The Fire

by Robert White

  Cartwright furrowed his brow at that one.

  "Oh yes, he threatened to drop the CCTV footage from Linen Hall Street if we didn't play ball. I should have slotted the bastard there and then in that office. We've been compromised from the very beginning."

  I knew Des had phoned Cartwright as he was his last resort, and the spook had come running with all the firepower of the Secret Service behind him.

  I didn't trust the Firm, but I needed answers and I needed them fast.

  The aging spy was not to disappoint. He nodded respectfully to J.J. and Des before turning to me.

  "Let's wander to my car, Richard. I have a tale to tell."

  We walked fifty yards before we sat on the hand-stitched Connolly hide seats of Cartwright's parked Bentley. He tapped on the glass divide that separated us from his driver.

  "Go and have one of your dreadful cigarettes, George," he said sharply.

  The burly man did as he was told and stepped out into the cold rummaging for his pack of Rothmans.

  The old mole turned in his seat, and I waited for Jackanory to start.

  He clasped his hands on his lap.

  "These three Irish, it was not sanctioned by MI6, Richard. Mr Clarke was, how shall I put it? Acting alone."

  "Alone?" I snorted.

  "Without our help, or blessing, so to speak."

  I couldn't stop a derisory laugh. "Yeah, so to speak...so...where is the fucker?"

  Cartwright shifted uncomfortably in his seat. I read the look on his face in an instant.

  "You've fucking lost him, haven't you? He's on his toes, isn't he? You've lost a rogue informant!"

  Cartwright looked as uncomfortable as I'd ever seen him.

  "We have erm...temporarily mislaid Mr Clarke...yes."

  I felt my temper rise again.

  "When I called you, that night, just after the Irish dropped that shitty excuse for an IED outside Old Trafford, when you said you couldn't help us...you knew then, didn't you?"

  "Not exactly..."

  "I should rip your scrawny head off."

  The old spy showed no fear. I didn't expect him to. I figured he'd seen more and done more than most, and punching a near pensioner was not my thing. I took a deep breath.

  "So," I said. "Go on, what's the upshot?"

  The spook didn't hold back.

  "We first became interested in young Mr Clarke when he was at Oxford. His father was a senior officer in the RAF, good stock other than his mother being Irish Catholic."

  I shook my head in disbelief. Cartwright seemed unaware he was a bigot, and plodded on.

  "He was a clever lad, though, keen sportsman, could have been an Olympian had things been different. More to the point, he was very good friends with Declan and Seamus O'Donnell...roomed together."

  A million lights came on in my head.

  "So you groomed him to get information on the New IRA."

  "Not a term I'm fond of, Richard, but yes, I suppose you could say that. For a while, he was very helpful to us. We had little interest in the twins back then, but, as you know, we were extremely keen to get close to their father Patrick, who had become very... troublesome."

  "If that's what you call the leader of a terrorist group."

  "Yes...quite...Then, after your very successful soirée over the water things changed."

  "They did?"

  "Yes they did... With Patrick dead in the ground we considered the case closed and that Mr. Clarke could be...decommissioned so to speak. Then it quickly became apparent that Seamus and Declan would take over their daddy's empire.

  Unfortunately, running a secret terrorist organisation and funding it with drugs and prostitution turned out to be more difficult than the siblings thought. Of course they had Patrick's great wealth and all the contacts they could ever need..."

  "I sense a big 'but' coming."

  "Yes...very large indeed...Seamus is very like his father, a brute of a man, a woman hater...but he lacks the old man's brain. Worse still, he's developed a very bad cocaine habit. Declan...well Declan has taken so many drugs in his lifetime that he has become quite mad; hence the type of people they now employ to do their bidding."

  "Dougie and crew?"

  "Exactly, Richard.... So we kept our Mr. Clarke on board, just to see what the twins were getting up to...but...erm...there was...a breakdown in communication...checks and balances are difficult in our line of work, Richard, and..."

