The trees were just up ahead. They were out of the town now, into the darkened countryside. Another hundred and fifty yards and they would be at the sewage works. Finn stumbled and Cordwain bent to haul him to his feet again.
A loud crack, startling in the night air. It sounded as though someone had let off a banger.
Cordwain threw himself to the ground beside Finn. A sniper. Christ – it might even be the Fox himself.
Another shot. This time a spray of earth exploded two feet from Cordwain’s face. The SAS officer manhandled Finn round until he was lying behind the terrorist as though he were a sandbag. The firing stopped. Cordwain searched the darkness ahead but could make out nothing in the deeper shade under the trees. He cursed aloud, wishing they had brought the NVGs; but they had wanted to carry a minimum of equipment. He was blind, and had seen no muzzle flash. Doubtless, the sniper was now manoeuvring for a better fire-position.
He could hear the sirens wailing back down in Cross. Soon the army would start cordoning off the area. He had to move on.
‘Come on, fucker,’ he hissed to Finn, and dragged him to his feet. He pushed the IRA man in front of himself as cover and began shoving him forward, up the hill.
They made ten yards, and then Finn threw himself violently to one side, landing headlong in the grass. For a split second Cordwain stood alone.
A shot cracked out, and he was blasted off his feet.
Chapter 23
Early heard the firing ahead and increased his pace to a fast, ground-eating run. He had heard three well-spaced shots: the mark of a sniper.
Something plucked at the air beside his ear. He felt a thump in his right shoulder and went down, rolling along the ground. Without a pause, he scrambled into a dip in the ground and lay there, panting.
He put up a hand to his shoulder and it came away wet, sticky. The bullet had given him the merest clip, like the slash of a blunt knife. He had not even heard the retort. Was there more than one sniper out there? If so, they were equipped with infrared sights, the bastards.
Cordwain was in trouble – he was sure of that at least. Ignoring the growing ache that ran down his right arm, he began crawling off to one flank, to try to get round the enemy.
* * *
Cordwain lay on the grass with the breath rattling in and out of his throat. There were dark shapes moving around him but he could not lift a finger. The high-calibre bullet had taken him squarely in the chest, exploding out his back and ripping his spinal cord to shreds. He coughed, bringing up blood and phlegm. At least one lung had been punctured.
A face bent over him, battered and savaged. It was Finn. Someone else crouched beside him, carrying the long shape of a heavy rifle. Cordwain could not speak.
‘Here’s a wee present for you, Brit,’ Finn was saying, grinning, and Cordwain could feel the cold muzzle of his own weapon placed against his temple.
‘Burn in hell, you fucker,’ Finn said, and pulled the trigger.
There was a bright flare, like the flash of sunlight on water, and then nothing. The pain and the darkness of the night had gone. Cordwain was dead.
Finn straightened, rubbing his bleeding nose.
‘There’s another one round here somewhere. We’d better fuck off.’
His companion wore a Balaclava and carried a Barratt-Browning sniper rifle, the bipod extended. With a swift gesture, the mask was ripped off, and Maggie Lavery stood there, looking down on what was left of the dead SAS officer’s face.
‘I’ve seen him before. He came into the bar once, I think.’
‘Aye, they’ve been creeping round our heels for weeks. Looks like we’re rid of them now though. Come on, Maggie, let’s move. We’ll head east, and see if we can pick up a car in Monog.’
The pair of them started off, putting their backs to the lights of Cross, and leaving the corpse on the ground behind them.
Early heard the three-round burst of the MP5K, and then the silence. He forced himself not to hurry. At least Cordwain was still firing.
But there was something wrong – something he didn’t like. Perhaps it was the sudden, heavy silence after that last burst. It made the firing sound too final – like a coup de grâce.
He began running at a crouch along the side of the valley, his eyes as wide as an animal’s on the hunt. As soon as he saw the shape on the ground he knew what it was. His stomach turned over. He approached the body cautiously, checked it for signs of life even though the injuries were too massive for anyone to survive. Then he closed the blood-filled eyes and knelt in silence for a second. He had known James Cordwain in the Falklands, when they had both landed on the islands weeks before the Task Force. Now he lay dead on a South Armagh hillside, finished off by his own weapon. He had deserved better than to die in an ugly, petty little struggle like this.
Early rose, and examined the grass about the body. The dew was falling, wetting his legs. It was easy to pick up the trail running east along the floor of the valley; two people, walking abreast.
He started after them, his face filled with murder.
‘Did you hear something?’ Maggie asked Finn.
They paused. The lights of Cross were a distant glow now, half hidden by the slopes they had traversed.
