two more basement flats were rented, one in Reading and another in Slough, to act as safe houses as and when required. These were in addition to other premises already in use by active service units operating on the mainland.

Rather than plunder PIRA’s stockpile of Czech-made detonators, originally obtained through Libya, supplies were provided through the movement’s new contacts within the Russian mafia. These were smuggled into the country via Dover in a family saloon car.

A one-room office was rented, cash down, for a month in the seedy back streets of Southampton; a small plaque on the door read Solent Electronics Manufacturing. Others in the building would rarely see the owner, an untalkative nondescript individual who would occasionally take in postal and road courier deliveries of what appeared to be component parts. No one was surprised when the For Rent sign reappeared on the door.

Meanwhile Pat McGirl had been appointed operational commander.

McGirl, not currently on the British wanted list, travelled on a false American passport from Shannon to Paris, before making his way by rail and ferry to Oslo. From there he travelled by train to Bergen where he caught the North Sea ferry to Newcastle. This had long proved to be the safest way of entering Britain undetected. The simple expedient of growing a beard and dying his blond hair dark brown was all that was needed by way of disguise.

After taking the InterCity to London, he booked in at a cheap hotel and spent the next two weeks checking over Hughie Dougan’s plans. Where necessary he updated them after visiting the various locations, taking photographs and making notes on a portable tape-recorder. Sometimes he added ideas of his own. He also hired a car for three days which he spent inspecting various road tunnels and the capital’s outer motorway network that Dougan had only been able to assess from maps and atlases.

Before returning to Ireland by the route he had come, McGirl packaged the” undeveloped film and voice cassettes in three large Jiffy bags and posted them to an address in Cork. In the unlikely event of his being apprehended for any reason, he had no intention of being caught with prima facie evidence in his possession.

When McGirl arrived back in Eire, the first face-to-face meeting was set up with Hughie Dougan himself and Donny Fitzpatrick. Clodagh arranged to pick them up in her car at a deserted lay-by in County Roscommon, far away from the troubled border areas.

As she drove towards Mayo she brought them up to date with her plans. ‘I’ve quit my job as electronics consultant in Belfast. As far as the company, my friends and anyone else is concerned, I’ve landed a job in Canada. I intend to fly there, set up a mail-forwarding address, then return to Ireland under an assumed name. Can you supply a passport?’

Fitzpatrick nodded. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem, for you or your father. But not Canadian, their vetting procedures make it almost impossible. Anyway, you just supply the necessary photographs. We’ve friends who can make false applications for us in several countries, like the States or Australia. Of course the Free State is easiest for us, but in this case I think maybe American ‘ would be best. Less suspicious and it’s an easy accent for someone Irish to adopt. Worth the extra time delay. Even so, the passports should be through within a month.’

Everyone appeared satisfied with the arrangements and they drove on in silence, Fitzpatrick with a growing admiration for the woman at his side as she drove fast and confidently down the winding country lanes.

The rented cottage was set in a remote copse of trees reached by a long, unmarked cart track that fed off the main road. Strains of Beethoven reached their ears as Clodagh stopped the car in the muddy yard of the slate-roofed building. She led the way to the open bib-and-brace door, chickens scurrying noisily from their path.

It was an incongruous sight. Hughie Dougan, in old corduroy slacks and shirtsleeves, was seated at the huge refectory table, warmed by the wood-fired kitchen range. He was oblivious to their presence, humming happily to the overture blasting from a portable CD player on the windowsill, the whole paraphernalia of the bomb maker spread out before him. There was a pile of neatly glued plywood boxes to house the time and power units, known as TPUs, a hot glue gun and soldering iron, cardboard boxes full of Memo Park timers used in the manufacture of parking meters, tilt switches, microswitches, batteries, tremblers, universal counters, thyristors and printed-circuit boards.

He looked up, suddenly aware of their presence. Fitzpatrick was struck by how much older he looked than the most recent photograph he had seen. The man’s past nine years in the Kesh had taken their toll; the thick hair on his crown had all but gone, leaving just wisps of grey on the freckled pate, the skin of his jowls slack and wrinkled. But his eyes were dark and bright like those of a young man.

Clodagh said: ‘Our friends have arrived, Da.’

Dougan smiled, climbing quickly to his feet and wiping his hands on his trousers before greeting the two men. ‘Sure you’ll be wanting a wee wetty after your journey. Put the kettle on, Clodie, there’s a sweet.’

