Zero Option

EIGHT

When I heard that Tracy had been on the phone the night before my heart leapt, but the surge of hope lasted only a few seconds.

'I'm afraid she made the call under duress,' Foxy Fraser told me. 'The message was very downbeat. Listen for yourself.' He switched on a tape deck, and when Tracy's voice came loud and clear out of the speakers it nearly cracked me up. I had to get hold of myself before I could grasp what she was saying. Apart from the emotional shock of hearing her apparently so near, there was something odd about the rhythm of her speech; it didn't sound natural, and I had to run through the tape twice before I realised she'd been reading out a prepared script.

'Geordie, listen,' she said. 'You have to come and get us. You have to make the arrangement very soon. We can't wait any longer. If you haven't made the arrangement by midday on the first of June they are going to kill Tim. Tim first, then me. Geordie, I love you. You can't let us die. For God's sake send a message through Sinn Fein in Belfast.'

I clenched my fists under the table, took a deep breath and looked across at Fraser.

He twitched his head quickly to one side, chin out and back, as if to say, 'I'm feeling for you, mate.'

'What do we do?' I asked. 'We've got to move now.'

Fraser cleared his throat. 'We had one false alarm,' he said. 'Not sure;what it was — whether the tout was trying to make a quick buck, or what. We got a tip that the hostages were being held in a flat in Earl's Court not one of the known addresses. We put the place under surveillance immediately. That night three men came out at ten o'clock. Nobody we knew. While they were in the pub a lock-picking specialist slipped in and took a look round.'

'And?'

'Nothing. There was nobody else at home, no sign there ever had been. Our operator left a microphone in the ceiling light, but it's yielded nothing. The men are just Paddies working on building sites. All they talk about is prostitutes and race-horses. It was a bum steer.'

'This call…' I gestured at the tape, 'was it a bluff?'

'With the PIRA you can never tell. They're so blasted ecratic. Obviously they're trying to crank up the pressure. Somebody in Belfast is probably putting the screws on the London boys. We need to take the threat seriously, whatever.'

'What's this about Sinn Fein?'

'We do sometimes send messages through their office in Belfast.'

'Well, can you do that now?'

'Of course — when we've decided what to say.'

'In that case I'm going to make a move.'

Fraser glanced at me sharply. 'What are you proposing?'

'You know that scheme I told them about the last time?'

'For springing Farrell from a police convoy?'

'Exactly. I'm going ahead with it.'

'Geordie!' Fraser stood up and moved towards me with an anxious expression on his face. 'There are some things you can do, and some you can't. This is '

'Listen!' I cut him off. 'It's my kid's life that's at stake.

I'm not going to sit around and let him get killed.

We've got to get off our arses and act.'

'I wouldn't say we're sitting around, exactly. We've got a big operation going on out there.'

'Yes — and what's it producing? Two thirds of three fifths of fuck-all.' Seeing Fraser colour up, I added, 'I didn't mean that personally. I'm not trying to criticise; I know how cunning these bastards are. But they're not getting away with this one.'

I found I was pacing about the room: something I don't usually do. I made myself sit down again and said, Tve thought it through, and it's perfectly possible.'

'I don't see it,' Fraser replied. 'Apart from anything else, you'll get yourself kicked out of the Regiment.'

'No, no — I 'haven't explained properly. 1 changed my mind. We'll do it with the Regiment. Their support will be essential.'

Fraser looked blank. 'I still don't get it. Don't tell me your commanding officer's going to sanction your breaking the law of the land, setting a dangerous criminal free.'

'Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Everyone's got to agree, of course.'

'Who's everyone?'

'The Regiment. Yourselves. The prison authorities.

The regular police. Then, I suppose, the Home Office and the Home Secretary. Maybe ultimately the Prime Minister.'

'I think you're getting a bit carried away.' Fraser was staring at me as if I'd gone round the twist. 'So what exactly do you propose doing?'

'I'm calling it Plan Zulu. In training or on operations we always start off with Plan A and Plan B — Alpha and Bravo. This is the ultimate plan, the last resort.

Therefore it's Plan Z for Zulu.'

I started pacing around again. 'We have a big O- group — collect tbgether all the people I've mentioned, and explain the scheme to them. Then, at an agreed time on an agreed day, the prison authorities move Farrell from Birmingham to somewhere else — it doesn't matter what the destination is supposed to be, as they don't have to tell him. The prisoner'll be in a closed van, and won't know where he's going.'

'He could be going down the road to Long Lartin,' said Fraser.

'Where's that?'

'The nick near Evesham where quite a few IRA prisoners are held.'

I stared at the Special Branch man, amazed that he seemed to be entering into my plan.

'Great!' I went. 'Presumably they don't have any obligation to tell him where he's going.'

'No. When they ship people like that and don't give a destination, it's known as putting them on the ghost train.'

'Got it. So they bring him out. We get guys from the Regiment to drive the police cars and the prison van the meat wagon, you call it, don't you? — and at a predetermined spot we ambush the convoy, ram the van, force it off the road and stage a realistic battle, with plenty of bangs and rounds going down. We — myself and two or three of the lads — grab Farrell and take him to a safe house. As far as he'll know we're renegades from the army, doing this on our own initiative. I'll tell him I'm so desperate I've taken leave and brought in some civilian friends to help.'