‘No,’ Finn said. He was edgy, impatient.
‘For fuck’s sake, Maggie, that other bastard is still out there somewhere; we can’t stand around all night.’
Maggie was stock-still, listening. Though the sniper rifle she bore was extremely heavy, she carried it as easily as if it were a broomstick.
‘They were SAS, weren’t they?’
‘Too right. And they weren’t going to get me into any court, either.’
‘Lucky for you I had to have a pee, Eugene.’
‘Maggie, come on!’
They started forward again.
* * *
Early stopped, breathing hard. He had heard the voices and had circled round them. Now he was upslope of the enemy, his back to the Monog road. The ground was broken here, covered with crags and boulders. He settled himself in behind one and peered out into the darkness, ears pricked for the slightest sound. His right arm was painful and clumsy, so he held the SMG in his left, steadying it on the rock in front of him.
Something about one of the voices had bothered him. Was it a boy’s or a woman’s? He couldn’t tell – he had only heard them murmuring to each other. They must be close now.
A rattle of loose rock. They were very near, labouring up the rocky slope towards him.
A car came speeding up the road behind him. As it turned he glanced involuntarily at it and caught the glare of the headlights full in the face. The car sped off towards Cross.
Christ! His night vision was shot to shit. He blinked furiously, the after-images swimming before his eyes. The darkness of the night seemed impenetrable, like a blank wall, whereas a few moments before he had been able to distinguish shapes and objects. He had been too long out of the field; he shouldn’t have been caught like that.
He closed his eyes, forced his breathing to slow, and listened as intently as a blind man.
Yes, they were closer now, maybe a hundred metres, maybe less. Slightly down to his left. He edged round the muzzle of the MP5K and clicked it on to automatic fire. His vision was not good enough to chance single shots.
Shapes were forming as he opened his eyes again. His eyes were recovering their night vision. He could see two figures walking towards him, one taller than the other. They were barely fifty metres away.
He squinted down the gun barrel and opened fire on the tall one.
The little weapon jumped like a live thing in his hands. Two quick bursts: the classic double tap. He thought he saw one figure go down and switched aim.
Shit! Too slow; the other terrorist had gone to ground. Early crawled out of his fire-position, just as a massively heavy round slammed into the boulder he had been hiding behind. He swore softly. So it was the Fox who was still in action.
He paused and
changed mags, then listened. The night was silent again, dark and moonless. But the Fox was using a night-sight – he must remember that.
He began crawling off to the left, careful of every stone, trying to keep to lower dips in the ground.
The sharp retort of another shot. He heard the thump of its impact, then the high whine of a ricochet as it rebounded off rock.
But he had seen the muzzle flash.
Now, you fucker, he thought. I’ve got you.
With infinite care, he edged over the rocky ground foot by foot, praying that the Fox would be either too afraid or too bloody-minded to bug out. His night vision was improving rapidly: he could see the individual boulders and rocks that littered the side of the hill.
Hoarse breathing, just in front.
He jumped up and fired at the shape he saw moving in front of him. There was a scream, and he threw himself down again, bruising his ribs on a stone. Relief flooded through him.
Got you … I got you.
He crawled forward, still cautious, and found a body lying draped over the rocks. He grabbed the hair and pulled the head round.
And found himself looking down at the shattered face of Eugene Finn.
The bullets had shot away his lower jaw; Early could see the tongue poking out into space like a fat worm. He released his grip in disgust and the head dropped to the stone with a sodden thud. Early dragged off his Balaclava and wiped his streaming face with it.
It must have been Finn he had hit the first time – his chest was riddled. He must have been trying to crawl to safety. So that meant … A rattle of falling rock off to his right. Early leapt up and sped off after it. He thought he saw a flicker of movement ahead, and grinned to himself. The Fox was running, panicked now.
Something smashed into Early’s leg and knocked him off his feet. His weapon went flying and clattered off a rock a few feet away. He hit the ground heavily and screamed. The bullet had hit him squarely in the thigh. He could see broken splinters of bone glistening through his ripped flesh, and the torn material of his boiler suit.
Someone coming. He forced himself to ignore the agony, to draw the pistol and click back the hammer.
There was a roaring in the air, a great thudding noise. A helicopter wheeled over the hillside, its searchlight probing the shadows and lighting up the night unbearably. It was coming east, towards him. Early shielded his eyes.
A figure was silhouetted by the glare of the roving searchlight. It stood over him, rifle in shoulder.
‘Dominic,’ the voice said, shocked.
He squinted. The helicopter was almost overhead. Its light blinded him and the roar of its rotors blocked out all other noise. He raised his pistol at the silhouette that stood over him and fired. Even when the shape fell, he continued firing. The body hit the ground and twitched as the 9mm slugs ripped into it.
