The Tick Tock Man

4

The telephone call came out of the blue. Peter Rawlings was sitting down to a TV supper with his wife and two daughters in the Belmont suburb of east Belfast when the Ulster Unionist Party headquarters rang.

‘Dove,’ was the codeword the caller used.

‘Where?’

‘The Europa. Ask for Mr Montgomery.’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

Damn. Rawlings, a senior political adviser to the party, was beginning to understand how the American worked. He recognised the need for secrecy and for security, but such summons, at short notice without warning, were still inconvenient and sometimes irksome.

He telephoned his friend, Ian Findlay, a similar adviser to the hard-line Democratic Unionists, and passed on the news. Findlay, who lived farther out of town, agreed to pick up his colleague from his home on his way into the city centre.

While he waited, Rawlings made his excuses to his wife and went upstairs to the bedroom where he changed back into his suit.

Then he slid the steel security box from under the bed, pressed the coded combination and. removed the documents. They had been there, ready and completed, awaiting this call for two weeks.

Findlay arrived and the two Protestant political advisers drove off towards the Europa Hotel in Great Victoria Street.

Rawlings’s friend was in a bad mood. ‘I thought seriously about wearing my bowler and Orange sash.’ He was a staunch ‘no surrender’ Paisleyite; he didn’t like the American or appreciate the man’s interference in Northern Ireland’s affairs.

‘Not very diplomatic’

‘I don’t feel very diplomatic, Peter. We’re being crushed between a rock and a hard place. Since ‘69 we’ve given the Papists everything they want. Disbanded the B Specials, surrendered Stormont, changed the voting system and introduced positive discrimination in housing and jobs. And still it isn’t enough! Goddammit, Peter, we’ve got nothing left to give.’

Except our surrender, Rawlings thought, but said nothing more to deepen Findlay’s depression.

The Europa was busy, its public bar and restaurant bustling with revellers, and they went unnoticed to reception and had the dour desk clerk call the man they had come to see.

‘Mr Montgomery says go up, someone will meet you at the lift.’

An American in a grey-flannel suit was waiting for them on the second floor. He was wary and uncommunicative with alert eyes and close-cropped hair.

Bald eagle, thought Rawlings mischievously as the man escorted them to one of the small syndicate meeting rooms. It was opened by another bodyguard of almost identical, mean mannered appearance.

Senator Abe Powers III was seated at the head of the table, his shirtsleeves rolled and the colourful floral tie loose at his neck. A bottle of mineral water was open in front of him.

It was too stagey, Rawlings decided at once. This was American can-do, will-do bravado. An extension of the breakfast business meeting and solve-the-problem-before-nine corporate philosophy.

‘Nice to see you again, gentlemen.’ Powers rose from his seat, towering above them and offering a handshake of bone-crushing sincerity. But he was not one to dwell on pleasantries and, as soon as they had taken their seats on either side of him, he launched into the fray. ‘I hope you have some positive answers to my first proposals?’

Rawlings dipped into his briefcase and dropped the papers on the table. ‘We had no problem with that.’

The American’s bleak grey eyes switched to Findlay. ‘And the Democratic Unionists?’

‘We agree,’ he replied grudgingly, slapping his document down with undisguised contempt. ‘With such trivia we could hardly do otherwise.’

There was a ghost of a smile on Powers’ face, or was it just a tic of mild irritation? ‘Much of the world’s problems stem from trivial matters. And, trivial or not, you may be interested to know that we now have full and unanimous agreement between all parties on the following points.’

He perched a pair of gold-rimmed, half-moon reading glasses on his nose before consulting his notes. ‘That the philosophy and spirit of these talks shall be — quote — “to put the past behind us, to live with and recognise present practicalities and resolve our differences in the interests of our children’s future”.’

Findlay almost yawned. ‘Rhetoric’

Abe Powers shook his head. ‘Not rhetoric. I assure you I intend to keep firmly to the letter and spirit of Clause One in all negotiations. It was a similar preliminary agreement that paved the way for the Israeli-Palestinian accord. So if you have an attitude problem, Mr Findlay?’

A shake of the head.

‘Then, the other clauses agreed,’ Powers continued, ‘are for a new Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights. A new cross-border economic and trade institution to be formed between Ulster and Dublin and a new scheme to encourage integrated housing with subsidised rates or mortgages…’

‘Which won’t work in practice,’ Findlay pointed out. Rawlings agreed, but kept a judicial silence.

Powers removed his spectacles. ‘Perhaps not. But the point is, it’s been agreed. By your party, the Ulster Unionists, the Catholic SDLP and seconded by both governments.’

‘But it’s trivia,’ Findlay repeated.

‘These are building blocks,’ Powers countered. ‘Keep building and before you know it, we’ll have a complete wall. Let’s first agree what we can, rather than what we can’t.’ He took a deep and weary breath. ‘But if you want to look at one architect’s plan of a finished house…? Let me tell you, I had private meetings in London last week with the Prime Minister and Opposition leader, as well as several academics. I received broad agreement in principle. I have since been to Dublin. In fact, I have only just got back from there…’

Findlay’s exasperation finally broke. ‘Why Dublin, for heaven’s sake? It’s a foreign country. You might just as well talk to Japan or India!’

Powers’ voice was deep with dramatic gravitas. ‘Clause One, Mr Findlay, “To live with and recognise present practicalities.’

Bloody smart arse! Findlay fumed inwardly, but could not contain his indignation. ‘And just what gives you the right, Senator-Abraham-Patrick-Know-It-All-Powers-the-Third to come here and meddle in another sovereign state’s internal affairs? What qualification do you have for that? Tell me that, will you?’

For a long moment the two men glared in mutual hostility, rutting stags with antlers locked. Then Powers relaxed back into his armchair. Quietly he said: ‘Because I am one of forty million Americans who are descended from Irish families dispossessed by British indifference and landlordism after the Potato Famine of 1845. One of the million families who fled to America in order to survive certain death by hunger. Is that qualification enough?’

There was a faint, sardonic smile on Findlay’s face. ‘Then there’s no doubt where your sympathies lie.’

You’ve made your point, Rawlings thought. None of us like meddlers in our affairs. But at least Abe Powers was making progress, even if it was inch by inch. To prevent the antipathy from growing, he said: ‘Then you’d better tell us, Senator, just what is your proposal that so charmed London and Dublin.’

