Josephine Laverty was late, and hurried in a frantic mixture of a run and a walk down the Falls to the mill where she worked. She couldn"t go fast as the pain still bit into her ribs. She too had heard the early radio news, half expecting in an uninvolved sort of way to hear that Harry McEvoy had been found face down, hooded and dead. It had surprised her that there was no mention of him. This morning she had wondered for a wild moment whether to go to see if he was still at Delrosa, but there was no will power and the emotion he had created was now drained from her.
Perhaps she would go to Mrs Duncan"s tonight to help with the teas. Perhaps not, but that could be a later decision. There was now an irrelevance about Harry McEvoy. Forget him. The pillow eavesdropper who had a girl killed. Forget the sod.
With their photographs of Harry the troops from Fort Monagh raided the five sc.r.a.p yards in Andersonstown. No one in the operation had been told why they were to pick up the smiling man in the picture who wore his hair shorter than their more general customers. The orders were that if the man was found he was to be taken straight to Battalion headquarters and handed over. Amongst those NCOs who were the foremen of the military factory floor and who knew most of what mattered there was surprise that so many men were occupied in looking for a man whose picture was not on the operations room wall, whose name was comoletely fresh. They had their regular batch of photographs, top ten for the week, top thirty for the month, four for each day of the week. Made up on little cards and issued to the troops to study before they went out on patrol. But this face had never been among them.
At the sc.r.a.p yards the employees who had arrived before the troops stood sullenly against the walls of the huts, hands above their heads, as they were searched and then matched with the photograph. From the five locations the initial report was that a blank had been drawn. But the troops would lie up in the yards till nine at least in the hope that the man they wanted would still come--was just late. At the yard where Harry in fact worked there was disbelief when they were shown the picture. Never involved, never talking politics, just an ordinary man, too old to be with the cowboys. The little man who ran the yard looked round the armoured cars, and the soldiers, reckoned Harry must be important and determined to say nothing. He confirmed the picture, that he employed a man called Harry McEvoy, that he had started work recently, that was all. Let them find the rest out for themselves.
"Where does he live?" the lieutenant who led the raid asked him.
"Don"t know. He never said. Just down the road somewhere, that"s all he said."
"He must have given some impression where he lived?"
"Nothing."
"What about his stamps, his insurance?"
The little man looked embarra.s.sed. The answer was clear enough.
The lieutenant was new to Northern Ireland. The man opposite him seemed of substance, a cut above the yobbos, respectable even.
"Look, we need this man rather badly." He said it quietly out of earshot of the other men.
"Well, you"ll have to wait for him, won"t you."
But time was ticking on its way, and as the soldiers crouched behind the wrecked cars and buses and waited there was no sign of the face in the photograph. Even the little man became worried by Harry"s non-arrival. His first reaction had been that it was a case of mistaken ident.i.ty, but that Harry should be absent at the same time that the military launched this reception led him to suppose that his newest hand was a rather more complex figure than he had believed. The soldiers radioed in, hung about a few more minutes and drove back, empty-handed, to Fort Monagh.
EIGHTEEN.
The Secretary of State spoke to Downing Street from the single storey red-brick building that was the RAF Reception at Alder grove. They"d offered him a car to take him to the officer"s quarters and the use of the group captain"s phone, but he"d declined. The message waiting for him was of the sort the Prime Minister rarely burdened him with, must be important and should be returned at speed.
It took several minutes for the connection to come through. The delay came from the need to patch in the speech distortion apparatus that would safeguard the security of the call and prevent any casual telephone user listening in on the conversation. When the instrument rang out in the part.i.tioned office indicating that the call was ready the service aides discreetly backed out through the door. The Secretary of State"s men stayed with him.
"Morning, Prime Minister. I"m returning your call."
"I won"t keep you long. I wondered how thoroughly you"d read your papers this morning. Guardian and Times. Provisionals claiming they"ve identified an agent of ours, warning the population. All a bit melodramatic but enough to cause anxiety."
"I haven"t seen it, I"m afraid."
