Soldier U: Bandit Country

by Peter Corrigan

  Taking out his own copy of the Irish Times, Cordwain retired to a corner table, nodding at the old men who watched him over the top of their papers. He felt as though everyone was on edge, and had a momentary urge to get the hell out of there. He forced himself to sit down, however, and shake out his newspaper. His job, Early had told him, was to act like a sponge, to notice everyone who came in and out, but to remain aloof.

  Cordwain disliked taking orders, especially from someone who was nominally his subordinate, but Early was the one with all the ideas at the moment, so he had no choice. The other SAS officer was currently checking out the derelict houses at the other end of the square where Gorbals’s team had had the OP. Why, he would not say, to Cordwain’s immense irritation. He felt that Early was treating all this as some sort of game, and he didn’t like it.

  People came and went throughout the early afternoon. There was no sign of the Lavery woman, or of Finn, though that was hardly surprising. But there was a tenseness about the atmosphere in the bar and especially about the landlord, that was intriguing.

  The afternoon drew on, and the men of Lavery’s Construction came in after work, raising the noise level. Cordwain clocked their faces one by one, but could identify none as local players. He glanced at his watch and decided to give it another thirty minutes. If he sat there on his own for much longer he would begin to excite comment.

  Then he hit paydirt. The Lavery woman came in, and with her was Patrick Mooney, a known player who was one of the few survivors of Drumboy. As they talked to Brendan at the bar Cordwain finished his pint and left the empty glass on the counter, his ears pricked. He folded his paper nonchalantly, and watched the two go behind the bar and through the door that led upstairs. The Lavery woman had been talking about the dinner. It looked as though Mooney was staying in the pub at the moment as well as Finn – perhaps as extra muscle. Cordwain turned and left.

  ‘So you didn’t see Finn,’ Early said, wiping the Heckler & Koch with an oily cloth.

  ‘Not a whisper. It looks like we’ll have to take Mooney into account though. He’s a youngster, but a vicious little bastard. He’s probably there as a dicker of sorts, or maybe he’s to provide a distraction if the army swoop on the place. I’ll bet my bollocks there’s a small arsenal concealed in that pub somewhere – as well as your bloody Walther.’

  ‘As well as my bloody Walther,’ Early echoed soberly.

  ‘So what’s the plan, and why were you sniffing round those derelict houses to the north of the square?’

  Early cocked and recocked the little SMG several times; then, satisfied, he set it down and took up the magazine, and began unloading it. The snub-nosed 9mm bullets fell into his lap as he eased them out one after the other. When the mag was empty he oiled it and tested the spring. Satisfied, he began reloading it again.

  They had parked the car in yet another wood, this one near Silverbridge, some seven kilometres from Cross. The afternoon was waning, the sun going down behind the hills to the west, and Cordwain was restless. They were wasting time, he thought. The McMullan thing would not fool the local players for long. Soon they would contact the men in Belfast and put two and two together.

  ‘The plan,’ Early said at last. ‘You’ll love it. It involves tying up a lady.’

  ‘The Lavery woman.’

  ‘Maggie, yes. There are a few rolls of parcel tape in the back, as well as a couple of Balaclavas. We want to make this look as unmilitary an operation as possible.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be difficult,’ Cordwain muttered.

  ‘We incapacitate Mooney and the Laverys and spirit our friend Eugene away to a convenient location.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Under everybody’s noses. I was checking out a few places around Cross today – discreetly, of course. The derelict houses in the square are too near to inhabited buildings, otherwise they’d be ideal. But there’s a disused sewage works just on the outskirts, off the Dundalk road, and screened by trees, that’s perfect. Very fitting, don’t you think – a sewage works?’

  ‘It’s too close,’ Cordwain said.

  ‘No. Because as soon as we have the Fox’s identity from Finn, we move in again. I’m sure the Fox is in Cross itself, so we don’t want to have to drive over half the country to get him. This way, it’ll be more of a lightning strike. It’ll all be over by morning.’

  ‘How do we persuade Finn?’

  Early smiled evilly. ‘The same way he tried to persuade me – only this time there will be no SAS riding to the rescue.’