As she went to the sink, McGirl said: ‘I see you haven’t been wasting your time, Hughie.’

The bomber shrugged. ‘I’ve had a long time to think about this. Eighteen years designing things in my head. I can’t tell you how it feels to be putting my ideas into practice. To smell the glue and the soldering iron again.’ He laughed nervously, embarrassed that these hard men at the top wouldn’t understand. Then he indicated the pile of completed TPUs. ‘These are my masters. Clodie and I have been working together — she knows so much! New developments and techniques, it’s all changed so much. We’ve been experimenting, making sure all the ideas work. The best of the old and the best of the new.’

‘That’s why we wanted you, Hughie,’ Fitzpatrick assured quietly.

The Chief of Staff was impressed, even more so when they took out the maps and the plans and the revisions that McGirl had made following his reconnaissance trip to London. He could almost hear the crackle and fizzle of Hughie Dougan’s brain cells as the man studied the details, grasping even insignificant points instantly, making countersuggestions and improvements that he and McGirl hadn’t even begun to consider. There was no doubt about it, the man was a genius.

Before the two Provisional officers left, details of the experimental ‘dry run’ campaign in Ulster were agreed. After test explosions of ANS mix south of the border in rural County Leitrim, devices would be tried out in Ulster. While serving its own purpose, it would enable them to refine ideas and technology and to gauge the amounts of explosive required to achieve certain results before the mainland campaign began.

From past experience both Fitzpatrick and McGirl realised that targeting innocent civilians like the Guildford and Birmingham pub bombings and later Harrods, even if in error, could prove counterproductive. Nevertheless, the creation of a degree of ‘terror’ would be necessary in order to stir public opinion and force the British Government’s hand.

Dougan and his daughter clearly appreciated that fact. Their proposals were twofold. To disrupt the daily lives of as many ordinary people as possible in a spectacular and visible way, but without casualties if possible. And secondly to create fear afld public paranoia by aiming specifically at the police and other emergency-service personnel. This included London’s bomb disposal officers from the Metropolitan Police Explosives Section. Dougan appeared to have a particular appetite for this aspect of the campaign, because he had heard that they were all ex-army bomb-disposal operators — the very people he seemed to hold responsible for his last nine years in confinement.

Neither Fitzpatrick nor McGirl were in any doubt that, despite their intentions, there would be innocent civilian casualties. It was always the case, because mistakes inevitably happened, however carefully one planned. Nevertheless neither man thought to point this out. They all knew the facts of life and death.

When his daughter drove the two men away back to their car, Dougan was overwhelmed by his sense of elation. His head was spinning with new ideas and he saw vividly in his mind the flashes of explosive and the chaos and destruction he would take to London. Only then might he play a part in achieving a just peace, the cause to which he had devoted and sacrificed so much of his life.

He poured himself a straight Black Bush and thought how much he loved his daughter, how much he owed her.

Even now he remembered that particular day. It must have been 1968, a year before the latest troubles began. Having retired from the British Army, he had been working as an electrician for a house-building contractor in England. It was his first time at home on a twelfth of July for years. He was dozing in his armchair after a lunch-time drink when he was awakened by the drum and Clodagh’s scream of terror.

He found the petrified three-year-old clutching at his legs, crying, inconsolable, the pitch of her yells rising with each exploding thud of the gigantic Lambeg wardrum.

The Loyal Lodges were on their annual march, full of grim and righteous wrath, with sash and bowler and gilded banners flying to the triumphant call of the flute bands.

To this day Dougan could recall how he’d hugged the child in his arms until, slowly, the noise had faded away. All that day she remained unsettled and tearful, frightened of what was going on outside. Yet she knew nothing of the pompous prayers, the raging bonfires, the frenzied crowds and the burning effigies of the Pope. But Hughie Dougan did. Then it all came back.

Of course, by the time she was ten years old, Clodagh did know what was going on. That was when she had made her pledge to him, when they had made their pact. Even now he could see that small angelic face, those cute pigtails, those innocent eyes filled with so much dark anger that it broke his heart to see it in one so young. Her voice so full of hatred as she whispered to him on visiting day: ‘I’ll help you get back at them, Da, honest I will. However long it takes. I promise you.’