The Prime Minister replied, "We"re a little anxious at this end that it could be the fellow we sent over for Danby. Could be difficult if they nabbed him, and he talked."
"Trifle awkward, no doubt about that. Well, we"ll get the people who run him to move him out right away. Get him back to UK. and snappy. That"s the simple answer."
"The problem lies right there," said the Prime Minister. "It"s a bit incredible, but the chaps controlling him in London cannot contact him. Seems he just calls in when he has something to say."
The Secretary of State winced. "Bit unusual that, isn"t it? Bit unique. Not standard procedure. What you are saying is that he may not know he"s blown if in fact he is. That we may not be hearing too much from him in the future."
"You"re not a million miles away from it."
"And what do we do...? Sorry, I"ll rephrase that one. What do you want done about it?"
"I"m just letting you know the situation. There"s not very much we can do about it beyond the obvious. Stand by to catch the cradle."
"If it comes, it"ll be from a fair alt.i.tude." The Secretary of State played a slow smile round his lips at the head of government"s discomfiture.
"Could be a bit tricky." The Prrme Minister was sounding old, tired, and a long way away.
"I"m glad it wasn"t down to me, this one," he paused, to let it sink home. "Still, we"ll see what comes out of it. It may be just a kite they"re flying. They often do that. I"ll keep a weather eye out for the storm clouds. Goodbye, Prime Minister."
There were no confidences with his staff as the group left the building and walked to the big Puma helicopter for the ride to Londonderry. He asked his army liaison officer to keep him informed if there should be any a.s.sa.s.sination victims during the day.
His remark of "hare-brained scheme at the best of times" was heard only by the Scotland Yard detective, his bodyguard, sitting next to him as he adjusted his safety harness while the rotor blades gathered their impetus.
The ambush was in position.
It was a proven, brutally simple piece of organization. A stolen Ford Escort was parked sixty yards up from Dekosa just before the junction with the Falls Road. The car was empty and unlikely to cause suspicion. The number plates had been changed. Harry would walk along on the opposite side of the pavement and turn into the main road. He would be watched by three men who had placed themselves behind the lace curtains, of the house in front of which the car was parked. With Harry safely round the corner the men could come out of the house, start up the car, and cruise up from behind him to surprise their target. It was a fast and effective method and over the years had come to be considered fail-safe. The three men in the room, back from the lace curtains, were Downs, Frank and Duffryn. All were at this stage without their guns, but in the Escort"s glove was a Luger, and underneath the driver"s seat a folded-down Armalite, placed in position, ready loaded and c.o.c.ked.
To both Frunk and Duffryn this was a novel situation. Neither had ever been entrusted with a mission of such importance before, and the tension they felt was reflected in the frequency with which both of them came forward and tugged at the flimsiness of the curtain to view the other side of the road. They talked quietly in staccato style to each other, avoiding the eyes and attention of Downs, who stayed at the back behind them. Neither Frank nor Duffryn knew the third man"s name, only vaguely his reputation as a marksman. That was something both had reflected on overnight to comfort themselves, as the few hours slipped away before the rendezvous.
Since he had been told of the operation Downs had had little to say. He burned up his anger and frustration inside himself till he was as taut as a stretched catapult. The pain of his injury told on him, too, and though that was slightly compensated for by the tablets he had taken he felt weak and, above all, disorganized.
Both Frank and Duffryn looked to the third man for leadership, but he buried himself away from them, not communicating the confidence and expertise they were looking for. He wore a loose overall sweater, with his left arm in a sling underneath it, with the sleeve hanging free at his side. He knew he was not fit enough to get into a fire-fight like that, but for a pick-up and at close range he"d see it through. To back him up he had the strength and fitness of the other two men. He would sit in the front with Duffryn to drive, and Frank in the back with the Englishman for the short ride from Broadway to Whiterock.
Frank said, "He"s late now. He can"t be much longer. He"s a big fellow. We"ll not miss him. He"s the only visitor at the house."
