Bandit Country

PETER CORRIGAN

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by 22 Books/Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1995

Copyright © Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1995

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover photograph © Stephen Mulcahey / Arcangel Images

Peter Corrigan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

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.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008155391

Ebook Edition © December 2015 ISBN: 9780008155407

Version: 2015-11-04

This book is respectfully dedicated to the officers and men of C Company, 4th/5th Battalion the Royal Irish Rangers

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

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

OTHER TITLES IN THE SAS OPERATION SERIES

About the Publisher

Prologue

South Armagh, 3 July 1989

The foot patrol moved quietly down the starlit street. There were four of them, forming a ‘brick’. They made up a single fire team. The point man kept his SA-80 assault rifle in the crook of his shoulder, eyes glinting in his darkly camouflaged face as he scanned surrounding windows, doors and alleyways.

Behind the point came the fire team’s commander, a corporal. Hung on the left side of his chest was a PRC 349 radio. It had a range of only a few kilometres, but the patrol was not far from home. The corporal had the 349 set on whisper mode. Its twin microphones were strapped to his throat and he edged a finger in between them, silently cursing the way they irritated his skin.

Behind the corporal came the gunner, armed with a Light Support Weapon. Similar to an SA-80, it had a longer barrel and a bipod to steady it.

The rear man was walking backwards, checking the street the patrol had just walked through. The men were in staggered file, two on each side of the road, covering each other as they made their way back to the safety of the Security Forces Base. It was pitch-dark, and they avoided the few street-lights that still worked in that part of the village. All of them had the needle in the sights of their weapons turned on so that it was a luminous line, helping them to pick out targets at night.

They were near the centre of the village now. The locals had whitewashed all the walls so that a patrolling soldier would stand out more clearly against them. That was the worst part.

A dog barked, and they all paused to listen, hunkering down in doorways. Nothing worse than a restless fucking dog; it told the locals they had visitors.

The barking stopped. The corporal waved a hand and they were on their way again.

The centre of Crossmaglen had a small, open square. Crossing it was the most dangerous part of any patrol. It had to be done quickly as the whitewashed house walls offered no concealment. As the brick paused on the edge of the square the point man looked back at his commander. The corporal nodded and took up a firing position, as did the other two men.

The point man set off across the square at a sprint. He was halfway across when there was a sharp crack, startlingly loud in the still night air. The point man seemed to be knocked backwards. He fell heavily on to his back and then lay still.

For a second the rest of the fire team was frozen, disbelieving. Then the corporal began shouting.

‘Sniper! Anyone see the flash?’

‘Not a fucking thing, Corp.’

‘Ian’s out there – we’ve got to go and get him! Gunner, set up the LSW for suppressive fire. Mike, we’re going to run out there and bring him in, OK?’

When the gunner was on the ground, with the LSW’s stock in his shoulder, the other two soldiers dashed out into the open.

Immediately there was the sound of automatic fire. Tarmac was blown around their legs as the bullets thumped down around them. The point man lay in a pool of shining liquid. His chest looked as though someone had broken it open to have a look inside. Behind them, the LSW gunner opened up on automatic. Suddenly the little square was deafening with the sound of gunfire. Red streaks sped through the air and ricocheted off walls: the tracer in the LSW magazine. A series of flashes came from an alleyway opening off the square, and there was the unmistakable bark of an AK47, somehow lighter than the single shot that had felled the point man.

‘Come on, Mike. Grab his legs.’

‘He’s dead, Corp!’

‘Grab his fucking legs, like I tell you!’

They staggered back across the square with their comrade’s body slung between them like a sack. The firing had stopped. All around, lights were flicking on at windows. There was the sound of doors banging.

‘Get a fucking field-dressing on him, Mike. Gunner, did you see where that bastard is?’

‘Saw the muzzle flash, Corp. But I think he’s bugged out now. The locals will be all over us in a minute though.’

The corporal swore viciously, then thumbed the pressel-switch of the 349.

‘Hello, Zero, this is Oscar One One Charlie. Contact, over.’

The far-away voice crackled back over the single earphone.

‘Zero, send over.’

‘One One Charlie, contact 0230, corner of…’ – the corporal looked round wildly – ‘corner of Hogan’s Avenue and Cross square. One own casualty, at least two enemy with automatic weapons. I think they’ve bugged out. Request QRF and medic for casevac, over.’

‘Roger, One One Charlie. QRF on its way, over.’

‘Roger out.’

The corporal bent over his injured point man. ‘How is he, Mike?’

The other soldier was ripping up field-dressings furiously and stuffing them into the huge chest wound.

‘Fucking bullet went right through his trauma plate, Corp – right fucking through and went out the other side. What the hell kind of weapon was that?’

The soldiers all wore flak-jackets, and covering their hearts front and rear were two-inch-thick ‘trauma plates’ of solid Kevlar. These stopped most normal bullets, even those fired by a 7.62mm Kalashnikov AK47.

‘It’s that bastard sniper. He got us again.’ The corporal was livid with fury. ‘The bastard did it again,’ he repeated.

There was a loud banging in the night, the metallic clatter of dustbin lids being smashed repeatedly on the ground. Crossmaglen’s square was filling up with people.

The sound of engines roaring up other streets. A siren blaring. The flicker of blue lights. A Quick Reaction Force was on its way.

‘He’s gone, Corp. Poor bugger never had a chance.’

Armoured Landrovers, both green and slate-grey, powered into the square, scattering the approaching mob. The locals were shouting and cheering now – they had seen the little knot of men on the corner, the body on the ground. They knew what had happened.

‘Nine-nil, nine-nil, nine-nil,’ they chanted, laughing. Even when baton-wielding soldiers and RUC men poured out of the Landrovers to force them back, they continued jeering.

‘Nineteen years old,’ the corporal said. ‘His first tour. Jesus Christ.’

He closed the blood-filled eyes of the boy on the ground.

The Border Fox had struck again.

1

HQNI Lisburn, 6 July 1989

‘What do you have that I can use?’ Lieutenant Colonel Blair asked, sipping his coffee.

Brigadier General Whelan, Commander of Land Forces in Northern Ireland, looked at his subordinate warily.

‘I can give you an additional Special Support Unit from 39 Brigade’s patch,’ he replied.

‘RUC cowboys? But sir, I’ve lost four men in four months, all to the same sniper. Morale is rock-bottom, and the local players know it. I’ve already had three complaints this week alone. The boys are taking it out on the population.’

Whelan held up a hand and said: ‘This is a bad time of year, Martin. The marching season is almost upon us. We’re overstretched, and Whitehall won’t hear of us bringing in another battalion.’

‘It’s not another battalion we need. I was thinking of something more compact.’

‘The Intelligence and Security Group?’

‘Yes. To be frank, sir, we’re getting nowhere. Our own Covert Observation Platoon has drawn a series of blanks. I don’t have the resources within my own patch to tackle this problem. We need outside help – and I’m talking help from our own people, not the RUC.’

‘Hasn’t E4 come up with anything?’

‘Special Branch guards its sources like an old maid her virginity. They’re terrified of compromising the few touts they have. No – we need a new approach. This South Armagh Brigade is the tighest-knit we’ve ever encountered. It’s better even than the Mid-Tyrone one was a few years back. The Provos seem to have taken the lessons of Loughgall to heart. They’re very slick, and they’ve recovered amazingly quickly. This Border Fox now has up to three ASUs operating in close support. We need to take out not only him, but at least one of those back-up units.’

‘Take out? You rule out more conventional methods of arrest, then?’

‘I believe it would be too risky. No, this bastard is fighting his own little war down near the border. The South Armagh lot need to have the carpet pulled out from under them.’

‘And your men need a kill.’

Lieutenant Colonel Blair, commanding officer of 1st Battalion the Royal Green jackets, paused.

‘Yes, they do.’ He would not have been so open with any other senior officer, but Whelan was a member of the ‘Black Mafia’ himself – an ex-Greenjacket who had done his stint as CO of a battalion in South Armagh.

