‘There’s a cheerful thought,’ Trenchard said.
Even outside, as they began their walk back to the Section office, Harrison could sense the anxious air of expectation. Nothing specific, just small pointers. The July sun was bright yet there was no heart in it and it failed to warm the streets. There seemed to be few people about and those who were, walked briskly about their business. No one sauntered, no one lingered. He noticed no tourists but an increased presence of blue serge uniforms. Almost one on every corner, he thought.
Trenchard put it into words. ‘You can almost smell it, Tom. It’s a city in fear. I haven’t felt it so acutely since the mid-seventies. And I’m getting a queasy feeling of de’jd vu.’
He stopped at the news stand to buy the latest edition of the Evening Standard. The paper’s coverage of the morning’s press conference would probably set the tone of that night’s television news and the following day’s nationals.
Harrison looked on, his expectation of an optimistic and upbeat story of how government and police were coping with the latest wave of terror shattered the moment he read the screaming front-page headline:
Government calls in ‘The Tick Tock Man’:
BELFAST BOMB EXPERT FOR LONDON
For Harrison the repercussions of the Standard article began immediately on his return to Section headquarters. He met with Al Pritchard’s stony stare the moment he and Trenchard set foot in the place.
‘Well, Tom, we all know who’s running the show now, don’t we? My phone hasn’t stopped ringing for the past hour. The Home Office, the MOD and the Branch Commander have all been on demanding to* know the source of the leak. And the Yard’s entire public relations department has had a roasting for lousy news management. Anything to say?’
‘Not really, Al. That woman put it all together herself.’
‘With a little help from you.’
‘She must have picked up all that stuff at Jock’s funeral.’
Pritchard’s eyes had become fierce slits. ‘Do you deny you spoke to her at the conference this morning? I saw you with my own eyes, dammit.’ ‘
Harrison’s jaw clenched as he checked his anger. ‘I told her nothing, just gave her marching orders.’
The Section chief almost laughed. ‘That’s a good one. The only one around here who should be getting marching orders is standing in front of me.’
‘Okay, Al, I ballsed up at the funeral, we already know that. And I’m sorry about it, truly. But I didn’t know who she was then, now I do. End of story.’
Pritchard was trying to decide if he’d drawn enough blood. ‘I’m not covering up for you any more.’
‘Don’t bother, Al. Any more calls and you can put them through direct to me. I’ll take any flak there is.’
Trenchard intervened quickly. ‘Listen, gents, far be it from me to spoil a good fight, but my boss is anxious to put together a list of any bomb makers who we think could be involved with the AID AN campaign.’
Pritchard glared once more at Harrison for good measure, before turning to the MI5 man. He sounded weary. ‘Yes, of course. Where do you want to start?’
‘Well, we do know that the AID AN cell has been set up recently for a specific purpose. Possibly an entirely new active service unit.
Maybe a new bomb maker, too. I understand there’s a marked sophistication in the devices they’ve been using. It all points to new blood, I’d have thought.’
As they entered the main administration office, Al Pritchard said: ‘In a way, you know, it’s more like a throwback to the early days in Belfast. Of course, there wasn’t the technology there is now, but nevertheless they were up to all sorts of tricks then. Developed a whole new range of antihandling devices. But then they got a little too cocksure. Scored a few own goals. We didn’t shed any tears over that, of course, but they did.’
Harrison agreed. ‘For a long time now PIRA’s devices have kept mostly standard. Quite simple and idiot-proof. Virtually factory-made on someone’s kitchen table, usually over the border. The bomb maker presets the timer, then all the man who’s planting it has to do is pull out a wooden dowel plug which activates it. He then takes the dowel back to his unit commander to prove it’s been set.’
‘So in a way these AID AN devices represent a return to the old days,’ Pritchard said.
‘It happens quite frequently in Northern Ireland nowadays,’ Harrison added. ‘As you probably know, no two men will construct a bomb the same way. The circuits will be slightly different and they’ll choose alternative component makes. One might make use of superglue or another double-sided tape. Each bomb maker has his own signature.’
Trenchard nodded; he knew little about improvised devices, but it made sense. ‘So what are you saying, Tom?’
‘Only that we’ve come across several signatures in recent years that haven’t been seen for a decade or more.’
‘Ah,’ Trenchard exclaimed, suddenly seeing the point.
Harrison said: ‘Guys are coming out of the Maze after a nine or eighteen-year stretch and going back to work.’
‘And you think AID AN might be one of them?’
‘It’s not impossible.’
The administration office, its walls lined with large-scale maps of London and the suburbs, contained the library, main computer, fax, copier and all the paraphernalia of modern communications. Les Appleyard was on the duty desk, talking to the librarian who was one of the three male administration support staff.
‘Anything happening?’ Pritchard asked.
Appleyard shook his head. ‘Just a run of false alarms. Hardly surprising after yesterday.’
‘No hoaxes?’
‘Amazingly not. As well really, we’re at full stretch. In fact, I’ve had to put John and Dickie on standby.’
‘That’ll please their wives,’ Pritchard said flatly. His own marriage had ended several years previously and Appleyard sensed that he secretly resented any of his Expos who managed to hold theirs together.
Trenchard said: ‘In view of what you and Tom have been saying, I wondered if we ought to start with a look at which convicted bombers have been released from prison in the last year.’
There was a shrug from Pritchard. ‘It’s not an area that usually concerns us, but I think we have the necessary access. But I’m computer-illiterate, so you’ll have to ask “Boffin”,’ he said, nodding towards the long-haired librarian. Despite the fact that he shampooed his locks regularly and was always smartly if casually turned out, Pritchard still considered the twenty-eight-year-old graduate as being little better than a New Age traveller.
Boffin bared his teeth in an unfriendly smile. ‘My parents did give me a real name actually, chief.’
A smile almost cracked Pritchard’s thin lips. ‘Pity I can never remember it. If you had a haircut so I could see your face, it might help.’
‘Prat,’ Boffin muttered under his breath and took a seat by the terminal, deftly tapping in the password. ‘Shall I go back eighteen months, gents, just so we don’t miss anything?’
‘Good idea,’ Harrison said, standing at the librarian’s shoulder.
The list sprang onto the screen.
Behan, M., McCann, M.P.
Blaney, R.J. MacEoin, W.M.
Colley, B.N.R. MacGuire, B.S.
Daly, T. O’Brien, R.
Dougan, H. O’Shea, D.A.
Gallagher, O.D. Ryan, F.J. Lehane,J.
Names, just names. As cold and impersonal as a telephone directory; as meaningless as names on headstones to a third generation. No hint of the real man behind each, their loves and fears, their hatreds. Like the bombs they built, unfeeling mechanisms that just did what they were designed to do, mostly. That was all that concerned men like Tom Harrison and Al Pritchard. Respond, locate and assess the threat, decide on counteraction, destroy. Then go home. Only Don Trenchard habitually looked beyond the guns and the bombs to the men behind them.