Kitabı oxu: «Provo»

GORDON STEVENS

Provo

COPYRIGHT

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1993

Copyright © Gordon Stevens 1993

Gordon Stevens asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780006476320

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2016 ISBN: 9780008219376

Version: 2016-08-31

DEDICATION

To Dave

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Keep Reading

About the Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

The Angel of Death stood in the graveyard and the priest waited at the door.

The Sunday afternoon was quiet, the faintest breeze stirring the foliage of the trees and rustling the hem of his cassock, the faded red brick of the Church of St Mary and St Phillip lost amidst the colours of summer.

It was two o’clock exactly.

The woman was in her late twenties or early thirties, dark-haired and tall, smartly dressed despite the heat. He saw her through the trees – as if she had suddenly appeared from nowhere. She smiled at him as she always did and went inside. In all the times they had met in such a way, the priest suddenly thought, the woman had never once spoken to him.

The church was cool, the image of the Virgin looking down and the candles on the right of the altar. The woman knelt, took one from the black metal box and held the wick against one of those flickering in front of her.

The wax ran down the candle and burned her fingers. Her face was still, as if she had not noticed the pain or was accustomed to it.

‘Remember, o most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who asked your help was left unanswered . . .’

The Memorare to her father, mother and her brother, and the plea for the salvation of their souls. Even now she remembered the day she had been taken from them, the days they had been taken from her. Even now the details of their deaths burned into her mind as the wax burned into her flesh.

There was no one else in the church. The woman placed the candle on the stand and stood up, the priest watching from the doorway. She folded a £20 note into the poor box and passed him, smiling her thanks as she did so, then she walked quickly through the churchyard. The priest closed and locked the doors and walked down the steps, along the path and paused under the headstone. The statue was of marble, the expression on the face was serene and the wings were folded. The Angel of Death to some, he reflected, the Saviour and Redeemer to others.

In life as in death, he supposed.

The afternoon was warm and the sweat trickled down the back of his collar. By the time he reached the gate the visitor had disappeared.

The car was parked half a mile away. Instinctively she checked the street – for the woman with the pram whom everyone else would accept as commonplace, for the motor-cycle which no one else would notice, for the car or van with the two people in the front seat – then drove the eight miles to the house where she had been raised. The tea was laid – Sunday linen and china, cucumber sandwiches and fruit cake. The French windows to the garden were open and the children were playing croquet on the lawn.

She kissed her father and her mother on the cheek and sat by her brother.

1

In the end, McKendrick knew, it would all depend on the man called Reardon: whether he followed the pattern of the past weeks, whether his wife was at home when they called, whether his son and daughter had gone out to play.

He woke at five, the sound of the pipes and the drums rattling through his mind and the details of the next eighteen hours weaving their apparently separate journeys through his brain. For thirty minutes he lay still, staring at the ceiling, the pipes and drums still haunting him and the Walther on his right side, beneath the sheet where he had placed it five hours before, even in what he considered a safe house, his hand resting on it all night and his fingers wrapped around it.

Belfast, 12 July.

The day the Orangemen marched with their rolled umbrellas and their bowler hats and banners. The day the Protestants stirred their blood to the beat of the drums and the echo of the bugles in commemoration of William’s victory at the Battle of the Boyne 300 years before. The day the Brits and the RUC kept the Catholics at bay so that the Ulstermen could claim the Six Counties as their own.

The sun touched the window. He rolled off the bed, washed, shaved and dressed, and went to the rear door, not waking the family in the bedrooms at the front. Even though it was not yet twenty minutes to six, McKendrick waited till he saw Rorke in the alleyway at the rear, and even then he did not leave the house. Rorke was 23, thinner than McKendrick, with longer hair, and had been his minder for the past two years. He checked quickly and efficiently, then nodded. McKendrick left the house and walked behind him to the Granada parked at the end. The car was silver-grey and inconspicuous, registered to a baker in Springfield who was not on the security checklist. The driver was smoking and the engine idling. McKendrick slipped into the back seat, Rorke beside him, and the car pulled away.

It was still quiet, the first warmth seeping into the morning and the first security forces on the streets, the first surveillance helicopter chattering across the sky. When the patrols were out everything was normal, McKendrick knew. It was only when there were no patrols, no eyes in the sky, that you began to worry. It was then that they were clearing an area for the shoot-to-kill bastards from E4A or 14th Int or the SAS.

They turned into Beechwood Street. The houses were terraced with small gardens in front, the majority consisting of a square of grass surrounded by flowers but some of them paved. Most of the cars were second-hand and the curtains of the bedrooms were still drawn. In front of them the street curved slightly to the left, then straightened just before the point where Reardon lived. It was eight minutes past six, twelve minutes to wait. McKendrick tucked lower into the rear seat and wound down the window. The driver moved slowly along Beechwood Street, turned left at the end and stopped twenty yards from the junction so that they could see the van which came to pick up Tommy Reardon but would not be noticed themselves.

The planning had been immaculate, of course, the policy objective approved by the Army Council in Dublin and the military details agreed by the Northern Command. Knowledge of it had been restricted to those who would take part, and even then each section had been briefed only on the part it would play, unaware not only of the overall plan, but even unaware that an overall plan existed. Each of the North Belfast companies would be involved in the riots and bombings that day, each action soaking up more of the security forces, the timings and locations precise and vital, until the moment came when McKendrick and his people would take over. And seventy men coiled like springs in the Crum – the bleak and God-forsaken prison on the Crumlin Road. Seventy battle-hardened Provisional IRA men – bombers, gunmen and activists – with the explosives they would use to break their way to the main gate already smuggled in and only the gate between them and freedom. And all on Orange Day, all depending on the little bastard called Tommy Reardon. In the still of the morning – perhaps in the years of hatred captured and swirling in his mind – McKendrick heard the faintest sound of the pipes and the drums.

It was twenty minutes past six.