‘This is irregular, Martin – you know that. You’re asking me to initiate an operation in a vacuum. Usually it is the Tasking and Coordinating Group that comes to me…’

‘More Special Branch,’ said Blair with a wave of his hand. ‘This is not an RUC problem. It is the Green Army that is taking the casualties, my men that are out there in the bogs day after day and night after night, while the RUC conduct vehicle checkpoints and collar drink-drivers.’

Whelan was silent. It was true that the uniformed ‘Green Army’ had been paying a heavy price lately for the patrolling of the border, or ‘Bandit Country’ as the men on the ground called it. And the Border Fox had made headlines both in the UK and America. He was a hero to the Nationalist population and their sympathizers across the Atlantic. Nine members of the Security Forces had been killed by him in the last eighteen months, the last only a few days ago. All of them had been killed by a single bullet from a high-calibre sniper rifle that had punched through the men’s body armour as though it were cardboard. The capture of that weapon, more importantly, the termination of the Fox’s activities, were obviously desirable.

But Whelan did not like authorizing what were in effect assassinations. He had no moral qualms about the issue – the Fox had to be stopped, and killing him was an effective way of doing that. But he hated giving the Republican Movement yet another martyr. Political consideration had to be taken into account also. If he authorized an op against the Fox he would have to inform the Secretary of State – in guarded terms of course – of what was about to happen.

More importantly, there was the feasibility of the operation. Intelligence in 3 Brigade’s Tactical Area of Responsibility was poor. The IRA brigade in South Armagh seemed very tightly knit and so far all attempts to cultivate informers had failed. It was impossible to proceed without good intelligence, and seemingly impossible to obtain that intelligence. Hence the Security Forces were powerless, for all their helicopters and weapons. And so the Fox continued his killing unhindered, which was why he had Martin Blair in his office, seething with baffled anger.

‘Damn it, Martin, don’t you think I see your point? But how can we proceed with anything when we have nothing to go on? Special Branch has drawn a blank, and your own covert op has turned up nothing.’

‘Then we must create our own intelligence’, Blair said doggedly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Give me the Int and Sy Group. Let them loose in my patch. They may turn up something.’

‘That’s a hell of a vague notion.’

‘They’re doing bugger-all at the moment except interminable weapons training. I got that from James Cordwain himself. The rest of the Province is as quiet as the grave.’

Whelan winced at his subordinate’s choice of words. Major Cordwain was OC of the combined Intelligence and Security Group and 14 Intelligence Company. ‘Int and Sy’, or more often just ‘The Group’, was another name for Ulster Troop, the only members of the SAS who were based permanently in the Province. Fourteen Intelligence Company was another pseudonym for a crack surveillance unit drawn from all units in the army and trained by the SAS themselves.

‘Int and Sy’s job description does not include charging in like the bloody cavalry, guns blazing.’

Colonel Blair smiled. ‘Tell James Cordwain that.’

‘Indeed.’ Cordwain had taken over the Group less than a year ago. He and his young second in command, Lieutenant Charles Boyd, were a pair of fire-eaters. Cordwain had been with 22 SAS in the Falklands and was an expert in covert surveillance and the tricky business of so-called ‘Reactive Observation Posts’ – known to the rest of the army as Ambushes.

‘You’ve spoken to Cordwain about this, then?’ Whelan asked sharply. He did not like officers, even fellow Greenjackets, who flouted the chain of command.

Blair stiffened. ‘Yes, sir, I did – informally of course.’

‘And what was his reaction?’

‘He thought he might have a way in.’

‘What is it?’

‘An operative of ours, based in Belfast at the moment. He used to be part of Int and Sy but MI5 have become his handlers. Been here for over a year, and has a perfect cover.’

‘His name?’

‘Cordwain wouldn’t say. But he thinks it would be possible to relocate him, weasel him into the South Armagh lot.’

‘He must be an exceptional man.’

‘Actually, Cordwain says he’s one of the best he’s ever seen. Parents were from Ballymena, so he has the perfect accent for starters. They were in the South Atlantic together.’

Whelan got up, crossed the office to the sideboard and the decanter that stood there. He poured out two whiskies into Waterford-crystal tumblers and offered one to Blair.

‘Bushmills – the Irish. Bloody good stuff.’

They drank. Whelan looked out of his office window, past the ranks of Landrovers and Saxon armoured personnel carriers, over to where the perimeter wall rose high with netting and razor-wire; it was supposed to intercept RPG 7 missiles or Mark 12 mortars, the Provos’ current flavour of the month.

‘We are skating on thin ice here, Martin,’ Whelan said.

‘Yes, sir, I know. But my men are dying.’

‘Yes. But MI5, they’re tighter with their operatives than E4 is with its information. They may not want to let us play with this man.’

‘Cordwain thinks it may be possible to bypass MI5, sir.’

Whelan spun round. ‘Does he now? And how would we do that?’

‘This man, he has a personal reason for wanting to see the Border Fox brought in. One of my young subalterns was a relative of his.’

‘Ah yes, I remember. That was tragic, Martin, tragic. So it’s revenge this man wants. That may not make him totally reliable.’

‘Cordwain seems to think he is, sir, and Boyd, his 2IC, is willing to provide back-up.’

Whelan set down his glass and leaned over the desk until his face was close to Blair’s.

‘You seem to have thought this out with unusual thoroughness, Colonel.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I am not used to being given fully-fledged covert operational plans by my battalion commanders. Is that clear, Colonel?’

‘Perfectly, sir.’

Whelan straightened.

‘It may be we will be able to keep this under an army hat. I would certainly prefer it that way – and you say that Special Branch can give us nothing. But we must be even more discreet than usual – and I am not talking about the Paddies, Colonel. I will speak to Cordwain. I will give him the necessary authorization…’ As Blair brightened, Whelan frowned thunderously and cut him off.

‘But mark me, Martin, this conversation never took place. This man of Cordwain’s will be disowned by every security agency in the Province if he so much as sniffs of controversy. And Cordwain’s back-up will be on their own also. If the press – or God help us the Minister – ever find out about this we’ll be crucified.’

‘I understand, sir.’

‘Be sure that you do, Martin.’ The General tossed off the last of his Bushmills with practised ease. Now you’ll have to go, I’m afraid. I have a bloody cocktail party to go to. I have to rub noses with the Unionists and win some hearts and minds.’

2

Belfast

The Crown Bar, opposite the much-bombed Europa Hotel, was quiet. It was two o’clock on a weekday afternoon and there seemed to be only a handful of men in there, seated in the walled-off snugs and nursing Guinness or whiskey, leafing through the Belfast Telegraph.

One of those men was Captain John Early of the SAS. He was a squat, powerful figure of medium height who appeared shorter because of the breadth of his shoulders. He could have – and frequently did – pass for a brickie on his lunch hour or whiling away the days of unemployment. His hands were blunt and calloused, the arms powerfully muscled. His face was square, the close-cropped hair sprinkled with premature grey at the temples and a badly broken nose making him look slightly thuggish. But the blue eyes were intelligent, belying the brutality of the face. Despite the haircut, he did not look like a soldier, certainly not a holder of the Queen’s Commission. And when he quietly asked the barman for another pint his accent bore the stamp of north-east Ulster.

There was no trace left of the clean-cut young officer who had joined the Queen’s Regiment back in 1977, or even of the breezy subaltern who had agonized through SAS selection eight years previously. Turnover of officers among the SAS was much swifter than that of troopers; they rarely served more than five or six years with a Sabre Squadron. Early had come over with Ulster Troop in 1984 and gone undercover two years later. He was an ‘independent’, operating now under the aegis of MI5, but he never forgot where he had come from. If he died here, his name would be inscribed on the Clock Tower in Hereford, where all the dead of the SAS left their names.

Early sipped his whiskey patiently. He was waiting for a friend.

James Cordwain came through the door. Early recognized him instantly, though he hadn’t seen him in years. The hair was longer of course – all the SAS seemed to believe that long hair was obligatory when serving in Northern Ireland. But he still had the aristocratic bearing, the finely chiselled jaw and flashing eyes. He looked every inch an officer. Early sighed, ordered another drink and took it into a snug.

It was ten minutes before Cordwain joined him, smiling.

‘You’re not an easy man to get hold of, John.’

