Pritchard and Harrison backed to the corner, shielded by the wall to watch the vehicle trundle on its way, alone in the vast concrete chasm of the shopping centre, stalking its mechanical prey. Meanwhile the hazards blinked on unerringly, the harmless-looking van suddenly taking on an air of clinical menace. It was a bizarre sight, a remote and deadly battle between two machines.
Behind them Heathcote and Clarke studied the television monitors as the van filled the screen. The two men exchanged whispered words, as they had done a hundred times before in Belfast, watching the robot close in for the kill.
Harrison willed them on, glanced at his watch. Fifteen seconds to go. If the given warning time was correct. If the timer was accurate. If, if, if…
Decisively, Clarke swung the Attack Barrow round on its rubber tracks to face the side of the van square-on. He released the drive buttons and the robot lurched forward, the distant clang quite audible as the huge circular cutting charge was extended on the telescopic arm, jamming hard against the van’s steel flank.
On command from Heathcote, Clarke thumbed the plastic tit of the first firing circuit on the control box.
The cutting charge blew, tearing a ragged hole in the vehicle’s side. Clarke released the drive buttons and the robot pushed forward, its telescopic arm punching in through the gap with a cluster of six-ounce Candle charges.
The corporal hit the second tit. Harrison held his breath.
The pavement shook from the throaty roar and rumble as the barrow delivered its lethal sting. The van skewed sideways, the low-pressure blast blowing the bomb’s circuitry and burning out the explosive in a fierce tongue of flame that set the vehicle ablaze. Greasy black smoke spiralled skyward into the bright summer sky.
A few plate-glass windows nearby had shattered, but that was all. Heathcote looked at Harrison and grinned broadly. Even Pritchard almost smiled.
After the hidden device in the Haymarket bomb, no one was going near this baby. It was allowed to burn out fully before it was finally inspected and cleared away.
Perhaps, Harrison thought, the tide had begun to turn against AID AN.
Declan O’Dowd was a freelance novelty salesman.
The job didn’t pay well and his wife, whom he only saw at weekends at their family home in Luton, was forever chasing up shopkeepers who hadn’t settled their bills for three months or more. But O’Dowd was his own boss and his work could take him wherever he pleased; there wasn’t a town or city that didn’t have a shop with a dispenser for practical jokes. Rubber spiders, sponge sugar lumps, itching powder and plastic dog dos. That was his stockin-trade. And ideal cover for one of the Provisional’ mainland flying-column experts in R and R. Research and recce.
He hadn’t been surprised when the envelope arrived at his home. It contained a newspaper clipping. The meaning was self-explanatory. A possible future target and an address somewhere in Pimlico.
It took him just over an hour to locate from the blurred press picture of the front door. The estate agent’s For Sale sign made things easier.
There were several tatty tourist hotels in the street and, unusually for the time of year, all had vacancies. He chose one with a room which looked onto the street, with a clear view of the house that was for sale.
A call to the estate agent established that the owners were looking for a quick sale. The property was currently unoccupied and viewing was strictly by arrangement only; the agent would be delighted to show him round.
O’Dowd went out in the middle of the day, taking his case of samples to many little back-street shops in the West End and the southern suburbs. But in the mornings and late afternoons he sat at the window of his room with a pair of binoculars.
For two days he saw no one leave or arrive at the house. The target, he feared, had flown for good.
Then on the third day, a Friday afternoon, a BMW pulled up outside. A small, pretty woman climbed out. Smartly dressed and very self-assured, he thought. She looked to be in a hurry.
This might be his only chance. He ran downstairs and collected his estate car which was parked on a nearby meter. By the time he’d driven back the two blocks to his hotel, the woman was leaving with two suitcases.
With a smirk of satisfaction on his face, O’Dowd settled down to follow her car. He always enjoyed that sort of challenge.
It was to be a long drive to Wokingham.
He parked across the road from the gates of Hurlingham Boarding School. A banner had been strung along the adjoining railings: SUMMER FETE AND SPORTS DAY. Twenty minutes later Pippa Harrison’s car re-emerged, this time with a boy of about ten in the front passenger seat.
O’Dowd selected first, signalled and pulled out to follow the BMW back to London.
Patrick McGirl had charged one of the mainland support teams with finding suitable locations of the type specified by Hughie Dougan. He had been quite precise. Three empty or derelict shops with easy access in different parts of the city, but away from the centre which would be swarming with alert cops. No evidence of dossers, junkies or glue-sniffers.
Several suitable sites had been found, stealthily broken into and Polaroid photographs taken.’ They settled on one corner shop in a Victorian estate due for demolition off the East India Dock Road near the Isle of Dogs. Another in Deptford and one more in the back streets of Lambeth.
On the day in question, McGirl received the first evidence that the effect of the campaign was starting to bite. Just a small picture caption story in the Daily Mail. It showed a deserted stretch of Oxford Street outside the D.H. Evans store. In the background was an Attack Barrow and a Tactica truck, painted white. The fact wasn’t mentioned, but McGirl knew that both types of equipment had only ever been deployed in Northern Ireland.
The Renault van was a duplicate of one owned by a genuine firm of shopfitters in Shooters Hill; the bombers’ vehicle had been hot-wired and stolen to order by the support team, then scrupulously valeted and stored in a lock-up garage. That afternoon it had been collected by one of the AID AN team and driven to the farm at Henley-on-Thames. In the secure barn, false number plates were fitted as well as cheap vinyl livery graphics. At ten o’clock in the evening McGirl drove to the rented house, parking in the integral garage for ten minutes before leaving again. Only this time Hughie Dougan and his daughter were crouched on the floor under a blanket in the rear.
On his arrival at the fortified farm, he found the AID AN team ready and waiting. This night two of the four would be accompanying Dougan and Clodagh on their mission. Moira Lock, the farmer’s daughter from Fermanagh, and Leo Muldoon from Derry’s Bogside district; neither had a record.
‘Meet AIDAN,’ McGirl said to them. ‘You just need to know him as Hughie — and this is Clodagh.’
Leo was lanky, long thin wrists showing at the cuffs of his leather jacket, his ungainly movements creating the false impression that he wasn’t fully in control of his limbs. His skin-tight jeans just served to emphasise his height as he lurched towards Dougan and extended his bony hand. ‘You’ll be doing a fine job, Hughie. It’s an honour to meet you.’ Beneath the wind-blown mop of black hair his face was pimply and adolescent, his long teeth seeming too big for the cheerful mouth.
Dougan’s cheeks coloured with pride. McGirl had never been more than dour and matter-of-fact; even FitzPatrick had seemed aloof and sceptical about his capabilities.
Yet here was a front-line soldier, a young buck with nerves of steel and matchless courage who had been risking his neck almost nightly, running the gauntlet of the police on the streets of besieged London to place his bombs. Leo Muldoon’s words and his smile appeared genuine, the look of awe and respect in his eyes was unmistakable.