  I knew what was coming. "Checks and fucking balances! Clarke found out about the Belfast job, didn't he? Found out you'd been using him? He got access to all our information, all our details. You let him have top secret clearance."

  "Not exactly."

  I thought I would burst.

  "Well what...exactly?"

  Cartwright ran his fingers through his steel-coloured hair.

  "We now know that his alliance to one of the O'Donnell twins...erm...Declan was more than one of ...friendship...they were...are...lovers."

  This was fucking priceless.

  "So what's his story then? Racked with guilt that he was indirectly responsible for the death of his lover's father, he decides to deliver old Paddy's killer to them on a plate by posing as a spook?"

  Cartwright nodded. "Bit more to it than that, old boy. See, Clarke is not a drug-addled fuck up like his boyfriend. He's a clever boy. He also knows Declan is worth close on ten million Euros.... We think he has plans to take over the whole business."

  My guts churned.

  "So he sets us up. The drug deal, the people trafficking, might not have been quite enough to get us interested, so he adds a lump of PE4 and a few nails to spice up the job. The Regiment were always up for knocking off a few Paddies with a homemade bomb, eh?"

  Cartwright shook his head.

  "No, Richard. The IED was genuine. Don't underestimate Mr Clarke. He was quite willing to slaughter dozens of Mancunians to make his sale to Maxi. Clarke wanted Ms. North to keep the twins onside and Maxi wanted you. It was all part of Clarke's plan."

  "Maxi wanted me?"

  "My good man...you are very well known in Manchester's darkest circles. You had been in the employ of two of Maxi's fiercest rivals, Joel Davies and Tanya Richards...he wanted you eliminated, simple as that."

  I pointed a finger. "But none of this would have happened had your lot not given him the information in the first place. You fucking let him have it and he led us straight into a trap."

  Cartwright looked me in the eye. "I can't undo what has been done, Richard."

  "So what can you do?" I sneered. "What's on the table?"

  The spook pursed his lips before he spoke. "I have spoken to the highest sources, Richard and they have realised the error that has been made. Important people have been roused from their beds on this one. Whatever you think of us, Richard, we are loyal to our own, and you are one of ours... as is Ms North.

  We have been working tirelessly on this matter and we believe she is on her way to Ireland.

  Once there she will be handed over to the O'Donnell twins. Seamus and Declan have a farm, once owned by their father, just ten miles shy of the border in Crossmaglen, South Armagh. I believe the British soldiers used to call it bandit country. Our understanding is she will be taken there."

  The spy gestured up the road toward Des and J.J.

  "Our intelligence suggests that she has landed in Belfast and will be in situ in a matter of hours. We can help you, Desmond and J.J. get to your destination as quickly as possible and afford you and any weaponry at your disposal safe passage across the water; once you are there, however...."

  He tailed off so I helped him out. "...we're on our own as usual."

  Cartwright delved into his inside jacket pocket and removed a miniature pen drive.

  "Not quite, Richard. On here is all the information we have on the twins, the farm in Crossmaglen, current vehicles and the like. There is also a copy of Clarke's personal file."

  He tapped the plastic USB stick with a manicured nail.r />
  "Now I fully understand that Ms North is your priority, but should you encounter our Mr Clarke..."

  "You want him slotted."

  "I prefer the term terminated, Richard...now... there is a Lynx fuelled and ready for you at RAF Woodvale, just outside Southport... a short hop from here, I believe. The pilot is one of ours. He will drop you into a rural location some five miles from the farm and will return exactly twenty-four hours later to collect you. If you aren't there of course..."

  "We're walking?"

  Cartwright managed a rare smile. "Every possibility, old chap...Oh and, Richard, about your fee. I believe Mr Clarke made you an offer...for the Irish and that dreadful Maxi chap...Let's stick with that figure and put it on his head eh?"

  I stepped from the car into the sleet. "This lot have made it personal...attacked my team...they're dead already...they just don't know it."

