Shard at Bay

by Philip McCutchan

  Sir Edmund said, “I have every confidence in Shard, Mr Taft.”

  “Sounds funny to me. Insisting they’ll do it — you know? They put him up to say just that —”

  “I believe they’ll do it,” Sir Edmund broke in sharply. There were nods all round: they all knew the dedication of communist terrorists. Neither the IRA nor INLA, who could be behind Detachment X, would call themselves that, of course; but no-one doubted that the background had to be international communism since wanton terrorism had never been imputed against the ordinary Catholic population living in the Six Counties except insofar as they had themselves been terrorised into co-operation. Even the representatives of the EEC countries seemed quite convinced that the threat was for real. They, too, had had their problems with terrorists of various sorts. Now they were concerned with another threat to their nationals, this time on British soil, and were not overly concerned with the British position in Ulster.

  Children, one of the ambassadors said. You couldn’t condemn children to death, which was what it would amount to.

  “I agree, of course,” the Permanent Under-Secretary said. “But we’re in a cleft stick, aren’t we? They can’t be got at, can’t be extricated. This is the very devil … but it’s gone beyond me, obviously. Beyond all of us here.”

  His face white and showing the strain of a long series of events, he took up his telephone and called Downing Street. He made a full report, speaking first to the Foreign Secretary then to the Prime Minister in person. He was told that an emergency meeting of the cabinet would be held at once and then a statement would be made in the House that afternoon. In the meantime there would be procrastination in regard to the safe conduct. The PM felt safe in doing that: Detachment X wouldn’t blow its trump card while the men were still inside. Which in itself was the government’s trump card as well. Or was it? Sir Edmund was not convinced. Suppose the gun mob simply came out into the open, taking a chance if they were kept waiting too long? What could in fact be done about them? Arrest them and let someone else operate the remote control procedure — for there had to be someone, somewhere, apart from themselves, standing by to do just that? You couldn’t tooth-comb the whole of London and the controllers would be mobile anyway, keeping one jump ahead of the military and the police.

  He said as he put down the handset, “Once again, we wait. Masterly inactivity.” He took up another telephone and called Detective Inspector Orwin in the security section. “Orwin? Pass to the police at the tunnel, they’re to contact verbally and tell Detachment X their request is being considered.” Then he turned again to the assembled brass. “Dublin and the Northern Ireland Office are being informed of the development. The PM wants an FO presence in Belfast and I’m sending the nearest ranking diplomat, geographically speaking.”

  The Head of Security asked, “Hedge?”

  “Yes — Hedge. Tell him, please. Fill him in. Then he’s to be helicoptered at once to Stormont.”

  *

  In something of a dither Hedge was on his way in obedience to changed orders. His brain whirled: such sudden and startling developments, not that he was sorry to leave Faslane but Belfast would be little better. There was physical danger there as well, although he could of course count on being well guarded in view of his importance. His actual orders were imprecise: he was simply to liaise and that might mean anything. It might even mean nothing more than that he was to be a sort of exalted messenger. There had been something in the Head of Security’s tone that had conveyed something like that. The PM wanted someone in Belfast and it didn’t much matter who. Hedge hadn’t liked that and his underlip had jutted out at the telephone, but he wasn’t able to argue the point because the call had been abruptly cut.

  Soon after that another call had come, this time from Defence Ministry: Hocking was to go as well. So Hocking had made a pier-head jump, as Commodore Rushcroft had put it in his navalese, and was now in the helicopter with Hedge. He kept on talking but there was so much din that Hedge could scarcely hear him even though he was shouting in his ear. Hedge caught something about the likely reaction from the Ulster loyalists who might take matters into their own hands.

  He shouted back, “It’s being treated as top secret. You know that, my dear fellow. Only the Secretary of State and the military and —”

  “It’ll spread.”

  “What?”

  “Spread. Spread like lightning.”

  “The facts about the tunnel may. But not their demands. In any case … really, I can’t see what the loyalists can do about it. Not from Belfast.”

  “You don’t know the Irish,” Hocking shouted grimly.

  “Nor do you.” Hedge didn’t hear the next shout and in any case preferred to disregard it. A shouting match in a naval helicopter was undignified. But Hocking’s words had sunk home: the Irish were a very unruly lot, especially so, like the Scots, when drunk, and drink was a part of Irish life, the more so when they had something to drink about. And Hedge understood that most of them were armed. The moment the nature of the demand was known, there would very likely be bloodshed, mobs tearing through the streets with their guns, firing indiscriminately, looting, burning. The whole province could quickly become a shambles and it might be necessary to declare a state of emergency and impose Martial Law. There was no end to the possibilities; Hedge worked himself up to a high degree of fear during the short flight and felt like a jelly when he disembarked on a summer-green lawn at Stormont and was taken inside — he was much relieved to see a two-man bodyguard close in on him with bulges under their armpits — to attend a conference with the Secretary of State and the leaders of the main political parties. Here he found them in agreement with Hocking’s views: trouble indeed there would be the moment the truth leaked.

