Not even allowing the younger man to ask any questions, Smith ploughed on: “You’ve been out of the country for five years and you’re an explosives expert. They can always use experts. Some of their blokes are good, but some are a bit ham-fisted. Do you know forty-four of them have scored ‘own goals’ since 1969?”
Marcus had shuddered. Enemy or not, he’d felt a professional sympathy for anyone who had blown himself up.
The major continued. “It can get quite absurd. A few years back, the Provos’ own quartermaster general—bloke called Jack McCabe—took himself out. He tried to move ammonium nitrate explosives with a metal shovel on a concrete floor.
“Imagine how interesting your expertise would be to the Provos.”
Marcus’s curiosity had been piqued, but he still had not been particularly interested until the major outlined the specific nature of the task.
His job would be to identify the Provos’ 2nd Battalion bomber and his superior officers. The major had hinted that it was probably one of the 2nd Battalion man’s devices that had nearly killed Marcus.
It was then that he sat up and began to pay closer attention. In the days since the explosion, Marcus had understood that with the right precautions, bomb disposal was not as dangerous as it might appear. What had happened to Al Cowan seemed careless, like the kind of thing that could happen to anyone who took a corner too fast in a sports car. But being blown up and lucky to escape, despite strict adherence to procedure, cast the whole issue in a different light. Marcus had begun to wonder if there might be an honourable way out of bomb disposal. The major was offering one—at least in the short term.
“I’ll not wrap it up,” the major had said. “It’ll be dangerous. The Provos don’t run Sunday schools.”
It had dawned on Marcus that what he was being asked to do would be risky, but the clincher came when the major pulled out a silver cigarette case. Marcus immediately noticed the crest and the motto, “Who Dares Wins.”
“Are you SAS, sir?” He’d seen the wistful look on the major’s face.
“Not anymore.” He’d shaken his head as if to shoo away a bothersome fly, looked Marcus straight in the eye, and said, “But you could be. Do exactly what I tell you, find the bomber and his bosses, and I’ll put in a recommendation that you be accepted for one of their assessment courses.”
Christ! Now that was a goal to shoot for. The Special Air Service Regiment, four Sabre squadrons, the elite of the British army. It was an opportunity offered to very few. And he could not ever be criticized for leaving the RAOC to join the SAS.
Except, of course, there was an intermediate step. He would have to find the bomber, and before he could do that he would have a lot to learn. A hell of a lot.
Major Smith had explained that Marcus would be confined to these quarters for the duration of his training. He wanted as few people as possible to be aware that Lieutenant Richardson was still alive.
The schooling itself would be a three-step operation.
Marcus would need to change his appearance, and to that end he had been told to let his hair grow and to cultivate a droopy moustache. Any curious stranger with a military haircut appearing in the Catholic slums of Belfast might just as well shoot himself in the head and save the Provos the bother.
A new wardrobe had been provided. Jeans; serge trousers; coarse, collarless shirts; V-necked sweaters; cheap windcheaters; socks; and pairs of scuffed leather shoes. All the clothing fit: thirty-six-inch inside-leg trousers with a thirty-two-inch waist, size 16 collars, size 11 shoes. There were items that had come from Canada—T-shirts and a red jacket, large size, with a prancing horse and the words CALGARY STAMPEDERS on the back. He guessed it was for supporters of some kind of sports team. Haircuts and clothes were the easy part—anyone could play at fancy dress.
In two weeks a captain would be coming over from SAS Headquarters at Stirling Lines to give Marcus a crash course in intelligence and counter-insurgency. He was looking forward to meeting the SAS chap, who, with a bit of luck, might be a brother officer in the not-too-distant future.
The toughest part was going to be mastering the cover story. Marcus would be impersonating a real man. A man from his own hometown, Bangor. A man with a lower-class background who had emigrated to Canada and worked in the oil fields of Alberta—with explosives. The explosives part would be easy. Royal Army Ordnance Corps officers were taught how to disassemble bombs and naturally had to understand how such devices were constructed.
But Marcus would also have to possess a thorough working knowledge of Canadian customs and the geography and recent history of events in Alberta—particularly the northern town of Fort McMurray and the city of Calgary, where the chap spent his leaves from the oil wells.
And Marcus would have to be word perfect in the details of his double’s past life—his likes and dislikes, his family and friends. The bits about family and friends would be simple memory work, but Marcus wondered about embracing his double’s tastes. His own life had been privileged, and he recognized that he had little idea how the working class—the Catholic working class—went about their daily lives.
Marcus knew nothing about Catholicism. Middle-class Ulster Protestants ignored the other faith, laughed the ethnic jokes about the thick paddies and might aver—with the same patronizing tolerance that some white Americans showed blacks—that some of their best friends were Catholics. They were not particularly keen, however, on any suggestion that their daughter might marry one.
He had been surprised to find that he felt a vague sense of unease when he realized that he must learn enough of the Roman liturgy to pass as an adherent. It was a price he would have to pay, and not a very high price at that.
Major Smith would live in the other half of the semi for the duration of the training. It would be his job to drill Marcus in his cover story, over and over again, until, as a good linguist thinks and even dreams in foreign languages, he would think and react as a different person.
