Recovering Commando Box Set

by Finn Óg

  After five hours he came to a hill and took a bearing. The address he’d found on the boat insurance document rested silently beneath him – a sprawling farm, as unkempt as any other. There were old vehicles of various kinds turning to rust in the overgrown yard. There was a silo, a pit, a massive shed wide and high enough to accommodate combines and balers, and then various outhouses, groaning and grunting to the shuffle of cattle. There was a dog on a chain, no doubt feral and fed with a pitchfork. It howled and strained on its leash, giving Sam comfort that its agitation was a default and not inspired by his arrival.

  There was no immediate evidence of surveillance, but then there wouldn’t be. His former colleagues would be well concealed and over the border there would be no error made.

  In a hollow behind a ridge hedge he moved a few large rocks and allowed himself some depth. There he arranged his new toys, ran through a rough plan, pulled over the tarpaulin and settled into a doze to wait for moonlight.

  He woke to find the lip of his covering revealing nothing but darkness and drew back the tarp to appraise the house beneath. Satisfied that all was quiet, he began the launch sequence, releasing the little bird from beneath his cover. The first helicopter shot off into the night and Sam quickly fought to orient himself to the surroundings from above. Everything looked a little different, smaller, insignificant. He buzzed the heli around his own hole and, satisfied he was undetectable, sent the device down to the farm.

  He began with the shed that stood without doors. The heli peered in, sending Sam images of dark and brutal-looking farm machinery. Then he went to the cattle shed and the outhouses. Sam noted that one had a steel door and two hefty padlocks. The door was large enough to allow a significant vehicle to enter – a car or a van, but probably not a tractor.

  Then he sent the chopper to the house, looking for light beneath the curtains. There was none, even though the barking became ferocious. He hit hover mode, found the dead man’s Nokia and slipped in the battery. It came to life and he brought up the only two numbers stored in the phone – both without names. He sent them both the same text: There’s someone outside.

  “We didn’t do this,” Libby began, “but we need to fix it.”

  The techs looked at her blankly, then two of them turned for guidance to a third, who sat forward in her seat.

  “Didn’t do what?”

  “Whatever it is that your bosses are accusing this detachment of.”

  “Which is what?”

  Libby sighed. They hadn’t been properly briefed – nobody told anyone anything in this game. “It seems the military believe the opso, possibly some others, have been passing information to whoever killed the X-rays.”

  “The dissidents?” the tech asked.

  “Yeah, but I, for one, don’t believe that. Do you?”

  They looked awkwardly at one another.

  “We were asked to sift through the opso’s search history and file requests.”

  “And?”

  “And some of it did seem like it could be used to gather information on the X-rays.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, kind of.”

  “Could he just have been doing his job?”

  “Yeah, yeah, he could,” said the lead tech, who looked at her colleagues, “but he’d have been doing it better than he used to do it.”

  “Do you think he was lazy?”

  “No!” she protested.

  “No, definitely not,” said one of the two blokes.

  “Then what?” asked Libby.

  “It’s just that … his approach was generally more old school, in a way. He preferred operational, eyes-on type intelligence gathering. It wasn’t his default to hunt through files or make links that way.”

  “So that was a change in behaviour?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And that’s what you passed on to … to who?”

  “To your team, Box, originally. Intelligence asked for it. Then our own detachment asked for another sift – and we passed that on too.”

  “And now he’s in jail.”

  “Well, we were just doing what we were ordered to do.”

  “Yeah, well, now it’s just you three, two spanners and me until further notice. So I suppose we try and get him out.”

  “Do we?” one of the blokes asked.

  “Do you believe he’s been setting people up to die?” Libby asked – and as she did so she wondered if she cared whether he was guilty.

  “No,” said the woman tech firmly. The two men eventually shook their heads in agreement.

  “So let’s get to work to see if we can help him. We need to agree to keep this to ourselves for obvious reasons. Are we all clear on that? Anyone not happy can leave now and nothing more will be said.”

  Each of the three nodded.

  “Agreed,” said the woman tech.

  “First, I need to know how I got compromised.”

  “You have been compromised?” the woman asked.

  “There’s something going on. I don’t know what it is but we need to root out what’s happening. My mother was sent this email.” She offered her phone around.

  “Who’s the man?”

  “Can’t get into that but he’s important, senior and deeply unhappy. I need to know where this came from and what it’s about. Let’s get you to start there.” She nodded at the woman. “And you two, let’s see if there’s any pattern to these X-ray murders, anything geographic or methodical that can link the way each dissident died. Then we might make progress to find out who is doing it.”

  As she finished laying out orders it occurred to her that if they did find out the opso had been managing the murders, it would make little difference to her. She’d stick by him. He’d looked after her and he was a good man.

  Nothing happened. The dog did pirouettes in the yard, dragging his chain to a bind around him. Still, not a light came on, not a being emerged.

  Sam waited for fifteen minutes and began to doubt his plan. His assumptions had been wrong. He’d calculated that dissident republicans would come out fighting, possibly armed and aggressive.

