Bandit Country

by Andrew Turpin

  Francis’s real skill set and passion lay in camouflage. He had two businesses. One was the vinyl company, a more recent venture. The original business, which he still operated, provided handmade camouflage equipment and suits for a large variety of customers, including birdwatchers and photographers.

  However, an unadvertised sideline to his main range of products was camo garments, known as ghillie suits, used by snipers to conceal themselves from view while working out in the open. He used a variety of both man-made and natural materials and designed the suits so that they could be adapted quickly in the field by adding local vegetation to special netting that was stitched to the suit material.

  Francis had learned his craft from an American friend who worked at the US army sniper school in Fort Benning, Georgia. And he had gradually built up a below-the-counter client list that included a motley bunch of mavericks and mercenaries who operated in some of the darkest corners of the globe, particularly Africa and the Middle East.

  During the ’80s and ’90s, Francis had occasionally provided the south Armagh sniper gangs with ghillie suits, including Duggan’s father, Alfie, which was how the two men had come to know each other.

  There were two items on Duggan’s shopping list. One was a ghillie suit, the other a vinyl cover for the Grizzly in the back of Duggan’s van.

  For both items, Duggan provided Francis with a flash drive containing several photographs he had taken on Black Mountain with the high-definition camera mounted on his drone.

  Francis led Duggan through his vinyl wraps showroom to an office at the rear of the building, made him a cup of tea, and closed the door.

  He loaded Duggan’s photographs onto his laptop and scrutinized them carefully. “Good pictures,” he said. “Can I ask, where did you take them?”

  Duggan studied the older man carefully. “You don’t need to know that,” he said.

  Francis shrugged. “Of course.”

  After Duggan left Francis, he steered his van off Falls Road and through another industrial park until he reached a small, run-down cluster of units that housed various businesses, some of them legitimate, others that he knew were less so.

  Now he was onto the next job he had scheduled for that morning, which he expected to prove a little trickier.

  Arthur Higgins Welders, said a weather-beaten painted sign on a piece of plywood above the fifteen-foot-wide steel roller door that formed the main entrance.

  Duggan parked and walked through the door. He paused for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloomy interior of the workshop, which was lined with workbenches, oxyacetylene equipment, tanks, masks, pails of paint, and other paraphernalia.

  Over in the corner, a thin, wiry gray-haired man in an oil-stained blue boilersuit was bent over a workbench, wearing a pair of plastic safety goggles.

  Arthur Higgins had run his three-man welding business in that particular area of West Belfast for many years. His normal stock-in-trade consisted of customized steel beams for home additions, metal gates and made-to-measure steel staircases, all of which he supplied to local building companies with

  But, like Francis, Arthur also had a sideline. For years he had acted as welder in chief for whichever IRA units required his services. No matter the equipment requested of him, Arthur had found a way to manufacture it all: from under-car weapons concealment devices designed to look like part of an exhaust system, to platforms for heavy machine guns on the backs of farm trailers, and hidden containers on trucks that could be used to transport explosives around the province.

  Known to his friends as Hurricane because he worshiped onetime Northern Ireland world snooker champion Alex “Hurricane” Higgins—who was ironically a Protestant Unionist—Arthur still spent an inordinate amount of time hustling for money against all comers in the snooker hall near the Milltown cemetery.

  For that reason, persuading him to take on new jobs was often extremely difficult.

  Duggan stood in the center of the workshop until Arthur looked up from his bench and raised a hand in greeting. He slowly limped over, which reminded Duggan that the old man had taken a bullet in the leg during some long past street battle with a bunch of unionist paramilitaries in the early 1980s.

  “Long time no see,” Duggan said. “How’s business?” They shook hands.

  “Hectic,” Higgins said. “There’s not enough hours in the day. Too much work from those rich folk in the posh houses over in Holywood and Cultra, all wanting fancy metal fences.”

  “Are you still doing much work for the brigades?”

