Provo

The penis was harder, her mouth still around it. For Christ’s sake do it, Nolan told herself. The shots from the house echoed up the street. She sensed rather than saw the moment, McKendrick’s eyes flicking off her and down the road, Rorke glancing momentarily behind him.

She straightened, gun in hand, aimed at McKendrick. Shot twice then spun left, shot Rorke through the windscreen, missed, perhaps one shot on target, she wasn’t sure. Brady slid his right foot off the brake and on to the accelerator, left off the clutch. Rorke moved, too slow and the wrong way. Finger pressing the trigger but the movement slightly altering his aim. The Opel slammed forward, into him, knocking him back and down. McKendrick was tumbling backwards, Walther discharging. Brady’s foot was hard on the floor, Rorke on the ground in front. McKendrick was framed against the window behind the driver. Nolan turned, aimed behind Brady, fired at McKendrick through the window, the glass shattered. The Opel hurtled forward, over Rorke, and down Beechwood Street, the car bumping, not running smoothly. Nolan still facing back and checking, seeing McKendrick fall and looking for Rorke, Brady still accelerating and the engine screaming. They were twenty yards away, thirty. Something wrong with the car, she thought, something slowing it down. Rorke still underneath, she realized, Brady still accelerating to clear the area. The car freed itself of Rorke’s body, the rear right wheel spinning on bone and flesh, then the torso flew out like a red rag.

The Land-Rovers of the Quick Reaction Force screeched to a stop outside Reardon’s house and the soldiers of the Sherwood Foresters ran inside. Haslam and Phillips put on the caps the first officer gave them, left the house, climbed into the first vehicle, and the driver accelerated away.

The two Macrolan Land-Rovers screeched to a halt and slid across the road, slightly apart, the first blocking the left lane and the second the right, so that vehicles passing between them would have to drive through a chicane. Routine VCP – vehicle checkpoint – the watchers knew; in fifteen minutes the soldiers jumping out of the vehicles would jump back in and the Land-Rovers would scream away as quickly and suddenly as they had come. The soldiers were fanning out, the man with the GPMG – general purpose machine gun – taking a position behind a low wall thirty yards from the road block.

He had two hundred yards left to live, Tommy Reardon knew. Slow down and delay it. Accelerate and get it over with. Dear Mary, Mother of God, may it be quick and painless and may Marie and the kids be all right. He was wet with fear and shaking with nerves, his throat dry and tight and his bowels churning. They were almost at the end of the Antrim Road. The convoy turned right into Annesley Street and snaked through the alleyway behind the houses. Thirty yards up the back street turned a right angle to the left. To his right Reardon saw the glass and metal side of the Mater Infirmorum Hospital, the junction with the Crumlin Road twenty yards in front of him, and the prison itself a hundred yards away on the other side of the hospital. The command Sierra accelerated away from him, up the Crumlin Road, and the Cavalier fell back slightly. He came to the junction and turned right.

VCP, the Sierra driver suddenly saw, just where they didn’t want it. Everyone in the car was armed, the front passenger carrying a Kalashnikov across his lap under a coat, and the rear with the remote firing device beside him. He was beginning to slow, still trying to decide what to do. Everything normal, he told himself, everything routine. Land-Rovers in standard position for a vehicle check, soldiers in position. Something wrong, it was a flicker in his mind, something about the soldiers. Not moving like ordinary squaddies, not the same age as ordinary squaddies, all slightly older, late twenties or early thirties. He swung the car left and swore a warning, the front passenger whipping the coat off the AK.

The night exploded. Gunfire in front of him, concentrated on the Sierra which had just passed him. Tommy Reardon jerked, foot stabbing the accelerator momentarily and the digger speeding up, then slowing slightly. The gunfire was deafening, unending. Sheets of sound pouring from the machine gun on the right of the road. The Criminal Court was on his left and the prison was on his right. He turned and glanced back. The Cavalier was still moving, the unseen men on either side of the road firing into it. He was confused, still terrified. Did not know what to do. Realized he was still moving and jammed his foot on the brake. The Cavalier bumped into the rear of the digger. A car he hadn’t seen before pulled in front of him, the men getting out even as it slowed, as he himself stopped. His foot was still locked on the brake, his body frozen with fear and the gunfire still crashing into the Sierra in front of him. A second car slammed to a halt, more men racing out, all armed, faces blackened. One of them pulled the cab door open and jerked him out, others surrounding and protecting them. A third car screamed to a stop, and the bomb disposal expert ran for the barrel of explosive, more men covering him.