‘The name is Dominic, Dominic McAteer,’ Early told him sharply. Cordwain winced.

‘Why did we have to meet anyway? A phone call could have done it.’

Cordwain shook his head, regaining his self-assurance quickly. ‘I had to talk to you in person.’

‘Talk then.’

Cordwain looked at him, slightly offended. They had been good friends once, in the Falklands. Early seemed aged, irritable beyond his years. It was undercover work that did it, Cordwain decided.

‘I have a Q car down the street. We can talk in there,’ he said. A Q car was the army’s name for an unmarked vehicle.

‘Are you mad? Every dicker in the city knows a Q car when he sees one. We’re safe enough here. I know the barman. He thinks I’m just another unemployed navvy and you’re in here about a job.’

‘Which, in a way, I am.’

‘So tell me about it.’

Cordwain tried hard not to look smug. ‘It’s on.’

‘When?’

‘As soon as you can relocate. We have an opening down in Cross. Construction.’

‘Not on a fucking army base, I trust.’

Cordwain grinned. ‘Not likely. No, a local firm, Lavery’s, has been given a contract – new bungalows.’

Early’s eyes narrowed. ‘It’s a front, is it?’

‘Yes and no. The contract is real enough, but our people are the ones behind it, buried three layers deep. Get yourself settled in, and then we’ll start working on a channel of communication.’

‘I take it Special Branch came up with fuck-all.’

‘They don’t even know you exist.’

Early nodded. He liked it that way.

‘What about our friends the spooks?’ he said, referring to his handlers in the Intelligence Service.

‘You’re on leave, seeing a sick auntie. They think you’re back across the water. They’ll be mightily pissed off when the truth comes out though.’

‘Fuck them. This is my last caper, James. After this I’m getting out.’

‘I’m sorry about Jeff. I take it he’s the reason behind all this.’

Jeffrey Early had hero-worshipped John and gone into the army as soon as he could, following in his revered older brother’s footsteps. But the Border Fox had killed Jeff three months ago. One bullet, taking off most of his head. Early had not even been able to go to the funeral.

‘I want this bastard, James. I really want him.’

Cordwain nodded. ‘Don’t let hatred cloud your thinking, John. Remember, your job will be identification. I provide the Button Men.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Charles Boyd for one. You don’t know him, but he’s a good man.’

‘I don’t want him tripping over my shadow, James. This South Armagh lot are the most formidable we’ve ever encountered. They sniff the colour green and I’m dead. Tell your man to keep his distance.’

Cordwain was not happy. ‘They have to provide effective back-up.’

‘So long as they don’t compromise me.’

‘They won’t. I’ll have a word. Boyd will want to meet you as soon as is practicable.’

‘Why, for fuck’s sake?’

‘To get a feel of the thing. He wants you to draw him a few pictures.’

‘Are you saying he’s still wet behind the ears?’

Cordwain grinned. ‘A little. He’s out in west Tyrone at the minute, but that op should finish within a day at most.’

‘Terrific.’ Early finished his drink and stood up, glancing quickly over the wooden partition of the snug. The bar was still more or less deserted.

‘I’ll be in touch.’

Then he left, exchanging a farewell with the barman as he went. Cordwain lingered a while to leave a gap between them. This had to be the most hare-brained operation he had ever begun. But the men Upstairs had given the go-ahead, and besides, he did not like doing nothing while British soldiers were slaughtered with impunity. Talking once to an officer in the ‘Green Army’, he had been struck by a phase the man had used. ‘We’re just figure 11s, out standing on the streets,’ the officer had said. A ‘figure 11’ was the standard target used on firing ranges. Cordwain did not like the image. It was time the terrorists took a turn at ducking bullets.

Lieutenant Charles Boyd shifted position minutely to try to get some blood circulating in his cramped and chilled legs. The rain had been pouring down for hours now, reducing visibility and soaking him to the marrow. There were streams of freezing water trickling down the neck of his combat smock and between his buttocks. He was lying in a rapidly deepening puddle with the stock of an Armalite M16 assault rifle close to his cheek. His belt-order dug into his slim waist and his elbows were sinking deeper into peat-black mud.

‘July in Tyrone,’ his companion whispered. ‘Jesus fucking Christ. Why didn’t I become a grocer?’

‘Shut it, Haymaker.’

‘Yes, boss,’ the other man mumbled. The hissing downpour of the rain reduced the chances of their being heard but there was no point in taking risks.

It was getting on towards evening; the second evening they had spent in the observation post. They were screened by a tangle of alder and willow; behind them a stream gurgled, swollen by the rain. Their camouflaged bergens rested between their ankles.

They had not moved in thirty-six hours. Boyd began to wonder if the SB had been wrong. He had been tasked to provide a Reactive Observation Post to monitor an arms cache which was to have been visited last night, but no one had shown. The cache was at the base of a tree eighty metres away – they could see it plainly even with the rain. The local ASU, an IRA Active Service Unit of four men, was planning a ‘spectacular’ for the forthcoming Twelfth of July marches. Boyd and his team were to forestall them, and had been discreetly given the go-ahead to use all necessary means to achieve that aim. To Boyd that meant only one thing: any terrorist who approached this cache was going to die. It would give the Unionists something to crow about on their holiday and sweeten relations between them and the Northern Ireland Office. Boyd didn’t give a shit about either, but he wanted to nail this ASU. They had been a thorn in 8 Brigade’s flesh for some months now, though they were not as slick as their colleagues in Armagh.

Lying beside Boyd was Corporal Kevin ‘Haymaker’ Lewis, so called because of his awesome punch. It was rumoured he had killed an Argie in the Falklands with one blow of his fist. Haymaker was an amiable man, though built like a gorilla. He had the tremendous patience and stamina of the typical SAS trooper, but he loved grousing.

Hidden some distance to the rear of the pair were Taff Gilmore and Raymond Chandler. All troopers seemed to have some nickname or other. Taff was so called not because he was Welsh but because he had a fine baritone voice which he exercised at every opportunity. And Raymond – well, what else could the lads call someone with the surname Chandler? Some of them, though, called him ‘The Big Sleep’ because of his love of his sleeping bag.

It was unusual for an officer to accompany an op such as this. SAS officers had on the whole stopped accompanying the other ranks into the field since the death of Captain Richard Westmacott in 1980, gunned down by an M60 machine-gun in Belfast’s Antrim Road. But Boyd loved working in the field – not for him the drudgery of the ops room in some security base. He knew that the men called him ‘our young Rupert’ behind his back, but he also knew that they respected him for his decision.

God, the bloody rain, the bloody mud, the bloody Provos. The players, as the Army termed the key terrorist figures, were probably warm and safe in their houses. Not for them the misery of this long wait in the rain, the pissing and shitting into plastic bags, the cold tinned food.

Boyd felt Haymaker tense beside him. His mind had been wandering. The big trooper looked his officer in the eye, then nodded out at the waterlogged meadow with its straggling hedgerows. There was movement out there in the rain, a dark flickering of shadow close to the hedge. Immediately Boyd’s boredom and weariness disappeared. The evening was darkening but it was still too light to use Night Vision Goggles, which made the darkest night into daylight. He squinted, his fist tightening round the pistol-grip of the M16. One thumb gently levered off the safety-catch. The weapon had been cocked long ago, the magazine emptied and cleaned twice in the past thirty-six hours. The M16 was a good weapon for a nice heavy rate of fire, but it was notoriously prone to jamming when dirty.

Boyd’s boot tapped Haymaker on the ankle. He gave the thumbs down, indicating that the enemy was in sight. Haymaker grinned, rain dripping off his massive, camouflaged face, and sighed down the barrel of his own Armalite. Boyd could hear his own heartbeat thumping in his ears.

Two men were walking warily up the line of the hedge. This had to be it – who else would be tramping the fields on such a shitty evening? Boyd forced himself to remember the mugshots of the key Tyrone players. Would it be Docherty? Or McElwaine?

The men had stopped. Boyd cursed silently. Had they been compromised? Besides him, Haymaker was like a great, wet statue. The pair of them hardly dared breathe.