  Twenty minutes after the text had left the handset, a car approached. It bumped and flickered towards the lane of the farm, then doused its headlights and crept down to the yard. Whomever that is, thought Sam, they know the place well enough to drive the lane in the dark.

  He took the heli on a sweep of the perimeter, looking not for dissidents but for military – detachment staff. He wanted a heads-up in any roused interest. He dove the heli towards clumps of grass, mounds of rock, he even ran it along hedges, which he knew to be futile; any covert camera would be brilliantly concealed.

  The car sat motionless in the yard. The dog, curiously, had calmed. Then the handset lit up in Sam’s paw.

  No sign of anyone. Max was going mad. You inside?

  Sam realised that the bomb makers lived separately. Stupid. They were brothers, not lovers. No doubt one had been left the farm, the other probably took land nearby. He considered what to write back and whether to send it to both numbers stored in the phone.

  Just checking the outbuildings. Unlock the shed.

  It was a risk tonally and descriptively. Who knew what they called the steel-fronted outbuilding. Who knew if the brothers used “please” and “thank you”. Who knew if they were smart enough to consider such things at in the early hours.

  Nonetheless, a light came on as the car door opened and a man of similar size to the dead trawlerman climbed out. His bulk was evident from his need to place a hand on the roof of the car just to lever himself free of the vehicle. He mooched over to the outbuilding and Sam sent the heli as close as he dared, wary of the buzz it emitted. The man picked a key from a bunch and freed the higher of two padlocks. Another key was used for the lower lock and from Sam’s vantage point he could hear the door creak open. The phone lit again. This time the second number in the phone glowed.

  You both ok?

  Sam ignored it. He was sure in
himself that the man he was watching was the brother of the bloke he’d despatched at sea. He sent the helicopter on one final sweep, then recalled it, quietly shaking off the cover that concealed him and allowing an appreciative snort as the heli flew back to its cradle. The lid closed, Sam pulled on his balaclava and left his entire kit under the wrap with a few rocks to keep it down. He allowed his bones and muscles a quick stretch ahead of the exertion he was about to put them through before wandering down to finish the job.

  “Ma’am?”

  “You don’t need to call me Ma’am,” Libby said for the fourth time.

  “Sorry.”

  The new team was clustered in a circle in the ops room. The data speeds were faster there, according to the techs.

  “What have you found?”

  “Early days but the lifeboat’s towing a fishing vessel to Greencastle.”

  “Not really the brief,” Libby said. “Greencastle, Donegal?”

  “Yeah, and I know but two X-rays have a fishing boat licensed to them in Greencastle, Donegal.”

  “Oh-kay …” said Libby, still suspecting the tech was stretching.

  “We had them under surveillance until recently.”

  “Wait – the farmers? Two brothers?”

  “Yes. We tracked stolen fertiliser equipment from Fermanagh to their farm a few months back. We believe they manufactured the Ballycastle device for one of the dissie IRA factions.”

  Libby stared in silence at the tech for a moment, then posed the obvious question.

  “What are farmers doing with a fishing boat?”

  “According to the intelligence log they’re known smugglers. Fishing boat is a cover to land their drugs by sea.”

  “Ok, so their fishing boat has broken down. So what?”

  “Seems it went on fire. Body reported aboard.”

  “I see,” said Libby. But she didn’t see at all.

  “You better come,” said the brother.

  “Is it Mum?” the clerk asked.

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “You better come round.”

  “Why?”

  But he’d hung up.

  Sam kept to the deeper gloom as he made along the grey concrete outhouses, slipping into a doorway at one point when the dog heard him and went into orbit. His gloved hand reached out to steady himself in the complete darkness and rested on a bench. His finger brushed an object, light and grip-like – not a million miles from the feel of a handgun. Sam lifted it towards his face and used what reflective light he could to examine the object. It had two prongs and a switch at the thumb. He flicked the switch and heard a tiny whir as if it were preparing itself.

  Happy days, Sam thought.

  The man at the shed door was expecting his brother to appear. Instead he got a black-clad apparition with a cattle prod. The dog went ballistic as Sam rounded the corner of the outhouse and immediately lit the man up with a sustained jab to the neck. Sparky did its job admirably and the man juddered at the voltage. Sam let him quiver in his shock for longer than was absolutely necessary, and only released him from the current to save battery power for another jab later on. The man shook out on the ground for a few moments, before Sam gave him a kick and told him to crawl inside.

  “Where’s the light?”

  The man couldn’t speak. It would probably take a while. Sam had never used such a weapon before, but if it could motivate a cow to behave navigationally, he imagined a human would take its flow of electricity rather badly.

  Sam located the light himself, pulled the cord and illuminated a terrorist’s jewellery shop. He immediately closed the steel door, before turning to look again at the bomb factory before him. Benches of about twenty feet in length were racked one in front of the other, a production line of lethal intent.