‘It’s all right, Tommy.’ He heard the voice as he was bundled out of the digger and towards the first car. ‘Marie and the kids are fine.’ He was pushed into the back seat, men clambering in around him and on top of him. ‘What did you say?’ He was still confused, still frightened. ‘Marie and the kids are okay. It’s over.’ The car accelerated away, men outside slamming the doors shut and the heavy duty rounds of the GPMG still battering the car with the remote firing device.

* * *

The water was piping hot. Doherty lathered the foam round his chin and jowls, and wet the razor under the tap. It was beginning to show, he told himself: the sinking of the eyes and the hollowing of the cheeks. He remembered the afternoon after the doctor had warned him of the possibility, the way it had passed, the last sun setting on the water at Kilmore, and the mountains fading into purple. Eighteen months, then he would face his Maker. He wiped the steam from the mirror and drew a swathe across the foam on the left side of his face.

So what will you say to him? He dipped the razor under the hot water tap and drew it round his chin, then down his throat. What will he say to you? Will the Holy Mary still smile her smile at you? And what will those you’ve left behind say? What sort of footnote will you have in the history of the struggle? It would be a small one, he was aware; perhaps even anonymous. Even in death it would not be possible to afford him the recognition he had so diligently avoided in life. For the past eight years Eamon Doherty, professor and family man, pillar of the community and the church, had been Chief of Staff of the Army Council of the Provisional IRA. For almost ten years before that he had served as a planner and tactician, and for the years before that in whatever role the movement required.

Bloody fiasco in Belfast, the anger broke his thoughts. Two dead at the house in Beechwood Street. McKendrick and Rorke butchered in the street. Eight shot to pieces on the Crumlin Road and seventy still trussed up inside the prison there. And all on Orange Day. The Prods chuckling all the way to the bank and the Brits laughing all the way back to London.

He wiped his face and dressed.

So who would begin the moves this morning? he wondered. Who would press for a major investigation into the identity of the member who had leaked the operation to spring the men from the Crum? Who would pick up on the McKendrick farce and turn it to his advantage?

Conlan or Quin, he knew; in the end it would come down to one of these. Both were respected in the Movement, both were playing for their places closer to the top of the pecking order. Both politicos, sharp tongues and sharper brains. Conlan tall, slender build. Quin bigger, using his bulk to disguise the speed at which his mind moved.

In a way the Movement was at yet another crossroads. There had always been discussion—often dissent – between the Republicans and the Socialists, even after the Movement had appeared to wither in the fifties and sixties. And in the seventies the Official IRA, the Stickies, had lost ground to the new heads and fiery demands of the Provisionals. Yet within the Provos there had also been disagreement – about the role of violence and the desirability of combining the gun with the vote. Now the new crossroads, Conlan and Quin already laying out their qualifications for the leadership, for the job of Chief of Staff. He finished dressing and left the house.

The Army Council met at eleven, seven men made up from representatives of the Southern Command, the Northern Command – the so-called war zone – and GHQ. The room in which the meeting took place had been electronically swept beforehand. For two hours they discussed the implications of the changes in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and how they would affect the financing of the Movement and the flow of arms, ammunition and explosives to it.

Conlan and Quin know, Doherty thought once; both have looked in my eyes and seen the shadow of the Maker lurking there.

For the next hour they discussed the quartermaster’s reports on the arms and explosives situation, the fact that although Libya had now said it would stop supplying the IRA, the statement made little difference given the volume already shipped to Ireland and stored there.