They were moving again, thank Christ. Boyd could see them clearly now, buttoned up in parkas, their trousers soaked by the wet grass. McElwaine and the youngster, Conlan.

The two IRA men stopped at the tree which marked the cache, looked around again, and then bent to the ground and began rummaging in the grass. One of them produced a handgun with a wet glint of metal. They were pulling up turves, their fingers slipping on the wet earth.

Should he initiate the ambush now? No. Boyd wanted a ‘clean’ kill – he wanted both terrorists to have weapons in their hands when he opened up. That way there would be no awkward questions asked afterwards. The ‘yellow card’, the little document all soldiers in the Province carried, specified that it was only permitted to open fire without warning if the terrorist was in a position to endanger life, either the firer’s or someone else’s.

They were hauling things out of the hole now: bin-liner-wrapped shapes.

‘I’ll take McElwaine,’ Boyd whispered to Haymaker. He felt a slight tap from the trooper’s boot in agreement.

There. It looked like a Heckler & Koch G3: a good weapon. McElwaine was cradling the rifle like a new toy, discarding the bin-liner it had been wrapped in.

Boyd tightened his fist, and the M16 exploded into life. A hot cartridge-case struck his left cheek as Haymaker opened up also, but he hardly felt it. They were both firing bursts of automatic, the heavy, sickly smell of cordite hanging in the air about their heads.

McElwaine was thrown backwards, the G3 flying from his hands. Boyd saw the parka being shredded, dark pieces of flesh and bone spraying out from the massive exit wounds. Then McElwaine was on the ground, moving feebly. Boyd heard the ‘dead man’s click’ from his weapon and changed magazines swiftly, then opened up again. McElwaine’s body jumped and jerked as the 5.56mm rounds tore in and out of it.

He was aware that Conlan was down too. Haymaker changed mags also, then continued to fire. When they had emptied two mags each Boyd called a halt. They replenished their weapons and then lay breathing fast, their ears ringing and the adrenalin pumping through their veins like high-octane fuel. Haymaker was struggling not to laugh.

Boyd pressed the ‘squash’ button on the Landmaster radio to tell Taff and Raymond the mission had been a success. Then he and Haymaker lay motionless, rifles still in the shoulder, looking out on the meadow with its two shattered corpses.

Ten minutes they lay there, not moving – just watching. Then Boyd nudged Haymaker and the big man took off towards the bodies. Boyd pressed the squash button again, twice. Taff and Raymond would close in now.

Haymaker examined both bodies, then waved. Boyd grinned, then thumbed the switch on the radio once more.

‘Zero, this is Mike One Alpha, message, over.’

‘Mike One Alpha, send over.’

‘Mike One Alpha, Ampleforth, over.’

‘Zero, roger out.’

Boyd had given the code for a successful operation. In a few minutes a helicopter would arrive to spirit the SAS team away. The Green Army and the police would arrive to wrap up the more mundane details. Boyd ran over to Haymaker. The big trooper was kneeling by the bodies. It was hard to see the expression on his camouflaged face in the gathering twilight.

‘Fucking weapons weren’t loaded, boss. The magazines are still in the hole.’

Boyd shrugged, slipping on a pair of black Northern Ireland-issue gloves.

‘That’s not a problem.’

He reached into the hole and fetched the loaded magazines that the IRA men had not had time to fix to their weapons. Then he carefully loaded the G3 and an Armalite that was still in the cache, and placed them beside the two bodies.

‘That’s more fucking like it. No one will whinge about civil liberties now.’

The two men laughed. The adrenalin was still making them feel a little drunk. They turned at a noise and found Taff and Raymond approaching, grins all over their filthy faces.

‘Scratch two more of the bad guys, eh boss?’ Taff said.

‘Damn straight.’ Boyd lifted his head. He could hear the thump of the chopper off in the rain-filled sky. They had timed it nicely – there was just enough light for a pick-up.

‘Right, let’s clean up this place. I don’t want any kit left lying around for the RUC to sniff over.’ He paused. ‘Well done, lads. This was a good one.’

‘Bit of a payback for those poor bastards in Armagh,’ Haymaker said. He nudged one of the broken bodies with his foot.

‘You’re playing with the big boys now, Paddy.’

3

Armagh

It was good to be out of the city, Early thought. Belfast was a depressing hole at times, as claustrophobic and as deadly as some Stone Age village in a jungle. There were all the little invisible boundaries. One street was safe, the one next to it was not. This was Loyalist, that was Republican. This was a safe pub, that was a death-trap. So much depended on names and nuances, even the way the people spoke, the things they said, the football teams they supported, the sports they played.

Not that Armagh was any different. He must remember that. But it was good to see green fields, cows grazing, tractors meandering along the quiet roads. Hard to believe these places were battlefields in a vicious little war.

He took the bus from Armagh city, through Keady and Newtownhamilton, down to Crossmaglen – ‘Cross’ to soldiers and locals alike. Early preferred travelling by bus. It was less risky than using a car, and fitted in with his identity as an unemployed bricklayer.

The bus was stopped at vehicle checkpoints three times in its journey south, and soldiers who seemed both tense and bored got on to walk up and down the aisle, looking at faces and luggage, and occasionally asking for ID. At two of the VCPs Early was asked his name, destination and the purpose of his journey. It amused and relieved him that the soldiers seemed to find him a suspicious-looking character. The other passengers stared stonily ahead when the bus was checked, but when the soldiers had left one or two of them smiled at him, commiserating. Early shrugged back at them, smiling in return. His false ID, his accent and his motives for travelling to Crossmaglen were impeccable. He was Dominic McAteer, a bricklayer looking for work with Lavery’s Construction in the town.

Lavery’s offices were in a small estate called Rathkeelan, to the north-west of Crossmaglen. Early got off the bus and stood looking around, hands in pockets, his duffle bag on his back. He bore no ID, but strapped to the inside of his right ankle was a compact Walther 9mm semiautomatic; not as effective as the Browning High Powers the SAS usually carried, but far more easily concealed. It could fit in his underpants if it had to.

Early passed beautifully painted murals on the whitewashed walls of the houses, the silhouettes of Balaclava-clad men bearing Armalites, and on one wall the recently repainted tally ‘Provos 9 Brits 0’ and below it the slogan ‘One Shot, One Kill’.

His jaw tightened with anger for a second. His brother was one of those included in that score.

Then he recollected himself, and headed for the door of the nearest bar, whistling ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’.

It was dark inside, as all Irish pubs were. He dumped his duffle bag with a sigh and rubbed the back of his thick neck. A cluster of men sitting and standing with pints in their hands paused in their conversation to look at him. He smiled and nodded. The barman approached, a large, florid man wiping a glass.

‘What can I get you?’

‘Ach, give us a Guinness and a wee Bush.’

The barman nodded. The conversations resumed. Good Evening Ulster had just started on the dusty TV that perched on a shelf near the ceiling. Early pretended to watch it, while discreetly clocking the faces of the other customers. No players present. He was glad.

The Guinness was good, as it always was nearer the border. Early drank it gratefully, and raised his glass to the barman.

‘That’s as good as the stuff in O’Connell Street.’

The barman smiled. ‘It’s all in the way it’s kept.’

‘Aye, but there’s some pubs that don’t know Guinness from dishwater. It’s the head – should be thick as cream.’

‘It’s the pouring too,’ the barman said.

‘Aye. Ever get a pint across the water? They throw it out in five seconds flat and the head’s full of bloody bubbles.’

The barman looked at him and then asked casually: ‘You’ve been across the water, then?’

‘Aye. But there’s no work there now. I hear Lavery’s has a job out here in Cross and needs some labourers. I’m a brickie meself, and sure there’s bugger-all up in Belfast.’

‘Ach, sure the city is gone to the dogs these days.’

‘You’re right.’ Early raised his glass of Bushmills. ‘Slainte,’ he said. He thought the barman relaxed a little.

‘So you’re down here for the work? This isn’t your part of the world, then.’ Early thought the other customers pricked up their ears at the barman’s question. He was being cased. He doubted if any of these men were Provisionals, but they no doubt knew people who were, and in a small village like Crossmaglen, every outsider was both a novelty and a subject for scrutiny.