  “The odd job, but not like the old times.”

  Duggan nodded. “The fire’s gone out of the Provos’ belly, but we’re still up for the fight. I still have the same dreams that Pearse and Connolly dreamed in 1916.” He grinned.

  “Glad to hear it,” Higgins said, a doubtful expression on his face. He removed his safety goggles and peered at Duggan. “And how’s Martin?”

  Duggan knew that Higgins was an old pal of Dennehy, going years back, when they had lived a couple of doors down from each other somewhere in West Belfast.

  Duggan’s face tightened. “He’s okay.”

  “I hope you’re looking after him,” Higgins said in his slow Ulster burr. “Anyway, what can I do for you?”

  Duggan waved a cardboard folder he was holding. “Got something here I want to show you.”

  “Well, I’ve got a list of work as long as my arm, to be honest.”

  “Can I just show you?” Duggan said.

  Higgins hesitated, then turned and led the way to a small office in the corner of the workshop. He pointed toward a desk and sat on a chair behind it.

  Duggan removed a few sheets of paper from the folder and laid them out on the desk.

  “Four-wheel drive quad bike?” said Higgins as he picked up the first sheet, printed from a website. “That’s a big beast. Yamaha Grizzly. What you gonna do with that?”

  Duggan felt like asking Higgins why he needed to know but reined himself in. “I’ve bought one of these buggers for a job I’m planning,” Duggan said. “It’s in the back of the van.” He jerked his thumb toward the van, parked outside. “What I need now is some work on it.”

  Duggan went on to explain in some detail what he would need Higgins to do to the quad bike.

  “Fine, but like I said, I’m snowed under right now,” Higgins said.

  Duggan picked up the next sheet. “This is the other part.”

  “What is it?” Higgins asked.

  “More customization work,” Duggan said. “The van this time.”

  “Right,” said Higgins. “Presumably you’re not converting it for deliveries of coleslaw and baguettes to the local deli?”

  Duggan made an effort through gritted teeth to laugh at the attempted joke. “There’s two things I need,” he said. “First, I need to be able to get the Grizzly into it as fast as I can, to make it secure in the back, and get away, quick. Real quick. So, I need a set of ramps and some anchoring points installed in the back of the van so the Grizzly doesn’t start sliding around inside. And I also need you to do some other modifications to the high-roofed part of the van.”

  Higgins rubbed his chin, hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, then said, “I can do it, but the issue is, do I have time to do it. And the answer is no.”

  “Arthur, I know you’re really busy, and the reason is because you’re damn good at what you do. What’s your current hourly rate?”

  “Forty-five.”

  “Okay, I’ll pay you sixty-five. In cash.”

  Higgins scratched his chin again, looked Duggan in the eye, then nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “Good,” Duggan said. He reeled off a further list of instructions and grabbed a pen and carefully drew a diagram on the sheet of paper, showing detailed specifications and dimensions for what he had in mind.

  Higgins nodded. “Okay, that’s also doable, I think. We’d need to cut part of the bodywork away, put a hinge or something in there, and tidy
it all up, but yeah. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Good stuff. Right, I’ll leave the van and the Grizzly with you now. I’ll need both of them back within a couple of weeks, absolute maximum. Okay?”

  Higgins pulled a face but nodded.

  “Now, can I order a taxi? I need to go and pick up my car.”

  After he left Francis, Duggan’s phone rang as he was climbing back into his Passat. It was McGarahan.

  “Yes, Liam. What you got for me?”

  “Just something I found out when I was with Dennehy, when he did that job for you, boss. The American guy who’s been nosing around. I found his details on Moira’s phone when we were in her house. A load of text messages between them, arranging to meet up and so on.”

  “Okay, that confirms what we knew from the photographs,” Duggan said.

  “Yeah, but there’s more to it. He’s been using a false name. It’s not Philip Wilkinson. She had him listed on her phone as Joe Johnson.”