So how would he like to be remembered? The Bringer of Peace – if there could ever be such a person in that small corner of the world they called Ireland – or the Harbinger of War? What single action would mark the end of his stewardship of the Movement? And who would give it to him, who would give him what he now craved for more than peace or war?

They moved to the next item: the aborted attempt to free the men from Crumlin Road jail, the deaths which had accompanied it, and the political capital made by both the Protestants and the English. Who’s going to move first, Doherty wondered, Conlan or Quin? The senior officer from the Northern Command briefed them on the background to the operation, the planning which had prefaced it, then the events of the day and evening.

‘So what went wrong?’ It was Quin.

The officer commanding the North Belfast Brigade shrugged.

‘There was a leak?’

The man shrugged again. ‘Possibly.’

‘And what action has been taken to trace it?’

‘A board of enquiry has been set up. The security section has already begun its investigations.’

The council was about to be split, they all understood, to be torn apart by the implications of the Orange Day fiasco.

‘Who knew about the operation? Who knew enough to direct the security forces to Beechwood Street and to the Crum? Who knew about Tommy Reardon?’

The only people who knew the overall military details were the planners on the Northern Command. Therefore the leak must have come from one of them or their staff. With the implications for the Movement which followed from this.

‘Gentlemen.’ Conlan’s voice was quiet, calming. Laying the groundwork for his move. That was the difference between the two men, Doherty understood. Quin would make his move, upfront and immediate. Conlan would lay the ground then withdraw, come back for the kill later. A come-on, just as the bombers sometimes left a small device by the roadside or in a car, but the main device in a second car or where they knew the security forces would wait while the Bomb Disposal dealt with the first. ‘There may or may not be a leak. If there is we must find it. If there isn’t, we mustn’t let the British con us into thinking there was and wrecking the Movement with a witch-hunt.’

The trap now, the execution later, Doherty knew for certain.

‘I would only like to say one other thing. We all approved the operation.’ Therefore we must all share the guilt – it was unspoken, but clearly meant and equally clearly understood. ‘And that decision was a correct one. The political and military value of the operation had it come off would have been incalculable.’ He turned to the officer commanding the North Belfast Brigade. ‘Now perhaps you could tell us of any progress on the part of the security section.’

‘So where was the leak in the organization?’ Quin returned to his original theme. ‘How does it affect future operations? What about operations on the mainland?’

What are you playing at? Doherty glanced at Conlan. Where are you taking us? He saw the way the other man was looking at him. You know, he thought again. You know what the doctor has told me to expect, you know the question growing in my mind.

‘So what do we do?’ The discussion continued for another forty minutes before Doherty gave Conlan and Quin their chance. Quin would move first, he supposed; Conlan would allow that, then checkmate him.

‘A spectacular.’ Instead it was Conlan, speaking first and more forcefully, though his voice was still quiet. ‘One the bastards will remember for ever.’ Conlan rarely swore, they all knew.

‘Why?’

‘For the morale of the Movement after Orange Day.’

A come-on, Doherty remembered, waiting for the moment.

‘How?’ Quin walked into the trap. ‘We’ve already agreed that until we know otherwise we must assume that the units in the North and the ASUs on the mainland and in Europe might be compromised.’

Conlan paused. ‘There’s a sleeper.’

They would all remember the moment and the silence which hung round it.

‘Where?’

‘On the other side of the water.’

‘Who?’

Conlan shook his head.

‘Details?’

He shook his head again. Some disciplines in life were easy to maintain, others more difficult. Yet none compared with the discipline which he imposed upon himself when he thought about the individual they were now discussing.

‘Who recruited him?’ It was Quin.

‘I did.’

‘How long’s he been in place?’

‘Five, six years.’ The answer was necessarily vague. ‘Perhaps more, perhaps less.’

‘But he’s done nothing in that time?’ Quin looked for the way out.

‘A few jobs for the French and Germans, a couple for the Libyans and Palestinians. Occasionally for us as well, though it was always camouflaged, made to look as if it was somebody else’s job.’

Doherty sensed the excitement round the table.

‘So why haven’t you told us about Sleeper?’

It was ironic, Doherty thought later, that it was Quin who gave the man his codename. Who stopped referring to him as simply a sleeper. Who provided the name which would immortalize him.