‘Aye, I’m from Ballymena meself, up in Antrim.’

‘Paisley’s country.’

Early laughed. ‘That big cunt. Oh aye, he’s my MP. How’s that for a joke?’ Again, the slight relaxation of tension.

‘If you’re looking for work, you’ve come to the right place,’ the barman said. ‘The army never stops building in this neck of the woods. Their bases are as big as the town is. They’re crying out for builders.’

Early scowled. ‘I wouldn’t fucking work for them if they paid me in sovereigns. No offence.’

The barman grinned.

‘Would there be a B & B in the town? I need a place to stay – if these Lavery people take me on.’

The barman seemed to have relaxed completely, and was all bonhomie now. ‘This is your lucky day. I’ve a couple of rooms upstairs I rent out in the summer.’

‘Ah, right. What’s the damage?’

‘Fiver a night.’

Early thought, frowning. He had to appear short of cash. ‘That’s handy, living above a pub. Wee bit pricey though. How about knocking it down a bit, since I’d be here for a while, like. It’s not like I’m some tourist, here today and gone tomorrow.’

‘You get this job, and then we’ll talk about it.’

‘That’ll do. I’m Dominic by the way.’

‘McGlinchy?’

Early laughed. Dominic McGlinchy was the most wanted man in Ireland.

‘McAteer.’

‘Brendan Lavery,’ the barman said, extending his hand. ‘It’s my brother you’ll be working for.’

Early, blessing his luck, had been about to walk out to Rathkeelan to see about the job, but Brendan wouldn’t hear of it. His brother, Eoin, would be in that night, he said. There was no problem about the job. Dominic could look the room over and have a bite to eat. Maggie, their younger sister, would be home from work in a minute, and she’d throw something together for them.

The room was small and simple but well kept, with a narrow bed, wardrobe, chair, dresser and little table. Through the single window Early could see the narrow back alleyways and tiny gardens at the rear of the street, and rising above the roofs of the farther buildings, the watch-towers of the security base with their anti-missile netting and cameras and infrared lights. He shook his head. It was hard to believe sometimes.

The door to the room had no lock, which was not surprising in this part of the world. Ulster had little crime worth speaking of that was not connected to terrorism, and this was, after all, Lavery’s home he was staying in, not a hotel.

At the end of the long landing was the bathroom. Early ran his eyes over as much of the upstairs as he could, noting possible approach routes and escape routes. It had become second nature to him to view each place he stayed in as both a fortress and a trap. Satisfied, he went back downstairs.

The pub was filling up. Brendan Lavery was deep in conversation with a group of men at one end of the bar. Early immediately clocked two of them: Dermot McLaughlin and Eugene Finn, both players, and almost certainly members of the Provisional IRA’s South Armagh brigade. Finn was an important figure. He had been a ‘blanket man’ in the Maze in the late seventies, before the Republican hunger strike that had resulted in eleven prisoners starving themselves to death. The Intelligence Corps believed that Finn might be the South Armagh Brigade Commander. McLaughlin was almost certainly the Brigade Quartermaster, in charge of weapons and explosives.

There was a woman at the bar: quite striking, dark-haired and green-eyed – a real Irish colleen. She seemed to be selling newspapers. When she saw Early she immediately approached him.

‘An Phoblacht?’

‘Eh? Oh aye, sure.’ He bought an edition of the IRA newspaper and she smiled warmly.

‘Brendan says you’ll be staying with us for a while.’

‘Aye, looks that way, as long as the work appears.’

‘It will. I’ll have the dinner ready in an hour. Why don’t you have a chat with the boys?’

‘You’re Maggie, right?’

‘That’s right. And you’re Dominic, from Ballymena. We don’t get many Antrim men down here.’

‘Maybe it’s the climate.’

‘Or the Brits.’ She laughed teasingly. She was disturbingly attractive, Early thought. He did not like that. He did not want any distractions.

‘You know, I haven’t bought this for ten years,’ he said lightly, holding up the paper. ‘I’ve been across the water, building and digging all the way from London to Glasgow.’

‘Ach, I thought maybe there was something in your accent.’

Early’s blood ran cold, but he smiled at her and said: ‘You pick these things up. Now I’m home I’ll get rid of it. It’s nice not to have some bastard calling you “Paddy” all the time. If there’s one thing gets up my nose, it’s that. Bloody English never stop to think we’ve names of our own.’

‘You’re right there – sure, they haven’t a clue. It’s a roast for tea, and spuds and cauliflower. That suit you?’

‘Depends on how it’s cooked.’

She laughed. ‘Ach, don’t you worry about that, Dominic. I’ll keep the flesh on you.’ Then she left, exiting via the door behind the bar.

Early wondered if he had been wise with his remarks about England. He didn’t want to lay it on too thick.

He leaned on the bar.

‘How about a pint there, Brendan? And sure, have one yourself. I have to keep me landlord sweet,’ he called.

The barman laughed but Finn and McLaughlin did not. They were appraising Early frankly. He buried his face in An Phoblacht. Two ‘volunteers’ had been killed on active service in Tyrone. The SAS were suspected. It was, the paper said, a typical SAS assassination. The men had been unarmed; the weapons they had been found with planted on them after death.

‘Bastards,’ Early said softly, shaking his head.

‘Aye, those fuckers get away with murder,’ said a voice at this elbow.

It was Finn, standing beside him.

Early remained sorrowful and angry. ‘It never stops, does it. Young boys dying in ditches. Will they ever leave us alone?’

Brendan Lavery set the brimming Guinness on the bar. ‘Ach, sure, we’re a good training ground for them. They don’t give a damn. We’re a nation of murderers to them.’

‘Ireland unfree shall never be at peace,’ Finn quoted, and drank from his own glass. Then he addressed Early again.

‘You and me’s going to be working together, Dominic.’

Early started. ‘What?’

‘Eoin – Brendan’s brother – he’s hit the big time, hasn’t he, Brendan? He’s taking on the world and his wife at the minute to build these bungalows they’ve contracted him for. Hiring all round him he is, like some Yank executive. Mind you’ – Finn laid a finger against his nose – ‘it’s all on the QT. Most of the men working for him will be doing the double.’ He meant that they were also on the dole. Finn and Lavery laughed together, and Early forced himself to smile.

‘If it comes to that, the taxman doesn’t know I exist, either.’

‘That’s the way it’s meant to be, Dominic. Take all you can off the bastards, and give nothing back. So how did a Ballymena man hear about a job in Cross?’

‘Ach, a man in the Crown in Belfast told me,’ Early said, quite truthfully.

Finn nodded. ‘A black hole, Ballymena. You’d not get a job up there, if you’re the wrong colour.’

‘Bloody right,’ Early agreed sincerely. North Antrim was a Unionist stronghold in the same way South Armagh was Republican. He sipped at his Guinness, realizing he was being cased again.

‘But it’s different down here. There’s always a welcome here for the right sort of man. Isn’t that right, Brendan?’

The barman’s reply was lost in the growing hubbub. The evening crowd was gathering and the TV was blaring at what seemed like full volume. Early would have liked to scan the crowd for familiar faces, as he had studied the mugshots of all the South Armagh players before travelling down. But he did not dare with Finn standing next to him.

Finn was a tall, slim man, grey-haired but fit-looking. He had a narrow, ruddy face with deep-set eyes that seldom smiled, even if the mouth did. He was responsible for a spate of sectarian murders in the late seventies, but all that had been pinned on him in court was possession of arms and IRA membership. He had once been quartermaster of the Armagh bunch, but had been promoted on his release from the Maze. An experienced man, he had many years’ practice in killing, extortion and gunrunning. He knew who the Border Fox was, without a doubt, but it was unlikely that the sniper was Finn himself. He had graduated into a leader, a planner. He was a survivor from the early days of the Troubles, and hence the object of much respect in the Republican community.

Early would have liked to take him out behind the pub and put a bullet in the back of his fucking head, but instead he offered him a drink.

‘Na, thanks, Dominic. I’ll take ye up on it some other time, but tonight I have to keep me wits about me.’

