Connolly, watching him, listening to him, could scarcely believe it. Getting the man to Dublin might, after all, be a simpler proposition than he’d thought.
Leeson reached across with the bottle and recharged his empty glass. He’d been talking about money. He wanted to make a will. Under the circumstances, he considered it a useful precaution. He put the bottle on the table beside his chair. His own glass was still full.
“So …” he said. “Do you want your money now? Or later?”
Connolly shook his head, told him to keep the money. Leeson shrugged, asking him what else he’d like. Connolly studied him for a moment. Then swallowed another mouthful of Rioja.
“There’s a man in Dublin I’d like you to meet,” he said simply. Leeson looked up.
“Oh?”
Connolly nodded. “I don’t know his name. But I know where he lives. We’d fly out on Saturday morning. You’d be back by Saturday night. I’ll take care of everything.”
Leeson considered the proposition for a moment. “Do you want to tell me why?” he said.
Connolly hesitated. There was a long silence. Then he looked up. “No.”
“Is it important to you?”
“Very.”
There was another silence. Miles away, a church bell chimed the hour. Nine o’clock. Connolly remembered his mother, sitting by the stove, nursing the remains of supper. He’d meant to phone her, but hadn’t. Leeson smiled at him, lifting his glass for the first time.
“OK,” he said, “let’s do it.”
TEN
The three cars from Nineteenth Intelligence left Bessbrook Barracks at dawn on Saturday. Miller and Charlie rode in the first car, a VW Scirocco. Two other men travelled behind them, a newish Vauxhall, red Republic plates. A blue Ford Escort, with a single driver, brought up the rear.
The convoy travelled south, towards the border. Five miles short of Dundalk, they split up, putting distance between them, the third car slowing. They tested the comms, using a very high frequency waveband on the specially installed dashboard sets, carefully disguised to resemble any other car radio. The call signs had been agreed at the final briefing the previous evening. Like the Provisional ASUs, they used cab language on the air, wary for the chance listener, scanning the airwaves, listening in. Unit One was “One Zero”. Unit Two was “Two One”. Unit Three was “Three Two”. Reaper, the primary target, was referred to as “The Fare”. While Leeson, the mystery guest from London, was “Yer Man”. The street outside the target house was called “The Rank”, and a successful snatch would, logically enough, be registered as “a confirmed pickup”. In the unlikely event of an abort, Miller would radio “Out of hours” to the other units.
Miller and Charlie, Unit One, crossed the border at eight fifteen. The main Belfast-Dublin road was already busy, trucks mainly, and Charlie settled the VW to a steady sixty. He’d driven back from Dublin only the previous evening with a roll of shots of the target house. Developed in a small darkroom at Bessbrook, the best of the photos had been distributed at the briefing. They showed a modest detached house, single storey, with a dormer window. There was a small garden between the front of the house and the road, and a concrete driveway up the side. The windows at the front of the house were heavily curtained, and there was a newish Ford parked outside. Thick hedges shielded the house from the neighbours on either side. Charlie had toyed with installing a spike microphone and a tiny radio transmitter, driving the spike mike in beside a window frame, or through an air brick, but a cautious recce after dark had left him no wiser about exactly which room was most often occupied, and in the end he said he’d decided not to risk it. Better to rely on surprise and firepower than hazard the operation before it had even begun.
Now midmorning, the three cars met at Swords, a small town ten miles north of Dublin. They parked in separate areas of the municipal car-park, meeting for breakfast in a small café next to the town’s supermarket. Charlie bought a copy of the Irish Press and studied the afternoon’s racing, while Miller outlined elements of the attack plan for the last time. Like Charlie, he was dressed in workman’s overalls, frayed at the collar, splashed with paint.