  “Joe Johnson?”

  “Yes. I’ve found out a bit already, done some Internet research on him. He runs his own investigations business, based in Portland on the East Coast. He’s no mug. Ex-CIA, worked for the Office of Special Investigations for years tracking Nazis on the run around the States. Got a few big scalps under his belt.”

  Duggan climbed slowly into his driver’s seat and shut the door, the phone still clamped to his ear.

  “Shit,” Duggan said. “So if this Johnson is ex-CIA, what’s his story? Is he some sort of pro killer?”

  McGarahan ran through his findings. It seemed that Johnson was definitely not a paid killer but simply an investigator, although there had been deaths during his investigations, according to press clippings.

  “He seems to specialize in getting people into court in cases where mainstream law and order forces haven’t been able to,” McGarahan said.

  Duggan wrinkled his forehead. “What kind of cases?”

  “War crimes—he’s done an old Nazi commander, did a guy from Yugoslavia. Put them both behind bars.”

  Duggan stared up at the car roof. “So what the hell’s he doing here? Who would’ve brought him in?”

  “No idea, chief. It can’t be anyone official. They’re too proud, they don’t bring in outsiders. Unlikely to be the Prods. They know who you are, anyway, and they’re not going to hire some gun investigator from the States, are they?”

  “So who, then?”

  McGarahan paused. “I’ve no idea.”

  Duggan leaned forward and stared out the windshield, his hands clasping the steering wheel.

  Friday, January 11, 2013

  Drumintee

  It was the first time Dennehy had been to Danny McCormick’s house and, in fact, the first time any of the brigade had called him in to do an electrical repair job.

  McCormick had been complaining for some time that his electrical fuse board was always tripping, throwing his house into darkness and cutting off his broadband connection for no apparent reason.

  Perhaps the quartermaster was taking pity on him for having no regular work at present, Dennehy thought, as he went through a series of tests on the electrical circuit to try and pinpoint the fault.

  Whatever the reason, he had received a call from McCormick the previous evening and had gone around to his house the next morning.

  It was a sprawling five-bedroom, single-story bungalow, probably no more than ten years old, built on an elevated one-acre plot of land on the edge of Drumintee village. It was just down the road from the Three Steps Bar and Lounge, which achieved notoriety when British army officer Robert Nairac was abducted from there and killed by the IRA in 1977 after an undercover operation went wrong.

  Gentle green hills rose to the east and west, and to the north, the formidable mass of Slieve Gullion stood black and inscrutable, looking down over the straggly ribbon of white houses that formed the village.

  McCormick, whose chiseled, craggy features and mop of graying hair reminded Dennehy of the nearby mountain, made them each a cup of tea and stood watching as Dennehy changed the fuse board.

  “This is your problem: the board. Whoever put this in went for the budget option,” Dennehy said. “Buy cheap, buy twice.”

  “Thanks,” McCormick said, sipping his tea as Dennehy packed his tools back into his carry case.

  On the way out, McCormick stopped as he was about to open the front door. “I might need your help again, week after next, on the Wednesday,” he said.

  Dennehy looked at him. “What’s that about—another electrical job?”

  “No. Operational reasons this time. Dessie wants me to fish some gear out of the cache down at Dundalk that day, but I might need to take the missus into Belfast for a doctor’s appointment, and I can’t get out of that. Could you step in?”

  “Probably. What’s the job?”

  “Pipe bomb for a hit on a Prod copper at his home in Irvinestown. You’d just need to do a drop-off in Hannahstown. A volunteer will pick it up from you and do the rest. Easy. No need to tell Duggan we’re swapping roles. He might not like it.”

  Dennehy nodded. The quartermaster was correct. Duggan certainly wouldn’t like members of his brigade swapping jobs, given his strict operational rules.

  “Sure,” Dennehy said. “I’ll do it. Won’t say a word.”

  “Good. I’ll be in touch.”