Early heard the ‘dead man’s click’ of the empty magazine at the same time as he saw the face of his enemy, and the mane of chestnut hair that was fluttering in the backwash of the rotors.
He stared in horror at Maggie Lavery’s dead face.
Epilogue
Brigadier General Whelan stared out of the window of his office at the rain that was coming down in sheets outside. He sucked on his pipe, but it had gone out. He turned back to his desk.
‘Well?’ the man in the suit said.
Whelan scowled at him.
‘It’s a bloody shambles, of course. The last of Ulster Troop left this morning; there are, as of noon today, no SAS operating in the Province.’
‘I’m sure the Minister will be happy to hear that,’ the man in the suit said, smiling. He was sitting with his briefcase on his lap. He held a manila folder in his hand.
‘And this … Early chap. What about him?’
‘He’s in a bad way as I understand – may lose his leg. He’s been flown back across the water to recover. The Regiment, funnily enough, is showing signs of standing by him. Usually they drop hooligans like him as though they were hot potatoes. He’ll face charges, of course.’
‘A sorry business.’
‘Indeed. Eight men in one day, and three of them SAS. That’s more than the Regiment has lost here in the past twenty years. It’s a shame about James Cordwain. He was a good man, if a little flamboyant.’
‘But the Border Fox is accounted for.’
‘Yes, there is that, I suppose. This man Early shot her. The chopper caught it all on film. An absurdly pretty girl, too. Christ, what a country. Will you have a drink?’
‘Thank you, no,’ said the man in the suit.
Whelan regarded him suspiciously for a moment, then went over to the corner cabinet and poured himself a whiskey.
‘So who is to be my replacement?’ he asked sharply.
‘General Joseph Waring, from NORTHAG.’
‘Joe Waring, eh? Well, he’ll do a good job.’ Whelan went and stood at the window again, looking out at the grey day. He sipped his whiskey thoughtfully.
‘They thought it was war, you see,’ he said, without turning round. ‘They thought they could make a difference all by themselves: the failing of all young men in all wars. But it’s different here. We can go on shooting them and they can go on shooting us till doomsday because it won’t make a blind bit of difference. There will always be more young men ready to step forward and fill the shoes of the dead.’
‘That’s hardly a very encouraging statement, coming from the Commander of Her Majesty’s Land Forces, Northern Ireland.’
‘Ex-Commander,’ Whelan said wryly. He threw back the last of the whiskey and looked at the glass appreciatively.
‘Bushmills, lovely stuff. Hard to believe that a country which can make this can have so much hatred in it.’
There was a knock at the door, and then Whelan’s aide popped his head around it.
‘The car’s here, sir.’
Whelan nodded. ‘Five minutes.’
He turned to his guest. ‘Well, I wish you and the Select Committee well in your inquiry. You should have my official statement within days.’
‘And your comments here were, of course, off the record.’
‘Of course. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a plane to catch.’ The brigadier general took up his coat and hat, set down his glass, and left without another word.
The man in the suit remained in the room alone a few moments. He stared out the window into the streaming rain, and watched a column of armoured Landrovers file out of the gates of the base to begin their patrol. Just another day in Northern Ireland.
Discover other books in the SAS Series published by Bloomsbury
Discover other books in the SAS Series published by Bloomsbury at
www.bloomsbury.com/SAS
Soldier A: Behind Iraqi Lines
Soldier B: Heroes of the South Atlantic
Soldier C: Secret War in Arabia
Soldier D: The Colombian Cocaine War
Soldier E: Sniper Fire in Belfast
Soldier F: Guerillas in the Jungle
Soldier G: The Desert Raiders
Soldier H: The Headhunters of Borneo
Soldier J: Counter Insurgency in Aden
Soldier K: Mission to Argentina
Soldier L: The Embassy Siege
Soldier M: Invisible Enemy in Kazakhstan
Soldier N: Gambian Bluff
Soldier O: The Bosnian Inferno
Soldier P: Night Fighters in France
Soldier Q: Kidnap the Emperor!
Soldier R: Death on Gibraltar
Soldier S: The Samarkand Hijack
Soldier T: War on the Streets
Soldier U: Bandit Country
Soldier V: Into Vietnam
Soldier W: Guatemala – Journey Into Evil
Soldier X: Operation Takeaway
Soldier Y: Days of the Dead
Soldier Z: For King and Country
This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
First published in Great Britain
1993 by Bloomsbury Publishing
Copyright © 1993 Bloomsbury Publishing
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eISBN: 9781408842331
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