by Finn Óg
“It’s not a built-up area but there’s a lot of people around at times.”
“This thing was made by one of their best engineers.”
“Was it?”
“Yes. I think you need to calm down somewhat.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“How do you know that?”
The man just snorted condescendingly. She hated him in that moment. He may have made her, but she loathed him. She resented the way he treated her – as a little girl. She despised his superior tone, his willingness to play with lives as part of some greater game.
She stared at the images relayed by two covert cameras deployed by the ops team. There were two cars in the area, too, each equipped with their own cameras and microphones. The ops officer had seen risk enough to withdraw them to a safe distance, so the logic of just leaving the vehicle in situ didn’t withstand scrutiny. She placed her head in her hands, exhausted, frustrated, disgusted. But when her head lifted again things were so much worse.
A harbour authority van had pulled up and a woman in a high-vis vest was on her knees at the front of the vehicle attaching a wheel clamp.
8
Sam looked out of place in the plush confines of the Royal Dublin Society. He had, rather stubbornly, refused to dress for the occasion despite being told they were dining in the private members’ area. He’d arrived ahead of time and found his name had been left at the door.
“Very good, sir,” said a manager-type, who was suited and shoed to sparkling perfection. “My name is Robert. I’ll be looking after you today.”
Sam was shown to a table and Robert almost asked for his jacket before realising he didn’t have anything other than the shell fleece he’d arrived in.
Sinead came next. Sam rose to meet her, a familiar nervousness creeping over him.
“Hi,” was all she said, drawing in her own chair before Robert had a chance to.
“Sparkling water, please.” Robert took his direction and withdrew. “He’s just behind me,” she whispered conspiratorially. “He didn’t baulk at the money.”
Sam smiled and Sinead smiled back – a roguish grin creeping across her gentle face, and then she rose at Sam’s prompt as the father of the heiress approached.
“Sam, Sinead, lovely to see you again.” The old man’s hand stretched out, careful to greet Sinead first – ever the gent. “How have you been?”
“Grand, thanks,” Sinead said.
“Good, good,” said Sam.
The father sat down and reclined in his seat, then leaned forward and began with an apology. “Regrettably I won’t be able to stay for lunch after all. I have an issue with one of my execs – potentially a nasty business. But please do enjoy the menu. I’ve told Robert to make sure everything goes on my tab.”
“That’s not necessary,” Sinead said.
“Not at all, not at all,” he waved her politeness aside. “Least I can do given that you travelled all the way down from the north to thrash this out.”
“How can I help?” asked Sam, curious as to how the father would frame the conversation.
“Well, my daughter – as you know – is taking a holiday and I want to know she is safe. You have been impressive in the past, so I asked Sinead to gauge your interest.”
“I really didn’t have much to do last time.”
“On the contrary, Sam, I know what you did. You got her in and out of court, you protected her from the press, you stayed that extra night with us when you were needed elsewhere and,” he paused, “you also dealt with our night visitor.”
That came as a surprise to Sam who had no idea anyone had been aware of Loopy Loo’s nocturnal arrival.
The father noticed Sam’s expression. “I do not sleep well, Sam, not at all. So, you see, anything that puts my mind at ease is worth paying for, even to the tune you have requested.”
Sam resisted the urge to offer some sort of leeway and decided to wait and see how the negotiation played out.
“I propose to pay your fee and can offer one hundred and fifty euros per day in expenses, subject to a few caveats. How does that sound?”
“Depends on the caveats.”
“My daughter must not – and I mean must not, be aware you are there.”
“No problem.”
“Can you be sure of that?”
“Yes,” said Sam without hesitation.
The father looked at him for a long moment, then shifted uncomfortably before beginning his next piece of prepared speech. “I do not know a great deal about you despite having asked.” He gestured at Sinead who smiled sheepishly. “I have the bare bones of your background, which in itself is reassuring, but I do not suppose you are going to supply references.”
Sam just looked back at him offering nothing. The father’s lips flattened and he nodded gently as if he had expected as much.
“However,” he glanced at Sinead, “you come with an absolute and unequivocal recommendation.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” Sam said.
“So how would you like to be paid?”
Sam hadn’t thought that through, so he decided to characterise his answer as a joke. “Can you do cash?” he said smiling.
“If cash is required, cash can be got, but if you want it today, it will have to be euros, I’m afraid.”
“That’s ok, I can wait. You come highly recommended.” Sam twitched his head just short of a wink.
The father grinned. “Touché.”
“What about flights?” Sinead inquired, trying to take the conversation away from money.
“If agreeable, I would like you to be on the same plane there and back, Sam. My PA can help with the details.” He pulled out a slim notepad and began writing. He tore off a page and handed it to Sam.
“That’s grand. And thank you.”
“No, no, really, thank you, Sam. I know she will be well-looked-after. Now, have you any questions for me?”
“Has he been in touch?”