Fraser had his eyebrows raised in a sceptical arch. 'Go.'

'Then, from the safe house, we'll contact the PIRA and tell them to set a rendezvous for an exchange. But we'll also put a bug into one of Farrell's shoes, or his belt, and make certain that he can be trailed. Then we'll hand him over, do the swap, secure Tim and Tracy, let Farrell think he's got clear, and have the police nab him again.'

'And throw a bridge across the Irish Sea at the same time, just so you can go after him quicker.'

I glared at Fraser. He seemed to have lost heart again.

'Look,' I said, 'you don't appear to realise that all this is shit simple. We're trained to the eyeballs in ambush techniques. We have the cars to do an intercept, we have the weapons to stage a battle, and we can set up a safe house in our sleep. Apart from back-up on the ground, we'll have a helicopter airborne but standing well offout of sight, so that Farrell won't stand a cat in hell's chance of getting away. Nobody else has to do anything except put him in a van and let us drive him a few miles out of Birmingham into the country. All we need is the co-operation of the authorities.'

'And your commanding officer,' Fraser prompted.

'And the CO, of course. I'm due to see him in a minute, for a wash-up on our operation. Once that's over, maybe you and he can get together.'

'You're going to propose Plan Zulu to him, then?'

'Most certainly.'

'Well… I wish you luck.'

'Thanks.'

I got up to go, feeling that Fraser was still with me and willing to have a go — but only just. 'By the way, what's become of your assistant? Karen whatever?'

'Oh.' The Commander looked suddenly uncom fortable. 'She's… she's gone on a couple of days' leave.'

At the time I didn't challenge his statement, but there was something about Fraser's manner which made me doubt if it was tree.

On the flight back from Cyprus Pat had been given priority and put on board a TriStar, so that within an hour of touch-down at Lyneham he was in the operating theatre of the tri-service hospital at RAF Wroughton, south of Swindon. The rest of us had lumbered back in a Here, but because our departure was delayed we'd come in so late at night that our debrief had to be postponed until the morning.

Now, in Yorky Rose's office in the Subversive Action Wing, members of the head-shed had gathered to welcome us back.

Apart from Yorky himself there was Mac, the ops officer, the int officer, Gilbert the Filbert from the Firm, and above all the CO, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Brampton — commonly known as 'Wingnut', because of his ears, but liked and respected none the less. A fitness fanatic, he was glowing with good health; he looked like he'd been for a ten-mile run (which he probably Had) and then had a big breakfast of vitamins.

The lads in our team were well spruced up, shaved and showered, but it wasn't surprising that we all looked a bit hollow-eyed, and yawns were two a penny.

If it hadn't been for the death of Norm, the atmosphere would have been positively euphoric. As it was, the CO was on a kind of muted high. He shook each of us by the hand, exclaiming 'Well done!', 'Great effort!', 'Tremendous!' and suchlike, but behind his laughing and joking sadness hung like a dark cloud.

He addressed us all. 'The Regiment's going to get a lot more work as a result of this. We're going to be run off our feet by the demand for our services.' l knew that our success would increase his own credit rating as well — he might even end up with a gong — yet I could tell that he was feeling our loss as much as we were.

When the initial hubbub had subsided, the ruperts took a row of chairs behind Yorky's desk and we sat in a semi-circle facing them. The prize exhibits were the mug-shots I'd taken of Khadduri, full-face and profile.

(The film had been whipped off me the moment we reached base and developed in the middle of the night.) The photos weren't a pretty sight, but they were technically spot-on, and proved that Tony and I hadn't been exaggerating. You could even see the tattoo of an eagle on the back of Tony's left hand as he held the dead man's head up by the hair, with the blood-spattered door of the office in the background.

The CO led offhis formal spiel by saying a few words about Norm. He confirmed that the families officer was going to contact the next of kin, and said he would let us know the date of the funeral. More cheerful news was that Pat had come through his operation fine, and that the surgeons were pleased by the way things had gone.

Then the CO asked me to run through Operation Ostrich, which I did, with the int officer's gofer taking notes on a laptop. As I went along, the ruperts asked quite a few questions, and we took it in turns to answer.

Their main concern was whether the defenders had seen any of us well enough to pick us out at an identity parade. To that the answer was 'Definitely not.' I reassured the int officer in particular that, with the exception of Khadduri, we hadn't met anyone face to face; in fact, I doubted whether the Libyans had actually got eyes on any of us. The fact that Norm and Pat had been hit was purely a fluke: first somebody must have seen the flashes as Pat put bursts into the camp, and sprayed rounds randomly in his direction; then we'd got caught in the searchlight.

At the end of the debriefing the CO told us again that we'd done exceptionally well, were a credit to the Regiment, had performed a service to humanity, and sundry crap of that kind. Then he added, 'You'll be glad to hear that Gadaffi's blaming the Israelis — off the record, of course. No public announcement has been made — Khadduri wasn't supposed to be in Libya at all — but in private Gadaffi's claiming that one of his own senior officers has been killed, and saying he has evidence that Mossad carried out the assassination.'