He thought little more of it at first. Only gradually had he come to realise that she had meant every word. Never very academically minded as a child, she began to study hard. And before her death, Dougan’s wife had proudly told him how their daughter had come top of her class in almost every subject. By the time she was eighteen and at the Jordanstown Campus at the University of Ulster, he finally realised she had no other ambition in life than to fulfil her pledge to him.

A year later he was released from the Maze. That time his homecoming had been a quiet affair at his own request. Uncle Tommy had gone to visit his sister so that Dougan could spend his first weekend in peaceful readjustment. Young Caitlin was still in Magherafelt with her aunt and, with his wife long dead — a result of depression, too many tranquillisers and alcohol — it had fallen to Clodagh to prepare the house for his homecoming. On the first night they had sat on the rug in front of the two-bar electric fire in the front parlour, laughing together and sharing a bottle of Bushmills. He had listened as she eagerly told him how she wanted to join with her father in the fight against the British, to help him make bombs. He could recall every word, see the tears of happiness in her eyes.

Then, with the bottle nearly empty, she had done something that unnerved him. Taking his hand, she placed it on her left breast. ‘Da, if you have need of a woman, you don’t have to go looking for a whore. I am a woman and I am here.’

It had taken a second for him to realise what she was doing, what she was saying. Through the fog of euphoria and alcohol it had been like a bizarre dream. But as he began to withdraw his hand, she had clutched it with her own, pushing his fingers hard against her soft flesh. ‘It’s all right, Da. I understand about men’s needs. And I know about prison, what it can do to a man. I know it might be difficult for you to do it, I understand. With me, it won’t matter.’ She had reached out and stroked his hair with her other hand, her eyes dark and limpid. ‘You can take all the time in the world.’

His voice was hoarse, touched by her tenderness, yet confused and angered at what the world had done to her, how it had distorted her innocent mind. ‘Clodie, you are my daughter.’

But she had held his hand fast. ‘Yes, Da, and I love you.’ He felt the stiffening of her nipple against his palm through the material of her dress. ‘See, some things cannot lie.’

Then he watched her expression of dismay, the disappointed pout of her mouth as he pulled his hand free and climbed, unsteadily, to his feet. ‘We will never speak of this again. Do you understand?’

And he had closed the door, aware that she was quietly sobbing. By the morning he had gone, spirited away during the night by his old friends in the Provisionals. Six months later he was arrested while crossing the border on a raid to bomb an RUC police station.

Only later, back in the Maze, did he have time to reflect on the incident with his daughter that had unsettled him so much. To Clodagh, he decided, he had become the personification of the fight against those forces that had destroyed her family and her childhood. He was more than a father, he was a hero; yet a hero whom she knew, could trust, could touch. It was a bonding of blood. The natural love of a daughter had become grotesquely distorted into a passionate obsession. And she, in her confused devotion, had attempted to replace her own dead mother in the only way she knew how.

Even now, as he sat in the isolated cottage awaiting her return, he could still remember the burning passion of that moment. For one split second, caught up in the stupidity of drink, he had been tempted and he could never forgive himself for that. How different would be their relationship now, he wondered, if he had succumbed? And he thanked God that he hadn’t. It just made him more determined than ever to rid his country of the British scourge that had ruined his and his daughters’ lives. To this day he had never heard Clodagh mention that there was a man in her life; it was his belief that there never had been.

He heard the car pull up and moments later she entered the cottage, a smile of triumph on her face. She reached across and kissed his cheek. ‘We’ve done it, Da. They really liked what they saw.’

‘You did it, Clodie. You did it all.’

She sat in an upright chair, stretched her legs and kicked off her high heels before reaching for the bottle to pour a glass. Then she noticed what he had been working on. ‘You shouldn’t solder when you’re drunk. It could be dangerous.’

He laughed. ‘I’m not drunk. You forget, daughter, that I’m not as young as I was. My eyesight’s not so good and my hand tends to shake — and I can’t get on with those surgeon’s gloves.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve told you, you should let me do the tricky stuff. Your work might be good, but it’s untidy.’

‘Sure you have your mother’s tongue on you, girl. Now let me be.’

Her laugh was a relief from the day’s tensions. ‘Whatever you say, you’re the boss, Aidan.’

He didn’t understand. ‘Aidan?’

‘That’s the codename they’ve decided to give you. AIDAN. Anglicised as Hugh, from the old Celtic god of sun and fire. It was my idea — they thought it doubly suitable.’

‘AIDAN,’ he repeated, thoughtfully.