The Transit came down the road in front of them. The workmen were packed inside it and the vehicle had been sprayed blue, covering the name of the building company which had once been printed on its sides. Rorke left the Granada and walked casually to the junction, cigarette in hand. Sixty yards away Reardon left the house, climbed into the Transit, and the vehicle pulled away, the exhaust rattling and a thin line of blue smoke drifting from it.

Even though McKendrick had been baptized into the faith, it was of no concern to him that Reardon and his wife were also Catholic, or that their son and daughter were of the age where they would make their first Holy Communion. Reardon was a digger driver and the company for whom he worked did the occasional job for what might loosely be called the security forces. Both had been warned. Reardon was therefore a legitimate means to an even more legitimate end.

Rorke turned the corner, ground the cigarette on the pavement, and climbed into the car. McKendrick sat up and looked across at him. The minder nodded and the driver pulled away.

*

The site was surrounded by six-foot-high chain fencing and illuminated at night by spotlights. The Transit bumped across the ruts at the entrance and stopped by the Portacabin at the side of the agent’s office. Reardon left his bag in the hut and collected the keys to the digger. The cab door was padlocked. He knelt down and examined the axle and undercarriage, his fingers searching delicately in the places where a bomb might have been concealed. The routine was as automatic as changing the Transit route to and from work each day when the job was outside Belfast. Only when he was satisfied did he unlock the door, climb in, wedge the photograph of his wife and children in the corner of the windscreen, and start the engine.

Tommy Reardon was 32 years old. He and Marie had married when he was twenty and she was nineteen. Their children were eight and seven, and there was a possibility – not yet confirmed – of a third. Reardon had left school at fifteen and served his apprenticeship at Harland and Wolff, losing his job when the yard cut back on its labour force. A year later he had begun work at the De Lorean car plant, leaving when it closed. After his second term of unemployment he had found work with the building firm of Ellis and Knight. Ten months later he had received his first threat. Six months ago an uncle in England had secured him a job at the Ford plant in Eastleigh, near Southampton. Two weeks before he was due to leave, the company had announced major cutbacks and voluntary redundancies for 500 of its existing workforce.

The morning was hot and the site busy. At eleven he stopped for ten minutes, pouring himself a coffee from the flask Marie had made that morning. At one he sat in the Portacabin with the other men from the Transit.

‘So how’s the Pope today?’ The man who asked was a Protestant.

‘Still blessing the world.’ Reardon opened his sandwiches. ‘Where’s the umbrella? Thought you’d be carrying one.’

The conversation was quiet but cutting, each directing his words not at the symbols of the other’s religion but at the bigotry of his own.

The Protestant looked back at him. ‘Typical Taig.’ He sniffed and looked out the window. ‘No point carrying an umbrella unless it’s raining, is there?’

The marching began just before nine, the surveillance helicopters in the sky above the Catholic areas of the city, the VCPs – vehicle checkpoints – suddenly and swiftly in place for fifteen minutes, then switched to another area of the Catholic heartland, and the army and RUC patrols sweeping the Catholic areas on the so-called census patrols, knocking on doors and checking on the whereabouts of males listed on the census reports, checking if known or suspected IRA activists or sympathizers were on the move. At one in the afternoon the first incident occurred – an apparently random attack on a security vehicle by a group of Catholic youths. Half an hour later a second incident took place, seemingly unrelated but provoking a Protestant reaction and sucking in police and army manpower; forty minutes later a third. By three in the afternoon the security problem was escalating, the incidents building suddenly and brutally into running battles, with police and army units intended to be held in reserve suddenly committed, and men not due to be on duty until the evening called in and placed on stand-by. At four the first petrol bomb was thrown, the crowd retreating quickly and orderly and the troops following, apparently beating them back but moving into the killing zone where the Provo snipers were waiting. At 4.20 the first soldier was shot by a gunman positioned at the Divis flats, ten minutes later a second, this time fatally. At 4.40 the Belfast Telegraph received the first bomb warning of the day. Half an hour later, with just enough time to clear the area, a five-pound bomb exploded in the city centre.

*

Tommy Reardon parked the digger, switched off the engine, padlocked the cab, returned the keys to the site office and walked to the Transit. It was six o’clock. The other men climbed in and the van pulled out of the gates.

At least it wasn’t dark, at least they weren’t in the country. Particularly after the first threats, and especially in the drives back from some of the sites twenty or thirty miles outside Belfast, he had prayed as they approached vehicles parked by the roadside in case they contained a bomb, or scoured the road ahead for signs of land mines and the countryside on either side from which the bombers would activate them. Had felt the panic every time a vehicle pulled in front of them in case it stopped and the men in the balaclavas leapt out and held them up, asked their names and religions, picked out the Catholics or the Protestants and took them to the ditch at the roadside. UFF or IRA, it didn’t matter. All bastards.

The Transit turned into Beechwood Street and stopped outside his house. Reardon climbed out, shut the door, banged on the side, and watched as it trundled down the road, the exhaust rattling and the smoke hanging in the air. The street was quiet, a cluster of children playing ball and two women disappearing into a house twenty yards away. He smiled at them, walked up the path, unlocked the Yale and went inside. The smell of cooking and the sound of laughter came from the kitchen, at the rear. He dropped his bag on the hall floor, closed and locked the door, hung up his coat, kissed Marie and the kids and went upstairs. By the time he had washed and changed the supper was on the table.

The front door bell rang.

‘I’ll get it.’ The boy pushed back his chair and ran into the hall. One of his son’s friends, Reardon assumed. ‘You can play after supper.’ The boy stretched up and unlocked the door, his mother just behind him.

Rorke was wearing a donkey jacket and what appeared to be a woollen cap. ‘Is Tommy in?’ Even in the shadows of the hallway he sensed the way she tightened and smelt the fear which gripped her. ‘He left his wallet in the motor, must have dropped out. I thought he might need it tonight.’ He reached in his pocket.

The donkey jacket was the same as all the men wore. Marie relaxed, stood back. ‘Come in, we’re just eating.’

The Sierra at the top of the street edged forward.

