Unless they had made it over the border.
That thought chilled the blood in Early’s veins.
‘Search him,’ Finn said curtly.
Early was shoved up against one damp wall and spread-eagled. Hands ran up and down his limbs, into his pockets. They even examined his shoes.
‘Nothing,’ Jim Mullan said.
Finn frowned. The house is clean too – Maggie checked it.’ Then he shrugged. ‘We’ll soon find out the truth of it anyway. Take a seat, Dominic.’ He was smoking a cigarette and smiling, gesturing to the stoutly built wooden chair. Early wanted to kill him, but he had to try to draw this out, to give his own people as long as possible to close in.
‘If it’s all the same to you, Eugene, I’ll stand, thanks.’
Finn nodded to the other men. They advanced and took his arms. Then Finn brought up the pistol barrel.
‘Fucking sit down, you cunt.’
Early was propelled to the chair and forced to sit in it. The men started tying his wrists, elbows, knees and ankles to the wood. When they had finished he was bound as rigidly to the chair as though he were part of it. He tried to breathe evenly, to contain his fear. These pieces of shit were not going to see him afraid.
Finn stubbed out his cigarette on the stone wall and lit another.
‘Strange things have been happening lately, Dominic, so they have. The SAS are in town. Did you know that? Oh aye. They’re in wee Crossmaglen, somewhere, and they have a tout who’s doing their dirty work for them. Shocking, isn’t it?’
Finn drew in smoke. The other men stirred.
‘Work the bugger over now.’
‘Fucking turncoat bastard.’
Finn held up his hand.
‘We’ll try this the easy way first, so we will. We’re civilized people, after all.’ He knelt down in front of Early.
‘Now, Dominic, it looks like you’re our number one suspect. You’re a man without a past, you know that? You showed up here out of the blue, squirmed your way into Maggie Lavery’s bed, and suddenly, you’re one of us. Very easy. You’re just too good to be true. So what’s your real name then, eh?’
‘Dominic McAteer. Jesus, Eugene, I don’t know where you get your ideas from …’
Finn stubbed out his cigarette on Early’s cheek.
The SAS officer cried out and twisted his head, but one of the other men grabbed it from behind and held it still. Finn ground out the glowing butt slowly, intently. The smell of burning flesh filled the room. Early clenched his teeth until blood started from the gums.
Finally, Finn straightened. Early’s eyes were full of tears. His right cheek felt double its usual size, as though it were swollen with acid. He was breathing like a sprinter.
‘You’re a hard bastard, Dominic, you know that?’ Finn said softly. ‘I’ll bet my arse you’re no navvy from Ballymena. You’re a Brit, so you are. Maybe you’re even SAS.’
‘You’re out of your mind, so you are,’ Early groaned. He could taste the blood in his mouth.
Finn said nothing, but nodded to the other men, and withdrew.
They began to work on him.
Chapter 16
Cordwain slammed down the phone savagely.
‘They’ve lost them!’
‘How?’ Boyd demanded.
‘Fuck knows. They must have turned off the Monog road and avoided the VCP near Urcher Lodge. Then they simply disappeared. The checkpoint on the Foxfield road hasn’t seen them, and neither has the watch-tower at Drummuckavall. They must have taken off across country.’
‘In a car? It’s boggy as hell down there.’
Cordwain turned to the operations map on the wall of his office.
‘There are dozens of side-roads and tracks down in that area. It could be they went down the Alley road, south-west towards the border, through Moybane, and then turned off into Moybane Bog – there are tracks there, for the forestry workers. They could have taken the car all the way through the woods there, and hey presto! they’re in the Republic.’
‘Jesus,’ Boyd said. ‘That’s it, then. Early’s dead. Poor bastard.’
‘They’ll keep him alive a while, to try and find out whatever they can. Early’s a tough nut. He knows the longer he holds out the more time it gives us.’
‘What about the Gardai? Have they been informed?’
‘Irish Army units are in the area. They’re reacting with their customary lack of urgency. Fuck! What a mess.’