  ‘You mean kill him, of course, not hand him over to the RUC or the army.’

  ‘Yes. Once we have the Fox as well we’ll dump both of the bodies in the Republic. Eugene Finn will remain disappeared for good. If we handle it right, then we may be able to pass it off as an internal feud – the locals already think that the Belfast boys are in town. And I’m sure your Freds up there will be willing to give us alibis if we need them. No one will know what really happened.’

  Cordwain thought it over. It seemed a harebrained plan, but he had to admire its pure brazenness.

  ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘When do we move in?’

  ‘Tomorrow night.’

  Chapter 20

  Finn flicked the cigarette butt away and drew out another. It was always cold down here, always damp. He was sick and tired of it. Tomorrow night he’d have another few pints in the bar after hours, to celebrate.

  He was sitting on a pile of blankets and an old sleeping bag in the cellar of Brendan Lavery’s bar. The air was heavy with the yeasty smell of beer and the sour reek of his cigarettes. Moisture ran down the walls. What a fucking dump. He lit his next cigarette, drawing the dry, sweet smoke deep into his lungs. Thank Christ for fags. They kept him going.

  He only had himself to blame. He could have been across the border by now, living it up in Dublin, or drinking in some wee shebeen out in the Donegal mountains. But he had chosen to stay.

  Finn lifted up the 9mm Walther pistol and studied it with narrowed eyes. He wiped some grit off the gleaming barrel, and smiled. Dominic had left his toy behind the cistern. What a shame. And two spare mags, too. Why, it was just like an early Christmas, so it was.

  He stripped the weapon, familiarizing himself with it once again. It had been a windfall, finding that Brit’s gun, since so many weapons had been lost at both Drumboy and Moybane. Fuck, but things had really messed up lately. Belfast would not be pleased, not at all. He would have some fast talking to do if he was to stay on here as ASU commander, and try to build up what was left of the Brigade again.

  That Brit, McAteer, or whatever his real name was – it was all his fault. If it hadn’t been for him neither of the two disasters which had struck the Volunteers in Armagh would have happened. God knows where those SAS bastards had spirited him away to. He was probably in England now, being treated like a hero. Maggie had been a bit strange after all that. She had wanted to know exactly what Finn had done to McAteer before the Brits showed up. If Finn hadn’t known any better he would have said she was concerned for him, the cunt.

  All that was past them now. He had to lie low while he planned this next strike – something to get the Brits running around like headless chickens, like they had been before Drumboy.

  The papers were full of stories about how the SAS were being withdrawn from Ireland in the wake of the border incursion that had resulted in the deaths of four men. At least that was one good thing among all the bad. Maybe now things might return to normal. Or as normal as they ever were in this part of the world.

  He threw aside part of the heap of blankets to disclose a bundle of wires and a digital clock-face; also a bulky package wrapped in greaseproof paper. Finn smiled again. It was a long time since he’d set up one of these fuckers. It would be good to get his hand in again. And Maggie, she would help him. She was a hell of a woman.

  He’d slept with her once, back just after her husband had died, and that had been a night of fireworks, lingering in t
he memory.

  He got to his feet, cigarette dangling from his mouth, and stepped deeper into the far corner of the cellar. Behind the beer-kegs was a blanket-shrouded shape. He drew off the covering and gazed at what was underneath with his eyes shining. They’d have to move everything, of course, before fresh deliveries were made down here on Thursday, but for the moment, he was looking down at a thing unique in Ireland: a Barratt-Browning .50-calibre rifle: the weapon of the Border Fox.

  The SAS were going to get a going-away present.

  For Charles Boyd, the past few days had been a hectic nightmare. It was midday on the day the first half of Ulster Troop was being hustled out of the Province, and though he had not been in the field since the Moybane operation, he was as exhausted as if he had just been out on rural patrol.

  The twelve men who were leaving included Haymaker, Raymond and Wilkins. Gorbals McFee would be staying behind with the rest, though Rumour Control had it that they might be on their way out soon after. Cordwain, Boyd had not seen in three days. He was up in Belfast, tying up loose ends. And Early – he had checked himself out of Dundonald Hospital and then disappeared. Boyd had never liked him anyway, but he couldn’t help wondering where Early was, and if Cordwain was somehow involved.