Powers signalled his appreciation with a brief smile. ‘In general terms, it is this. The introduction of Voting Registration, whereby all subjects of Northern Ireland will be required to register as either Irish or British citizens. They retain all rights, including voting in local council elections. But those who register as Irish will only be able to vote for a parliamentary member of the Dail in Dublin. Only those registering as British will be able to vote for an MP at Westminster. Of course, it would mean acts in Parliament and the Dail to end dual nationality and Irish rights to vote in the UK.’

Rawlings frowned. ‘And exactly what do you see as the benefit of this to us Protestant Unionists?’

Powers turned his palms upward. ‘For you it is a permanent safeguard against the inevitable day when there is a Catholic majority in the Province — one of your greatest fears. And, if mainstream Irish political parties are encouraged north to win the Catholic-British vote, then Sinn Fein will be fatally undermined.’

‘And the Anglo-Irish Agreement?’ Findlay asked.

‘It would go. Redundant, you see.’ Powers looked smug.

‘No, Senator, it would be a Trojan horse. For a start every Catholic in County Londonderry, Fermanagh and Tyrone would be voting for a member of the Dail — it would be untenable. Just how long before the Six Counties were reduced to the Three?’

Powers said: ‘I’ll remind’you of the Secret Protocol. Dublin is to renounce all claims on the Province. It will not be an issue.’

Findlay shook his head. ‘Regardless of Dublin’s promises, the issue would not go away under your proposals.’

Something had been bothering Rawlings for a while now. ‘Tell me, Senator, there’s more to this Secret Protocol than you’ve told us, isn’t there? It doesn’t make sense, Dublin doing all the giving. I mean, what’s in it for them?’

Powers pursed his lips in long and careful consideration of what he should say. ‘I will tell you this in private, but I shall deny it if ever I am challenged in public’ The faces of the two Protestant politicians were impassive masks, only the intense look in their eyes signified their interest in how Powers had pulled it off. ‘As you know, Eire is virtually a bankrupt state. On the face of it, the worst thing that could happen would be for its dream of a United Ireland to come true — with Ulster’s unemployment added to its own. So, in return for dropping Articles Two and Three and cooperating with mutual selective internment, the British Government has pledged full support to Irish demands on the Regional Support Fund, the Social Fund and the Common Agricultural Policy through the European Community.’ Powers smiled. ‘Do I have to spell it out? Money will flood in. For once, Ireland will not need to raise taxes and, for once, the current Irish Government will not lose its next election.’

Rawlings and Findlay looked at each other; they’d been friends long enough to know what the other was thinking. Their expressions of stunned surprise said it all. Powers had the major players already sewn up. It was up to the rest of the ragtag politicians to grab whatever they could.

At that point the conversation was interrupted by a heavy knock at the door.

Clearly irritated at the intrusion, Abe Powers called for the bodyguard to enter. ‘Yes, what is it?’

‘Sorry to disturb you, Senator ‘

‘Yes?’

‘I’m afraid there’s been a bomb threat.’

Major Tom Harrison had just turned in for the night at British Army Headquarters, Lisburn in Northern Ireland, when the call came through from the watchkeeper.

It was the Europa again. Considered to be a symbol of successful commerce and business in Belfast, the hotel had been a regular target of the Provisional IRA over the years. Probably, Harrison reflected, the most bombed building in the world.

A sixty-minute warning given in a phone call made to Ulster Television. That had been just five minutes earlier.

As Senior Ammunition Technical Officer in day-to-day command of 321 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Squadron, he would not normally expect to be called out to a routine task. The section leader — a captain, warrant officer or sergeant — would be more than experienced and competent to deal with every usual eventuality. But being an hotel this was a high-priority threat due to the possibility of considerable loss of human life. And, secondly, the warning message had been codesigned AID AN.

Several weeks earlier, after discussions with his colonel, the Chief ATO, or ‘Top Cat’, as he was still nicknamed from the days of insecure radio when that was the most senior ATO’s call sign — it was decided that the SATO would put in a discreet appearance whenever the name AIDAN was associated with a threat. So far they had lost one ATO and had two injured since this apparently new bomber had come on the scene. It was the worst casualty record since the early seventies before new techniques had been perfected. And that was not to mention the write-off of two Wheelbarrow robots.

Harrison replaced the receiver of the bedside telephone and switched on the light. No amount of travel posters affixed to the bare painted walls, or homely ornaments and books could disguise the fact that his mess quarters were no more than a cell in an open prison for well-behaved inmates. Still, it was infinitely preferable to ‘Cardboard City’, the flimsy-walled annexe in which most junior officers had to endure many a disturbed night; it was said that if just one man broke wind the entire block woke up.

He turned on the shaving-mirror light over the basin and spun the cold-water tap. A drawn face reflected back at him, the humorous brown eyes bloodshot with fatigue and the result of two beers too many in the bar earlier. That had been a mistake, breaking his own rules. But then it wasn’t every day you heard that the best man at your wedding had been blown to smithereens on the streets of London. Les Appleyard had phoned to break the news, his voice choked with emotion. Although Les and Jock were older, they’d been close friends for almost fifteen years — in Germany and then in Northern Ireland. All in all, it had been a bad end to a bastard week.

As he cupped his hands and sluiced his face, it occurred to him that he’d aged visibly during this tour-of-duty. Only thirty-six, but the responsibility of one of the toughest jobs in the army was taking its toll. Lines etched a little deeper in his skin, wisps of grey starting to show at his temples and his tan fading. There had been little opportunity for hilhyalking or playing rugby in recent months; too many hours spent in the office. He had even allowed his regular regime of running and weight-training to slip, although it didn’t yet show — the slim body in the mirror was still taut and well-muscled.

He turned away, pulled on a casual shirt and corduroy slacks, then grabbed his tweed sports jacket before making his way down to where his driver and the civilian Rover waited on the forecourt.

There were said to be seventeen routes out of Lisburn, but Harrison’s army driver, a local lad called Corporal Craggs, appeared to know even more than that. Each time they left the safety of the heavily fortified camp, a different way would be chosen. In Northern Ireland, any routine, any developing pattern would be noted. There was always someone watching, waiting for a slip-up. The word would be passed down the line, and then a culvert bomb or a horizontally fired Mark 12 anti-vehicle mortar would be lying in wait. Or even something as unelaborate as an ambush and a car full of PIRA gunmen. Over the years it had all happened at different times.

