Recovering Commando Box Set

by Finn Óg

  “Few are better versed on the workings of the front security hut than dissidents on bail, chief.”

  She sighed in exasperation. “And Gillen?”

  “We believe he was handling a device intended for another target on his list, and that in his carelessness he detonated it and killed himself and potentially his wife.”

  “So you had eyes on all this?”

  “No! Not at all. In fact, if you check with the military, you will see that we did not have eyes on any of this at the time of the explosion. I am quite sure that the military will corroborate that the DET. The Special Reconnaissance Regiment were not deployed at the time of any of this deeply unfortunate sequence.”

  The chief constable stared at the superior for a long while.

  “Next to nothing you have just told me is true.”

  “It is a plausible explanation, chief. It is an explanation for the newspapers, and for the security correspondents and for the public. This dissident faction is an organisation intent on murder. It is, in effect, eating itself. The power of that among would-be joiners is substantial.”

  “So we are all to be happy about this trail of murder – this bloodbath?”

  “These are ruthless killers, I don’t need to tell a police officer that. So I would respectfully suggest that we need not be overly upset at the passing of such a group of ne’er-do-wells. This feud has taken out the leadership of a very dangerous and unpredictable organisation.”

  “I don’t know what you wanted that bomb in Ballycastle to achieve. I don’t know if you tampered with it or got the DET to tamper with it or if you brought in the bloody SAS. I don’t know if you manufactured this feud – I doubt that there was even a feud. What I do know is that the remains of a military-grade drone were discovered plastered with Gillen’s entrails up a tree in Craigavon. So I do know you were there in some form or another. What I do know is that you have made that my problem, because I now have to mop up and close down any wagging tongues that might convey that sort of information from forensics, to investigating officers and, God forbid, an inquest.”

  “Yes, we couldn’t have that sort of information surfacing at an inquest.”

  “So let me be clear on this. I will do my best, but if you ever deploy special forces in my country again without proper consultation, I shall publicly demand that you are removed from post.”

  “Your message is clearly understood, chief constable. I’m sure it is of no benefit to remind you of the assistance we were able to render regarding that precarious position you found yourself in a few years ago. Thank you for your time.”

  The chief went white then red.

  “If people knew what really went on, stunts like this would persuade even our local politicians that the police are the best lead for terrorism in this country.” With that she opened the door and couldn’t help but smash it shut behind her.

  Sam could hear someone whistling. He heard a reel spin and the plop of a weight hit the water, and knew that anglers must be standing on the pier.

  “Hello!” he called.

  “Who’s that?” he heard a Dublin accent, as close as if it were within touching distance.

  “I’m on a boat but I can’t see the breakwater. Which side are you on?”

  “You really in a boat? I can’t see ye.”

  “Please, before I end up on the rocks – tell me what side of the harbour you’re on.”

  “The side with the lighthouse.”

  “So you walked down the pier?” From the Sandymount side?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do me a favour, stamp your feet.”

  “Wha?”

  “Stamp your feet!”

  “I’m wearing trainers, mister.”

  “The echo of your voice is hard to follow. Can you hit something metal? I’ll move on the first sound.”

  “A’rioight.”

  Sam heard a clank. “Thank you. Are you close to the edge of the pier?”

  “Right on it.”

  “Thanks a million. You might just have saved my ass.”

  “No bother.”

  Sam turned the boat from memory, sixty degrees into a harbour he knew well in daylight and with good visibility. He travelled what he estimated was fifty feet, then took a ninety-degree turn to starboard.

  “Excuse me!” he called again.

  “Yeah?” he heard the Dub again.

  “I’ll give you a hundred euros if you walk down the pier talking to me so I can estimate how close I am to you.”

  “Ah, you don’t need to pay me, brother. I’ll give ye a hand, like.”

  “Thanks a million.”

  “Ok. What’s your name, brother?”

  Sam followed the guide conscious that there could be boats moored in his path. “Gillen,” was the only name that popped into his head. “And you?”

  “People calls me Outspan.”

  “Like from The Commitments?”

  “Yeah. If ye can’t see the head on me, it must be misty.”

  “A redhead?”

  “On foire, my friend.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Niall.”

  “Thanks for this, Niall.”

  “No bother.”

  “Can you walk me to the ice cream kiosk, Niall?”

  “I don’t think it’s open, brother. If ye want a ninety-nine, you might have to go up to the Forty Foot.”

  “Very funny, Niall.”

  “There’s an Italian place there. Old Ginelli own’d it but he died a few weeks back.”

  Sam needed to keep him talking. “What did he die of?”

  “He died of a Tuesday.”

  “Very good, Niall.”

  “Buried on a Friday. There was plenty at it, like, to see him off. Hundreds and thousands, actually.”

  “You should be on the telly.”

  “You should be in the nuthouse for messin’ about in the pea soup, Gillen.”

  Sam steered around a racing yacht and continued prompting. “What do you work at, Niall?”

  “Nuttin’,” came the reply. “I’m only fifteen, like.”

  “You sound older.”