'Maybe somebody dropped something after all,' I said, giving Whinger an exaggerated look.

'What's that?' The CO turned his long, narrow face in my direction, so that I got his sticking-out ears in profile against the light.

'It was just a joke we had. Before the operation went down, Whinger suggested we should scatter a few Uzis around — or anything with “Israel” written on it — to lay a false scent.'

'But you didn't, I hope?'

'Of course not. As far as I know we didn't leave anything.behind except a few shreds of anonymous metal and… and Whatever remained of poor old Norm.'

'What about the body?' asked the CO.

I gestured at Tony.

'I doubled him up on the ground with five pounds of Semtex in his midriff,' he said. 'There can't have been anything left.'

Nobody spoke for a moment. Then the CO cleared his throat and said, 'OK. That was the right thing to do.'

Again there was a moment's silence. Then the CO adroitly changed the subject. 'You'll be glad to hear you have a fan at Number Ten. I found this fax waiting for me when I came in.'

He handed me a sheet of paper, which had 'FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER' embossed at the top, and, in the middle, the brief message:

Delighted with your ornithological success.

Congratulations, and my personal thanks.

'Where's the champagne, then?' I demanded as I handed the note on to Tony. 'I thought the bugger would have sent a few bottles in this direction by now.'

'We'll have a drink in the mess tonight,' said the CO.

'Make up for lost time then.'

The atmosphere was so good that I was tempted to press straight on to the subject of my own predicament.

With everyone in such a genial mood this seemed the ideal moment to broach the idea of Plan Zulu. But then I thought, No — not in front of this crowd. I'd rather get the CO on his own. So, as the meeting broke up, I said to him, 'Could I grab five minutes with you, Boss?'

'Sure.' He took a quick look at his watch. 'Ten o'clock?'

'Fine.'

I was outside his office a couple of minutes early, bolstered by the knowledge that, for the moment at any rate, the sun seemed to be shining out of my arse. I wasn't naive enough to suppose that our success on Ostrich would warp the Boss's judgement or make him any more inclined to take rash decisions, but the fact that I'd just done a good job would at least encourage him to give me a fair hearing. Apart from anything else, he had two boys of his own, and could hopefully understand how I felt about Tim. Also he had a good sense of humour, and a reputation for taking the occasional risk when he thought it was justified.

Inside, I perched on one of the bog-standard chairs and looked around the room while he closed down his laptop. His bergen sat in one corner, and in another, cuffed up on a dark-blue bean-bag, lay his black Labrador, Ben, fast asleep as usual. No doubt he'd been on the ten-mile run as well, and that was him settled for the day.

'God's boots!' the Boss exclaimed when I outlined my plar. With his elbows on the desk, he put his face between his hands and dug in his thumbs above his ears, as if to squeeze out the craziness of what he'd just heard. 'Pull the other one, Geordie.'

'No, no. I'm dead serious. We're up to our necks in shit, and sinking. We desperately need a new initiative — and I'm convinced Plan Zulu's the one. As I told Fraser — the SB guy — there'd be virtually no risk to anyone. OK, a couple of vehicles would get damaged and the guys in the meat wagon might get rattled around a bit, but that would be all.'

'What about our reputation? Can't you just see it in the tabloids? “SHOCK! TERROR! SAS SINKS TO GANG WARFARE TO FtLEE IP,A CHIEF”. You'd drop the whole

Regiment in the shit, Geordie.'

'Not if we handled it properly. Nothing need ever get out. It'll be just one more covert operation on the mainland'. There's dozens of others going on already, after all. Covert ops are bread and butter to Special Branch, just as they are to us.'

'That's true.' At last the CO looked up, as if seeing some light at the end of a tunnel. 'I have to say, I wouldn't mind if you gave it a go. But how the hell am I going to convince the powers that be? There's the Director, for a start. I can't see him sanctioning your scheme. He'll go bananas. Then there's the Home Office and the Home Secretary, if we want the police to be involved at high level. And what about the governor of the gaol? He'll throw a major wobbly a well.'

'I don't know,' I said. 'He might be glad to get rid of the bastard. Now that the PIRA know where Farrell is there's a chance that they'll stage a hit on the gaol. The buggers are that mad, you can't tell what they might try.'

'The thing is, they've already got you as a lever.' The CO looked at me steadily before continuing with his list of objections: 'Ultimately, of course, there's the Prime Minister.'

Suddenly I spotted an opening. 'In that case, why not go straight to him?' I suggested. 'It's no business of mine, but we do know he's an old friend of the tLegiment. It's not just that we did him a good turn in Libya. He's been on-side for years.' I pointed at a signed, framed photograph hanging on the wall, one of many official portraits presented by Very Important Visitors, among them Prince Charles and Princess Di.

'Remember the time he came down to the Killing House?'

'Of course.' The CO smiled, thinking about the day we'd given the PM and a couple of senior parliamentary colleagues a demonstration of lifting a hostage from a room in the special building used for training the counter-terrorist team. The — ,vails were hung with sheets of thick rubber so that live rounds could be fired inside. As bullets had hammered close past the visitors in the confined space one of the sidekicks had hurled himself to the deck and pissed himself; but the PM had remained super-cool, and came away mightily impressed.