‘The troop is ready to go, with the exception of Gorbals’s men. They’re being extracted now. The rest are all in plain clothes. We have three Q cars standing by in Cross.’
‘Good. We’re on our own with this one. If they are across the border, then the Regular Army’s hands are tied.’
‘You’ll authorize a cross-border operation, then?’
‘Fucking right I will. I’m not going to stand by and let them murder a member of the Regiment under our very noses.’
Cordwain stood staring at the map. Outside, helicopters were roaring as they landed and took off. It was still dark, but the choppers were helping to flood the area south of Crossmaglen with troops. They were more of a gesture than anything else. He was sure now that the enemy was across the border, perhaps only a few hundred metres into the Republic of Ireland, holed up in a house or hut somewhere, torturing Early.
‘I want all three Q cars to head down for the Moybane area. That’s where they’ve headed – the VCPs will have funnelled them in that direction. I want one down as far as the footbridge to the east of Moybane Lough, and two covering the forestry area of the bog. You’re to continue on foot across the border – it’s only two hundred metres away at that point. Sweep the area between the footbridge and the wood. They’ll be in an abandoned house, a farmhouse or something.’
‘And if we find them?’
‘Take them out – as many as you can. And save Early, what’s left of him.’
‘There’ll be an almighty stink – it has the makings of a proper diplomatic incident.’
‘I know. I’ll take the rap. It was me that got Early into this in the first place. They can have my head on a plate if they like, just so long as we get those fuckers and save our man. Is that clear, Charles?’
Boyd was smiling. ‘Perfectly.’
‘Then go!’
The men in the cars were heavily armed. There were three in each vehicle, one commanded by Boyd, another by Sergeant Hutton, a reliable Falklands veteran, the third by Corporal Little. One man in each car had a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun – useful for blowing hinges off doors. The others carried Heckler & Koch MP5K sub-machine-guns, ugly, snub-nosed little weapons used by SAS hostage-rescue teams. Extra magazines were fastened to the weapons themselves with magnetic clips. As well as these, the men each had their Browning handguns in shoulder holsters and a variety of stun and smoke grenades. The team leaders carried small Landmaster radios with single earphones and wrist mikes.
They were dressed in nondescript civilian clothing: jeans, plaid shirts, bomber jackets. Every man there knew that they were going to undertake an illegal incursion into the Irish Republic, but it was to rescue a fellow soldier.
They were silent in the cars as they sped south, checking magazines, running through room-clearing drills in their heads. They were waved through army checkpoints, who had been told to expect them, and soon they were off the secondary roads and on to single-track roads, and finally unsurfaced tracks.
They split up on a signal from Boyd and headed for the three debussing points, from where they would continue on foot, sweeping a kilometre-wide area for their quarry.
The hunt was on.
* * *
A deluge of cold water brought Early round. His head slowly straightened and he tried to blink the droplets out of his eyes. His face was swollen to twice its normal size. It felt as though it belonged to someone else. His mouth felt as though it were full of fine gravel, but that was the remains of his teeth.
He found it hard to
breathe, because they had thrust lighted cigarettes up his nostrils until the flesh had charred. He was locked within himself, withdrawn from the world except when the renewal of the agony brought it screaming back into sharp focus.
Two things kept him going, kept his mouth shut and stopped him from telling them everything, from begging for mercy. The first was the knowledge that the SAS would be looking for him. They were probably less than a mile away even now, combing the countryside. Border or no border, he believed that James Cordwain would do his utmost to rescue him.
That’s what comes of going to a public school, he thought with dazed humour. A sense of honour. Cordwain will do the right thing, come hell or high water.
The second thing was quite simple. It was white, blinding hatred for the men who were doing this to him, and in particular for their ringleader. Early wanted to survive, because he wanted the satisfaction of killing Finn himself. He wanted to make the IRA man squirm as he was squirming now, wanted to wipe that fucking sneer off his face for eternity.
‘Well, Mr X,’ Finn said. ‘You’re no Dominic McAteer from Ballymena, so you’re not. You know how I know?’
