As soon as they stopped, we ran again, aiming for Fort Knox. In the confusion we lost our markers, and had to cast out, right and left, to find it. In the shelter of the rock bank at last, we stopped to get our breath.
‘How’s the arm?’
‘I can feel it’s bleeding, but not too bad. Hand’s working OK.’
‘Sierra Two,’ I called. ‘We’ve been compromised. No casualties, but we need an urgent pick-up. We’ll be at Black-Four-One five minutes from now.’
‘Zero Alpha,’ the desk answered. ‘Roger.’
‘Sierra Two. We’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest at Black Two, so I recommend all units steer clear of it.’
Still the villains were convinced that we’d come in from the road. They were poncing down the drive with flashlights, loosing off into the dark. I thought of the purple knickers going over that wall.
It took us about a minute to collect all our gear and destroy the OP. Once we’d recovered the ground-pegs and dragged off the wire-netting, the turf-and-grass roof collapsed in a heap, leaving little sign that anybody had been there. As a final touch, I kicked away the edges of the observation notch that we’d cut in the bank so that it would look like a natural hollow.
Ten minutes later we were back at our dropping-off point, lurking behind a convenient stone wall. We’d hardly got into position when Pat came up on the radio to say that he was closing on the location. I acknowledged, and we emerged into the road. Almost at once we saw headlights coming up the hill, and within seconds we were safe in the back of the car, heading for home.
EIGHT
After that fiasco it took me three or four days to chill out. My big disappointment was not so much that the PIRA had pulled out of their operation; what pissed me off was the fact that I’d missed — or rather, been deprived of — a golden chance of settling my personal score. The whole business could have been squared away. If Mike and I had opened fire, we’d have had little trouble afterwards establishing that we’d used reasonable force; having been faced with four armed men, we would have had no difficulty in maintaining that our lives had been in jeopardy.
The wash-up didn’t provide any clues as to why the players had quit, but it did reveal why the desk had forbidden us to shoot. We learnt that one of the four gunmen was a key tout, and that his continued existence was considered of paramount importance. Better him alive than Farrell dead — at least, that was what we were told at the time. Later, I came to wonder if that was the whole truth.
This setback made me do some hard thinking. Farrell had lost his dog, but he probably thought Buster had saved his life. There was no way he could pinpoint the identity of the would-be assassin who’d tried to nail him, but he would certainly guess that it had been a member of the security forces. After such a close shave, he surely wouldn’t risk himself in the field again for a while. My own time in Ulster was rapidly ticking away. It followed that, if I was going to get Farrell, I must go after him on my own.
The idea excited me, because I knew how dangerous a solo mission would be. Of course I’d just had another illustration of how vital it was to work in pairs. If that dog had got hold of me on my own I could easily have ended up getting captured. The risks of a one-man operation were all too obvious. But there was something about Farrell’s arrogance that goaded me on: the way he’d yelled at his own guys as he arrived at the barn — even those few words had made him sound a real bully-boy.
Already I’d formed the outline of a plan. I’d find out where he lived, set up an OP on his house, observe his movements in and out, and then, once I had him sussed, take him out with my secretly confiscated 9mm Luger. I’d fired so many thousands of rounds on the range that I was confident I could put a double-tap into his head from fifteen or twenty metres — and that would be the end of him. My main difficulty was to get enough time off. To find the house might take several recces; to establish the pattern of his movements would need several more. I could take the odd evening off and pretend to be socializing with my in-laws, but sooner or later I would surely get caught by some emergency — a call would go out, pulling all the guys back, and I wouldn’t be there to answer it. Instead, I’d be stuck out in the middle of some godforsaken bog, waiting for Mr Big-Boy to come home.
The next time I visited Kath’s parents was for Christmas lunch. We had a fine meal with all the trimmings, and then the traditional handing-out of presents from under the decorated tree. Tim, being easily the youngest person present, got the job of messenger, taking each package to the right person. As long as he was the centre of attention he behaved perfectly, but later he threw a tantrum for no visible reason, and I could see he was becoming too much for his gran. I think he was reacting to the loss of his mother and the break-up of his home. Apparently these rages were becoming quite frequent. Suddenly he’d let fly with a scream and refuse to cooperate. No wonder he was getting on Meg’s nerves — and on mine.
Lying in my cabin one night, unable to sleep, I started thinking about Tracy (as usual). I’d been phoning her most evenings, and had sent an expensive silver bracelet as a Christmas present. Our relationship was going great guns — as far as it could while we were a few hundred miles apart. I had no doubt we were going to stick together when I got home, and I was pretty sure she’d take Tim over, as if he were her own. She had only ever seen him as a baby, when he’d been brought into the Med Centre in Hereford, but that didn’t seem to worry her.
Now I had a brainwave. Partly because I’d volunteered to work over Christmas, I had a week’s leave coming up, and I’d been planning to go home. But if I did the opposite, bringing Tracy over, I could take local leave, and have a chance to pursue my own devious plans in the Province. At the same time, she could start getting to know Tim. Furthermore — my mind ran on — we could have a kind of premature honeymoon at my in-laws’ holiday cottage on the north coast. The place was standing empty, and it was in a safe enough area. We’d take Tim with us, and at the very least give Meg a break. Afterwards, if all had gone well, Tracy might take him back with her to Keeper’s Cottage and start getting our family settled there — maybe not after this first visit, but some time later.
For once the tide seemed to be running in my favour. Three phone calls fixed everything: one to Tracy, one to Meg, one to the airline. The great thing about Tracy — or one of the great things about her — was the positive way she reacted to new ideas. I can’t stand people with negative attitudes, who reject suggestions on principle before they’ve even thought about them. Tracy’s outlook was the opposite of that: everything new was fun, or likely to be — and so it turned out when I suggested that she might come over. ‘Great!’ was her reaction. Susan could hold the fort at KC. She herself could take a week off work any time, she said. Her only question was, ‘When?’
Meg was almost equally enthusiastic. I put over the idea that Tracy was a trained nurse, and fully capable of looking after a young child. I said, truthfully enough, that her elder sister had two young boys of her own, and that Tracy had helped look after them. I’m sure my in-laws must have seen the way things were going. They’d known that I’d left Tracy in possession of the house in England, and when I said she was coming over, no doubt they put two and two together; but they were too sensible to criticize my arrangements. As for the troop — instead of having to creep out on surreptitious expeditions, I merely said that I was proposing to spend my leave in a holiday cottage on the north coast.