"How long do we leave him after he"s away round the corner? Duffryn asked. He"d been told the answer three times but kept on asking with the insecurity of a small boy who needs to quiz his teacher in cla.s.s so that she won"t forget his presence.
"Hardly at all," said Frank. "Just a few yards. We want to pick him on the bend near the cemetery, so we need him to move about a hundred yards, not much more."
"Hope the b.l.o.o.d.y car starts," Duffryn giggled weakly, and looked at Downs. "You done this sort of thing before?"
Duffryn saw the pale, pinched, hating face. Sensed the quality of his anger and hostility.
"Yes," said Downs.
"It works like they plan it, does it? I mean, it all seems so straightforward when you put it on paper and work out a timetable and that. But does it really happen as easily as that?"
"Sometimes. Other times it doesn"t."
"The thing that worries me"--like a b.l.o.o.d.y tap, drip, drip, drip, thought Downs as Duffryn chattered on--"is if they have a pig going by as we jump him. Christ knows what we do then."
He said the last to himself, as the anxiety built up in him about the calibre of the morose and injured man that he and Frank were depending on for success. Just as Duffryn put it out of his mind, Frank stiffened and edged forward again towards the window.
"He"s coming. Here comes the English b.a.s.t.a.r.d."
Duffryn pushed his friend to the side to see for himself. The tall figure in the distance, blurred and in soft focus, closing the wicket gate at the front of Delrosa behind him, that was their enemy. He"d thought about him most of the night, about the killing of him, now he came, walking straight without a sideways glance. Looks as if he owns the place, thought Duffryn.
"Keep back from the window, you stupid b.u.g.g.e.rs," the man behind them hissed.
Harry was stepping out, aware of his slow start to the morning, and conscious that whatever speed he walked to the yard he would still be late. The combination of Mrs Duncan"s chatter and her insistence on the fresh coffee that percolated interminably had delayed him. He came up the familiar pavement fast, with his sandwiches and flask in the bag bouncing on his shoulder and the weight of the wrapped revolver thudding against his right hip.
He saw the car, one of several parked on the other side of the road. It was small, neat and well kept, but slightly different, something strange ... the keys left in the ignition. Daft idiot, who leaves keys in his car down the Falls. People didn"t leave the keys in the ignition round here unless they"d gone inside for something shorter than a quick c.r.a.p.
Harry moved on past the car and up to the junction of the side street and the Falls, where the Catholic community come into town, and where the traffic snarl-ups were beginning.
The side of the road that Harry walked on, though, was virtually clear, with just an occasional car speeding past him. He was a punctual man. The army and his aunt"s upbringing had disciplined him in this, and his lateness this Monday morning annoyed him. He checked with his left wrist to see how far behind the morning schedule he was, and realized with a suppressed oath that he had left his watch behind ... Where? ... Not in his room, not at breakfast ... in the bathroom after shaving. He was thirty yards into the Falls, the guest house some seventy-five back round the corner. d.a.m.n and blast it. Only a hundred yards back to get it. He wavered. And then, a hundred yards back to where he was now. Two hundred yards. Nothing. It"s a naked feeling without a watch. Not as bad as leaving gla.s.ses behind, or your fly unzipped, but an irritation. Harry swung on his heel and walked back towards Delrosa.
As he turned the corner DuflEryn was beside the driver"s door of the car, at the handle and in the process of opening it. Frank was already in the back seat, and the man coming out of the house last was half-way between the front door and the car.
For a moment all four men froze.
Harry, mind racing like a flywheel, trying to put a situation and background to the familiarity of the face in front of him.
Where? Where did that face come from? Find it.
It was fractional, the lapse of doubt before the image slotted. The dance, the woman in yellow, the army crashing in, and as the concentration lasted so the face confronting him across the street suffused into the detail of the photokit picture. Outline of cheekbone structure, that matched. More so than when the man had been at the club, the contours of the flesh on the face merged with the painstaking impression built up in London. Perhaps it was the strain Downs had been under these last hours, or the pain from the wound, but the features at last resembled those the old lady had seen in the park, that the girl in the Underground station had stared at as she fought to keep her balance.