'If he OK'd it, that would be all we'd need,' I said.

'What about that fax you've just had, after all?'

I sensed that the CO had become rather taken with my idea, so I continued enthusiastically: 'Word would pass down the chain, and everyone else would have to come on board. With Ostrich having gone down so well he might fancy another unattributable operation.'

'Unattributable!' echoed the CO. 'I should think it bloody well would be. The least attributable operation ever mounted by the Regiment!'

To give himselfa moment to think, he started talking about the lack of time. 'According to their last deadline, we've only got until midday on Tuesday,' he said. 'It's Thursday already. Not much room for manoeuvre.'

'Enough,' I said, 'if you can handle the bureaucracy, I guarantee I can manage the logistics.'

I sat back, feeling slightly out of breath, amazed that I was talking to the colonel as if I were of equal rank, planning an operation equally between the two of us.

The truth was, we were both caught up in the excite ment of the idea.

'Well,' he prevaricated. 'What does Special Branch think of it?'

'The Commander thinks I'm crazy. He doesn't realise how easy it would be, but all the same he's coming round to a position supporting me.'

'Does he reckon the regular police would cooperate?'

'I haven't asked him. I expect the answer's no, but as I said it would be a different matter if word came down from the top.'

'The plan's utterly outrageous, of course. I don't think we've a hope in hell of getting it sanctioned.' The CO looked at his watch. 'I'll play fair with you, though.

I'll run the idea through the system. It's now 1035. Give me till lunchtime, OK? Back here at one. Meanwhile, get the bones of your plan on to paper. One of the clerks will do the donkey work for you on a word- processor, but get it all down as briefly as possible in note form. We'll push it up to the Director by secure fax and see what the reaction is.'

I walked out feeling pretty low and extremely tired. I knew the Boss was sympathetic, but he was a realist as well, and it was obvious he didn't think my idea had a chance. I could tell from the look of him that he'd only been humouring me. For a while I walked around outside, trying to clear my head, then I thought, Sod it, I'll get a plan done anyway. I've nothing to lose by that.

In the adjutant's office I grabbed the services of a clerk called Andy, whose grammar and spelling were streaks ahead of mine, and in twenty minutes we'd hammered out the briefing. Back in the incident room I tried to raise my spirits by saying to Fraser, 'Better get your skates on, Commander. It looks like the wagon's going to roll.'

'You're joking.'

'Not entirely. The Boss is taking Plan Zulu seriously.

At least, he's making enquiries at high level.'

'Am I supposed to know about it?'

'He knows I told you my idea, but probably it's better not to say anything until I've been back to him.

We're meeting again at one o'clock to see if we can take it farther.'

To fill in time I sought out Tony. I'd spun him the outline of my scheme during our day in the OP, so there was little need for further explanation. 'If this goes down,' I told him, 'I'm going to make bloody sure you're on it with me. In fact, I hope we can keep the Ostrich team together. We understand each other as well as we ever will; I know we can muster the necessary skills between us. Listen, it may be premature, but why don't we get a few things planned?'

We settled ourselves at a table in the incident room with a road atlas and a notebook.

'Plotting the revolution, are you?' Fraser quipped as he came past.

'More or less. You don't mind us being here?'

'Not at all. You're welcome to carry on.'

Out of the blue there had come into my mind an image of the new bypass round Ludlow, the market town in Shropshire. The road was a single-carriageway but fast and open, curving gently in a wide semicircle, with several miles from one roundabout to the next and no side-turnings in between. A perfect setting for an intercept. There was a similar ring-road round Evesham, I knew — and in a way that would be a more appropriate location, since it would fit in with rumours that the prisoner was being moved to Long Lartin — but the country through which it ran was too flat and open, with too many houses in sight. Ludlow presented a wilder and therefore more attractive option.

'This is the place,' I told Tony, indicating the northern end of the bypass. 'If the police block out other vehicles for five minutes before the convoy comes through, the entire system will be empty. We can.ram the prison van off the road anywhere here. Plenty of room to stage a mock battle, grab Farrell, and away.'

'How do we stop him seeing too much?'

'He won't see anything at all. First, we'll do it at night. Second, when we hit the meat wagon, our opening move is to fill the back of it with CS gas.

That'll disable him and the guards as well.'

'How do we get into it?'

'We whack a hole out of the side. Power-saw with a carbon fibre blade.'

'OK.' Tony scribbled in his notebook. 'I'm making a list. We're gonna need CS, a saw, breathing kit for ourselves… What else?'

'Two cars. We'll draw a couple from the training pool at Llangwern — something pretty-fast and beefy.

Some kind of a hefty van for the intercept itself.'

'How many guys on the team?'

'Two drivers, and at least three others: two to handle

Farrell, one spare in case someone gets hurt.'

'How do you pick the team?'

'As I said, I'd like to stick to the Ostrich crowd — if the head-shed will let us. So it's us two, Whinger and Stew. That'll be the core. We need one more really.

Maybe Yorky can spare someone.'

Tony got up and walked around. 'How are we going to control Farrell?'