Major Smith had given Marcus a large green binder. In it were all the details of the life of the man Marcus Richardson was to become. A working man, a Catholic man, a man called Mike Roberts.
NINE
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8
There had been no word from Sean Conlon and no requests for more devices in the four days since Davy had built his last bomb. He was grateful for the respite. Fiona would be home soon, expecting him to have made his choice. He sat, head bowed, at the kitchen table. He did not want to believe she meant what she had said last night, and yet, knowing her as he did, he must. He’d gnawed at his options—black or white—as a terrier worries a rat, certain of what he must do, yet hating himself for it. He loved her so much.
He’d met her six years earlier, before the Troubles, when she soared into his universe like a bright comet from another galaxy. They’d met by chance. Davy had been walking along the Lagan Embankment and she’d come the other way. As they passed, she stumbled and he grabbed her arm. She laughed and thanked him. Her laugh touched Davy. He blurted out that his name was Davy McCutcheon and asked the stranger with the raven hair, the black almond eyes, and the laugh warm as hot chocolate if she’d like a cup of tea. To his amazement Fiona Kavanagh said yes, she’d love one.
Love one. Over cups of tea, he had fallen in love for the first time in his thirty-eight years; his days with the IRA had left little time for women. Fallen in love? He’d plummeted with the desperation of a sixteen-year-old. And his love had been returned. Until now. Because of politics.
He had thought in the early days that she believed in the Republican cause as strongly as he did. She’d been one of the first members of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. Until she’d explained, he hadn’t understood that NICRA’s agenda was less one of union with the Republic than fairness for all in Ulster—one man, one vote—and an end to discrimination against Catholics. “The IRA want reunion at any cost. We want peace and justice, but we refuse to pay a price in blood,” Fiona had told him.
After he met Fiona, Davy redoubled his efforts to find work. As usual, it was a fruitless search. His shame, when he had admitted to Fiona that he had no trade, was that of a priest in the confessional who had broken his vows of celibacy. She had merely shrugged.
By that time he had told her how he’d spent his younger days, what had happened to Da. She’d been horrified to hear about his father, but as for the rest? He wasn’t sure that she entirely approved, but she had understood, and had never criticized him for his past or his lack of skills.
That was Fiona Kavanagh. A strong woman who thought for herself and, when her mind was made up, was as hard to shift as the Mourne Mountains. He’d first found that out about six weeks after they had met, when, stumbling over the words, he asked her to marry him. She laughed, a throaty sound, melodious as the mouth music of the Hebrides. She said they were as good as married, and now that he’d asked, she’d move in with him, but—but they wouldn’t need the dreary mumblings of some priest. She said something about “bourgeois conventions.” He hadn’t been quite sure what she meant, but he never raised the subject of marriage again.
She’d come to Conway Street, bringing her possessions and her ginger kitten, McCusker. He was a big tomcat now, curled up asleep under the table.
When had it all started to go wrong? Davy McCutcheon knew the answer: when he joined the Provos. She’d not said much at first, grudgingly accepting his explanation that the PIRA’s job was to defend the Catholic ghettoes.
When Ó Brádaigh and MacStiofáin and the rest of Army Council had decided that the Provos could go on the offensive, she began to wonder aloud how Davy could work with “a bunch of unprincipled killers.”
It had come to a head the night of the Abercorn bombing, March 4, 1972. Nearly two years ago. The Provos had left a bomb under a table in the popular restaurant in the Cornmarket in central Belfast. Two patrons were killed and more than 100 wounded.
She’d been sitting with him in the little front parlour when she put down the Telegraph, looked straight at him, and said, “Davy, I wish you’d get out.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. Not now.”
“Why not, Davy?”
“Because I’ve gone too far to turn back. I owe it to my da. I owe it to myself. Anyway, we’re going to win. We have to win.”
“By killing innocent people? Look at this, for God’s sake.” She tried to hand him the newspaper.
“No.” He turned to her, held her shoulders in his big hands. “By beating the British army.” Her eyes were black in the dim light, black and soft as ripe damsons, and yet he’d seen a hardness there. A hardness he had never seen before.
She’d hesitated, then said, “I don’t think I can go on living with you, Davy. Not unless you leave the Provos.”
“What?” She might as well have slapped his face.
“I mean it.”
“Jesus, Fiona.”
They talked for hours, and she went back on her threat, told him she loved him too much. And he held her, kissed her, and caressed her until her breathing had quickened and she’d thrust herself against him. On the sofa. The pair of them like kids in the backseat of a car.
She didn’t mention leaving again and made no open criticism of his PIRA work, and Davy had buried the once-spoken threat, almost forgotten it.
Until last night.
Davy leaned back in his chair. He stared at the photograph of Fiona laughing on a beach. She was thirty-four when the snap had been taken. Before the Troubles. Before the first streaks of silver had appeared in her shiny black hair. Och, Fiona.
Everything from last night was in his head, jumbled like the tinsel in a kaleidoscope, but making clear patterns—patterns he did not wish to stare at.
She’d been very quiet after supper. Hadn’t wanted to talk about what her kids had done in class, the daily activities she called her “infants’ efforts.”