  Friday, January 11, 2013

  Belfast

  After persuading Arthur to do the job, Duggan had another task to complete before going home: a round of golf.

  He drove to East Belfast and headed toward Holywood Golf Club. All sports fans in Northern Ireland knew it as the home club of Rory McIlroy, who won the US Open a couple of years previously and had grown up in the area.

  The course, built on a hillside with views out over Belfast Lough toward the Antrim coastline across the water, was one that Duggan knew reasonably well. It was also only a stone’s throw from Palace Barracks, the British army and MI5 headquarters.

  Duggan had played the odd round there over the years with a farming friend who was a member and also sometimes met up with him for a drink at the bar. No republican talk on those visits—there were far too many police and army types in the clubhouse.

  But today he was planning a solo round. And his true purpose had little to do with golf.

  Duggan pulled into the club parking lot and hauled his bag of clubs and golf cart out of the back of the car.

  There he stopped and checked the phone app he had set up to monitor the location of the GPS tracking device placed under the silver Toyota Avensis, which he knew Johnson had borrowed from Donovan.

  He was becoming certain that something was wrong. According to the GPS device, on Thursday, the Toyota had been parked for the whole day at the CastleCourt shopping center. Today it hadn’t moved from a backstreet just off Falls Road. He decided to assign one of the volunteers to keep a physical watch on it the following day. It was frustrating that he didn’t have enough men to do everything he needed.

  Duggan shook his head and walked into the pro shop, where he paid his fee for nine holes. That would be enough to cover the area of the course he was interested in.

  Five minutes later he was on the first tee. The only other people on the course were a couple of fast-moving youngsters who were two holes ahead of him. Perfect.

  He deliberately pulled his tee shot a little left on the first hole, toward the trees, then grabbed his cart and set off to find the ball.

  When he got down toward the green, well away from the clubhouse, he walked to the fringe of the trees, which gave him some cover.

  From there, Duggan could see down to the northwestern boundary of the course, where there was a curved row of mainly semidetached houses that formed Demesne Road.

  He unzipped a compartment in his bag and took out a piece of kit not carried by many golfers—his Vectronix Terrapin range finder.

  He quickly applied the range finder to his right eye and focused. There, 355
yards away, was the house in Demesne Road, its front cleared of bushes and trees, presumably to improve security. He expected it to have plenty of illumination after dark—security systems, infrared beams, movement sensors, and other toys in place—given what he knew of its owner.

  But sophisticated systems designed to deal with burglars weren’t Duggan’s concern. He was more worried about getting a clear line of sight. And from there, near the first green, things looked good.

  He guessed his target would be a similar distance away to that which young McIlroy would hit his driver on a good day.

  Not that anybody would be out on the course at the time he had in mind, though.

  Because he was planning a night strike.

  Chapter Twenty

  Saturday, January 12, 2013

  Belfast

  The Russian Vladimir Timmer had moved quickly.

  Before Johnson and Jayne had finished their breakfast, a courier delivered to the apartment on Falls Road a box containing the equipment Jayne had requested from the former SVR operative only two days earlier.

  “Express courier from Moscow. Looks like he’s trying to impress you for some reason,” Johnson said as he glanced up at her from his coffee.

  Jayne slit open the box and spread the contents across the table.

  There were fifteen microcameras, each about three and a half inches long and not much fatter than a pen, that held a tiny lens and a microphone, a wireless transmission unit the size of a cigarette pack, and a matchbox-size signal booster. The kit was identical to a system Johnson had successfully used a couple of times before that fed footage to a server where it could be viewed live and also recorded and stored for easy access online at any time.

  All the cameras had ultra-long-life batteries that would last around seventeen days, according to the blurb.

  Also in the box was a small USB hard drive with a printed sheet of paper wrapped around it.

  The note on the sheet said that spyware had been copied to the hard drive. If installed on a computer, it would allow complete remote monitoring of activity and files, including emails, without the user being aware that it was happening.