'Handcuffs. We keep him cuffed to one of us all the time.'

'Two pairs,' said Tony as he wrote. 'Whenever you change his guard, you want him linked to the new guy before the old one lets go. And a chain: when you're hitched to a guy, you need room to manoeuvre.'

'OK,' I agreed. 'Two pairs and a chain. Next thing.

He'll be cuffed to a screw in the van before we get to him. So we need bolt shears as well. And a hood to put on him.'

'And what happens when we've got him?'

'We drive him to a safe house and get in touch with the Pll?i to set up a rendezvous, where we exchange him for the hostages.'

'What safe house?'

'The legiment owns several — holiday cottages, mostly. Some of them belong to former members.

Tucked-away places where a guy can thin out for a while if he has to disappear.'

'Are there any available right now? I mean, it's holiday season. They could all be full.'

'There'll have to be one. We can probably find something in the Welsh mountains.'

'How about bugging Farrell's clothes?'

'He'll be in prison uniform when we get him. So it'll make sense to have a set of civilian clothes for him to change into. We'll get a belt and some shoes doctored up.'

'In that case we need to get his sizes. I'll make a note of that too.'

We tried to plan timings, but it was practically impossible without knowing how the PItLA would react to the news that their man was out of custody — or rather, out of giol. I reckoned we should stage the exchange of prisoners as soon as possible after we'd lifted Farrell, to cut down the chance of him escaping or anything else going wrong. The best scenario I could see was that we'd get our hands on Farrell on Friday night, pass word to the PI1LA immediately, and set up the exchange for Saturday. But that was only our programme. Given the way the terrorists were inclined to piss about, there was no guarantee they would get their act together in time.

'I don't know where they'll propose,' I said. 'They'll assume our lift is going to take place somewhere close to Birmingham. But if they're in London, as we think, they'll probably opt for a handover rendezvous somewhere around the capital.'

'Who are we supposed to be? The other members of the team.' Tony asked.

'Friends of mine. The rest can be former members of the Regiment, but you — well, you're just an American pal, over here on holiday. You'll be a positive help in the deception, because Farrell won't connect an American with the SAS.'

'What's my profession, then?'

'Peanut farmer.'

'Thanks, pal. I'll write that down too.'

Tony grinned before going on. 'Our clothes…'

'What about them?'

'Got to be civilian.'

'That's right. And no weapons showing. No covert radios or other specialist gear. Whatever back-up we have has got to be well out of sight.'

After a salad in the sergeants' mess I was back at the CO's office for one o'clock — and from the look of suppressed excitement on his face I could see that we were in business.

'Bit of luck,' he began.

'What's happened?'

'I don't know whether you'd call it lateral thinking or lateral influence or what, but outside events seem to be working to our advantage. This came in from Special Branch this morning.' He picked up a sheet of fax paper and held it off the desk with both hands. At first I thought he was going to give it to me, but it seemed that he preferred to paraphrase its contents. 'Through an intercept, SB have got wind of PItkA plans for a high- level political assassination in London. They believe the target's the Prime Minister himself.'

'Charming!' I muttered. 'They're aiming high.'

'They are. The man SB overheard on the phone was talking about a special weapon they've brought over to do the shoot.'

'Not that rifle they were using in Armagh?'

'The very one. A Barrett Light Fifty — at least, we assume that's what it is. A five-oh, anyway.'

'Jesus! One hell of a weapon. That means they're planning a long-range shoot.'

'Exactly,' the CO agreed. 'That puts the police on the spot. They're organised for close-quarter protection, but they can't occupy every building in line of sight every time the Prime Minister goes somewhere.'

'No.' I thought for a moment, then said, 'What's that got to do with us?'

'Nothing directly.' The CO pushed his chair back.

'Except that SB believes the crowd they overheard are the same lot as the ones holding your people — the West London ASU. The thought is that if Plan Zulu goes ahead, you may get in among them and break up the cell.'

'You mean we can go ahead?' I nearly jumped off my chair.

The Boss gave-me a beady look and nodded his head.

'You want to watch yourself. The Director is not chuffed with you.'

'What's wrong?'

'He's had to spend the morning at an emergency meeting in the COBI, liaising with Downing Street, the Home Office and Scotland Yard. That meant he couldn't clear other things off his desk, and he reckons you've buggered his weekend.'

I thought of the big fat brigadier, huffing and puffing in the Cabinet Office Briefing loom, the underground sanctum in Central London which is activated to deal with major emergencies… but I didn't feel too sorry for him.

'Mind you,' the CO added, 'if you smash the West London ASU I think he'll forgive you. The security forces have been trying to bust the organisation for years, and haven't managed it. They've made a number of arrests, but never got the key players.'

'All right then,' I said thoughtfully. 'What we're going to do is set a fucking great trap, and let the PIRA walk into it.'

When I asked Yorky for someone to replace Norm on the team, he promise.d to have a quick think; but before he came back to me I had an idea of my own. Living in Hereford having recently retired from the Pegiment was a guy called 'Doughnut' Dyson,“ formerly of D Squadron. He'd had a job BG'ing some Arab sheikh, but at the moment he was out of work. I suddenly realised he would be ideal. For one thing, he was older than the rest of us, and looked it; for another, he really was ex-SAS, and if necessary could prove it by talking about his BG work. He'd add credibility to my claim that my team was a private army. Further, Doughnut was a hefty guy, and I foresaw that weight and muscle would come in handy when we were dragging Farrell around.

