“That’s a bloody lie.”
“Why would a man turn Queen’s evidence and then lie about who committed the murders?”
“Because he shot those soldiers—”
“There were two calibers of bullets. We can try two people for murder—any two. So why don’t you let me work out who did what to whom?”
“You don’t care who killed those soldiers. It’s Flynn you want to hang.”
“Someone must hang.” But Major Martin had no intention of hanging any of them and making more Irish martyrs. He wanted to get Flynn into Long Kesh, where he could wring out every piece of information that he possessed about the Provisional IRA. Then he would cut Brian Flynn’s throat with a piece of glass and call it suicide.
He said, “Let’s assume that you escape the hangman’s noose. Assume also that we pick up your sister, which is not unlikely. Consider if you will, Miss Malone, sharing a cell with your sister for the rest of your natural lives. How old are you? Not twenty yet? The months, the years pass slowly. Slowly. Young girls wasting their lives … and for what? A philosophy? The rest of the world will go on living and loving, free to come and go. And you … well, the real hell of it is that Maureen, at least, is innocent of murder. You are the reason she’d be there—because you wouldn’t name her lover. And Flynn will have found another woman, of course. And Coogan, yes, Coogan will have gone to London or America to live and—”
“Shut up! For God’s sake, shut up!” She buried her face in her hands and tried to think before he started again.
“Now there is a way out.” He looked down at his papers, then looked up again. “There always is, isn’t there? What you must do is dictate a confession naming Brian Flynn as an officer in the Provisional IRA—which he is—and naming him as the murderer of Sergeant Shelby and Private Harding. You will be charged as an accessory after the fact and be free within … let’s say, seven years.”
“And my sister?”
“We’ll put out a warrant for her arrest only as an accessory. She should leave Ulster and never return. We will not look for her and will not press any country for extradition. But this arrangement is operative only if we find Brian Flynn.” He leaned forward. “Where is Brian Flynn?”
“How the hell should I know?”
Martin leaned back in his chair. “Well, we must charge you with something within ninety days of internment. That’s the law, you understand. If we don’t find Flynn by the ninetieth day, we will charge you with double homicide—perhaps treason as well. So, if you can remember anything that will lead us to him, please don’t hesitate to tell us.” He paused. “Will you think about where Flynn might be?”
She didn’t answer.
“Actually, if you really don’t know, then you’re useless to me … unless … You see, your sister will try to free you, and with her will be Flynn … so perhaps—”
“You won’t use me for bait, you bastard.”
“No? Well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”
“May I have a bed?”
“Certainly. You may stand now.”
She stood. “No more Gestapo tactics?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” He rose from his chair. “The matron will escort you to a cell. Good night.”
She turned and opened the door. A hood came down over her head, but before it did she saw not the matron but two young Royal Ulster Constabulary men and three grinning paratroopers.
CHAPTER 2
Brian Flynn looked up at Queen’s Bridge, shrouded in March mist and darkness. The Lagan River fog rolled down the partially lit street and hung between the red-brick buildings of Bank Road. The curfew was in effect, and there was no traffic.
Maureen Malone looked at him. His handsome, dark features always seemed sinister at night. She pulled back the sleeve of her trench coat and looked at her watch. “It’s after four. Where the hell are—”
“Quiet! Listen.”
She heard the rhythmic footsteps coming out of Oxford Street. In the mist a squad of Royal Ulster Constabulary appeared and turned toward them, and they crouched behind a stack of oil drums.
They waited in silence, their breathing coming irregularly in long plumes of fog. The patrol passed, and a few seconds later they heard the whining of a truck changing gears and saw the headlights in the mist. A Belfast Gas Works truck pulled up to the curbstone near them, and they jumped in the open side door. The driver, Rory Devane, moved the truck slowly north toward the bridge. The man in the passenger seat, Tommy Fitzgerald, turned. “Road block on Cromac Street.”
Maureen Malone sat on the floor. “Is everything set?”
Devane spoke as he steered slowly toward the bridge. “Yes. Sheila left Long Kesh in an RUC van a half hour ago. They took the A23 and were seen passing through Castlereagh not ten minutes ago. They’ll be coming over the Queen’s Bridge about now.”
Flynn lit a cigarette. “Escort?”
“No,” said Devane. “Just a driver and guard in the cab and two guards in the back, according to our sources.”
“Other prisoners?”
“Maybe as many as ten. All going to Crumlin Road Jail, except for two women going up to Armagh.” He paused. “Where do you want to hit them?”
Flynn looked out the rear window of the truck. A pair of headlights appeared on the bridge. “Collins’s men are set up on Waring Street. That’s the way they’ll have to go to Crumlin Road.” He wiped the fog from the window and stared. “Here’s the RUC van.” Devane cut off the engine and shut the lights.
The black, unmarked RUC van rolled off the bridge and headed into Ann Street. Devane waited, then restarted his truck and followed at a distance with his lights off. Flynn said to Devane, “Circle round to High Street.”
No one spoke as the truck moved through the quiet streets. They approached Waring Street, and Tommy Fitzgerald reached under his seat and pulled out two weapons, an old American Thompson submachine gun and a modern Armalite automatic rifle. “The tommy gun is for you, Brian, and the light gun for my lady.” He passed a short cardboard tube to Flynn. “And this … if, God forbid, we run into a Saracen.” Flynn took the tube and stuck it under his trench coat.
They swung off Royal Avenue into Waring Street from the west at the same time the RUC van entered from the east at Victoria Street. The two vehicles approached each other slowly. A black sedan fell in behind the RUC van, and Fitzgerald pointed. “That’ll be Collins and his boys.”
Flynn saw that the RUC van was moving more slowly now, the driver realizing that he was being boxed in and looking for a way out.
“Now!” shouted Flynn. Devane swung the truck so that it blocked the road, and the RUC van screeched to a stop. The black sedan following the van came to a halt, and Collins with three of his men jumped out and ran toward the rear of the van with submachine guns.
Flynn and Maureen were out of the truck and moving toward the trapped van twenty-five yards up the road. The RUC guard and driver dropped below the windshield, and Flynn pointed his rifle. “Come out with your hands raised!” But the men didn’t come out, and Flynn knew he couldn’t shoot at the unarmored van filled with prisoners. He yelled to Collins, “I’ve got them covered! Go on!”
Collins stepped up to the van and struck the rear doors with his rifle butt. “Guards! You’re surrounded! Open the doors and you won’t be harmed!”
Maureen knelt in the road, her rifle across her knees. She felt her heart beating heavily in her chest. The idea of freeing her sister had become an obsession over the months and had, she realized, clouded her judgment. Suddenly all the things that were wrong with this operation crystallized in her mind—the van riding very low as though it were weighted, the lack of an escort, the predictable route. “Run! Collins—”