Harrison carried a Heckler and Koch sub-machine-gun beneath his seat, his driver a 9mm Browning automatic. While Craggs settled on his route, his boss followed it with a finger on the map. If anything unexpected happened, he would know immediately where they were and what options they could take. All the time the radio frequencies were adjusted to maintain contact with local friendly forces.

After a while they were on the Ml motorway for the thirteen minute drive to Belfast centre. Following the bomb warning, the RUC and Royal Irish Regiment patrols were out in force, the vehicle checkpoints sealing off all routes in and out of the city, hoping against hope to catch the terrorists responsible.

Now Harrison flipped down the flashing blue strobe lights attached to the sun visor and the vehicle was transformed instantly into a police car to be waved past the traffic queues by soldiers with faces screwed against the dark Belfast rain.

The Incident Control Point had been set up in Amelia Street by the Quality Plaza Hotel to which the Europa’s residents had been evacuated. The modern leafy piazza for pedestrians provided ample space for emergency-service vehicles and was out of lineofsight from the bomb in the next street. Harrison parked and strolled the short distance to the junction with Great Victoria Street. There, two recently introduced Tactica trucks of the bomb-disposal team were parked nose to nose in V-formation just back from the corner, using the Crown pub as a shield from any blast. The ornate turn-of-the-century building with its green tiles and magnificently engraved glass had suffered much over the years due to the close proximity of its towering modern neighbour across the street. Rumour had it that the Crown’s owners kept a secret store of replacement glass and filigree woodwork in anticipation of the next Europa explosion, whenever it might come.

Helmeted drivers, infantry escorts and other specialists were standing around at the ICP. There were a few nods and ‘sirs’ of acknowledgement. All low key.

In the back of the first vehicle, Corporal Clarke, the ATO’s overweight Number Two, who wore thick pebble spectacles, was studying a couple of colour-television monitors. In his hand he held the remote-control unit of the tracked Wheelbarrow robot.

To one side stood the twenty-four-year-old operator, Captain Peter Heathcote, with his arms outstretched as another soldier loaded the chest and crotch plates into the bulky brown bombsuit. Harrison had come to know the man and his corporal well. Both had been in Bravo Troop of 821 EOD Squadron, which he had commanded before his promotion and appointment as SATO. Formally P Company, the unit specialised in working with the SAS and SBS.

‘Any problems, Peter?’ Harrison asked.

Heathcote looked round. ‘Hallo, boss.’ He wiped a hand across his forehead, already starting to sweat under the weight. ‘No problem. The fire-alarm evacuation went smoothly except for the usual bonking couple who thought it was a practice drill. I sent I in the Unit Search Team and they’ve found an abandoned suitcase in the lobby.’

‘That’s all?’ the SATO asked.

Heathcote nodded. ‘We’re just about to Hotrod it.’

As if in confirmation he heard the stoical whir of the Mk8 Wheelbarrow as Corporal Clarke steered it by remote radio control across the street towards the newly built foyer and atrium of the hotel.

Harrison nodded. ‘Carry on, Peter. Mind if I stick around?’

The captain grinned. ‘No poaching, sir?’

‘No poaching,’ Harrison assured.

‘Then it’s my pleasure.’

Harrison was pleased to see how quickly Heathcote had got on top of the task, but he was hardly surprised. Those ATOs with the fastest reaction times were often posted to Belfast or Londonderry, whilst those operators who were deployed in rural areas, particularly border ‘bandit country’, would need different qualities — especially the experience to tackle more cunning and deadly devices in remote regions where the bomber could plot and plan undisturbed. But at least in the countryside time was also on the ATO’s side. By contrast, the city fathers of Belfast did not appreciate their streets being grid-locked for hours on end just because of some Provo bomb, real or hoax. If the ATOs didn’t clear them fast and efficiently, Harrison would soon receive a phone call from on high demanding to know the reason why.

Heathcote had indeed moved quickly, getting in with the Wheelbarrow before the standard cut-off point after a warning had been issued. Then it would be left for a statutory ‘soak time’ following the expiry of the deadline before the operator would risk an approach. That was to allow for any discrepancy in the timing mechanism, deliberate or accidental. The latter most usually occurred when the bomber used a watch-face timer, relying on an hour hand alone, which could prove notoriously inaccurate. In fact, more recently PIRA warnings had shortened to half-an-hour to allow less opportunity for the ATOs to get a result. For some reason best known to the bombers, AIDAN devices had so far come with a full sixty minutes’ grace.

Moving across to the primary vehicle, Harrison joined the captain to watch the television picture transmitted from the camera on the Morfax Wheelbarrow as Corporal Clarke trundled it towards the suitcase beside the foyer wall.

The item began to fill the screen before Heathcote said solemnly: ‘That’ll do.’

Clarke duly released the drive buttons, switched to the downward-facing camera and began extending the Wheelbarrow’s mechanical boom with the deftness of a school kid with a radio controlled tank. Perspiration was beginning to bead the corpulent soldier’s chubby cheeks. His tongue appeared between his lips as his concentration deepened while he extended the boom over the suitcase, then hovered.

The Hotrod — a larger version of the Pigstick disrupter — was now poised to shoot its high-velocity water jet, the effect of which was so powerful that the plastic plug it fired could kill anyone standing in its path.

‘In position,’ Clarke reported.

‘Okay, Nobby.’

Clarke bellowed out his one-minute warning with relish, then selected the circuit and uncovered the firing switch on the control box.

‘STANDBY! FIRING NOW!’

Even across the street they heard the virtually simultaneous crack of the charging explosive and sound of the Hotrod ripping through the suitcase to shatter the circuitry of the bomb before it could close. There was a brief moment of anticipation as each man waited for the earth-shaking roar that would tell them that they had failed.

Nothing.

‘Well done, Nobby,’ Heathcote said. Together they viewed the results of their handiwork through the Wheelbarrow’s colour cameras and identified the critical components of the shattered bomb. After waiting for the mandatory ‘soak time’, the captain made his decision. ‘I’d better go take a look-see now.’