Early glared at him dumbly.
‘Well, it’s simple, you see. If you were some humble brickie, you’d be begging for mercy now, promising all sorts of things, and confessing to the murder of your own mother if you thought it would stop the pain for a while. But you’re not, not you. You’re just sitting there taking it and not saying a thing. Your eyes say it all though.
‘You’re a Brit, aren’t you, me old son?’
Still Early said nothing.
‘Well, we’ll take that as a yes. Now, Mr X, since we’ve established that you’re a Brit, and a bloody-minded one at that, we want you to talk to us even more. We just can’t wait to hear what you have to say, can we, lads?’
There was a snigger from one of the other men. Jim Mullan, Early noted, looked a little green about the gills.
‘This freedom fighting is a noble calling, eh Jim?’ he managed to croak through his broken teeth. The big man looked away.
Finn slapped Early across his burnt cheek.
‘Now now, me old son – no fraternization. You’ll answer questions, but I don’t want any of your bullshit.’
‘Fuck off,’ Early rasped.
‘Stubborn cunt,’ Finn said, not without admiration.
‘Rory, go and bring that leather-covered box out of the car. Seamus, what’s the time?’
‘Just gone two.’
‘Ach, sure we’ve loads of time, so we have.’ Finn produced a hip-flask from his pocket and passed it around. The reek of whiskey was strong in the air.
‘Want some?’ he asked Early, and splashed some over his face.
It burned and seared Early’s blistered and raw skin, but he shut his eyes against the pain and made no sound. The hatred mounted up and up in him like a steepening wave.
When he could open his eyes again Early saw that they had brought in a brown box from the car. They opened it and he saw the black, shining shape of a telephone. For a moment he was puzzled, until he realized, and the sweat broke out all over his body.
‘You boys used these in Malaya,’ Finn said, flicking away another cigarette butt. ‘And the Yanks used them in Vietnam. And I’m not talking communications. Seamus, get his trousers down. Get the bastard’s balls out.’
Early’s trousers were torn down to his knees, then his boxer shorts. Finn came closer, with two crocodile clips attached to wires, and clipped them agonizingly on to Early’s testicles.
‘Now we’ll have some fun,’ Finn breathed. ‘Your last chance. What regiment are you with?’
Early spat blood and fragments of teeth into his face. Finn straightened.
‘Jim, turn that fucking handle.’
Early’s world exploded in blinding pain. Involuntarily, he screamed aloud.
Boyd halted, his shoes sinking in the wet ooze of the bog.
‘Did you hear that?’
‘What, boss?’
‘Somebody yelled, I’m sure of it.’
The three SAS men paused in the silent night, hearing an owl kee-wick, the squeak of hunting bats, their own feet sucking in the marsh that they had plunged into as soon as they had crossed the invisible border between Northern Ireland and Eire.
Then they all heard it, carrying over the fields in the silence of the summer night. A man screaming in agony.
‘Jesus Christ,’ one of the troopers said softly. Boyd felt the hair on his neck rise up. He thumbed the wrist mike.
‘Oscar One and Two, this is Zero. Objective to your front, estimate figures three zero zero metres, over.’
‘Roger out,’ came back the reply from the other two teams.
Boyd lifted a hand, and the three SAS men started forward again.
They were sinking ankle-deep in ooze at every step, their progress frustratingly slow as they hauled their feet out of the sucking mud as quietly as possible. At last one of the troopers tapped Boyd’s arm.
‘Off on the right, boss – there’s a track going our way.’
Boyd nodded and they started towards it. The scream came again, louder now. Boyd felt an urge to run forward, guns blazing, and take out the torturing bastards, but he forced himself to slow down.
They reached the track and made better time. There was a wood ahead, gloomy and impenetrable-looking in the darkness.
Figures moving to their left. Boyd swung the muzzle of the Heckler & Koch.
‘They’re ours, boss.’
The figures were holding their hands in the air in the recognition signal. Boyd waved them over.