“You mean the murderous cretin? No, not to my knowledge, and I very much hope that will remain the case.”
“So why the need for protection?”
The father sighed, sat back for a moment and became a little dreamy as he looked away. “Because she is my little girl, Sam. She may be a handful, she may despise me at times, but she is all I care about, and because all I can do is invest in her safety. Nothing else seems to do any good. Nothing at all.” He was lost in thought for a while before he leaned out of his chair to speak with enthusiasm. “I can thoroughly recommend the linguine, and don’t be afraid to tuck in a napkin at the neck,” he said, before looking at Sam’s lack of suit and tie and quietly admonishing himself. “Anyway, we’ll see that the details are looked after, and thank you again.” He rose, there were handshakes all round, and the father was off.
Sinead looked at Sam. Sam looked at Sinead.
“So,” she said.
“That was a breeze.” He shook his head.
“You’re obviously worth it,” she said, then blushed. “He thinks so anyway.”
There was a silence and then Sinead felt the need to correct her own correction. “Not just him, like, other people too. You make them feel safe.”
“Like who?” Sam said.
“Like me,” she said, looking away.
A familiar awkwardness descended over them. Neither knew how to change course. Sam tapped the arm of his chair and Sinead gazed around the room watching anyone but him.
“The specials today are shoulder of lamb and hake on a bed of colcannon with asparagus, and the soup is parsnip with Mumbai spices.” Robert saved them as he handed out menus.
“Oh, I don’t know if …” Sinead stole a glance at Sam to see if he was for staying.
“That sounds very nice,” he said. “Can I get a pint of stout, please?”
“Certainly, sir. I’ll leave you to decide.”
Sinead reverted to people watching, unable to hold his
eye. From her throwaway thoughts she muttered a question. “How can you be sure?”
Sam panicked a little, fearing she was finally steering towards the rocks he had so far managed to steer clear of.
“Sure of what?” he asked nervously.
“That she won’t know you’re there.”
Ordinarily Sam wouldn’t get into detail about his past, but this wasn’t an ordinary situation – and he was desperate not to get into the obvious alternative. “I spent some time doing work like this, you know, back in the old job.”
“But I thought you were a marine, well, special forces or whatever?”
“There were secondments.”
“What does that mean?” she stressed, somehow frustrated at how little she knew about him. She looked away again. “Like, I wouldn’t have told him anything more about your background, but, to be honest, when he asked I realised that, actually, I don’t know anything.”
“You know more than most.”
“Well, maybe that’s just not enough, Sam,” she said, her face set firm in profile; frustration taking her as close to anger as he had ever witnessed.
“Well, what would you like to know?”
“Like, what did you do? Maybe you can’t say – or just prefer not to to, like, me.”
Sam paused briefly, suddenly realising she wasn’t hungry for information, she was desperate to be allowed in. “I trust you, Sinead, totally and utterly.”
She looked up at him under her fringe. “Do you?”
“Yes,” he responded, surprised she had to ask. “I trusted you with Isla. That’s - that’s all I have?”
“Ok,” she shrugged, as if not altogether convinced.
“Look,” he whispered, “I was special forces for a while, but in that time there were these – opportunities - to join other teams.”
“Close protection?”
“No, well, yes, but I never did any of that. I always kinda thought—
“People who need protecting often need shot.”
Sinead could never be accused of not listening to what he said, but then he could never be accused of saying a whole lot.
“There was a unit, or units, that did surveillance work.”
Sam petered out as his pint arrived. Sinead was still smarting a little. There was no smoke, but there were embers. He found himself filling the silence.
“We were a rabble of different skill sets based all over the country.”
“Which country?”
“Northern Ireland,” he said, again surprised.
“Oh.” It was her turn to be blindsided.
“We kept track of known characters, drew up lists of associations, monitored their comms and movements, mapped out their networks. That sort of thing.”
“What did your rabble look like?”
“Well, there were all sorts of ops – operatives – that’s what they called us, actually. Such-and-such op and such-and-such-op.”
“So you were Sam op?”
“No, you took on a name. You weren’t supposed to know anyone else you were working with. It was all a bit convoluted. The only one I knew was someone from my own group. He was deployed with me. That was irregular.”
“Right,” she said baffled.
“There were intelligence folk. They weren’t called op, they were called spook—”
“Like Sinead spook?”
“Exactly. And signals teams and mechanics. They were techs and spanners.”
“Bit weird.”
“They built our vehicles and rigged covert cameras around our AORs – our areas of operation. People didn’t know the half of what we were able to see.”
“And where was this?”
“In the north.”
“Yeah, I get that, but, like, the whole country?”
“Pretty much. There were different DETs for different areas.”
“Different what?”
“DETs, detachments. That’s just what they were called. Each detachment was made up of a boss and ops, and we were deployed to keep an eye on people or arms movements or whatever. And if we got wind of a planned attack, we’d dig in and wait and then let the plods make arrests. We hardly ever engaged anyone but we were there in case the police made a bollocks of it.”