Clarke scrambled down from his perch, hoisted up his baggy DPMs and helped the operator on with his helmet. Harrison watched on with a curious mixture of envy and gratitude that it was no longer his job to take that lonely walk. The suitcase device may have been ‘disrupted’, but there was never one hundred per 1 cent certainty until it had been eyeballed at close quarters.

Involuntarily his mind flashed back to the sniper in Ballymurphy in ‘83. The derelict and the pressure-mat booby trap… He was older and wiser now. Perhaps he really should learn to be happy living without the daily adrenalin rush.

‘Tom.’

He turned.

It was Don Trenchard. Harrison was somewhat taken by surprise because he had hardly seen his friend during the past year. Now a half-colonel, Trenchard recently seemed to spend most of his time in London.

‘Good grief, Don, what are you doing here?’

Trenchard smiled tersely and drew him to one side. ‘A bit embarrassing actually. I’m not here and you haven’t seen me, right?’

Harrison was well used to his friend’s mysterious operational role, although he sometimes suspected that the melodramatics were as much cultivated for effect as actual. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘The Europa bomb. Get your lads to tread extra warily.’

Harrison nodded. ‘You don’t need to tell me that, Don. They used the AID AN codeword. We’ve learned our lesson.’

Trenchard was impatient. ‘There’s more to it than that. There was a secret meeting going on tonight. High-powered political stuff — sorry, can’t go into details. It could be merely circumstantial, but then again PIRA might have been trying to kill those taking part.’

‘Where was this meeting taking place?’

‘One of the syndicate rooms on the second floor.’

Harrison considered for a moment. ‘Then there’s not much point in leaving a device of that size in the foyer.’

‘Precisely.’

‘You’re saying that there could be a secondary, perhaps a bit better placed?’

‘I’m guessing, but you should be warned. Don’t make a big fuss about it, Tom, but maybe you could take a discreet look around without alerting the whole team. These talks are secret and we’d like to keep it that way.’

Harrison was irritated. ‘If these talks are likely to attract PIRA’s attention, why the hell hold them in a public place, just inviting innocent casualties?’

Trenchard shrugged. ‘They’re unofficial, I suppose that’s why. There have been enough high-profile talks going on in the last year to satisfy the media and the pundits. But these are the really important ones, the ones that count.’ He gave a sympathetic smile. ‘All I can tell you is that this venue wasn’t decided on until this morning, if that helps. Okay?’

‘I suppose it will have to be.’

‘There’s a chum.’ He told Harrison which syndicate room had been used. ‘Forgive me, Tom, but I have to scoot now.’

And then he left Harrison alone to watch as Heathcote plodded his way back from the Europa. The ATO looked bemused.

‘Done the trick, Peter?’ the SATO asked.

‘Yes, boss. But then it wouldn’t have gone off anyway. Come and see for yourself.’

Together they returned to the foyer where the suitcase now lay in two pieces on the floor, the disrupter having burst open the lid and left the component parts scattered over a wide area.

Heathcote picked up the remnants of a Memo Park timer. ‘This bit’s genuine, but it was an elaborate hoax. The det was a dummy and the Semtex is coloured modelling clay.’ He held out a piece of yellow substance for the SATO’s inspection. ‘Someone’s idea of a joke.’ *.

‘At our expense,’ Harrison murmured.

‘As this is one of AIDAN’s stunts, boss, I think I ought to call in a High-Risk Search Team before Scene-of-Crime and the forensic boys take over, just in case. What do you think?’

‘Sounds a wise precaution. And while you’re organising that, I’ll have a quick snoop round myself, if you don’t mind?’

‘Course not, boss.’

‘Put someone on the reception telephone, but keep everyone else outside the building until I get back.’

Heathcote looked suspicious. ‘Have you got something in mind, boss?’

‘Just a hunch. Have you got a set of pass keys?’

Heathcote nodded and called across to Corporal Clarke who ‘was now entering the foyer. ‘Nobby, give SATO the master keys will you — and look sharp!’

Harrison took them and headed for the main staircase that would lead him up to the newly refurbished syndicate rooms of the grandly named Euro Business Centre on the second floor. He located the room in which Trenchard said the secret meeting had taken place. Apart from chairs left askew around the table the place was totally empty, every scrap of paper having been removed. It was in direct contrast to the two adjoining rooms: in one a cocktail party had been abandoned in midflow, bottles and glasses everywhere; in the other, documents relating to a trade union branch meeting had been left behind when the fire alarm sounded. But there was nothing suspicious in either room.

His eyes wandered to the ceiling. If he were placing a device, he would go for the floor above. Bring the whole lot down on top of them.

Being reasonably familiar with the Europa, he knew that the bedrooms began on the third floor. He left swiftly, making his way towards the fire-escape stairs, taking them three at a time. At the next floor he hesitated, drawing breath before pushing open the door.

He was at one end of the carpeted corridor, bedroom doors to the left and right. From where he stood, he could see clearly to the first fire door. Beyond it, he knew, were the two side-by-side elevators and then, farther along, another fire door.

The place was uncannily hushed, the only noise to reach his ears was the background murmur of the air-conditioning and, somewhere, the faint hiss of running water. He advanced quickly, desperately trying to relate the layout of this floor to the one below. Which rooms might be above where the secret talks took place? It was impossible to be certain without studying the architect’s plans. No doubt the manager would have a copy in his office, but Harrison wasn’t sure he had that much time. Indeed he wasn’t sure he had any time.

He glanced up at one of the fire-extinguishers, then dismissed the notion. Trenchard had said the venue had only been decided that morning. Therefore any device would have to be compact and portable, easy to smuggle in. Maybe hidden in some bedroom furniture or inside a bath panel.

With some trepidation he examined a laundry trolley that had been left by the fire door. It was close to what he judged was the right area… But no, there was nothing.

As he eased open the fire door, the sound of rushing water became louder. He was close to the source.

The bedroom door stood open, inviting, the urgent hiss and splutter of a fully open tap roaring in his ears. Cautiously he peered inside: the light still on, a dressing table littered with cosmetics, a brassiere lying on the crumpled cover of the bed, a pair of trousers discarded on the carpet. His heart began to thud as he edged open the bathroom door — only to be immediately engulfed in steam. With a gasp of surprise he stepped back to regain his breath. The noise was like a waterfall in full torrent. Taking a lungful of air, he plunged back into the billowing damp fog and blindly sought the hot tap with his fingers. Suddenly he hesitated, his hand poised. What if…? Then, his decision made, he spun the tap hard until the rush of water subsided, the sound replaced by an expectant silence.