Was there an op on tonight? Early wondered.

Finn leaned close. ‘You’re new here. Let me give ye a wee bit of advice. Don’t let the bastards provoke you, or you’ll get hauled in the back of a pig. They’re pissed off at the minute because things have been a wee bit hot for them down here, but believe me, that’s just the beginning. Now just keep your cool.’ Finn looked at his watch, and then winked at Early.

The door of the pub burst open, startling those sitting next to it. A glass crashed to the floor in an explosion of beer. Men got to their feet cursing.

British soldiers were shouldering in through the door. They were in full combat uniform, with helmets and flak-jackets and cammed-up faces. An English voice shouted: ‘Don’t you fucking move!’

Eight soldiers, a full section, were in the pub now. Lights from vehicles outside were illuminating the front of the building. The crowd had gone silent.

‘Turn off that fucking TV!’ the English voice yelled, and Brendan pressed a button on the remote control, muting the volume.

‘What the fuck?’ Early said, genuinely surprised. Finn gripped his arms tightly. ‘Don’t move. The fuckers are just trying to annoy us.’

While four soldiers remained by the door, rifles in the shoulder, two pairs were walking through the pub, looking at faces. One of them kicked a chair over, receiving murderous looks, but no one said a word.

A soldier stopped in front of Finn and Early. He had a corporal’s stripes on his arm.

‘Hello, Eugene, me old mucker,’ he said brightly. ‘How’s things, then?’

Finn looked him in the eye. ‘I’m fine, thanks, Brit.’

The corporal grinned, his teeth bright in his darkly camouflaged face. ‘Who’s your friend? Any ID, mate?’

He was addressing Early. The SAS man tensed, then said clearly: ‘Fuck off, you Brit bastard. Why can’t you leave us alone?’

The soldier’s grin vanished.

‘That’s not very polite, Paddy.’

‘My name’s not Paddy.’

‘Give me some ID now, you fucking mick,’ the corporal snarled.

Early produced his fake ID, a driver’s licence issued in Coleraine. The corporal looked it over, then stared closely at him.

‘You’re a long way from home, Paddy.’

‘So I’ve been told.’

The soldier nodded at Finn. ‘I’d keep better company if I were you.’

‘I’ll keep the company I fucking well choose to. This is my country, not yours.’

‘Have it your own way, arsehole. Outside now – and you too, Eugene. We don’t want your friend getting lonely.’

Finn looked weary. ‘Why don’t you just drop it?’

The corporal gestured with the muzzle of his SA-80. ‘Fucking outside – now. You can get there on your own two feet or you can be carried out – it’s your choice.’

For once, Early was unsure what his reaction should be. He hesitated, but Finn gripped his arm again.

‘Let’s get it over with. Sure, all this wee shite wants it to put the boot in, and there’s no point in wrecking Brendan’s bar.’

‘Don’t you worry about my bar, Eugene,’ Brendan called out. ‘I’ll claim the fucking lot back in compensation.’

But Finn and Early trooped out unresisting into the night. Army vehicles were parked there, their headlights blindingly bright. A hand shoved Early in the small of his back.

‘In the fucking wagon, mick.’

Someone tripped him and his palms went down on the tarmac. A boot collided with his backside, sending him sprawling again. He felt the first stirrings of real anger. These pricks would certainly win no hearts and minds in this town.

He was pushed and shoved into the dark interior of an armoured Landrover. He heard Finn shouting, the sound of blows, and was dimly aware that people were pouring out of the pub into the square. There was a ragged surf of shouting, the beginnings of a mob. Then the metal door of the Landrover was clanged shut behind him.

A light flicked on. Sitting in the vehicle grinning at him was Cordwain.

4

‘Well well, John,’ Cordwain said. ‘We meet again.’

They were not alone in the back of the Landrover. A third man sat there on one of the narrow seats in an SAS-pattern combat smock. He looked young, pink-cheeked, and he stared at Early with obvious fascination.

Cordwain, as always, was breezy and confident. He helped Early off the floor. Outside there was the sound of people screaming and yelling. Stones rebounded off the armoured sides of the vehicle and it swayed at bodies pushed against it. Cordwain tapped the partition that divided the driver’s section from the back, for all the world like a millionaire signalling to his chauffeur. The engine roared into life and the vehicle began reversing.

‘Sounds as though we’ve stirred up a bit of trouble,’ Cordwain said. ‘But that’s all for the best.’

‘Who are this lot?’ Early asked. ‘Greenjackets?’

‘Yes. They’ve been here for four months, and they’ve lost four men.’

‘Well, they’re fucking heavy-handed.’

‘They were meant to be. I’m trying to give you a bit of street cred in the Republican community. Also, we need to talk.’

Early looked at the third occupant of the Landrover. The vehicle was lurching, starting and stopping. The shouting outside continued.

‘Who is this, then?’

‘Lieutenant Charles Boyd, Ulster Troop,’ the young man said. He had a public-school accent and didn’t look old enough to grow a beard, but his eyes were cold and eager. They reminded Early of Eugene Finn’s. There was no humour in them.

‘So you’re my back-up,’ Early said. ‘Hooray.’

Boyd frowned but Cordwain cut short any riposte.

‘Charles here is one of the best young officers we’ve got,’ he said. ‘You may have heard of the incident in Tyrone a few days ago. Textbook stuff. Now you and he are going to do the same thing to the South Armagh Brigade.’

‘The Armagh lot is a different kettle of fish. Since that fiasco at Loughgall in ’87 they’re tighter-knit than ever.’

‘Oh, we know. But you seem to have started out on the right foot, becoming buddies with the biggest player in the area. My congratulations, John. You’ve been here less than a day and already you’re rubbing shoulders with the head honcho.’

‘Let’s cut the crap, James. I can’t sit in here in the middle of a riot all night. Give me the gen.’

‘All right. The situation is as follows. I have most of the Group in Bessbrook at the moment, and 14 Company’s people have covert OPs going in tonight. The riot is their cover. We’ll search a few houses, insert the teams in the confusion – the usual thing.’

‘How did you know I’d be in the bar?’ Early interrupted.

‘Hell, John, you should know better than that. You’ve been tailed ever since you got on the bus in Armagh.’

Early felt slightly annoyed with himself, for he had not noticed.

‘We’ll have the bar, Finn’s house and McLaughlin’s house all covered. Charles’s boys will be looking after you. We’ll use the old dead letterbox system for messages. Out beyond the centre beyond the town. You go out on the Castleblaney road, past the sports ground, and there will be an old milk churn in the ditch on the left-hand side. We site vehicle checkpoints there all the time. Leave your first comms there. We’ll get word to you where the second will be. You should be able to go for a walk now and again – it’s only a ten-minute stroll. In a place this small, we can’t have the stuff that works in Belfast. Do you want a panic button installed? We could get it in your room tonight.’

Early shook his head. ‘I want you to keep your distance as much as possible. These guys are nervous as cats already.’

‘Have it your way, then. We’ve fibre optics, laser microphones, the whole heap, but you’ve got bugger-all but your wits and that peashooter you carry.’

‘Suits me. Now I think it’s time I was on my way, don’t you?’

Cordwain listened to the commotion outside. It showed no signs of abating. ‘Yes. There is one more thing though: we have to make it all look convincing. Nothing personal, John.’

Early cursed. ‘Get on with it, then.’

Boyd punched him on the eye once, twice, three times. Early remained still, though the third punch produced a stifled groan from his lips.

‘Lie down on the floor,’ Boyd said in that plummy accent of his.

Early did so, and Boyd went to work on him with his boots. After a particularly savage kick in the ribs, Early vomited helplessly. Boyd grimaced. He was out of breath.

‘Sorry, old chap. Got a bit carried away.’

Early spat out blood. ‘I’ll bet you did. Now throw me the fuck out of here.’

The rear door of the Landrover swung open and Early was pitched out head first. He hit the tarmac of the square heavily, coloured lights dancing brightly in his head, and for a moment could do nothing but lie there in the reek of the vehicle’s exhaust fumes. There were feet around him. The tarmac was covered with fragments of glass and broken stone, and the sound of the crowd yelling seemed to hurt his very brain.

