‘And your Wheelbarrow team, sir? They’re happy they can do the necessary?’
‘Captain Heathcote and Corporal Clarke,’ LloydWilliams replied. ‘Our top Belfast team. Both recently worked with your people under Harrison when he was CO of 821 Squadron.’
Foxly gave one of his stiff, reserved smiles. ‘Then, let’s go!’
The signal was received by Captain Ran Reid and Sergeant Major ‘Big Joe’ Monk on the far bank of the Kennet. Six rubber inflatables, earlier attached to guideropes spanning the river, began the process of ferrying the assault team, their equipment and expanding aluminium ladders. Under cover of darkness, they advanced in the predetermined blind spot at the rear of the building. Once Monk confirmed that the team was in position, the police negotiator rang through on the landline. It was McGirl who answered.
‘Good news from Dublin,’ the officer said. ‘They have agreed to receive you and agree to your conditions. As I speak, a helicopter is on its way. Therefore the police will need to illuminate the brewery precincts for it to make a safe landing. You should not be alarmed by these events.’
Meanwhile on the road outside the gates, Captain Heathcote, dressed in full bombsuit positioned two broad-band Lilliput jammers, one each at fifty metres on either side of the culvert where the radio-controlled tomb had been detected earlier. He began the return walk towards the bridge to be met by two Tactica trucks, one of which contained the Wheelbarrow.
‘Gone active,’ Corporal Clarke reported as the radio jammers began silently flooding the airwaves to break up any attempted triggering signal from the terrorists. This was a technical cat-and mouse game that had become increasingly tricky of late as PIRA had refined the eight-or nine-pulse firing signal down to a mere two blips.
With the ECM established, the signalman radioed Zulu Control. In theory the culvert bomb was neutralised. But then who trusted theories? Minutes later they heard the approaching sound of the helicopter, the real purpose of which was to confuse the.terrorists and disguise the noise of the robot.
The throbbing beat increased, hovering somewhere nearby, its flashing strobe the only indication of its presence against the backdrop of stars.
‘Let’s go,’ Heathcote said.
Already, the ramps were down and Clarke had the Wheelbarrow down onto the tarmac in seconds, deftly playing with the joystick to swing it round and send it trundling alone towards the culvert in front of the gates.
Heathcote glanced at his watch. Dammit, they were late. Typical bloody police.
Even as the curse silently passed his lips, the Nitesuns sprang on, startling in their brilliance even behind the screening thicket. Most were angled to illuminate a patch of the concrete forecourt, but others had been directed at the building itself. Muldoon and Doran, who had been watching through their riflesights, would have been momentarily blinded, destroying their night vision. The Wheelbarrow approached the culvert, wheezed to a halt, its mini-headlight on and telescopic arm extended to take the Pigs tick into the small brickwork tunnel.
Both men studied the TV monitor. ‘In position,’ Clarke intoned.
Heathcote agreed. ‘Fire.’
The loud crack of the exploding waterjet as it smashed into the radio-controlled power pack of the bomb was lost amid the rising crescendo of the helicopter.
‘Looks good,’ Clarke reported.
Heathcote grinned, snapped down his visor and began running awkwardly under the weight of the bombsuit. By the time he reached the culvert, Clarke had withdrawn the robot, allowing space for Heathcote to slide down into the ditch, inspect the damage and cut any remaining wires on the circuit. He raised his hand, thumb up.
Clarke immediately took control of the giant Attack Barrow that had been waiting in reserve. With a sudden jerk, it whined into life and began its determined way down the road towards the gates.
Muldoon raised the alarm and Clodagh rushed to join him at the window, the radio-signal transmitter in her hand. She pressed the button at the exact moment the robot crossed the culvert, shut her eyes in anticipation of the flash. Nothing happened.
Meanwhile Harrison sat with Sergeant Major Joe Monk in the black rubber inflatable as it was hauled across the river, secured by an overhead pulley line. The heavy bombsuit had been left behind, standing orders for once ignored. On an assault mission such as this, if anything went wrong, he would be killed regardless of any protection he wore. So, like Monk, he was dressed in black Panotex antiflash suit and hood with layered ceramic body armour and rubber respirator mask. He carried a Browning Hi-Power as his personal weapon and a canvas tool belt round his waist.
Monk would be his personal protector. His huge dark bulk and the doleful insect-eye lenses in the hood created an awesome spectacle like something from a science-fiction fantasy. He carried a 9mm MP5 Heckler & Koch sub-machine-gun clipped to his chest. Because the architecture of the building contained many open areas, he carried some of the most powerful Brock XFS-1 stun grenades along with CS gas containers.
While Heathcote and the Wheelbarrow teams made a noisy but powerful diversionary assault on the south side, Monk and Harrison would be making a silent approach at the north end.
This had been made necessary because earlier helicopter sur: veillance had detected what appeared to be antipersonnel devices in oil drums fitted to the roof. Experience of AID AN suggested this was probably exactly what they were. Whilst casualties to assaulting soldiers were acceptable, the prospect of the old building collapsing entirely in the resulting explosions was not.
The alternative, and infinitely more stealthy approach, was decided on when architect’s drawings became available which revealed the old water outfall system.
‘Zulu Control to Sunray,’ Harrison heard on the integral comms. ‘Confirm Attack Barrow now entering factory gates and is in full view ofhostiles… A shot has just been fired… Commence prelim EOD assault. Repeat. Commence prelim EOD assault.’
Major Foxly’s voice came on the net..‘Roger, Zulu. This is. Sunray. EOD and 10 Troop… GOP
The inflatable nudged the far bank. In front of him, Monk’s head nodded sideways, indicating the water. Harrison sensed the man was grinning as he rolled his large frame over the tubing gunwale and sank up to his waist in the black water that bubbled and foamed as he broke its flow.
Harrison followed, gasping inwardly as he sank into the cold liquid and felt it trickling down into his boots. He edged forward after Monk’s dark shape, watching as the man found the rusted, half-submerged rim of the outfall pipe. Then he was gone, a duck dive; just a glimpse of a broad, black and dripping backside as Monk forced his way into the eighteen-inch-diameter pipe.
Earlier a recce team had removed the grille and checked the viability of the access route. As Harrison stood shivering, waiting for Monk to clear the entrance, he had his doubts. But then these men were the experts. The trouble was they expected everyone else to be equally fearless, regardless of any natural susceptibility to vertigo or claustrophobia. There was no time to linger. The rest of 10 Troop was closing up behind him, ready to follow.
Car bombs and derelicts, he thought, and the old black dog was back, snarling and snapping at his heels.
Taking a deep breath, he plunged face down into the murk. He opened his eyes but could see nothing. Although Monk had a torch with him ahead, the sergeant major’s body virtually filled the tunnel allowing just a confusing glimmer to light Harrison’s way. Cocooned in his respirator, he was aware of the filthy water at chest level, splashing over the eye lenses each time Monk moved forward. And he could sense rather than smell the rankness of stagnant water and rusted metal.
Slowly, painfully Harrison hauled himself along, his head brushing the curved arch above him, the pitted surface grinding on the flesh of his knees through the sodden trousers. Onwards, onwards. Only fifty metres, he knew, but it seemed like as many miles.