  It must not leak. It would not leak, the Secretary of State said firmly. Of course, the drama being enacted in the Blackwall Tunnel was known by now; a terse and edited statement had already been made on the BBC news — that had had to be done, obviously. But there had been nothing about the demand and no mention at all of Northern Ireland or the involvement of Southern Irishmen such as O’Carse.

  It had to stay that way, the Secretary of State said, and there was full agreement on this too. It was Hedge who struck the note of unease on the secrecy aspect, having just thought of something.

  He said, “With respect, Secretary of State. I would suggest that it’s really no longer fully secret even now. There was Shard’s contact with the police outside the tunnel, remember. There was nothing secret about that … admitted, there wouldn’t have been many people around apart from the police, but we can’t assume there were none at all, can we? The moment anyone who heard speaks to the press — well, no threats from Government are going to hold that.”

  This was only too true. The fear was acted upon at once. The army, already on a full alert, was ordered to increase the strength of all its armed patrols and with the RUC to take up strategic positions throughout the province.

  *

  The tension, the whole atmosphere in the tunnel beneath the London River, was coming up to boiling point. Everyone was in a state of fear: the children, comforted so far as possible by mothers and teachers, young women themselves distraught and not understanding what was going on, looked out at the armed men of Detachment X wide-eyed, many of them crying. The air itself was frightening to them: close and still filled with the exhaust fumes that had puffed out until the engines had been switched off. The great hulking articulated lorries, so sinister, the police uniforms that were now being worn slackly, shirts half out of trousers, ties removed, caps gone — this surely wasn’t the way of the British police? And why were they not moving? The way seemed clear ahead, except for the crabwise police car in which the dead bodies still lay and were visible to those in the leading coach. That car could have been moved. And in Britain police didn’t shoot at and kill other police.

  The four drivers did what they could but they had no more knowledge than their passengers. All t
hey could do was to try to keep their spirits up, keep them occupied. In the leading coach the Belgian driver, a fat and jolly man himself a father of seven children, got them singing, or tried to: they were not all Belgian and the driver knew only Belgian songs. But a thin sound came from the coach and was heard by Shard, who had been put back in one of the cars, but still had his hands free. The frail sound of the singing struck at his heart. He believed them all to be doomed, no hope left. He didn’t believe for one moment that either the British or the Irish Government would concede. They couldn’t concede, it was not possible. In Shard’s view the inevitable remained even after a police loud-hailer had started up and a voice had shouted that the demands were being considered. O’Carse had seemed happy enough but Shard had known the message for what it was, a mere ploy, a time gainer.

  He racked his brains, trying to find a way out of an impasse. Both sides were in fact stymied; and before long O’Carse would be faced with having to make a decision. He wouldn’t wait indefinitely, it would all smell a little high. What would he do then? Get himself and his mob out, taking the chance without a safe conduct, relying on the big threat he would leave behind? If he did that, would he be allowed to get away with it?

  The answer was probably yes, since the remote control could be used if he were impeded in any way … Shard believed that the remote control would be found in Woolwich, the ‘depot’ with which O’Carse could be in touch when needed. Found with Beth, perhaps left behind with more intent than just to be used against himself. She could be a kind of hostage for the whole remote-control set-up, but it was pointless thinking about that now. More useful to concentrate on that beam, the sealer beam. But Shard was not well up on the propensities and capabilities of beams, though this one, he supposed, could be similar to those that controlled the opening and shutting of doors as people approached. One thing: he decided it couldn’t have been switched on yet if O’Carse was to get out. Anything moving could presumably activate it. Even the outward scurry of a rat, if rats lived in the Blackwall Tunnel …

  One of the men — one of those who had seen service in the British Army — jumped from the tail of the leading HGV. He had been busy inside, setting up the operation. He approached O’Carse; Shard overheard the conversation.

  “All ready. Better get the vehicles shifted into place and the carriageway cleared south.” The two men began to move away but Shard had got the drift. The vehicles bunched behind the lethal convoy, now empty of their drivers and passengers, had to be got rid of. Any vehicle half across the entrance, half across where the beam would operate, would break the seal. Probably that could lead to an automatic and premature explosion as soon as the beam was switched on. In the next half-hour there was a good deal of activity. The engines were started up and the first articulated vehicle pulled ahead of the leading coach while the second manoeuvered in reverse until it was behind the convoy. The coaches were now sealed right between the two explosion centres and Shard judged that the whole lot would be smack in the centre of the tunnel, right beneath the river. Once this had been done a big operation took place, obviously with co-operation from outside, from the Met, cooperation under the guns of the phoney outfit: the vehicles just inside the entry were shifted out in reverse once room had been made for them by dispersing the tail-back over a wide area outside the entry. Thereafter the whole approach to the tunnel, all the lanes, became one big parking lot.

  The men came back and the army experts re-entered the leading artic. They jumped down again and with assistance from the others brought out two square metal boxes like television sets without screens. One of these was carried back towards the entry, the other to the northern exit, each trailing a long lead.