Rorke stepped inside, pulled the balaclava over his face, and spun the woman round, his left hand clamped tight over her mouth to prevent her screaming and his right hand taking the Smith and Wesson from inside the jacket. The Sierra stopped outside the house, the two men stepped nonchalantly out and walked casually up the path and into the house, pulling the hoods over their heads and taking the AK47, with its folding stock, and the Czech CZ automatic pistol from their coats the moment they were inside.

‘Who is it?’ Reardon leaned across and saw the figures, realized. Tried to work out whether he could get through the back door before they shot him. Whether he could at least get his daughter out.

This happens to other people, not us, the thought screamed through Marie’s head. She grabbed the boy and held him tight as Rorke pushed them into the sitting-room. Behind him one gunman bundled Reardon and his daughter into the room and the second closed and locked the. front door, then the kitchen door at the back.

‘Switch on the telly and close the curtains.’

Marie tried to stop trembling, to do as Rorke instructed. Then she stood in the middle of the floor, between the gunmen and her husband, the children clutching her skirt and the prayer running through her mind. They hadn’t shot him yet. Please, sweet Mary, Mother of God, may they have made a mistake. Please may they not have come for her husband after all.

‘Time to pay, Tommy.’

The children came out of the first shock and began to sob.

‘Not here. Not in front of them.’ Reardon moved slightly so that he was separated from his family, so that if they shot him they wouldn’t hit his wife and children.

‘You think we’re going to stiff you?’ There was amusement in Rorke’s voice. ‘You think I’m going to put the muzzle of this against your head or down your throat and blow your brains out?’ His background had drained any mercy from him and his years with McKendrick had given his violence an edge, the beginning of a mirror image of the older man. ‘No, Tommy boy. We just want to borrow you for a few hours, do a wee job for us.’

Both Reardon and his wife understood.

‘Get on your working coat and boots. Don’t want you driving through Belfast with your best clothes on, do we?’

Rorke followed Reardon upstairs. When they came down again Marie and the children were on the sofa, one of the gunmen in the armchair opposite them and the other by the door.

‘Behave yourself and he comes back.’ Rorke looked at the woman, then at Reardon. ‘You do as we want and we don’t touch her or the kids.’

The children were too frightened to cry.

‘Nice and quiet, Tommy boy. Walk to the car and get in the back.’

He looked again at the woman. ‘Don’t worry, missus. You’ll have him back by eleven.’ If the bastard police and army could find enough of him to even fill a paper bag. No point in not giving them hope, though. Tell them the truth and one of them might try something; pretend to give them a chance and they’d do exactly as you said, even though they both knew what was going to happen. He pulled off the balaclava and the two of them walked down the path. Behind them one of the gunmen closed and locked the door. The driver of the Sierra glanced up at them and a second man opened the rear door. Reardon and Rorke climbed in and the car pulled away.

Seven o’clock, Rorke checked his watch. In five minutes the RUC would receive its third genuine bomb warning of the day, at eight its fourth. Everything on time and going to plan. The police and army already over-extended, the evening’s bombs creating fresh diversions, the timing and location of each incident apparently random but carefully plotted to draw the security forces away from the route to the prison. And the lads waiting on the inside of the Crum for Tommy Reardon to drive his digger filled with high explosive into the front gate and blow it to kingdom come. Everything on schedule. Everything as McKendrick had foreseen.

‘Now, Tommy boy. Where’s that digger of yours?’

The gap in the curtains was less than two inches wide, and the curtains themselves had not moved. Perhaps it was because she was still in mourning that she kept them that way, she sometimes told herself. Perhaps because it prevented the sunlight from damaging the furniture. Perhaps because it enabled her to see what was happening without being seen herself. There were others in the street who kept a similar watch, she knew, but they reported to the Provisionals. Beechwood Street, after all, was in Ballymurphy, part of the Catholic heartland.

Moira Sheehan was 66 years old and widowed for the last two. She was thin, with white hair, and walked with a slight stoop. Her fingers were bent and slightly arthritic. Moira Sheehan was also a Republican. In 1980 she had voted for the hunger striker Eamon McCann, officer commanding the Provisionals in Long Kesh, when – midway through his fast and in an attempt to gain publicity for it – he had stood for the British parliament. And six weeks later she had been one of the hundred thousand who had marched behind his coffin when his pitiful remains had been laid to rest in the Republican plot at Milltown cemetery. Even now she supported the Cause, gave money to it: even now she voted for Sinn Fein. But sometimes she wondered. About the men of violence and how they sometimes went about their business.

That morning Marie Reardon had told her the news about the baby, made her promise to keep it a secret until Marie had told her husband.

The Reardons had lived next door for the past nine years. During that time Moira Sheehan had grown close to them, had effectively become the grandmother to their children. Had shared both their dreams and their fears. Had sat with Marie one winter night when Tommy was working outside Belfast and the Transit had broken down, the night he had not returned home till midnight and they had feared the worst.

Now she watched as the Sierra drove out of Beechwood Street and turned left at the end. It was too soon for Tommy to be going out, she thought, there had barely been time for him to have his tea. And there had been something wrong. With the way the first man had gone in to the house, the way the others followed as soon as he stepped inside, the way Tommy had left with one of them.

Perhaps, in her heart of hearts, she already knew. Perhaps, in the deepest recesses of her soul, she knew what was going to happen to Tommy Reardon. She went to the kitchen, made herself a cup of tea, then resumed her position at the curtains and waited for Marie to come out with the children, waited to talk with them as she did every evening.

The bomb warning was exactly on time, giving a recognized codeword and location, and allowing thirty minutes for the area to be cleared. The next genuine warning came fifty-five minutes later. Between the two there had been a constant stream of hoax calls via newspaper offices and radio and television stations, plus the normal emergency calls received every hour of every day.

It was sheer, bloody unadulterated luck, Halloran would reflect later, that he had offered to work overtime that evening, that for the first time in his life he was in the right place at the right time. That, above all, it was he who happened to be standing next to the constable when the call came in and was almost discarded in the cold and calculated chaos between the reports of bomb warnings from the journalists and switchboards receiving them.