He was aware of his heartbeat slowing as he straightened his back. What the hell was the matter with him? Who’d ever heard of a device triggered by a water tap? As he checked out the room he found himself assessing’how it could be done — then forced himself to stop. Paranoia was not a luxury he could afford. Christ, the bastard AID AN really was starting to get to him. He couldn’t remember such a profound sense of foreboding since… When? Memories of the boobytrapped devices of the early eighties flooded back into his mind. A feeling of dejdvu.

Still chiding himself, he completed his search of the furniture, checked the toilet cistern and the bath panel. Now satisfied, he stepped back into the corridor. It was still eerily silent. Deserted, empty. He looked left towards the elevator doors. Then right, back the way he had come. Then he saw it. His eyes seemed to zoom in on the object that stood beside the corridor fire door. In his eagerness to get to the bedroom, he must have walked right past the thing. Could so easily have kicked it. A case tucked carefully against the wall.

He took a step towards it. A silvery aluminium photography case, a name label attached. It looked innocuous enough. Discarded when the firebell rang. In fact the Unit Search Team had probably overlooked it. Just a piece of luggage — the one thing that never looked out of place in an hotel. The one item that could be taken in and out without a second glance. And it wasn’t as though it was in an obvious position to do any specific damage… Yet its positioning could well place it above the syndicate room on the floor below.

What had Trenchard said? That the venue had only been confirmed that morning. And therefore it would have been virtually impossible for a terrorist planting a bomb to book the exact bedroom he wanted, even if he knew which one was best. Therefore this might be the closest he could get.

Treading lightly, Harrison retraced his footsteps and crouched down beside the case. It looked solid. Expensive with combination locks. The leather name tag read: Mrs J Maker, 27 Rose Gardens, Bangor, Co. Down. A nice, respectable Protestant seaside town.

It occurred to him that, without the benefit of Trenchard’s warning, he too might have thought little of it. How many other suitcases had the Unit Search Team found in the twelve storeys of hotel corridor. Probably several.

He glanced at his watch. Paranoia or not, timewise he was on a knife edge. Returning quickly to the bedroom he had just left, he picked up the telephone handset and dialled reception.

Heathcote answered.

‘Peter, I’ve got a suspect IED up here in the corridor on the third floor. Looks like a photographer’s case ‘

‘Aluminium, boss?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was reported by the Unit Search Team. Belongs to a Mrs Maher — in fact she told us she left it behind, too heavy.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘She was evacuated to the Quality Plaza with the other residents. Want me to find her?’

Harrison’s mind was racing. Was he making a fool of himself? He only had Trenchard’s warning to go on. Yet a secondary device would explain the elaborate hoax in reception. Let them think they’d got it, then take out members of the follow-up search teams, police or ATOs. No civilian casualties, just security forces. Point made and good publicity. Not killing the members of the meeting, but letting the British government know that PIRA knew. Not much doubt about that when the ceiling of the secret meeting room had collapsed.

He said: ‘Yes, Peter, find the woman. But meanwhile I intend to destroy the case.’

‘Boss?’ The ATO’s voice betrayed his scepticism. His SATO had lost touch with reality.

‘You heard,’ Harrison rebuked, ‘and I don’t have time to argue. And, look, this case could be a tough nut. I don’t want to chance a Pigstick, it might not be man enough for the job. Can you get a MiniFlatsword up here pronto?’

‘Wilco, boss, but it’ll take some time to get up the stairs.’

Heathcote was correct. Lifts were never used during a bomb scare, and the ATO was right to remind him about the ticking minutes. In his mind’s eye Harrison imagined the circular face of a Memo Park timer edging remorselessly towards zero, the attached nail just a fraction of an inch from the contact point. And it would take a good ten minutes for laden troops to sweat and lumber their way up the flights of stairs.

He said: ‘Just throw all the kit I need in the lift and send it to the third.’

Heathcote acknowledged briskly and hung up, leaving Harrison to await the lift’s arrival. It was an unnerving five minutes that felt like an eternity as he sheltered out of line-of-sight in a bedroom doorway. When he returned to the lift his eyes were drawn magnetically to the aluminium case, at any moment anticipating the blinding flash and the instant avalanche of masonry from above and the floor collapsing beneath his feet.

He watched, mesmerised, as the floor numbers blinked above the elevator door, deliberately delaying its arrival to annoy him. Finally the doors slid reluctantly open with a pneumatic wheeze. Quickly he pulled the load clear. As well as the MiniFlatsword, ‘ Heathcote had thrown in a bomb helmet and an improved-body armour flak vest.

Harrison took one glance at his wristwatch and decided that the extra time spent struggling into one wasn’t worth the risk. The delay might mean he’d be standing over the case when it blew.

His decision made, he carried the MiniFlatsword across to the case and assembled the steel firing-frame. Encased in green plastic, the charge itself comprised a flat rectangular slab of PE4 plastic explosive from which protruded a tempered steel blade at right angles. Like a symmetrical shark’s fin. It fitted horizontally to the firing-frame so that, when detonated, the cutting edge would be blasted sideways in a guillotine motion, slicing through the main body of the bomb. It had originally been designed to disarm devices packed into fire-extinguisher cylinders; there was a large version for use against milk churns or steel beer kegs.

Taking a deep breath, he positioned the erected MiniFlatsword alongside the aluminium case. It seemed to have grown in size and menace. Big, silver and smugly evil. Playing a game with him. Am I or aren’t I? Will I explode or won’t I? He could almost believe he could hear the damn thing ticking.

While he worked, checking the electrical connections, his awareness that time was inexorably running out began to build up the mental pressure. It slowed the function of his brain. He felt as though he were in a trance, drugged, his actions slow and ponderous like a man freezing to death. It took a deliberate effort to clear his head, to focus his attention. At last, clumsily he thought, he completed his task. Unaware then that he had done the job in record time.

He played out the firing cable, ran it under the fire door and back along the corridor to the relative safety of the emergency exit staircase he had climbed earlier. As he began fitting the wires to the Shrike exploder box, he heard the sound of hurried footsteps from below.