Strong hands grabbed him and hauled him away from the Landrover.

‘Look what the fuckers did to him! The rotten bastards! Sure, he’s never hurt a fly – only got here this afternoon.’

Early looked up painfully. It was Brendan Lavery, and beside him, Maggie. Her eyes were full of concern.

‘Jesus, my head hurts.’

‘They’ve split your head. Here, hold that hanky there. We’ll get you inside. They did the same to Eugene. What a fucking wonderful country!’

He was dragged back to the bar, through a milling crowd of shouting people. The riot was impromptu, not staged like so many were, but it seemed no less vicious for all that. Soldiers were swinging batons, and Early heard the hollow boom of a plastic bullet being fired. Then there was a flare and a hiss, and the crowd was scattering. They were using CS. It was a hell of a way to rig up a meeting. He suspected that Cordwain and Boyd enjoyed it – it was just their fucking style.

People were coming back inside now, coughing and spluttering. Several of the pub’s windows had been smashed to smithereens. Early noted the thick, flesh-coloured cylinder of a plastic bullet rolling on the floor, but the noise from outside was lessening. The CS had done the trick. His own nose began to tingle and he realized that the gas was seeping into the pub. A last trio of figures staggered inside and then the doors were closed. People pulled the curtains across the shattered windows, coughing, eyes streaming.

‘How’s your head now? Jesus, Dominic, you’re going to have a hell of a shiner in the morning.’ Maggie was looking at Early solicitously. There was dirt on her cheek and her hair was all over the place.

‘I hope the dinner’s not burned,’ Early said, which got a laugh from her.

Suddenly Finn was there too, squatting down beside Maggie. His face was a mass of rising bruises and his lip was split and still oozing. But he grinned at Early.

‘Didn’t I tell you not to provoke them now? And there we are – a babe in arms taken out by the big bad soldiers and given a wee kicking. That’s life in Cross for you, McAteer. Still want to stay?’

‘Those bastards aren’t getting rid of me. I hope the fuckers get shot,’ Early croaked. And thinking of Boyd, he almost meant it.

Finn had become very grave. He wiped his split lip. ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Do you see now, Ballymena man, what we’re up against down here? There’s no law in Cross except what we make ourselves. Those thugs can’t represent the law or the government. How can they? The law operates by the consent of the governed, and we withhold our consent. They’re as good as criminals.’

‘Now, Eugene, don’t you start,’ Maggie admonished him. ‘The man’s just after getting beaten up and you’re talking to him about politics.’

Finn rose, smiling. The smile still did not reach his eyes.

‘You and me will have a wee talk about this another time, Dominic, after you’ve seen Eoin Lavery and got yourself that job. It’s a desperate shame when the Brits pull in a man like yourself and give him the once-over; a man who’s never been part of anything no doubt, a man as innocent as the day is long. You take care now, and watch this wee girl. I think she has an eye for you.’

Maggie swatted Finn with the cloth, and he laughed. Then he touched his bruised face tentatively.

‘Have they made a right mess of me then, Maggie?’

‘No more of a mess then there was before,’ she retorted.

‘And here’s me going to be playing the bodhran down in Kilmurry this week, with me face looking like a potato. I doubt none of the local lassies will be giving me so much as a look.’

‘Ach, Eugene, sure you know they’ll be round you like flies on a jampot, just as usual, especially when you tell them how you got your bruises.’

He winked at her. ‘You may be right there, wee girl. I must be going now. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a busy night. You look after Dominic now. The poor man looks a bit pale.’

Finn left them and went over to the door of the bar. He looked out, and signalled to two other men in the pub. One of them was McLaughlin. The trio exited silently.

Maggie was blushing, Early realized. But he noted it with only one portion of his mind. The rest was taken up with Finn’s words. Had they been an echo of suspicion? It was too hard to say. And that reference to Kilmurry – it was in the Republic, and Cordwain would want to know about that. He would have to get a message through via the dead letterbox. He groaned. His body felt like one massive bruise. That bastard Boyd had enjoyed it, the smooth-chinned little shite.

‘Let me help you up to your room,’ Maggie said, helping him to his feet. ‘I’ll bring you up your tea later – there’s a world of clearing up to do here. Never you worry about anything Eugene says. He’s a passionate man, so he is, but he has reason to be.’

‘I don’t think he likes me,’ Early said.

‘Ach, that’s just his way. He was born suspicious. What you need now is a bite to eat and then some sleep. It’s bound to have been a long day.’

When he was finally alone in his room, Early found that someone had been through his things, discreetly, but not discreetly enough. He half hoped that it wasn’t Maggie. He liked her, he realized. Not only that, she might be a way in. She seemed to know a lot about what was going on in the town, and her bed was as good a place to pump her for information as any. Early grinned to himself at the image that thought conjured up.

Just so long as Finn had been convinced by the evening’s little charade. Early disliked the flamboyance of men like Cordwain and Boyd. He instinctively felt that it was counter-productive, fuelling the current enmity between soldiers and locals in the town. It certainly did not make his own job any easier.

His head and ribs throbbed. His eye was closing over rapidly. The ‘kicking’ had been convincing enough, anyway.

He padded out of his room and down the hallway to the bathroom, to wet a towel for his eye. The light was on inside and the door was ajar. He peeked round the doorway carefully. Maggie was in there, her back to him as she leaned out the window. She was wearing a short bathrobe and he had a wonderful view of her long, pale legs, a glimpse of her round buttocks. She was talking to someone outside, and leaned out until Early thought she would flip over the sill and out the window. Despite the splendid sight before him, Early tried to listen in on her conversation, but could make out little. He ducked back hurriedly as she backed in from the window carrying something in her hands, something long and heavy wrapped in plastic.

Early tiptoed back along the landing, cursing silently. She had been holding an AK47.

There was uproar in Crossmaglen that night. The streets were full of the roar of engines. Saracen armoured cars and Landrovers, police ‘Hotspurs’ and ‘Simbas’ went to and fro disgorging troops and heavily armed RUC officers. Sledgehammers smashed down doors and soldiers piled into houses amid a chaos of cursing and shouting, breaking glass, screaming children. Households were reduced to shambles as the Security Forces searched house after house, the male occupants spread-eagled against the sides of the vehicles outside, the females shrieking abuse.

Carpets were lifted up, the backs of televisions wrenched off, the contents of dressers and wardrobes scattered and trampled. In the confusion, a covert surveillance team from the Group were inserted into the disused loft of a house in the heart of the town and set up an OP, peering out at the world from gaps in the roof tiles or minute holes in the brickwork. Finally, their work done, the army and police withdrew, leaving behind them a trail of domestic wreckage and huddles of people staring at the chaos of their homes. It had all gone like clockwork. From their concealed position up above, the SAS team watched silently the comings and goings of the town.

5

Bessbrook

‘At last, we have intelligence,’ Cordwain said, with an almost visible glow of satisfaction.

Lieutenant Boyd raised an eyebrow. ‘Our man has turned something up already, has he?’

‘Yes and no.’ The roar of a Wessex helicopter landing on the helipad outside rendered conversation impossible for a moment. Bessbrook had one of the busiest heliports in Europe. There were Lynxes, fragile little Gazelles, sturdy troop-carrying Pumas, and the old Wessexes, the workhorse of the British Army. The base itself was surrounded by a four-metre-high fence, topped with anti-missile netting and bristling with watch-towers and sangars. In the Motor Transport yard were a motley collection of Saracens, hard-roofed four-ton trucks, Landrovers and Q cars. Bessbrook was a mix of high-tech fortress, busy bus station and airport. In truth, it was also something of a slum for the assorted British Forces personnel who had to live within its cramped confines in the ubiquitous Portakabins, reinforced with concrete and sandbags against mortar attack.

‘No,’ Cordwain went on when he could hear himself speak. ‘You may find it hard to believe, but the initial info comes from across the border, from the Special Branch section of the Gardai.’

Boyd was incredulous. ‘The micks have turned something up, and they’re handing it to us?’

‘They’re afraid, Charles. They think they may have stumbled across something big and they want us to pull their potatoes out of the fire for them.’