‘What is it?’

Halloran had been in the RUC for eighteen years, twelve of them as a sergeant, and – according to those close to him – would have made inspector, probably higher, if he had not voiced his opposition to certain aspects of Northern Ireland policing in the eighties quite so forcefully.

‘Woman reports something funny with her next-door neighbours. No reply but she knows they’re at home.’

‘How?’

‘Telly’s on, she can hear it, and the curtains are drawn.’ A burglary or a domestic, his shrug and the tone of his voice suggested, something CID could deal with in the morning.

‘What else?’

‘The kids aren’t playing in the street as normal.’

‘Who’s at home?’ It was instinct.

‘The wife and kids. The husband left with someone else twenty minutes ago.’

Something the other man had missed, Halloran began to think, something the other man’s lack of years had not picked up.

‘Give me the name and number. I’ll speak to her.’

The Transit had dropped Tommy from work as usual, Moira Sheehan told him. Half an hour later he had left with the other man. Marie hadn’t brought the children out to play as she normally did. When she had knocked on the front door there was no reply and the back door was locked.

‘But you’re certain they’re in?’

‘Like I said, I can hear the television.’

‘And the curtains are drawn?’ The evening was still light – no need to draw the curtains.

‘Yes.’

‘What about at the back?’

‘No, but the kitchen’s empty.’

Halloran knew when not to ask a question.

‘Funny though. The dinner’s still on the table.’

‘You said Tommy left with another man. Did he come home with Tommy?’

‘No, he and the others came just after.’

The alarm bells began to ring.

‘How many others?’

‘Three of them altogether. Then there were the men in the car.’

Three in, one out with Tommy. Two still inside with Tommy’s wife and children. ‘What’s Tommy do for a living?’

There was a commotion around him, another series of bomb calls being reported.

‘He drives a digger.’

‘Who for?’

‘Ellis and Knight.’

Oh, Christ. Halloran knew what was happening. Oh Jesus bloody Christ.

The building site was deserted, the gate secured by a padlock. Rorke snapped through the chain with a set of bolt-cutters, pulled back the gate, and the Sierra drove through and parked behind the huts and Portacabins. Two minutes later a Transit, sprayed the same colour as those used by Ellis and Knight, drove in, a Cavalier close behind it.

There were three men in the Sierra, Reardon counted automatically, plus two in the Transit and four in the Cavalier, all armed with pistols or submachine guns.

‘Keys?’

Behind them a gunman closed the gates and hung the padlock and chain in place.

‘In the agent’s office.’

Access was easy: a crowbar against the door, the lock holding but the wood around it splintering, then giving way. The office was neat and organized, a filing cabinet in one corner and a desk against the far wall, the site plans and charts stacked neatly on it. Beside the cabinet was a line of hooks with keys hanging from them.

‘Which one?’ Rorke was always behind him.

If he did what they said, Reardon thought, then at least Marie and the kids might live. His stomach churned with fear and he fought to stop his hands shaking. He took the keys and stepped outside. The digger was parked forty yards away, in the open. Rorke followed him across the site. Instinctively Reardon bent down to examine the underside of the vehicle for bombs.

‘I don’t think we need bother about that tonight, Tommy.’

He unlocked the cab, started the motor, and drove the digger to the side of the Transit.

‘How’s the fuel tank?’ Rorke’s attention to detail was as meticulous as McKendrick’s planning.

‘Half-full.’

‘Check it,’ Rorke ordered.

The back doors of the Transit were open. Two of the gunmen placed a plank against the rim of the floor, rolled out a forty-gallon drum, two hundred pounds of Semtex packed inside, then manhandled it into the bucket at the front of the digger. It was almost dusk.

‘Time to go, Tommy boy.’ Rorke pulled a canvas sheet over the barrel. ‘The Crum and no stopping. Remember Marie and the kids.’ He saw the look on Reardon’s face. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to jump dear.’ No point telling him the truth, no point telling Reardon that the IRA man in the first of the two escort vehicles would detonate the explosives the moment the digger rammed the gate.

The surveillance helicopter hovered in the sky and the army patrols swung into Beechwood Street and the terraces on either side, the Green Jackets piling out and knocking on the doors, beginning the census checks – the patrols leapfrogging house to house, the RUC policemen accompanying them.

‘Dermot Wilson is registered here.’ It was the second lieutenant’s first Northern Ireland tour. ‘Is he in? Where is he? What’s he doing tonight?’

The woman slammed the door in his face.

‘Michael Sullivan.’ It was the officer with the second patrol. ‘Does he still live here? Is he in Belfast? When did you last see him?’

It was no more nor less than the families in the street expected: the Brits putting on the pressure on Orange Day, the bastards letting them know who was boss. Piss off, Sullivan’s wife began to say. The patrol pushed past her and into the hallway, searching the rooms, downstairs, upstairs. Sullivan was different, Sullivan was on the security computer as a known Provo. His wife was shouting and his children screaming. The patrol hurried past them and out of the house.

The trap now, the execution later, Doherty knew for certain.

‘I would only like to say one other thing. We all approved the operation.’ Therefore we must all share the guilt – it was unspoken, but clearly meant and equally clearly understood. ‘And that decision was a correct one. The political and military value of the operation had it come off would have been incalculable.’ He turned to the officer commanding the North Belfast Brigade. ‘Now perhaps you could tell us of any progress on the part of the security section.’

‘So where was the leak in the organization?’ Quin returned to his original theme. ‘How does it affect future operations? What about operations on the mainland?’

What are you playing at? Doherty glanced at Conlan. Where are you taking us? He saw the way the other man was looking at him. You know, he thought again. You know what the doctor has told me to expect, you know the question growing in my mind.

‘So what do we do?’ The discussion continued for another forty minutes before Doherty gave Conlan and Quin their chance. Quin would move first, he supposed; Conlan would allow that, then checkmate him.