Doughnut was a larger version of Pat — dark, straight hair, rosy cheeks — powerfully built and into weights, but nippy with it. He was quick-minded too: when I rang him at home to brief him he picked up the situation in a flash. Above all he was cheerful, the sort of guy who fits easily into any team and is a pleasure to have around.

His real name was Eric, but he had once made the mistake of appearing for a rugby trial in a cream- colouredjersey with a red blob in the middle. He never wore the damn thing again, but from that moment he was Doughnut.

He possessed one other minor advantage: whereas the rest of us has short, scrubby haircuts, his was fairly long and had a less military appearance.

A full O-group was called for 1700 that evening. But before the forces of law and order could assemble we had a pile of things to do. My first reaction was to collect the lads and put it to them straight.

As Plan Zulu was my benefit number, none of them was obliged to take part; they were officially on leave after Ostrich, and could duck out if they wanted. The fact that nobody did gave me a big boost. Far from trying to slide off, they all came on-side with so much enthusiasm and emotion that it nearly choked me.

By the time we'd cleared the air on that one, we had three hours left before the O-group. A safe house had been found — Laurel Cottage, near lkuardean in the Forest of Dean, less than half an hour to the southeast of Hereford — so we despatched Whinger m suss the place out. Stew and Doughnut shot off down to the Llangwern Army Training Area over the Welsh border to collect a couple of the intercept cars, while Tony and I hammered away to Ludlow to recce the bypass and pick a spot for out interception.

In the MT Section in camp a dark-blue Ford Transit van, bought second-hand for cash an hour before, was being prepared for use as the ramming vehicle. Half a ton of concrete blocks were wired and bolted to the floor in the back, a heavy bar was welded to the front bumper, and an anti-roll cage fitted inside the cab.

Other people pressed ahead with the logistics of the operation, sorting out food and drink for the cottage, finding out Farrell's sizes from the prison authorities and buying civilian clothes for him, and bugging a couple of pairs of shoes.

Before Tony and I set out, I needed to send a message to the PI1LA, to gear them up for action. 'How do we do this?' I asked Fraser. 'If anything goes through your channels, they'll smell a rat and realise I'm working with you:

'That's right. It's got to be a direct call. Make it from your own number, and if they bother to trace it back they'll be happy. Dial 192 and get the Sinn Fein number in Belfast from Directory Enquiries.'

With Fraser's guidance I composed a cryptic message — but when I got through I was disconcerted to find myself connected to an answerphone. I put my hand over the receiver and whispered as much to Fraser, who indicated that I should talk anyway. So off I went:

'This is Geordie Sharp speaking from Keeper's Cottage, Hereford, at 1400 hours on Thursday the twenty-seventh of May. I have a breakthrough as regards your man. He should be with me by midnight tomorrow, Friday the twenty-eighth of May. If he reaches me safely, I'll contact you again immediately to arrange a mutually convenient rendezvous, location to be proposed by you. Leave a number for quick contact.

Message ends.'

It took us only forty minutes to whip up through Leominster and on along the A49 towards Shrewsbury.

The weather had turned thundery with heavy cloud cover, and on that gloomy afternoon there was little traffic moving. As we passed a sign for Kimbolton to our right Tony said, 'Hey, I know that name! It was a USAF base during World War Two. I'm sure it was…' but he couldn't remember which squadrons had been stationed there.

Heading north, we came on to the Ludlow bypass from the wrong direction, so to speak, and drove straight to the northern end of it before slowing to check things in detail.

'OK,' I said as we hit the northern roundabout. 'The ring-road starts here. Call this Point Alpha.'

Once again Tony was taking notes and making sketches. 'What d'you call this damn thing? A circle?'

'Round about. Don't you have them in the States?'

'We may have, but I don't think I ever saw one.'

'Point Alpha, anyway. I'm going round it again. That other road leading off is the A4113 to Knighton. Get that? OK… let's time ourselves from here to the next roundabout. I'll take it steady, simulate the prison convoy.'

I headed back south at 40 m.p.h. We went over the old main road on a bridge, then under a smaller one, and reached the second roundabout in two minutes and twenty seconds. 'Point Bravo,' I told Tony. 'Signed Ludlow to the east, the A4117 to the west. I reckon this next link will be the one for us.'

I continued driving slowly, and after a minute or so we came to a stretch where there was a wide verge on the left with a big, gently sloping grass bank behind it.

'Look at this!' I exclaimed. 'Could have been made for it. One minute twenty after Point B. Got that?'

'Sure.'

Through a cufting in the grass bank on our left, a farm or forestry track ran down a shallow ramp to join the road. Clearly it had been built as a concession to the landowner when the new road went through, to give him access to the highway. Changing down into second, I swung left off the tarmac and eased the Cavalier up the track, gravel scrunching under the tyres.

'Hear that?' I said. 'They went so far as to put down hardcore for our benefit. Even if it's raining, the van'll get up here no bother.'

