Shard at Bay

by Philip McCutchan

  “Not a bod in sight, sir.” Farrow saw Shard’s expression. He asked, “Anything up, sir?”

  Shard told him. “I don’t know how many. But up to a point we’re back to square one. I’m going in, Farrow. Frontal assault, blast our way through. It’s the only way now.”

  He remembered Rice’s words: be careful. But Rice wasn’t here; he was. In his view, sheer speed had to take precedence. The sudden rush that might catch Detachment X on the hop, the speed that might get him to the remote control transmitter in time.

  And to Beth.

  A lot would depend on Hedge. Before leaving the tunnel area Shard had been told that Hedge was standing by in Belfast and that the Detachment X aircraft was believed headed into Ireland. If Hedge could use delaying tactics convincingly, then O’Carse wouldn’t be forcing any issues yet. And usually Hedge was pretty good at evading issues, fogging points and so on …

  He and Farrow moved down the road, towards the gateway at the foot of the rising ground. Farrow said, “Chances are it won’t go off anyway, sir. You said there was a fault.”

  “Yes. A fault in the operation of the beam. We can’t assume for sure the remote control won’t send it up.”

  Farrow nodded but said nothing further. Shard’s police revolver was out now; he felt the increased beat of his heart as they came down on the gate. He was about to get Farrow to give him a leg up to the top of the gate when he heard a car’s engine start up in the yard behind and a moment later the gates came open. A car nosed out, a car Shard hadn’t seen before, a Ford Granada, fitted with two big arced aerials, one on either side, sweeping back from the bonnet. In the car were four men, and in the back, between two of the men, was Beth.

  Shard saw that he had been recognised: the Granada accelerated fast, away left down the road. Shots came back; Shard felt the glancing sting of a bullet across his left shoulder and then he and Farrow had opened fire, both of them aiming for the tyres.

  They missed. Shard swore luridly and brought out his pocket transceiver, calling up the mobile that was waiting a couple of streets ahead. From then on, things moved fast, very fast. With Farrow, Shard ran on in the Granada’s wake and almost within seconds he saw the police mobile coming out of the side street, right across the bows of the speeding car. The Granada’s brake lights went on, there was a scream of tortured tyres, the vehicle rocked and slewed and by some amazing driving executed a U-turn away from the mobile, heading down again towards Shard and Farrow under fast acceleration. Shard and Farrow went flat to the ground as the men in the car opened fire; once again the police revolvers were in action and the mobile was coming fast down behind the escaping Granada. Then one of the revolver bullets took a tyre, and the big car swung, the brake lights glowing red again, turned across the roadway and crumpled into the brick wall of the dairy. The bonnet buckled and steam came from the shattered radiator as Shard raced up. He saw Beth, white-faced, her mouth opened in a scream. The Granada’s driver, no seat belt, had gone head first through a shatter of glass from the windscreen and hung there pouring blood. The man in the front passenger seat was firing across the driver’s back, while one of the men in rear, a man with headphones clamped to his ears, was bending down in what seemed to be an attitude of concentration.

  Alongside Shard, Farrow said, “The transmitter!”

  Likely enough, Shard thought; but O’Carse would surely hold his horses, ordering the transmit only when the sands had run right out, using it purely and simply as an act of revenge. He moved towards the Granada, keeping low, dodging bullets. The Met officers were out of the mobile now but grouped behind it and using it as cover. Then Shard heard another desperate cry from Beth; the blood pumped through his body and risking the gunfire he got to his feet and raced towards the Granada, flat out and direct, firing almost frenziedly as he ran. At least one of his bullets hit the target: just as something seemed to explode in his shoulder and against his head — just before he fell to the roadway — he was aware of the man with the headphones crumpling to the floor of the car. Then, as though Shard’s collapse had acted as a signal, the men from the mobile were running down the road to close in for the kill.

  *

  At the Clones rendezvous another car drove up behind Hedge, a car with an Ulster registration, moving fast along the country road. It came to a halt with a scream of rubber and a man got out and approached Hedge, a small, dapper man wearing an incongruous bowler hat: Hedge recognised him as a man named Parely, a civil servant from Stormont. Hedge was relieved to see him since he might take some of the weight of responsibility.

  The small man was in a state of excitement. He said breathlessly, “Mr Hedge —”

  “Yes. What is it?”

  The news was momentous and very welcome to Hedge. Parely said, “It’s all over, Mr Hedge! All over! I’ve been sent by Stormont … the tunnel’s been evacuated —”

  “Evacuated? Peacefully? All the children?” Hedge gaped.

  “Almost all, so I’m told, Mr Hedge. Word has just been released — they —”

  “Good heavens!” Hedge mopped at his face. “Oh dear, what a blessed relief!”

  “Yes, indeed, Mr Hedge, amen to that I say.” Mr Parely paused. “And equally important — the remote control has been inhibited, deactivated.”

  “How, who by?”

  “By Mr Shard —”

  “Shard!”

  “Yes. I’m afraid he’s been injured, Mr Hedge, but —”

  “Oh.” Hedge turned to stare across at O’Carse and his grim-looking mob. Triumph welled in him: the ground had been cut from under Detachment X, their bargaining power had vanished now. Hedge turned again to Parely. “You’re absolutely certain of all this?”