  The first was covered with dismantled alarm clocks, soldering irons, wire, strippers and mercury tilt switches. The second had more sophisticated circuit boards, more soldering equipment, bales of electrical wire and tubs of Vaseline. There were plastic surgical gloves at each station, small saws and knives and plastic takeaway boxes. The third table had the detonators, small tubes filled with some sort of explosive material and a wire protruding from each end. Sam quickly worked out that the current would explode the detonator, which would fire a larger explosive thereby blowing the contents of table four through limb, life, family and futures. The last table was, perhaps, the most horrifying. Metal shavings, rusted bolts, nuts, old bearings from cars or vehicle hubs and washers – hundreds of old washers.

  Is that what ripped Molly apart? Sam wondered. Is that why her mother will never walk again? His thoughts led him an inevitable conclusion.

  “This is what you were going to do to my daughter,” he said to the mess on the floor.

  The man looked up at Sam’s balaclava. “Wha?” was all he managed. The man was younger but there was no doubt that he and the trawlerman shared a bloodline.

  “You’re going to die today,” Sam said. “No point in pretending. Up to you how painful it is.”

  The man tried to make sense of what was happening.

  “Answer my questions quickly, you’ll die quickly. Fuck about, and you’ll roar till the cock crows.”

  The man said nothing.

  Sam lifted the Nokia and read out the other number stored in the memory. “Who is that?”

  The man said nothing.

  Sam leaned over and lit him up again, then undid his belt and hauled down his jeans. Nothing more frightening to a male human, he thought. Sam waited a moment and raised the prod again.

  “Sister, me sister!”

  “Where is she?”

  The man took amperage to his tender quarters and began screaming his answers. “Inside! She’s inside.”

  “Where’s your brother?”

  “At sea! At sea!”

  “Your brother’s dead.”

  “Wha’?”

  “He choked on something yesterday. Who makes the bombs?”

  “We do.”

  “Who?”

  “Us. Me.”

  “Who else?”

  Silence. Sparky roasted some nuts.

  “Ma sister,” he choked. Me brother.”

  “Why?”

  The man stared incredulously at Sam, but Sam didn’t really care what the answer was. The “why” was now irrelevant. It became beside the point the moment one of their devices eviscerated Isla’s little friend.

  “Gimme your phone.”

  The man was incapable. Sam shook his pockets and out fell another Nokia. He lifted the handset.

  “Code?”

  “2-9-1-hash,” the man said.

  There was the text from the sister. Sam began a reply: Come out to the … Sam paused. “What do you call this place?”

  “Feed shed,” said the man.

  Feed shed, Sam finished. He looked down at the man.

  “Who is the CO?”

  “What?”

  “Of your little army. Who’s in charge? Who makes the calls?”

  The man shook his head in defiance. Perhaps he didn’t want his sister to realise he had imparted information.

  Sam didn’t want any screaming to deter her arrival, so he walked to the table, lifted a soldering iron and drove it through the man’s eye. There was no reaction, just a horrible mess as the ooze pooled by his skull, the lead straggling to a plug nearby.

  Sam flicked off the light and waited by the door. Eventually he heard a shuffle. She’s in her slippers, he thought.

  “Hugh?” a woman said. She sounded older than both men. “Hugh, you in there?”

  Sam waited. It took a full minute of silence – the dog had calmed at her presence, before she came forward and pulled on the light. The sight before her was utterly confusing – her brother lay with a wire and a plug sticking out of his face, his head in a halo of gunge.

  “Hugh!” she screamed.

  Sam stepped in behind her and put the woman to silence. “Don’t turn r
ound,” he said.

  She froze. Her flowery dressing gown looking utterly ridiculous and domesticated in a shed full of death.

  “Your brother failed to tell me who the CO is. I need to know who orders the attacks. You give me that, you won’t finish the night like either of your brothers.”

  “Either of them?” she stammered.

  “Both dead. One at sea, and you can see the rest. Tell me now.”

  “Gillen,” she whimpered.

  “Gillen what?”

  “Sean Gillen.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Lurgan.”

  “Craigavon?”

  “Lurgan,” she said firmly.

  “He ordered Ballycastle?”

  The woman shook her head – whether in desperation, grief or otherwise he couldn’t tell.

  “He ordered a device,” she said. “Doubt it was meant for Ballycastle.”

  “Where was it meant for?”

  “Belfast, I think. Didn’t ask.”

  “Didn’t care.”

  “No. Who are you?”

  Sam had a worry there was a listening device in the shed. Someone could well be catching every word. They had form for that – even in the seventies and eighties they’d been able to listen to bad stuff happening. He’d probably said far too much as it was.

  “Anyone else?”

  “What?”

  “In the leadership.”

  “Hagan. Few others. But Gillen’s the commanding officer,” she said.

  Sam took two steps, snapped her neck and moved to take a closer look at some of the lunch boxes stacked on the last table.

  “Somebody’s following the trail.”

  “You really need to open a window,” the clerk said.

  “You need to listen. They’re knocking down walls quick.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Whoever is trying to identify you is joining the dots around the globe and they’re good.”

  “But not good enough to identify me, are they?”

  “They might be good enough to identify me,” he replied.

  “Thought you were the dog’s balls?”

  The brother said nothing.