At the back of the bank, out of sight of the road, we found a small turning-area, with a wooden-rail fence and gate bordering a plantation of young oaks: an ideal LUP for the rammer van.

'All we need do now is measure the distance to the centre of the highway,' I said. 'What is it? Sixty metres?'

'Seventy,' Tony suggested. 'I'll step it out.'

'OK. Stand on the edge of the tarmac, and when there's nobody coming, wave me down for a trial run.'

As he strode off down the ramp, taking deliberately long paces, I turned the car and lined it up five metres back from the lip of the bank. Then, at his signal, I started forward, gently at first, to simulate a laden van, then accelerating, before I braked hard and slewed to a halt on the shoulder of the road.

'Seven seconds,' I reported. 'They'll need to practise with the van itself, but that'll be it, near enough.'

'Sixty-eight metres,' Tony announcdd as he climbed back aboard. 'What do we call this place?'

'Impact lamp. It's a nice site for a shoot-out, too. A few bursts into the banks won't hurt anybody.' I pulled off on to the grass again for a moment.

On the other side of the main road the ground fell away into a shallow drainage ditch. 'If we can hit the prison wagon into that it'll be perfect,' I said. 'The van'll probably roll over and we can go in through the roof.'

Driving on again, we took three and a half minutes to reach the third roundabout — Point Charlie — south of Ludlow, where the old main road headed back into the town. Between Bravo and Charlie lay a three-mile stretch of road with no side turnings. That gave us bags of space: even if something went wrong on Impact Ramp, we'd have several minutes clear in which to sort ourselves out.

'We're OK,' I told Tony. 'We've hacked it. Let's head for home.'

The O-Group took place in the main lecture hall, a big room with rows of seats set out in semicircular tiers.

There was a full turn-out from the Regimental head- shed, and the outsiders included Gilbert the Filbert from the Firm, a senior representative from Special Branch in London, a leading light from Winson Green prison, and police chiefs from Warwickshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire.

The CO set the pace by announcing that, although Plan Zulu was certainly unorthodox, it had been ordered in the national interest by the highest authority.

The immediate aim was to recover the hostages, but the wider strategy was to flush out as many players as possible in the West London ASU, and to break the power of an organisation which was posing a serious threat to the government. He therefore hoped everyone would give of their best in making the plan work.

In fact, most people seemed only too willing to co operate. The only big-wig who caused any trouble was the guy from the gaol, a frowning superscrew with a pock-marked face, who started in whingeing about his responsibility for the prisoner's health and safety. 'You don't seem to realise that the man is still recovering from gunshot wounds,' he said, when asked for his comments. 'If he gets thrown about in a crash it may lead to serious complications.'

'He'll have to take his chance,' said the CO firmly.

'Your responsibility for him will cease when he leaves Winson Green, so his continuing health won't be your concern.'

That ended the complaints, and by cracking on in such positive fashion the CO got everything Squared away within the hour, so that the meeting broke up soon after six.

The arrangement was that the intercept would go down the following night: Friday 28 May. The police would close all three roundabouts on the Ludlow bypass at 2215 and divert traffic, on the grounds that the road had been blocked by an accident. The convoy, consisting of a van with unmarked police cars fore and aft, would reach Point Alpha as close to 2225 as the drivers could manage.

By then our intercept cars would be parked nose-to- nose at an angle across the road half a mile south of Point Bravo, their panic lights flashing as if they'd had a crash. Our rammer van would be waiting in the turning space above the road. When the convoy approached, the lead driver would slow down as he saw the stranded cars ahead and report a blockage over his radio. At that moment our van would start its run down the ramp, aiming to hit the front of the meat wagon…

By 1830 I was feeling pretty knacketed. It was five nights since I'd had a proper sleep and I was keen to get nay head down for more than two or three hours at a stretch. All the same, Whinger and I were determined to call on Pat in hospital, because we knew he'd be fretting about his chances of regaining full fitness, and we reckoned he could do with a bit of moral support.

Besides, once Plan Zulu went down, it might be days before we got another chance to see him.

After a quick bite to eat I phoned Pat's wife, Jenny, to see if there was anything she'd like us to take along, but it turned out she wasn't feeling very sympathetic.

'Take him a bottle of arsenic pills,' she said. 'That'll sort him.'

'OK, I get the message.'

I turned to Whinger and said, 'Cow,' then I called the hospital to make sure they'd let us in. There was the usual palaver about 'no visitors', but I bluffed our way with the sister in charge by telling her that we were special mates of Pat's, and got her to agree that we could spend a few minutes with him.

On the M4, Whinger gave me details of the safe house, which sounded pretty good. Laurel Cottage, he said, was made of brick and solidly built. It was small, with three rooms (including the bathroom) downstairs and three above, but it had been modernised recently and had a new kitchen and a Calor-gas hot water and heating system. The windows were adequate if not great — lockable, but not double-glazed. Whinger had been through all the drawers in the kitchen and removed a couple of receipted bills which gave the names of local tradesmen. He'd also checked the immediate area for estate agents' signs with giveaway phone numbers on them. The house was in a secure position, isolated as it was up a lane on the side of a hill, and there was a tumbledown wooden garage about thirty metres from the door. The place wasn't overlooked, and there were no other buildings in sight.