  In the back of the police car, which was now with the coaches between the two artics, Shard was in a bath of running sweat, breathing petrol and diesel fumes left behind by the manoeuvrings of the heavy vehicles. What it must be like in the coaches, stuffy and sick-making … outside the car, even one of the armed men was looking sick, his face pale in the light from the overhead electric lamps running down the centre. Shard wondered if someone outside would get those lights switched off to help confuse Detachment X, but the fact that they hadn’t yet done so could mean they didn’t want to frighten the children even more. If those lights went out … but of course the coaches had their own lights.

  It sometimes happens that people in widely separated situations think alike.

  The lights went out.

  *

  From Stormont the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland had been in frequent telephone touch with Downing Street; Hedge for his part was in communication with the Foreign Office. He was, he told the Permanent Under-Secretary, keeping his fingers on the pulse of events.

  “Ah, good,” Sir Edmund said. “And the situation now?”

  “Under control, but there are elements who might disturb the peace at any moment, Under-Secretary —”

  “I can guess who,” Sir Edmund said. “What’s being done?”

  Hedge told him about the further orders to the army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, following upon his expressed fears of a leak via persons who might have overheard the conversation at the tunnel exit. “The press, Under-Secretary,” he said.

  “The press will remain silent.” Hedge’s fears, Sir Edmund said, had been thought of in London. The press had been told, no words minced, that any editor who transgressed secrecy requirements would be in big trouble, even charges of treason being mentioned. Hedge said he still wouldn’t be one hundred per cent confident in a situation like this. There were so many ill disposed persons … not, of course, the press, he hastened to add. In the Foreign Office the press was always accorded a degree of sanctity in conversation until they actually did transgress, for the press was undeniably powerful. But this time it was not to be the press anyway. Hedge, his report passed, went into a bar that had been set up in a room leading off the conference chamber and was about to get himself a large whisky when the news broke via Hocking, who came into the bar to round up the relaxing constituent parts of the conference.

  “Trouble,” Hocking said.

  “What?”

  “There’s been a broadcast —”

  “Good God! D’you mean about —”

  “Yes. Not the BBC, of course, and not any of the pirate stations either. Someone’s spilled the beans — people speaking for Detachment X … they weren’t on the air long enough to be traced, but they’ve announced the threat. It’ll have been picked up all over.”

  Hedge shook like a leaf. Here he was, in Belfast, at the very dead centre of it all, representing Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and at any moment there could be rebellion! Things always escalated in Ireland. Sinn Fein, the IRA, INLA — they couldn’t fail to take full advantage of a most dreadful developing situation. The IRA would be bringing up all its strength, reinforcing its wretched Belfast Brigade and blowing things up willy-nilly … the words, rather haunting ones with an extraordinarily catchy refrain, of a terrible revolutionary song came to Hedge as he made his way back to the conference, feeling a loosening in his bowels: Come all you gallant Irishmen, Come join the IRA, And strike a blow for freedom, When there comes a certain day …

  Hedge now believed that day had come.

  *

  In the tunnel, just for a matter of perhaps half a minute until the men ticked over, ran for the vehicles and flicked on the headlamps, the only light came from inside the coaches. Patchily the dun-coloured, dirty walls came up; elsewhere was deep shadow. Shard reacted fast, taking what might be his only opportunity. He was out of the car before the man on guard duty had accustomed his eyes to the sudden gloom and he had jumped him, bringing him flat. He wrenched the automatic rifle from the man’s hands and as he struggled up he slammed the butt into the head and the man went down again, out cold.

  Shard ran for where he had last seen O’Carse.

  That was when the headlamps came on.

  A man moved fast
, back from near the northern exit. Shard saw the rifle come up, heard a shout from a shadowy O’Carse, an angry shout of warning. Another man ran up from behind. There was no firing but Shard found his body gripped from behind by powerful arms that came close to crushing his ribs, and the automatic rifle was wrenched away.

  O’Carse came up, eyes hard. “Don’t try that again, Mr Shard. You’ve just risked that wife of yours. You won’t get another chance. Nor will she. Don’t be a fool.” He nodded at the man holding Shard. “All right. Let him go. But watch him.”

  Shard realised that it had been the shout from O’Carse that had saved his life, stopped the guns before they’d opened. So he wasn’t to be killed — yet. Why?

  18

  The answer to Shard’s wonderment came in the next moment when O’Carse said he and his mob were leaving: everything was ready now, he said, looking at his watch. He was confident they wouldn’t be impeded, not with all those kids likely to go up. Shard was being left behind to talk again to the police, through the beam barrier, to keep up the convincement that this was all for real, that the moment O’Carse gave the word the explosion would be triggered off and the Blackwall Tunnel and its prisoners would vanish into history by way of a cataclysm that would bring devastation to a good deal of London at the same time.

  Looking at his watch again, O’Carse began moving with his fake police for the northern exit. Shard asked, “How do you get through the beam, O’Carse?”

  O’Carse laughed, still moving, still clock-watching. “It’s on a time switch. It’ll come on just ten seconds after we’re clear.”

  Then they moved fast, backing away and keeping the guns aimed at Shard and, beyond him, the coaches. The last man had just passed through when Shard heard a loud click from the nearer HGV. O’Carse had made it in the nick of time.

  *

  Hesseltine got the message from the police officer in charge at the exit. A number of men had emerged. What were the orders now?