‘A spectacular.’ Instead it was Conlan, speaking first and more forcefully, though his voice was still quiet. ‘One the bastards will remember for ever.’ Conlan rarely swore, they all knew.

‘Why?’

‘For the morale of the Movement after Orange Day.’

A come-on, Doherty remembered, waiting for the moment.

‘How?’ Quin walked into the trap. ‘We’ve already agreed that until we know otherwise we must assume that the units in the North and the ASUs on the mainland and in Europe might be compromised.’

Conlan paused. ‘There’s a sleeper.’

They would all remember the moment and the silence which hung round it.

‘Where?’

‘On the other side of the water.’

‘Who?’

Conlan shook his head.

‘Details?’

He shook his head again. Some disciplines in life were easy to maintain, others more difficult. Yet none compared with the discipline which he imposed upon himself when he thought about the individual they were now discussing.

‘Who recruited him?’ It was Quin.

‘I did.’

‘How long’s he been in place?’

‘Five, six years.’ The answer was necessarily vague. ‘Perhaps more, perhaps less.’

‘But he’s done nothing in that time?’ Quin looked for the way out.

‘A few jobs for the French and Germans, a couple for the Libyans and Palestinians. Occasionally for us as well, though it was always camouflaged, made to look as if it was somebody else’s job.’

Doherty sensed the excitement round the table.

‘So why haven’t you told us about Sleeper?’

It was ironic, Doherty thought later, that it was Quin who gave the man his codename. Who stopped referring to him as simply a sleeper. Who provided the name which would immortalize him.

Conlan shrugged, did not reply.

‘So what do we do?’ Doherty moved them round the impasse, asked the question again.

‘A spectacular.’ Conlan repeated his previous answer. ‘Something no one will ever forget.’

He’s giving me my epitaph, Doherty thought, and in doing so he’s staking his claim for my place when I go. But he’s doing more than that. He’s planning ahead, setting up an agenda for five, ten years’ time. He’s giving us what we have always lacked in the past. He’s giving us the power. Not just the gun or the bomb, something much more.

Perhaps it was then that he began to see. The last option, he began to think, the one they had occasionally considered but always rejected.

‘Where?’

‘The mainland.’

‘Where exactly on the mainland?’

‘London.’

Doherty tasted the excitement, smelt it, savoured it, eating into the fibres of his body and the marrow of his bones. There had always been four options for campaigns on the mainland: the first three – the soft option, the military option and the political option – they had planned for, sent the teams to the mainland for. Had hit the soft targets; then the military, a barracks or a recruiting office; had gone against the politicians, even mortared Downing Street. But the fourth option was different. The fourth option was untouchable. And now Conlan was about to propose it.

‘Who?’

Even now Conlan could remember the street where he had been born and in which he had been brought up. Could remember the excitement which rippled through it when the pedlar came selling, the bright colours of the ribbons and the glint in the boxes on the wooden tray. Could remember what they called the pedlar, even though it was a woman.

‘Codename PinMan.’

‘And who is PinMan?’

Doherty sensed the moment the others realized.

‘The British royal family.’

2

The evening was warm, the first dusk lost in the lights of London, the dome of St Paul’s behind and the Thames in front.

Major R.E.F. Fairfax – Marlborough, Sandhurst, the First Battalion the Grenadier Guards – stood straight-backed at the window in the officers’ quarters of the Waterloo Barracks of the Tower of London and looked across the wasteland which was the City of London at this time of night. He was dressed in full uniform, his bearskin – white plume on the left-hand side – and sword on the stand in the small hallway.

Roderick Edward Fenwick Fairfax was 32 years old, six feet two inches tall, with a broken nose that was still slightly bent. His mother hunted with the Beaufort and his father had preceded him at Marlborough.

His guests had arrived an hour before. At twenty minutes to ten he telephoned the Spur Guard Room and asked the corporal to collect the party.

The quarters, up four flights of iron stairs, were functional rather than comfortable: a lounge, kitchen and bathroom, plus a small hallway off the main corridor. The six visitors gathered round the table in the lounge were formally dressed, the men in evening suits and the ladies in long dresses, and the champagne and food had come from Fortnum and Mason. Two of his guests that evening – the Japanese banker and the American corporate lawyer – were unknown to Roddy Fairfax. Sometimes a friend would ask him to arrange such an evening, the other guests usually from overseas and always business contacts. Occasionally, if the contacts were sufficiently important and it was the First Battalion which was mounting the Guard, Fairfax himself would take charge, even though it was normally the responsibility of a more junior rank.

The doorbell on the ground floor at the west end of the barracks rang. The guests left the officers’ quarters, made their way down the stairs, then followed the orderly – dressed in civilian clothes – across Broad Walk and joined the tiny knot of people standing in front of Traitor’s Gate.

It was ten minutes to ten. The Tower was still, the silence broken by the crash of the escort taking its position beneath the Bloody Tower. In the shadows along Water Lane, the cobbled street running inside the outer wall, they saw the first pinprick of light as the Chief Warder left the Byward Tower, the light growing brighter as he walked at the ‘sedate pace’ required by history. In his left hand he carried a lantern, the candle burning brightly, and in his right a ring of keys. At the Bloody Tower he turned left, handed the lantern to the man at the right rear of the escort, and fell in between the two leading soldiers. Then the warder and the escort marched back through the gate, wheeled right and disappeared in the dusk.

On the level stonework midway down the two sets of steps forming Broad Stairs the Guard took their position, the blood red of their tunics bright even against the dark. It was five minutes to ten, almost four and a half minutes. Fairfax checked his watch and waited. It was the done thing to cut it fine – no earlier than five minutes to ten, no later than two and a half – but God help any officer of the Guard who miscalculated. He stepped from the shadows and fell in in front of them, standing at ease, then standing easy, hands on sword, the tip resting on the ground in front of him. In the stillness he heard the commands as the Chief Warder locked the Middle and Byward Tower Gates and sealed the Tower for the night, then the crash of boots on cobbles as the warder and escort returned, and the challenge from the sentry at number three post.