The first movement. Harry reached into his anorak pocket, thrust deep with both hands to pull out the pistol. He dragged at the sharp white towelling, and ripped it from the blackness of the gun, tearing a ladder of bright cotton on the foresight. Thirty feet away Duffryn flung himself face down behind the car, his mind clouded by the sight of the gun in his enemy"s hand. Frank jack-knifed his body over the front pa.s.senger seat to open the glove compartment where the Luger lay, stretching himself over the obstacle of the head rest. Downs bent low, ducking forward towards the back of the car. Out of sight and to the rear right door beyond which his beloved Arma lite was resting.
Aimed shots, Harry boy. Don"t blaze. Aim and you"ll hit the b.u.g.g.e.rs. He shrugged the duffel bag from his shoulder on to the paving stones, and, legs squat and apart, brought the revolver up to the aim position. Knees slightly bent, body weight forward, both arms extended and coming together with the gun at eye level. The cla.s.sic killing position. Hands and gun as one complete sighting apparatus. Squeeze, don"t jerk the trigger. Take it gently. The thumb of the right hand fumbled forward, rested on the safety catch in the "on" position, and eased it forward.
In the big "V of the arms, reaching to the barrel of the revolver, was the contorted shape of Frank, still stretching for the Luger. Harry steadied as the man lurched back into the rear seat with the gun in his hand, and fired his first shot. The left side of the rear window disintegrated, and Frank jolted as the bullet hit him in the throat. The effort of getting at the Luger had denied him a clear look at Harry. Bewilderment was spread over his face as he subsided on to the back seat with a rivulet of crimson flooding down on to the collar of his shirt. Not in itself a fatal shot, but it would become one if Frank did not get immediate hospital treatment. He was out of Harry"s sight now. The Englishman stood stockstill, looking for the next target. Come out, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Show yourselves. Where"s the b.l.o.o.d.y man we want? Which of you has the next gun? Who shoots next? Steady, Harry boy. You"re like a big lamp post up there, you berk, right in the open. Get some cover.
Harry knelt on the pavement.
"Come out with your hands above your heads. Any attempt to escape and I"ll shoot."
Good control Harry, dominate the b.u.g.g.e.rs.
Downs whispered to Duffryn as they huddled on the reverse side of the car.
"Make a run down the hill. He"ll not hit you with a hand gun. But for G.o.d"s sake run--and now!"
He pulled Duffryn past him and shoved him out into the open and away from the sanctuary of the car. Downs shouted after him, "Run, you little b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and weave..."
Duffryn, in deep terror, bolted from the cover. Out of control and conscious only of the empty s.p.a.ce around him he sprinted down the street in the direction of Delrosa. His intention was to shift direction from right to left and to change his speed at the same time. The effect was to slow him down and make him the easier target. Harry fired four times. By the time he pulled the trigger for the second time he had sensed that he was after a man who had never faced this type of situation before. He heard Duffryn sob out as he ran, pleading, merging with his shout as the third shot caught him between the shoulder blades. Duffryn cannoned forward into the lamp post, leant spread-eagled against it for a few seconds, and then slid down to become a shapeless ma.s.s at its base. The fourth bullet, unnecessary, jolted into his sluggish body. Duffryn would live; neither of the hitting bullets had found a critical resting place.
Now that he was down and stationary the confusion ebbed, and clarity came to the young intelligence officer. The enemy would kill him. No doubt--certainty. It seemed not to matter. There was hurt but not so much as Duffryn had expected. He was puzzled he could barely picture the face of the Englishman who had shot him. The clothes he could see, and the gun resting between the hands and the kick as it rocked back when Frank was shot. But there had been no face. The gun obscured it. He had not even seen his enemy. He never would now.
The moment that Duffryn had run Downs eased open the front door of the Escort, forced himself upwards into the driving seat and started the engine. The four shots that Harry had fired at the decoy--the hare with the job of distracting him--had given Downs sufficient time to get the car rolling in the direction of the Falls.