  Des Cogan's Story:

  When I'd called Cartwright, he was already in the air and on his way to Manchester. He'd been keeping an eye on us in the hope that the wee shite Clarke turned up. The powers that be had given him the job of reeling in their wayward spy. Once our RI on the club had gone tits up and Rick was arrested, he figured we needed some help from high places. I for one was glad of it. It meant that we had somewhere to start and enough intelligence to begin the recovery job to get Lauren back.

  Our visit to the lock-up had been brief, but as Rick powered the BMW out of the city, I figured we had enough weapons and ammunition in the boot to start a small war.

  As well as the blissfully quiet and accurate Mp7's, we carried three SIG pistols loaded with fearsome flat-nosed semi jacketed American police issue rounds. Hit someone with a round like that anywhere, even nick them and they cause serious damage, tearing lumps of flesh from bone. Add an array of grenades and the lump of PE4 Dougie had generously left us, and I felt confident we could deal with anything the Irish could throw at us. J.J. even packed his sniper rifle though he was gutted his favourite weapon was still in the hands of Greater Manchester Police. Even Cartwright couldn't persuade them to hand the bloodstained Col Moschin fighting knife back to the Turk and he was forced to use his spare.

  For people like us, working for the Firm had few perks other than a big lump of tax free income. Up until tonight, the Firm had considered us 'deniable assets'. Yet Cartwright had pulled strings. Someone wanted us over the water fast and unimpeded by any other security service. Of course the most likely reason for this was not poor Lauren, but the fact that they had lost a body who had top secret security clearance and wanted him back...or dead. Either way, help had arrived in the form of some fiddling about at PNC HQ. The BMW's number plate had been marked 'blocked'. This basically meant that as the car hit its limiter at a hundred and fifty-five miles per hour on the M58, and a traffic cop or ANPR system flashed at us, the PNC record would simply tell him that what he wanted to know was above his pay grade. This gave us carte blanche to get to the Lynx in unfettered comfort.

  Even at its manufacturer's limited top speed, the Beamer sat down like a dream and felt safe and solid. Rick drove whilst I had a look at the pen drive that Cartwright had provided us. J.J. moaned about his treatment by the Manchester cops and played with his spare knife.

  RAF Woodvale sat between the Royal Birkdale golf club and Altcar Firearms training facility. I'd never visited the home of the 'Open' but I'd done some shooting at Altcar back in the day. The Regiment did some RI work in the killing house with Lancashire's newly formed ARV crews in the early nineties.

  The problem with Woodvale is it is a bugger to get to. The motorway runs out at Skelmesdale or Aintree and you are left with a mix of narrow lanes and villages the rest of the way.

  Both Rick and I had spent six fun-filled weeks at Lancashire Police Motor Driving School in Hutton, where the highly skilled instructors put us through our advanced driving course. In the cold icy conditions of Merseyside in January, Rick would need every bit of those skills to negotiate the BMW through to Woodvale and not put us in one of the deep drainage ditches that lined many of the lanes.

  Cartwright had given us some good intelligence. The spooks had obviously been interested in the O'Donnell farm for some time and there were dozens of shots detailing the main house and outbuildings. Most had been taken from the air, but others had been taken by covert operatives on the ground using big lenses.

  There were pictures of the twins, Declan and Seamus. Far from being identical, Seamus had inherited his father's stocky naturally muscular build, thick neck and broad shoulders, whereas Declan had taken after his mother's side, and was taller with an almost coltish appearance. Both, however, boasted thick dark curls and the same steel grey eyes of the infamous Paddy O'Donnell.

  There were lists of vehicles the boys had use of and a few further shots of faces linked with the NIRA entering or leaving the farm via the heavy electric gates. Even from the quick glance I'd managed, this was not any ordinary working farm, and entry would have to be from across country, probably via a crop of outbuildings to the west of the main house.