Heathcote came bounding up the stairs, his face perspiring with exertion; Corporal Clarke, ruddy-cheeked and wheezing, was just a few feet behind.

‘Boss?’ the captain asked, too breathless to put a sentence together.

‘AH set,’ Harrison replied. ‘We’ll see if this is a threat or if I’m just being an old woman. Want to push the tit?’

Heathcote gave an exhausted, lop-sided grin. ‘Your honour, I think, boss.’ Clearly he meant all the egg was going to be on the SATO’s face when this turned out to be a rubber duck.

Harrison thumbed the circuit button and the light showed green to confirm that the firing circuit was complete. His thumb shifted to the prime button, holding it down for the two or three seconds it took for the internal capacitor to charge. Yet it seemed like for ever before the red confirmation light began to flash. His thumb released its pressure and moved to the fire button.

‘FIRING!’

The thumb of each hand came down simultaneously on the circuit and fire buttons.

There was an instant whipcrack of sound as the MiniFlatsword’s explosive baseplate blew and unsheathed the blade. Immediately it was swallowed by a second, muffled blast that shook the floor and walls. But instead of a deafening roar, the noise was uncertain, the containment spoiled, a furious grumbling that spluttered to nothing.

Heathcote blinked. ‘Shit!’ Slowly he added: ‘I think I owe you an apology, boss. And a beer.’

The SATO stood up. ‘Two at least.’

Corporal Clarke was clearly impressed by their chiefs near clairvoyant power for sniffing out a bomb; it would be the talk of the mess that night.

He followed Harrison and Heathcote into the corridor to see how well the MiniFlatsword had done its job. The dense and stinking smoke parted to reveal that the unleashed blade had been propelled straight through the aluminium case until it embedded in the corridor wall. Although the bomb had ignited under impact, it had done little damage as the explosive mix was already tumbling out of the case as it blew, burning and fizzling onto the carpet. With the essential compression gone, the bomb’s force had been spent uselessly along the scorched corridor walls.

‘Let’s see what we’ve got,’ Harrison said.

As they approached, he found the detonator on the carpet. Closer to, the three men expertly ran their eyes over the array of burnt-out components. It looked like an ounce of Semtex as a booster charge and maybe twenty pounds of ANS mix now spilled and smouldering on the carpet. The plywood timer-and-power unit lay shattered. Harrison examined the baseplate to which the Memo Park timer was fitted. He swallowed hard and felt the small hairs crawl on the back of his neck. There had been just two minutes left to run. Two bloody minutes.

He said: ‘Somehow I doubt you’ll find Mrs Maher is still hanging around to collect her case. Better give her details to SOCO.’

‘The brazen cow,’ Heathcote muttered.

‘What’s that, sir?’ Clarke asked, hunkering down beside them, his pebble glasses steaming up with his body heat after all the excitement.

It took a moment for Harrison to distinguish the buckled tin box at the bottom of the case. There was little remaining to show what it had contained, but logic dictated that it had been a separate antihandling charge. Either a trembler or a mercury tilt switch, only forensics at Carrickfergus would be able to say for certain now.

What was without doubt was that it had been designed to kill any unfortunate member of a search party. Probably a soldier or a policeman, but it could have been one of the hotel staff. Assuming it to have been abandoned during the evacuation, it would have been the simplest mistake in the world for someone to have picked it up with the idea of reuniting it with the owner.

In fact he could have so very nearly kicked it over himself or knocked it as he opened the corridor fire door earlier.

Suddenly he felt weary, tiredness dragging at his eyelids. He straightened up and thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets.

He really didn’t want either Peter Heathcote or Corporal Clarke to realise that they were trembling.

The day shift at the Explosives Section headquarters in Lambeth Road started at eight o’clock. And thirty minkutes later Jock Murray’s desk had been cleared.

There was not much to show for a lifetime’s work in the bomb-disposal business. A small pile of paperwork: two draft reports on likely future trends in the technology of illegal explosive devices and some notes for a lecture that would never now be given. And on top, a tasking form for the Tower Street callout that would never be completed.

Les Appleyard tried to busy himself with work, but it was hopeless. Just when he succeeded in taking his mind off the previous day’s events, he would find himself about to speak to the man with whom he had shared an office for so many years.

Again he stared across at the empty desk. At the pile of papers and the pathetic collection of personal possessions in a polythene bag. And still he could not accept it. There was more of Jock Murray here than they’d been able to scrape off the London streets…

He shoved back his seat and stood up. For over three hours now he’d kept up the pretence of normality. Well, to hell with it! Angrily he snatched the pack of cigarettes from his desk. ‘ Empty. Sod it, he’d smoked forty already since Jock’s death the previous afternoon. The Scotsman would have seen the funny side of that. Not much point in giving up smoking when you dismantle bombs for a living. And if a device doesn’t get you, then the ciggies will.

Appleyard grinned at the memory of his friend’s sardonic wit. It was a sense of black humour they’d shared since they’d first met as two nineteen-year-old volunteers during their basic army training at Blackdown. Two naive and happy-go-lucky lads from similar backgrounds in deprived inner-city areas. Appleyard from Manchester and Murray from Glasgow. Both with bleak prospects of employment and both with a thirst for excitement and adventure. This was noted by the army recruitment officer who duly offered them the then Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

Being sent for technical ammunition training was not exactly what either had in mind at the time. But then such was their youthful bravado that neither friend was going to admit to the other that he didn’t have the taste for handling lethal high explosives for a living.

Yet by one of the strange paradoxes of life, both Murray and Appleyard found they had stumbled into an occupation that was more demanding and fulfilling than they could ever have dared hope. It was quickly to become a vocation rather than a job. And their reward for doing what the newspapers were fond of calling ‘the most dangerous job in the world’ was to enjoy an immensely strong and unique camaraderie within a small elite who were held in something resembling awe by fellow soldiers and public alike.

To be a bomb-disposal man was to exude an air of mystery and danger — that meant that there was never any shortage of female admirers. And the two young soldiers were never slow to exploit the amorous perks of the job in their various postings around the world — postings that were to take them to Germany, Hong Kong and Cyprus as well as secondments to several African and Middle Eastern countries.