  Parely nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, indeed yes. There are no doubts at all —”

  “I can rely upon it, conduct negotiations — that is to say, bring this affair to an end — upon it?”

  “Oh, most certainly, yes! The word came from Downing Street, Mr Hedge. It’s unimpeachable.”

  “I see.” Hedge cleared his throat pompously, then walked across for a whispered word with the Dublin contingent. Then, once again, he faced O’Carse. Pear was mixed with the triumph: O’Carse had that sub-machine-gun. But duty had, of course, to be done. Hedge stiffened himself, felt his stomach sink nevertheless; he licked at dry lips. His heart pumped and he felt a rush of blood to his head.

  He called out to O’Carse.

  He said, “I have word that the Blackwall Funnel has been evacuated, O’Carse.”

  There was a laugh. “Bluff!”

  “No bluff, O’Carse. There’s nothing you can do now.” Hedge poised himself for flight as O’Carse fingered his sub-machine-gun. “I — I advise surrender. I advise it most strongly.”

  O’Carse jeered. “I’ll not be caught by bluff, English bluff! I tell you this: if you force me to, I’ll transmit the signal to my remote control operator.”

  “By all means,” Hedge said in an off-hand voice. He waved a hand in unconcern whilst sending up a prayer that Downing Street had known what it was talking about. The nonchalance was in fact very well done indeed. Hedge saw the reaction from O’Carse, the sudden tightening of the lips behind the beard, the wary look in the eyes. Hedge’s stomach suffered a surge of terror and he looked round for an escape route from the gunfire that he was sure must come. He moved backwards fast; he had seen the cornered-rat look in the bearded face. O’Carse turned this way and that. The Garda and the Irish troops began to close in behind their weapons. Suddenly O’Carse opened fire in a swinging arc. Hedge threw himself flat just in time, squirmed his limbs about as though burrowing into the ground like a lizard. Bullets smacked into two of the Irish soldiers and one man of the Garda. Then O’Carse fell, taken in the legs by a stream of return fire.

  He was wanted alive, was O’Carse. There was a brotherhood among police officers that could transcend frontiers and the Irishmen knew all about the faked-up charges of bribery.

  *

  He
dge went home post-haste. The word had reached the province at large that O’Carse had been bowled out and the spirit had been taken out of the incipient rebellion, although sporadic fighting was still going on and there was the odd explosion and more men died, so it was too potentially dangerous, Hedge thought, to linger; and in any case he would be wanted back to make his full report as to how he had finally settled the trouble. And upon arrival in London he reported personally to the Permanent Under-Secretary.

  “It was very tricky, Under-Secretary. A fine balance was needed throughout — very fine.”

  “And you maintained it?”

  “Yes, Under-Secretary.”

  “Training will out, of course.” The irony was well under control.

  “Yes, indeed. Training … and a good deal of experience. One learns to read these people, you know. They’re tremendously — er — unsubtle, Under-Secretary, if you follow.”

  “Unsubtle, yes, a good word, that. So you brought it off, Hedge. They caved in.”

  Hedge was unaware of any nuances. He said, “Yes, that is so, Under-Secretary.” He passed a hand over his hair.

  “Persistence is the key, it always is. Whilst — er — persisting I was, of course, most particular as to discretion. I managed, not without some difficulty, to commit nobody to anything.”

  Sir Edmund gave a grave inclination of his head, hiding the sardonic smile. “A true diplomat, my dear Hedge.”

  *

  Detective Sergeant Farrow went later that day with Shard’s own DI, Bob Orwin, to the Queen Elizabeth military hospital in Woolwich where Shard had been taken by ambulance. They were told that Shard had regained consciousness and they could go along for a few minutes. Shard had already been told that Beth was all right though currently under sedation — she was suffering from reaction but there was no cause for worry and she’d be along to see him as soon as she was allowed. Farrow gave Shard the rest of the story: it was simple enough. One of Shard’s bullets had gone through the headphone earpiece and into the man’s brain and another had smashed the remote control transmitter. There had been police casualties when the officers from the mobile had closed in; the remaining men of Detachment X had been taken alive and would be put through the grill.

  Shard said, “So it’s all over.” He felt light-headed, and in a good deal of pain: his right shoulder was giving him hell and there was a bandage around his head, which felt as though it had been kicked by an elephant.

  “Yes, sir. We were only just in time. I reckon they were about to transmit, maybe even without orders from O’Carse-”

  “Because we’d gone in?”

  “Probably, sir, yes.”

  Shard let out a long breath, a painful breath. “Where angels fear to tread … it was a bloody great risk, Farrow. But I suppose it paid off.” He caught Bob Orwin’s eye. “How did Hedge get on, Bob?”

  Orwin told him.

  “Is he preening?”

  The DI grinned. “Well, sir, what do you think? He’s in very good odour currently. He brought it off. I reckon he’s thinking in terms of a knighthood.”

  Shard made a rude noise: a raspberry, in fact. Hedge was as ever Hedge and had to be accepted.

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