  “You sound ancient, Gillen, but, like, I wouldn’t be commenting cos that would be ageist.”

  “Do you do stand-up?”

  “I’m standing up right now, Gillen.”

  “You should give it a crack.”

  “You’re tiring me out here, Gillen. This is a long bloody pier.”

  “Sorry, Niall.”

  “Maybe I will take a few euros at the end if that’s a’rioight. Might need a cone me’sel, like.”

  “You’d be welcome to it, Niall.”

  “What are ye doin’ now?”

  “Putting fenders out to stop the boat bouncing off the quay.”

  “I thought that’s what I was doin’?”

  “When I tie up, I mean.”

  “Oh, rioight. Are ye too hungry to pay the marina fees?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So ye’ll give me a hundred euros to walk the pier, but you won’t give the marina a clutch of cash to get a good night’s sleep.”

  “I’m not stopping.”

  “Are ye tellin’ me that ye want me to walk ye all the way back to the end again?”

  “Are you telling me that’ll be two hundred euros?”

  “I’m tellin’ ye that you’re as cracked as a bottle if you’re going back out in that.”

  “How far do you reckon now?”

  “Length of a football field, maybe.”

  “D’ye play a bit of football?” Sam ventured, keeping the conversation alive.

  “I do, in me bollocks, Gillen. Can’t stand those GAA types.”

  “Fair enough.” Sam laughed.

  “There ye go, brother. What’ll it be – a screwball, a slider?”

  “Is it open, right enough?”

  “No, Gillen, it’s not open, but there’s a queue outside anyway. How are ye, luv? Bit of a bad day
for the young ‘un.”

  “Yeah, we’re meeting someone here,” Sam heard Sinead say.

  “Is his name Gillen?”

  “No, it’s—”

  “Sinead!” Sam called.

  “Sam! Where are you?”

  “I thought your name was Gillen?” said Niall.

  “Daddy!” Isla called.

  “This is gas,” said Niall.

  “Hang on, I’ll be up in a minute to bring you down to the boat.”

  “The three of you were working with one of my intelligence team – Libby – now dead.”

  “Yes, sir, briefly,” said the woman tech.

  “Why?”

  “Because she asked us to,” said one of the blokes.

  “Have you got Tourette’s?” the superior snapped round.

  “No, sir.”

  “I find talking to you computer types difficult enough without smart-arse comments from those on the spectrum! I’ll talk to the organ grinder, understood?”

  The young man sat bemused and silent.

  “Libby knew we were among the last people on-base and requested our help,” the lead tech said.

  “Help with what?” the superior snarled.

  “Well, initially an email that had come to her mother, but then she quickly told us to drop that and—”

  “Did you see this email to her mother?”

  The tech suddenly sensed danger. She had been summoned to speak to the intelligence chief who, it turned out, was the man whose photograph had been in the email. Resting on her confidence in her team’s ability to wipe drives, she lied.

  “No, sir. As I say, Libby told us to drop it pretty much immediately.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we got word of another X-ray killing.”

  “Which one?”

  “The fishing boat murder, Donegal. The bomb maker – the smuggler – the dissident.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “She got us to monitor it to try to find information.”

  “And?”

  “There was a tweet from a local reporter that said the X-ray had an oar rammed down his throat.”

  “Oh?”

  “Then there was a fire on the boat.”

  “So what did Libby ask you to do then?”

  “Well, one of us,” the tech nodded to the berated bloke, “found another murder in Venice that was similar.”

  “Similar how?”

  “Suffocation by, well, oar.”

  “You were all rather clutching at straws, were you not?”

  “Yes,” said the tech, increasingly pissed off at the superior’s attitude.

  “So what then?”

  “Can I ask a question, sir?”

  “What?”

  “How did Libby die?”

  “That’s nothing to do with you!”

  The tech’s shutters began to rise. There was nothing in this for her or her team. There was nothing but danger in telling this arrogant bastard that they had got any further. “Sorry, sir.”

  “So what of this Venice thing?”

  “Nothing, sir. Libby also thought it was a red herring, and then the MPs arrived and took us to Palace Barracks.”

  “That’s all? There was nothing else?”

  “No, sir. Nothing. We just … got debriefed.”

  “And you didn’t see the email that had been sent to Libby’s mother?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why did you wipe the computers?”

  “Sir?”

  “There was nothing on your computers when they were seized.”

  “Standard practice, sir. We couldn’t be sure who had arrived in the black vans – they were unmarked, so we set about a full erasure.”

  The superior stared at the woman tech, wondering whether he had got the full story, wondering whether it mattered.

  “Dismissed!” he spat.

  The techs got up and left the superior to his thoughts of an oar, a foreign murder, a fisherman and a missing yacht.

  “Ridiculous,” he said aloud.

  And yet, there was a certain symmetry to the whole affair.

  “Sam …”

  His head was buried in Isla’s hair and she hugged him.

  “Sam.”

  Sam looked beyond Isla to Sinead who was holding out her phone to him. “Our friend is on the phone.”

