by Finn Óg
“This is a Ministry of Defence field?”
“It’s not a field.”
“How can you tell? It looks like a field.”
“It’s got over a thousand separate cabled accesses. Fibre, and Cat 6 way before its time. All protected. It’s a former army base. Certain.”
“It could be a housing estate or internet points for squaddie accommodation.”
“Squaddies were all gone before this sort of fibre was commercially available. This is high-end stuff. It’s military.”
“So she’s in there.”
“Well, that’s where she sends her mum emails from.”
“You’re sure?”
Her brother just stared at the screen, as close to impatient as he could get.
“So how do I track her down?”
“They eat, don’t they?”
“What?”
“They go out. Socialise. Now the war’s over.”
The clerk thought for a moment. It was true. The military wasn’t as confined to barracks as it had been during the conflict. “Wonder where they go.”
“Friendly towns,” he said. “Hardly Derry.”
“No, not Derry. Limavady, maybe?”
“Your problem,” he said.
“Generous.”
“I don’t get it.”
“What.”
“Why you care. Why you want to find her.”
“Because I don’t make a living in front of a computer screen. I worked my fucking arse off to become a lawyer. I fully intend to get to the top of my game. I am not going to let some fucking Brit bitch blackmail me and keep me down.”
“That’s what she’s doing – this blade singing karaoke?”
“That’s what she will do unless I put an end to it before it starts.”
“Glad I’m on your side. I need to clean behind me now. We’re done?”
“We’re done,” she said.
No thanks offered. None required.
The women got off in Glenarm.
“You know what to do?” Sam checked.
“Bus to Larne. Train to Belfast. Train to Dublin. I think we’ll manage.”
“Not that,” he said, exasperated.
“I know,” she said. “And, yes, I know what to do. You know what not to do too?” she whispered, giving him a hug.
“Get caught,” he said.
“Get hurt,” she replied.
They fell apart and he hoisted Isla onto his shoulder. “You have fun with the girls, my darlin’.”
“When are you coming to get me?”
“Few days.”
“Yesss! Thank you, Daddy.”
“You’re getting so big,” he said.
“You mean too heavy to lift.”
“I’m getting old.”
“No, you’re not,” she said indignantly.
“Thank you, wee love. Now take care and be good.”
And they were off.
And he was on.
Thursday night. Friday night. Saturday night. The clerk spent over a hundred pounds on cover charges and soft drinks hunting for a Meadow in a haystack. The woman probably didn’t even go out at night.
She realised how uncomfortable it remained to be a single woman going to pubs and clubs alone.
Eglinton, Ballykelly, Limavady, Coleraine. She’d even ventured as far as Portstewart where there was too much nightlife to be sure she hadn’t missed a beat.
But there was no choice. Ms Meadow had her by the bits. If she wanted to be free, she needed to send a very clear message.
The opso heard footsteps on the polished corridor. He swung his legs around and prepared to be led away for a fresh round of questions, yet instead of a key in the lock he got a knock.
“That a joke?” he said.
“They’ve locked you in?”
“Libby? Sure, you know they have. I’m under arrest in ’ere.”
He heard a sigh before the feet walked away and two sets of footsteps came back. The door rattled and was unlocked.
Libby peered in. “Bit smelly in here, mate,” she said.
“Yeah, well, they’ve locked the bloody windows too. Four days is a long time, Libby.”
“I didn’t realise they’d slammed you up.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Where did you think I was?”
“Your team have been told you’re on compassionate.”
“Oh?”
“They think your mum’s not well.”
“They’re right. She’s dead.”
“They don’t appear to know that.”
“How would they?”
“What have you done?”
“So you’re the soft soap.”
“No.”
“C’mon, we’d all try it. Send a friendlie to crack the nut.”
“No.”
“Right, Libby. Right-o.”
“What have you done?”
“Nothin’. Not that that’ll change anythin’. They need someone for the leak and it might as well be me.”
“Not if it’s not you.”
“I know you believe it’s me, the way you were with us in the ops room.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t, Libby. I know you’ve suspected me for a while. Did you flag me?”
“No!”
“Tell me this, honestly, Libby. Did you suspect before we went walkin’? In the hills, like. Is that why you came with me?”
“No, I bloody didn’t,” she said, and turned to make an indignant exit, but paused. “You tell me this, honestly. Why did you contact someone in Scotland?”
“Who?”
“A tactical officer from command. A Royal Marine.”
“Min? He’s an old mate. He served here years ago. I’m in touch with him regular, like.”
“Not that regular.”
“See, you do suspect me if you’re checkin’ me comms, Libby. You do think somethin’s up.”
“It’s what they’re pointing at to prove you’re guilty. They’re listing irregular activity.”
“And what’s irregular about me rubbin’ up an old mate?”
“Whoever is doing this is good. They’re very fucking good.”
“You mean taking out the dissies? Well, more bloody power to ’em, Libby, whomever they are. But I didn’t start it, I tell you that with my hand on my heart.”