‘Halt. Who comes there?’

‘The keys.’

‘Whose keys?’

‘Queen Elizabeth’s keys.’

‘Pass, Queen Elizabeth’s keys, and all’s well.’

On Broad Stairs Fairfax brought the Guard to attention.

The escort and the warder swung under the Bloody Tower and marched up the gradual incline; fifteen yards from the bottom of the steps the escort to the keys stamped to a halt. The timing was perfect, the sound of the boots on the cobbles lingering as the clock on Waterloo Barracks began to strike the four quarters.

The last quarter ended. It was ten seconds before the hour. The Chief Warder stepped forward and raised his bonnet. ‘God preserve Queen Elizabeth.’ His voice echoed back through history.

‘Amen.’ The voices of Fairfax and the Guard joined his.

It was ten o’clock precisely. At the moment the barracks clock began to sound the hour the first note of the Last Post lifted like a ghost. The last chime echoed through the stillness and the last bugle note lingered in the dark.

By the time Fairfax dismissed the Guard and returned to his quarters the champagne had been poured.

‘Incredible ceremony. The timing was so precise, as if it was to a stop watch.’ It was the Japanese banker.

‘We’ve had a few centuries to practise.’ The line always went down well.

‘When you were giving orders you used the word “hype”, not “arms”.’ It was the American. ‘ “Slope hype, present hype.” ’

‘From the French,’ Fairfax’s nod indicated his appreciation that the lawyer had noticed. ‘The Grenadiers took it after they’d destroyed the French Imperial Guard at Waterloo.’

The conversation drifted over the history of the ceremony and on to the world economic situation and the possibility that certain countries might be climbing out of recession.

‘Trouble is, of course, that when the upturn comes we won’t be in a position to take advantage of it.’ The guest had been with Fairfax at Marlborough and was now a senior analyst in a leading merchant bank.

‘For example?’ They had drifted slightly from the main conversation and were standing together looking out the window.

‘Company called New World Electronics. Best research department in the country, but their order books are low because everyone’s scared to invest at the moment.’ And therefore the shares are at rock bottom, if anyone was reckless enough to buy.

So ... Fairfax did not need to ask.

‘By tomorrow evening Britain will no longer have a company which is a world leader in its field.’ The accountant raised his glass. ‘Thanks for tonight. I think our Japanese friend really enjoyed himself.’

At ten minutes to midnight Fairfax escorted his guests to the West Gate, shook hands with each of them, and watched as the gate was unlocked and they made their way to the limousines waiting on Tower Hill. At eight the following morning he telephoned his stockbroker, checked the price of shares in New World Electronics, and instructed him to buy five thousand.

At 11.30, when the Guard was dismounted, he was driven to Wellington Barracks near St James’s Park, then returned to his flat in Onslow Square, two hundred yards from both South Kensington underground station and Christie’s auction rooms, where he had bought most of his furniture.

There were six items of mail. Four were personal letters, the fifth contained statements for his various accounts at Coutts Bank in Kensington High Street, and the sixth was from the Swiss Investment Bank on Stockerstrasse, in Zurich’s commercial quarter.

He skimmed the correspondence, showered and changed into civilian clothes, collected the Porsche – 944 Series 2 Cabriolet, Guards red – from the residents’ parking area and drove to the San Lorenzo. The luncheon party was at a table towards the rear of the restaurant: one other man and two women. The head waiter was hovering, the manager was looking pleased but anxious, and the personal bodyguard was positioned at a table nearby.

Fairfax bowed slightly.

He had known her for five years, yet even now he would address her by her first name only if she so indicated, and then only in private.

‘Hello, Roddy.’ The Princess of Wales looked up at him. ‘Family jewels still there?’ There was a laugh on the face and a tease in the eyes.

‘Last time I looked, Ma’am.’

The City of London was still quiet. It was not quite seven in the morning, the summer heat already settling between the concrete and glass fascias of the office blocks and the sky a brilliant blue. An inbound Boeing 747 passed overhead, the sun glinting on it, a white police Granada cruised slowly north along Old Broad Street and a dustcart trundled south.

Gerard Gray turned into the head offices of Barclays International, showed his ID to the security guards in the foyer and took the fast lift to his office. By 7.15 he had read the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, circling in red items he would follow up on later, by 7.40 he had speed-read the news and financial sections of the other quality dailies, including the New York Times, the European edition of the Herald Tribune and the Irish Times, as well as the city pages of the tabloids. By eight, when the next members of the department arrived, he had spoken to Tokyo and the Middle East.

Gray was in his early thirties, tall and well-dressed, with a first-class honours degree in economics from the LSE. Eighteen months previously he had been appointed Departmental Director, a promotion marking him for the fast stream. He lived in an apartment in one of the new blocks overlooking the Thames in the Wapping area of the old London Docklands, walking to and from the office each morning and evening. Despite his apparent acceptance of the life-style of a City executive he drank little; each morning before work he ran the Docklands section of the London marathon, and he played squash regularly. There was little trace of his Irish origins about him, the slightest hint of an accent creeping into his voice only when he chose, and he explained the scar which ran down his left shoulder by saying that he had been involved in a motor accident.

The morning was busy: at nine he held his first meeting with the management consultancy team brought in from Price Waterhouse to advise on information access to clients associated with the oil-producing areas, at one he met them for lunch in the executive dining suite. The only new member of the team, to whom he had been introduced that morning, was a systems analyst, Philipa Walker. He guessed she was in her late twenties or early thirties. She was tall, dark-haired, slim and attractive, and dressed to match her position: lightweight dark blue pinstriped jacket with padded shoulders and matching skirt. When she talked it was in the fluent and efficient jargon he associated with the Price Waterhouse team; when she had nothing to contribute she listened carefully.