They were, he said, slightly ahead of schedule but there’d be no problem soaking up the time. Special Branch surveillance in London had just confirmed that Leeson had left his home in Chiswick and taken a cab west, out towards the airport. With him had been another man, younger. Special Branch had accessed the British Airways computer and found a name. The name was Connolly. The Dublin flight was due to land at twelve fifteen. Unit Two should be in position thirty minutes in advance. With the airport five minutes down the road from Swords, they’d have ample time to recce the Arrivals hall and assess the best place to park the car. Leeson would either be picked up or take a taxi. At all costs, they were not to lose him.
The snatch itself would take place seconds after Leeson entered the target house. That way, they could take advantage of the diversion his arrival would create. Charlie would come in through the back. Miller and Thompson, the backup in Unit Three, would take the front. Unit Two would stand by to receive the target. The target would go into the boot of the Vauxhall. With the usual hoopla, and a little luck, they’d be in, out, and away within a minute or so.
The men around the table nodded, stirring demerara into their coffees, trying to avoid the thin curls of smoke from Charlie’s second roll-up. The men had drawn weapons the previous evening. There was a machine-gun, a Heckler and Koch MP5, clipped beneath the dashboard of each car. There were stun grenades, and smoke grenades, and a modest allowance of plastic explosive for emergencies. In addition, each man carried a handgun of his personal choice. Most opted for the standard issue Browning 9mm Parabellum. Thompson, the back-up, preferred a revolver, a Smith and Wesson .38 with minor modifications to the barrel and firing mechanism. Miller had often queried the choice – too heavy, too slow – but the man had shrugged off his doubts. The Smith and Wesson, he said, had simply had a bad press. For serious money, he’d drop a row of bottles, in bad light, at twenty metres. In the right hands, there was no better weapon.
Now, leaving the café, Thompson fell into step beside Miller. Ahead of them, pushing an overloaded supermarket trolley, was a woman doing her weekly shop. She walked slowly, rolling her hips. She had a child in one arm, and used the other hand for pushing the trolley. Thompson shook his head. He was a Cockney, East Ham accent, eternally cheerful.
“Magic,” he said.
Miller looked at him in surprise. The woman must have been eighteen stone. Thompson grinned and patted his shoulder. He kept the gun there, in a holster he’d treasured for half a decade.
“The Smithie,” he said, “the fuckin’ shooter.”
Leeson and Connolly landed at Dublin Airport at three minutes past twelve, slightly ahead of schedule. Ten minutes later, they were off the plane and queueing for Immigration. The officer behind the desk glanced briefly at Leeson’s diplomatic passport and waved him through. Connolly caught him up by the baggage carousel. Neither man had checked anything in.
Leeson looked at him, a glance of enquiry. Connolly had picked him up in a cab at eight in the morning, having made peace of a kind with his mother in Carshalton. Leeson had been ready and waiting, bathed and shaved, dressed in brogues and a pair of old flannel trousers and a favourite tweed jacket over a blue denim shirt, and a darker blue tie. There was a Burberry folded over his arm, and he carried an umbrella. Watching him from the cab as he stepped carefully out of the house, pulling the front door shut behind him, testing the lock, Connolly recognized at once how he’d decided to play it. The day would be an adventure, a treat, a rather special excursion. They’d have a plane trip, and something nice to drink. They’d meet one or two interesting people, and doubtless spend an hour or two in some restaurant or other, and then – in due course – they’d come home.
On the plane, Leeson had sat by the window, nursing a gin and tonic, reading the Daily Telegraph. As Connolly had sensed, he was p
erfectly relaxed, perfectly content. Not once had he asked for details, for names or a briefing, or some small clue as to what they might be doing. He owed the boy a favour or two, and if settlement meant the day in Dublin, then so be it.
Now though, standing by the carousel, there was a decision to be made. He beamed at Connolly.
“So,” he said, “what next?”
Connolly looked round. He had the map from Mairead in his pocket, and plenty of money for a cab, but he somehow expected something else to happen. They were far too well organized to simply leave him to it. Soon, now, someone would make an approach.