Cordwain turned to the wall of his office, on which was pinned a large, garishly coloured map of South Armagh. He tapped the map.

‘I Corps has been given information by them of an Irish music festival which is to be held in the hamlet of Kilmurry, County Louth, in two days’ time. Kilmurry is approximately one kilometre from the River Fane, which, as you know, marks the border between north and south in that part of the world. An ideal jumping-off point for any operation. This morning our man Early in Cross utilized the DLB and left a message informing us that Eugene Finn will be at that festival. The Gardai have also informed us that they have identified at least eight major players from Louth or Monaghan ASUs heading north towards the border. Their routes all converge on Kilmurry.’

‘A regular PIRA convention,’ Boyd said. ‘Have we anything else?’

‘No. But I believe that this is not just a confab, Charles. We’ve hit Cross pretty hard in the past few days. It’s my belief the Provos are going to stage some kind of spectacular, and Kilmurry will be their base of operations. This bash is their cover.’

‘And because this place is in the Republic, there’s not a damned thing we can do about it,’ Boyd said bitterly.

‘Just so. I cannot authorize an incursion into the Irish Republic, Charles, and there is no time to refer it to the CLF or to the Secretary of State. Our hands are tied.’

‘So what can we do?’ Boyd asked.

‘Like you, I would dearly love to launch a preemptive strike, but the risk of adverse publicity is too high. There will be hordes of people in Kilmurry once this festival gets under way. There is no question of moving in there – the Provos have planned that part of it well. But I believe they will move north once they have been fully prepped, to launch a strike somewhere in the vicinity of Cross. That we can do something about. Look at the map.’

Boyd joined his superior at the wall and together they stared at the complex pattern of small roads and hills, villages and hamlets, rivers and bogs.

‘See here, this dismantled railway, that more or less follows the line of the Fane?’

Boyd nodded, and Cordwain went on.

‘There are old cuttings all along its length, ideal places to conceal a group of men and form them up for a riving crossing. The Fane is broad, so they’ll need a boat. It’ll be a night operation of course. I think they’ll get themselves ferried across where the cuttings, the river and the border all meet. Here.’ Cordwain’s finger stabbed at a point on the map.

‘Now look north, only half a kilometre. There’s a hill here, with an old ring-fort on top. Drumboy Fort, it’s called; we’ve had OPs on it in the past. There is your ideal spot to wait and intercept them. Good fields of fire in all directions, no civvy houses close by, and a perfect view of the river, and thus the border.’

‘You don’t expect them to be picked up by car, then?’ Boyd asked. Cordwain shook his head.

‘The nearest road is half a kilometre away. They’ll have to move across country to get to it. And we have all the roads down there sewn up tighter than a nun’s knickers. No, my belief is that they’ll yomp it, move across country to some prearranged RV and then perhaps meet up with a few friends north of the border before moving in on their objective.’

‘Which will be?’

Cordwain shrugged. ‘I have no idea, though I have my suspicions. If you extend a line from the Fane up past Drumboy Fort, where does it take you?’

Boyd peered at the map, then burst out: ‘The base! Crossmaglen security base! But that can’t be right.’

‘That’s what I thought. It would be foolhardy, to say the least. But you’ll have to bear in mind, Charles, that these jokers are after something big. Not a mortar – they’ll be travelling too light for that. But an ambush, certainly, perhaps of a foot patrol. I think they intend to wipe out an entire patrol, engage it face to face and then blow it away.’

Boyd whistled softly. ‘What about their strength?’

‘This will be a big operation in their terms, comparable to Loughgall perhaps. I think you can bank on at least ten or twelve of them.’

They turned away from the map and resumed their seats. Another helicopter took off, loaded to the gills with men and equipment. It was a Greenjacket fire team being airlifted out on rural patrol.

‘Fuck,’ Boyd said clearly. ‘This is all surmise though, isn’t it? All we know for sure is that a bunch of players will be at a music festival close to the border.’

‘Indeed, but I’ll bet both our arses they aren’t attending it to sit and fiddle. No, they’ll be moving north – you can count on it.’

Boyd’s eyes shone. If he pulled off a large-scale ambush on a sizeable PIRA force it would be an enormous coup for the Government, the army and the SAS. But also for Lieutenant Charles Boyd.

‘I have four men tied up in the OP in Cross itself, but twelve men available here, a multiple of three bricks. That should do it.’

Cordwain was not so sure.

‘I’d rather fly in some of the Special Projects team from G Squadron in Hereford.’

‘But we haven’t the time. And we don’t have enough evidence to go on. We’ll have egg all over our faces if we get G Squadron all the way over here and then nothing materializes.’

Cordwain paused, clearly uneasy. ‘There is that, of course…’

‘James, twelve SAS troopers will take out anything the Provos can throw at them.’ Boyd appeared invincibly confident. Cordwain studied him for a moment. The young officer clearly still felt himself to be on a roll after the successful Tyrone operation, and wanted to add further lustre to his laurels. That was no bad thing, so long as it did not lead to overconfidence. But his brashness was appealing, and it was true that they had very little to go on. Cordwain did not put a lot of faith in Early’s chances of infiltrating the South Armagh Brigade, but here on a platter was a chance to wipe them out wholesale; the ultimate ‘clean kill’.

‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll make out the necessary orders. But what I’m giving you is a reactive OP, Charles. I’m not giving you licence to run amok through the countryside. I want you to keep that stretch of the Fane under observation and only to react under the most stringent circumstances. The last thing we need is twelve troopers staging a rerun of the OK corral in Armagh. And we will also liaise with Lieutenant Colonel Blair of the Greenjackets. His men will form your back-up – and Early’s – until this op is over. Is that clear?’

‘Perfectly. If you’ll excuse me then, James, I’ll go and give the boys a Warning Order. They’ll be chuffed to fuck.’

Boyd left like a schoolboy let out for the holidays. Cordwain stared at the map thoughtfully for a long time. It was disquieting, to say the least, to be sanctioning an operation with so little intelligence to go on, but then intelligence was so thin on the ground in this part of the world. Not like Tyrone, or Belfast, where there were ‘Freds’, renegade Republicans, aplenty.

If this operation turned out as successfully as he hoped they might even be able to dispense with Early’s services, and that would be another bonus. Early was a hot potato, with his MI5 handlers to be placated and his stubborn bloody-mindedness. Not a team player, but then undercover agents seldom were.

Cordwain shook his head as though a fly buzzed at it, trying to free himself of a sense of unease. He had the strangest feeling that Boyd did not quite know what he was up against, and he had an urge to cancel the whole operation, or at least scale it down. But it was on his plate alone. He could not involve the RUC, because they were not equipped to deal with a face-to-face confrontation with a heavily armed band of terrorists, nor with the covert surveillance that was needed to track them down. No, this was a job for the SAS alone, the sort of mission that they specialized in and relished.

Why then the uneasiness?

He bent over his desk, and began writing the orders that would take Boyd’s command out into Bandit Country.

6

Kilmurry, County Louth

The bar was crowded with people, hot, noisy, hazy with tobacco smoke. In one corner a knot of musicians were playing a frantic, foot-tapping jig and most of the throng were clapping and stamping in time with the music. Pint glasses, empty and full, stood by the hundred on the bar and the tables or were clasped in sweaty hands.

In the upstairs room the hubbub below could be heard as a vague roar of sound echoing up through the floorboards. The long upper room had been booked in the name of Louth Gaelic Football Club. The irritating noise seeping up from the noisy bar below would nullify the effectiveness of any bugs planted in the place.

There were twenty-three men in the room, sitting round a long dining table or lounging against the walls. Heavy duffle bags littered the floor and on the table itself crouched two angular, blanket-draped shapes. The men were smoking rapidly, talking in low voices, chuckling or scowling as the mood took them. They comprised the bulk of two PIRA brigades. Some of them were elated at their numbers, some were nervous.

Eugene Finn entered the room rubbing his hands and smiling his cold smile.

‘Don’t worry, boys. The dickers are all in place and the landlord knows the form. This is a private room. The Gardai will need a warrant to enter it and we happen to know they don’t have one.’

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