At the age of twenty-five both friends were promoted to sergeant, having completed their advanced training, and both settled down to married life after a double wedding. Later, as warrant officers, they were to serve as operators in Northern Ireland where their paths first crossed with Tom Harrison, now the Senior ATO in the Province. The three of them had become the closest of friends. *

Then, five years earlier, Appleyard and Murray had left the army and were recruited to join the Explosives Section of the AntiTerrorist Branch within three months of each other.

Now all that was at an end and Appleyard felt an aching emptiness in the pit of his stomach. Losing Jock was like losing a brother. Worse. It was as though he had lost part of himself. And that was now, when he still hadn’t fully accepted the fact that Murray was dead. The grief, he knew, would become deeper before it got better.

He looked down at his friend’s desk and saw Brenda smiling up at him from the silver photograph frame in the polythene bag. Large bashful eyes and flyaway blonde hair, just like the nine-year old son who stood beside her and Jock. It was their daughter, just seven, who had her dead father’s dark hair and determined facial features.

If Appleyard was feeling the pain of his friend’s loss so much, then God only knew what anguish Brenda must be suffering. His boss had broken the news. As Senior Explosives Officer, it had fallen to Al Pritchard to telephone her shortly after the incident. With more deliberate hoaxes that night he didn’t even have time to pay a visit. Instead he had to endure the stunned silence at the other end of the line and then her sudden outburst of hysterical disbelief. Slowly, very slowly, she began to calm until she finally murmured: ‘We always knew it could happen, I suppose. But we never really talked about it.’

That evening Appleyard had driven down to the Murrays’ house near Dorking. He found Brenda alone, the children sobbing quietly in their bedrooms, as she waited for her parents to make the long journey down from their home in Perth.

He held her hand and they had sat talking and remembering together until almost midnight, drawing strength from each other’s presence. The two glasses of brandy were left virtually untouched.

Appleyard was shaken from his thoughts by the sudden trilling of the telephone. It was Al Pritchard. ‘Would you come over to my office, Les. I’ve got the Chief Super coming down to talk about that business at Seven Dials.’

That business? What a euphemism for a monumental cock-up. ‘On my way.’

In truth he welcomed the opportunity to leave the confines of his office. As he couldn’t drag his mind away from Jock, then it wouldn’t hurt to go over the previous day’s events yet again. It might even help as a sort of therapy. At least it would stop him smoking for a while; Pritchard was a fervant born again nonsmoker who at one time had consumed three packs a day.

Appleyard shut the door on his memories and walked along the corridor to his chiefs office. As Civil Service rather than police employees, members of the Explosives Section were granted furniture and furnishings according to status. Therefore Pritchard enjoyed the benefits of a large room, well-appointed with a leather swivel chair, teak desk and sideboard with the obligatory coffee table and sofa.

It was on this sofa that he found Pritchard seated when he entered. Sitting next to him was another Expo, a Yorkshireman called ‘Midge’ Midgely. At barely over five feet in his socks, Midgely was a typically no-nonsense Bradford man with a dust-dry sense of humour. His to-the-point wit would be delivered with a deadpan expression on his florid face, the colour of which always reminded Appleyard of uncooked gammon.

Both men looked up from the newspapers they were reading.

‘Fancy a coffee?’ Pritchard offered. The cheerful tone hit a false note; Appleyard’s chief, stocky and prematurely balding with dark appraising eyes, was never the most jocular of souls. Normally his manner was sullen and forbidding, an image that appeared to have been cultivated with some deliberation. Nevertheless Appleyard appreciated his chief making the effort to lift his spirits.

‘Have you read last night’s Standard?’ Pritchard asked conversationally as he handed over the mug.

‘I wasn’t exactly in the mood to read the papers, Al.’

Pritchard gave one of his vinegary smiles. ‘ ‘Course not, Les. But it’s a good piece.’

‘Written by some American reporter,’ Midge added. ‘Seems like she and her daughter got caught between Seven Dials and the bomb that killed Jock. Saw the whole thing.’

‘I know. I was there, remember?’ Appleyard replied. In fact he’d been watching it all through his binoculars from the relative safety of the Section’s Range-Rovers. Waiting for Jock’s message while Seven Dials was in flames all around him. ‘But I didn’t know she was a reporter. Just our luck.’ He had a military man’s instinctive distrust of the media.

Midge shrugged. ‘It’s a fitting epitaph for old Jock. Reckons if he hadn’t stopped to reassure her and her daughter he wouldn’t have run out of time. Says what a hero he was. Reckon old Jock would have liked that.’

Something snapped in Appleyard’s head. ‘How the fuck would you know what Jock would like? I tell you what Jock would like. He’d like to have gone home to Brenda and the kids last night. He’d like to be sitting with us here now, longing to get the meeting over so he could have a smoke…’

‘Steady, Les,’ Pritchard chided.

Appleyard made himself stop. Determinedly he relaxed his shoulders and forced a sheepish smile. ‘Sorry, Midge, that was out of order.’

There was a knock on the door and Pritchard looked up. ‘Come.’

It was Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Maitland. A man in his mid-forties, he was the deputy head of SOI3 AntiTerrorist Branch. There was something reassuringly solid about him. The stout frame and plain dark suit inspired confidence in the same way that the genial face suggested that he was a man to trust.

‘Is this a private row, or can anyone join in?’ he asked. Bright blue eyes enlivened a complexion that obviously didn’t see enough daylight.

Pritchard beckoned him in. ‘We’re just letting off some steam, Jim. It’s a few years since we’ve lost one of our own.’

‘Terrible business,’ Maitland agreed, acknowledging Apple yard and Midgely. ‘My commiserations to all of you, it can’t be an easy time. Specially as it seems we could be at the start of a new bombing campaign. Yesterday may have been the first time the AID AN codeword was given, but we’ve reason to believe the same active service unit has been behind the other recent attacks.’ He accepted the coffee that Midgely handed him. ‘And I can tell you the ripples have been felt all the way up to Number Ten. The PM is fully aware of the havoc this AID AN group has caused in the Province over the past months. Our masters are already getting nervous. You’ve seen the papers. Front page on the Standard last night and all over the nationals this morning. In fact, the Commander and I have got an appointment with the Home Secretary himself this afternoon. We’re looking forward to it like a proverbial hole in the head.’

‘I can imagine,’ Pritchard sympathised.