  “Your phone?”

  “No, one he gave me.”

  “Ok.”

  He lowered Isla. “Two minutes, wee darlin’,” he said.

  He took the phone from Sinead with a smile of thanks. “John, how are you?”

  “Good, Sam. Good. There are some things I’d like to know.”

  “Ok?”

  “I’ve been keeping a close eye on things in the north, in the news. I’m wondering if you might know if the men in the headlines of late were connected to what happened to that poor child and her mother?”

  Sam closed his eyes, conflicted between the insecurity of the line and his desire to help the old man.

  “I believe they were, John.”

  “That’s good. That’s good. Just, by the way, these phones are off the shelf, as it were. Best I could manage. I hope that’s—”

  “That’s grand, John. Don’t worry.”

  “I’ll let you go now, Sam. Oh, something else, there is no receipt for that thing, no way to prove purchase. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s good to know, John. Again, I’m—”

  “I know, Sam. I know. And thank you. Thank you. Godspeed.”

  The superior was just about to chase up his GCHQ request and summon an all-points alert on a fifty-seven-foot vessel, possibly headed south down the Irish Sea, when his door opened.

  His door never opened without a knock first or an introduction from his personal assistant.

  The superior’s superior walked in. Tight trouser suit, pitch-black hair, dark skin, enormous glasses – a bombshell in every imaginable way.

  “Oh, shit,” said the superior.

  “Correct,” she said, closing the door.

  “They obviously showed you my request for analysis.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you at least tell me if we got the right man?”

  “Your authorisation to make such requests is revoked. Your position is no longer tenable. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” he said, attempting to summon some dignity.

  “We will need you to be debriefed and then you will leave the service.”

  “Pension?”

  “As is at time of leaving. Usual caveats – any issues or indiscretions, the payments stop. We’ve looked into your finances and know you have first-family payments to maintain, and that consequently you have no savings. So, buttoned lips, eh?”

  “Of course.”

  “Chop-chop, time to get going.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Unless you want me to arrest you?”

  “For what?”

  “Running undisclosed agents, allowing one of your team to be exposed – now dead, attempting to remove evidence from a public inquiry that implicated you in nefarious affairs of the past – how’s that for a start?”

  “That was to everyone’s benefit!”

  “This way is best. You whimper out the door with an income or you go to prison. Up to you.”

  “Was it him?”

  “Who?”

  “The man in the boat? The man who lived with his daughter?”

  She just stared at him.

  “Please. Tell me that at least. Was I right?”

  “It was a feud,” she said. “Nobody has anything to gain from a cannon on the loose, and if there was a cannon, it is aboard ship and on the run. Unlikely to return. Regardless, a dangerous little cell is no more.”

  “That’s it? Really, we’re going to do it this way?”

  “You’re on the easyJet to Luton in two hours. I suggest you hop to it.”

  “EasyJet?”

  “Ef
ficiencies. You’re out. Now, get on the phone, get yourself a taxi and we will get you as far as the gate.”

  “Will I, like, eh, batter on, Gillen?” Niall asked, shuffling in the fog at their rear.

  “Sorry, Niall. Sinead, have you any cash? Sorry to ask but—”

  “I’ve about eighty euros,” she muttered, lifting her bag and rooting immediately.

  “You’re a’rioight, Gillen. You’re grand, honestly. Happy to lend y’is a hand.”

  “No, no, here, Niall, here, thanks a million. I might not have got in without you.”

  “No sweat. Thanks, Gillen.”

  “His name’s Sam,” Isla scolded.

  “Whatever,” said Niall. “I might get back to me rod and tackle, like?”

  “Yes, yes, of course, and thanks,” said Sam.

  The three of them watched the teenager lope off counting the cash and pushing it into his back pocket.

  “So what now?” Sinead asked.

  “Did you bring stuff?”

  “I brought an overnight bag and some clothes, but I wasn’t sure if—”

  “Ok.”

  “Are we going home, Daddy?”

  “No, darlin’, we’re going on an adventure.”

  “Not a long one?” Isla asked, wary of a long sail.

  “Yes, wee lamb, a long one.”

  “Daddy,” her shoulders fell in disappointment, “I thought we were going home?”

  Sam half turned to Sinead and rushed it out as fast as he was able. “I wondered if we could start a new home. Maybe somewhere else. Maybe somewhere warm. Maybe, like, where Pirates of the Caribbean is? Maybe, like, away, far away?”

  Sinead looked at him, unsure as to whether she was understanding him correctly. Her hands disappeared into the cuffs of her jumper. “Who are we talking about here?” she asked nervously.

  “I’m talking about Isla, me and you,” he whispered.

  “As, like, what?”

  “As, like, a family.”

  “Are you asking me something here, Sam?”

  “Yes, Sinead, I’m asking if you’ll come with us.”

  “As a family?”

  Sam turned desperately towards Isla. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Isla?”

  Please say yes, he thought, please say no. Just say what you think. Shit, this was so badly thought-out.

  “I think you should come with us,” Isla said, totally matter of fact.