“What were you, like, hiding in ditches or what?”
“Ditches were glamorous. In dumps sometimes – landfill sites. Once I had to go to the tropo clinic after three weeks under rotting bin bags.”
“What’s the tropo clinic?”
“It’s where you have a drip feed of penicillin to get rid of diseases.”
“Glamorous, indeed.”
“Some of it was fun. There was a lot of drinking back then when things went right, but when they went wrong – they went really, badly wrong.”
“How?”
“People died.”
“Right,” she breathed in.
“But the point is, we could get so close, like, within earshot – almost all the time, and the mark never knew we were there.”
“How?”
“We were just really well-trained. And we were rigged to the hilt. We’d the best of kit – the techies were smart guys. Our cars were specially designed for us – armoured doors and floors and seats, and they had cameras and mics and it was all fed back in real time long before that was ever possible in the commercial world. The techs hid cameras all over the place – not the CCTV ones you can see in any city, covert units, hidden away, so when the mark reckoned he or she was clear of all the cameras they knew about, we were actually right in their faces in housing estates and even in their homes.”
“You put cameras in their houses?”
“Sometimes, but we didn’t really need to. We had rips in there and lumps on their cars, so we could hear almost everything.”
“How was that legal?”
“None of it was legal. We weren’t even supposed to be in-country. We were deniable, totally and utterly. Nothing we recorded ever went to court or to the cops or anything. We were there just to protect lives and stop bombings or shootings or attacks or whatever. We did the graft then handed over to the police who made the arrests and started the prosecutions. They had to find their own evidence, so we always tried to arrange it in such a way that the marks got caught in the act.”
“What can I get you?” Robert had returned.
“I’ll have the lamb, please,” Sinead said, distracted by Sam’s sudden openness and not keen on the deviation.
“Fish, thank you,” Sam said, “and another pint. Sure, will you have a drink?”
“Go on, then. I’ll have a glass of Malbec if you have it.”
“Certainly.” Robert retracted as if he’d laid a wreath at the Cenotaph.
“So you did a bit of breaking and entering?”
“All the ops were pretty handy at that – even the foot-handed paras.”
“Parachute Regiment?”
“Yeah. We always had good banter with the airbornes. They’re tough enough, but they’re not subtle.”
“No, they’re not,” remarked Sinead.
Everyone in Ireland knew what the paratroopers had done on Bloody Sunday. Thirteen dead on the streets of Derry. A key moment in a thirty-year conflict.
“So you were after the IRA?”
“Kind of, but that was changing as I was there. There was a period when the Provos almost became the good guys – which sounds weird but that’s how it seemed. The nutters who came next were more our focus – where we were based anyway.”
“Who? Loyalists?”
“Sometimes, but it was mainly the dissies – the dissidents. The ones who broke away from the main IRA and started up their own gangs. The Real IRA, The Continuity IRA, the I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-the-Real-IRA IRA. There were dozens of them.”
“So how did you deal with that?”
“Same score – we got all over them. The spooks, we had at least one spook at all times in our DET – they worked at turning them, and we worked at watching t
he others.”
“Turning, you mean persuading them to become informers? Touts, like?”
“Yeah, although I imagine the persuasion was pretty blunt.”
“How did they do it?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. But I’d say the usual three things – sex, money and power. If someone was shagging someone they shouldn’t have been, they were ripe for turning. Same if they had a wee problem betting on the dogs or if they’d fallen out with someone more senior, then they might have a gripe and be worth a punt. But that wasn’t my area.”
“So how do you know it happened?”
Sam paused for the first time, thinking about how far to go. It would be awkward to stop now. He had found himself curiously willing to tell Sinead things he’d never spoken about before.
“It was kind of obvious some of the people we were watching were actually assets and it could be infuriating. Say we had someone digging up a bunch of explosives and say they were ten feet in front of us. I mean, literally, ten feet, and we had been waiting on them for days – a week even, and we were about to call in the TCG—”
“Wait.” Sinead held up her hand. “TCG?”
“The police, like a tasking coordination. There was also a tactical support group – cops in boiler suits and balaclavas with all the heavy kit and helmets basically.”
“Ok.”
“So there were times when the spook – who was part of our team, remember, called the whole thing off.”
“How?”
“Well, she or he might be back at base watching the whole thing on the feeds—”
“The feeds?”
“The images we were sending back, the pictures – video or audio.”
“Ok.”
“And if the wrong person turned up where they weren’t expected, the spook wouldn’t want their source to be lifted. You see?”
“But if the source was arrested, would it not give them more protection? Within their own organisation, I mean?”
“Who knows what games the spooks were playing. I could never work it out. It was – sometimes - it was just wrong. That bit did for me in the end. They were moving chess pieces while we were shitting in doggie bags and drinking out of puddles.”
“Lovely imagery, Sam.”
“You did ask.”