Harry swung the revolver round tracking his attention away from the fallen boy to the moving car. He saw Downs"s head low over the wheel before it swung lower still, below the dashboard. That was the moment he fired, knowing instinctively as he did so that he was going too high. The bullet struck the angle of the roof of the car, exited and thudded into the wall of the house opposite. Count your shots, they always drilled that. He had done, and he was out, chamber empty, finished, exhausted. Three more cartridges in the picnic bag, down at the bottom below the plastic food box and the coffee flask. Frantically he broke the gun and pushed the used cases out so that they clattered and shone on the pavement. He slid in the three replacements, copper-plated ends and grey snub-nosed tips.
Downs was out in the traffic of the Falls, desperate to avoid the cars round him, but unable to escape from the conformity of the Catholic route into town. As a reflex Harry ran after him, revolver still in hand. He saw cars shy away from him as he came out into the traffic lanes, heard the grind of acceleration and sc.r.a.ping of brakes as men tried to put s.p.a.ce between him and themselves". It was as though he had some plague or disease and could kill by contact. His man was edging away when Harry worked out the equation. Nine cars back was a Cortina Estate, crawling with the others and unwilling to come past the man waving his revolver. Harry ran to the pa.s.senger door. It was unlocked. As he looked into the driver"s eyes he shouted at him.
"This is loaded. You"re to follow that car. The white Escort in front and follow it close. For your own safety don"t b.u.g.g.e.r about. I"m army, but that won"t help you if you mess me."
Donal McKeogh, aged twenty-seven, a plastics salesman living outside Dungannon, forty miles down the motorway, gave a mechanical, numbed response. The car trickled forward, its driver"s mind still blank. Harry saw the Escort drawing away.
"Don"t mess me, you clever b.u.g.g.e.r," he screamed at the face a few inches away, and to reinforce the effect of his intentions fired a single shot through the roof of the car. McKeogh surged forward towards the Springfield Road lights. The message was understood now, and would not need repeating. He might have seen me coming out into the traffic, reckoned Harry, but he"s unlikely to have seen which car is following him. Little chance of that. McKeogh swerving through on the inside, crossing the double lines in the centre and drawing angry shouts from other drivers had closed the gap to five cars by the time they reached the lights.
Two bullets remained in the Smith and Wesson.
It had taken Billy Downs little time to work out where he was going. The failure to kill the Englishman dictated the decision. He was going home. Blown, finished, out.
He was tired. Needing a corner to sleep away the stabbing pains and biting disappointments of the last few hours, he needed quiet, and silence. Away from the guns, and the firing, and the blood. Above all he wanted to get away from the noise of the weapons that blasted out close to his ears, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his guts with tension, then releasing them like an unplugged bladder, flat and winded.
Away from it all, and the only place he could go was home. To his wife. To his children. To his house. To Ypres Avenue. The logic and will power and control that had caused him to be chosen for London were drained from him. No emotion, no sensitivity left. Even the slight bubbling coughs of Frank in the back seat could not disturb him.
Failure. Failure from the man considered so valuable that only the most important work was ear-marked for him. Failure from the elitist. More important, failure against the enemy who was working to kill, eliminate, exterminate, execute him. The words kept tempo with the throbbing of the arm wound. Christ, how it hurt. A bad, dangerous pain that dug at him, then went, but came again with renewed force, chewing at his strength and resolve.
The Armalite was still in the car, untouched under his seat, but useless now. It had no further part to play. The Armalite days were over, they didn"t settle things. It was over. Concluded, done with, half a lifetime ago.
Driving was hard. He had to stretch his left arm to the gear handle every few seconds, and even the movement from the second to third aggravated the injury. He mapped out a route for himself. Down to Divis, then across the top fringe of town to Unity flats, and then on to Carlyle Circus. Could park there, on the roundabout. It was a walk to Ardoyne then, and the car and Frank would be close to the Mater, their own people"s hospital. Frank would be found quickly there, and would get the treatment he needed. There were no road blocks and he moved with the traffic, Frank too low down to be seen and the bullet holes failing to draw people into involvement.