Finally, he asked her, “What’s up, love?”
She paused for a long time, then said, “Did you read about the bomb in the station, on Tuesday?”
“No.” He shrugged. She should know that he hardly ever read the papers. He didn’t want to know.
“The ticket man was killed.”
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“Was it one of yours?”
“Dunno.” It could have been. He saw the pleading in her eyes. “I don’t think so.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He’d never heard such a defeated tone in her voice.
He fidgeted. “Do you mind if I’ve a smoke?” She tolerated his habit. He usually went out into the yard, but something told him not to leave her this time.
“Go ahead.”
He took his time selecting a Woodbine, lighting up. He looked at her through the smoke. She was shaking her head slowly, the dark wings of her hair moving, framing her face. He could not meet her gaze as she said, “Two of his daughters are in my class.”
He rose and leaned across the table, reaching out his hand to comfort her. To touch her swaying hair. But she moved away from him.
“I don’t know what their mother was thinking. She sent them to school today.”
He could see the film of moisture before her eyes.
“The younger one, Deirdre, asked me, ‘Why, miss?’” She flicked the back of one hand across her left eye, inhaled, and stared into his being. “What do you say to a little girl, Davy?”
He looked away.
“What do you say? He died for Ireland? He’s with the angels? It was an accident?”
The cigarette shook between his fingers.
“It was no accident, Davy, and you know it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Sorry? For God’s sake, is that all? You never see what your bombs do. You’re like those pilots in the Second World War. High above the carnage, conscience clean.”
Davy slumped back into his chair. She was right. He hadn’t seen. Didn’t want to see. He’d seen enough the day Da died.
She stood. “Do you remember what I said after the Abercorn?”
Davy clasped his big hands like a supplicant altar boy, bowed his head, and waited.
“Davy, I love you.”
He looked up, a tiny smile beginning, but it was banished when she said, “Two years ago I asked you to get out. Now I’m telling you.”
“Fiona…”
“You choose, Davy. The Provos or me.”
“But…”
“No buts, Davy.” She stepped back. “I’m going out.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, thank you.” The ice in her words chilled him like the touch of a corpse’s hand, and he could do nothing but stand and watch as she left.
She hadn’t come home until the small hours. He’d pretended to be asleep, not knowing what to say. He’d lain beside her until the morning, his eyes wide, his mind churning like a cement mixer with a slipped clutch. He hadn’t moved when she rose, dressed, and left, pausing only to look down on him and whisper, “I love you, Davy McCutcheon.”
He’d spent the day bleary-eyed, heart-sore, waiting, doing little things about the house—vacuuming, dusting, mending the broken latch on the gate to the yard, anything to occupy his mind. But school would be over now, and she would be coming home.
Davy heard her key in the lock, the door opening, and her footsteps in the hall. He rose. She stood in the doorway, a pile of exercise books under one arm, her raincoat and head scarf soaked. He made no move to go to her.
“Well?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“All right.” She set the books on the table, turned, and left.
Davy stood, hands dangling by his sides. He loved her, loved her more than the life in his body, but …
But Da ha
d died for Ireland, as hundreds of others had; many more had sacrificed their freedom, their homes, their loved ones. He, Davy McCutcheon, had made the Provo Declaration. He had given his boyhood and young manhood to the grey, grim “Cause,” and now he must give up the only lovely thing he had ever owned, he thought. He had no choice. He knew he’d never had a choice, never since the days Da had spun his stories of Kathleen ni Houlihan. Ireland was in Davy’s soul like Jesus Christ in the heart of a Carmelite nun.
He heard her footsteps on the stair. Owned? He had never owned Fiona Kavanagh, he corrected himself. She had given herself, and now he had returned the gift he cherished above all. For the Cause.
TEN
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11
As Marcus Richardson had known in theory and discovered nine days earlier in practice, a motor vehicle loaded with explosives is a powerful weapon. The concept was the brainchild of Seamus Twomey, a bookmaker who had been involved in the IRA’s Operation Harvest. He, like Davy, had quit in the early sixties but returned to offer his services in 1969. He had been one of the group that had met to consider splitting from the Official IRA and founding the Provisionals, and he became one of the Provos’ leaders when the schism occurred.
In 1970 Twomey was adjutant of the Belfast Brigade, Provisional IRA—the post now held by Sean Conlon—and second in command to Billy McKee. He rose to become Officer Commanding. In March 1973 Twomey moved to Provisional IRA General Headquarters in Dublin.
Twomey’s gift to the PIRA, the car bomb, had allowed them to score a number of successes, but sometimes the Provos miscalculated. On July 31, 1972, three car bombs were placed in the main street of the village of Claudy. The Provos had intended to limit the number of casualties by telephoning a warning. The telephone booth they’d counted on using had been vandalized. No warning was given and the village was devastated. Nine people were killed at once and two died later.
The Security Forces countered by making it illegal to park an automobile within town limits unless someone remained in the vehicle. They reasoned that, while the Provos may have been fanatics, they were not a bunch of kamikaze pilots. But even such measures did not prevent devices being ferried by car for delivery into the heart of Belfast.
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