Maitland settled himself on the arm of the sofa. ‘Seven dead and two dozen injured is not good news for the government, especially when most of the casualties were police and emergency service workers. Apart from a very real sense of horror, politicians start to get twitchy about their own survival. Start demanding instant results, however unrealistic’

‘Can you give them any?’ Pritchard asked.

‘Hardly, that’s why I’m here. I’ve got your reports, but I want to get the situation clear in my own mind. Now I understand that after you neutralised the first bomb in Tower Street someone here got the idea it might be a come-on. That there could be other devices we hadn’t been told about. All too right as it turned out.’

Pritchard nodded. ‘That happened back here. As soon as we received a copy of the warning PIRA sent to the Standard, AP and Reuters, we were suspicious. As you know most real warnings come via the Samaritans so they can’t be traced. Most papers and newsagencies automatically record the caller’s number. Then we ran the codeword through the computer.’ He spelt it out. ‘It’s never been used over here before, but it’s turned up a number of times recently in Northern Ireland. A combination of particularly tricky devices and situations. Well-thought out by some scrote with a very cunning and nasty mind. Caused a number of deaths, troops and RUC as well as civilians.’

‘Is there any pattern?’

‘That’s what gave me the clue that there might be more trouble in store at Tower Street. Over in the Province, this AIDAN cell has always made a point of giving fairly precise locations and times in their warnings. All good public relations for the Provos. What they’ve neglected to say is that they’ve been deviously booby trapped and that there are secondary devices they haven’t told us about. Tends to make the authorities, the RUC and the army look like incompetent chumps.’

‘So as soon as you recognised the significance of the codeword, you contacted your Expos at Seven Dials, right? And in fact there were four bombs in total?’

Appleyard answered. ‘There was the one Jock and I cleared first in Tower Street. It was in a van with an antihandling device wired to the courtesy-light system. That was actuated by a one-hour Memo Park timer in the TPU. We overcame the problem with standard window-entry procedure. Fragments showed that the main microchip timer was’operating on an eleven-hour fifteen minute delay. Due to go off at five past midday.’

Maitland frowned. ‘And when did the Seven Dials bomb go off.’

‘About five minutes later,’ Appleyard replied. ‘It had been placed in a street manhole. My guess is several sacks of ANS with a Semtex booster. Judging by the damage, maybe four hundred pounds.’

The detective nodded grimly. ‘We’re trying to establish how it was put there. Some local shopkeepers said a couple of local council workers appeared to be inspecting the drains yesterday evening. Apparently they looked the part — orange overalls and a van with council livery. At any rate they aroused no suspicions. Inquiries are at an early stage, but that would seem to be our best lead so far.’

‘Seven Dials had never been used as an emergency rendezvous before?’ Maitland asked.

‘No,’ Pritchard confirmed. ‘That’s one reason why it was chosen. We often can’t get local police inspectors to understand the need to vary RV sites. Keep using the same one in a given area and you’re asking to be set up.’

This time Midgely added: ‘I think PIRA was trying to double-guess where the RV might be. While all that was going on down at Seven Dials, I was working on another device in a car next to the Palace Theatre at Cambridge Circus due to go off at twelve fifteen. That was the most likely RV, but it was considered too close to Tower Street for safety.’

‘That’s the one bomb you haven’t made public, right?’ Maitland asked.

‘Not us,’ Pritchard replied tartly. ‘It’s what the Home Office decided in its infinite wisdom. Thought three bombs in an area at once was quite enough for the public to contend with. Said they didn’t want a major panic in future. People would start to expect a bomb on every corner next time there’s a scare.’ He obliged with one of his icy smiles. ‘Which I expect is PIRA’s exact intention.’

‘And when was this Palace Theatre bomb timed to go off?’

‘Ten after noon,’ Midgely answered. ‘And it also had an antihandling circuit wired to the courtesy light.’

‘So apart from the under-road device at Seven Dials, all three vehicle bombs had the same type of booby trap which you overcame by not touching the doors?’ The detective looked round the room for confirmation. ‘So poor old Jock Murray just ran out of time, is that it?’

Al Pritchard nodded his concurrence. ‘It would seem so, unless there was a different sort of antihandling mechanism. That would fit in with AIDANT method in the Province. Two or three identical devices to create a degree of complacency, then the last one with a subtle difference. Anyway, we’ll not know till we get forensics back from Fort Halstead.’

‘I understand,’ Maitland said, glancing at his watch. ‘Look, I must be going. Just wanted to double-check all the facts before we see the Home Secretary. The Commander wants to be able to give the minister some reassurance that we’re taking all necessary measures to get on top of this business.’

‘What do you have in mind?’ Pritchard asked.

Maitland shifted his stance uneasily; this could be prickly. ‘The Commander thinks we should get someone over from Northern Ireland. Someone who’s had direct experience with the AID AN bombings over there. Cover ourselves politically in case this joker continues to make his presence felt here in London. Purely in a liaison capacity of course.’

The air in the office seemed to freeze. Reactions on the faces of the Expos confirmed exactly what Maitland had anticipated. To these men, who were asked to risk their lives every day, the suggestion sounded like a breach of faith.

‘We can handle it/ Al Pritchard said darkly.

‘Of course you can, Alan. This is mostly a cosmetic exercise, although I’d have thought two heads would be better than one, so to speak. Get a top army ATO over here for a week or so, just so we can be seen to be doing something.’

Pritchard was not one to hide his wounded pride. ‘It’s a knee-jerk reaction, Jim. Do I have to accept it?’

‘It’s an official recommendation by the Commander.’ The detective looked sympathetic. ‘And I’m sure it’ll receive the Home Secretary’s sanction.’

‘I’d like it to be known that I do not consider it necessary.’

‘Then I’ll pass your comments on.’

‘You do that, Jim.’

Maitland stepped towards the door, then turned. ‘I’ll tell you something, Al. As this AIDAN cell is now operating on the mainland, we could be in for a long hot summer.’

Pritchard’s hooded eyes were half closed, predatory. ‘Is this all to do with these secret talks PIRA mentioned in their warning?’

‘Don’t even ask, Al, don’t even ask. I can tell you officially that I have no knowledge of the existence of any such discussions.’

‘Thank you for sharing that with us, Jim,’ Pritchard replied with heavy irony.