“So what did you talk to him about?”
“Who?”
“The marine.”
“About gettin’ out. Life after, like. Starting up our own thing. We’d always talked about it – a security company.”
“You want out?”
“Looks like it’s gonna happen whether I want it or not.”
“With this officer?”
“Wait – you don’t think it’s him, do you? Ha! You think Min might be taking them out? He lives between Faslane and Arbroath, for fuck’s sake.”
“He’s got the skills, he was DET, 14th Int. He knows how we work – how you work.”
“A lifetime ago, maybe. He was good, too. Check him out, sure. See where he was on the dates of the killings. If it was him, I’d give him my full support, Libby. Every ounce of it. But you’re on the wrong path there.”
“We know,” she said.
“Wha?”
“We checked. He was training at command in Scotland when all the murders happened.”
“Then what are ye here for?”
“To look you in the eye and see if it was you.”
“And what do you think?”
“Honestly, Rob? I don’t know.”
Sam experimented on dry land at first. The aroma of new plastic, hardware, wafting from the box reminded him of Christmas as a child. He clipped on the belt. The docking station amused him. He’d been out of the military long enough to be astonished at how much the tech had evolved.
Looking at his console, the instrument acquired a GPS signal and he began the launch procedure. Then the d
ocking station flipped open and a barely discernible hum began. The tiny helicopter rose like a wasp from his hip, leaving a spare hibernating in his berth. The wasp rose to head height and turned automatically to stare at him, awaiting command. Sam suppressed a little snigger and directed the device to the distance – as Isla would call it, watching everything the wasp could see on a tiny monitor as it shot off into the dusk.
The image was incredible given the size of the drone, which could easily rest in Sam’s hand. The relay of pictures was almost immediate – he tested it a few times by reducing speed to hover, and working out what the delay was. Less than a second, he reckoned. And all of that without a wireless bubble. Astonishing. Thank goodness for wealthy sponsors like the heiress’s father. Two drones at twenty thousand per chopper. And each no bigger than a banana.
Which made him wonder – were they like ants? Could they carry more than their body weight?
Libby shook her head at how clichéd the meeting was. To her left the superior sat staring at the sea. She noticed a damp patch on his shirt. It had a hint of red. It distracted her until she realised that he must have treated himself to a ninety-nine before they met. How ordinary, she thought, that this man should behave like anyone else, even if he does dress like he’s about to watch a polo match.
“Your unit is under investigation.”
“I don’t have a unit. I’m independent.”
“Yes,” he drawled. “The DET to which you are attached is being examined.”
“By us?”
“Of course by us. But now also by themselves.”
“Why?”
“Because four people are fucking dead, Libby,” he snarled.
“Yes,” she mimicked back in a similar drawl, which provoked a sideways stare from the superior, realising he was losing her.
“You’re going native,” he stated.
“I just don’t see how it came from them. They’re a good team – tight as a nun’s chuff.”
“The nun appears to be ageing.”
“So what do you want me to do this time?”
“This time?”
“Last time I had to pull a move with some lawyer woman, which was pretty distasteful, by the way, and made absolutely no sense—”
“I’d advise you to never raise that again, Libby.”
“Then you wanted me to spy on a friend.”
“That’s your job.”
“Still. He’s on our side.”
“Or not. You sure he’s not more than a friend? You sure he hasn’t been to unauthorised areas?”
Libby worked hard to suppress a sudden swelling of hatred for her boss.
“Thought as much,” he nodded, satisfied, smug.
“Incorrect,” she said. “Absolutely incorrect, but I respect him. He’s a good man.”
“The implication there is that you do not respect me – but then I never professed to being a good man.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, he’s for the glasshouse, in any case. What we need to do is extract you from this diabolical mess with all haste.”
“It’s that serious?”
“I’m not in the business of prediction, Libby, as you know, but I would be surprised if that detachment survives the week.”
“Bloody hell. Who will watch the X-rays, then?”
“The days of human deployment are drawing to a close, Libby. Perhaps it’s time to switch from manual to automatic, as it were.”
Libby said nothing but stared out at the beautiful green sea.
“And a reminder,” he said, as he shuffled his velvety shoes and made to rise. “That job in Belfast that you rather foolishly alluded to is to be kept discreet. Utterly. Do you understand that, Meadow?”
The use of her real name ran through her like a static shock. All she could do was nod.
By that morning the clerk was on the cusp of nursing a horrendous hangover but she was still sufficiently inebriated to get up ahead of the pain. Despondency at a lack of progress, at her long shot having failed, had led to a glass of wine, then another, a beer, a vodka, two vodkas, five, sambuca, bad company and then dancing – she thought. She needed to eat.
“Room number, please?”
“I didn’t book breakfast,” she told the Spaniard, or Portuguese, or Mexican. “How much?”
“Just sixteen pounds for full Irish and twelve for continental.”
She handed over her card.
