The policemen took a second to comprehend, to register the gun and the meaning of the words, McGirl’s harsh Ulster accent. They skidded to a halt in mid-run, one sliding on the spilt oil and stumbling. The other was younger, looked no more than an adolescent. He reached out his hand, palm up.
‘Don’t be silly, sir. Hand over the gun.’
Christ, thought McGirl, what the fuck do they teach them at Hendon? ‘IT GOES OFF IN ONE HOUR!’
The officer didn’t flinch, didn’t appear to hear. Took a step forward, then another. His hand still held out. ‘Let’s be having it, sir.’
Are you fucking deaf?! ‘THIS IS AN IRA AIDAN BOMB, GODDIT?! AIDAN! YOU’VE GOT AN HOUR TO CLEAR THE TUNNEL! AND DON’T APPROACH IT OR IT’LL BLOW!’
‘Andy!’ called the policeman on the ground. ‘Keep back, it’s the bloody IRA!’
Another step forward. McGirl’s eyes seemed to zoom in like a camera on the thin young face, the clear eyes, the pimples on his chin.
The single shot took him out. Ear-shattering in the enclosed space, the 9mm round acted like a rug pulled from beneath the officer’s feet, flinging him backwards onto his companion.
Glodagh shoved the gun into her pocket, pulled on her helmet, and threw herself astride Doran’s pillion. ‘LET’S GO.’
The gleaming tail pipes exploded in a cloud of choking exhaust and the first motorcycle was on the move, slowing for a wobbly passage between the dumper’s rear end and the tunnel wall. Then it was away, the noise of its violent acceleration vibrating back and forth beneath the Thames, McGirl and Muldoon adding to the nerve-shattering clamour as they followed close behind.
On the ground Police Constable Pete Williams hugged PC Andy Collins in his arms, seeing the gaping chest wound and feeling the life leaking out of the young body.
With his free hand he pressed the send button on the radio clipped to his lapel, gave his call sign. He heard a response, the voice like it was coming from Mars, the signal breaking up.
Underground, he thought, and tried again. Nothing but hiss and static.
Underground. His eyes travelled to the massive dumper jammed across the tunnel, then up to the arched roof.
A massive bomb, how big? The blast directed straight up out of the steel sides of the cargo hold. And above, how many million gallons of river water pressing in on them? Immense, unimaginable pressure. God knew how many cars were now bumper-to bumper in the jam. Young Andy dying in his arms.
And his sodding, fucking, bloody bastard radio didn’t work.
The shutter of the camera blinked silently again as they left.
From the pavement opposite it was impossible to see the image-intensifying telephoto lens, hidden as it was in the shadow of the missing roof slate.
The technician from 14 Intelligence Company was satisfied. He slid the slate back into place, hunkered down in the confines of the roof space, and pulled off his earphones.
Beside him the SAS minder, wearing a civilian green anorak and with a stubby Heckler & Koch sub-machine-gun resting across his knees, nodded sagely. ‘Interesting?’
‘Could be, Ran.’ The technician switched off the tape machine, made himself comfortable and began scribbling in his note pad.
Ran Reid watched him without comment. The technician was an insular bastard, he thought. Kept things to himself. Operational silence was second nature to them both. Especially in OPs. But, after all, this was a permanent covert OP in a safe house. An occasional exchange of words wouldn’t go amiss.
The previous owners had been driven out nine months earlier when the place was firebombed. It was an anonymous attack and no one knew who was responsible, although Ran Reid could guess. There had not been much damage but it was enough to persuade the Protestant couple that it was time to move for the sake of their child. The husband worked for a construction company contracted to the RUC and he knew for that reason he was considered fair game by the Provisional IRA.
The property had come on the market at a snip, the new owner a single woman in her thirties who said she worked as a secretary in the Northern Ireland Office. In fact she was RUC Special Branch.
It was an ideal situation because every day she could take the tapes and rolls of film into work without the need to make surreptitious journeys.
That wasn’t to say that Ran Reid or the technician, or the other teams on rota, could ever afford to drop their guard. Because if King Billy ever discovered the bug transmitter that fed perpetually off the electrical circuit in his drinking club, or the OP in the rooftop opposite, they knew he would not hesitate to act. The betting was it would be an incendiary device that would roast them alive. No one doubted that in truth King Billy’s loyalty as a Loyalist was nowadays mostly to himself. It was anyone’s guess if the Quick Reaction Force from the local army base would arrive in time to rescue them.
The technician passed the note to Ran Reid. ‘Can you encrypt and send, please. Priority.’
It took just a few minutes for the words to be electronically coded and then fired into the airwaves in a burst transmission lasting a fraction of a second. The signal was so fast that it would defy any of the scanners known to be used by paramilitaries on both sides.
The duty officer in the high-security operations room of the Intelligence and Security Group Detachment at Lisburn received the signal and decoded it minutes later. Known colloquially as ‘Int and Sy’, or more menacingly as simply ‘The Group’, it was, depending on one’s viewpoint, the most revered, despised, feared and notorious of the several covert intelligence units operating in Northern Ireland. In order to preserve its shadowy anonymity, its official title and that of its component parts had been changed from time to time over the years to mislead the enemy as to its true function. The Group comprised 14 Intelligence and Security Company, drawing on suitable officers and NCOs from all branches of the army and Royal Marines for undercover surveillance work, the Field Intelligence Unit — manned by the Army Intelligence Corps to run agents in the field, who were frequently ‘turned’ terrorists — and a small contingent of SAS troopers for hard backup.
Lieutenant Bryant read the signal for a second time before calling Don Trenchard on his bleeper. The liaison officer had been enjoying a round of cards and sharing jokes with colleagues over a late coffee in the mess bar. He always found it easy to relax in the place with its plush burgundy carpet, matching drapes and heavy mahogany panelling: it simply reminded him of home on the Bedfordshire estate that had been in his family for generations.
Feeling tired and more than ready for sleep, he overcame his initial irritation and walked briskly back up to the ops room, leaving his winning hand unplayed.
‘Thought you’d want to see this. From the OP opposite Billy Baker’s club. That’s the gist of the meet. Full transcript and photographs will be in by 0830 tomorrow.’
Trenchard studied the signal, lowered himself into a chair. ‘Eddie Mercs and Casey Mullins,’ he murmured.
‘Says she wants to name the bombers.’
‘Don’t we all.’
‘What’s King Billy up to, Don?’
‘Judging by the lecture on the Protestant case, he’s out to win friends and influence people.’
Bryant shook his head. ‘I don’t mean that. The way he’s left it. It’s almost as though he thinks he can help them. As if he knows something.’
‘More likely bravado and pride. Doesn’t want to admit he knows bugger all.’
‘But if he does?’
‘He knows we’ve got first call.’
‘So what do we do?’
Casey Mullins, Trenchard mused. Friend, now lover, of Tom Harrison, Ulster’s Senior ATO and up to his neck in AIDAN’s London bombing campaign. Made the story her own, latest darling of what was Fleet Street, hungry for success and on the scent.