Voices in the front room. He heard his name being called. Shit, so it was him they were after. It wasn’t some random attack or a case of mistaken identity. But why him? Why would the IRA be after him? Okay, so he’d poked fun at them in the Flannery books but surely he hadn’t upset them enough for them to take this sort of action.
Maybe they intended kidnapping him. Perhaps they thought he was a rich author and figured he could raise a huge ransom. Christ, they were going to be pissed off when they found out how little he was worth.
Heavy footsteps. In the passage. Getting closer.
Hell, what could he do? What would Flannery do in a spot like this? Take the offensive, of course. Surprise them. Grab one of them, shove the letter opener against his throat and take him hostage. Then use the famous Flannery cool to talk himself out of the situation. Probably end up with them eating out of his hand; volunteering to come round and fix the door and maybe do some work in the garden as compensation.
Fuck Flannery. This was real life. Wilson shared some of Flannery’s characteristics, as most authors do with their creations, but heroism, nerves of steel and a cool head in an emergency were not among them. Also Flannery was over six feet tall and built like a brick shithouse whereas Wilson was five feet ten and weighed only 160 pounds.
The footsteps got closer. The light came on. Wilson got a low angle view of three pairs of heavy black boots coming towards him across the floor.
I’ll spring out, Wilson told himself, stab one of them and then make a run for it in all the confusion.
But he couldn’t get his body to move. All he could do was crouch there helplessly. The next thing he knew there was a face peering at him only a few inches from his own. One of the men had bent down and was looking at him under the desk.
“Mr. Wilson? Mr. Barry Wilson?” inquired the face politely.
For a few seconds Wilson stared back in frozen shock. Then he managed to croak, “Yes—that’s me.” It was only then that he realized the man spoke with an English accent. “You’re not Irish,” he told him accusingly.
“No sir. I’m Lieutenant Smythe-Robertson of the 69th Parachute Regiment. Would you care to come out from under there, sir? We don’t have much time.”
Wilson crawled out from under the desk. The man helped him get to his feet. Feeling dazed, he stared round at the three of them. They were all dressed in army uniforms. “You’re soldiers. British soldiers,” he said, somewhat stupidly.
“Yessir,” said the one called Smythe-Robertson. “And there’s no need for that, sir.” He looked down at Wilson’s right hand.
Wilson followed his gaze and saw the letter opener. It appeared puny and ridiculous compared to the three submachine guns the soldiers were carrying. Wilson opened his hand and the letter opener fell to the floor with a clatter. “I thought you were the IRA,” he muttered.
The three soldiers glanced at each other. Wilson saw something in the looks that he was not sure he liked. Resentment began to replace his numbing fear. “Look here, what the hell is going on? You come breaking into my house in the dead of night scaring the shit out of me—you’d better have a bloody good explanation. And what are you doing here in the Republic? The Irish government is going to take a pretty dim view of this, I can tell you.”
Smythe-Robertson held up a hand to cut him off. “We have special dispensation, sir, due to the State of Emergency that exists in both countries. Now will you please accompany us, sir. We have a long way to travel.” He gripped Wilson’s arm. Wilson shook his hand away.
“State of Emergency? What State of Emergency? What the flick are you talking about?”
“You must know what’s happened on the mainland. The TV and radio’s been full of it.”
“I don’t have a TV and I never listen to the radio when I’m up here working alone. Too distracting.”
“You mean you don’t know about the crisis?” Smythe-Robertson looked very surprised.
“What crisis?” demanded Wilson.
The soldier paused for a moment then said, “There’s no time to explain it all now. We have to get moving right away.”
“Moving to where?”
“Belfast.”
Wilson laughed. “I’m not going to Belfast. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Smythe-Robertson made a gesture and his two men each grabbed one of Wilson’s arms. The next thing Wilson knew he was being dragged out of his study. He tried to put up a resistance but the two soldiers didn’t even seem to notice his efforts.
“You can’t do this to me!” he yelled. “I’ll sue you for false arrest!”
“We’re not arresting you, sir,” said Smythe-Robertson from close behind. “But in a State of Emergency you are obliged by law to obey our instructions. And that’s what you’re doing.”
They dragged him out through the front doorway, stepping over the remains of the door. Wilson then received another surprise. Sitting in his front garden was a helicopter—a big one.
As the soldiers hustled him toward it, its engine roared into life and the rotor began to turn.
“Better duck, sir,” yelled one of the soldiers. “We don’t want to lose that valuable head of yours.”
No sooner had they bundled him through a side-door in the machine than it began to rise into the air. Wilson couldn’t take in what was happening. It was all too crazy to be true. If he’d put something like this in a Flannery story he’d be accused of being too far-fetched.
“Look, I can’t go away anywhere! I’ve got a book to write! I’ve got a deadline to meet!” he yelled over the noise of the engine.
“Where’s your publisher based, Mr. Wilson?” yelled back Smythe-Robertson.
“London, of course!”
“Mr. Wilson, there is no London anymore!”
2
Everything smelled of country.
Dermot Biggs breathed deeply of the warm night air and was happy. He and Sally and their three children, Sarah, Robert and Finnegan, were all thoroughly enjoying their fortnight’s camping holiday. It was proving to be the success he’d hoped for but hadn’t really thought possible. The usual constant bickering between the kids had stopped and the slight sexual distance he’d felt from Sally in recent months had been bridged, not once but several times.
The weather in Yorkshire had been marvelous the whole time, the car hadn’t misbehaved at all, and to top it off the old farmer on whose property they were camping turned out to be the producer of a home-made beer that was one of the best things Dermot had ever tasted, as well as having the kick of Kenny Daiglish. Every time Dermot visited the farm to pick up their daily supply of eggs and fresh milk he also came away with a quart of the old man’s brew.
He was carrying a quart of it now as he headed across the fields to the clump of trees beside the small river where they were camped. He was a pleasant old fellow for a farmer, Dermot reflected, though he did tend to ramble a bit at times. Like tonight when they’d been sitting in his kitchen sampling a couple of pints of a new batch. He’d been going on about something he’d heard on the radio—or wireless, as he called it—concerning some plague that was supposed to have broken out in London. Dermot couldn’t make head nor tail of what he said and guessed he was exaggerating wildly. Pity one of the kids had dropped and broken their own radio last week, but he was sure that whatever it was could wait until they got back—perish the thought—to Liverpool the next Monday.
Besides, who gave a damn about London? When did anyone in London last give a damn about what went on north of Watford? It was practically a separate country.
Dermot’s good mood persisted even when he stepped in some cow dung. He muttered, “Oh bugger,” to himself and then chuckled when he switched on his flashlight to confirm that he had indeed walked into the grandfather of all cow-pats. A fresh one too.