At four, when Gray checked the pound and the FT index, the only movement – and then only a minor flutter – seemed to have been in the electronics and research sector where a company named New World Electronics had been taken over at a rock-bottom price by one of the Japanese giants which dominated the field. In the three hours since the announcement the value of its shares had quadrupled. Not that it would affect the world, Gray thought, most people probably wouldn’t notice. Somebody might have made a killing, though.

He left the City, walked quickly to his flat, changed, collected the BMW from the parking bay below the block and cleared London before the main rush hour reduced traffic on the A12 to a standstill. By 5.45 he had passed Brentwood, just before 6.15 he pulled into the yard of the farm lost in the flatlands of the Essex countryside midway between Chelmsford and Colchester.

The farmer was standing at the kitchen door; the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, he still had his boots on and his cloth cap was pushed to the back of his head. He shook Gray’s hand and led him inside.

‘Too nice an evening for London. Thought I’d get some practice in.’ Gray accepted the mug of tea which the man’s wife poured. ‘Sorry not to let you know.’

‘No problem. Danny’ll pull for you.’

Fifteen minutes later Gray and the farmer’s son walked through the farmyard to the clay pigeon shoot in the field behind the house.

‘How fast?’

‘Fast as you can.’

He waited. ‘Pull.’

The clays spun into the air.

Not bad, he thought as they walked back to the house. At least he wasn’t rusty. The drive back to London was relaxed. It would have been a good evening for a river trip down the Thames, he suddenly thought, a good evening to have invited Philipa Walker to dinner.

The following morning he was at his desk at seven; at ten he met the Price Waterhouse team. The day before Walker had been dressed like a city woman, almost severe, with her hair drawn back. Today, he noted, she wore a dress – casual though expensive – and her hair was looser, hanging round her shoulders. The agenda was tightly scheduled – Price Waterhouse, after all, was costing him a great deal of money—each of the management team leaving when his area of expertise had been covered. Perhaps it was coincidence, perhaps the way he structured the meeting, that the last item concerned computers and the last member of the team consulted was the woman called Walker. The discussion ended, he thanked her and gathered his papers together.

‘I was wondering if you’d like a drink after work.’ The invitation was either formal or informal, whichever way she chose to take it.

‘Perhaps. Could be we’ll still be working.’

Win some, lose some, Gray thought.

‘Where?’ She smiled as he held the door open for her. ‘Just in case.’

‘Gordon’s Wine Bar in Villiers Street. A hundred yards up on the right from Embankment tube station.’

‘What time?’

He shrugged. ‘Five-fifteen, five-thirty.’

When he left at five the traffic was too busy to bother with a cab. He walked to Tower Hill and caught the underground to the Embankment. Villiers Street, sloping up towards the Strand and Trafalgar Square, was hectic, newspaper stands and flower stalls along the pavement and commuters rushing into the station itself. The first building on the right was dilapidated, a sandwich bar next to it, a lamp hanging from the corner and the name above the door. He went in, then down the stairs into the cellar. It was an odd place for a drink after the sanitized cleanliness of the City bank, he had thought the first time he had come, almost as if he was descending into the bowels of a London which no longer existed. Fifteen stairs, he had counted them the second time he had come, either out of historic interest or because of his fascination with detail.

The room below was built round a central column of brick and wood, the varnish peeling off the wall panelling and the anaglypta paper above it faded and yellow, and covered with old newspaper front pages and photographs. The bar was to the left, a portrait of Winston Churchill on the right. Already it was getting busy. He bought a bottle of Pol Roger, asked for two glasses, and went to the room to the left of the bar. The area was more like a vault than a room, the walls and ceiling curved in a half-circle and the centre of the ceiling less than six feet high. The bricks were grimy, and the only illumination came from candles on the ramshackle tables. The chairs were rickety and the wax ran down the sides of the candles.

He chose one of the three tables still empty, sat facing the entrance to the first room and poured himself a glass. Ten minutes later he saw Philipa Walker looking through the crowd and the half-light.

‘Glad you could make it.’ He stood up and held the chair for her.

‘Amazing place.’ She took the glass he poured for her, then left her briefcase under the table and walked round, easing between the people and looking at the newspaper pages framed on the walls.

The Daily Mirror of Friday, 21 November 1947: ‘A Day of Smiles – The wedding of Princess Elizabeth.’

The London Evening News of Wednesday, 6 February 1952. The photograph of George VI was in the centre of the page, the headline above: ‘The King dies in his sleep at Sandringham.’

The Daily Mail of Wednesday, 3 June 1953: ‘The journey to the abbey begins.’ The main photograph was of the coronation procession beginning its journey from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey, three smaller photographs to the left. The first was of two small children looking through a window, a nanny behind them, the second was of the girl, the third of the boy. Prince Charles watching his mother.

She pushed her way back to the table and sat down. ‘This place is incredible. I never even knew it existed.’

He smiled and refilled her glass.

At 6.30 they left the bar, walked to Charing Cross pier, and caught a ferry to Greenwich, eating at a French restaurant close to the river.

Philipa Walker had a Bachelor’s degree in modern languages from the University of Sussex and a Master’s in business systems, analysis and design from City University – the information came easily as they discussed jobs and backgrounds. She had worked with a number of companies, specializing in fourth-generation computer languages before setting up her own consultancy. Her father was a retired solicitor, both her parents were still alive and living in Orpington. She had a brother, also a solicitor, who was married with two children.

At ten they left Greenwich and caught the ferry back to Charing Cross.

‘Last drink?’

She shook her head. ‘I still have some work to do.’

They climbed the steps.

‘I was wondering what you were doing this weekend.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘There’s a house party at Hamble. Dinner on Saturday evening, sail over to the Isle of Wight on Sunday.’ He supposed he knew what she was thinking. ‘No pressure, plenty of single bedrooms.’

She waved down a cab. I’ll think about it. It was in the way she turned, the way she looked back at him as she gave the cab driver her address.