  Anyway, it was not his problem any more. His kit was packed, and both he and the half-troop were ready to board the Puma helicopter that was waiting on the helipad to fly them to RAF Aldergrove, near Antrim. From there they would be put on a plane to Brize Norton, and his dealings with Northern Ireland would be over. He had mixed feelings about the whole thing. Glad though he was to be going away, he knew that he and the men were being shuttled out in disgrace, scapegoats for the politicians in the wake of the Moybane operation. And there was also the unfinished business they had left behind them: Finn and the Fox still at large.

  Haymaker came through the open door and jerked a thumb back up the corridor.

  ‘The Crabs are ready when you are, boss; they’re warming up the heli now. They want us on the pad in figures ten.’

  Boyd waved a hand, and Haymaker left again.

  He looked around him at the cramped little room he and Cordwain had shared. He would not miss it. Then he shouldered his kit and exited without a backward glance.

  The Puma was roaring on the tarmac and the SAS troopers formed two sticks pointing towards its cockpit in an inverted V. At last the pilot gave the thumbs up, and they ran forward at a crouch, weapons in one hand, bergens in the other. Their equipment, including the weapons, would go back with them to Hereford.

  They scrambled on board the helicopter, swearing loudly at one another as they packed the interior space as tightly as a sardine tin. Boyd boarded last, and tapped the pilot on the shoulder. The Puma rose slowly; it was carrying almost maximum load. He looked out through the doorway and saw the helipad recede, then shut the side door.

  ‘Goodbye, fucking Armagh,’ he said.

  The Puma banked and began the turn that would take it up over the hills surrounding Bessbrook. Boyd looked back down the crowded interior of the helicopter. The men were seated on the flimsy canvas seats, their bergens on their knees, the muzzles of their weapons kept well away from the fuselage.

  There was a sudden ticking noise that could be heard even over the roar of the engine. It was like someone punching a hammer on a sheet of tin. Boyd was about to ask the pilot about it when the Puma lurched crazily and he was thrown across the interior like a sack of potatoes. The crew were shouting to each other.

  ‘What the fuck?’ someone yelled.

  The helicopter suddenly dropped. Boyd felt his stomach lift with the sudden descent. He laboured over to the pilot’s shoulder.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he shouted.

  ‘We’re taking ground fire. They’ve hit the tail rotor. I’ll have to put her down. Get your men to brace themselves!’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Boyd turned to the tightly packed SAS troopers.

  ‘Crash positions! We’re going down!’

  At that moment a hole the size of his fist appeared in the fuselage. There was a smell of burning, and of spilled fuel. The Puma swooped and the SAS men hung on to whatever they could find. The bergens and weapons went flying around, and a loose rifle struck Boyd, laying open his forehead.

  ‘We’re going to hit!’ the co-pilot yelled. ‘Brace yourselves!’

  There was an enormous impact, and then an explosion of flame.

  Twenty seconds after the crash, the first mobiles were powering out of Bessbrook. A Lynx gunship with medics and a four-man brick was first on the scene, and the Landrovers of the mobiles roared along the quiet, sunlit country roads with more troops to cordon off the area.

  The lead Landrover of the first mobile was passing over an old stone culvert when the bomb went off. It blew the vehicle off the road, crumpling in one armoured side as though it were cardboard. Lumps of stone from the shattered culvert were blown through the air like shrapnel, hitting the second Landrover and smashing its bulletproof windscreen. The second vehicle swerved to a halt. Soldiers poured out of the rear two vehicles and ran across the field to where the remains of the first Landrover were lying. The culvert was now a smoking crater. Bodies lay mangled in the grass. Someone was moaning. The soldiers knelt among the dead and dying and began to administer first aid while the report went back to Bessbrook that they had been ambushed.

  Early was filling up at the petrol pump when Cordwain came walking back out of the little service station, white-faced, and got behind the wheel of the car without a word. Early settled the bill and then they pulled out. It was not until they had driven almost a mile in silence that Cordwain spoke.