Conlan shrugged, did not reply.

‘So what do we do?’ Doherty moved them round the impasse, asked the question again.

‘A spectacular.’ Conlan repeated his previous answer. ‘Something no one will ever forget.’

He’s giving me my epitaph, Doherty thought, and in doing so he’s staking his claim for my place when I go. But he’s doing more than that. He’s planning ahead, setting up an agenda for five, ten years’ time. He’s giving us what we have always lacked in the past. He’s giving us the power. Not just the gun or the bomb, something much more.

Perhaps it was then that he began to see. The last option, he began to think, the one they had occasionally considered but always rejected.

‘Where?’

‘The mainland.’

‘Where exactly on the mainland?’

‘London.’

Doherty tasted the excitement, smelt it, savoured it, eating into the fibres of his body and the marrow of his bones. There had always been four options for campaigns on the mainland: the first three – the soft option, the military option and the political option – they had planned for, sent the teams to the mainland for. Had hit the soft targets; then the military, a barracks or a recruiting office; had gone against the politicians, even mortared Downing Street. But the fourth option was different. The fourth option was untouchable. And now Conlan was about to propose it.

‘Who?’

Even now Conlan could remember the street where he had been born and in which he had been brought up. Could remember the excitement which rippled through it when the pedlar came selling, the bright colours of the ribbons and the glint in the boxes on the wooden tray. Could remember what they called the pedlar, even though it was a woman.

‘Codename PinMan.’

‘And who is PinMan?’

Doherty sensed the moment the others realized.

‘The British royal family.’

2

The evening was warm, the first dusk lost in the lights of London, the dome of St Paul’s behind and the Thames in front.

Major R.E.F. Fairfax – Marlborough, Sandhurst, the First Battalion the Grenadier Guards – stood straight-backed at the window in the officers’ quarters of the Waterloo Barracks of the Tower of London and looked across the wasteland which was the City of London at this time of night. He was dressed in full uniform, his bearskin – white plume on the left-hand side – and sword on the stand in the small hallway.

Roderick Edward Fenwick Fairfax was 32 years old, six feet two inches tall, with a broken nose that was still slightly bent. His mother hunted with the Beaufort and his father had preceded him at Marlborough.

His guests had arrived an hour before. At twenty minutes to ten he telephoned the Spur Guard Room and asked the corporal to collect the party.

The quarters, up four flights of iron stairs, were functional rather than comfortable: a lounge, kitchen and bathroom, plus a small hallway off the main corridor. The six visitors gathered round the table in the lounge were formally dressed, the men in evening suits and the ladies in long dresses, and the champagne and food had come from Fortnum and Mason. Two of his guests that evening – the Japanese banker and the American corporate lawyer – were unknown to Roddy Fairfax. Sometimes a friend would ask him to arrange such an evening, the other guests usually from overseas and always business contacts. Occasionally, if the contacts were sufficiently important and it was the First Battalion which was mounting the Guard, Fairfax himself would take charge, even though it was normally the responsibility of a more junior rank.

The doorbell on the ground floor at the west end of the barracks rang. The guests left the officers’ quarters, made their way down the stairs, then followed the orderly – dressed in civilian clothes – across Broad Walk and joined the tiny knot of people standing in front of Traitor’s Gate.

It was ten minutes to ten. The Tower was still, the silence broken by the crash of the escort taking its position beneath the Bloody Tower. In the shadows along Water Lane, the cobbled street running inside the outer wall, they saw the first pinprick of light as the Chief Warder left the Byward Tower, the light growing brighter as he walked at the ‘sedate pace’ required by history. In his left hand he carried a lantern, the candle burning brightly, and in his right a ring of keys. At the Bloody Tower he turned left, handed the lantern to the man at the right rear of the escort, and fell in between the two leading soldiers. Then the warder and the escort marched back through the gate, wheeled right and disappeared in the dusk.