The only slight worry was one other house, which stood beside the lane where it joined the main road; anyone there would be in a good position to monitor comings and goings. But enquiries had revealed that this second building was also let intermittently, and at present unoccupied.

Comms wise, the cottage was well placed — not in a hole where radios and mobile phones wouldn't function. Whinger had taken along with him a technician from Box, who'd installed a special phone containing an encrypting device and a chip that prevented anyone tracing a call back. Tests had shown that all forms of communication functioned welt.

As we drove, I tried to imagine myself in Pat's position. When I got my arm smashed in the Gulf War I'd been in a fairly bad state myself, but I never thought that the wound was serious enough to threaten my career and basic fitness. A shattered femur was something else, and I knew how daunting it must be. At least he was in good hands. I knew that Army and ILAF surgeons train to deal with bullet wounds by operating on pigs anaesthetised and shot at the secret defence establishment at Porton Down.

I'd maple several visits to Wroughton before, to have my arm checked while the bones were re-knitting, and as we drove up the long approach road to the old airfield on top of the downs I thought once again how strange it was that a service hospital should have so little security. There was no fence, no barrier, no guardroom; anybody could proceed straight to the front entrance.

Mind you, you needed to be fit to find the person you were looking for, because the building was about halfa mile long, with wards leading offcentral corridors on its two floors, and it was a fearsome hike from one end to the other.

Hospitals bug me. The gleaming surfaces, the smell of disinfectant, the bright lights, the impersonal passages and doors… the whole environment seems alien, exactly the sort of world you spend your life trying to avoid.

After a marathon tab, we eventually came on Pat in one of the high-dependency units — a small side-ward with an tLAF police corporal sitting guard outside the door. I'd had the sense to conceal my flask-shaped half- bottle of Johnny Walker against my stomach inside my loose shirt, so we got past the guard and the sister without hassle.

It was a shock to see such a physical guy as Pat laid low, flat on his back, amid a tangle of drips and drains.

His left leg was in plaster, with a cage of stainless steel pins coming out through the case above the knee, and drain-tubes leading out of it. The sight of all the gear took me straight back to the hospital in Baghdad, and the Iraqi surgeon who'd threatened to blind me with an anaesthetic syringe before he operated. Of course, I also thought of Bully-boy Khadduri coming to the gaol and hammering on my plaster cast with his swagger stick. At least he wouldn't torment any more patients.

As we went in, Pat turned his head and gave a big grin. But although his brain was working fine, his responses were slow, and I could see that he was quite heavily sedated.

'They haven't killed you yet,' I said.

'They keep trying.'

'Lot of pain?'

'Nothing. It's fantastic.' He pointed at a little domed rubber pump, taped to his left arm just above the wrist.

'Whenever I get the gyp I give myself a shot with this thing.'

'What is it?'

'Morphine, I reckon. Got a bag of it up there some where. Want to try it?'

'Thanks a lot,' said Whinger. 'Time for a shot.'

'Look.' I brought out the Scotch. 'This is for when you're on the mend.' I laid the bottle at the back of the cupboard in the cabinet beside his bed and put a box of Kleenex in front of it.

'Brilliant!' Pat said. 'Thanks, Geordie.'

We began to chat about his journey home and things at Hereford, then uddenly he remembered my own problem and said, 'Aye — what about the family?'

'Bit of a breakthrough. The PIRA sent a taped message from Tracy advancing the deadline for us to hand their man over, and we're preparing a response.

We may get some action quite soon.' I'd already decided not to pass on details about Plan Zulu, just in case Pat started muttering in his sleep.

As I was talking I saw him get a twinge of pain, and he primed his morphine pump a couple of times. By the time I'd told him a bit about the wash-up after Ostrich I could see him losing concentration; so I was surprised when he suddenly said, quite loud, 'I hope you told them about the priest clearing his throat up his fucking tower.'

'The mullah! I did, Pat. Don't worry. I told them about your. diversionary explosion by the gate too, and the IPG blowing shit Out of the building — the lot.'

He gave a faint smile, but his eyes were closed, and he drifted offinto a doze. I adjusted the position of the Kleenex box slightly, and we slipped out of the room.

In the corridor I saw a doctor whom I recognised from my own visits. It turned out that he had helped with Pat's operation, and he welcomed the pair of us with a friendly mock-salute. I knew word had been put about that Pat's wound had been caused by an accident on the ranges, so I didn't refer to its origin; but the doctor raised one eyebrow and said, 'You fellows are getting a bit trigger-happy, aren't you?'

'Well…' I spread my hands. 'These things happen.'

I could see he knew more than he was letting on, so

I changed the subject. 'What's the long-term prognosis?'

'Pretty good, we reckon. He's a strong lad. The leg should knit up OK, provided we can keep infection out.'

My mind flashed to Farrell and his septicaemia — but all I said was, 'Back to full mobility?'

'We can't be sure, but there's every chance.'

'He'll be all right,' said Whinger loftily. 'Hot cross bun. This one will run and run.'