“Which?” the waiter asked, waiting for clarification.
“Full,” was all she managed.
Her table sat by an enormous window but she was in no form to enjoy the view. She devoured her first coffee and held out the mug gesturing for more with such impatience that the waitress couldn’t ignore her – much as she appeared to want to.
“Listen, I’m not feeling great,” she said. “I’ll leave you a massive tip if you just bring me a full breakfast, the whole works, everything and brown sauce, please.”
“Ok,” said the young woman, unsympathetic but not one to stare a gift horse in the mouth.
When it came, her arms worked like a fiddler’s elbow before she sat back, exhausted and content – at least until she could beat some painkillers into her. She’d be fit to drive in an hour or so, she naively reckoned, if she could find her car.
She looked into the sun, closed her eyes and allowed it to warm her face. The rest for a few moments nearly sent her to a slumber. She looked down before opening her eyes to avoid the glare. Her vision settled on a pair of suedes as they padded down the road outside. Prick, she thought, imagining the sort that would buy such articles; a judge on a long weekend was her instinct – like every weekend for the judiciary.
Beyond the slacks was an expensive shirt complete with cufflinks. Her lazy hangover gaze fell back to the shoes and followed them across the road and into the passenger side of an unremarkable car. Before the door closed, the clerk looked up and caught sight of the driver. Her heart faltered. She grabbed for her bag and rummaged for her phone. A swipe up triggered her camera. A swipe right and she had the video. She tore out of the restaurant, ignoring the shouting waitress behind her.
“I’ll be back in two minutes!”
She crossed the road and made sure the framing was correct, walking past the car in which the ponce and her target were facing one another in conversation. The clerk passed by unnoticed, went around the rear of the vehicle, opened WhatsApp and then changed her mind. She scrolled through the screens and found the encrypted app her brother had placed on her “crap” phone and forwarded him the video: Meadow and a weirdo she wrote as a title. That will do rightly, she thought. Her brother had the woman’s email address and the clerk now had leverage.
At exactly the same time Sam was fewer than six miles away, sailing back and forth around the Greencastle coast. He’d been at it for thirty hours, tapping the chart-plotter screen every time he passed a buoy marking the presence of a lobster pot. In the old days they’d caught plenty of drug smugglers that way. Marines were ideal for such work – long hours on dark nights tracking boats and marking their drops.
As darkness fell Sam returned to as many buoys as he could, catching each with the boat hook and beginning a back-breaking haul to retrieve the cage at the bottom. No wonder, he thought, that even the smallest fishing boats have winches. After sixteen, he began to lag and wondered if the process was hopeless. He’d bagged about twenty good-sized crab, but none of the lines or creels concealed drugs.
He hauled out the small jib and arched himself backwards, trying to loosen up and crack out a few vertebrae. The night was soft, the breeze inoffensive, but the search hopeless. There were hundreds of buoys, any one of which could be used to hide drugs – or none of them. To search like this was madness, despite the established process of bringing snuff and junk into an island like Ireland.
It was easy, really. Rather than human mules and their intestines, smarter smugglers exploited fishermen. A boat from Scandinavia, Spain or anywhere in Eur
ope would meet an African or an American vessel and take on a load. That could happen anywhere from the Med to the Atlantic. Then they’d go about their usual catching and landing, steaming north and eventually head for an Irish port. Exchanges might happen along the way – between boats that shared a common owner – and then the wraps would be attached to a buoy, the GPS coordinates relayed and the buoy chucked over the side. Eventually, someone, somewhere, would lift the loot, bring it ashore and a car would arrive. The driver – often a foreigner with little more than a license, would ping the boot with strict instructions not to look in the mirror. He’d drive to wherever he’d been told to go and would again trigger the release on the boot. He’d be paid, and the drugs would make their way to a kitchen table to be cut with baking soda or talcum powder and then onto the street.
Big profits and low risk. For those actually making the mega-money, anyway.
Sam called it a day, fired up the engine and headed for shore.
“Mum?” Libby saw the number appear on her personal mobile phone and immediately thought something was wrong with her dad. Unscheduled calls from home were discouraged.
“Hello, dear. I know it’s not our day to catch up but we’ve had this email—”
“Mu-um,” Libby said impatiently, assuming it was some sort of scam her mother wanted advice on.
“It’s a photo of you – that’s all. I don’t know why it’s come to us. Who is he?”
“What?”
“There’s no writing – just the picture.”
“Can you send it to me?”
“How do I do that?”
“Can you see where it says reply and reply all and forward?”
“Hang on, I’ll start up the computer.”
Libby couldn’t supress an exhale of frustration. She’d been in the middle of digging through the opso’s files looking for a thread to pull. This photo probably came from an old school pal trying to get in touch.
“Ok, the email is open.”
“Right. Look along the top and find the ‘forward’ button.”
“Got it.”
“Now type in my email address.”
“M-e-a-d-o-w-dot-m-u-s-i-c—