On the level stonework midway down the two sets of steps forming Broad Stairs the Guard took their position, the blood red of their tunics bright even against the dark. It was five minutes to ten, almost four and a half minutes. Fairfax checked his watch and waited. It was the done thing to cut it fine – no earlier than five minutes to ten, no later than two and a half – but God help any officer of the Guard who miscalculated. He stepped from the shadows and fell in in front of them, standing at ease, then standing easy, hands on sword, the tip resting on the ground in front of him. In the stillness he heard the commands as the Chief Warder locked the Middle and Byward Tower Gates and sealed the Tower for the night, then the crash of boots on cobbles as the warder and escort returned, and the challenge from the sentry at number three post.

‘Halt. Who comes there?’

‘The keys.’

‘Whose keys?’

‘Queen Elizabeth’s keys.’

‘Pass, Queen Elizabeth’s keys, and all’s well.’

On Broad Stairs Fairfax brought the Guard to attention.

The escort and the warder swung under the Bloody Tower and marched up the gradual incline; fifteen yards from the bottom of the steps the escort to the keys stamped to a halt. The timing was perfect, the sound of the boots on the cobbles lingering as the clock on Waterloo Barracks began to strike the four quarters.

The last quarter ended. It was ten seconds before the hour. The Chief Warder stepped forward and raised his bonnet. ‘God preserve Queen Elizabeth.’ His voice echoed back through history.

‘Amen.’ The voices of Fairfax and the Guard joined his.

It was ten o’clock precisely. At the moment the barracks clock began to sound the hour the first note of the Last Post lifted like a ghost. The last chime echoed through the stillness and the last bugle note lingered in the dark.

By the time Fairfax dismissed the Guard and returned to his quarters the champagne had been poured.

‘Incredible ceremony. The timing was so precise, as if it was to a stop watch.’ It was the Japanese banker.

‘We’ve had a few centuries to practise.’ The line always went down well.

‘When you were giving orders you used the word “hype”, not “arms”.’ It was the American. ‘ “Slope hype, present hype.” ’

‘From the French,’ Fairfax’s nod indicated his appreciation that the lawyer had noticed. ‘The Grenadiers took it after they’d destroyed the French Imperial Guard at Waterloo.’

The conversation drifted over the history of the ceremony and on to the world economic situation and the possibility that certain countries might be climbing out of recession.

‘Trouble is, of course, that when the upturn comes we won’t be in a position to take advantage of it.’ The guest had been with Fairfax at Marlborough and was now a senior analyst in a leading merchant bank.

‘For example?’ They had drifted slightly from the main conversation and were standing together looking out the window.

‘Company called New World Electronics. Best research department in the country, but their order books are low because everyone’s scared to invest at the moment.’ And therefore the shares are at rock bottom, if anyone was reckless enough to buy.

So ... Fairfax did not need to ask.

‘By tomorrow evening Britain will no longer have a company which is a world leader in its field.’ The accountant raised his glass. ‘Thanks for tonight. I think our Japanese friend really enjoyed himself.’

At ten minutes to midnight Fairfax escorted his guests to the West Gate, shook hands with each of them, and watched as the gate was unlocked and they made their way to the limousines waiting on Tower Hill. At eight the following morning he telephoned his stockbroker, checked the price of shares in New World Electronics, and instructed him to buy five thousand.

At 11.30, when the Guard was dismounted, he was driven to Wellington Barracks near St James’s Park, then returned to his flat in Onslow Square, two hundred yards from both South Kensington underground station and Christie’s auction rooms, where he had bought most of his furniture.

There were six items of mail. Four were personal letters, the fifth contained statements for his various accounts at Coutts Bank in Kensington High Street, and the sixth was from the Swiss Investment Bank on Stockerstrasse, in Zurich’s commercial quarter.

He skimmed the correspondence, showered and changed into civilian clothes, collected the Porsche – 944 Series 2 Cabriolet, Guards red – from the residents’ parking area and drove to the San Lorenzo. The luncheon party was at a table towards the rear of the restaurant: one other man and two women. The head waiter was hovering, the manager was looking pleased but anxious, and the personal bodyguard was positioned at a table nearby.

Fairfax bowed slightly.