The two teams went to ground in the eaves of the wood, waiting for the third to join them. At last they did, announcing their arrival over the radio before appearing. Sergeant Hutton whispered in Boyd’s ear.
‘There’s a little clearing in the wood ahead, some old derelict building with a light in it. Two doors at the front, one at the back. The screams are coming from there. That’s the place, boss.’
Boyd digested this, and then made his plans accordingly.
Two teams would assault the place: his own and Corporal Little’s. They would clear the house room by room in two pairs and flush the terrorists out into the open. The third man of each team would remain at the front of the house to provide possible fire support or catch any terrorists who slipped past the room-clearing teams. Sergeant Hutton’s troopers would be the cut-off group and would station themselves at the rear of the building to catch any of the enemy leaving that way. There would be no escape for any of them.
The SAS men began moving into position.
Chapter 17
They had drenched his lower body with water, to strengthen the shocks. Early’s head hung over his naked knees. His genitals were scorched and discoloured from the hand-powered generator of the field telephone. There was an unpleasant smell in the air, of ozone and burning hair. He no longer cared. All he wanted was a release from the pain. He would almost have welcomed a bullet in the head, if it meant an end to the pain.
They were not coming for him; there would be no last-minute rescue. Cordwain had abandoned him.
Talk to them, a voice deep inside him urged. Tell them something – anything. Make them stop. It was tempting to believe that if he talked, they would stop. But they would never stop. He was their sport for the evening.
And besides, he thought: I am nothing if not a stubborn sonofabitch.
‘Spin her round again, Jim,’ Finn said. Even he sounded weary.
‘No,’ Mullan said. ‘Sorry, Eugene. Let one of the other lads do it. I don’t feel too well. I need a bit of fresh air.’
Finn stared at him closely, and then laughed.
‘Right enough, Jim. You do look as though you’re going to puke. Go on, then, go and clear your head. The night’s not over yet. We’ll have this cunt singing like a bird before dawn.’
Mullan left the room, shambling out into the night air. The other men were standing aroun
d, eyes bright, lapping it up.
‘Seamus, go and give Jim your gun. Tell him to keep an eye out. And then you can have your turn.’
As the other man went out to do his bidding, Finn knelt in front of Early again.
‘You know, Brit, I don’t give much for your prospects of being a family man after this little escapade. Your balls are dark as a pair of plums.’
He grinned, but Early was too far gone to care. He could not see Finn’s face in any detail – only a white blur.
‘What regiment are you?’ Finn asked for the thousandth time.
Seamus came in again and knelt beside the field telephone, his hand on the handle.
‘Fuck me, Seamus, this bugger’s as tight-lipped as a tinker’s purse. Spin her again.’
The handle spun round, and it started once more.
Big Jim Mullan stood outside in the welcome fresh air of the night. That stink inside, it had made him sick to his stomach. He didn’t like all this interrogation business. If Dominic was a spy, then they might as well shoot him and have done with it. This torturing stuff wasn’t his cup of tea at all.
The pistol grip was cold in the palm of his hand. A Beretta Centurion, 9mm – a beautiful weapon. Mullan loved guns, always had, since the time his father had let him fire a shotgun as a boy. Or perhaps since the first time Finn had placed an AK47 in his hand.
He thought of Drumboy. He had been lucky or unlucky to miss that – he wasn’t sure which. What a fight. But so many had died, because Dominic had somehow informed, Eugene had said. And that incident with the Prod salesman in Brendan’s bar had confirmed Finn’s suspicions about Dominic.
Mullan shook his head. Sometimes he wondered if the whole business was worth it at all.
Then he saw the shadows come rushing out of the trees like nightmares made real. The starlight glinted off the barrels of their weapons. He raised his pistol.
‘Eugene!’ he shrieked. ‘They’re here!’
A fusillade of bullets blasted him off his feet.
Boyd leapt forward. The big player at the door was on his back, eyes open and his pistol lying unfired at his side. He moved feebly, and Boyd put another two rounds in him – a ‘double tap’ to the head that blew away half his skull.
Soldier U: Bandit Country Page 13