Dublin was warm. Conlan crossed the Liffy and turned along Bachelors Walk. Each evening, when possible, he strolled in the city centre, took a drink in one of the pubs in the spider’s web of back streets and alleyways round Custom House and the Quays. Establish a pattern, have an identifiable and predictable routine which the Special Branch tails would come to believe was normal, so that only if he did something outside that pattern would they become suspicious. Then build into it the tiny things – the contacts and the back doors out – which they would not notice.

If, of course, the SB knew about him. Even now he was uncertain whether his role in the Movement and his membership of the Army Council were known to the authorities, but he knew he could not assume otherwise. The surveillance on him so that the authorities could pick him up when they wanted, but also to protect him if London changed the rules and sent the SAS over the border to lift him or, in the euphemism he knew they used, to ‘negotiate’ him.

The lounge of Bachelors Inn was quiet and the floor freshly washed, so that it smelt of cold. Conlan confirmed there were no tails either in front or behind, ordered a Guinness and took it to the table in the corner. The bar was almost empty, a couple sitting against the opposite wall and the priest by himself, though there was nothing about his clothing or general appearance to indicate his calling.

Conlan pulled the ashtray in front of him, took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, shook the last cigarette from the packet and lit it, dropped the empty packet in to the ashtray, then settled back and enjoyed his drink.

The meeting with Sleeper would be the last until the job was done. If the Army Council finally agreed, he was aware. If he continued to enjoy Doherty’s support. And if Quin did not succeed in screwing him.

He downed the Guinness and went to the bar. As he did so the couple stood and began to walk out, past his table. For one moment Conlan froze, thought he had been wrong, thought that neither he nor the priest had spotted the tail. Behind him, he was aware, McGinty had taken a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, and would stretch across and take the ashtray from Conlan’s table if the couple showed any interest in it. The couple thanked the barman and left.

Conlan asked for another Guinness, returned to the table and reflected on the irony that it had been Quin who had given Sleeper his name, on the historical quirk which had given Sleeper his cover. Even the smallest mistake on either of their parts, even the most inadvertent slip of the tongue on his own, and the essential cover which Sleeper enjoyed would be destroyed.

It was all part of the game. The Brits and the Provisionals playing their game against each other, himself and Quin playing their game within the Army Council, and the Brits presumably playing their own internal games even though they were supposed to be on the same side. Everyone making their own rules and everyone applying their own assumptions and prejudices to the rules they assumed the other side would be making.

Put a team into London and the Brits automatically looked for them in traditional Irish areas such as Kilburn and Camden Town. Put in an active service unit, an ASU, and the Brits automatically assumed they would be working-class, with manners and covers to match and a safe house in the East End. Put in a shooter and the Brits would automatically look for an Irish accent.

Put in a sleeper, however, English university degree, impeccable qualifications and matching accent, and the cover of an expensive apartment and a job in the City ...

He savoured the last of the drink, then thanked the barman and left.

After ten minutes the priest lit a cigarette – the last in the packet – then leaned across and took the ashtray from the table at which Conlan had been sitting. There had been no ashtray on his table – apparently by chance – and the cigarette he now smoked was the same type as the packet in the ashtray. As he drank he played with the packet; when he stood to leave the packet in the ashtray was his, and Conlan’s – with its instructions to the priest and the coded message to Sleeper, to be placed in the personal column of the Irish Times — was in his pocket.

Two mornings later Liam Conlan packed the fishing rods and gear into the estate car, taking his time in case he was under surveillance, waved goodbye to his family, and drove the four and a half hours to the cabin set fifty yards back from the shore of Lough Corrib, in the west of Ireland. He had been a fisherman since boyhood, and the trips to Kilmore were as established a part of his routine as the strolls along O’Connell Street and the drinks round Custom House or the Quays. By one o’clock he was sitting, seemingly contented, the rod in his hand, the peak of his cap pulled down and the collar of his windcheater turned up, so that his face could barely be seen. At seven he returned to the cabin; thirty minutes later the smell of cooking and the sound of singing drifted from its door and across the lough. At ten, the dusk gone and the half-moon shining, the priest who had taken his place walked to the lough, the peak of Conlan’s cap pulled down over his face, the collar of Conlan’s windcheater turned up, and his hands stuffed into the pockets of Conlan’s trousers. By the time he returned to the cabin Conlan was half-way to the location eighty miles away, the priest’s car running smoothly and his own still parked by the side of the cabin at Kilmore. In the old days, he supposed, it would have been a fishing boat, snuggled against a quay, the lights dimmed and the men hurrying in the dark. Tomorrow morning it would be a private airstrip and a Cessna 208A, Pratt and Whitney single turboprop engine and 1100-mile range.

Gerard Gray woke at five, ran his circuit of Docklands, showered, had a light breakfast, and was at work by seven as usual. The first newspaper he read was the FT and the fourth was the Irish Times. At 9.30 he rang the internal extension used by the Price Waterhouse team and asked for Philipa Walker.

‘I’m sorry. Something’s come up and I can’t make the weekend party we talked about.’

‘It’s all right, I couldn’t have come anyway.’

‘Another time, perhaps.’

‘Perhaps.’

The following morning – Saturday – Gray slept late, rising at seven, and running two Docklands circuits. By nine he was back at the flat. The day was hot and the sky a brilliant blue. He showered, skimmed the newspapers, including the personal columns, and left the flat.

Roddy Fairfax left Onslow Square at nine, taking the M4 west towards Bristol, the route already busy with holiday traffic. At junction 17 he left the motorway at the Cirencester exit, bypassed Malmesbury, then swung on to the Tetbury road. At 11.30 precisely he stopped the 944 at the gates which marked the beginning of the driveway to Highgrove. A police Land-Rover and two men, neither apparently armed though he assumed both were, were at the gates.

‘Yes, sir.’ The policeman bent over the car, the second standing back.

‘Fairfax, I’m expected.’ He showed his army ID card and knew they had already checked the registration number of the Porsche.

‘Thank you, sir.’ The policeman stood back and waved him through.

The driveway was short, curving right to the house, a number of other cars already parked. He just had time to pull the bag from the boot when his host appeared, the two boys beside him.