  We were going to be dropped out in the countryside of Crossmaglen, an area I knew very well indeed. Both Rick and I had spent many a wet cold and dangerous tour there. It was known by the British Army as 'Bandit Country,' and was a part of Northern Ireland renowned for its pro IRA stance and active service units. The British had lost far too many soldiers policing Crossmaglen. IED's accounted for most of them, but snipers using the fearsome Armalite assault rifle had killed dozens more. The soldiers were reduced to using farm tracks and tabbing across country to patrol the area, as stepping on a tarmac road anywhere in Bandit Country normally resulted in a local dropping a call to some IRA fighter with a big fuck off gun.

  I flicked through all the mug-shots for a second time and felt Rick start to slow the car.

  "Woodvale," he said. "Come on... heads up from here on in."

  Lauren North's Story:

  Time had been difficult to assess. The heroin had distorted my concept of normality and I had slept for an indeterminate period. The drug had also given me a feeling of comfort close to the sublime and I'd had no desire to leave my mobile prison or to attempt an escape.

  Mercifully, by the time Ewan Findley finally opened the boot again and the cold air rushed inside the cramped space, the effects had worn off sufficiently for me to function. His large ugly face was illuminated by the internal light automatically triggered when the lid was lifted. Fat snowflakes dropped from the black sky above him and rested in his hair. There was some other ambient light emanating from somewhere, but from my position I couldn't identify the source.

  He cocked his head to one side and studied me again, the way he had just before administering the powerful opiate in Birkenhead.

  "I'm going to untie you," he announced.

  I was doing my best to clear my head and put all thoughts of needles and possible infections to the back of my mind. Wherever I was and whatever his motive, this was good news.

  Findley leaned in and cut away the gaffer tape from my wrists and ankles. The pain-relieving effects of the heroin had disappeared along with the euphoria, and as the blood rushed to my hands and the circulation began to return, I felt the worst pins and needles ever. He grabbed the edge of the tape covering my mouth, ripped it away and rolled the strip into a ball before tossing it over his shoulder.

  "There you are," he said.

  I gasped; more with shock than pain and sucked in mouthfuls of crisp cold air. You don't appreciate the simple pleasure of breathing, until some bastard tries to cut off your oxygen supply.

  I lay in the boot and didn't move. I wanted to be sure that I could stand and hopefully run before doing so.

  Findley continued to stare at me as if studying a curious looking insect or animal. He reached out and traced my lips with his forefinger. Even with the stiff breeze I could smell cigarettes on his skin.

  "You're very pretty," he said.

  I didn't move, I was doing my best to lis
ten for other voices inside the car. Where were Kristy and Dougie? If I was alone with Findley, was this my chance?

  He pushed his stinking finger into my mouth, and stood, slack jawed, as his breathing increased.

  "We're all going to fuck you, you know? Even Kristy, she likes girls too. Dougie says I have to wait 'till last, but that I can fuck you in the arse. I bet you like that eh? I hear all English girls like it up there."

  He pushed his finger deeper into my mouth until I was close to gagging, and let out a cross between a sigh and a moan. I thought I may be sick.

  The good news was I could feel my fingers and feet again so I played the submissive. Rick's comforting voice appeared in my head. "If you're ever taken, let them think you're beaten. Let them believe they've won, that you are helpless, wait your time and an opportunity will come..."

  Findley began rubbing his crotch with his other hand. I considered biting his finger, but from my prone position, once I'd inflicted some pain to the disgusting animal, I would be too vulnerable.

  Slowly I moved my arm and gently pulled his hand away from my mouth so I could speak. I looked at the obvious swelling in Findley's jeans. His belly was so large, there was no way he'd seen his own penis in many years but, like Paddy O'Donnell before him, his erect manhood clouded his judgement.

  I did my best to sound seductive. "Why don't you take it out so I can see it? I don't mind." Findley's eyes widened and he looked furtively about him. I couldn't see much of my surroundings, but I had the feeling the car was parked in some kind of yard. There were no obvious sounds to suggest anyone was nearby, so, in for a penny and all that.