He glanced round the busy concourse, spotting the Customs exit in the far corner. He nodded towards it, setting off, Leeson walking behind. They went out through the green channel. On the other side, in the Arrivals hall, there was a small crowd. Some of the people in the crowd held up cards with names on, Irish names, O’Dowd, O’Leary, Flynn. He scanned them quickly, stopping, giving whoever might be waiting a chance to register his presence.
In the corner, beside a pillar, a man in his middle twenties recognized Leeson’s face. He gave the trolley he was guarding a gentle push, and stepped towards the door. The white Vauxhall was parked across the access road, double yellow lines, engine running, bonnet up. The driver was bent over the engine, facing the airport building, screwdriver in his hands, eyes on the door. He acknowledged the signal with a nod, and closed the bonnet.
Connolly and Leeson crossed the Arrivals concourse, heading for the door, and the taxi rank outside. A woman intercepted them. She was in her early twenties, attractive, well-dressed. She had a clipboard. Attached to the clipboard was a biro on a piece of string. Connolly looked at the biro. The biro was empty. She smiled at him.
“Mr Connolly?”
“Yes.”
“My name’s Maura.”
She smiled again and led them out of the building. They paused on the kerbside. A hundred yards away, a dark blue Datsun flashed its headlights and pulled out onto the service road. Connolly watched it accelerating towards them, signalling right, slowing to a halt at the kerbside. There were two men in the front. The woman opened the back door and Connolly and Leeson got in. The door closed. The car drove off.
Across the road, the white Vauxhall pulled out behind it, tucking in behind, twenty yards back, the passenger in front already bent to the radio, confirming contact.
In the Datsun, Connolly watched the airport buildings disappear as the car swung left towards the main dual carriageway, the road into the city centre. There was no conversation in the car, no words of welcome, no names, no clues, just the backs of two heads, men in their late twenties, early thirties, one well shaven, the other with a day or two’s growth of beard. Connolly looked up at the driving mirror. From where he was sitting, he could see the driver’s eyes, flicking up, time and again, checking behind, watching.
At the dual carriageway, he signalled right, in towards the city. There was a gap in the traffic. The driver did nothing, waiting until a big truck was barely twenty yards away, then abruptly pulled out, tyres squealing, revving the engine hard, working the gears, ignoring the angry blare of air horns only feet behind. Connolly glanced at Leeson. Leeson, imperturbable, was gazing out of the window, his Burberry folded in his lap, his umbrella wedged between his knees. He might have been on a church outing. He looked utterly content.
The car accelerated away, 60 m.p.h., 70 m.p.h., then settled back. Connolly looked up at the mirror again. The eyes were still there, still watching, but there was something else, too, the beginning of a frown. Connolly looked back, through the rear window. The truck was a dot in the distance. In the inside lane fifty yards back, was a white Vauxhall. It had red number plates. There were two men inside. He frowned, turning his head again. They were a hundred yards or so from a roundabout. The Datsun slowed, then joined the traffic on the roundabout. Connolly braced, expecting to exit at the second turn, in towards the city centre, but the Datsun stayed on the roundabout, circling it twice. On the second circuit, even Leeson looked surprised. Connolly glanced over his right shoulder. The white Vauxhall was still with them. For the first time, he began to feel the old taste in the back of his throat, the dry lips and the long slow sinking feeling, stomach in his boots, events running out of control.
The two men in the front were talking now, low voices, half-sentences, coded exchanges that made little sense. The man in the passenger seat half-turned. He had a young, swarthy, pockmarked face, the acne clearly visible under the growth of beard.
“There’s belts,” he said to Connolly. “You’ll be best off using them.”
Connolly located one end of a seat belt, wedged between his body and the door. He found the other end, and clipped in. Leeson, slower, did the same. They were still circling the roundabout. The driver looked up in the mirror. The beginnings of a smile narrowed his eyes.
“OK?”