  ‘There was a television in there; I just caught the news. There’s been a helicopter shot down just outside Bessbrook, fourteen on board. No word yet on a final casualty figure, but there are at least three dead.’

  Early said nothing, and Cordwain went on.

  ‘That was Ulster Troop. They were to fly out today at noon. Charles Boyd and eleven of my men were in that heli.’

  ‘What shot them down?’ Early asked harshly.

  ‘They’re not sure yet, but it looks like something heavy, using armour-piercing rounds. That’s all they know.’

  ‘The Fox,’ Early said flatly.

  ‘Yes. But that’s not all of it, John. Bessbrook is short of choppers at the moment. That’s why the troop went out in a Puma instead of in a Chinook.

  So most of the troops sent out after the crash were in ’rovers. They were ambushed. A culvert bomb. Again, they haven’t reached a final figure yet, but it looks like no one in the lead vehicle survived.

  Early hung his head. Most Landrovers carried three to five men.

  ‘How was it detonated?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea – it’s just come up on the news. Probably a command wire.’

  ‘Finn,’ Early said softly.

  ‘Yes. Finn and the Fox. You were right, you know. There will be no peace in this part of the world until they’re both dead.’

  ‘Does this mean that Finn may no longer be based in Lavery’s, I wonder?’ Early mused.

  ‘Maybe. But we’re going in tonight, as planned. It’ll be my last chance – they’ll want me down in Bessbrook to help sort out the mess. I must go back tomorrow.’

  ‘Tonight, then,’ Early agreed. ‘Tonight we take out both of them, one way or another.’

  ‘Yes. You see, John, it’s personal for me now, as well as you. I don’t care if I do twenty years, but tonight we’re going to even the score.’

  Chapter 21

  ‘It’s quiet tonight,’ Maggie said, cleaning a glass with rapid twists of the cloth in her hand.

  ‘Aye,’ Brendan said. He was leaning against the bar reading the paper with a half-full tumbler of whiskey in front of him.

  ‘Where’s that Mooney fella?’ he asked his sister.

  ‘Out the back, keeping an eye out.’

  ‘And Eugene?’

  ‘In the cellar, same as always. H
e wants to come out for a drink or two this evening.’

  Brendan sipped at his whiskey. He looked as though he had sipped a lot of whiskey lately.

  ‘Where’d you get to this morning anyway?’

  ‘I told you, I went for a drive.’

  He shook his head. ‘That was desperate today, all those deaths. Jesus, Maggie, what a country.’

  Maggie began cleaning a second glass, holding it up to the light to check for imperfections.

  ‘Sure, they were all Brits, so they were – SAS most of them. They got what they deserved.’

  ‘I’m sick of it, Maggie, sick of it all. I want Eugene out of here.’

  ‘He won’t be here much longer,’ she said soothingly.

  ‘It was him planted that bomb, wasn’t it? I saw him come back in this afternoon, Mooney driving the car with a grin on his face as wide as a banana, the pair of them covered with muck. It was them did it, didn’t they?’

  Maggie laid a finger against her brother’s lips. ‘What you don’t know can’t harm you. Don’t think about it, Brendan.’

  ‘Don’t think about it! Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’

  ‘Turn on the news, there’s a good fella. I want to hear what’s going on.’

  Brendan pressed the remote listlessly and the TV above the bar flicked into life. Good Evening Ulster had just started.

  ‘There were two attacks today on the Security Forces in South Armagh. The first was on a helicopter which army sources say was transporting troops to RAF Aldergrove …’

  Eugene Finn and Patrick Mooney entered the bar through the interior door and wordlessly pulled themselves pints of Bass. Mooney winked at Brendan and Finn looked at Maggie. Then they sat and watched the news like children mesmerized by a Christmas tree.

  ‘The helicopter was hit by heavy-calibre gunfire from the ground and was forced to make an emergency landing near its base. Eyewitnesses state that the aircraft was in flames as it descended and that it blew up as it hit the ground. Army sources have confirmed that three of the occupants were killed, one of whom is believed to be the pilot. At least eight others were seriously injured.’