‘Phworrrhh!’ went Mike.
‘What’s the matter? You desperate?’
‘You haven’t been out here for a fucking year, mate.’
The clients straightened themselves out, walked up the drive and in through the front door. As Pat had noticed on our initial recce, it wasn’t locked, and the agent pushed it straight open. The visit wasn’t a success. In about thirty seconds the party was out again and off back towards the car; they never went behind the house or anywhere near the barn. One look at the cottage was enough for them. Then it was back over the wall, a repeat flash of the royal purple, and another dying groan from Mike. ‘Phworrrhh!’ he went again, as if someone had stuck a knife in his guts. The agent took one final, disgusted look at the padlock and drove off.
Somewhere, sometime, I’d seen knickers that colour before. Suddenly I got it: Singapore, on an exercise. We’d done a drop into Changhi airfield, and afterwards we were invited into the RAF officers’ mess for a drink. There in a glass-fronted showcase on the wall was a pair of purple satin pants, exactly the colour of the ones we’d just seen, and underneath, the legend: ‘SUPERSONIC KNICKERS. These knickers were wrested from GLORIA in the JACARANDA NIGHT CLUB on 14 January 1976, and flown at Mach 1.5 in a Mk 3 Phantom of 43 Squadron, by Squadron Leader Jeremy Turner, the following morning. RIP.’
I told Mike the story, and he struck back with one about how a colleague of his in the Det had started going out with this slapper from Belfast. Everyone knew that her brother was in the PIRA, and told him for Christ’s sake to be careful. His only concession was to ask a couple of his mates to follow him in a second vehicle when he went to pick her up. He’d hardly got her on board when they saw something fly out of the passenger’s window. Afterwards, when they asked him what it was, he explained, ‘I said to her, “Ey — last time you weren’t wearing any knickers. What you got some on now for?” Whereupon she made a grab and rrrippp, away they went, and there’s her saying, “Not any more, I haven’t!” ’
Talk of knickers whiled away an enjoyable few minutes, but still we had six more hours of daylight to get through. All day long rain had threatened but held off. It was lucky for us that there were no cattle on the ground, either in our field or in any of the ones adjoining. That meant there was no reason for the local farmer to come out and look around. A shepherd with a collie would have been the worst, but there were no sheep either. With the wind blowing steadily from the cottage and away down the open country behind us, it was safe to have the occasional brew, and to boil up a couple of hot meals. As I’d expected, Mike’s manners in the OP were pretty good; once the stink of his aftershave had worn off — no joke, a potential danger — there wasn’t a lot I could criticize.
As always on that kind of job, the prime enemy was boredom. After a couple of hours with no activity or movement, I was bored out of my mind. My thoughts went round and round in circles, but kept coming back to two subjects. The nice one was Tracy, the less pleasant was the edginess in my mother-in-law’s voice. It wasn’t like her to be as sharp as that.
At least, when Mike and I were both awake, we could chat. As casually as possible, I brought up the subject of Declan Farrell. I’d pretended I’d heard about the chain-saw incident earlier, from someone else, and wondered what sort of a man he might be. ‘He must be a right hard bugger, to do a thing like that.’
‘He is,’ Mike agreed. ‘He’s supposed to have a filthy temper. I don’t know how many people he’s kneecapped.’
‘What drives him? I mean, what makes him do it?’
‘What makes any of them do it? It’s bred into them from infancy. You’ve heard those street kids of three and four effing and blinding. You’ve seen them throwing stones at the patrols. It’s in their blood. They grow up knowing nothing else.’
‘Have you ever seen Farrell?’
‘A couple of times. He’s quite an impressive-looking guy, I have to admit.’
‘But he’d never actually do an operation now? Too senior?’
‘I dunno. They’ve lost a lot of lower-grade operators lately. They may be thin on the ground. Besides, he likes getting involved. Also, he’s that arrogant, he might come out just to show the lads how things should be done. If they’ve fucked up on the last couple of jobs — as they have — he might fancy giving a lead himself.’
‘You don’t think he’ll come tonight?’
‘Could do. Why — you scared?’
I forced myself to laugh. ‘No, just curious.’ Suddenly I realized I’d used that expression before, and disciplined myself never to use it again.
There was no change of plan during the day. Every time the desk came through the message was the same: ‘NTR — Nothing to Report.’ In the absence of any more news from the touts, we assumed that the shoot would go down at 2200 that night.
On that dull winter afternoon, soon after five, we moved forward again to take up the same position in the ditch. I noticed that the wind was dropping and the temperature falling, but paid no particular attention.
From the net we knew that the babysitting team had stayed in situ, like us, and that the Det were moving out into the country again. So were our intercept cars. Across a wide area of the countryside, the trap was being set.
This time the players were early — and where they came from, nobody could say. We got no warning; somehow, they eluded the Det. Suddenly, at only 2120, there were lights coming up the road from behind us. I managed to put a call through while the vehicle was still at the gate and somebody was undoing the lock, but then, as it cruised in past us, we had to go quiet.
This time it was a car — an old two-litre Rover, superficially similar to our own Interceptor. The driver swung round to the right beside the end of the cottage, then backed out and came forward again, to stop, facing the road, almost in front of us. Close as we were, we couldn’t see the registration number, which looked as if it had been deliberately caked with cowshit. Four men got out and slammed the doors, not bothering to keep the noise down. I guessed they’d all had a couple of pints. Then one opened the boot, lifted out a bundle, and all four walked across to the barn. Seconds later somebody struck a match and a gas pressure-lamp hissed into action.
A harsh yellow glare flooded the inside of the building. One of the men seemed to realize that they were being careless, because he came back to the threshold, looking to right and left, and said loudly, ‘This fecking barn’s supposed to have doors on it, too. Whatever happened to them?’
‘Bollocks to the doors,’ said another voice. ‘Get fecking changed.’
From the bundle somebody sorted out long black garments, and all four began to pull them on.
In Mike’s ear I whispered, ‘Recognize anyone?’
He nodded twice, staring intently.
‘Farrell?’
He shook his head.
In a minute or so the four men were encased in black from head to foot. One of them had opened up the hide, and was handing out the rifles and loaded magazines. I heard magazines clicking home.
I felt my heart going like a hammer, and took a couple of deep breaths. Jesus! I had the G3 set on automatic, and levelled at the group, thirty metres off. I could wallop them all.
One man, the shortest in the group, walked round the other three, giving them a cursory inspection. Then he doused the lamp, and all four walked to the car.
The moment they were rolling, I got on the radio. ‘Sierra Two. Four X-rays have collected weapons and ammunition from Black Two. Four AK 47s. Now complete in dark-green Rover 2000. Mobile northwards from my location.’