Connolly nodded assent. The driver checked the mirror again, indicated for the next left, ignored it, then accelerated hard at the following exit. The Datsun began to slide across the road, but he checked it quickly, a deft flick of the wheel and a stamp of brakes, before he dropped another gear and accelerated again. They were moving fast now, 60 m.p.h., plunging into the heart of a housing estate. There were blocks of flats, five or six storeys high. Cars half-parked on the pavements. Kids on bikes. The driver worked the horn, scattering the kids, urging the car past 80 m.p.h., setting himself up for a long, shallow bend to the left. The back began to slide again, but he let it go, knowing the worst of the bend was over, trusting the camber and a solid burst of third gear to sort the car out.
After the bend, the road narrowed, running straight for half a mile between rows of small, shabby, semi-detached houses. The houses flashed by. Thin, bare hedges. Abandoned trolleys. The odd dog. The driver was checking his mirror again. Way back, in the distance, the white Vauxhall was emerging from the bend. At the end of the straight, the road angled sharply to the right. The driver left his braking late, the car shuddering under the discs, then dipping quickly to the right, the offside wheels losing adhesion, the car beginning to tip. Connolly grabbed Leeson. Leeson looked at him, amused. Then they were round the corner, and the car was level again, the smell of rubber and burning oil.
Fifty yards down the road, there was a gap between two houses. The driver wrenched the car left, no warning, mounting the kerb, crossing the pavement, relying on sheer speed to cross the ten yards or so of soft, rain-soaked grass before they were onto beaten earth. Over the scream of the engine, Connolly could hear the sound of rubble and broken glass beneath the wheels as they bumped across the wasteland and pulled hard left again, over the pavement, and back onto a road.
The car accelerated, tyres screaming. Then, quite suddenly, the estate had gone, and the road had widened, and they were amongst larger houses, walled gardens, pedestrian crossings, and a long set of railings encircling a park. Connolly lay back in the seat as the speed dropped. He looked round, checking the road behind, wondering whether he might, after all, avoid throwing up. The road behind was quite empty. Of the white Vauxhall there was no sign. He turned round again, checking the eyes in the mirror, curious about the noise from the front. The noise was strange, unexpected, not part of the scene at all, and it took him several seconds to work out exactly what it was. The eyes were narrow again. The noise was laughter.
Twenty yards up the street from the target house, Miller bent to the message from the white Vauxhall.
“Yer man’s away,” the voice said. “We lost him.”
Miller acknowledged the call with a single touch on the transmission button, then sat there, gazing down the street, hardly believing it.
“Shit,” he said quietly.
Charlie glanced across at him. They’d been parked in the street for nearly two hours. During that time there’d been plenty of movement, dads ferrying kids around, wives away for the weekly shop, but nothing of interest from number 112, the target house. The curtain
s remained drawn. The Ford was still outside. Nothing came and went.
Miller bent to the radio again. “Units Two One and Three Two,” he said, “stand by.”
He paused, biting his lip, peering back at the target house. Whatever else he did now, he knew he had to move quickly. They’d never have lost Leeson unless they’d been spotted. If they’d been spotted, the word would be passed. He’d no idea what comms they used, but three years in Belfast had left him with a healthy respect for their operational trade-craft. The best of them, he knew, rarely got it wrong. Miller glanced at Charlie again. Charlie, with some foresight, had carefully folded his paper and stored it in the side pocket.
“We’ll take him now,” Miller said, “we have no choice.”
Charlie nodded. “OK,” he said simply.
Miller bent to the radio. “Unit Two One,” he said, “you’re off the clock.” He paused. “Unit Three Two. The fare at number 112 picking up now.”
He waited a moment while both units acknowledged the message. He could imagine the atmosphere in the Vauxhall, the two men stony faced, heading back north, putting the best gloss on it, getting some kind of story straight. He leaned back in the seat, easing his Parabellum out of the shoulder holster, checking the breech.
The third car, the blue Escort, appeared at the top of the road and cruised slowly past them, Thompson at the wheel, ignoring them completely, parking two houses down from number 112. Miller looked at Charlie. Charlie started the engine and eased the car into a careful three-point turn. Then he coasted down the road, stopping opposite number 112.
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