It was nine minutes to the Circus where the Crumlin and the Antrim Road come together, and where cars could be left unattended. He drove on to the s.p.a.ce and stopped the car. To get out he had to lever himself up with his right hand, then he looked behind and into the back. Frank was very white, with much of his blood pooled beside his face on the plastic seating. In his eyes was just enough light to signal recognition.
"Don"t worry, Frank boy. You"re close to the Mater. You"ll be there in five minutes. I"m going to call them. I"m going now, and don"t worry. G.o.d bless. It"s all okay, you"ll be safe. A few minutes, that"s all."
Frank could say nothing.
Downs left the engine running and the driver"s door open as he ran away from the car. It was enough to ensure that someone would look inside. The broken window would clinch it. The Armah"te was still under the driver"s seat, and the Luger lay beneath Frank"s body. He ran up the Crumlin, Mater hospital on his right, huge and red and cleansed, giving way to the prison. High walls, coils of barbed wire, reinforced stone sentry towers and, dominating it all, the great gatehouse. Downs went on by them, and past the soldiers on guard duty, and the policemen guarding the court house opposite with their flak jackets and Stirlings. None spared him a glance as he ran.
The sprint gave way to a jog, then to little more than a stumble as he neared the safety of Ardoyne at the top of the long hill. The weight of his legs seemed to pin him back as he forced his feet forward, separating himself from the chaos and disaster behind him. His breath came in great sobs and gulps as he struggled to keep up momentum. The only demand he made of himself now was to get to his home, to his wife, and bury himself in her warmth. The Circus and the hospital and the prison were far behind down the road when he reached the iron sheeting that divided Shankhill from Ardoyne, where he had stood the previous afternoon waiting for the lift that took him to Rennie"s home. G.o.d-rot that b.a.s.t.a.r.d copper and his b.l.o.o.d.y children. That was where it had all collapsed. The child in the way, smack in the way, never a clear sight at the copper, only the kid"s head. Panting and wrenching for air he slowed up to walk the last few yards.
They were right. He"d lost his nerve. Billy Downs, the one selected by the Chief of Staff, had slipped it because of a child"s head.
And then, this morning ... Frank with his voice shot out, and the young b.u.g.g.e.r they"d sent him, down on the pavement shredded. And you, you clever sod, you told him to run to make room for yourself, and he did, and he b.l.o.o.d.y bought it.
In the race across the city Me Keogh had several times fallen back in the traffic stream, losing completely the sight of the white Escort before spotting it again far to the front maneuvering among the lorries and vans and cars. Then Harry screamed and threatened McKeogh, and the salesman would speed up. He doubted his hijacker was a member of the British army but was undecided whether he was IRA or UVF. That he would be killed if he didn"t follow the bellowed instructions, he was certain. As they came out of the town and reached the circus the Escort was gone. Four major routes come together there, including the Crumlin leading up to Ardoyne and the Antrim Road running up to the nearer equally hard-line New Lodge. New Lodge offered the quicker refuge, and Harry aimed his arm that way, as McKeogh swung round the Circus and then up the wide road. They drove a mile and fast up beyond the scorched entrance to the ghetto before Harry indicated they should turn back.
"Try the Crumlin, it has to be that way."
"He could have got away from us and still be in this road. If he went up the Crumlin he"ll be out of the city by now, up in Ligoniel, half-way to the airport," said McKeogh.
"I know where he can be. Just drive and close your attention on that," Harry snapped back. He would be lucky now to find him again. He knew that, but didn"t need any b.l.o.o.d.y driver to tell him. Neither saw the Escort still parked among the other cars on the Circus, and they turned up the long haul of the Crumlin. Harry was forward in his seat now, peering right and left as McKeogh swept up the road. At the top he shouted. The exultation of a master of hounds throwing off the frustration of a lost quarry.
"There he is, at the tin wall."
McKeogh slowed the car in against the near pavement.
"Who is he?" he said.